The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Knickerbocker, Vol. X, No. 4, October 1837, by Various.

If, as has been stated in previous numbers, this continent is distinguished by the remains of great cities, magnificent structures, and innumerable other ingenious specimens of ancient art; and if, as has likewise been shown, these things existed at a period of time unknown to history or tradition, the inquiry, 'Who were the people that inhabited these cities, who constructed these edifices, and who executed these varied arts?' becomes of intense interest to all men of curiosity and of learning. The inquiry is also inseparably connected with the description of these arts; and, as a consequence, demands attention, as we proceed with the subject of American Antiquities.

For a long time, the majority of men were satisfied with the reputed discovery of this continent by Columbus, even though they were acquainted with the fact that he found the 'new world' thickly inhabited by different varieties of mankind, and though subsequent researches proved these inhabitants to have existed ages before, and from one end of the continent to the other. So little reflection is still manifested upon this subject by many, that they blindly assent to the opinion, that Columbus was, indeed, the first European discoverer of America; forgetting, seemingly—to say nothing of its repeated discovery by the 'North-men,' and probably by others, from the ninth to the twelve century—that, according to the same popular idea, the primitive inhabitants must themselves have been the discoverers, time immemoriably past, and, like Columbus, have sailed from the eastern continent, across a wide and trackless ocean, to our far-famed 'new world.' The truth is, men are too prone to consider that which is new to themselves, as actual discovery; and, during the novelty of the occasion, and in their love of praise, are very little inclined to reflect upon the evidences of antiquity, though they stare them full in the face. Should we concede the correctness of the common opinion, as to the origin of these inhabitants, the discovery of America by them must have been a much more eventful circumstance in the history of man than that by Columbus. How many and how exciting must have been the incidents attending that discovery![274] How bold the enterprise, how long and how perilous the voyages! How startling the hair-breadth 'scapes, and how imposing to them must have been a 'new world' indeed! What strange objects, animate and inanimate, must have been presented to them, on first reaching, and while traversing, the great continent of America! How little knowledge, in fine, did Columbus possess of this continent, compared with that acquired by the observations of the millions who had occupied it for time unknown! These were men, reasoning and feeling men, like ourselves; why, then, should we not reason upon the times and the events which marked their discovery of the 'new world?' We might imagine, perhaps, something like those events, or conceive of the records to which they might have given birth, when, without the compass that guided Columbus, or the means which safely protected him against the fury of the elements, they made successive discoveries of, and peopled, so vast a continent. It is not impossible that the African, the Malay, and the Tartar, found here by Columbus, 'monarchs of all they surveyed,' possessed such a knowledge of the arts and sciences as to have enabled them to navigate the boisterous ocean with equal security, as certainly they had done with equal success. History, in fact, informs us, that the remote knowledge of many of these people was of a superior order. It might have equalled that of the Caucassian, at the time of his discovery of America. The event proves that it even did, in many important particulars, notwithstanding our boasted prëeminence. Let the records of the ancient Chinese, Arabians, and East Indians, the monuments of Asia, and of the Peloponnesian Islands, and the arts of Palenque, speak for the early condition of the human intellect. But a long night of darkness has intervened; and, like men at all ages of the world, 'we reason but from what we know.'

It cannot be inferred from evidences derived from the relics hitherto discovered in the United States, that the primitive inhabitants of our country were not, for centuries, contemporaneous with the Tultecans. That they were, indeed, will appear extremely probable, in solving the question as to their ultimate destiny. It is a very common and a very important question, 'What became of the numerous people who once populated our western valleys?' Though we may not give a conclusive answer to the inquiry, yet it may be shown that, in the final overthrow of the Tultecan nation, and synchronous with the desertion, and perhaps destruction, of the city of Palenque, the barbarous northern nations of Aztiques and Chichimecas, before alluded to, were none others than the primitive inhabitants of the Mississippi valley; who, in the order observed in the rise and fall of nations, were expelled from their country by hordes of a still more northern and warlike nation of Tartars.

We find, to begin with the human family in Central America, and the earliest arts which are at present revealed to us, that the Tultecan people, or a people analogous in their arts, customs, etc., inhabited, at the period of their glory, the provinces of Yucatan, Chiapa, and Guatemala. Which of the two first named portions of that delightful country was the scene of their primeval history, does not clearly appear. Should it be determined that this people actually traversed the great Atlantic, agreeably to the somewhat plausible[275] and ingenious story of Votan, of which we shall hereafter speak, the province of Yucatan may be supposed to have been the spot where they first established themselves, and reared their stone edifices; and, indeed, if the fact goes for any thing in illustrating this position, the ruins of their architectural monuments are actually found strewed along the province, from near its eastern point, toward the famous city we have mentioned. But if the Tultecan metropolis, situated on an elevated paradisian plain, far removed from any other similar ruins, was de facto, the first residence of man in America, we shall be at a loss to assign any other than an indigenous origin for the Tultecan people. On a question thus undecided, there can be no cause of wonder, if there are those who are conscientiously Pre-Adamites. But, without designing to favor one opinion more than another, independent of the evidence actually offered, it may be confidently affirmed, that there does not appear any satisfactory proofs adduced by those who have attempted to trace the origin of that people, that they partook more of the character of one eastern people than another. There has been, in truth, no distinguished nation of people with whose ancient history we are acquainted, who had not manners and customs resembling those of the Palencians. It is not strange, therefore, that men, influenced by preconceived opinions, should have assigned various reasons to account for the commencement of human population in America, and that, in the height of their zeal to reconcile all things with those opinions, they should have propounded their own imaginings, and the sheerest inventions, as sober matters of fact. Such, melancholy as is the fact for moral truth, has too often been the case, whenever favorite theories have been in jeopardy, or have stood in need of opportune evidence to render them plausible or reconcilable with popular dogmas. The story of Votan, though ingenious, and though accredited by many, for the same reason, is indebted, we may believe, to the same ideal source for its origin. This story, however, claims notice, and a mention of the circumstances on which it is founded, in speaking of the beginning of our race on this continent. With history, as with science, there have been at all times those who have stepped forth, and gratuitously proposed theories, probable and improbable, in aid of opinions involving individual interests and sectarian views; but, in the case before us, we are left alone with facts and probability to establish our conclusions, which we are not at liberty to warp by prejudice, or the favor of others' opinions.

There are found among the ruins of Palenque, of Copan, and of several places of ancient grandeur in Central America, specimens of arts so closely resembling the Egyptian, the Carthaginian, the Romans, the Grecian, and the East Indian, that many have thought the people of each have, at different times, visited America, and instructed the Tultiques in useful and ornamental knowledge. Some suppose that the Romans remained just long enough to afford the Tultecans the knowledge of building their dykes, aqueducts, bridges, etc., and then to have returned to the eastern continent. The Hindoos must also, for the same reason, have instructed these American people in their religion and their arts; and so with those of some other nations. Thus it was, according to this hypothesis, but a[276] trifling affair for the people of transatlantic fame to make visits to this continent for the purpose of giving its ancient inhabitants the requisite information for the construction of their edifices, etc. A singular difficulty would seem, however, to stand in the way of this supposition; and this is, that the ruins of these arts themselves indicate a greater antiquity than those of the eastern world, in the execution of which these sage school-masters are supposed to have acquired all their skill. May it not be equally probable, from this view of the subject, that the Americans instructed the people of Asia in a knowledge of the arts, sciences, and mysteries, of which their history so much boasts? The fact is conclusive, that the Tultiques, were highly proficient in both the arts and sciences, at an immeasurably distant period of time; even more so, as far as we are enabled to learn, than most nations of men on the other continent. The science of astronomy, by which this people was enabled to calculate time with a precision, which, as is thought, it is the pride of modern science alone to claim, need only be cited as evidence in point. Their knowledge of the useful and ornamental arts was not behind that of any other people of the earliest times, as we shall see by reference to the ruins which, for thousands of years, have survived them. Were we, in fact, to compare that knowledge, as indicated by those ruins, with that of the Chaldeans, and other remote people, as evinced by theirs, we could not hesitate to return a uniformly favorable decision for the great antiquity of the Tultiques. It is unhesitatingly admitted, that the Mexicans derived all their knowledge of art and of science from these people, whom they succeeded; and it is equally certain, that they were a barbarous and ignorant race of men, long after the extinction of the Tultique nation. Admitting the Mexican people, then, to have had their origin in the northern nations, existing, as we have reason to suppose, within the vast extent of country between the ancient Tultiques and the present south-western boundary lines of the United States, the lapse of a long period of time must be supposed necessary for their acquirement of that extraordinary proficiency of which they were found to be possessed by the tyrant invader, Cortes.

The Tultecan people, it has been observed, were completely isolated on a mountainous plain, more than five thousand feet above the level of the sea, where they enjoyed a climate more temperate and genial, an air more salubrious, and natural productions more rich and abundant, than it has been the lot of any other people of the earth to enjoy. It is therefore from this paradisial location that we are to date our knowledge of this people, since we are provided with no facts which prove them, or any other people, to have had an anterior existence on this continent. The ruined arts of Yucatan and of Guatemala do not satisfy us that those provinces were inhabited previous to that of Chiapa, and the delightful vale upon the Cordillera mountains, where we now find the astonishing remains referred to. On the contrary, their present condition shows them to have been constructed long posterior. The people whose they were, should be considered as colonists from the great Palencian city, which must have overflowed with population. The arts and customs of these colonists are seen to have been precisely those of the parent[277] city, as well also as their religion. So late, in fact, was the origin of Copan, that we are led to believe it to have been a city built subsequent to the destruction of the Palencian capital. Some of the edifices, and many of the monuments, still remain: the coloring matter used in the drawings upon the obelisks is also as fresh and as bright, apparently, as it was when first put on; notwithstanding the materials of which the buildings, etc., are composed are more exposed to moisture, and consequently, more liable to disintegration, than those of Palenque. In these obelisks, we have a novelty among the arts preserved for our admiration, as relics of the ancient American people. Nothing resembling them has yet been found at Palenque, though it is possible such may have existed, both in that city and in the province of Yucatan; but they long since crumbled in the general wreck of ruins. It may be in place here to introduce a notice of some of these ancient structures, now existing in a state of tolerable preservation in the city of Copan, in the Province of Honduras, and on a river of the same name.

From the bay of Honduras, the traveller proceeds up the river Matayua, two hundred and fifty miles, when he arrives at the mouth of the river Copan, a tributary to the Matayua. Entering this river, he ascends it for about sixty miles, when the ruins of an ancient city are presented to his view on its banks, and running along its course for several miles. Masses of stone fragments and crumbling edifices stretch along the river as far as it was explored. One of the principal objects of attraction, is a temple of great magnitude, but partially in ruins. This magnificent building stands immediately upon the bank, one hundred and twenty feet above the river. It is seven hundred and fifty feet in length, and six hundred feet broad! Stone steps conduct from the base of the rock on which it is situated to an elevation, from which others descend to a large square, in the interior of the building. From this large square you pass on and upward through a small gallery to still higher elevations which overhang the river. A splendid view of the extended ruins is here presented to the admiring observer, traversing the banks as far as they can be followed by the eye. Excavations were here made, in order to lay open passages which had been blocked up by the crumbling fragments of the building. At the opening of the gallery into the square, a passage was discovered which led into a sepulchre, the floor of which was twelve feet below the square. This vault is ten feet long, six high, and five and a half broad, and runs north and south. It contains great numbers of earthen dishes and pots, in good preservation. Fifty of these were filled with human bones, closely packed in lime. Several sharp and pointed knives, made of a hard and brittle stone, called itzli, were also found; likewise a head representing Death, the back part of which was perforated with small holes; and the whole wrought with exquisite workmanship, out of a fine green stone. There were also found in this sepulchre two other heads, numerous shells from the sea-shore, and stalactites from a neighboring cave, all of which indicated the superstition of the people who placed them there. The floor was of stone, and strewed with mouldering fragments of bones.

Great numbers of other rooms were entered, all of which, as far[278] as they could be traced, showed the most singular customs of the people, and the most grotesque specimens of sculpture. Many monstrous figures were likewise found among these and neighboring ruins. There was one representing the head of a huge alligator, having in its mouth a figure with a human face, and paws like an animal. Another was discovered of a gigantic toad, in an erect position, with claws like a tiger, on human arms! Numerous obelisks were seen in various directions, both standing and fallen. These were generally about ten feet high, and three feet thick. One of them, still standing, is covered with representations of human figures, sculptured in relief, all presenting a front view, with their hands on their breasts, sandals on their feet, caps on their heads, and otherwise richly adorned with garments. Opposite to this, and ten feet distant, were stone altars, which are likewise covered with sculptured designs. The sides of the obelisks contained numerous phonetic hieroglyphics. There was one of these curious obelisks in the temple before mentioned, the top of which was covered by forty-nine square tablets of hieroglyphics. The sides were occupied by sixteen human figures in relief, sitting cross-legged on cushions, carved in the stone, and holding fans in their hands. On a neighboring hill stands two other obelisks, which were also covered with hieroglyphics. These were painted red, with a paint made of a rich deep-colored stone, obtained from a neighboring quarry. Unlike any other pyramidal monuments of the kind among the antiquities of the eastern continent, these were both broader and thicker at the top than at the base; and the colors with which they were richly ornamented, were still of the brightest hues.

Among the mountainous piles of stone ruins which are to be seen in the country round about, no very great difference is observable in the style of workmanship or of architecture, so far as could be observed, from that noticed among the relics at Palenque. This similarity is a striking feature, and is calculated at once to induce the opinion, as we have before suggested, that the first inhabitants of this city were colonists of the Tultiques, or that they fled thence on the fall of their metropolis.

The name of Palenque, it would seem, had, long before the conquest, passed into oblivion, while a part of the city of Copan, then offering a shelter for the natives, was occupied by them at the time of Columbus' discovery of America, three hundred and forty-five years ago. The materials of the Copan edifices, were, however, evidently much less durable than those of Palenque. The former, being constructed of sand-stone, disintegrated by exposure to the action of the atmosphere, though not more readily, perhaps, than ordinary building stone, of the same geological character, yet obviously more so than the materials of which Palenque was built, which are remarkable for their indurated quality. Hence our astonishment is increased, on reflecting, that neither the Palenquans nor the Copanians, had any knowledge of the use of iron tools, but nevertheless quarried, shaped, and planted, those massive blocks and pillars of stones, which composed their magnificent Teöculi, and all the great works which adorned and defended their cities. But one solitary hut, beside the fabrics mentioned, now stands on the ruins of Copan! The present[279] natives deserted it only about seventy-five years ago. Many of them, hereabout, were engaged in the cultivation of tobacco, for which the soil was very good; and this ancient place was celebrated as a dépôt for that article, under the Spanish conquerors. It is worthy of notice, that the water of this place is remarkable for its great purity, and the climate is equally distinguished for its healthfulness; circumstances which the primitive inhabitants of America would seem to have considered of primary importance in the location of their cities.

We have already said that the people of whom we are speaking enjoyed a felicity unequalled by any other. This is attributable to their peaceful character, their simple yet effective government, their industrious habits, conjoined with their choice location, uniting as it did almost every natural advantage of situation and production. But the present period exhibits their successors the most wretched of the human species. The Indian race, once the most happy and numerous of mankind, may be traced from the vigor of youth through the strength of its manhood to the present decline and decrepitude of old age. Total extinction, in the usual course of events, will soon follow. It is indeed fast approaching at the present moment urged on as it is by the mad ambition of the Caucassian, who, in his turn, is rapidly approximating the zenith of his power and numbers. Throughout the world this may now be seen at a glance. The native of India is rapidly falling before the gigantic power, the cunning, and the oppression of England, now herself at the acmé of her strength and numerical force. Ignorance, superstition, and imbecility, press the Indian forward to his last hopes. Availing itself of these inevitable results of old age, the power that is slowly but effectually crushing him, rises elastic and buoyant upon the dead body of the old native. The free Indian of United America, in like manner, is fast closing the scene of his glory and the fulness of his manhood. He too is declining into old age; and already are the marks of death observable upon his withered visage. He too was flushed with the hopes of youth, and spread out his vigorous energies like the green bay tree. He too realized the measure of his glory, and proudly exulted in his power and possessions. But, alas! he too is fast wasting in the last stages of decline and death. So it is with the Indian of Central America. From the fruition of his hopes and numbers, and the full consummation of his glory, he has sunk to the deepest degradation, to numerical insignificance, and to the most abject wretchedness. A stronger contrast in the relative condition of a people can nowhere be found. Turning from the period of which we have been speaking, that saw the Tultecans the happiest people of the earth, to the present, that reveals their miserable descendants tamely bowing their necks to the galling yoke of their Spanish masters, and how forcible are the marks of distinction! Take this people, amalgamated with the reputed barbarous Aztiques, or Chichimecas, and constituting the Mexican nation at the time of Cortes' mad invasion, and how deplorable is their present situation, contrasted with what it then was! Where are the promised blessings of the 'Christian,' the boasted charms of civilization, etc.? Away with the idle and superstitious fantasies,[280] and the base schemes of the selfish and ambitious, under the garb of reason and of philanthropy! Let truth and justice speak for themselves. How much better, we would ask, is the poor Indian of Central America, how much more rational and how much more numerous is he now, than when the proud Caucassian, 'the most honored of the free,' first essayed his renovating influences? Let the past and the present answer! Suffice it to say, that like his native compeer of our own states, he is rapidly disappearing under the operation of these causes, and oblivion, meanwhile, closes over his history. Like the ill-fated Indian, it will be in turn for the oppressor to yield to the force of recurring circumstances. Yes! time, too, will bring along his destiny, and it will be that of the oppressed, the cheated, the extinct Indian!

Civilization, as some one has observed, is and ever has been travelling westward. We believe it. The relics of America go far to prove it; and those of the Pacific Islands, if possible, still farther. Giving then to America an indefinite antiquity, its earliest monuments should have mingled with the soil on which they were erected. They should have crumbled before the all-crushing power of time. And such is the fact. Its people should have passed onward to Asia; and they should have left other monuments by the way. Such appears also to have been the fact. Remains of magnificent structures are still to be seen on the islands which intervene, even those of great and splendid cities. These, too, defy the scrutinizing inquiries of mankind, at this so distant date. The arts are those of ancient America. To one conversant with the specimens now to be found in some of those islands, the inference will appear conclusive. It belongs to the geologist to prove, that the intervening land has undergone extraordinary revolutions. We are prepared to say, that he is enabled to prove that many of those islands are of recent geological epocha, and that most of them are of volcanic origin.

By the way of these islands, then, it was both easy and natural to have peopled India, China, and those nations claiming with them the most distant antiquity. The arts of those times are nearly the same in execution and design. The Chinese Tartars, those wandering hordes that stretched along the Pacific, in time again found their way to this continent, by means of the continuous chain of the Fox Islands and Alaska, and across Behring's Straits. Farther notice of this fact will accompany some remarks on the present race of North American Indians, for they are the Tartars referred to. If we are to do credit to a recent philological work, published in London, displaying great research and learning, we shall be struck with the general proposition, that man had a common ancestry, far east of the hitherto reputed source of his origin. The evidence adduced from the analogy of the Arabic, the Chinese, the Tartar, and generally the Asiatic languages, with the Greek, etc., throws much light upon the subject of our inquiry. Late researches, also, among the Pacific Islands, and those more particularly bordering on the Asiatic coasts, are replete with interest touching the antiquity and former character of their inhabitants. Ruined walls, monuments, and sepulchres, of antique and massive masonry, of which tradition has preserved no memorial among the descendants of the people, clearly prove the existence of a different[281] state and character of people at some very remote period. But recently there have been discovered the buried walls of an extensive city, and also a strange race of people in New Holland. A colony hitherto unknown, speaking the English language, with European countenances, manners, etc., has quite lately been discovered in the interior of that yet unexplored continent. These facts are exciting no little inquiry and astonishment among the curious of Europe. Still farther, and it is hoped and presumed still more important, discoveries will, ere long, reveal new truths upon this subject, and tend, in a striking manner, to enlighten mankind in relation to their early history. To effect this, means more effective could not be devised than 'exploring expeditions.' That now contemplated by this government, if conducted in part with reference to this subject, cannot fail to be highly fruitful of discovery.

The ancient Aztec cities, on the vast and beautiful plains, and upon the southern banks of the Rio Gila, in New California, with numerous other remains of arts, and evidences of former civilization, now to be seen among what have been denominated the 'Independent Indians,' on the north-west coast of America, from the thirty-third to the fifty-fourth parallels of latitude, will be seen to throw much light on the original people, both of Mexico and of our own country. For the present, attention is still farther called to the origin of the Tultiques, the first and the most remarkable people, ancient or modern, that have inhabited the American continent.

In reflecting upon the period at which the Tultiques flourished, one cannot but smile at the determination of some to give comparatively modern dates to the Palencian city, and its ruined arts; as if it were impossible that it should have preceded a certain time to which previously supposed data had limited their faith or comprehension. Some give its origin but about two hundred years anterior to the conquest by the Spaniards. Others, again, extend, their views several hundred years beyond this; but such are careful, at the same time, to circumscribe their belief within a definite period, viz: the Christian era. The majority, perhaps, derive their dates from the dispersion at the tower of Babel. Again, there are those who place entire confidence in the theory given by Cabrera, derived from another source, and paraded with the utmost assurance as having been obtained from some 'precious documents,' found in a cave, where they had been hid by Votan himself! From the tenor of the facts in this case, but more particularly from the language used by the Bishop of Chiapa, Don Francisco Nunez de la Vega, whose book was printed at Rome in 1702, we are forced to think that many, very many, important memorials, and those which would have afforded us the means for discovering the history of this people, were destroyed by the bigots of his sect. In this superstitious crusade, he himself gave the most distinguished example, by destroying, according to his own confession, the 'precious documents' in question. It is important that the truth or falsity of this 'memorial for future ages,' as Cabrera calls it, should be inquired into; as it is either to be considered hereafter as settling the great question, 'Who were the Tultiques,' or it is to be thrown aside as an[282] idle and credulous story, got up by the bishop himself, for the purpose of giving himself eclat, and of confirming those who otherwise might be sceptical upon so interesting a point in history, or, perhaps, in his own peculiar faith.

The evidences already presented of the antiquity of the Tultecan monuments cannot, we must suppose, but destroy all the statements, (for they are mere statements, without one clear and rational fact to support them,) which have been made, giving a comparatively modern date to the Tultique nation. It is true, that the monuments of Tultecan greatness bear a striking resemblance to those of the Egyptians and Romans, not to say several other eastern nations of people. But what does this prove? Just nothing at all. If the relics which so much astonish us at Palenque, give evidence of age cöeval at least, if not greatly anterior, to those of Egypt, from which, it has been affirmed they were copied, the Cyclops cannot be supposed to have been their authors. A long period of time should have elapsed from that in which these 'wandering masons,' for such it is said the Indian traditions of Central America style the builders of their ancient edifices, were exterminated from Egypt, wandered to the Atlantic coast, prepared themselves for a long voyage—totally unacquainted, as they were, with marine navigation—and actually traversed the unknown sea for three thousand miles! How long, will it be supposed, they were engaged in thus acquiring a taste so unsuited to their habits, and in contriving suitable vessels, which, in Upper Egypt, they never could have seen, to embark on the trackless sea for America, without a compass to guide them, and without the possibility of their knowing whither they were going? Is it to be presumed, that vessels of theirs, at that time, if they built any at all, or were, in fact, in a situation to build them, if they had a mind, were furnished with the requisite materials, provisioned, etc., to navigate the Atlantic ocean? Should we admit all this as probable, for the sake of speculation, it would appear remarkable if they, first and fortunately, touched upon the coast of Yucatan, and located, at once, in the finest country on the globe, and that, too, in sufficient numbers to have built and peopled even one of its large cities. We shall not venture to name the time required at that stage of man's history to have accomplished all these things, or attempt to explain how the mouldering arts which this people have left from unrecorded time, could exhibit still greater antiquity than those of the Egyptians. This discrepancy between supposition and fact is better referred to those who, rather than doubt what they have previously believed, adopt as truth the most inconsistent theories.

The Carthaginians, although more adventurous, and more accustomed in their belligerent prows to the dangers of the sea than any other ancient maritime nation of people, are as little entitled to the credit of having first peopled America, as the native Egyptians, so far as positive evidence is concerned. The latter will not be supposed to have inspired their successors with the requisite information and skill, nor will it be presumed that they were so far the masters of navigation themselves, as to have accomplished voyages to this continent. The reasons which apply to these people, are equally applicable to all others during the early conditions of society. Neither[283] the Greeks nor the Romans, ambitious as they were of fortune and of fame, can be conceived capable of having executed voyages of three thousand miles on an unexplored ocean. Nor will the colonies of the Carthaginians and Romans, said to have been established by them upon the sea-coast and on neighboring Islands, be imagined to have afforded the parent nations the necessary impetus to embark in quest of discovery on an ocean, ever considered by them of boundless extent, or have prompted them to plant colonies at the distance of four thousand miles, admitting them to have conceived the existence of another continent. Were we so credulous as to believe this, we should be driven to the admission, that they not only made one, but numerous voyages across the Atlantic; and eventually reared a great nation under their auspices. And if so, why, we might very naturally inquire, is all history silent upon the subject, and without even a hint of its truth, or the possibility of the performances?

The wreck on our shores of some solitary vessel, a circumstance dwelt upon by all who have attempted to get over the difficulties in accounting for the origin of the American people, is equally unsatisfactory; for it is but a bare supposition at best. We might as reasonably suppose any other means of peopling this continent. It is even less probable that a female was upon such a wreck, and survived the catastrophe, to constitute an American Eve. Yet supposing even this to have been the case, how long a time would have been required, from the earliest history of Carthaginian or Roman prow navigation, for the luckless navigators of their craft, with each a surviving partner, a circumstance still less probable, to have explored Central America, built numerous cities—one containing at least two millions of people—reared the most stupendous and durable edifices, and other monuments, and then to have become extinct, or identified with other species of men, and all their monuments of 'eternal rock' to have crumbled into one general wreck of matter? Could all this have happened, we ask, even supposing, for the love of conjecture, that all the rest actually did happen? We leave reasonable men to answer for themselves. But there is another reason why the Tultiques are derived from no such reputed stock, and one which every scientific man will deem conclusive, if his prejudices preclude all other sources of evidence. There are physical peculiarities, we all know, by which species of men, as well as all lower animals, are contradistinguished. These in the Tultique have so little resemblance in common with other species of mankind, ancient or modern, that no effort of the physiologist can give him, according to distinctive criteria, a homologous arrangement. He is completely alone in this respect, and consequently could not have been indebted to the people in question, from whom he most of all differed, for his origin.

The fact also, if it needs be, that the Carthaginians visited parts of the United States, either from choice or necessity, as is believed by many archæologists, would go far to prove that they were not the people of Tulteca. If this be still supposed, where, we would inquire, are their descendants? They would have been as likely to have peopled this country as any other. The reasons why they[284] did not flourish here, would answer alike for their not peopling Central America. The same remains of great cities would appear here as in Chiapa, Guatemala, etc., had they or their descendants been the authors of those in the latter places. Faint evidences do exist, of the presence of a peculiar people in this country, at some distant period of time, other than those who raised the tumuli of the western states, the Tartars, the Scandinavians, or Welch. The most remarkable of these—perhaps these are the only evidences worthy of note—are inscriptions on rocks in various parts of the United States. The characters are believed to be Carthaginian. In not less than twelve places are they to be seen at the present day. But whatever others may think, in relation to the authors of these blind, though curious inscriptions, we are ourselves little inclined to believe them Carthaginian. It is quite as probable, in fact, that they were the work of the original inhabitants of the western valleys, as of any other people, for they are there to be seen, as well as upon the Atlantic coast. Similar characters have been discovered on specimens of arts left by that people. Confidence may have been obtained for the supposition that they were Carthaginian, from the fact that the remains of a vessel, clearly Carthaginian in form and style, are said to have been discovered imbedded in the soil not far distant from where inscriptions are now to be seen on rocks, near our Atlantic coast. But at that time, these were supposed to be the only inscriptions to be found in our country; many others, however, are now known to exist, as far distant even as Georgia, and in the interior.

The walls of cities lately discovered at the west, in Wisconsin, Arkansas, etc., prove nothing in respect to the ruined cities of which we have been speaking in Central America, except that they are entirely unlike in every particular, and were built by people as different in their character and knowledge, as our present Indians and ourselves. They prove much, however, in relation to the remains of cities on the north-west coast, heretofore noticed, and also to the temples, cities, etc., of the valley of Mexico. These with others equally remarkable, will be fully discussed in subsequent numbers.

NAPOLEON.

He won the laurels, and with them renown,
But lost them both, to shape them to a crown;
And, sworn to conquer kings, self-conquer'd fell,
When he himself the royal list would swell;
And, with the fasces, for the sceptre made
A sorry change—the substance for the shade:
Untaught what madness to the million clings,
Who forms to facts prefer, and names to things:
Triumphant for a space, by craft and crime,
Two foes he left unconquered—Truth and Time:
Oh! had he for true glory shaped his course,
He'd 'scaped repentance living—dead, remorse!

THE DEATH OF SOCRATES.

Give me the bowl!
The boon of freedom to my weary soul
Hath come at last; the hour of calm release,
When all the restless storms of life may cease,
And time's dark billows, as they onward roll,
Shall sweep above my silent grave in peace.

Long, long in sadness hath my spirit yearn'd
For freedom from the heavy bonds of flesh;
And earthly hopes and earthly pleasures spurn'd:
And while the quenchless fire within it burn'd,
Hath sighed for streams immortal, to refresh
Its drooping wings, that it might upward soar,
Beyond the curtains of the vaulted sky,
Within the veil that hides Eternity;
And drink the tide of bliss, and weep no more!

*****

It is a bitter draught!
Meet emblem of Death's cruel bitterness;
To those who love life more, or loathe it less;
Yet in its mingled poison have I quaff'd
The fountain, whose undying strength shall waft
The heir of life immortal to those shores,
Where the full tide of its bright glory pours!

Yet may this be a vision! I have dream'd
Of future time—of years beyond the grave;
Of brighter worlds far o'er the whelming wave;
And on my raptured fancy there hath gleam'd.
The image of a thousand hidden things,
That reason may not trace; and wisdom brings
No clue to read; and weary thought turns back,
All hopeless from the dark, bewildering track.

*****

'Tis drain'd! and mingled with the streams of life,
The venom pours through every swollen vein:
The race is run—fought is the field of strife;
And bleeds the vanquish'd now upon the plain,
No more the conflict to essay again!

*****

Oh, Source Eternal! Being Infinite!
To whom—though blindly, from this darksome prison,
Where doubt and error reign in ceaseless night—
The worship of my spirit long hath risen;
No more I doubt—no longer wavering,
I offer incense to a God unknown,
But, from the altar of my bosom, fling
Its fragrance at the footstool of thy throne;
And as the film of death obscures my sight,
The vision of thy presence grows more bright!

*****

'Tis almost o'er! My wildered senses roam—
A thousand harps the balmy air are filling!
A thousand angel voices wildly thrilling,
Are calling, 'Kindred spirit, haste thee home!'
Speed, speed, my ling'ring soul!—'I come! I come!'

NOTES OF A SURGEON.[1]

I was aroused from my sleep one morning about three o'clock, by the alarm of fire. A bright light was shining into my room, and casting its tinted rays in flashes over the wall, pallid by the beams of a December moon, like the flickering glances of hectic over the consumptive cheek of beauty. On going to the window, I discovered that the fire was but a short distance from the hospital, and in broad view. A brilliant fire so near me, overcame my natural apathy, and packing on some extra habiliments, I sallied out to see what havoc this mighty element was making among the time-worn and thickly-tenanted buildings of the purlieus of L—— street.

The engines were already at work, when I reached the spot. A dwelling-house was on fire, and the flames were shooting merrily up from the roof and windows, tinged or obscured for a brief moment by the occasional flood of water which the bounteous hose lavished upon the most flagrant portions of the enkindled domicil—a powerful and efficient antiphlogistic, as it struck me at the time. I made my way, with others, into an alley which led to the rear of the house, with some faint hope that I might be of service in arresting the flames, or at any rate, enjoy a fair and near view of the fire, without the danger of being trodden under foot. The whole back part of one wooden building was in a blaze, and the persons in the yard were pointing to it with evident marks of interest and agitation. I did not have long to wait, to be informed of the subject of their solicitude. Presently, a figure shot through the second-story window, sash and all, and bounded to the ground. He rolled and plunged about, and endeavored to tear off his burning garments; for, singularly enough, he was dressed in pantaloons, boots, and vest, as if he had not been in bed; his hair was entirely singed off, and his shirt was fast consuming from his arms. In a moment, another one similarly dressed, but without shoes, rushed down stairs, and tumbled into the middle of the yard, uttering most pitiable cries. Astonished at such a sudden apparition, the spectators scarcely knew what to do; and I was equally at a loss, for an instant; but running up to the one who lay prostrate on the ground, where he had just pitched from the door, with the aid of some of the more wakeful beholders, I extinguished the fire about his neck and shoulders, as effectually as was practicable. He would hardly permit any one to touch him, but kept thrusting his burning arms up to his face, and thus adding unconsciously to the mischief. Having smothered the flames, and put him in charge of some of the by-standers, who had now generously volunteered their assistance, I went to take a view of the other. I found him lying in the dirt, without any fire on his person, [287] (it had been put out by others,) and rolling ceaselessly from side to side. When spoken to, he answered in a hurried and impatient manner.

Having made a rude litter out of boards, we had them laid on it, and carried to the hospital. As we emerged from the rear gate, the crowd, who had learned the nature of the occurrence, made way, and we were soon at the corner, around which the store was situated, from whence these unfortunate individuals had issued in the rear. Here their mother joined us. She made no violent manifestations of grief, as the litter went along, but walked by its side, occasionally coming nearer, and addressing a word to her sons, as they seemed to be more sharply tortured.

Having deposited them in one of the wards of the hospital, reserved for the reception of such cases, the first dressings were put on, and a slight anodyne and cordial were administered to them both, as they were greatly prostrated, especially the one who seemed to be the younger. Bottles of hot water, and bags filled with heated sand, were applied around their extremities. It was not long before one of them was restored to his natural warmth, and to a full sense of his wretchedness. But the other never recovered from the shock given to his nervous system, and rapidly sunk, as will be seen. His senses were in full activity, until near the last, and with a little agitation, attributable to the severity of his bodily injury, and to the prospect of the near approach of death, there was a degree of emotion, which was not to be assigned to so obvious a cause, and which led to the belief that something lay heavily on his mind, which he wished, yet hesitated to declare. His father appeared but once, and going to his bed, whispered a few words in his ear, and left him. He seemed not less distressed after this visit.

His mother came frequently, but was unable to remain constantly, or even a considerable part of the time, by his bed-side, from the distress which the view of his calamitous situation, and his terrible writhings under the agony of his burns, produced in her mind. She said very few words to him; and those only in the way of soothing and comforting his momentary distresses; but sat by the side of his low bed, and at every half unconscious toss that tore off strips of skin from his body, and exposed patches of the bleeding surface to the view of the mother, she raised up her arms and face, in the most pitiable excess of grief that the mind is capable of imagining. She might have been a study to the unhallowed gaze of an ambitious devotee of sculpture.

The patient (the younger, who is here alluded to, the other being comparatively out of danger,) tossed and turned so incessantly in bed, that it was almost impossible to keep any dressings on the excoriated parts. At the approach of night, his agitation increased. He continually complained of rigor, or chilliness, and inquired for some warm drink, which, when presented to him, he rejected, with appearances of disgust. I determined to set up with him a part of the night, in the hope of being able to relieve his sufferings, if not by bodily remedies, at least by such anodynes to the mind as might be administered in words. I was not without some expectations that he might be induced to make me the participator of the secret[288] uneasiness, which various circumstances had led me to believe he was laboring under.

One of the junior assistants was sent down to see if he could contribute to the comfort of the patient, by changing his dressings, and came back with the report, that the patient would not allow of his ministrations, but desired my presence.

'Did you not take off any of the coverings from his arms, face, and neck?' I asked.

'No; when I went in, he was discussing some grave subject with himself, about murders foul and dire, coughs and cords; and when I touched my hand to his neck, he repulsed my arm, and I thought he meant 'nec sinit esse feros;' that he would not permit me to lay rough hands on his neck.'

'Oh, I was quite otherwise. So, I removed to a little distance, and listened to his oracular mutterings. He made me the recipient of some dubious matters—rather unutterable secrets.'

'Why, he first broke into violent denunciations of certain persons, and accused them, particularly his brother, of urging him on to the commission of some desperate deed; then he called on his mother and sisters, and poured out entreaties to some unknown accuser. From all of which I inferred, that he had a hand in the fire; in other words, 'Fieri fecit.''

'I have had some suspicions of that kind; but we must be silent touching such involuntary communications.'

'Then, suddenly coming to himself, he began to stare around, and seeing us standing about, he collapsed into dead silence, and pulling the bed-clothes over him, remained invisible. Shortly, I drew near his bed, and asked him if he would have any thing. 'Please send Mr. F—— here,' he replied, and I left him.'

It was late in the evening before I could arrange to be with the patient. I found him with less appearance of delirium than might have been expected from the augmented severity of his sufferings. He remained restless and agitated, until about one in the morning, speaking very little, but occasionally murmuring inarticulately in his slumbers. On becoming more calm, he manifested much solicitude for his fellow sufferer.

He had been removed to a different ward, that he might not be affected by the situation of the other, and was doing well. I stated as much.

'I feel cold, very cold,' he continued. 'Wouldn't some of that warm drink give me a little heat? No! I've tried that; it burns my throat. Yet, I'm all dried up inside.'

'Cool! The sound is enough to make me shiver. But I will take some, for the sake of the experiment.'

He touched a little of it to his lips, and then drank the whole of the potion. It agreed with him better than warm drinks, which were more suitable to his condition. Then sinking into quietude, he seemed about to be falling asleep. All at once, he burst out into exclamations of horror and alarm, and cries for assistance; vehemently declared his innocence; and in the course of his ramblings, made a complete exposure of his secret. He terminated by springing up in bed, and attempting to jump on to the floor. His eyes fell upon me, and he seemed to recover his mental faculties as speedily as he had lost them. He reclined back on his pillow, and said, with much earnestness:

'You have disclosed some things which I should not hear, except in the confidence of a physician,' I replied.

'I see that I have unwittingly taught you my secret. Curse this wild delirium! But on whom should the curse fall! I will trust you. I know that until I am dead, you will not be able to betray any thing; and after that, it will be at your option, at any rate, to make that public which will endanger the life of another.'

'Have no fears of me, if there is a possibility that any one may receive injury from my information.'

The patient, whose name was Ludovico, being satisfied with my assurance of secrecy, proceeded to give a short narration of the facts.

Here the patient ended. The admission of air by the window was probably the cause of the door giving way to his touch. The unfortunate young man died early in the morning, in a state of savage[295] delirium. It should be observed, that his narration was frequently interrupted by paroxysms of madness; but it was not necessary to preserve any thing more than the bare details. His brother went through a tedious period of recovery, during which time his infamous partners made way with the secreted property. No suspicion got abroad of the actors in this drama. Petro retired to some distant place, with what feelings, intents, or fate, I shall not attempt to describe.

THE BIRCHEN CANOE.

In the region of lakes, where the blue waters sleep,
My beautiful fabric was built,
Light cedars supported its weight on the deep,
And its sides with the sunbeams were gilt.

The bright leafy bark of the betula tree,
A flexible sheathing provides,
And the fir's thready roots drew the parts to agree,
And bound down its high-swelling sides.

No compass or gavel was used on the bark,
No art but the simplest degree,
But the structure was finished and trim to remark,
And as light as a sylph's could be.

Its rim is with tender young roots woven round,
Like a pattern of wicker-work rare,
And it glides o'er the waves with as lightsome a bound,
As a basket suspended in air.

The heavens in brightness and glory below,
Were reflected quite plain to the view,
And it moved like a swan, with as lightsome a show,
My beautiful birchen canoe!

The trees on the shore, as I glided along,
Seemed moving a contrary way,
And my voyagers lightened their toil with a song,
That caused every heart to be gay.

And still as I floated by rock and by shell,
My bark raised a murmur aloud,
And it danced on the waves, as they rose and they fell,
Like a fay on a bright summer cloud.

I thought, as I passed o'er the liquid expanse,
With the landscape in smiling array,
How blest I should be, if my life could advance,
Thus tranquil and sweetly away.

The skies were serene—not a cloud was in sight,
Not an angry surge beat on the shore,
And I gazed on the waters and then on the light,
Till my vision could bear it no more.

Oh, long shall I think of those silver-bright lakes,
And the scenes they revealed to my view,
My friends, and the wishes I formed for their sakes,
And my bright yellow birchen canoe!

MARK!

The eloquent Pater, after the colloquy between Death and the soldiers of Vienna, as given in a former number, turns from Mars, and, by an easy transition, passes to Venus, and begins his homily to maidens. He mentions the miracle wrought by the prophet with the widow's cruise of oil, and draws from it a reflection we do not recollect to have yet heard 'improved' in the pulpit.

From the maiden we pass to the matron, under which head we find an unhappy married life described with a pungency which savors rather of an experienced husband, than of a bare-footed bachelor:

The following veracious tale we earnestly recommend to the attention of the ladies of the present day, without, however, meaning to insinuate for a moment that they have fallen away in the least from the conjugal devotion of the fair Francisca Romana:

Next comes the turn of the rich man, at whom our worthy apostle hammers away without mercy:

After despatching the misers in this style, he draws to a conclusion, and apostrophizes the world at large, telling them that all their misfortunes arise from sin, a text which he illustrates in this wise:

In the opinion of our author, and he is not singular in it, procrastination is the great foe to piety and repentance:

The peroration runs on in this strain of quaint allusion at some length, but we are admonished that it is time to bring our labors to a close. The candle is flickering away its little life in uncertain flashes, and the quiet that surrounds us, warns us of like repose. Farewell then, Pater Abraham! Back to thy old abode, in yonder nook of our library, where few will disturb thee, save some prying book-worm like ourself. Thy quaint conceits have beguiled us of more than one hour of weariness; nor while we love thee the more for thy fun, do we respect thee less. Thou wert a true apostle of thy Master. The pestilence that ravaged the city, found thee laboring in thy calling, carrying the consolations of religion, and the hope of another life, to those to whom all other comfort and hope were denied, as fearlessly as ever stood a soldier of an earthly captain while his comrades were dropping round him. Far thee well! and may posterity think none the worse of thee, that with thy talents and thy piety were mingled some of the weaknesses of our nature; weaknesses which were but the overflowings of a merry and a kindly spirit. Would that all thy cloth had no other or worse foibles than thy bad jokes, thy cumbrous learning, and thy plethora of wit!

LINES.

STANZAS.

THE FOSTER-CHILD.

'Ten years to-day! Mercy on us! Time does fly indeed! It seems but yesterday, and here she sat, her beautiful fair face all reddened by the heat, as in her childish romps she puffed with might and main the fire in that very grate. Dear heart!—how sweet a child it was, surely! Well, David, say what folks will, I'm convinced there was a fate about it.'

Before I relate how far David cöincided in this opinion of his 'gude wife,' I will mention to whom and what she alluded, and how I had an opportunity of declaring a similar conviction.

Seated, after a kind reception by the master and matron, in the best room in the work-house of L——, in Kent, at my request they were proceeding to gratify my curiosity, raised by a picture which hung between the windows. The subject and execution were striking. It had been hit off at one of those luckiest moments for the artist, when, all unconscious, the study presented that inspiration to the task, which so rarely occurs in what is termed a 'sitting for a likeness.' On a three-legged stool, with one foot raised upon the fender, and an old pair of bellows resting on her lap, in the act of blowing the fire; long clustering locks, the brightest yellow that ever rivalled sunbeams, flowing from a head turned toward her right shoulder, from which a coarse Holland pin-a-fore had slipped, by the[302] breaking of one of the strings that had fastened it, sat a child, apparently eight or nine years old, in whose face beamed more beauty, spirit, and intelligence, than surely ever were portrayed on canvass. Well might the good dame cry, 'Dear heart! how sweet a child it was!' Never before or since have I beheld its equal; and the vivid recollection of the wonder I then felt, will never cease to throw its light upon the page of memory, till time turns over a new leaf of existence. What admirable grace—how exquisitely free! She seemed indeed to inhale the breath that panting look bespoke a lack of. What joyous fire in her large blue eyes! And then the parted laughing lips, and small teeth; the attitude, how careless and most natural! All appeared as much to live, as if all actual. But little do I hope, gentle reader, to excite in you as lively an interest for the original, by my weak tints of simple black and white, as the glowing colors of the picture roused in me. I will not attempt it, but at once proceed with the story appertaining to the object of my inquiry, as narrated by my host and his wife.

'Do you tell the tale, Bessum,' said honest David, addressing his spouse, whose name, from Elizabeth and Betsey, had undergone this farther proof of the liberties married folks take with one another; 'do you tell the tale; and if needs be, I can help you on, where you forget any part of it.'

'Ah, you're a 'cute fellow, David,' said the vainly-christened Elizabeth; 'you know how to set an easy task, as well as any one, 'specially when it's for yourself to go about; but never mind, I wont rate 'e for 't, for I know 'tis a sad subject for you to deal with.'

Bessum was evidently right; for the tear that stood trembling for a moment in the corner of David's eye, as she spoke, rolled unheeded down his cheek; while the handkerchief that seemed to have been taken from across his knees, for the purpose of concealing the simplicity of the tribute his honest heart was paying, was employed, for at least the tenth time that day, to brush the dust from the picture of his 'poor dear child.' I was affected to a degree for which I was unable to account, by the touching sigh poor David heaved, as he replaced the handkerchief on his knees, and resigned himself to the pangs my curiosity was about to inflict on him. There was a tender melancholy in the kind creature's face, that seemed to mark the lacerated feelings of intense affection. I could have pressed him to my breast, in sympathy of his sufferings, for I was already a sharer of his grief, before I knew the cause of it. It was at this moment that the dame began her story, in the words of my commencement.

'Ah! my poor dear child!' sighed David; from which ejaculation I inferred that I was about to hear a tale of which his own daughter was the heroine; but I was soon undeceived by his wife, who thus proceeded:

'It be n't necessary to go farther back in the dear child's life, than the day she was first placed with me to nurse; who she is, has nought to do with what she is, or the story of her life; certain sure it is, she was the loveliest babe I ever saw, and I and David were as proud of her as if she were our own. Bless her dear heart! how[303] every body talked about her, and how all the folks did love her, too, surely! I can't tell you, Sir, how beautiful she was; and as she grew, her beauty kept good pace with her years, I promise you. She was nine years old the very day the painter came to make a likeness of her for her father; here she sat in this very room, just as you see her in the picture, Sir. She had run in from the garden, where she had been at romps with poor George, and was puffing away at the fire with an old pair of bellows, which she found among the lumber in the tool-house, when the gentleman, who she didn't notice at first, was arranging his matters for the painting of the picture. It was at the moment that she turned round to see who was in the room, that, as he said, he was so struck with her lovely face, that he could have taken her likeness, if he had not seen her an instant longer; and sure enough he was not out much in his reckoning, for he had scarcely taken his pencil in his hand, before the little madcap bounded out of the room, and ran off to her play-mate in the garden. That is a copy of the picture, Sir; and if the poor dear child were sitting here as she was on that day, she couldn't look more like herself than that painting does to me.'

David was in the very act of again converting his handkerchief into a duster, but after a momentary struggle, for once in a way, he pressed a corner of it to his eyes, and kept his seat.

'Of all those, barring myself and David,' continued the dame, 'who loved the sweet child, as to be sure every body did, more or less, none seemed to doat on her so much as the young gentleman who was then our village doctor's assistant, and poor George.'

'Ah, Sir, his is a sorry story, too; but of that anon; he was a gentleman born, Sir—bless his dear soul!—but before he was barely out of his teens, study and such like turned his wits, and poor George was placed in our care, an idiot. Oh, how he would watch and wait upon his young mistress, as he used to call the dear child; and 'Harri,' for so we called our little Harriet, for shortness, seemed to look up to him for all her amusements and happiness. Good heart! to see him racing round the garden, till he was fairly tired and beat for breath, trundling her in the wheel-barrow, and fancying himself her coachman; and then how he'd follow her wherever she went, as if to protect her; always at a distance, when he fancied she did not wish him with her, but never out of sight. She appeared to be his only care; his poor head seemed filled with nothing but thoughts of her. His friends used to send him trinkets and money, and baubles to amuse him; and his greatest pride was to take little 'Harri' into his room, and show her his stores, hang his gilt chains and beads about her neck; seat her in his large arm-chair, and stand behind it, as if he were her footman; and play all kinds of pranks, to make her laugh; for he seemed pleased when she laughed at him, though he would not bear a smile from any body else at the same cause. His senses served him at times, and then he would fall into fits of the bitterest melancholy, as he sat looking in our sweet child's face, as if reflecting how much he loved her, and how little his wandering mind was able to prove his affection. Ah, poor fellow! it's well his sufferings ended when they did, for they would have been terrible indeed, if he had[304] lived till now; but all who loved her best, fell off from her, either by death or desertion, when her day of trouble came.'

David's resolution was plainly wavering, as to the application of his handkerchief, when Bessum gave it the turn in favor of the picture, on perceiving her husband's emotion, by adding:

'As for David and myself, you know, Sir, we are nobody; it would be strange indeed if we could ever have turned our backs upon the dear child.'

'God forbid!' said David, and little Harri's portrait received the extra polish breathed upon it by a deep sigh previous to the ordinary one, emanating solely from the handkerchief, 'God forbid!' repeated David, and Bessum added a hearty 'Amen!' as she resumed her story.

'As the sweet child grew up,' continued she, 'she was the talk of all tongues, far and near; and before she was fifteen, Sir, gentlefolks came from all parts to see her. A fine time we had of it, surely; first one pretence and then another kept us answering questions and inquiries about her, all day long. As for Dame Beetle, who kept a little shop, and sold gloves over the way, just facing this window, she made a pretty penny by the beauty of our dear child; though the old simpleton thought it was the goodness of her gloves that brought her so many gentlemen customers. Why, I have known no fewer than five or six of the neighboring squires, ay, and lords too, so difficult to fit, that they've been standing over the little counter by the hour together; but I warrant not to much purpose, as far as the real object of their visit was concerned. No sooner did horse, or gig, or carriage stop in the village, than dear Mr. George—that is him that was with the Doctor, you know, Sir——'

'Yes, Sir, that it was; and down here he would run as fast as legs could carry him; and his first question was always, 'David, where is little Harri? Take her into the garden.' And here he would sit till the gentry opposite were gone away. If ever one creature did doat upon another, Mr. George loved that sweet child. Ah! would to heaven he had lived to make her his wife! But it's all fate, and so I suppose it's for the best as it is; though I would have died, sooner than things should have fallen out as they have, if that could have prevented it.'

'A thousand times over,' responded David, with a fond glance at the picture; 'I'd rather never have been born, than have lived to weep over the ruin of such heavenly beauty and goodness.'

A chill of horror struck upon my heart, as I repeated, with inquiring emphasis, the word that had produced it. 'The ruin?' said I; 'impossible!' and as I raised my eyes toward heaven, at the thought of such a sacrifice, they caught those of the victim in the picture. I could have wept aloud, so powerful was the influence of the gaze that I encountered. There sat the loveliest creature that the world e'er saw; an artless, careless child; health, hope and happiness beaming in her sweet fair face; her lips, although the choicest target for his aim, the foil of Cupid's darts, so pure, so modest was the smile that parted them. Her eyes, the beacon lights of virgin chastity; her joyous look the Lethe where pale care could come but to be lost,[305] it scared off wo. And were these made for ruin to write shame upon? Oh man, monster, ingrate, fiend! Heaven, pitying the dull clod of nature's 'prentice work, sends an ethereal solace to your aid, and when the blessing comes with three-fold charms, to make the bounteous gift more welcome still, you seek, with whetted, graceless appetite, to abuse it, and know no bounds that limit less than infamy, to make up the mortal sum of your ingratitude.

I was roused from my reverie, by the perseverance of the good dame, who thus took up the thread of her discourse that my exclamation and subsequent reflection had broken:

'Ah, poor dear Mr. George! if he had lived, all would have been well. I make bold to say, for certain sure, they would have been man and wife by this time; for though she used to go on finely at 'that doctor,' as the darling girl used to call him, because he was the cause of her being taken into the garden so often, without knowing why, for all that she loved him in her heart, as well she might; for, as I said before, he fairly doated upon her; and yet so delicate was his noble mind, he could never, as it were, talk seriously to her; that is to say, not to make any kind of love to her, you know, Sir. He had known her from a precious babe, and although his whole heart and soul, I do believe, were set upon one day making her his wife, if so be as she should not refuse him of her own free will, still, he felt so almost like a father to her, though he was not more than eight or nine years older than she, that he never could bring himself to fairly pay court to her, as a lover, you see.'

'God bless his noble heart!' said David, as he rested his elbow on his knee, and his chin on the palm of his hand; 'he always said he should be drowned; there's fate ag'in, Bessum, sure enough.'

'Ay, Sir,' replied the dame; 'and scarce was he dead, as if they only waited for that, than our sweet child's misfortunes began.'

'Destiny, indeed,' thought I, as a superstitious feeling seemed to prepare me for the proofs of it.

'She was just sixteen, and that's nearly five years ago, when she lost him that would have been more than all the world to her, as a body may say; and when Lieutenant H—— brought permission from a certain quarter to court her for his wife, heavy was my poor heart at the thoughts of parting with the blessed child, but more so, ten times over, though I couldn't tell why, at the idea of who I was going to part with her to. She was proud of the conceit of being married, and pleased with the gold lace and cocked hat of the young sailor. I don't believe the thought of love for him ever once entered her head; but that was nothing, for she would have loved any one who behaved kindly to her; and then to be a wife, and her own mistress, and the mistress of a house, alack-a-day! she little knew what she was doing, when she promised her hand where her heart had not gone before, and where none was beating for her. But it was well she made no objection, for it was to be, whether or not; so she was spared at least the pain of being forced against her will.

'Well, Sir, the wedding-day came, and never do I remember such a day as it was; in vain did the bells ring, and the sun shine. Folks, spite of all and of themselves too, couldn't be merry. They smiled,[306] and talked, and tried to appear gay; but to my plain honest thinking, there was not a light heart in the village. Poor George, to be sure, was dancing with delight, for he saw the preparations, and the fine clothes; and he heard the bells ringing, and the neighbors talking, and he understood that all was for and about 'his lady,' as he then called his old play-mate; and the idea of so much fuss and bustle on her account, made him as proud and happy as if he were to be the sharer of it. Little did he imagine, that it was to end in robbing him of the only comfort of his life, poor fellow! And as the bride and bridegroom came from church, where, to the very altar, he had followed, like a guardian saint, his watchful eye, faithful in its duty to the last, he picked up here and there a flower that the villagers had strewn, on which she trod, and stuck them in a row in the button-holes of his waistcoat. But when the time came that our dear child was to be torn from our arms, there was a scene I never shall forget. She bade us one by one good-bye, as if she didn't dream of being gone from us a day. It fairly seemed as though Providence had deprived her of all thought. But when she came to take her leave of George, she appeared to shrink from bidding him farewell. She took his hand, and with a fluttering smile, said, 'George, I am going for a ride'—and she was gone. For full three hours after, George was missing; and when the twilight made us stir to find where he could be, there by the garden-gate he stood, with the old wheel-barrow at his side; his handkerchief spread out upon it, as he was wont to do when he used to wheel his little play-mate in it years agone; there was he, waiting till she should come to ride. Poor, poor creature! He had no idea of the journey that she meant when she told him she was going for a ride. He knew that he had been her coachman many a time and oft, and he thought of no other carriage than that which he had driven. I burst out a crying at the very sight of him. There he stood, as confident that she was coming, as if he had seen her on the threshold of the door, with her gipsy hat on her head. Three hours he had waited, and when I saw him, it would have melted a heart of stone to watch his look, and think upon the misery in store for him. The sun had gone down, and there was not a sound to hear, but now and then the melancholy pipe of a robin, or the distant tinkle of a sheep-bell. Every thing seemed sorrowing in silence at our loss; and he that would pine most, alone was ignorant of it. I hadn't courage to call him away, and tell him his misfortune; but when David brought him in, and told him that his lady had gone for a ride with the new footman, as the poor fellow called the lieutenant, the anguish in his face was more woful than you can think of, Sir. Every day, at the same hour, he brought the wheel-barrow to the garden gate, and kept it there till sunset; then, till he went to bed, he'd sit arranging the withered flowers in his waistcoat. He was never obstinate in refusing to do as he was desired; but unless he had been bidden to eat and drink, no morsel would have passed his lips. He never thought of hunger or of thirst. His little mistress, his old play-mate, and, as he thought her, his only friend, alone occupied the mind that never wandered now. It was fixed upon one object, and on that it dwelt. Ten months he pined and lingered for his loss, and[307] then, more sensible than he had ever been before, poor George, Sir, died.'

'And happy for him that he is no more,' said I, anticipating the sequel of little Harri's story; 'he has gone down to the cold bed, it is true; but his pillow is far smoother than the down that is pressed in vain for quiet and repose by the heartless and unfeeling.'

'True, very true, Sir,' said David; and I was half in doubt whether the handkerchief would be put in requisition again; but it kept its place across the knees of my host, and Bessum continued:

'From the day she left us, Sir, we saw no more of our dear child for two years; but sad was the tale that reached us before she had been gone a month. Think of her wrongs, Sir. The man who had taken her to be parted but by death, left her the very next day after he had robbed scores of honest sighing hearts of the chance of proving the sincerity of their love by a life of cherishing and devotion.'

'The gallows pardon him, for I never would,' cried I, in an ecstasy of vengeance and regret. 'And what became of the deserted wife?'

Bessum, who had for nearly an hour stifled the feelings to which she was all that time hankering to give vent, finding this either too seasonable or powerful an occasion to resist, burst into tears, while David, as a counterpoise to the grief which he had heretofore monopolized, evinced a well-timed symptom of stoicism, by folding up his handkerchief at least three times as small as the usual dimensions to which laundresses or common consent have established, time out of mind, a limit; and then thrusting it into the salt-box pocket of his coat, as being the last place, at that particular crisis, to which, under the influence of his senses, he certainly must have intended its destination.

'I shall make short work of the rest on't, I promise you, Sir,' sobbed the tender-hearted foster-mother; 'it be n't much use to dwell upon the finish.'

'Twenty-four hours had not passed, Sir, after the heartless fellow had become a husband, before he was aboard ship, and on his way to the East Indies. He had completed his bargain; he had married our blessed child, and received his wages for the job. He took her to the house of one of his relations, near London, and without telling her whither he was going, or when, if ever, he should return, left her as I have described. Fancy her sufferings, Sir; think what she felt, when she found herself a widow before she was fairly a wife. Oh, my heart bleeds when I recollect her wrongs! Well, Sir, she pined and fretted till those with whom she lived would fain have got rid of her; and it was not long before they had their wish.'

'Not just then, Sir; you'll scarcely think that the worst of her troubles had yet to come, but so it was. As fate would have it, she was one day met and followed home by a gentleman who, she couldn't help observing, appeared so struck with her, that though he did not offer to speak to her, seemed determined upon finding where she lived. Every day, for more than a week, did he watch the house[308] nearly all day long; and when at last she went out of doors, he made the best of the opportunity, and began in the most woful manner to tell her how much he loved her, and what he was suffering on her account; and to beg and pray of her not to be angry with him for what he couldn't help. Well, Sir, he spoke so mild and respectful, and seemed so truly miserable, that the wretched widow couldn't for the life of her speak harshly to him, and so she made no answer at all. He told her that he saw she had something on her mind that distressed her, and said he was certain he could make her happy, and that not even her displeasure should make him cease from the attempt. And sure enough, to her, poor thing, he seemed to be as good as his word; for though she forbade him to approach her in any way again, still he hovered about the house as much as ever, and wrote such letters, telling of his misery and anxiety on her account, that, tired out by the ill treatment of those to whose tender mercies she was abandoned; sinking under the pangs of her desertion, and beset by the arts and entreaties of a fine young man, who seemed to speak so fairly for her comfort and good; in an evil hour, the poor deluded and distracted creature flew to his arms for that protection which in vain was pledged her by a husband.

'I have already told you, that in my opinion she never had a thought of any love for the man she had married; it is not to be wondered at, then, that one who at least professed to be all that a husband should be, found no great difficulty or delay in gaining her affections and confidence in return. In short, her young heart, that had never before known the feeling, was now fixed upon this man with all the fondness and devotion of a first love. It was no hard matter for him, therefore, to persuade her to whatever he liked; and the first advice he gave her for her good was, to take a house in the neighborhood of one of the parks, which he made his home; eating, drinking, and riding about at her expense. For twelve or fourteen months, this was a life of uninterrupted happiness for our poor Harri. She had quiet or company, as she liked, and the society of one whom she loved to madness. She didn't trouble herself about what folks called the meanness of a man in a profession being clothed and kept by a woman; so long as there was the money, what mattered which had it, or which laid it out? This was the argument of a doating girl; and the best proof that it was a sufficient one is, that she was content. The first sign of an interruption to the joys that alas! are always too dearly bought at the sacrifice she had made, was the news of the arrival in England of her husband; and within two days after that, his appearance at her house. Here was a fine to do indeed! She was alone in her drawing-room, and no one else in the house but the two maid servants. In vain did she resist, and entreat him. By main force he carried her out of the house, put her into a hackney-coach, without bonnet or shawl, and drove away with her to the house of his mother. That man was born to be her torment and ruin. He had left her when he ought most to have been in her company, and he returned when his desertion had driven her, in misery and despair, to seek for happiness in the expectation of which with him he had deceived her; to disturb the comfort his heartlessness had neglected to afford her. Don't fancy that he loved her, Sir; 'twas no such[309] thing, as I shall soon make clear to you. However, not six hours after she had been taken away, the dear child was home again, and in the arms of the man for whom she would have risked her life. Here was devotion, Sir. She got out of a one pair of stairs' window, by letting herself down with the bed clothes, as far as they would reach, and by jumping the rest; and just as she had been taken from her home, without a bit of out-door covering, off she set, in the cold and wet of a December night, and had to walk for full a mile and a half, before she got the coach that carried her home. Did her husband love her, Sir? Day after day he rode or walked past the house, and sent letters to her; but never once offered to seek out the man who kept his wife from him. Can he have loved her, Sir, to leave her in the quiet possession of another, and take himself off again to the Indies? So much for the husband, and now for the lover, as he called himself.

'Matters, I don't know what, took him to France; and he was to return to her, who was weary of her life in his absence, within a month. He had not been gone a fortnight, before she received a letter from him, written in a French prison, where he was confined for debt. That hour she started post for Dover, and in three days they were on their road home together. Little Harri had released the man she adored, and brought him away from his troubles in triumph and in joy.'

David's handkerchief, notwithstanding the depth into which it had been plunged, and the compactness with which it had been doubled up, was out of his pocket, unfolded, and across his knees in an instant; while the dame took occasion to fortify herself for the coming trial with a considerable pinch of Scotch snuff.

'They didn't reach home, Sir,' resumed she, 'for more than a fortnight; for they staid a day here, and a day there, to see the sights, and such like; and because she, poor girl, was in no condition for much hurry, though she had forgotten that, as she did every thing, when she started, but her devoted love for him whom she went to rescue. But when they did arrive, dearly did she pay for the fault a husband's cruelty had driven her to commit; and bitter was the punishment of Providence. But it was all fate, I'm sure it was, it must have been; for surely her crime didn't call for such a dreadful judgment as befell her. Oh, good heart, Sir; after all she had undergone, in a long journey to a foreign land, where she had never been before, and all alone, too, Sir, without a friend to help or to advise her; she had left a house fitted and furnished like a little palace, as a body may say, the homestead of her high-priced fatal happiness; think of her reaching what she thought a home, and finding none! What can have been her feelings? She was soon to be a mother, and she had not a bed to lie down upon! In the short time that she had been away, the servant, in whose charge she left her house, by the aid and advice of a villain she kept company with, had carried off every thing, under the pretence that he was moving for her mistress. Ah, you may look surprised, Sir, and with reason; but 'tis just as true as you and I sit here.'

'God's will be done!' sobbed David; 'she's out of harm's way now, Bessum; God's will be done!'

'She didn't rave and take on, Sir,' continued Bessum; 'the hand of[310] destiny was on her, and she felt it. As calmly as though nothing had occurred, she bade the coachman drive to a certain hotel. She seemed to reckon but for a moment between what she had lost and what she had regained; and she was satisfied with the account as it stood. All in the world for which she cared, was still spared to her. She had herself preserved him; the author of her dishonor, the cause of her loss, and only compensation for it, the father of her child! These were all she prized on earth, and he who was one and all, now sat beside her. With a look of resignation, confidence, and content, she said: 'What's to be done?'

The eyes upon the canvass seemed to ask me for an answer. I felt that I could beg subsistence for such a woman—become a drudge, a slave, or yield my life up for her sake. 'And what was his answer?' cried I, in an ecstasy of impatience.

'Good advice! good advice, Sir!' replied Bessum. 'He asked her, if she didn't think she had better go to her old nurse! This was all the comfort she got from her lover; and she asked him for no more. She didn't upbraid him. Her wrongs were too great to be humbled by complaint. He had dealt her death-blow, and she followed his advice. She came to her old nurse, Sir—God be praised!—and I and David closed her precious eyes for ever, after they had lingered, in their last dim sight, on the lifeless image of him whose name, with her forgiveness and prayer to heaven for his happiness, were the last words upon her sweet, sweet lips!'

'And if a special hand is not upraised to strew his path of life with tenfold the sharp pangs that drove his victim to an early grave,' cried I, 'it can only be, that it has already sent the monster to his last fearful account.'

My heart was faint and sick at the recital I had heard. I returned to my inn, and all that night—for it was in vain that I attempted to sleep—I mused upon this awful dispensation of the wrath of heaven; and, dare I own it, I felt that had I been the sentencer, I must have incurred the blame of partiality, by a verdict in which pity would have blunted the keen edge of that just severity with which the wisdom of vindictive Providence had stricken the transgression of 'Poor little Harri!'

SONNET.

The moon is gliding on her clear blue way:
I've watched her, as she rose above the clouds which lay
Darkly along the horizon; as she threw
A glorious halo round them, and then drew,
With her still power, away the fogs which night
Gathers upon the earth; then touched with light
The tree-abounding city, till its stately domes
Of Gothic and of Dorian art, and quiet homes,
Slept 'neath a sea of beauty. Then, sweet lady, I
Was bidden in my heart, remember thee—
How thou hast risen in thy angel purity,
And light of heavenly truth, to beam on me,
And scatter far the darkness, doubts, and fears,
Which rose from out the tomb of my young misspent years.

STANZAS.

ORNAMENTAL GARDENING.

There is nothing more subject to the notice of a traveller in the United States, than the want of ornament about the residences, not only of the poorer but of the richer class of inhabitants. It would certainly seem, that the manners of the New-Englanders, so aptly described by the worthy historian of the three Dutch governors of New-York, had not yet entirely fallen into desuetude. He who has seen the many huge and ungainly, though perhaps less rickety and flimsy, palaces that frequently adorn a wide landscape, cannot think that the age of air-castles has wholly departed: it lacks but the relics of the old family wardrobe, petticoats, hats and breeches, thrust in the windows, to complete the idea, that one is in the land and age alluded to by the same veracious historian I have mentioned. How far an inside view of our modern shingle palaces might betoken a similar want of energy or means in the proprietors, it does not beseem my present purpose to inquire.

Certainly, the little attention that is paid to external ornament, around the situations of the wealthy and the great of our land, is evidence of a want of that refined taste which all should desire to see more common. It cannot be attributed to want of means, or of[312] disposition to expend them, in decorating the family mansion; for enough is often laid out in the bare edifice that 'rears its bulky form against the sky,' if judiciously expended, not only to give to the building itself a far more tasteful appearance, but to surround it with ornamental work, and shrubbery, that shall add tenfold to its beauty, and very much to its comfort. It is the want of judgment and taste manifested in the expenditure of the vast sums annually devoted to the erection of retired family residences, which I esteem more particularly worthy of notice.

As a too common fault, the building itself is erected much too large for the purposes to which it is to be applied. It would often seem, that the proprietor imagined the respectability of his appearance, his very standing in the community, was to be measured by the extent of the edifice erected as his family residence. A huge palace is consequently run up, without the slightest idea of consulting the rules of symmetry or proportion, and plainly though expensively finished. It is then that the energy of the proprietor, as if exhausted at the immensity of the undertaking, fails him. No attention has been paid to the situation, save that care may possibly have been taken that the building should front the south or east; and it may be that he is not aware, until he enters his parlor, whether its windows open upon a delightful prospect, a rough hedge, or a black morass. If it should afford a convenient opportunity for a drain to the cellar, a spot of rising ground may have been selected, or if no such prudent foresight should trouble the mind, the mansion may be overlooked by a cragged knoll, that serves to protect it from the wintry blasts. If the out-buildings, barns, stables, and sheds, are behind, rather than on a line with, or directly in front of, the dwelling, it arose from the merest accident; for it never was thought worth the while to consult so arbitrary a rule of propriety as that which would teach the modest pig-stye that its appropriate sphere of duty was confined to a less conspicuous spot than the more aristocratic family mansion might properly claim. If the building is thoroughly completed, by which I mean without a particle of what the owner calls superfluous ornament, he is satisfied; sometimes, if blinds are added, or a handsome fence is built, he has done wonders, and thinks himself entitled to retire to—I wish I might say with better propriety—the shades of private life, and enjoy the true otium cum dignitate.

Thus stand the dwellings of many of our most wealthy and respectable citizens, naked and bare, looking more like extensive manufactories, than habitations of refined taste. It is the absence of exterior ornament, of fences, flowers, shade-trees, and shrubbery, that first strikes the eye as indicating a want of taste and judgment. Even though elegance and strict architectural proportion may have been consulted, judgment displayed in the selection of the site, and taste in the arrangement of the buildings, to suit the scenery about it, there is always the appearance of something wanting, if little or no attention has been paid to ornamenting the grounds about with shade-trees and shrubbery. No lavish expenditure on works of art can atone for the absence of these natural charms.

Some reasons may be adduced for the slight attention which is[313] paid in this country to the beautiful study of arboriculture, and for the want of taste often manifested in relation to some of the noblest productions of nature. From having a boundless wilderness to convert into fruitful fields, it would almost seem that our fathers had acquired an inveterate antipathy to every thing bearing resemblance to a forest tree. In 'clearing' the spot selected for a settlement, every thing was swept off, with axe and fire, unless the primitive settler had occasion to use a few conveniently-placed trees to support the roof of his humble dwelling. He never dreamed that the sturdy monarchs of the forest might become desirable for the purpose of ornament, still less that their scarcity would ever render them valuable to the tenants of the soil. In consequence of this early development of the organ of destructiveness, very few ornamental trees, of great age or size, are to be found in the villages of our country; presenting something of an anomaly: a country unrivalled in the age and extent of its forests, and having indigenous to its soil some of the most beautiful specimens of ornamental trees, but with its towns and villages having scarcely a single tree, of great size or age, to ornament and shade their streets.

Nor have the indications of this destructive spirit of the early settlers, though less common, passed entirely away with the progress of time, or of our country in prosperity and happiness. The antipathy of which I have spoken, although it would hardly yet seem to be extinguished, is gradually wearing away. The study of arboriculture is beginning to be thought of and esteemed; attention is being paid to the planting of shade and ornamental trees; many of our public thoroughfares are properly bordered with the young and thrifty stalks, that in the due process of vegetation will adorn them with stately trees; and the situations of private citizens are beginning to exhibit, more commonly, signs of the beauty produced by the same cause.

Still less has there been any general attention paid to the art—for such I believe has been settled to be the classification of so beautiful a study—of landscape and ornamental gardening. Of this study, a late elegant writer remarks: 'It is a noble and worthy pursuit, and one that cannot be too earnestly encouraged, as a source of the purest and most elegant recreation; one whose indulgence is equally beneficial to the mind and to the body. The enjoyment which it affords, is at once sensual and intellectual; and if less stimulating than many other sensual gratifications, it has this superiority over them, that it is the least palling of any, or rather one that is incapable of satiating.' I know there are reasons why landscape gardening, of which the untravelled American knows literally nothing, can scarcely if ever be expected to reach that degree of splendor for which other climes are already noted. The fortunes of our citizens are of too recent acquirement, and too often divided among heirs, and otherwise, to permit of the great expense of such undertakings, even had society arrived at that pitch of refinement which naturally fosters this and other branches of the fine arts. These obstacles will effectually retard, if not prevent, those stupendous results of individual wealth and energy, which ages of feudal power, and the laws of primogeniture, have heaped upon the soil of Europe.

But there is a lesser branch of the art, more properly denominated the ornamental, which it is within the reach of most of our citizens to carry to a great degree of perfection. The grounds about our dwellings, though they may be limited, are capable of being dressed in a garb at once pleasing to the eye, and in other ways profitable to the owner. The traveller in England remarks, continually, upon neat rural cottages, embowered amid fruit trees, shrubbery, and flowers, with a portion of the ground around them tastefully arranged, and devoted to the cultivation of esculent vegetables, that supply much of the food necessary for the subsistence of the family. So too in many parts of continental Europe, the attention which all ranks bestow upon the grounds surrounding their dwellings strikes favorably the eye of the stranger, and leads him to exclaim that his tour lies through 'one continued garden, highly picturesque and pleasing.' All this is within the reach of our citizens, the humblest, as well as those who revel in superfluous wealth. Shade-trees of great beauty and long life are readily to be obtained, easily transplanted, and easily made to thrive. The cost of a neat close fence is trifling to those who are bred in the paths of industry and economy. A trellis is easily thrown up, and there is no difficulty in leading over it the creeping vine. Fruits of various descriptions may be cultivated with pleasure and profit, and flowers with hardly less of either. Small neat cottages, those rich caskets of pure enjoyment, may be embellished with the various objects of rural taste, and be made each the centre of a little Eden, that shall lead the lover of rural felicity to believe that it may exist otherwhere than in the fruitful imagination of the poet.

It is seriously to be wished, that more attention should be paid to this, of all studies the most humanizing and innocuous. It is to be regretted, that our countrymen are not more alive to the importance of devoting a small share of time and expense to ornamenting their dwellings and the public streets. 'I regard' (says an approved writer, whom I have not yet quoted) 'the man who surrounds his dwelling with the objects of rural taste, or who even plants a single shade-tree by the road side, as a public benefactor; not merely because he adds something to the general beauty of the country, and to the pleasure of those who travel through it, but because he also contributes something to the refinement of the general mind. He improves the taste, especially of his own family and neighborhood.' Were such benefactors more common, were country cottages, adorned with simplicity and taste, more frequent, we should hear more of that true rural enjoyment which does not consist in rudeness and selfishness, but in rational and dignified pleasure; we should acquire a national character for stability and contentment, as just as that which we now enjoy for uneasiness and mobility; we should hear less complaint of the disposition of our young men to ramble from the patrimonial estate, and bury themselves in the speculations and dissipated enjoyments of city life.

It is a too common opinion, that gardens are like the extremes of fashion, costly and useless appendages, maintained at great expense, and without yielding either profit or real satisfaction. Nothing can be wider from the truth. There is not an individual who can better[315] employ a portion of his time and industry, than in the cultivation of a small spot about his dwelling. It is the nursery of elegant taste and refined feeling, and aids essentially in the cultivation of those elevated sentiments which bind men together in the bands of social union. 'Who,' says an elegant French writer, a century agone, 'who does not love flowers? They embellish our gardens; they give a more brilliant lustre to our festivals; they are the interpreters of our affections; they are the testimonials of our gratitude; we present them to those to whom we are under obligations; they are often necessary to the pomp of our religious ceremonies, and they seem to associate and mingle their perfumes with the purity of our prayers, and the homage which we address to the Almighty. Happy are those who love and cultivate them!' Nor is that labor lost in other respects, which is devoted to the cultivation of a garden. It may be made to afford sustenance for a whole family. It is the spot for useful experiment, and may be mentioned as the place into which some of the most valuable products of agriculture have been first introduced, and their qualities tested.

The external air and appearance of a dwelling are no uncertain indications of the character of its inmates. A large house, richly and expensively finished though it may be, standing naked and exposed to the burning rays of a summer sun, has nothing inviting in its appearance; and it is not unnatural, that with the absence of ornament and refreshing shade, we should augur as well the want of intelligence and taste in those who occupy it. There is something dry and hard in the air about it, that betokens little of kindly sentiment, little of social feeling—those blossoms that lend to scenes in our earthly pilgrimage their elysian fragrance. If we expect from such a place the sounds of merriment, they are those of rude mirth and selfish enjoyment. Very different is the idea conveyed by the snug cottage, with its surrounding shrubbery. The building may be humble in size and in its display of architectural skill; but it is neat and tidy, and indicative of attention paid to other than mere animal enjoyments. It is shaded by the foliage of overhanging trees; its fences are tastefully though plainly built; its grounds are richly cultivated, and disposed with much of beauty and effect; its shrubbery and flowers are pleasantly arranged. It is here we look for a happy family, above the world's reproach, for rational and refined enjoyment, for kindly intercourse between beings of the higher order of intellect.

It is a mistaken notion, scarcely less common than that which considers the cultivation of a garden as a useless expenditure of time and labor, which holds that nothing worthy the name of garden can be had without much expense, and that it is better to make no attempt, than to dabble in few flowers, and rude specimens of garden architecture. Many are doubtless deterred by the despair of ever attaining, with their opportunities and means, any degree of the beautiful and picturesque that should attract the commendation of those versed in a better and costlier style of the art. But there is no spot of ground, however unfitted for the purposes of ornamental gardening, that may not be arranged with beauty and effect, and that too at a trifling expense. It certainly could not be expected, that in this branch of the art should be expended the immense cost[316] required for attaining that splendor to which the landscape garden may be perfected. A small and level bit of ground, devoid of water and prospect, may yet be so cultivated as to delight the eye, even of the amateur gardener. It may be traversed by winding alleys, bordered with flowers, of which there can be ever had a sufficient variety; it may be planted with every variety of fruit, adapted to the situation and climate; it maybe adorned with trellises, covered with trailing plants, and vases filled with appropriate flowers; it may be provided with its terraces and parterres, its bowers and refreshing shades. An ordinary share of industry and taste will prepare and arrange these, so that there shall not be an entire lack of beauty, even though it should want in elegant sculpture, in costly vases, in cascades and fountains, or in distant views of enchanting scenery. The expense of all this need not deter any one who has a free use of the faculties with which nature has endowed him: it may be saved often in the retrenchment of a single superfluity, and of these there is no lack with those who live what the world would term decently. Try it, young man; and if you feel not amply repaid, if you feel not a wiser, better, happier man, then I forfeit my credit in the art prognostic.

THE SEA.

I love thee, dark blue sea!
When sleeping tranquilly,
When winds blow shrill,
And foaming surges rise,
That seem to dare the skies—
I love thee still!

And when the morning sleeps
Upon thy silent deeps,
I love the hour!
Or when the star of night
Bathes thee in silver light,
I own thy power.

I love thy golden strand,
When on the shell-strewn sand
Thy billows break;
When, soft as infant's sleep,
Thy gentle ripplings creep,
Nor echo wake.

And when thy thunders roar,
And lash the trembling shore,
Deep, foaming, strong,
And high thy breakers roll,
I feel thee stir my soul,
And love thy song!

Yes, thou art dear to me,
Thou ever-flowing sea!
Where'er thy waters roll;
In every varied mood,
Or mild, or gay, or rude,
From pole to pole!

THAPTOPSIS.

Not in the marble tomb—
Lay me not there to rest,
With the dim charnel gloom
Damply around my breast:
Bind me not there to lie,
Cold, mouldering lone,
Unmoved by the rain, as it falleth nigh,
Or the winds of varied tone:
No!—lay me under the sod—
'Neath the green turf, lay me low,
Where the sweet spring flowers may nod,
In dews which wet my brow.
Ay! then I'll mount the flowers,
And be worn on fairest breast,
And go up in vines which deck the bowers,
Where beauty loves to rest:
I shall rise, perchance, in the laurel leaf,
And be worn in the conqueror's hall;
In the grape, I'll be the foe of grief,
And the joy of the festival;
This is the way which I would rest—
Not in the charnel gloom:
Then lay me under the earth's green vest,
And I'll seek me out my tomb.

EXQUISITES: THE GENUS 'BORE.'

Richard Drilling, Esquire, was a lawyer of much ambition, as was manifest from the scrupulous care with which he decorated the outer man. He thought that a shabbily-dressed person was a shabby fellow; and as he wished to be thought any thing rather than shabby, his wardrobe was a miracle of taste. Two rival passions burned on the altar of his bosom, viz: to marry the most beautiful girl in town, and to become a model for gentlemen of well-dressing propensities. This latter desire was on the eve of consummation, at the period under consideration. As he glanced at his proportions in the glass, he was most sincerely of opinion that he was irresistibly handsome. He was nearly six feet high, and slender and symmetrical. His leg was as straight as an arrow, and his waist was the envy of many belles. Light hair, and a small foot, were the alpha and the omega of his personal fascinations. Now fancy this entity, with its chin cocked up on a huge stock, white vest, silk gloves, rattan, a little hat hanging on a lock of hair over the left ear, taking the air, with a genteel step, on the shady side of the street, and you have a very tolerable conception of what Richard Drilling resembled.

Richard considered himself a great favorite with the sex. He was careful not to distress them with conversation on theology, philosophy, or poetry; but much more sensibly entertained them with dissertations on the important subjects of marriage rumors, moving accidents, German waltzes, and Parisian fashions. Moreover, he was the most obedient servant whom the ladies had in their employ, and was always willing to sacrifice cash or convenience to their happiness. If a lady hinted a wish to take a ride, he made a proposition to gratify her, instanter; if she talked of the theatre, he would offer her the honor of his escort; or if she burned for ice-cream, of a summer night, he took good care that she should be gradually cooled down to a state of comfort. In fine, Richard and the girls had but one heart between them: whatever they wanted, he desired; and wherever they happened to be going, he was lucky in being on his way to the same place. He was as indispensable to every female establishment as a pin, which article he greatly resembled, as he was tolerably brazen, not very sharp, and was seen sticking about the ladies on all occasions. A very comfortable stock of vanity assured him, that the girls were always looking out for him; that he could wed whomsoever he considered eligible to that honor; and that he carried himself with the most genteel swagger that had been seen in the street, in church aisles, or at operas, since the days of the everlasting Beau Brummel.

Richard was universally called Dick, and so, for the salvation of space, we beg leave to name him. Well, Dick's parents were early emigrants to the west, at which time they were almost dollarless. By enterprise, his father had amassed a fortune; which Dick thought extracted the plebeian taint from his blood, and enrolled his name on the list of the aristocracy. Indeed, on a certain occasion, when asked if his grandfather was not on terms of daily intimacy with lap-boards, shears, and needles, Dick indignantly denied the charge, and asserted that he never had such an ancestor. Thereupon, it was supposed that Dick's family was of miraculous origin, having sprung up after the manner of mushrooms, quite spontaneously.

Possessing a pecuniary competency, Dick had read law, not for the purpose of practice, but merely to recreate his mind, and flourish an attorney's shingle. Having acquired thus much, to use his own elegant language, 'he didn't care a tinker's d—n for any thing else;' and he was henceforth regarded by himself as a gentleman of learned leisure, who, from motives of the purest benevolence, gratified his numerous friends, male and female, by throwing the charms of his conversational powers over the tedium of their otherwise wretched hours. Such was Dick Drilling; an inflated intellectual pauper, whom I never encounter, that I do not instantly call to mind the lines of the poet:

THE GENUS 'BORE.'

The good and the bad things of earth are strangely mingled together, and you cannot have either separately. Agreeable friends are blessings; but one cannot form acquaintances, without contracting some sort of alliances with those who are especially disagreeable. For what purpose bores were created, it would be difficult to determine; perhaps, to teach us patience and forbearance. It certainly requires as much patience to remain cool under the inflictions of dulness, as for any thing else in life; and to be able to forbear, when you feel tempted to kick stupidity out of your presence, is a virtue indeed.

There are two leading classes of bores—the garrulous and the taciturn. Heaven help you, when you are victimized by one of the first class! He deluges you with words. He inflicts all the scandal and news upon you, while you look like Resignation hugging a whipping-post. You feel irritated awhile, and then sick. He has tongue enough for both, and only requires that you resolve yourself into a horrible deformity, by becoming all ear. You gape, and show symptoms of sleep. He doesn't care; you may sleep, or dislocate your jaws, as you please. He is one of the emissaries of fate, sent on earth to punish, and he means to fulfil the purpose of his destiny. There is no getting clear of his noise; and you may as well be as complacent as you can, and regard his tongue as the scourge which inflicts chastisement for past sin.

Again, a taciturn bore drops into your presence. You talk first on one subject and then on some other; but instead of showing interest, he looks as if his leaden eyelid would fall in spite of your efforts. You think the fellow a fool; and can scarcely resist the propensity to enlighten him in regard to himself, by telling him so. You look 'unutterable things' at him; but you cannot stir him up. Your heart sinks within you, and for a moment you look the model of a statue of despair. You ask him to read the morning paper, but he is tired to death of politics. You offer him a book, and he fumbles it listlessly for a moment, and puts it down. Your agony becomes excruciating; your friend looks like the impersonation of the nightmare, and he clings to you, as the old man of the sea clung to Sinbad.

The present is the age of bores. No skill can avoid them. Like the enemy of your soul's salvation, they go about seeking whose peace they may destroy. They infest every society, and their name is Legion. If you were to seek a cave in some far-off mountain, they would find you out; or if, in despair, you should drown yourself, in the sea, the ghost of some bore would be sure to rise with yours from the waters, and torture your shade on its way to 'kingdom[320] come.' Whether you sit down, lie down, read, write, or reflect, you must be annoyed by the presentiment of bores and coming evils. Your apprehensions are ceaseless, and you momentarily expect the Philistines will be upon you—Philistines who wield the weapon which was fatal to their ancestors of old.

NAHANT.

I love thy sea-washed coast, Nahant!—I love
Thine everlasting cliffs, which tower above;
I love to linger there, when day-light fades,
And evening hangs above her sombre shades,
And lights her pale lamps in the world on high,
And o'er the rough rocks throws her purple hue;
While ocean's heaving tides
Are beating round thy sides,
Flinging their foam-wreaths to the sky,
And flakes of fire seem bursting through
Each swelling wave of liquid blue!

Tradition lends to thee no hallowed tone;
Ne'er on thy beach was heard the spirit's moan;
Yet there's a charm about thee: here I've roved,
In being's blossom, with the forms I loved;
And they have faded; many a heart which sprung
Fresh into life when hope and joy were young,
Moulders in dust; and many a buoyant breast,
Which swelled with rapture then, is laid at rest;
And many a heart hath met the blight,
And many an eye is closed in night,
And many a bosom long will mourn
For those who never can return!

Each one of us who wander here,
And sport within life's little day,
At eve shall sleep upon the bier,
Our hopes, our promise, passed away:
But thou remain'st! Thy rugged rocks
Shall long withstand time's rudest shocks,
And other feet as light shall tread
Thy wave-bound isle, when we are dead!

Yes, man must bloom and fade, must rise and fall,
Till nature spreads at length o'er earth her pall;
Then shalt thou sink in chaos! Ay, thy name
Will fall in ruin, and the roll of fame [2]
Shall be a blot; and earth too, and her cherished,
In time's oblivious wreck will all have perished!
Then may our souls to that bright world arise,
Where beauty withers not, nor virtue dies.

SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES.

Born and educated at the North, in taking up my residence in a slave-holding state, it was with all my feelings arrayed against slavery, and in the fear that I should be compelled to witness those brutal scenes of oppression and injustice, which have been so industriously circulated against slave-holders, and their obsequious overseers. I had seen prints portraying merciless masters—tyrants rather—in the act of applying the lash to the naked backs of their unhappy victims, whose supplicating looks might have drawn pity from a heart of adamant. I had heard tales of overseers, which made me blush to think myself a man, so foully were they pictured, and which, if true, must have made the earth groan to bear such monsters on its surface. I regarded a slave-holder as lost to all the finer feelings of humanity, and an involuntary sympathy for their unfortunate dependants occasioned in me a constant watchfulness over every word, and look, and act, that passed between master or mistress and their slaves. I have said that I expected to meet with many revolting incidents—we shall see with what coloring of justice; and let it be remembered, that in penning these desultory observations, I am actuated by no motive, save that of disabusing the public mind from the misrepresentations of ignorant or designing persons.

Pirates and man-stealers are the epithets usually bestowed upon the planters of the South. Abuse is not argument, neither can the calling of hard names abate one jot of oppression. Thus far, it has rivetted the chains of the slave more closely. The confidence which formerly existed between master and slave, has given way to a watchful suspicion on the one side, and a sullen reserve on the other; with the curtailment of many privileges formerly bestowed, and which, from long usage, had become matters of course. This has been one result of the efforts of abolitionists; and those worthies may place this to the account of their own intemperate measures. Were the enemies of slavery to predicate their sentiments on other grounds than the alleged cruelties practised upon the persons of slaves, southern people would probably bestow on them that degree of attention which the subject justly merits. Were they simply to assert that it is at variance with the enlightenment and liberality of the present age; that mere matter of expediency would one day render slavery a greater curse than it already is; that England has set an example which she expects us to follow, and that the eyes of all Europe are upon us; as men of understanding, they would ere this have been inquiring, 'What is best to be done?' But no. Americans have abused their brothers; have represented them to be monsters of brutality—murderers, in fine, living without law and without decency. Britain has been appealed to for pecuniary aid; and she too has hurled her measure of anathema upon us. She has, however, but too recently liberated her own slaves, to say much upon the subject; and whether the condition of the blacks in the West Indies[322] has been improved by the change, remains yet to be seen. Look at the British possessions in the East Indies; at Russia, with her thousands of white slaves. Turn to unhappy Ireland, bowed, even to her own emerald sward, with oppression; and what consistency is there in this hue and cry, against one only of the existent evils, to the exclusion of others of equal importance?

I have sojourned for a season in no less than six of the southern states, in one of which I resided upward of two years, and had every opportunity, in my professional capacity, for seeing and knowing the truth; and I honestly and firmly declare, that the atrocities and brutal character attributed to the slave-holder, is a most foul and unnatural slander. Can it be believed, that men would countenance each other, that such a state of society could exist, where a man would destroy a fellow being, with as little remorse as he would crush a scorpion that crossed his path? Were they restrained by no other feeling, that of avarice alone would prevent such barbarity; for it cannot be supposed that a man would deliberately burn, shoot, or otherwise injure or maim a piece of property that he could at any moment dispose of for several hundred pounds. It is not credible; yet such is represented to be a case of frequent occurrence. Verily, the people, both of Great Britain and America, are one and all possessed of marvellous gullibilities!

Soon after my settlement on the St. John's river in East Florida, a report was circulated that a planter on the opposite side of the river had whipped a slave to death. The people, so far from appearing indifferent, and attempting to hide such an occurrence, rose simultaneously. By order of a magistrate of the city of Jacksonville, inquiries were instituted, and it was ascertained that a slave had died soon after receiving a flogging from his master. The body was disinterred, but as no marks of violence were discovered, it was again buried, and the owner put under bonds of ten thousand dollars, for his good treatment to his slaves; beside being prevented in future from whipping, or causing a slave to be whipped, on his plantation. When coercion was necessary, he was compelled to inform the magistrates of the county, and they meted out the punishment. This man was a native of one of our eastern states, and, as is invariably the case with such, was severe to his slaves. Northern people possess too much energy and decision of character to be patiently served by indolent servants; and there, they must either wait upon themselves, or receive attendance when and how they can; for a southern negro moves with about as much rapidity as a snail: and hence, when a northern man becomes a master, he is usually a hard one. One other instance I knew of, and that also was a northern man; one of the wealthiest in the territory, and at the same time the most despised. This planter lived sixty miles from where I resided; yet ask a child, either white or black, who was a hard master, and the answer unhesitatingly was, 'Bulow is a hard master.' He had no family, and was shunned by every respectable white person who knew him. In fact, during the summer months that he resided off his plantation, he found it difficult to obtain board in any respectable hotel, so prejudiced were people against him. Public opinion is an ordeal that many men dare brave; but public abhorrence none but[323] the most hardened can endure. A master cannot hide his cruelties; negroes have too much communication with each other, and with neighboring plantations, not to trumpet loudly their hardships; and abject as their condition is, they do not tamely submit to an encroachment upon their rights or privileges. Infringe either the one or the other, and they become as inveterate grumblers as John Bull himself.

That magistrates are not always imbued with a sense of justice, we learn from that very respectable source, our spelling-book, in the story of the judge and the farmer; and a very little of every day's observation will prove to us that the species is not extinct. One of this class hired two negroes for two months, of a highly respectable planter in my neighborhood, to send with a partner about thirty miles distant, for the purpose of planting an orange grove. They had been absent about six weeks, when one of the men returned very unexpectedly to his master, complaining of ill treatment. He stated that they had been kept in the water for many days, in building a dock, with bad and scanty food; that he became sick, but being threatened, was obliged to work; and finally being unable to endure it any longer, he left his companion, and taking a canoe belonging to the firm, had returned home. His master felt for him, but urged his return till the expiration of the engagement. This the negro resolutely refused, saying he should only be whipped if he returned. The magistrate, on learning that one of the men had left his service, with bad accounts of the treatment he had received, instantly lodged him in jail on a charge of stealing the canoe. Nothing could be farther from the truth than this charge, and he knew it well; but he had long indulged a private pique against the owner of these slaves, who had more than once reproved his excesses. After keeping the man in jail for a week, he ordered him to receive forty lashes save one, on his naked back, for a crime he had never thought of committing. In vain the poor fellow protested his innocence; in vain his master offered to pay treble the price of the canoe; the sentence was awarded, and like Shylock, he would have his bond. The owner of these slaves, a near descendant of the learned and admirable Sir Alexander Crichton, was compelled to witness this violation of justice on the person of one of his household, and this too from a man who had fled from a northern city for defrauding his creditors. A whipping-post ought justly to be considered an emblem of the dark ages; yet, to our disgrace be it told, public whipping is still practised in some few of our northern states; and fourteen years ago, I myself witnessed in Jersey City, opposite to New-York, an aged woman, a white woman, taken to a post and publicly whipped for stealing a few articles of clothing! We hope the day is not far distant, at least not forever distant, when men shall be so taught, as to love and practice virtue for its own sake. Then every man will pursue truth and justice with his neighbor; then oppression shall no more stalk the earth, and the inferior passions of mankind yield to the intellectual and the moral. This will be the anticipated millennium; and let the philanthropist take heart, and pursue his onward course, which, though encompassed by a thousand thorns, and of a thousand different hues, must disappear under the sturdy culture of the indefatigable husbandman.

I have now stated the only acts of oppression that came to my knowledge during my southern residence; and with far greater pleasure can I bear testimony to the paternal character of masters. That a strong feeling of attachment does exist between many masters and slaves, no person who has spent any time with them can deny. Frequently born on the same plantations, they have played together as children, and together shared feats of peril in youth. I was acquainted with the parties, where a slave, advanced in years, was offered his freedom, for a small sum of money which he had saved by over-work, by his young master, who soon after taking possession of his property became embarrassed. 'No, massa George;' said the man, 'I hab carried massa in my arms when him was a baby; and if I leave him now, who will take care of me when I get old?' The slave was right; for when they get past work, their old age is made comfortable. In fact, the amount of labor required from a prime man or woman is comparatively light. One quarter of an acre per day is their required task, either of planting or digging. Ploughs are seldom used, and almost all of them can finish their task in three-quarters of a day; the remainder of the day is their own, and whatever they raise in their own time, they receive the avails of. I have known instances where they chiefly supplied the table of their master with chickens, eggs, or fish, for which they received pay, or, as they sometimes preferred bartering, sugar or molasses. The Sabbath is also their own, on which many of them hunt, fish, or gather the moss which grows on the live-oaks, and for which they receive four cents a pound. Their weekly allowance is one peck of Indian corn per head, which they grind into hominy or meal; several pounds of salt pork or beef, with sweet potatoes and salt. Few masters, however, are particular; they frequently receive many additions; and when sick, are taken good care of. They receive two suits of coarse clothes in a year, and the gay handkerchiefs, and fine calico dresses in which the females always appear on the Sabbath, are purchased with the proceeds of their extra labor. I have frequently been awakened on moonlight nights with the songs of negroes approaching our settlement to trade. With a written permit from their masters, they come in boats from a distance of thirty or forty miles; and if they return in time to commence their accustomed morning labor, all is well. The effect of this kind of music in a calm night is singularly wild and pleasing. They possess powerful voices, which can be heard for miles: one or two carry the air, while all join in the chorus; keeping pace in some measure with the strokes of their oars, each of which are clearly heard long before they near the landing. They bring, on these occasions, fowls, eggs, moss, ground or pea-nuts, with melons, and other fruits; and sometimes trade to a considerable amount. Their shopping consists in purchases of tobacco, coffee, or sugar, candles, and fancy handkerchiefs. Their general appearance is plump, healthy, and cheerful: living constantly in the open air, with a song for ever on their lips, life seems to wear for them a holiday dress the year round.

Will abolitionists believe this? It is true, nevertheless; and how can it be otherwise, in those so perfectly exempt from care? The[325] scriptural command, 'Take no thought for the morrow,' is verified to the letter in the slave. They have neither to provide for families, for sickness, for the change of seasons, nor for any thing under the sun. To perform their customary meed of labor, is all that is required of them; this done, they prepare their suppers, when they retire, if they choose, or dance to the violin, or amuse themselves as they please. Most frequently, however, they assemble in front of the kitchen, after the people in the 'house,' as the family mansion is termed, have supped. A small fire of pine knots is kindled to keep away insects, and one is soon greeted with a 'concord of sweet sounds,' which sends off the youths of both sexes on 'the light fantastic toe.' They possess full, rich voices; most of the men perform on the violin, and many of them are proficients on that instrument. Imitation is large in the negro; and at these meetings it is a common amusement for them to mimic any peculiarity they may have noticed in the dancing of whites. 'Phillis, now dance like fat Mrs. ——,' bawled out the master of ceremonies to a tidy girl of sixteen. Her feats drew forth peals of laughter. 'See me dance like Mr. ——,' and in whipped a half-naked, strapping fellow, who received his share of applause. Comparisons are said to be odious; but at such moments I could not but contrast their condition with that of our laboring whites. The latter, compelled to work from sunrise to sunset to obtain a livelihood; a large family to provide for, during many tedious and severe winter months, to say nothing of sickness, casualties, etc., how can the father of a family divest himself of the cares and responsibilities of his situation, to indulge in even occasional relaxation and mirth? Worn out with the fatigues of the day, and greeted on his arrival at home with a list of wants and necessities, his life remains to the end one scene of self-denial and hardship. He maintains his independence, and that of his family, but at the expense of cheerfulness, and the foregoing of those innocent recreations, which nature, or the great God of Nature, intended for all. Exhausted at length with labor and anxieties, he sinks in premature old age to a welcome tomb.

That this is the history of thousands, even in our own favored country, is undeniable; and if we cast our eyes over the vast continent of Europe, what find we but toil and wretchedness, unknown in our western world? Were those who sigh and lament over the miseries of slaves, to bestow a little of their superfluous sympathy on the owners of slaves, it would be exceedingly better appropriated. They need it more than their dependants, who are not only eye-servants, but seemingly wilfully stupid. That they are less intelligent and more brutish than many of the inferior animals, is a lamentable fact; and that the circumstances in which they have been placed, is one cause of this stupidity, is no less a fact; but that they can ever attain to the intelligence of whites, I am not inclined to admit. Nature, habit, opinion, have drawn lines of separation, which can never be totally removed. It was remarked in the presence of a French gentleman, who had spent some years in South America, that the greatest prejudice existing in the minds of whites against blacks was their color. 'Non, non,' he exclaimed with warmth; 'ce n'est pas seulement leur couleur; d'autres sens outre celui de la vue sont offensés.'[326] And truly, place a person at a southern tea-table, with the thermometer above 90°, and two or three black waiters in attendance, with a half grown negro at his elbow, wielding a huge feather fan, and unless his olfactories were more than ordinarily obtuse, he would essay in vain to repeat with the tender Sappho, 'Come, gentle air!' That they are susceptible of culture, to a certain extent, is correct; and that many of them possess what is termed mother wit, I had daily opportunities of observing. This species of humor is most frequently shown in the composition of their songs, more particularly in their boat songs; in which I have known the whole family receive sly thrusts from their negroes, while being rowed by them, and which seldom failed in eliciting good-natured mirth. Music is the life and soul of a southern negro: he does every thing, but eat and sleep, with a tune.

Their organization seems to have been expressly adapted to the climate in which they were to live. The hotter the weather, the better it suits them; and when exposure would be fatal to whites, a negro enjoys the best health. A boat with three hands was sent for me, in the month of July, to visit a planter who was taken suddenly ill. We left my residence at ten in the morning, of one of the hottest days I have ever experienced. The atmosphere was nearly suffocating, without the slightest breath of air. The negroes were clad in duck trowsers, and a shirt of the same material, with an apology for a hat on the head of each. After rowing several miles, one took off his hat, then another, and opened his collar; presently the third threw down his, protesting it was too hot to wear a hat. I carried with me a small pocket-thermometer, which I consulted, and it stood at 103°, Fahrenheit, and I am confident that a white person, to have been guilty of the same imprudence, would have fallen under coup de soleil. I wore a large chip hat, and held an umbrella above my head; yet when we reached the distance, which was fifteen miles, my face and hands were in a light blister. The case to which I was called was one of extreme urgency, and for which my presence was required several days.

The evening before I left, I had the satisfaction of witnessing a negro marriage, which had been delayed a day or two, in consequence of the illness of their master. The groom was a fine young man, about twenty; the bride was free, though the daughter of a slave. Children always belong to the mother: hence if a slave marries a free woman, their children are free, and vice versa. A tutor in the family performed the ceremony, by reading our church service, the oldest daughter of their master and myself being present. I believe this wedding was something extraordinary, from the importance the blacks seemed to feel on the occasion; and it certainly surpassed many white weddings I have known. The bride was dressed in white, and after the ceremony, wine was passed round, with very respectable wedding-cake, and slices of cold venison. These were of course furnished by the parties themselves; and the kitchen was the place of rendezvous, which was crowded with all the slaves on the plantation; and being Saturday night, their mirth sounded in our ears till midnight. The next morning I accompanied my companions of the preceding night to the negro[327] quarter, about a quarter of a mile distant from the house, where they were assembled according to custom. A chapter from the New Testament was read to them, and the catechism taught to the children. The father of the bride was a preacher, and on Sunday evenings he usually held forth to his fellow servants. As I departed in the afternoon, he was prevailed on to give his usual evening sermon that morning. It was a curious medley, I must confess; and he wound up his discourse, by urging his hearers to become religious, in order to get to heaven; and by way of encouragement to their color, affirmed, that a great many indecent people were already in heaven.

And now, what shall be said of the licentiousness which exists in the South? Shall we attempt to palliate the fact? Most assuredly no. That there are children born on plantations, who are very nearly white, and of whose paternity there can be no doubt, is no less a fact; and this always appeared to me as one of the most disagreeable features in slavery. I have known a few instances in which a favorite slave kept pace with her mistress in increasing the family stock, if not the name. These children are usually employed as house-servants as they grow up; and the mistress, though perfectly aware of the relationship, generally regards them with peculiar kindness and care. Great pains are usually taken by the mother to let these unfortunates know to whom they are indebted for existence; and whether this knowledge renders them more faithful to the interests of the family, or from whatever cause it may be, they are the best servants, and the most attached, that I have ever seen. These practises are the productive source of much domestic unhappiness. It is not to be supposed that a wife can regard her sable rival with other feelings than those of deep aversion and dislike; without the power to banish such from her daily sight. Negroes themselves, the men particularly, look with no very pleasant eye on such liaisons. A circumstance was related to me by one of them, which had excited in his breast much indignation. 'Do you think such things are right, massa?' he asked, at the conclusion. I assured the honest fellow of my deep disapprobation of such wickedness, which seemed to afford him much satisfaction.

While I state that such practices do exist, let it not be understood that I extend these connections to all planters, or even to the greater number of them. Such an accusation would be destitute of either truth or justice. That they exist at all, however, is at variance with every principle of morality, and for which let not the shadow of an excuse ever be made. Yet turn we to other portions of civilized society, and what do we behold? Vice is vice, wherever it is found; and let not the haughty man of fashion, who spends his hundreds upon an unworthy mistress, or the systematic seducer of female innocence, from whose fatal snares neither virgin purity, nor the holiness of the marriage tie are exempt, let them not, I say, join their polluted voices in the general cry of the monstrous depravity and licentiousness of the South. First pull the beam from the eye of self, and then turn we to convince our neighbor of the mote that obscures his moral vision.

Though an enemy to slavery, I would have the true friends of the blacks pursue a course that will tend to their lasting advantage.[328] There is no great urgency, on their own accounts, that abolition should be immediate; and I do not hesitate to pronounce the sympathy false and perverted, which dwells on the miseries of their situation. If we except the lot itself, their condition is far better than it would be were they freed; and infinitely better than that of our city blacks, or even many of our laboring whites. That their being slaves is a sufficient cause for discontent, I admit, did they consider it so. The mass, however, know and think nothing about it. They recollect nothing else, and therefore the loss of liberty is scarcely a deprivation. Servitude of any sort is a grievous yoke; it is hard to be poor; yet none but visionaries ever indulge in the Utopian scheme of a perfect happiness. That slavery is an evil, that it is a great and a growing evil, none who think at all on the subject can deny; slave-holders themselves are well convinced of this truth, and many of them would rejoice to have the evil removed, could proper means be devised, independently of robbing them of their lawful property. They cannot consent to make themselves and their children beggars, which would be the case, were slavery immediately abolished; for without a sufficient force to work their land, it is worth nothing. My own opinion coincides with that of Paley: 'The emancipation of slaves should be gradual, and be carried on by provisions of law, and under the protection of civil government. Christianity can only operate as an alternative. By the mild diffusion of its light and influence, the minds of men are insensibly prepared to perceive and correct the enormities which folly, or wickedness, or accident, have introduced into their public establishments. In this way, the Greek and Roman slavery, and since these, the feudal tyranny, has declined before it. And we trust that, as the knowledge and authority of the same religion advance in the world, they will banish what remains of this odious institution.' This opinion, I am aware, does not accord with the schemes of the reformers of the present age. They wish to reap the reward of their exertions in their own day; no matter what individual loss or suffering it may occasion to whites; no matter what injury accrues to a million and a half of ignorant, improvident blacks, let loose upon society without a motive, a principle to guide them, or a desire above the fulfilment of their animal wants. 'The world is wrong, all wrong!' cries out an hundred reformers. That it is mad, on certain subjects, I verily believe. One sect announce that their own peculiar religious tenets will alone make man happy here, and wise unto salvation, and denounce the rest of the world as lost, and that their teachers knowingly delude their followers. Another party are so zealous in the cause of temperance, that they are the most intemperate fanatics out of bedlam. Others, again, oppose the march of Catholicism, and their cry is, 'Popery! popery!—our country will become priest-ridden; we must put down popery, at whatever cost.' But by far the greater number are weeping over the sorrows, not of Werter, but of the 'poor blacks,' who are fostered, fed, and kindly treated, in return for their services. Thus wags the world; each man has his hobby, in riding which, it would be well for him not to trample on the rights of his neighbor.

THE TIMES.

'The times! the times!'—the burden of that sound
Falls ever on my ear, most dismally;
And as from rock to hill its echoes bound,
I ask my heart, 'And can it truly be,
That 'Providence, which oft afflicts the just,'
Has fore-ordain'd that all the banks should bu'st?'

'The times! the times!'—the cry of terror goes
From field to field, o'er mountain, vale, and glen,
And in a thousand anguish'd accents flows
From half the 'doubting, doting' sons of men;
While they are joined the cadence of the hymn in,
By half the girls, and all of the old women.

Though these be days of steam-revolving pistons,
And labor-saving tools, of every kind,
Yet do we moderns slay our own Philistines,
Much in the manner you may call to mind
Of him of yore, who, neither weak nor lazy,
Abstracted, one dark night, the gate of Gaza.

Yea, prophets prophecy, and dreamers dream,
While stupid men look on in wild derision,
Nor things of sober earnestness they deem
The workings of each cabalistic vision,
Which tells the causes of the things that ail 'em,
As clearly as the ass explained to Balaam.

''Tis for your sins!'—as Pollux link'd with Castor
Is ever seen, so guilt with punishment;
Each mortal sin provokes a fresh bank 'plaster,'
Precisely at the rate of cent per cent.
Oh! deeds of crime, at which the bosom sickens.
Ye've hatch'd indeed a pretty brood of chickens!

'Twas not for nought we made the Indians shank it,
Far to the westward of the Mountains Rocky;
While a tobacco-pipe, and three-point blanket
Was all the guerdon of each hapless jockey:
Fancy the march in dioramic views,
Ye who have seen the 'Exit of the Jews!'

The negroes! Hold we not this seed of Ham's
In durance, equally inhuman, fully,
To that which brought old Pharaoh to the clams?
And why? Because their occiputs are woolly;
Their lips are thick; their cheeks display no roses:
And then, to cap the climax, oh! what noses!

And meanwhile, drunkenness, on every hand,
Hath rear'd her gilded shrines, and never rested;
Till now, within the borders of the land,
The only draughts that don't come back 'protested,'
But currently are taken, till the stock fails,
Are alcoholic potions, christen'd 'cock-tails.'

And thus, while crime hath spread with stride portentous,
Pray is it strange that evil o'er us lingers?
That 'lots' of retribution have been sent us;
And blessing (in disguise!) slip through our fingers;
While ever and anon bursts some new bubble,
To throw us neck and heels again in trouble?
[330]

My country! thou art sick, and very bilious,
From feeding high, and working very little,
Whereby thou hast become quite supercilious,
And, through the passing richness of thy victual,
'Wax'd fat, like Jeshurun,' that noted kicker,
In token of his wholesome meat and liquor.

The sickness hath no bounds; alack! there bobs not
A head, the holder of a limb unruly,
Betwixt Ponchartrain and the fair Penobscot,
That hath not told the tale of terror duly
To scores of friends, in sympathizing masses;
Like him of Uz who own'd the sheep and asses.

And I, like 'Eliphaz the Temanite,'
Would merely say, that on this mundane globe,
'As sparks tend ever upward in their flight,'
(A fact familiar both to him and Job,)
'So man is born to misery' of some sort,
And this was all the hapless patriarch's comfort.

But as the hand of Time healed all his woes,
And raised another batch of pigs and asses,
So will its kindly influence interpose,
With crops of rice, tobacco, and molasses,
To dry thy tears, to bid thy murmurs cease,
And bring again the days of palmy peace!

RANDOM PASSAGES

FROM ROUGH NOTES OF A VISIT TO ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, FRANCE, SWITZERLAND, AND GERMANY.

I have marvelled at nothing more, in Paris, than the rarity of female beauty. I have been in the Boulevards, and other fashionable resorts, at fashionable hours, many a time and oft; but I do not recollect having seen a single French woman decidedly pretty. In some of the galleries, I observed occasionally a lady who might be called so, but they always proved to be English. It seemed more singular, as the prevalent notions of Paris with us led me to expect a brilliant display 'in this line.' But if the French damsels are deficient in personal attractions, they certainly are not in graceful and fascinating manners; and this remark will apply almost equally to the peasant girl and the queen. The style of dress of the Parisian ladies seemed to me very neat, simple, and tasteful, and certainly much less showy than that of the belles of Gotham, who, it must be owned, are apt to be somewhat ultra in the extremes of foreign fashions. There is sound policy, no doubt, in the practice of employing young women as clerks in the shops; they certainly have an irresistible way of recommending their wares, charming you by their ineffable sweetness and apparent naïveté, while they draw as liberally as possible on your purse.

They have a queer way of naming, or dedicating their shops;[331] such as 'à la belles, Anglaise,' 'à la ville de New-York,' etc. In many of them there is a notification that the prices are fixed and unchangeable; but I understand they generally take care that the Anglaise, (who seem to be proverbial as a wealthy nation,) shall pay a suitable advance. 'Combien?' proves to be a very useful word, and answers just as well as 'Quel est le prix?' The bill of fare at the restaurants is quite a curiosity. You may have, in the medium establishments, an excellent dinner for twenty-five or thirty cents, including two or three 'plates,' and a choice from nearly one hundred and fifty, beside the dessert and the vin ordinaire. Omnibuses originated in Paris; and they are now very abundant, convenient, and cheap. You may ride from the Gobelins to Mont Mâitre, about four miles, for six sous; and if you wish to stop on the way, they will give you, gratis, a correspondence-ticket to proceed. They are regulated by government, and taxed and licensed for so many passengers.

While admiring the palaces and public buildings in Paris, one cannot but be surprised that the meanest huts should be permitted to remain in their immediate neighborhood, as at the Louvre, Tuilleries, Luxembourg, and the palace of the Institute, where bits of book-stalls and shoe-makers' shops are placed against the very walls of those stately edifices.

An American, of course, notices as something strange, the military government, which is every where so apparent. Wherever you go, in public buildings, in the parks, or in the streets, you are always sure to meet soldiers, policemen, or 'secret service' spies. The members of the 'National Guards' are, (apparently for a politic purpose,) interspersed among the 'troops of the line,' or standing army. The National Guards are citizen volunteers, who serve by turns a certain length of time. Their whole number is about two hundred and fifty thousand, and hence their immense importance to the government.

Paris affords an inexhaustible fund of topics for the travelling letter-writer, but I must recollect that it has been spoken of, occasionally, before. Let me remind you again, my dear ——, that these rough memorandums are made almost literally 'on the gallop,' by a business youth, and they are not intended to edify any one but yourself.[3]

Geneva, (Switzerland,) August 19, 1836.—Yes, it is even so! After a rather tedious journey of three days and four nights from Paris, I find myself in Switzerland; in Geneva, looking out upon Lake Leman by moonlight, on a lovely summer evening.

To retrace: At four P. M., on the 14th, I seated myself in the diligence for Lyons. One of my companions was a very nice and pretty young lady, who proved to be Paulina Celeste, a Signorina of Milan, returning with her mother from an engagement at the Italian Opera, in London. She was quite intelligent, but could not speak a [332] word of English, except 'very warm,' (and indeed it was;) but I managed to amuse myself, if not her, in some funny attempts at conversation in French.

We rode out of Paris over Pont Neuf, passing Notre Dame and the Jardin des Plants, and proceeded by a dull and level road, (leaving Fountainbleau and St. Dennis on either side,) along the banks of the Yonne to Villeneuve, Pont-sur-Yonne, Sens, Joigny, etc., without any remarkable incident, except that I had the pleasure of being left behind at one of the stopping places, at eleven o'clock at night. The conducteurs, when they have taken your money for the whole route, care very little whether you proceed or not; and I was indebted to a long hill for detaining the diligence till I overtook it, after a hot chase of a couple of miles. The next morning at eleven o'clock we were graciously allowed time to break our fasts of twenty-seven hours; and a very ordinary dejéuner was despatched, as you may imagine, with considerable zeal.

Nearly two-thirds of the journey is through corn-fields and vineyards, affording no fine scenery, but entering a score of petty villages, made up of the most uncouth and wretched huts imaginable. The only places worth mentioning, were Auxerre, an ancient town, fortified by the Romans; Autun, which we entered under a Roman arch or barrier; Metun, Avallon, Ville-Franche, and Chalons-sur-Soane, which latter is quite a pretty place, in a fine situation on the banks of the Soane. We dined there on poulet, pigeon, potage, melon, bits of lobsters, two inches long, and a variety of dishes so disguised as to be nameless; with fresh prunes, pears, and grapes for a dessert. Delicious fresh prunes and grapes may be had here almost for the taking, but apples, pears, and melons, are scarce and dear.

At eight A. M., on the 17th, we entered Lyons, the second city in the kingdom, celebrated for its silk and other manufactories. A great portion of all the French finery which you wear, comes from Lyons. This city is built between the Rhone and the Soane, which are here about an eighth of a mile apart, and both very rapid; so there are abundant facilities for water-power machinery. The bridges and quays are of stone, and are very handsome. Lofty heights, surmounted with fortifications, flank the city on either side, and give it an air of strength and importance. Eagerly looking forward to Italy, there was little to detain me here. I was disappointed, however, in not finding any conversible travellers here, on their way to the 'sunny land;' and ten minutes were allowed me to decide whether I would go alone to Marseilles, and take the steam-boat for Genoa and Naples, in the face of the cholera, and at the risk of horrible quarantines; or turn off to Geneva, with the chance of finding a companion across the Simplon. The safer alternative was adopted; and taking leave of the pretty danseuse, with a promise to call on her at Milan, I mounted the banquette, and had another uncomfortable night-ride.[4]

The next morning, however, was beautiful, and we already began to have a taste for Swiss scenery, which appears to extend forty or [333] fifty miles into France. The remainder of the journey was over long hills and dales; and we walked a considerable portion of it, enjoying occasionally a noble view of rough mountains and green valleys. At every hamlet and village, our passports were examined by epauletted officers. Near the frontiers of Switzerland, the Rhone comes tumbling down between two steep and lofty hills; those referred to, probably, by 'Childe Harold:'

'Where the swift Rhone cleaves his way between
Heights which appear like lovers who have parted
In haste—whose mining depths so intervene
That they can meet no more, though broken-hearted.'

This is the only pass to this quarter of France, and is rendered impregnable by a strongly-fortified castle, lately built on the side of the crag, over the road; so that all travellers must pass through the court-yard, and submit to close examination. At five P. M., our passports were received by an officer in more simple uniform than usual; and this was the first intimation that we had left the dominions of Louis Phillipe, and entered those of his republican neighbors. We soon saw other changes. The neat and comfortable cottages, and the taste and industry displayed in the adjoining grounds and gardens, in approaching Geneva, form a striking contrast to the miserable huts and farm-houses of the peasantry of France. Verily, the lower classes of the French are a filthy people. They seem to have no idea of neatness, propriety, and comfort, in any thing. As farmers, and in nearly all the useful arts, they are a century behind the English. Madame Trollope, methinks, might here indulge her satirical pen, to her heart's content. But we were entering Geneva.

It was on a 'soft and lovely eve,' at six, when this pretty town and prettier lake, with the charming walks and gardens of the environs, first greeted our admiring vision. The frowning Jura looks down upon the lake on one side, and the distant snow-capped Alps, with Mont Blanc duly conspicuous, bound the horizon on the other. At the gates of the town, which is strongly walled, those important documents, our passports, were again given up for inspection at the Bureau of the 'Confederation Fedérale.' The diligence passed round the famous great Hotel des Bergues, and over the pretty bridge which you see in the pictures, and set us down at the Hotel de l'Europe, where I was favored with a bit of a room on the fifth floor, for the hotels are all crowded. The Bergues, by the way, is considered the best public house on the continent. There you may mix with lords, princes, pretty ladies, and handsome equipages, from all parts of Europe. This place being the head-quarters for tourists to Italy, and noted for its delightful situation and pure air, is always a favorite resort, especially for the fashionable and wealthy English.

I was so fortunate as to find a vacant room at Monsieur W——'s beautiful place in the environs, where I have the society of two or three English and American families, beside the Misses W——, who are intelligent, sensible girls, and speak English 'like a native.' It is a most interesting family—uniting the simplicity and strength of the Swiss character with the refinement and grace of the French.

Geneva, you well know, traces her origin far back into antiquity. It is mentioned by Julius Cæsar as a place of strength and importance. It now contains twenty-four thousand inhabitants. The city cannot boast much of architectural beauty. There are few public buildings of elegance, and the houses generally are antique and grotesque. The cathedral, (the same in which Calvin used to preach,) is the most conspicuous edifice in the town; but there are some large and substantial modern buildings, on the banks of the lake. The Rhone, which enters the lake at the other end, leaves it here, and, 'as if refreshed by its expansion, again contracts itself, and rushes through the city in two branches, with the impetuosity of a torrent.' On the little artificial island adjoining the bridge, is a bronze statue of one of Geneva's gifted sons, Jean Jacques Rousseau. Beside Calvin, she can also boast of Beza, Calderini, and Pictet among her theologians. Sismondi, the distinguished historian, now resides here. The library of the college, (which has twelve professors, and six hundred students,) was founded by Bonnivard, the 'prisoner of Chillon.'

After rambling about to the Hotel de Ville, Botanic Garden, and the beautiful ramparts, from whence there are charming views, I walked along the banks of the lake toward Voltaire's Villa, at Ferney, but by mistake took the road to Lausanne, equally noted as the place where Gibbon wrote the 'Decline and Fall.'

'Lausanne and Ferney! Ye have been the abodes
Of names which unto you bequeathed a name.'

In the course of this solitary stroll, I found a retired little cove, and had the luxury of a bath in the lake, from the bottom of which I obtained several rather curious pebbles.

'Lake Leman wooed us with its crystal face,
The mirror where the stars and mountains view
The stillness of their aspect, in each trace
Its clear depths yield of their far height and hue;'

and a small party of us, therefore, took a small boat, and rowed a few miles over its glassy surface. The lake is literally as clear as crystal; the bottom is distinctly seen in every part of it; and you recollect Byron says in a note, that he once saw the distinct reflection in it of Mont Blanc and Mont Argentiére, which are sixty miles distant! We pushed out into the centre of the beautiful expanse of water, and 'lay on our oars' to enjoy a scene which must be almost unique in its loveliness, especially at this hour, when the distant, snow-white peak of the mighty Blanc is tinged with the rays of the setting sun. The picturesque buildings of the town rise above each other at the head of the lake; the banks on each side studded with villas, embosomed in trees, on green and verdant lawns; while the 'dark frowning Jura' forms an effective back-ground of the picture. In our sail, we passed the villa at Coligny, where Byron lived nine months, and wrote the third canto of 'Childe Harold.' He used often to go out on the lake alone, at midnight, in violent storms, which seemed to delight and inspire him. The change in the elements[335] described in the third canto, might be a counterpart of the author's mind:

'The sky is changed! and such a change! Oh night,
And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light
Of a dark eye in woman. Far along,
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among,
Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now hath found a tongue,
And Jura answers from her misty shroud,
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud!'

We were threatened with 'such change,' which are said to be frequent and sudden; but it proved a false alarm.

'It is the hush of night, and all between
The margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear,
Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen
Save darkened Jura, whose capt heights appear
Precipitously steep; and drawing near,
There breathes a living fragrance from the shore,
Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear
Drops the light drip of the suspended oar,
Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more.'

Miss B——, one of the American ladies at Monsieur W——'s, has resided four years in Italy. Among other anecdotes, of which she has an entertaining and extensive fund at command, she was telling us one, illustrating the reputation of our great republic with the common people of Europe. Near the Hotel de Secherons, on the banks of the lake, one mile from Geneva, she met a small boy at the gate of a cottage, and amused herself by a little talk with him. He seemed much surprised on learning the two facts, that she was an American lady, and that she boarded at the Secherons, 'where they paid more money for one dinner than he ever had in his life.' 'Did you ever hear of America?' 'Oh yes, father told me all about it. There was a famous Frenchman, Monsieur Lafayette, went there once, and conquered the country.' 'Indeed!' well, what did he do then?' 'Why, they wanted him to become king, but he wouldn't.' 'Why not?' 'Because,' said the boy, hesitating, lest he should give offence, 'because the Americans are so poor!' And thus he marvelled that one of them should be rich enough to patronize the Hotel de Secherons.

Sunday.—Attended the English Episcopal chapel, to hear the celebrated Rev. J. W. Cunningham, author of the 'Velvet Cushion,'[336] etc. He enjoined upon his audience, mostly English travellers or residents, to conduct themselves abroad as best became 'British Christians.' There are chapels of this kind for the English, in nearly all the large cities of Italy, and throughout Europe.

Chamouni, (foot of Mont Blanc,) August 23.—Those who describe Swiss scenery, with a feeling sense of its beauty and grandeur, are apt to incur the charge of coloring the picture under the influence of an inflated imagination; but I am sure of one thing, that no mere words ever did or could give me a correct and full impression of the scenes I have passed to-day, or of the one now before me. To say that I am in the valley of Chamouni, at the very base of the stupendous Mont Blanc and his gigantic neighbors, on a moonlight evening, is to say enough for your own imagination to fill up the picture. Well does Rogers remark of the distant view of the Alps from the Jura, where they are scarcely distinguishable from the vapors:

'Who first beholds those everlasting clouds,
Seed-time and harvest, morning, noon and night,
Still where they were, stedfast, immovable;
Those mighty hills, so shadowy, so sublime,
As rather to belong to heaven than earth,
But instantly receives into his soul,
A sense, a feeling, that he loses not,
A something that informs him 'tis an hour
Whence he may date henceforward and for ever.'

Our party, (Mr. and Miss M——, and myself,) left Geneva in a 'carry-all' yesterday morning at five o'clock. It was another clear and brilliant day, and the ride, of course, was delightful. Lake, hill, mountain, valley, cascade, river, in their happiest combination, presented a splendid panorama, during the whole distance to this place, fifty-four miles. By way of variety, I must tell you my troubles, also. About five miles from Geneva, we were made aware of having left the Swiss, and entered the Sardinian territory, by a summons, at a little frontier bureau, for our passports. When lo! it was discovered that mine was minus the signature of his Sardinian majesty's consul at Geneva,[5] and I was politely requested to return for it! This was particularly pleasant! For to do it, would be to lose the whole day, and the party beside. After some useless debate, the carbinier kindly permitted me to send back the document by a loafer who happened along, knowing that I could not go far without it; and the next day I received it at Chamouni, and had the pleasure of paying five dollars for not heeding Madame Starke's directions.

We breakfasted at Bonneville, a little village on the Arve, worthy of its name; and we were soon ushered into a region of sublimer scenery than we had as yet visited. The craggy summits, even of the minor mountains, literally touch or rise above the clouds, while their sides, up to a fearful height, are covered with verdure, and [337] studded with cottages: and the valleys below are laid out in squares of varied green. At St. Martin, we changed our vehicle for a char-banc, better suited to the rough and narrow path, for we were now coming where nature displays some of her wildest scenes:

——'Above me are the Alps,
The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls
Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps,
And throned eternity in icy halls
Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls
The avalanche, the thunder-bolt of snow!
All that expands the spirit yet appals,
Gather around these summits, as to show
How earth may pierce to heaven, yet leave vain man below.'

The village of Chamouni is situated in the middle of the valley of the same name, which is ten miles long, and forms one of the most popular 'lions' in Europe, for the botanist, mineralogist, and all nature's students. Our first expedition was to the celebrated Mer-de-Glace. We set off from our inn on mules, headed by a guide, and shortly came to a steep and laborious ascent of some thousand feet, on Mont Anvert, from which, as we looked back, the objects in the valley appeared dwindled to atomies. In about three hours, that wonderful phenomena, the frozen sea, suddenly burst upon our view:

'Wave upon wave! as if a foaming ocean,
By boisterous winds to fierce rebellion driven,
Heard, in its wildest moment of commotion,
And stood congealed at the command of heaven!
Its frantic billows chained at their explosion,
And fixed in sculpture! here to caverns riven—
There, petrified to crystal—at His nod
Who raised the Alps an altar to their God.'

When you reflect that this sea is eighteen miles long, and that the waves rise in abrupt ridges ten, twenty, and even forty feet, frozen to extreme solidity, with chasms between, some of which have been found to be three hundred and fifty feet deep, you will believe the poet has not exaggerated its appearance. It is surrounded by high mountains of dark-colored rock, which taper off in fantastic and beautiful cones; and altogether, it is a scene of striking and awful magnificence, which must leave an abiding impression on every visitor. The ice in the chasms is very clear, and of a beautiful vitriol tint. It is remarkable that this great natural curiosity was first made known to the world in 1741, by two adventurous English travellers, Windham and Pococke. Its origin, of course, remains a fearful mystery.

At the little hut on Mont Anvert, I obtained of the guides some specimens of minerals, fine stones, and a chamois cane. By the way, you will excuse me perhaps, for copying these 'Lines on liberating a Chamois:'[6]

'Free-born and beautiful! The mountain
Has naught like thee!
Fleet as the rush of Alpine fountain—
Fearless and free!
Thy dazzling eye outshines in brightness
The beam of Hope;
Thine airy bound outstrips the lightness
Of antelope.
[338]

'On cliffs, where scarce the eagle's pinion
Can find repose,
Thou keep'st thy desolate dominion
Of trackless snows!
Thy pride to roam, where man's ambition
Could never climb,
And make thy world a dazzling vision
Of Alps sublime!

'How glorious are the dawns that wake thee
To thy repast!
And where their fading lights forsake thee,
They shine the last.
Thy clime is pure—thy heaven clearer,
Brighter than ours;
To thee, the desert snows are dearer
Than summer flowers.'

Our excursion had given us a capital relish for dinner, and that despatched, and 'our mules refreshed,' we set off again and climbed to the Glacier de Bossons, an immense mass of ice, congealed in beautiful pyramids, on the side of Mont Blanc. That 'mighty Alp' itself, we did not care to ascend; it is an achievement which has never been accomplished but thirteen times, as we were told by our guide, who was one of the six that escorted an Englishman to the summit this summer. The ascent is of course one of great fatigue and danger. It takes from two to three days, and costs nine hundred francs. It is impossible to remain on the top more than thirty minutes. The last adventurer was sick several weeks at the inn, after his return.

You may imagine something of the situation of this valley among the mountains, from the fact, that although it is itself two thousand feet above the Mediterranean, it receives the rays of the sun direct, only about four hours in the longest days of the year; and the moon, to-night, was not to be seen, in her whole course, though the opposite mountains were bright with her 'mellow light.'

The people of these valleys seem to be honest and industrious, as well as a little superstitious, if one may judge from the number of crosses, and little chapels, with images of the virgin, etc., which are placed by the way-side. On one of them, near Chamouni, is a proclamation in French, to this effect:

'Monseigneur Rey grants an indulgence of forty days to all the faithful who humbly and devoutly strike this cross three times, saying, 'God have mercy upon me!'

August 24.—At six A. M., we mounted our mules for Martigny, by the pass of the Tête Noir. Like Dr. Beattie, on leaving Chamouni, I beg to refer you to the beautiful hymn which Coleridge wrote here before sunrise, painting its features a little more vividly than I can do it:

'Ye ice-falls! Ye that from the mountain's brow
Adown ravines enormous slope amain;
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopped at once amidst their maddest plunge!
Motionless torrents, silent cataracts!
Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven,
Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun
Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?
[339]

God! Let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
Answer, and let the ice-plains echo, God!
God! Sing, ye meadow streams with gladsome voice!
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!
And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And in the perilous fall shall thunder, God!
Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost!
Ye wild goats, sporting round the eagle's nest!
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm!
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!
Ye signs and wonders of the elements!
Utter forth God! and fill the hills with praise!

There are two passes from Chamouni to the valley of the Rhone, viz: the Col de Balme, and the Tête Noire. The latter is distinguished for its awful wildness and grandeur. The narrow path barely affords room for mules, between steep rocky heights and frightful precipices, each of some thousand feet. Rushing streams of snow-water from the glaciers, cascades from the rocks, remains of avalanches, and overhanging cliffs abound on every side. Our cavalcade consisted of twenty-one mules, and six guides on foot. A great many travel here entirely on foot, equipped in a frock of brown linen, with belt, knapsack, a flask of kirschwasser, and a six-foot pike-staff; and this is much the best way to explore the country leisurely.

Our speed on mules was not great; for we were all this day going twenty miles. At six P. M., we came to the last descent, from whence was spread out before us the large and magnificent valley of the Rhone, dotted with villages, of which Martigny and Sion are the principal; and traversed by the river Rhone, and by Napoleon's great Simplon road, which may be seen for twelve miles, its course being as straight as an arrow, through highly cultivated fields and vineyards.

Martigny is the stopping place for tourists to Italy by the Simplon; and here I was to decide whether I would venture. There was the brilliant vision of Italy!—a name which called up my most ambitious youthful dreams; and I was now separated from it but by a day's journey. But alas! there were the cholera, and the fifteen days quarantine at almost every town; and I was alone, unknown to any mortal there, and to the language itself. Then a thousand dangers and vexations rose up before me; and yet, when the last ten minutes for decision came, 'I screwed my courage to the sticking point,' and resolved—to go. My baggage was sent over, my seat taken in the diligence for Milan; but my cane, which I had left at the inn, prevented my seeing Italy! In returning for it, I met a person who had come here for the same object, learned that it was impracticable, and soon persuaded me to give it up; so, with the consoling reflection that I might still go to Naples in November, I changed my course, hired a mule, and soon overtook the party who had set off for the convent on the Great St. Bernard.

Hospice de Saint Bernard, August 25, 1836.—I am now writing before a blazing fire, in the dining-room of the convent, eleven thousand feet above the Mediterranean; and a company of about thirty fellow-pilgrims, English, Scotch, French, German, Austrian,[340] Russian, and American, are exercising their native tongues around me.

The distance to the Convent from Martigny, the nearest resting village, is twenty-seven miles, nine miles of it being the steep ascent of the mountain; of course it takes a long day to achieve it. When Napoleon made the celebrated passage of the St. Bernard, with the army of reserve in 1804, just before the battle of Marengo, the path was much worse than it is now, and the idea of transporting heavy ordnance, etc., for an army of sixty thousand, over a mountain which even now the sure-footed mules must tread with great caution, was considered madness. But Napoleon and Hannibal were not easily discouraged, neither were the heroic ladies of our little caravan, who were content to earn their supper and lodging in these upper regions, by two days' hard work of climbing and descending.

We did not achieve the victory without bloodshed. Two of the ladies were thrown violently from their mules, and one of the animals took it into his head to stop short in the midst of a pretty strong thunder-shower; and I had a nice chance of earning a reputation for gallantry, by pushing boldly forward, and returning with another mule for the hapless dame.

We all at last arrived, however, without broken limbs, plentifully drenched by the shower, and well able to appreciate the hospitality of the monks. They provided changes of raiment for those who brought none, piled the wood liberally on the fire, and soon spread the table as liberally with an excellent supper. The ladies and their attending squires supped by themselves, two of the most intelligent of the brothers officiating, and dispensing bon café and bon mots, while the supernumerary men-kind were entertained in another room by the other monks, headed by the Superior.

This famous convent is a very plain, large wooden building, which at a distance you would take for a barn, situated far above the regions of vegetation, and several miles from the nearest habitation. It is partly supported by the governments of Sardinia and Switzerland, for the purpose of relieving travellers over the mountain; for without it, the pass would scarcely be passed at all. The monks appear to be plain, sensible, and intelligent men, without that austerity usually associated with that order. They freely receive all who come here, either for curiosity or necessity, without charge; but visitors contribute whatever they please to the box in the chapel. They turned out their famous dogs for our amusement; in the winter, they are used for more important purposes. They are not so large as I expected, but they are really noble animals. Many a weary traveller have they rescued from death in the snow.

Some of the monks are the same who were here when Napoleon's army came over, and they have a picture of his arrival at the convent, in the little museum of antiquities. In the hall, is a tablet with this inscription:

'Napoleoni primo Francorum Imperatori
Semper Augusti Republica Valesianæ
Restaurotori Semper Optimo Ægyptiano
Vis Italico, Semper Invicto in Monte
Iovis et Sempronii Semper Memorando
Republica Valesia Grata, ii. Dec. Anni MDCCCIV.'

We were nearly all early to bed, and those who lingered, were packed off by the monks at ten, according to rule. We were roused before sunrise by the lusty ringing of the chapel bell for matins, which were zealously kept up for two or three hours; but I was heretic enough to abscond, for the purpose of climbing the peak behind the convent, from which I could look down on the side of the mountain toward Italy:

THE BLIGHTED FLOWER.

If I could weep with customary wo,
I, that have seen the good
Borne on the rending flood,
And mark'd the thing most loved the first to go;

I that have seen the beautiful, the cherish'd,
The earliest to depart;
'Twould bring unto my heart
A pang like that I've felt when dearer things have perish'd.

To see thee now, so innocent and sweet,
Bud of the breathing morn,
From life's young bosom torn,
Doom'd, in thy properest bloom, the sudden stroke to meet;

And, with an idle interest, I had prayed
The doom for sterner heads,
And colder climes and beds,
Such as may better meet the tempest and the shade.

Yet could such prayer avail, and the stern doom
But spare this sweetest flower,
The blight would lose its power,
For in this blessed safety all would bloom.

A mortal hand had never snapp'd its stem,
Nor with an eye to mark,
Its white amid the dark,
Have trampled down to dust so rich a gem.

Its doom, to us so dread, was writ on high,
Where glories richer yet,
In brighter circles set,
Make it of little count when such as this must die.

Though to thyself no loss—thy loss to know—
How much was thy delight,
How lovely to the sight,
Might make the fate go weep that dooms thee so.

FATAL BALLOON ADVENTURE.

Probably since the melancholy result of Madame Blanchard's ascent in a balloon, in France, no circumstance connected with these aërial ships has created a more general and intense excitement, than the awful termination of a recent adventure in the air by a Mr. Cocking, of the metropolis. The London daily journals, and indeed periodicals of every class, are rife with the thrilling particulars of the catastrophe. We gladly avail ourselves of the kind courtesy of the Editor of the 'Albion,' to lay them, in a condensed form, before our readers, accompanied with two engravings, explanatory of the dreadful event. It should be premised, that the balloon is the same in which the distinguished aëronaut, Mr. Green, accompanied by two or three English gentleman, made the well-known night-ascension and journey, which terminated at day-break the next morning in a German province, several hundred miles from London.

The present ascent was made from Vauxhall Gardens, London, in the presence of an immense concourse of people. The parachute was the invention of the unfortunate man, whose coffin it finally proved, and was of a novel construction, being in the form of an umbrella reversed, the cavity containing the air being turned uppermost, to prevent disastrous oscillation. It was constructed of fine Irish linen, and was one hundred and seven feet in circumference. A car of wicker-work was suspended to it, in which sat the ill-fated victim, expressing confidence of success, but evincing, by restless looks and a nervous manner, that it was a confidence which he did not feel. Prior to the parachute being attached to the balloon, Mr. Green caused a trial to be made with the view of ascertaining whether the buoyancy of the latter was sufficient to carry up the former with safety. The result of this trial, (after some arrangements with respect to the ballast, of which he was compelled to give out six hundred pounds, had been effected,) was satisfactory. The abandonment of this large quantity of ballast he found to be absolutely requisite, in order with safety to commence the ascent. The balloon was then allowed gently to rise a sufficient height to be conveyed over the parachute; and 'at twenty minutes before eight o'clock, every thing being in readiness and the parachute attached to the car of the balloon, the ascent took place. Nothing could be more majestic. The weight and great extent of the parachute apparently rendered the motion of the balloon more steady than on any former ascent, and the almost total absence of wind assisted in keeping the balloon in a perfectly perpendicular position. There was not the slightest oscillation; the balloon and parachute sailed through the air with a grandeur that exceeded any thing of the kind ever before witnessed, and continued in sight for about ten minutes. A good deal of ballast was discharged almost immediately over the inclosure, after which the huge machine rose rapidly, but not so suddenly as to break the even current of its course,' and was soon lost in the clouds.

The subjoined engraving represents the ascent of the balloon, with the parachute attached:

The account given by Mr. Green, of the voyage, is one of intense interest; and we regret that our space compels us to abridge it of many exciting particulars. Mr. Cocking had desired to reach an elevation of one mile and a quarter, before detaching himself from the balloon, and commencing his descent. At first, the upward progress was slow, and it became necessary to discharge several pounds of ballast through a tube, constructed for the purpose, leading from the balloon over the outer edge of the parachute. The lower end of this tube subsequently became detached, by the swinging to and fro of the parachute, and the ballast was thrown over in small bags, not without danger to the people on terra firma. The balloon soon entered a tier of clouds, and the aëronauts were lost to the earth, though still some three thousand feet lower than the desired elevation of Mr. Cocking, who now manifested much anxiety, frequently requesting of the 'upper house' to know when every addition of five hundred feet had been attained.

When at the height of about five thousand feet, and in a range with Greenwich, the intrepid occupant of the parachute, fearing that he would be unable to reach the earth until after dark, said to his companions in the balloon above him, 'I shall soon leave you,' adding, that the practical trial, thus far, had borne out the sanguine calculations he had made, and that he never felt more comfortable or delighted in his life, at the same time bidding Mr. Green and his companion 'good night,' who returned the courtesy, with hearty good wishes for his safe descent. A sudden jerk ensued, the parachute was liberated, and the balloon instantly shot upward with the velocity of a sky-rocket, while the gas, rushing in torrents from the lower valve by reason of the pressure of the dense atmosphere upon the top of the balloon, nearly suffocated the aëronauts, and rendered them totally blind for four or five minutes. But for a bag, containing fifty gallons of atmospheric air, into which were inserted tubes from which they breathed it, both Mr. Green and his companion must inevitably have perished. So soon as the thermometer could be examined, it was ascertained that they were above four miles and a quarter from the earth! Yet even this was nothing like their greatest altitude, since they were now effecting a rapid descent. A wise precaution in enlarging the lower valve, alone prevented the bursting of the balloon, from the great pressure of the atmosphere. The aëronauts suffered severely from the cold, the thermometer indicating twenty-four degrees below the freezing point. 'We were at this period,' says Mr. Green, 'apparently about two miles and a half above a dense mountain of clouds, which presented the appearance of impenetrable masses of dark marble, while all around us was shed the brilliant rays of the setting sun. We continued to descend with great rapidity, and as we approached the clouds, that velocity considerably increased. At this time, so large had been our loss of gas, that the balloon, instead of presenting to our sight its customary rotund and widely-expanded form, now merely looked like a comparatively small parachute, or half-dome, without any aperture in its centre. We parted with at least one-third of our gas, and were as far beneath the balloon itself as fifty or sixty feet.'

Apprehensive of difficulty in ascertaining the nature of the ground toward which they were descending, from the darkness below them,[345] (though blessed, in their position, with a magnificent light,) they hastened their progress, and landed in safety a few miles from Maidstone, and twenty-eight from London; having been in the air one hour and twenty minutes. But let us return to the unfortunate man who had reached the earth before them.

The annexed engraving exhibits the parachute in the three stages of the descent: first, immediately after the separation from the car; next, at the time when the collapse took place from the weight and pressure of the external atmosphere; and, lastly, when it approached near to the ground:

After being detached from the balloon, it would appear that the machine immediately lost its shape, by the breaking of the rim which surrounded it, which was feebly constructed of tin. It was the opinion of all the scientific gentlemen who testified at the coroner's inquest, that the parachute was of insufficient strength, and greatly inefficient for the purpose it was intended to serve. Prof. Airey, Astronomer Royal of Greenwich, who saw it from the beginning, through a telescope of a twelve-times magnifying power, states, that after leaving the balloon, 'he was quite sure that it did not retain its shape for more than four seconds, for he put his eye instantly to the glass, and found it in a collapsed state. He was convinced there had been no turning over. Had it been turned over, the basket would have been displaced. He observed the sides of the parachute flickering backward and forward. His opinion as to the efficacy of the construction was, there was not sufficient account taken in such construction as to unavoidable disturbances, and the tendency of the air was to force it in at the side, and the pressure of the air would, in case of its getting out of shape, only aggravate the evil, and the experiment must fail. This must therefore be considered as a construction quite wrong, and he should have thought that a person with common sagacity might have been aware of this. With regard also to the tin tube, of which the circular ring was formed, it was hollow throughout, it was without stops, which would have strengthened it, and consequently as bad a thing as could have been used. Had stops been introduced, it would have saved it from a great deal of the tremor to which the pressure of the atmosphere exposed it. Had the weight been a little greater in the top, it would probably have come down side-ways, and turned upside down. In this respect, it was very badly constructed, and very inferior in many respects to parachutes of the old construction.'

In answer to a question from a juror, whether his opinion agreed with that of Mr. Green, that, having resisted the force of the atmosphere, it was safe to come down with the parachute, Prof. Airey replied, that he believed the very reverse; since the 'air, by pressing upon the canvass, would keep the ring of tin to which he had alluded expanded, but the force of the air under, would have the effect of bending it, and thus allowing the parachute to collapse.'

Mr. Green stated, 'that throughout the whole of the voyage, up to the moment he released himself from the balloon, Mr. Cocking displayed the greatest courage and fortitude; and the expression of his features, and the light and joyous, although earnest way, in which he made his inquiries, and conversed with him, manifested his great satisfaction that at length a theory, to which he had devoted the last twenty-five years of his life, was about to be triumphantly put to the test.' But it was a fatal test. He fell to the ground at Lee, several miles from London, and when discovered, and extricated from the car, (which was a confused heap, covering the mangled body of its ill-fated occupant, with all its ribs and tubes broken into fragments,) he but slightly moved his hand, groaned, and expired. Some idea of the dreadful death which befell him, may be gathered from the dry and technical description given of the appearance of the body, by the surgeon who was called to examine it: 'On the right side, the[347] second, third, fourth, and fifth ribs were broken, near their junction with their cartilages; the second, fourth, fifth, and sixth broken also near their junction with the vertebræ; the second, fourth, fifth, and sixth ribs broken at their greatest convexity. On the left side, the second, third, fourth, and sixth ribs broken near their cartilages, and also near their angles. The clavicle on the right side fractured at the juncture of the external with the middle third; the second lumbar vertebræ fractured through its body, the tranverse of several of the lumbar vertebræ broken, commutated fracture and separation of the bones of the pelvis, the right ancle dislocated inward, the astragalus and os calcis fractured, the viscera of the head, chest, and abdomen, free from any morbid appearances.'

RETROSPECTION

LITERARY NOTICES.

With many defects, incident to a first attempt at fictious narration, these volumes exhibit undeniable talent, and still more promise. They have been written, it seems, in haste; though this excuse would be hardly valid, save in consideration of the fact, that the young author, momentarily expecting to be ordered to sea, was hence compelled to hasten their publication. The common faults of a first production, it must be admitted, are sufficiently apparent; among the more prominent of which, may be mentioned the want of a natural order of progression, the liberal introduction of matters not correlative to the story proper, and an occasional carelessness of language. But these blemishes are well atoned for, by a general freedom of delineation, both of character and events, so easy and natural, that it often requires no stretch of the imagination to fancy the volumes actually alive, and talking with the reader. All who have read 'Jack Marlinspike's Yarn,' heretofore published in these pages, and introduced episodically in the work before us, will not need to be told, that our author has an unvarnished way of delivering his sentiments, whatever they may be, through his various characters; and this, in our judgment, constitutes an agreeable feature of the work. We had rather encounter occasional nervous inelegance of expression, and even a slight assault and battery upon Priscian, now and then, than the affectation of big words and fustian phrases, or the precise and prime sententiousness which many of our modern authors so much affect. We shall not attempt to trace the involutions and denouément of the story, since we lack both time and space for the purpose, and moreover, are unwilling to rob the labors of a new candidate for public favor of the strong interest of curiosity; but shall endeavor to present a sort of running commentary upon the principal features of the work.

We like our author better afloat than on shore. He is at home on the ocean; and some of his ship-board pictures strongly remind us of the kindred sketches of Cooper and Marryat, or Leggett, who is in no respect behind either in the power of graphic description. We subjoin an elaborate etching, which will exemplify the justice of our praise:

This is but a fair example of many spirited descriptions to be found in the work; nor is the lively, though sometimes rather confused, dialogue unworthy of laud; excepting always the forced colloquies of Handsaw and Ramrod, two eminent bores, and unmitigated draw-backs, whom all the bad spelling in the world would fail to render entertaining. Much as the reader must condemn the tyrant Stanley, and little as he may think of his opinions, he will be inclined to agree with him on one point, namely, that Handsaw's ever-active 'propensity to talk about his wife,' renders him ridiculous, and in reality 'a source of uneasiness' as aggravating to the reader as it must have been to the hearer. With these exceptions, the sailor-dialogue is extempore and natural. Nothing can be finer than the description of the mutiny on board the Ganymede, the burning of the merchantman at sea, and the escape of the 'Scourge' from a labyrinth of pursuers, by a bold but politic and adroit manœuvre. If the reader, however, while perusing the account of the escape of Everett from New-York, his first introduction to the family of General Adair, and his meeting the heroine with her father, at sea, should pause to ask himself how all this happened to occur so opportunely, he might be led to think that in all this the possible was taking precedence of the probable. Happily, such is the interest awakened, that he has no disposition to propound queries, but is tempted to 'keep due on,' until he has gained the end of the book.

We are sorry to perceive that the volumes are marred by an occasional grammatical error, ('laying down the musket, he done as much justice,' etc., and kindred lapsus pennæ,) and by not infrequent typographical blunders, which should be looked to, in a second edition, should it be called for.

To sum up, we consider the 'Scourge of the Ocean' a very clever performance, for a first and hurried effort; open, indeed, to many minor objections, but exhibiting much talent, and more promise; and as such, we commend it to our readers.

Whatever may be said of this work, no one will pretend to deny that it is well and vigorously written, and that it possesses more than common interest. The volumes are presented, we should infer, pretty much as composed, 'in their naturals.' They are full of slight descriptive sketches, comments, and brief arguments, upon conventional, moral, social, and political topics; insomuch, that the reader is compelled to believe, that the author 'could an' if he would, or if he list to speak,' easily furnish a portable volume, embracing all things that are to be known, or believed, or practised, by the world at large, and gentlemen-republicans in particular. As for the English, heaven help them! they will here find some of the pegs let down that make their national music; and will learn that there is at least one American writer, who 'does na care a button for 'em,' and who has not hesitated to pick holes in the weak sides of their governmental, religious, and social edifices. Mr. Cooper is certainly no flatterer. He is in no awe of bishops, whom he meets in society, 'with wigs that set at naught both nature and art, and little silk petticoats called stoles;' he cares not for the clergy, however high they may stand, who fight duels; nor is he carried away with 'the first body of gentleman in the world,' the British Parliament. He is led to doubt a little, when he sees a speaker half drunk, and at the same moment, six members with one foot on the back of the seats before them, and three with both; he does not recognise the justice of this laud, when he hears one member, in debate, for the purpose of interrupting an opponent, crowing like a cock, another bleating like a sheep, and numbers making a very pretty uproar, by qua-a-cking, like a flock of ducks. Our author would not succeed as a courtier; for one who declares that the king is an ignoramus, and cannot write intelligible English, is too plain-spoken, ever to be on the high road to preferment.

Mr. Cooper is not less unmincing in his consideration of, and remarks upon, things, than he is in relation to usages and men. He says the houses in New-York and Boston are generally better furnished, (though not so profusely,) than those of the English; that New-York is a better town for eating and drinking, than London; and, save that our tables are invariably too narrow, they are better served with porcelain, glass, cutlery, and table-linen, than are those of our British metropolitan neighbors. He is in no extacies at Westminster Abbey, nor the Tower; he condemns the pinched and mean towers of the former, and considers the latter quite inferior to the donjon at Vincennes, or the Tower of Paris. Half the brilliants here exhibited in the crown, he has no doubt, are paste! Windsor he thinks far beneath Versailles, and hardly worthy the name of a palace, greatly lacking magnificence, although not without a certain pleasing quaintness and picturesque beauty; yet exhibiting in the state apartments, which are far inferior to the French, 'such vulgarisms as silver' andirons, and other puerilities.' The London bridges are out of proportion, too heavy for the stream they span, and quite unnecessarily solid. Moreover, American women, in all except the shoulders and bust, possess more beauty than the English women, and their complexion and features will better bear a close examination; while our men, too, he believes, are taller than the mass in England, English travellers to the contrary notwithstanding.

In his pungent remarks upon society and manners in England, Mr. Cooper seems to have been impelled, by considerations mainly personal, to praise or condemn. And we cannot resist the impression, that he is himself, with all his amor patriæ, a marked exception to the mass of Americans, who, he says, 'care no more for a lord than for a wood-chuck.' Titled personages are lugged in, on almost every page of his[351] work. Lord This, Lord That, and Lord T'other, are as plenty as blackberries; and not an earl or a duke, who can by any possibility be alluded to, but is compelled to do duty in confirming the somewhat questionable hypothesis, that 'a man is always known by the company he keeps;' and if there be a chance to establish a remote connection between any member of the writer's family, and the 'nobility or gentry,' the opportunity is eagerly embraced, no matter how awkward the modus operandi. This penchant is in miserable taste; and we venture to say, will counterbalance, by way of example, whole pages of most unexceptionable precept.

Our author dwells continually upon the assumption, that the English hate the Americans with a perfect hatred. He says this spirit mingles with every thought, colors every concession, and even tempers the charities of life. He saw a thousand proofs of it himself; and it was so well known to another American, that he blushed when the land of his birth was mentioned before Englishmen! Now we very much question whether this feeling prevails in England to any thing like the depth or extent imagined by Mr. Cooper. Would Washington Irving, in whose character there is a happy conjunction of civility, freedom, ease, and sincerity, and who has had ample opportunities of inspecting beyond the surface and rind of things, support these declarations? We think not. Doubtless Mr. Cooper in London, as in Paris, was not without the idea that the American republic was represented in his own person. Such certainly appears to have been his impressions, if one may judge from his deductions from any real or imaginary slight or discourtesy which may have crossed him in society. He is ever on the rack, lest his pretensions should be overlooked. He instantly resents what he deems indifference, and yet seems to be suspicious of any one who is particularly civil, without some apparent reason. Mr. Cooper's claims, as a gentleman of good manners, cannot be very exalted, if it be true, as we believe it is, that he is the best bred man who makes the fewest persons uneasy in society; and we conceive the offensive observation, which sent 'head to head, beyond the salt,' and caused the host to declare 'It is too bad,' as both pertinent and impertinent, and as sufficient proof of the correctness of our position, even if there were not ample kindred testimony. Personal concession is a prominent part of real politeness, and springs from a courteous spirit, and a generous nature; and no one possessing these qualities would cavil at a gentleman who should, without at all incommoding him, look at the same public print, on the wall-file of a reading-room, or enlarge unduly upon a slight, and probably wholly unintentional, infraction of etiquette toward him.

We agree with Mr. Cooper, entirely, in very many of his views in relation to the society and manners of England and America. The ridiculous affectation of simplicity, the heartlessness and the flippancy of the English, whom he met in society, are defects which lay them bare to the lash, and the lash has been well laid on. This putting a rein upon the lungs, and drilling of muscles to order, for mere fashion's sake, is a legitimate theme for satire; and we are glad to see, by the squirming of the malevoli among the English critics, who are nibbling away at the excrescences of the work, that our author's random shots have 'told' well. Mr. Cooper is equally just and felicitous in many of his comments upon American society. The mere tyranny of public opinion he sets forth in its true light. He very justly, too, repudiates the influence of those among us, whose narrow souls never moved in a wider circle than the circumference of a dollar, and who carry their brains in their pockets; and he ridicules, with proper motives and good grounds, the American propensity to use 'great swelling words' to express the commonest ideas, or merest matters of fact, which he illustrates by a characteristic anecdote. A rail-car companion, at Bordentown, who wished to say, 'They have laid the foundations of a large building here,' oracularly observed, instead: 'Judging from external symptoms, they have commenced the construction, in this place, of an edifice of considerable magnitude, calculated,[352] most likely, to facilitate the objects of the rail-road company!' This lingual magniloquence is proverbial of American parvenus. Some months since, just as that sweet singer, Mrs. Austin, was leaving New-York in the steam-boat for a Liverpool packet, lying in the stream, some inflated personage called out: 'It is proposed to pay a parting tribute to the distinguished vocalist who has, by her fine powers of music, so long delighted our citizens, and who is now about to depart from us!' 'Three cheers for Mrs. Austin!' would have been understood, and heartily responded to; but this rigmarole only induced a sort of bastard applause, which fell feebly on the ear, and sent its prompter away, covered with confusion.

Our author's repeated sneers at the public press, and literary men, coming from one who is a writer by profession, and sucks his sustenance through a quill, is in exceeding bad taste; and his allusion to New-England editors, constitutes a characteristic specimen of aimless spite, which is quite beneath a person of his standing as an author. Some one native of New-England, obnoxious, from some cause, to Mr. Cooper, is undoubtedly at the bottom of this sweeping allusion. Had we that honor, or had we leisure, we should be glad to show who are the men whom Mr. Cooper would thus traduce, en masse.

We have imperceptibly extended our remarks beyond reasonable limits; and must close, for the present, by recommending their subject to the perusal of our readers, satisfied that, amid much to condemn, they will find a great deal to admire; and well assured, that none will deem their time misspent in the perusal.

'These poems are the results of my leisure at college, and published for experiment. If the public find any thing worth reading in them, they may be followed by another volume.' Such is the sensible and sententious preface to this very beautiful little book, which we have read with much gratification. The preface itself, so often a medium for childish extenuation, forced egotism, or the long-winded dissertations of those adepts in the art of being deep-learned and shallow-read, who are ambitious of 'showing off,' led us to anticipate something more than mere respectable mediocrity at the hands of the author; and we have by no means been disappointed. As might be expected, we find in this little work no affected phrases, nor new-conceited words. The young writer has evidently chosen the best models; and the good taste which generally characterizes his productions, evinces that he possesses, to a great degree, the ability to separate beauty of thought and style from the corruption which apes it. He is a quiet but acute observer of nature; his ever-veering spirit catches naturally its sunlight and shadow; and he has the power often to clothe the heart of the reader with the changeful vesture which robes his own. In the blank verse, we sometimes detect examples of false rhythm, and inharmonious words now and then mar the construction of an otherwise well-turned poetical sentence. These faults, however, are amply counterbalanced by abounding graces of language and diction, and by a pervading spirit of pure feeling, and moral and religious sentiment. We had prepared for insertion an extract from a poem entitled 'Other Days,' with one or two passages from 'A Forest Noon-Scene;' and although in type, for the intended gratification of the reader, we are compelled to postpone their publication until the November number. We repeat, we welcome this little volume with unaffected pleasure, and commend it to the reader's favorable suffrages.

EDITORS' TABLE.

'Bianca Visconti: or the Heart Overtasked.'—A successful tragedy, at the present day, is an event too rare to be passed over with indifference. The modern stage has been poverty-stricken so long, that it welcomes every thing in the shape of its natural food; although it is constantly reminded of its too credulous judgment, in the repeated nausea which it suffers from the flatulent and unsubstantial trash which its starved condition urges it to attempt to swallow. The American drama, if indeed we have any claim to such a possession, is such as may reasonably be expected, more lean and wretched than the drama of any of the more cultivated nations. But we have no national drama, as yet, although we think the corner-stone of its structure has been laid, and that there is bright promise of a noble edifice, in the aspiring efforts of the many able writers whom a few years have brought to light, as well as in the encouragement which the taste of the American people seems inclined to afford to this branch of literature.

The tragedy now before us, is the first dramatic effort of a pen whose easy and finished tracings have made its master, even in the spring-time of his life, well known to fame. A mere experiment, in this most difficult department of literature, is worthy of praise. Whoever has considered the difficulties attendant upon the production of a play, of any class of the drama, would shrink from the task of bringing an original tragedy before the public, unless urged on by that firm confidence which genius gives to its possessor, and upheld through all by the hope of that ample reward which must attend the successful dramatist. Scott, in his letters to a theatrical friend in London, often adverts to the restraining of taste which the purveying for conceited or interested actors and actresses demands at the hands of a dramatic author, whose success is at their mercy, not less than at that of those of the audience who come to the theatre with palled animal and spiritual appetites, to 'snooze off their dinners and wine.' An expressionless 'oratorial machine,' high in the 'supe' department, whose delivery of the commonest matter of fact is Stentorian and Ciceronian, may have it in his power, by ludicrous mal addresse, to mar the best acting play, and to render ridiculous the most refined poetry; while a higher order of Thespian, by slumbering over a level part, in a villanously indifferent manner, inadmissible as acting, may jeopardize an entire drama. But to return to 'Bianca Visconti.'

Mr. Willis has bravely accomplished his task; and without the slightest thought of depreciating the efforts of others of our countrymen who have written for the stage, we must honestly declare, that his work deserves the place of honor above them all. 'Bianca Visconti,' if considered merely as a dramatic poem, is replete with enduring beauties of poetry. Considered as a tragedy, it has many of the essential qualities of an acting play; not all, perhaps, in their highest perfection, but sufficiently marked, to convince the most fastidious of the power which the writer possesses, and of a certain promise of future efforts more decidedly faultless. The story of Bianca Visconti is well told. Although it proceeds without the aid of any extraordinary incidents, yet an interest is awakened, continued, and increased to the catastrophe. The characters are naturally drawn, and they have the especial merit of possessing in themselves an[354] individuality—a form of their own, defined and marked out; and not, as is too often the case in modern dramas, made with the sole quality of filling up the space not occupied by the principal character. In other words, they have a merit in themselves, detached from the heroine, and are only subservient to the natural progress of the drama.

There is hardly incident enough in the first three acts, to keep up that melo-dramatic influence which the artificial appetite of the present day delights in. The author seems to have scorned the clap-trap which has become the chief merit of many modern playwrights. In this we think he has done wisely, on more accounts than one. In the first place, clap-trap is dangerous. We have seen an audience 'bathed in stillness,' the pulse of a crowded theatre beating like that of one man, convulsed by some blundering misconception of a forced dramatic point, into roars of laughter, though the play were a deep tragedy. We have seen the devil, in 'Faust,' by reason of a 'solution of continuity' in the waist-band of his diabolical unmentionables, make a palpable hit on the stage, dropping unexpectedly from an upward distance of some twelve feet, with the emphasis of 'a squashed apple-dumpling.' We have seen the cauldron in Macbeth, through some defect in the subterranean witch-craft, return, after its disappearance, before the eyes of an enrapt auditory, with the greasy hats and dirty coats of the prime movers exposed to the general eye. In short, we have seen enough to convince us, that profuse clap-trick, whether of language or scenic addittaments, although it may make the million stare or applaud, seldom fails to 'make the judicious grieve.'

The character of Bianca Visconti is drawn with marked power. She is truly a fond, doting, enthusiastic lover; a woman who devotes her present and eternal peace to love, and breaks her heart in the unrequited sacrifice. Hers is an enthusiasm which all must admire, and still regret, in pity. Sforza is a bold, not heartless, but ambitious hero. His love for Bianca is concealed beneath the grand passion of his soul. It is shut out for a time, only to burst forth at last with dazzling but hopeless splendor. The quaint Pasquali, the courtly poet and the philosophic lover, is a creation worthy the pen of a Knowles. He is to this tragedy what Fathom is to the 'Hunchback;' a bright gleam of sunshine ever and anon breaking through the darkness of the rising storm, in striking contrast to the gloom of the gathering clouds. His admirer, Fiametta, although not an apt scholar in the mazes of poetry and philosophy, is, like the Audrey of 'As You Like it,' most willing to learn, and ambitious to share in the laurelled honors of her sage teacher.

As a literary composition, 'Bianca Visconti' abounds with beauties. The images are clear, and radiant with poetical and delicate imaginings; and there are occasionally those fine bursts of feeling, which seem to come fresh from the soul, and to raise up a kindred sentiment, with their spirit-stirring words, in the souls of all who listen. What, for example, can be more like the picture of the bright thoughts of a young, enthusiastic girl, than Bianca's rapturous anticipation of a life of love:

'Oh, I'll build
A home upon some green and flowery isle
In the lone lakes, where we will use our empire
Only to keep away the gazing world.
The purple mountains and the glassy waters
Shall make a hush'd pavilion with the sky,
And we two in its midst will live alone,
Counting the hours by stars and waking birds,
And jealous but of sleep!'

Or what more glorious to the fancy that would clothe the delicacy of the female character in the gorgeous robes of heroic majesty, than Sforza's description of the fair Giovanna:

'Gods! what a light enveloped her! She left
Little to shine in history; but her beauty
Was of that order, that the universe
Seemed governed by her motion. Men look'd on her
As if her next step would arrest the world;
[355] And as the sea-bird seems to rule the wave
He rides so buoyantly, all things around her—
The glittering army, the spread gonfalon,
The pomp, the music, the bright sun in heaven—
Seemed glorious by her leave!'

Bianca's picture of the two Sforzas, though often quoted, is too beautiful and striking to be here omitted:

'Mark the moral, Sir:
An eagle once, from the Euganean hills,
Soared bravely to the sky.
In his giddy track,
Scarce marked by them who gazed upon the first,
Followed a new-fledged eaglet, fast and well.
Upward they sped, and all eyes on their flight
Gazed with admiring awe: when suddenly
The parent bird, struck by a thunder-bolt,
Dropped lifeless through the air. The eaglet paused
And hung upon his wings; and as his sire
Plashed in the far-down wave, men look'd to see him
Flee to his nest affrighted!

Sforza.'Did he so?'

Bianca. 'My noble lord, he had a monarch's heart!
He wheeled a moment in mid air, and shook
Proudly his royal wings, and then right on,
With crest uplifted, and unwavering flight,
Sped to the sun's eye, straight and gloriously!'

There is a fine opportunity for the display of the power of the actress, in the scene where news is brought to Bianca of her father's death. The struggle between the joy which this event produces, by giving a chance of the coronet to her husband, and the sorrow which affection for her parent should cause, one acting against the other, present a scene which calls for the highest powers of the histrionic art to portray faithfully; and it is but just to say, that Miss Clifton did it justice. There is a great deal of quaint humor, and many truths wittily delivered, in the part of Pasquali. His exposition of the true meaning of the word imagination, to the homely understanding of his pupil, is as ingenious as true. One of Goldsmith's characters, if we do not mistake, reasons not unlike the Milanese bard, upon the same or a similar theme:

The tragedy was well received, and attracted large audiences; and its success has satisfied us, that were the author to essay another attempt, with the additional knowledge of stage effect which the production and presentation of the present effort must have given him, he could scarcely fail of acquiring a high rank as a dramatist. The vein which has been opened, cannot have been exhausted at one running, as we hope yet to see made manifest.

'The Times that tried Men's Souls.'—'Advance, ye future generations! We would hail you, as you rise in your long succession, to fill the places which we now fill, and to taste the blessings of existence, where we are passing, and soon shall have passed, our own human duration!' Such appeared to be the sentiment of a benevolent-looking revolutionary veteran, the well-known Mr. Allaire, of this city, as he sat upon the deck of the Charleston and New-York Steam-Packet 'Neptune,' on the occasion of her recent launch, and surveyed the faces of the gay and light-hearted group around him. As the noble craft glided gracefully and almost imperceptibly into the water, and shot far over toward the Brooklyn shore, the 'old man eloquent' remarked: 'Well, I remember Brooklyn, when there were but eight houses in it. Now look at it!' added he, with a gesture of pride, that he had lived to see its present prosperity. 'And New-York, too,' he continued, 'I remember New-York when there was not a house above the hospital. I recollect, when they were digging down Catharine-street, how they disinterred the feet of the Hessians, in the side-banks, where they had been hastily buried, many years before. I read the Declaration of Independence,' continued the venerable patriot, 'for the first time, at a sudden and enthusiastic gathering at Tarrytown, before three thousand people. I heard the shouts of applause from the true American spirits, and saw the tories open their mouths, and pretend to hurrah, yet no voice came from their false lips. But they were forced, in such an assemblage, to make a demonstration, to avoid suspicion.' And thus the old veteran went on, a true exemplification of 'garrulous eld.'

At the sumptuous entertainment which succeeded, at the residence of that true sailor and accomplished gentleman, Capt. Pennoyer, commander of the 'Neptune,' we could not take our eyes from the aged soldier of the revolution, who occupied a place of honor, nor cease to think of the changes which he had seen in his day and generation. He lived through 'the times that tried men's souls,' and which gave birth to the freedom of our noble republic. We could look at the picture in the glowing light of the present, and the gorgeous hues that robe the future; but, to adopt the beautiful thought of Scott, he could turn the tapestry, and see the blood-stained warp and woof which bore the ground colors, and composed the prominent objects.

While upon the subject of revolutionary times, it will not be inappropriate to introduce here two letters of General Washington, which have never before been published. They were recently copied by the junior publisher of this Magazine, from the originals in the possession of his grandfather, to whom they were addressed. This gentleman was President of a Massachusetts 'Council of Safety,' and was high in the esteem and confidence of the Pater Patria. Nothing can be more characteristic than the deliberation, the close scrutiny into consequences, which these letters evince; compelled, as the writer was, to guard against the cavils of the disaffected or the envious, who had neither candor to suppose good meanings, nor discernment to distinguish true ones, in the announcement of his projects:

Mark the just policy and far-reaching sagacity which the subjoined letter evinces, nor lose sight of the numerous difficulties and dangers which environed the writer, and threatened his plans:

We shall hereafter present an original and characteristic letter from General Warren, written the night before the battle of Bunker-Hill.

In justice to the writer of the ensuing defence, which has been in our possession since its date, it is proper to say, that we have received, from various and most reputable sources, the strongest testimony in relation to his personal character. He is represented to us as a gentleman of untiring industry and perseverance, who, often under circumstances of adversity and affliction, has labored diligently and successfully, for a long series of years, in an arduous avocation, and whose reputation for probity, and honorable and generous acts, is alike unimpeachable and undeniable. Of the merits of his works, having never examined them, we are unable to form an opinion, farther than may be gathered from the almost unexampled extent of their sale.

Gentlemen: In the June number of the Knickerbocker, I have seen an 'extract' purporting to be taken from the 'Introduction' of a yet unpublished work upon English grammar, by Goold Brown, which extract seems to be a sort of criticism levelled at me and my works, but more especially at my Grammar. Judging from the fury of this assault, one would be inclined to think, that my antagonist believed his very existence as an author depended upon his annihilation of me, and that my future popularity and success are dependant upon his opinion of me and my works! My Grammar, gentlemen, has been attacked by abler writers than Goold Brown, and has passed through the ordeal of their criticisms unscathed. It is not to be expected, therefore, that I should care a groat whether this self-constituted philological umpire likes the work or not. Indeed, I would rather he would not like it; for sure I am, that if he liked it, few others would; a clear proof of which we have, in a dull book on grammar, which he himself produced, some twelve or fifteen years ago, on a plan and in a style exactly suited to his own peculiar liking. Since then, it never entered into my scheme to write a grammar to suit the taste of my jealous rivals, but to please myself and the public. Having gained the latter point, I can very complacently bear all the futile abuse which may be heaped upon me.

I know it is mortifying for an author to fail, especially a conceited one. I admit that it is hard for him to write eleven years for nine hundred dollars,[7] even though his labors may not have been worth to the public one-half that sum. It is natural, too, for such writers, after having ascertained that nobody will purchase their bantlings, to turn philosophers, and become very disinterested, and affect to despise the idea of connecting emolument with the labors of their mighty pens. Doubtless, also, it is sufficiently provoking, and especially mortifying to a discomfitted author's vanity, to learn that the works of a much younger writer, and one upon whom he once affected to look down as his inferior, should go off by thousands, while his own precious productions are with difficulty shoved off by tens. That such an author should find nothing to praise in a work so much more popular than his own, is not at all singular; yet, when a conceited charlatan, himself a professed author, (and a pretended Quaker, withal!) so far departs from the dignity and decency of manly feeling, as to attempt, by gross misrepresentations and low trickery, [359] to destroy the hard-earned and honest fame of a more successful fellow-laborer, for purposes of private malice, a decent respect for the dignity of true criticism and the rights of authorship, no less than a proper regard for the cause of learning, requires that he should be held up to public detestation.

Had Goold Brown merely dipped his pen in gall to assail my work, so little do I regard his criticism, so great is my aversion to contention, and so thorough my contempt for mere mousing word-catching, that he might have gone on and vented his spleen unheeded; but since he has seen fit thus wantonly to assail my private character, and to impeach my motives, and since he has attempted to sustain himself in this unjustifiable attack, by misapplying my language and distorting my meaning, I conceive myself called upon to expose his duplicity and baseness. That he is utterly incapable of discovering any thing in the grammatical works of others, but faults and defects, I need not show, for the article in question saves me the trouble; but that his assault upon me savors strongly of malevolence and dishonesty, I shall presently prove. He has, nevertheless, stated some facts in relation to my Grammar, although, as it appears, quite unintentionally; and, as far as facts stated by him can have any influence with the public, they will do me good. On the other hand, he has made many statements concerning me and my works, which are not founded upon facts. Most of these, however, so clearly show the evil design of the critic, that they need no reply. As they carry with them their own antidote, I have nothing to apprehend from their poison. But some of these misstatements are more adroitly managed, and are calculated to mislead the unsuspecting reader. I allude to his charges brought against both my personal and my grammatical character, which he has attempted to support by garbling, torturing, misquoting, misconstruing, and misapplying my language, and thereby perverting my meaning. In order, therefore, that the public may be disabused on these points, I shall proceed to take them up in order.

After denouncing me as a 'bad writer,'and as wanting in 'scholarship,' and insinuating that I would 'bribe the critics and reviewers,' my liberal and pious censor all at once discovers, through his rusty spectacles, not only that I am so unprincipled as totally to disregard 'accuracy' and usefulness in authorship, but that my 'principal business is to turn my publication to profit;' that I am, in short, a real worshipper of Midas; and, in order to prove himself correct in this marvellous discovery, the honest man presents his readers with the following passage:

The injustice and roguery of this passage, it is impossible for the casual reader fully to conceive. After forming a postulate to fit his own purpose, the critic ransacks my works to garble a passage that, by contortion and misapplication, shall fit it in such a manner as to make me utter a libel against my own moral character! My pen falters while I expose the duplicity of this transaction. 'Murray simply intended to do good.' Kirkham says, 'My pretensions reach not so far.' So far as what? As to do good, of course. This is undoubtedly the meaning intended to be conveyed by the wily critic. But let us look at the meaning of the passage, when taken in its original connexion, as it stands in my Elocution. It occurs at the close of that work, in some eulogistic remarks made upon Dr. James Rush, the distinguished author of the 'Philosophy of the Human Voice.' The whole passage reads thus:

Now instead of saying in this passage that 'my pretensions reach not so far as to do good,' I simply say, that they reach not so far as those of Dr. Rush!—and the passage is so free from ambiguity as to render it impossible for my opponent to have mistaken my meaning. Mistaken it, indeed! He very well knew, when he penned this slanderous paragraph, that my professed object in writing school-books was to 'do good;' and yet he has the hardihood to hoax his readers into the belief that I openly disavow any such intention! Comment is unnecessary. And yet this is the modest man who has the effrontery to call in question the motives of him whom he traduces; to lecture him upon the principles of morality and justice; and cantingly to quote scripture at him! He intimates that I have not the moral courage to 'dare to do right.' I have the courage to dare to tell the truth.

But since my antagonist has maliciously attempted, by misquoting my language, to prove that I disavow any intention either to do good or to do right, perhaps I may be indulged in a few quotations, too, from my own works, merely with the view of presenting this matter in its proper light:

These examples are sufficient to show, at least as far as my own observations are concerned, by what motives I have been actuated in the production of my works. That these motives are more pure or patriotic than those of other men who have written upon the same subjects, I have never pretended; for I am ready to acknowledge that I am subject to the weaknesses and infirmities common to human nature. But it is evident, that what has so greatly annoyed my antagonist is not the defects, but the success, of my Grammar.

In the following passage, our critic attempts to prove me grossly inconsistent with myself:

Now, in these instances, I should be fair game, were it not for the trifling difference, that I happen to present the doctrines and notions of other writers, and was my own, as stated by my learned censor. For example; in 1823, I introduced into my Grammar, as Mr. Murray's definition, the old notion, that 'A consonant is a letter that cannot be perfectly sounded without the help of a vowel.' But in 1834, I presented in my Elocution Dr. Rush's opposite opinion, and ascribed it to him. If, therefore, I had become fully satisfied that Dr. Rush is correct, it would behoove me to alter the definition as it stands in my Grammar; but, inasmuch as I am yet undecided on this point, I have not thought proper to do so.

Again, our critic says: 'Upon his own rules he comments thus:' 'But some of these rules are foolish,' etc. Now this assertion is utterly untrue; and, if Goold Brown read the whole passage from which he quotes, as he ought to have done, he knew he was asserting what was false. The rules in question, are introduced into the notes of my Elocution as John Walker's, and not as my own; as any one may see, by referring to that work. Similar remarks are applicable to 'Rules 10 and 11,' in my Grammar, both of which are taken from Murray; and this, too, Goold Brown as well knew, when he brought this charge of inconsistency against me, as he knew that in making it, he was libelling me. Really, when a critic is driven to such crooked shifts as these to make out his case, it needs no farther evidence to prove that it is a bad one.

But the foulest calumny in this tirade of abuses and misrepresentations, is contained in the following passage, in which, after having dealt out the most illiberal strictures, and the most unsparing condemnations and denunciations, upon my Grammar, he pretends to support his calumnies, by showing me up as a perfect ignoramus in the science of grammar:

In my Grammar, the phrase 'deed or deeds' is included in a bracket, and therefore, as every one acquainted with Cobb's Spelling-Book well knows, is not intended to be read as a part of the sentence, but as an explanatory clause. The couplet stands thus, in my book:

'The evil [deed or deeds] that men do, lives after them;
The evil [deed or deeds] is oft interred with their bones.'

The casual reader of my Grammar will have observed, that I often introduce examples to be analyzed, in which an ellipsis occurs, and that I supply these elliptical words in brackets, and frequently present two or three forms or sets of words, leaving it for the pupil to adopt whichever form he pleases, though not without respect to the construction that is to follow. For example; if in the words supplied in the bracket, both a singular and a plural form occur, as in the example before us, in parsing it, the pupil may take either form or word for his nominative; but if he adopt the singular, he must also employ a singular verb to agree with it; but if the plural, a plural verb must follow. Hence it is obvious that the effect of leaving out the bracket in this passage, is totally to destroy my design, and pervert my meaning; and not merely that, but also to make me write language so grossly ungrammatical, that even a tyro, who has studied my lectures on grammar ten hours, would at once correct it. The knavery of this trick is transcended only by its meanness, and I will venture to say, is without a parallel in the annals of hypercriticism. It is so bare-faced, indeed, as to defeat its own object: and for the benefit of the gentleman who practised it upon his readers, I will quote another passage from 'the immortal bard,' 'the sentiment of which,' I hope, will sink deep into his heart, and be long remembered by him, and lead him to reform his morals and mend his manners:

'Who steals my Purse, steals trash:
'Twas mine; 'tis his; and has been slave to thousands;
But he who filches from me my good name,
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
But makes me poor indeed.'

But, excepting those founded on misquotations, and perversions of my meaning, what are the arguments wielded by this chivalrous knight of the goose-quill? In the first place, he admits that, by some means, the popularity of my work has become such, in a short time, as to create a demand for sixty thousand copies in a year; (a fact;) and yet, he denies that it possesses the least particle of merit, and denounces it as one of the 'worst' grammars ever written! Admirable logician! But what a slander is this upon the public taste! What an insult to the understanding and discrimination of the good people of these United States! What! a book have no merit, and yet be called for at the rate of sixty thousand copies a year! According to this reasoning, all the inhabitants of our land must be fools, except one man, and that man is Goold Brown! What would this disinterested 'vindicator of a greatly injured and perverted science' give, if this same foolish and gullible community would but purchase only sixteen hundred copies per annum of his own precious work upon grammar?

That Goold Brown is possessed of a degree of critical acumen sufficient to distinguish himself as a grammatical tinker, in which vocation the main business is that of adjusting and arranging words, and rasping and filing the points and hinges of sentences, I am willing to admit; and, moreover, that he is industrious in this noble employment, as well as in defaming other writers, I do not deny; but that he possesses enough of scholastic acquirement, and capaciousness and force of intellect, to grasp a new system, or originate an important improvement in science, remains for him yet to show to the world. The encomiums bestowed upon him for his industry, excite not my envy; for I firmly believe, that he will go farther in the chase of a little idea, and pursue it with more ardor, and dodge more corners to catch it, than any other living author. It would be ungenerous, therefore, to deprive him of any of the honors due to him on this score. It may be well, nevertheless, for those who laud him for his industry, to bear in mind, that his labors are commendable or otherwise, exactly in proportion to the good or ill that results from them.

That his Grammar is destitute of merit, I have never asserted; or that its faults far exceed its merits, though easily proved, it is not my present object to show. Let the history of its success (or rather want of success) tell the tale. Goold Brown has most disingenuously insinuated that the great success of my Grammar is awing wholly to extrinsic circumstances. How can this be, when[362] it has never been favored with that main-spring of a large circulation, the business efforts of an interested publisher! No publisher has ever had any thing more than a temporary interest in it, secured by a very limited contract; an interest too inconsiderable to justify any formidable efforts to extend its circulation; whereas Goold Brown's Grammar has enjoyed the advantages of being pushed by a book-seller who has secured, I am told, a permanent interest in his work. I leave the natural deduction from these facts, to be made by the reader.

Goold Brown's efforts as a writer have proved his merits to be of that order which can never command the attention of the public, nor be crowned with any considerable degree of popularity or success. In his style, he displays many of those lighter graces and excellencies which pass for cleverness with such as look more at smoothness of diction and accuracy of expression, than at force of argument, or depth and strength of thought. In his criticism of my Grammar, he has displayed as little of the manly vigor of a scholar, as of the courtesy or candor of a gentleman; and in his unjust attack upon my private character, I think I have clearly shown, that he has evinced far less of wisdom and moderation, than of malevolence and vindictiveness. If, in his eagerness to anathematize and victimize me, he has sometimes so far forgotten the dignity of the critic as to descend to scurrility and coarse language, I will charitably ascribe the fault to the heart, rather than to the head. Unenvious of the laurels he may glean in such an inglorious strife, I have not attempted to imitate him in his manners, nor to rival him in his illiberally; and therefore I have not plainly called him a knave, a liar, or a pedant: but, in the most polite and civil language that the nature of the case would admit, I have endeavored to prove that each of these terms might be justly applied to him with emphatic force.

To avoid being misunderstood, I must be permitted to say, that however much I may contemn the abuse, yet no man entertains a more profound respect for the use, of true criticism, than myself; and had my antagonist treated me with but a moderate share of decency, and one-half the liberality that candor and justice demanded, he would have received my bow, and have saved himself the present castigation. I delight not in contention. I never sought it with any one. No man can accuse me of ever having assailed a brother-author, or of having laid a straw in the path of a rival. But then, my spirit inhabits a citadel of flesh and blood, and will not brook to be bullied by a ruffian. There is a point beyond which, if forbearance be extended, it ceases to be a virtue.

Goold Brown professes to be my personal friend, and to 'rejoice at my success.' If he were sincere in this profession, he would not treat me with invective, nor garble my language to sustain his unfounded accusations against me. If he were sincere in his professions, and consistent in his opinions, he would not now condemn my Grammar, and slanderously assert that it is one of the 'worst' books of the kind ever written; for, seven years ago last autumn, he praised, and highly praised, this self-same Grammar, and declared it to be 'a good work!'[8] If he were sincere in his professions, or honest in his declarations, he would not hypocritically pretend that 'the vindication of a greatly injured and perverted science' constrained him to say what he has said concerning me and my works, when every page and paragraph of his abusive remarks clearly shows, that they flowed from a splenetic mind, mortified by disappointment, soured by neglect, embittered by defeat, and lashed up to fury by the success of a rival whom he lacked the power, but not the will, to crush.

Goold Brown knows that what little of learning and fame I have acquired, are the fruits of my own industry. Having never inherited a patrimony, nor received the favors of a guardian, they are honestly come by; and so are the emoluments I receive by way of copy-right; and he admits that I am 'liberal with my gains.' Why then does he seek to destroy me? He knows, too, that I have endured more hardship, suffered more from bodily infirmity, and drank more deeply of the cup of adversity, than most men of my age. Why then does he persecute me, and attempt to wrest from me the just meed of praise and patronage which the public are willing to bestow?

I admit that my Grammar has its defects, (and whose has not?) and that, on account of what my countrymen have been pleased to view as excellencies in it, they have been indulgent to its faults. And I repeat, that had Goold Brown pointed out any of these, though in his peculiarly censorious and dogmatical manner, I should have received his criticisms kindly; for I have always held it as a maxim, that a man can never be too well informed to be instructed, even by his enemies and his inferiors. But when a man so far degrades himself as to deal in general denunciation, and coarse invective, instead of just and manly criticism, he neither enlightens the public, nor benefits him whom he assails.

The motive of the critic in furnishing to the reviewers this particular 'extract' from a work [363] which, only 'at some future, perhaps distant day, is to be given to the public,' is too clearly shown to be mistaken. Why does he thus early put his MS. into the reviewers' hands, when the publication of his 'Great Grammar of Grammars' is to be deferred to some 'distant day?' Or, if he must needs thrust himself before the public at once, why does he herald his approach by that particular portion of his work which denounces me? The answer is obvious. Lest the whole world should be converted to the grammatical faith as it is in Kirkham, it would not do to wait for the publication of his 'Great Grammar of Grammars,' but it becomes necessary, for the double purpose of annihilating me, and of giving the public a foretaste of the choice things he has in store for them, to have this tremendous criticism appear forthwith; and, judging from the dainty morsel he has thus thrown out as a bait, a rare dish it must be! Judging from this specimen, (which of course must be one of his best, or he would not have sent it forth as a sample,) we may fairly conclude, that his whole 'Great Grammar of Grammars' will contain an ample store of pedantry and sophistry, calumny and hypercriticism. Since, however, he has thus early discharged so large a quantity of bile, we may hope that he will be able to keep cool until his 'Great Grammar of Grammars' shall appear; and when that portentous event shall occur, we venture to predict that the great work which has so many hot things in it, will soon be as cool as its author. This prophecy, however, may not be palatable to our critic; for, having failed in writing for money, he appears now to be scratching for fame; and it is evident that he believes the size of his forthcoming volume, taken in connection with its pompous title, will render him immortal.

I do not know that I can more profitably close these remarks, than by calling the serious attention of my antagonist to the sentiments contained in the following extract from the preface to my Elocution, a personal application of which, I doubt not, would do him good:

Newspaporial.—Our readers are not ignorant of the high estimate which we place upon the 'New-Yorker' weekly journal. For industry, talent, interest, and general usefulness, we scarcely know its superior. In a recent eloquent appeal to the justice of its numerous delinquent subscribers, it announces that hereafter, owing to the pressure of the times, it can only be afforded at three dollars per annum for the folio, and four dollars for the quarto edition; at the same time giving notice, that it will credit all payments, until the first of November, at the original price of two and three dollars.

The Sunday Morning News, already well established in reputation, and very widely circulated, has received a valuable addition to its attractions, in the accession of John Howard Payne, Esq., formerly of the 'Ladies' Companion,' and Mr. John Jay Adams, to its editorial department.

'Hudson's Express' is the title of a new and well-conducted daily journal, of the smaller class. It is under the editorial supervision, as we learn, of Joseph Price, Esq., recently, and for a considerable period, Editor of the New-York Mirror.

Park Theatre.—The season at this house commenced under a sad disappointment. The public had been led to anticipate the pleasure of listening again to the magic tones of Mrs. Wood, and of revelling in that intellectual delight which all have fell who have heard her exquisite performances in opera. But alas! their hopes were blasted, and the manager's prospects of a rich harvest somewhat diminished, by the news that unavoidable circumstances will prevent our old friends from visiting us so soon as was anticipated. We still hope that the season will not entirely pass away, without being marked by their distinguished performances. In opera, however, we have had, during the month, in Miss Horton, a singer whose exertions have served to keep alive the growing musical taste of the Park audiences. Mr. Horn, with a voice absolutely regenerated, and Brough, with his deep thunder-tones, have sustained the tenor and contralto, and by their united efforts given effect to our old favorites, 'La Somnambulé,' 'Cinderilla,' 'Fra Diavolo,' and the 'Frieschutz.' Miss Horton merits no small praise for the able manner in which she has given the elaborate music of these operas, all made sacred by, and become as it were identified with, a missing artiste. The style of Miss Horton is so highly finished and pure, and governed by so much taste and judgment, that her execution is as easy, smooth, and tranquil, as the gentle current of a brook. She makes no effort which she does not accomplish. There is no attempt at the grand and astonishing; she is content to give the music of her author, without gilding it (as is too often attempted) by roulades and cadenzas, altogether foreign to the genius of the music, and the intentions of the composer. Miss Horton's voice is a limited soprano, but so sweet and sonorous, even in its harshest tones, that the hearer is compensated for its want of power, in the exquisite delicacy of its cadence, while the finished effect which it affords to the most minute passages of the music, is a worthy compensation for a lack of any of those whirlwinds of power with which it seems the intention of some prima donnas of the present day to overwhelm an audience, and 'snatch nine souls out of one weaver.'

Mr. Brough has passed his time profitably during his absence from us. His voice has become even more rich and powerful than when he left us, while his acting and mariner upon the stage have received much amendment. His 'Dandini' is equal to the best, and his performance of 'Basil,' in the 'Marriage of Figaro,' altogether beyond the best, that we have ever witnessed at the Park. Mr. Horn's voice has recovered itself to a miracle. Indeed, it has gone somewhat beyond its best quality of former days. It has acquired a mellowness and a power 'which were not so before.' With the great musical genius and acquirements of Mr. Horn, it will be his own fault if he does not take that high stand as a performer, which he has so long enjoyed as a composer and professor in his noble science. We have not had opera alone at the Park. Tragedy and comedy (in which latter Mr. Hill, more clever and cute than ever, has been conspicuous,) have had their turns, and in some instances have been ably sustained in their principal characters. As for filling either tragedy or comedy completely with the present ingredients which go to make up what is called the 'stock company' of the Park Theatre, the effort would be as vain as an attempt to portray all the colors of the rainbow with blue and crimson. Mr. Willis's Tragedy of 'Bianca Visconti' was represented in the early part of the month; and notwithstanding the draw-back of very indifferent acting, in the principal character, and the worse than bad acting of some of the minors, it met with much success. The play will be found noticed at length in another place.

Mrs. Sharpe has been delighting her old admirers, and many new ones, by her vivacity and truth in comedy. She has long been absent from the Park boards, and has returned, we are happy to say, with renewed health, and a spirit as earnest as ever to instruct and delight. Her performances in tragedy with Mr. Forrest, the improvement of that gentleman, the addition of Mrs. Richardson, (umqwhile our favorite Mrs. Chapman,) to the Park company, are all subjects of gratulation and comment, but are too late for the present number.

American Theatre, Bowery.—Early in the month, Mr. Booth went through his usual round of characters at this establishment, before large audiences, and with triumphant success. We had the great pleasure to attend upon his personation of Richard III. and Sir Giles Overreach, and are free to say, that we never saw the representation of either character excelled. That of Sir Giles, especially, was masterly, beyond any previous effort of the actor. The interest was so intense, during the last scene, that a play-bill, falling from some 'rapt god' in the gallery, eddied audibly down into the pit, amid the 'shuddering stillness' which the great power of the artist had created, even in a theatre never remarkable for silence. It was emphatically the triumph of mind over matter. We can say little either for Mr. or Mrs. Hield, who were announced in large letters. The acting of the former, particularly in 'A New Way to Pay Old Debts,' was beneath criticism. He evidently never studied the character which he assumed, but was content to skim the superfices, and leave the rest to rant and fustian. Surely this course, on the part of one in whose professional countenance inanity seems to contend with grimace, and whose gestures and action are not unlike those of a galvanized baboon, is very unwise. Mrs. Hield has great energy of action, but unfortunately the unpardonable fault of emulating her husband in over-doing every thing. The features of her expressive but plain face, owing to this cause, seem to be worked by a secret forty-horse power. The engagement of these performers, in conjunction with so intellectual and capable an artist as Mr. Booth, must be considered as ill-advised and unfortunate.

National Theatre.—We shall hereafter preserve a record, somewhat in detail, of the performances at this very superior establishment. Mr. Wallack has fully redeemed his promise to the public, by bringing together the best stock company in the city, and by already producing three or four stars of the first magnitude, in their several spheres. Of Mr. Vandenhoff, who has at once established among us the high reputation which had preceded him from England, as a tragedian, we shall speak more at large in our next number. Miss Turpin in opera, and Mr. Brown and Mr. Williams in comedy, have won, in a few evenings' performance, the high professional standing which their merits are so well calculated to command. The Wallacks, themselves 'hosts,' it would be supererogation to praise. In brief, in the legitimate drama, and in order and correct stage management, the National holds an honorable prëeminence.

The Olympic.—This new establishment has taken the town by surprise, in one respect at least. It is the most beautiful theatre on the Atlantic sea-board. Its decorations, scenery, etc., are rich and tasteful; the entire stage is carpeted, the stage-management is well conducted, and both in internals and externals, it reflects credit upon the liberality and taste of the proprietors. We have been unable, as yet, to attend upon any of the performances; but are informed that they have been highly creditable, bringing out Mr. Barrett, Mrs. Maeder, (Clara Fisher.) Mr. Flinn, Mr. Gates, and other Thespians of eminence. We wish the 'Olympic' success, which we doubt not it will command by deserving it.

Dubufe's Don Juan and Haidee.—The time of this picture is when Lambro, the father of Haidee, surprises her with Don Juan; and the scene is too well known to require description. The painting itself is beyond comparison, in richness, beauty, and effect, the finest effort of art yet exhibited in this country. We shall not attempt a detailed sketch of its numerous points of attraction; but simply enjoin upon all who may read this paragraph, within an hour's walk or ride of the Stuyvesant Institute, to repair thither 'at the meetest vantage of the time,' to become for a season 'dazzled and drunk with beauty.' At the same exhibition-rooms, is another painting by Dubufe, of 'St. John in the Wilderness.' It is a faultless production.

Landscape Gardening and Rural Taste.—A correspondent has elsewhere touched upon these themes, and we are glad to perceive that they are attracting something of public attention. The want of taste of which the writer complains, is but too general. Propriety and beauty of location, in our cities, even, are often sacrificed to the mere external ornaments of the edifice itself. Speaking of a picturesque and pleasant mansion near London, Cooper sarcastically observes: 'We should pull the building down, if we had it in New-York, because it does not stand on a thoroughfare, where one can swallow dust free of cost.' There is a good deal of truth in this. A superior house may not unfrequently be seen here also, occupying, by choice of the owner, some such 'cheerful position' as Knickerbocker's hotel, which 'commanded a pleasant view of the rear of the poor-house and bridewell, and the front of the hospital.' Our country-seats, too, are still sometimes chosen, as formerly, if we may believe our venerable foster-father, the pleasant locale being often 'on the borders of a salt marsh; subject, indeed, to be occasionally overflowed, and much infested in the summer-time with musquitoes, but otherwise very agreeable,' producing abundant crops of salt grass and delicate bulrushes. In England, says Irving, the rudest habitation, the most unpromising portion of land, in the hands of a person of taste, becomes a little paradise. 'The sterile spot grows into loveliness under his hand; and yet the operations of art which produce the effect are scarcely to be perceived. The cherishing and training of some trees; the cautious pruning of others; the nice distribution of flowers and plants of tender and graceful foliage; the introduction of a green slope of velvet turf; the partial opening to a peep of blue distance, or silver gleam of water—all these are managed with a delicate tact, a pervading, yet quiet assiduity, like the magic touchings with which a painter finishes up a favorite picture.' What might not portions of America be made, under the influence of similar action?

Vocal Music.—Mr. H. Russell has recently visited us again, delighting thousands with his soul-stirring music. His late concert at the City Hotel was crowded with the élite of the city; and he gave many of his old, and one or two new productions, with surpassing effect. Indeed, his superior has never been among us. If we might be thought worthy to advise, however, we would counsel our friend, as he journeys eastward, to omit the perusal of the long letter, before singing the pretty song of 'Woodman, Spare that Tree!' by our contemporary, Col. Morris. We but speak the sentiments of a large majority present at the concert, when we say, that the perusal referred to is in exceeding bad taste, and altogether unnecessary, since the lines need no explanation. Any person can understand them, who understands any thing; and a long preface to that old and noble song, 'The Brave Old Oak,' which has quite the same general features, would be equally appropriate. We must not omit saying a word for Mr. Brough, Mr. Edwin, and Mrs. Watson. They sang with their accustomed skill and feeling; and a Miss Lewis acquitted herself with great credit.

Literature of the West.—A kind friend, himself possessed of one of the finest minds in the West, thus speaks, (and he speaks truly, as we have often contended,) of the literary capabilities of the West. 'There is,' says he, 'more racy, original talent in the West, than you easterns dream of.' * * * 'The day is approaching, when a voice shall come out of the West, that will do honor to a dozen of the most worthy and intellectual young men which any section of our Union contains. We have the greatest country that the sun looks down upon; and before we all get gray, we will prove that our pretensions to intellectual vigor and originality are not unfounded. All we ask is a chance; and that must, in the natural course of things, transpire, before many thousand suns go down. Mind, Sir, I point my long fore-finger at you, and tell you so!'

A New Orthography.—We have been not a little amused, in perusing a communication recently received from a correspondent in the western part of this state, wherein the writer gravely proposes an entire change in the present mode of spelling English words. His own plan may be gathered from the first paragraph of his article, which we subjoin, wherein it is shadowed forth. The writer seems sanguine in relation to his naked theory, which might help many of the English Grub-street brotherhood, (vide Cooper,) in their slip-shod and difficult labors for the press; but when a printed book shall be extant, after this fashion of orthography, we think the general ear will be erect to devour it up. Seriously, our correspondent must be aware that he has a 'sinewy opposite' to encounter in the tyrant Custom; and he will find that if he were to wear a gross of quills to the pith in setting forth and defending his project, it would avail him little. Sertinli, the 'hul sistim' iz a veri kuris propozishin on hiz part, and tharfore we giv our rederz a smol spesmen:

The writer here goes at large into diverse illustrations, which we must beg leave to decline publishing. At the same time, we fully agree with our correspondent, that our language needs simplifying, in many respects; that governour, errour, and colour, are a little too strongly spelled; and that domestick and 'sheep-tick' do not imperatively require the same termination. But our friend goes too far. He altogether 'out-Grimkes Grimke.' Can he not labor in the circle of reform, 'without a reel or stagger to the circumference,' a fault so common and so reprehensible?

New-York College of Physicians and Surgeons.—We gather from a circular of the trustees of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New-York, that a new, large, and commodious edifice, now in progress of completion, and admirably adapted for the purposes to which it is to be devoted, will be finished in season for the ensuing course of lectures, which are to be of the most extensive character, and to embrace every department of medical science. Anatomical investigations will be pursued under peculiar advantages, the supply of subjects for dissection being abundant and cheap. The anatomical museum has been greatly increased, and is amply provided with preparations for the illustration of a full course of lectures. The obstetrical museum, and the cabinet of materia medica, are well supplied with preparations in wax, drawings, and specimens; each subject of medical jurisprudence is illustrated by preparations and plates, and tests of every article of poisons are exhibited in detail; all chemical subjects are illustrated by actual experiment, through the medium of a superior chemical apparatus; the theory and practice of physic is constantly illustrated by visits to the New-York hospital; general, surgical, and pathological anatomy will be illustrated by preparations, plates, and dissections on the subject; while the lectures on physiology[368] will embrace all the known laws of the animal economy. Among other important acquisitions, may be mentioned that of Alban G. Smith, M.D., late Professor of Surgery in the Medical College of Ohio, who assumes the chair of Surgery, and that of Dr. Brigham, of Connecticut, who fills a new professorship of Special Anatomy. In short, every provision has been made for a medical college of the first order of excellence. It can scarcely fail, therefore, of entire success.

LITERARY RECORD.

The 'Albion'—Portrait of Miss Tree.—The Albion of the 16th September contains a full length portrait of Miss Ellen Tree, in the character of 'Ion,' which is one of the most exquisite engravings, in large quarto, ever presented to American readers. It is engraved by Dick, from a superior London lithograph, with recent corrections of the likeness, by Henry Inman, Esq., to whom Miss Tree gave a sitting for the purpose. The terms of the 'Albion' are but six dollars per annum, for which an amount of the best selected periodical literature of England and Scotland, larger by far than can be presented in any similar journal, is given, in an exceedingly neat and tasteful form. Among the various interesting papers in recent numbers, we remark a new and extended 'passage' from the 'Diary of a London Physician,' unexcelled in power by any of its predecessors. Five dollars will insure a subscription to the Albion for ten months, including the superb portrait mentioned above. The publication office is at No. 1 Barclay-street, opposite the Astor-House.

London Scrap Print Repository.—We have pleasure in calling public attention to an establishment recently opened by Mr. A. Lowe, at No. 4 White-street, one door from Chapel, where the agency of Robins' well-known 'Gallery of Fine Arts' will be kept, together with scrap-prints of every description, including views in London, England generally, Wales, etc., with fancy female portraits, in costume, colored, together with the humorous sketches of the world-renowned Cruikshank. We can heartily commend the fine views in Robins' 'Gallery,' and the laughable sketches of 'G. C.'

'New-Brighton Mirror.'—This is a very beautiful quarto publication, modelled after the manner of its New-York archetype, which it equals in typographical properties, and is tastefully and judiciously cared for, in point of literary matter. The first number is adorned with an engraving by Rolph, from a painting by Chapman, representing New-Brighton rising like a sweet creation of enchantment from the silver bosom of our glorious bay, with all its graceful edifices, and the noble, dome-crowned 'Pavilion' of that accomplished host, Milford, 'prëeminent by ample odds,' swelling up in the midst. It is a charming picture of a most delightful spot; and the journal which presents it is worthy of both. Success to it.

Poems by the 'Author of Lacon.'—A friend recently from England has kindly favored us with several brief articles of poetry, upon miscellaneous subjects, written by Rev. C. C. Colton, author of 'Lacon,' which have never been published in this country. They are from the original manuscript, in the possession of an intimate friend of the gifted but eccentric author, and are characterized by that sententiousness and force for which the writer was so distinguished. They will grace our pages at intervals, hereafter.

Portrait of William Cullen Bryant, Esq.—A late number of the 'New-York Mirror,' well supplied in its literary department, contained an admirably-engraved likeness, from a painting by Inman, of this eminent American poet. It is one of three similar portraits which have preceded it, of Fitz-Greene Halleck and N. P. Willis. The three are alike excellent, both as correct portraits and works of art.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Our city readers will need no other evidence than the present sketch, that these 'Notes' are drawn from real life. We have often seen one of the scarified 'incendiaries' whose melancholy story is here narrated.

Eds. Knickerbocker.

[2] A book is kept at the house, in which the name of each visitor is registered.

[3] This injunction has not been strictly followed; but we trust our friend will excuse us for putting him 'in print,' how much soever his modesty would prompt him to 'blush unseen.'

Eds. Knickerbocker.

[4] Geneva is about one hundred and fifty miles from Lyons; and yet the fare was but ten francs.

[5] This personage has the brief authority to demand four francs for affixing his cognomen to the passports of all who leave Geneva for this route.

[6] Quoted in Dr. Beattie's beautiful work on Switzerland.

[7] A short time since, Goold Brown stated to the writer, that 'in eleven years he had received but just nine hundred dollars for copy-right.'

[8] I can name the time and place. It occurred at the funeral of Aaron Ely.

THE KNICKERBOCKER.

AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES.

NAPOLEON.

THE DEATH OF SOCRATES.

NOTES OF A SURGEON.[1]

THE BIRCHEN CANOE.

MARK!

LINES.

STANZAS.

THE FOSTER-CHILD.

SONNET.

STANZAS.

ORNAMENTAL GARDENING.

THE SEA.

THAPTOPSIS.

EXQUISITES: THE GENUS 'BORE.'

THE GENUS 'BORE.'

NAHANT.

SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES.

THE TIMES.

RANDOM PASSAGES

THE BLIGHTED FLOWER.

FATAL BALLOON ADVENTURE.

RETROSPECTION

LITERARY NOTICES.

EDITORS' TABLE.

LITERARY RECORD.

FOOTNOTES: