SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER:

EVERY DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE

THE FINE ARTS.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I, NUMBER 9

PUBLISHER'S NOTICE: by T. W. White

SKETCHES OF THE HISTORY and Present Condition of Tripoli, with some accounts of the other Barbary States (No. VI): by R. G.

TO MARGUERITE: by M.

TO ANN

MY NATIVE LAND: by Lucy T. Johnson

TO MY CHILD: by Pertinax Placid

TO ——

LINES

A PRODIGIOUS NOSE: by Democritus, Jr.

SWIMMING

"THE GRAVE OF FORGOTTEN GENIUS": by an undergraduate

THE HOUSE MOUNTAIN IN VIRGINIA

VISIT TO THE VIRGINIA SPRINGS, During the Summer of 1834—No. I

THE FINE ARTS—No. III.: by G. C.

RECENT AMERICAN NOVELS
    THE INSURGENTS

LETTERS ON THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: by a young Scotchman now no more

OBSERVATIONS on the National Importance of Mineral Possessions, and the Cultivation of Geological Inquiry: by Gamma

LETTERS FROM A SISTER

LINES: by Eliza

TO SPRING: by Eliza

SPRING: by Roy

TO A. L. B.: by S. W. W.

SPRING: by a prisoner

DISSERTATION on the Characteristic Differences between the Sexes, and on the Position and Influence of Woman in Society—No. I: by Z. X. W.

DANCING, WALTZING, &c.: by Anthony Absolute

LION-IZING. A TALE: by Edgar A. Poe

LIONEL GRANBY—Chap. I.: by Theta

DAGGER'S SPRINGS, IN THE COUNTY OF BOTETOURT, VIRGINIA

THE RED SULPHUR SPRINGS

FEMALE EDUCATION

LITERARY NOTICES
    I PROMESSI SPOSI, or the Betrothed Lovers; a Milanese Story of the Seventeenth Century: by Allessandro Manzoni as translated by G. W. Featherstonhaugh
    HORSE-SHOE ROBINSON; a Tale of the Tory Ascendency: by the author of 'Swallow Barn'
    JOURNAL: by Frances Anne Butler

EDITORIAL REMARKS

TO CORRESPONDENTS

DEFERRED ARTICLES

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.

PUBLISHER'S NOTICE.

The Publisher has the pleasure of announcing to his friends and patrons that he has made an arrangement with a gentleman of approved literary taste and attainments, to whose especial management the editorial department of the "Messenger" has been confided.—This arrangement, he confidently believes will increase the attractions of his pages,—for besides the acknowledged capacity of the gentleman referred to, his abstraction from other pursuits will enable him to devote his exclusive attention to the work.

With this ample assurance therefore, that the public patronage will be met by renewed efforts to give general satisfaction, the publisher earnestly hopes that his friends will aid him in extending the circulation of the Messenger. A reasonable enlargement of the subscription list will afford the means of occasionally embellishing its pages with handsome drawings and engravings—and especially sketches of some of those remarkable natural curiosities and picturesque scenes, with which Virginia, and the Southern country generally, abounds. In this way the publisher hopes to make his periodical a repository of not only every thing elegant in literature, but tasteful in the arts; and his generous and intelligent supporters may rest assured, that whilst a moderate reward for his own labors is indispensable—his principal aim is to multiply the sources of intellectual pleasure, and increase the facilities for improvement.

It is due to the gentleman who has acted as editor up to the present period, that the publisher should, in parting with him, express that deep feeling of gratitude which his disinterested friendship could not fail to inspire. At the commencement of the Messenger, when the prospect of its success was doubtful, and when many judicious friends augured unfavorably of the enterprise, the late editor volunteered his aid to pilot the frail bark if possible into safe anchorage—nor did he desert it until all doubt of success had ceased. The efforts of that gentleman are the more prized, because they were made at a considerable sacrifice of ease and leisure, in the midst too of avocations sufficiently arduous to occupy the entire attention of most men,—and because they were rendered without hope or expectation of reward. And the publisher embraces this occasion, to declare that the success of the Messenger has been greatly owing to the judicious management of the editorial department by that gentleman. For services of so much value, rendered with no other object than a desire to promote the establishment of a literary periodical in Virginia, the publisher is deeply indebted to him—and the readers of the work will, we doubt not, long remember his efforts in their behalf. To him belongs the merit of having given his disinterested aid in the season of its early feebleness. His successor has but to follow in the path which has thus been marked out by a hardy and skilful literary pioneer.

SKETCHES OF THE HISTORY

And Present Condition of Tripoli, with some accounts of the other Barbary States.

In the last number of these sketches, it was stated that Hamet "went to Derne in 1809, where he passed the remainder of his life in quiet, as Bey of the two Eastern Provinces." This has been since discovered to be incorrect; within two years afterwards, he was again expelled by the Pasha, for some cause or pretence, and obliged to fly with his family to Egypt, where he died. In October, 1832, a man appeared at the American Consulate in Alexandria, who declared himself to be Mahommed Bey, eldest son of Hamet Caramalli; he stated that his father's family were living in great indigence at Cairo, and his object was to ascertain whether any relief could be expected for them from the United States.

The conduct of the Bey of Tunis during the early part of the war between Tripoli and the United States, has been already exposed. He continued to observe the subsequent occurrences with great attention,—manifesting the utmost anxiety with regard to the result. He saw with dismay the increase of the American forces in the Mediterranean, and the distressed condition to which Yusuf was reduced by the determined manner in which they had been employed; and he rightly conceived that by thus unveiling the weakness of one of the Barbary States, the system which they were all interested in preserving, was placed in jeopardy. With a view to avert the apprehended danger, he made frequent offers of mediation, which having been declined, he determined if possible to force a conclusion favorable to his interests, by a display of hostile intentions against the United States.

For this he soon found an excuse in the blockade of Tripoli. We have seen that he at first refused to acknowledge this blockade, on the just grounds that it was not maintained by a competent force; when that force was increased so as effectually to close the port, he insisted, that being at peace with the United States, his vessels had the right of proceeding to any place without interruption by them, and that the passport granted by the American Consul ought always to afford them protection from the armed forces of his nation. The passports granted by the Consuls of Christian powers in the Barbary states, are merely certificates that the vessel is owned in the country where the Consul resides, with a statement of her class, her name and that of her captain, and other particulars requisite to identify her; it protects the vessel from detention or capture by the armed ships of the nation in whose name it is issued, for one year after its date. The Consul in vain represented this to the Bey, and endeavored to explain the principles of blockade; shewing that an attempt to enter Tripoli would be a hostile act on the part of the vessel making it, but on her part only, and should not necessarily create any unfriendly feelings between the two governments; and that the vessels of several Christian nations had been taken by the American squadron, while they were thus endeavoring to force the blockade, and condemned without any complaints having been made by their governments.—To these representations, the Bey refused to listen, contending that Christian laws and usages were not applicable to affairs in which Oriental States were concerned; and declaring that the capture of a Tunisian vessel by the Americans would be followed by a declaration of war against them.

The question was at length brought to a direct issue. On the 24th of May, an armed vessel under Tunisian colors, with two prizes, attempted to enter the port of Tripoli, and were taken by the frigate Constitution. On examination, it appeared that the cruiser corresponded in no point with the description in the passport exhibited by her captain, which must therefore have been improperly obtained; and other circumstances led to the belief, that she was Tripoline property and manned by Tripolines, although commanded by a Tunisian subject. She was of course condemned, and sent with her prizes to the United States.

The rage of the Bey on being informed of this seizure was violent and unrestrained; he insisted that the Consul should cause the vessels to be immediately restored, and ample satisfaction to be made for the injury and insult committed against him and his subjects. Mr. Davis replied, that having no power himself, he could only state the demand to the Commodore, but he had no expectation that it would be complied with. The Bey, according to the usual policy of the Barbary Princes, would not admit of this reference to an authority over which he could have no control or influence; and endeavored by threats of war and of personal violence, to extort from the Consul a promise that the vessels should be restored, in order that he might afterwards allege such promise, as the solemn act of the American government. Davis however remained firm, and transmitted a statement of the whole affair to Mr. Lear, which reached him off Tripoli, immediately after the conclusion of the peace with Yusuf.

In consequence of this communication, the Commodore wrote a letter to Hamouda, declaring his demands inadmissible, and despatched a frigate and a brig to watch his movements. This letter increased the rage of the Bey; he told the Consul that negotiation was impossible; that he would be forced into a war by the conduct of the Americans, who had been the first to capture one of his cruisers in time of peace; and that if hostilities should commence, they would not end while he had a soldier to fire a gun. After such indications of his disposition, Rodgers considered that no time was to be lost, he accordingly sailed for Tunis, and arrived in the gulf on the 1st of August; his force then amounted to five frigates, two brigs, a sloop of war, two schooners, and several gun-boats.

A letter was immediately despatched to the Bey, requiring an explanation of his intentions, and stating that unless he declared them to be friendly within thirty-six hours, hostilities would be commenced against him. To this demand Hamouda evaded giving a direct answer; he informed the Consul that he had no wish to make war, until he had heard from the President of the United States respecting his vessels which had been captured; but that in the meantime, any attempt on the part of the Americans to stop his cruisers, or to interrupt his commerce, would be considered by him as a commencement of hostilities. The Commodore knew too well the worthlesness of such verbal assurances; and determined to have some stronger guaranty for their performance. He therefore despatched Captain Stephen Decatur, who then commanded the frigate Congress, to Tunis, with a letter requiring of the Bey a written declaration of his pacific intentions, to be witnessed by the English and French Consuls. Hamouda refused to see Decatur, and showed so little disposition to come to terms, that the Consul retired with his family on board the squadron.

Shortly after this, a Tunisian vessel attempting to put to sea, was fired on by the Americans, and forced to return into port. This circumstance created great consternation in Tunis; business was suspended, the people became dissatisfied, and the Bey discovered that he must yield. He in consequence wrote a letter to Rodgers, disavowing his threats, declaring his willingness to remain at peace, and inviting Mr. Lear, with whom he had hitherto refused to communicate, to come on shore and treat with him on the subject of the existing difficulties. Mr. Lear complied with this invitation, and several conferences were held, in which the African Prince sustained his character for shrewdness, exhibiting however a degree of suavity and apparent frankness, which excited the admiration of the American Commissioner. Supported by the oaths and attestations of his worthy minister the Sapatapa, Hamouda gravely and solemnly denied having ever uttered threats of hostilities against the United States, or of violence towards their Consul, or of having made any unreasonable demands; insisting that all the difficulties had been occasioned by Mr. Davis, whom he indeed believed to be a good man, incapable of any wilful misrepresentation, but who had most strangely interpreted some of his expressions in a sense totally different from that intended, and forgotten others. He had indeed asked for a frigate from the United States; but that was a request such as one friend might make of another, and the refusal of which should give rise to no difference between them. The subject of blockades he could not understand; his vessels had been taken in time of peace, and he would send an Ambassador to the United States to demand their restitution, although he would prefer having that business settled on the spot; in the meantime, he was ready to give the strongest guaranties of his pacific intentions. Nothing more could be demanded. A new Consul was presented in place of Mr. Davis, who refused to return; and the frigate Congress having been sent to the United States, to convey the Ambassador Sidi Soliman Melle-Melle, the rest of the squadron quitted the Gulf of Tunis about the 1st of September.

The Tunisian Ambassador arrived with his retinue at Washington, where he excited great curiosity and attention.¹ He soon made a formal demand, in his master's name, for the restoration of the vessels, or their value, which was complied with from a desire to conciliate the Bey; but this compliance encouraged the Ambassador to require a supply of naval stores, as the price of peace for the succeeding three years, which having been positively refused, he quitted the United States without retracting the demand. His master however was at that time engaged in a war with Algiers, and did not think proper to proceed farther in his exactions; and although attempts were afterwards made by him and his successor to force the Americans to pay tribute, they proved always unsuccessful, and no actual interruption of peace between the United States and Tunis has occurred since the termination of the difference above stated.

¹ Melle-Melle is still remembered in Washington, where his dresses, his presents, his prayers, his Arabian horses, his refusing to eat from sunrise to sunset during a particular time of the year, (the Ramadan or Mahometan Lent,) and other of his Oriental customs and peculiarities, form the subjects of many anecdotes. Among his attendants was a passionate fellow named Hadji Mohammed, who having had a quarrel with a barber in the city, threatened to kill him. The barber complained to Mr. Madison, then Secretary of State, who sent Mr. B——, a highly respected gentleman of his Department, to call on Melle-Melle, and request him to curb the impetuosity of his follower. The Ambassador received Mr. B—— with the usual Oriental forms of politeness, and having heard the complaint, said a few words in Arabic to one of his attendants, who went out, and presently re-appeared with poor Hadji Mohammed, guarded by four men with drawn swords. This apparition somewhat astounded Mr. B——, who is the most mild and amiable of men; and he was still more shocked when Melle-Melle, in the most courteous manner expressing his desire to do all in his power to please the American government, offered to have the culprit's head taken off immediately, and sent to the Secretary of State, unless he or the President might prefer seeing it done themselves. Mr. B—— of course declined such a demonstration of the Ambassador's good feeling toward the United States, and hastened to assure him that no such mode of reparation was demanded; it being only necessary to enjoin upon his attendant to refrain from any acts of violence. This fact was related to the writer by Mr. B—— himself.

From Tunis the American squadron proceeded to Algiers, where Mr. Lear landed, and was received with great respect by the government. At this time it would doubtless have been easy to have relieved the United States from the annual tribute of naval stores and munitions to the value of twenty-one thousand dollars, which they were bound to pay to that Regency by the treaty of 1795; but the Algerines had not committed any notable infraction of the terms of that treaty, and there was no cause of quarrel. In 1807 the government of the United States, in anticipation of an immediate war with Great Britain, recalled its naval forces from the Mediterranean, which sea was not again visited by an American armed vessel until 1815. The peace with Tripoli and Tunis has, however, continued without any absolute interruption to this time; with Algiers it was broken in 1812, when the Dey, emboldened by the absence of the American ships of war, and instigated, as we shall show, by the British government, thought proper to commence hostilities against the United States, for which a signal retribution was exacted in 1815.

The occurrences of the war between Tunis and Algiers would be devoid of interest, however faithfully related. Algiers had long maintained a degree of arrogant influence over Tunis, which was very galling to the sovereigns of the latter country. This was effected partly by superiority in military and naval forces, partly by the aid of the Ottoman Porte, which very naturally sided with Algiers against a state scarcely acknowledging its dependance on the Sultan, but principally by bribes to the high officers of the Tunisian government. To free his kingdom from this nightmare had been the incessant endeavor of Hamouda, and was the object of the war; its results were favorable to the Tunisians, both at sea and on land; peace was made in September, 1808, and the influence of Algiers appears never since to have been felt in the councils of Tunis.

From 1807 to 1815, the Mediterranean was navigated by few vessels except those of Great Britain, which were forbidden fruit to the Barbary cruisers; almost their only prey being the miserable inhabitants of Sicily, Sardinia, and even of the Greek Islands, although the latter were subject to the Sultan. One circumstance here shows that the government of Great Britain still cherished the system of encouraging piracy in the Mediterranean, as a means of excluding other nations from its commerce. Sicily remained during the whole of the period above mentioned, absolutely in possession of the British, the authority of the king being nearly nominal. Yet, although its vessels were daily attacked, and its inhabitants carried off from the coasts to slavery in Africa, a truce negotiated with Algiers in 1810, and an occasional remonstrance to the other two powers, which was never attended to, were the only measures adopted to remedy the evil, by those who styled themselves the protectors of the island. To the honor of the Americans, it can be said with truth, that in their Consuls the unhappy captives found friends, and that through the active intercession of these agents, many of them were restored to their homes.

The Pasha of Tripoli, as soon as he was relieved from the presence of the American forces, began with great industry to restore tranquillity in his dominions, and to repair his finances which had been exhausted by the war. As he was almost shut out from the sea, he resolved to establish and extend his authority on land. The fixed population of this regency is small, and almost entirely confined to the few fertile spots on the coast; the interior being principally desert or mountainous, is inhabited by Arabs, who wander with their flocks from pasture to pasture, or are engaged in the transportation of merchandize, or live by plundering their more industrious neighbors. The allegiance of these wanderers is always doubtful; the revenue derived from taxing them is small, and is never obtained without considerable difficulty. Whenever the Pasha is known to be in trouble at home, they become refractory, refuse to pay their tribute, and attack the caravans or towns on the coast; seldom indeed does a year pass in which the sovereign of Tripoli is not engaged in war with some of their tribes. Of these tribes, one called the Waled Suleiman had long been formidable for its numbers and its rebellious disposition; under a daring and sagacious chief the Sheik Safanissa, it had set at defiance the power of the Pasha, and had frequently pushed its inroads to the gates of the capital. Safanissa at length died; although his descendants were brave and trained to war, and his tribe continued to be powerful and influential, yet the magic of his presence was wanting, to maintain that supremacy which it had so long boasted. Yusuf saw this, and determined if possible to exterminate these insolent foes. He began by gaining over to his side another powerful tribe called the Waled Magarra, the hereditary rivals and enemies of the Suleimans; and when he had sufficiently secured their fidelity, he struck a blow which proved perfectly successful, and by which he gained another object long considered important by the sovereigns of Tripoli.

In the Desert south of this regency, is a large tract of habitable country called Fezzan. The greater part of its surface is indeed a sterile waste of sand, but there are many small spots containing clay enough to render them capable of producing dates and some other articles for the support of men and beasts. The labor of cultivation is however very great, as it seldom or never rains, and there being neither springs nor rivers, the water necessary for moistening the earth can only be procured from wells. Almost the only articles of export are dates and salt, which latter is procured in great quantities from the borders of stagnant pools, and carried to the coast of the Mediterranean, and to the negro countries south of the desert. It is inhabited principally by a black race, differing in feature however from the negroes; there are also many Arabs and some Moors, making in all perhaps seventy thousand of the poorest and most miserable of the human species. The sovereignty had long been hereditary in a family originally from Morocco, which acknowledged its dependance on Tripoli; but the Sultan of Fezzan, like the Arabs, seldom paid his tribute when he could avoid it; and the expense of collecting, had indeed of late years, amounted to more than the sum obtained. Such a territory and such inhabitants would scarcely seem to offer any inducements to conquest; but the position of Fezzan renders it important to Tripoli, as through it passes the principal route from the coast to the interior of the continent; and Yusuf was well assured that the Sultan obtained a large revenue by exactions from his subjects, and from the numerous caravans which traversed his dominions. He was therefore anxious to have his share, and was the more enraged at the insolence of this Prince in withholding it, as he was supported and encouraged in so doing by an alliance with the Waled Suleiman. At length in 1811, Yusuf seized a moment when the Suleimans were absent on a foray in the Egyptian territory, and sent an army of Tripolines and Magarra Arabs to Fezzan, under one of his most attached and experienced generals, named Mahomet el Mukni, who was well acquainted with the country, from having visited it several times to receive the tribute. These troops rapidly passed the Gharian mountains, which separate Tripoli from Fezzan, and appeared unexpectedly before Morzouk, the capital of the latter kingdom; this town, built of mud, and defended only by a wall and castle of the same material, was easily taken, the Sultan and his family, with many of the principal inhabitants, were put to death, the rest submitted to the invaders, and the whole country was soon in their possession. The neighboring Arabs overawed by this success, flocked to Mukni's standard, and having received a reinforcement of Tripoline troops, he marched to intercept the Waled Suleimans on their return from Egypt; they were met, defeated, and almost exterminated. Abdi Zaleel, one of the grandsons of Safanissa, was made prisoner, and retained for some time by the Pasha as a hostage for the fidelity of the few whose lives were spared. As a reward for the generalship displayed by Mukni, Yusuf appointed him Governor of Fezzan, with the title of Sultan while in that territory; he was required however, to transmit a large amount of tribute, and also to make an annual inroad into the negro countries lying south of the Desert, for the purpose of bringing away slaves, who were afterwards sent to Tripoli, and thence to the markets of Smyrna and Constantinople.

By these means the power of the Pasha was much strengthened, and his revenues increased; but his sons grew up to manhood, and he began to receive from them the same ungrateful treatment which he had displayed towards his own father. His eldest, Mohammed, who as heir to the crown, bore the title of Bey, and commanded the troops, is universally represented as one of the most complete monsters which even Africa has produced. He first excited the jealousy of his father in 1816, by the purchase of a large number of muskets, which were probably intended for the purpose of arming his followers and dethroning the Pasha; for this he was ordered to go to Bengazi, and there take the command of some troops destined to act against a tribe of refractory Arabs. In this expedition he was entirely successful; that is to say, he exterminated the rebellious tribes, laid waste the country which they had infested, and sent a number of heads, of both friends and enemies, to adorn the gates of his father's castle. On his return to Tripoli, he probably considered these eminent services as entitling him to the immediate possession of the throne, and with that view he made an attempt on Yusuf's life; it failed, and he was again sent to the Eastern Provinces, to act against another tribe who had refused to pay tribute. Mohammed however, immediately on his arrival, joined the rebels, and plundered the country which he was ordered to defend. Yusuf was therefore obliged to send an army against him under his second son Ahmed, who dispersed his brother's forces and drove him into Egypt. The instances of treachery and cruelty practised on each side during this war, are too shocking to be related. The principal inhabitants of whole towns were murdered; hostages were beheaded at the moment stipulated for their return; promises of pardon confirmed by appeals to the common faith of both parties were shamelessly broken, and those who trusted to them sacrificed in cold blood. The result of the whole was the promotion of Ahmed to the situation of Bey, and the establishment of the rebellious Mohammed as Governor of Derne.

Notwithstanding these proofs of Yusuf's perfidy and ferocity, he became popular with Europeans; and those who were introduced to him, generally came away favorably impressed with regard to his character, and were inclined to attribute his excesses more to his situation than to his disposition. He spoke Italian fluently, and seemed to be well acquainted with what was going on in the world: his court was splendid; his apartments furnished with elegance and taste; he drank the best champaigne which France produced, and his manners are said to have been such as to entitle him to be considered a gentleman any where. The celebrated Portuguese, Badia Castilho, whose travels and adventures under the name of Ali Bey, are so well known, seems to have been charmed by the frankness and amenity of the Pasha of Tripoli. Captain Beechy, who was sent by the British Admiralty in 1822, to survey the shores of the great Syrtis, speaks with gratitude of the readiness with which facilities were afforded him for the prosecution of the work. Lyon, Denham and Clapperton, although they all experienced many vexations in their journey through the Tripoline dominions, yet seemed to ascribe them rather to the malignity and knavery of the officers of the government, than to any ill intentions on the part of the chief. To those who were not his subjects, the "good old-gentlemanly vice" of avarice seems to have been his principal failing. His own habits were expensive, and his sons, by their prodigality, kept his coffers always empty.

To the American officers and Consuls, he has been most scrupulously attentive, and has several times shewn his anxiety to prevent any difficulties from arising with the government of the United States. On all public occasions, there has been a struggle for precedence between the British and French Consuls; those of other European nations not venturing to advance any claims for themselves. The United States have been fortunately represented in Tripoli by determined men, who, while they ridiculed the etiquette in the abstract, determined to admit no inferiority in a country where it was considered as essentially important; they have therefore uniformly maintained their rights, the Pasha shewing a disposition to aid them as far as he could.

A serious affair, however, occurred in September, 1818, which was very near producing a rupture between Tripoli and the United States. Mr. R. B. Jones, the American Consul, while on a shooting excursion in the vicinity of the city, was attacked by two negroes, and beaten. The negroes were discovered to be the slaves of Morat Rais the Admiral, and there was reason to believe that they had been set on by the Scotch renegade, who always remained the bitter enemy of the United States. Investigations were made, by the results of which this suspicion was confirmed, and Morat finding himself in danger, sought an asylum in the British Consulate. Mr. Jones demanded the public punishment of the slaves, and the banishment of the Admiral from the Regency, during the pleasure of the President of the United States. Yusuf made every endeavor to evade the latter, offering instead to bastinado the slaves as long as Mr. Jones might please, or to strike off their heads if that were required. He urged that the British Consul was entitled to protect all fugitives, by the immemorial custom of the place, and that to drag him from his asylum would be to involve Tripoli in a war with Great Britain. The British Consul, on his part, insisted that Morat was a subject of Great Britain, and as such, liable only to be tried by him. Mr. Jones refused to listen to any of these representations, and was preparing to leave the place with his family, when Yusuf yielded. The slaves were publicly bastinadoed, and their master banished from Tripoli for life. Three years after, however, Mr. Jones was induced by the representations of the Pasha, to request that the President would permit him to return, which was in consequence granted.

Many changes had in the mean time taken place in Tunis. In the month of September, 1813, Hamouda Bey, while taking a cup of coffee, after a long day's fast in the Ramadan, fell down and expired. It has been already stated, that he was not the rightful heir to the throne, according to the European laws of succession, for Mahmoud and Ismael, the sons of Mahmed an elder brother of his father, were still alive, retained as state prisoners in the palace. On the death of Hamouda, his brother Othman assumed the crown, and held it for nearly two years; but he had a powerful enemy in the Sapatapa Sidi Yusuf, who was anxious to govern himself, and considered that the aged Mahmoud would be a more convenient representative of royalty. The troops were accordingly corrupted, and on the 19th of January, 1815, Othman was murdered by the hand of Mahmoud himself, who, having also despatched Othman's two sons, assumed the title and power of Bey, without opposition. The Sapatapa, the contriver of this last revolution, soon received the just reward of his villainy: he was anxious to enjoy the title, as well as the power of a sovereign of Tunis, and prepared to dispose of Mahmoud and his family. His plans were, however, revealed, and on the night on which they were to have been executed, he was himself murdered as he was retiring to his apartment in the palace of Bardo, after having spent the evening in business with the Bey, and in playing chess with his eldest son Hassan. His immense property was confiscated, and his body was dragged by the infuriated populace through the streets, with every mark of indignity. Mahmoud held the throne without any serious difficulty until his death, in 1824. His brother Ismael had no children, and was not a person likely to give him any apprehension. He is represented as having been a merry inoffensive old gentleman, fond of punning, a great lover and judge of wine which he called vinegar, out of respect for the Koran, and an inveterate newspaper politician. It is difficult to imagine an African Prince of this character. On the death of Mahmoud, his eldest son, Hassan, succeeded, who is the present Bey.

TO MARGUERITE.

TO ANN.

Norfolk, September 13, 1834.

MY NATIVE LAND.

Elfin Moor, Va. January 14, 1835.

TO MY CHILD.

TO ——.

¹ A hot region has no terrors for the Laplanders. None but a very cold place of punishment is adapted to their imagination.

LINES

A PRODIGIOUS NOSE.

MR. WHITE: Your facetious correspondent PERTINAX PLACID, seems so deeply versed in what may be called nasal music, that I am very sure he would have recorded, in his late communication, and in far better style than mine, the history of a NOSE. Permit me, therefore, to furnish him with a few "memorabilia," of this extraordinary protuberance, (nose it could not properly be called,) against his next narrative of a nasal concert.

It was the property of a Virginia gentleman, long since dead, who had attained, at a very early age, the enormous weight of some seven or eight and twenty stone. It had no resemblance to that of Slawkenbergius—as delineated by Sterne—nor to Dan Jackson's, so frequently and fondly described by Swift—nor to that of the sensual Bardolph, so famous in dramatic annals, for the phosphorescent quality of shining in the dark, ascribed to it by his friend Falstaff. In short, such was its unique conformation, that it would have defied the skill of Dr. Taliacotius himself, even with the choice of any part of the human body, to manufacture any thing at all like it. Although it approached more the bulbous kind of nose, than any other, and in shape, strongly resembled the nose of the Hippopotamus, or river horse, it was so disproportionately small, when contrasted with the two tumuli of flesh between which it was deeply imbedded, that it was quite invisible to any person taking a profile view of the face, which seemed to be literally noseless. Add to this, the projection of an upper lip of double the usual thickness, which so nearly closed the two apertures through which the proprietor breathed, as to render it perfectly manifest to all beholders, that to sleep in any other way but with his mouth at least half open, was utterly impracticable. This accordingly, was his invariable habit; and the consequences can be much more easily imagined, (difficult as it was,) than described. To relate every tale that I have heard of his snoring achievements, would certainly bring into some suspicion the veracity of those from whom I heard them. In tender regard, therefore, for their character, I will repeat only two; but by these alone, both you and your readers may judge pretty well of the rest.

The first was, that on a memorable occasion, when his crater was in full blast, his nasal explosions actually burst open a bran new door, although the bolt of the lock was turned. At another time, it is related of him, that arriving late at night at his favorite tavern in Alexandria, he was conducted into a room, furnished with two beds, in one of which was a little Frenchman, fast asleep, who had gone to rest without any expectation of receiving a fellow lodger. Into the empty bed the fat gentleman soon entered; and being a precious sleeper, he remained but a few minutes awake. Much, however, and most startling work was always to be done, before sound sleep ensued; for a prelude was to be performed, which might aptly be compared to the fearful sounds of a man in the agonies of death by strangulation, from the rupture of a blood vessel. This being almost enough to awaken the dead, we may readily suppose that the little Frenchman was instantly aroused,—aroused too, in the utmost extremity of such terror as would probably be caused in any one, at the idea of a murder being committed in his room. This conviction flashed upon his mind, with all its accompanying horror, at the moment he awoke. In the twinkling of an eye, he sprang out of bed—not exactly "in puris naturalibus," but certainly in a dress very unsuitable for company, and rushed headlong down three flights of stairs, crying out at the top of his voice, "murder! mon dieu! murder! murder!" As may well be imagined, this produced a general rush of the lodgers from their apartments, and in costume similar to his own.—The females were screaming in their highest key—the men, in their far harsher tones, were roaring out, "what's the matter? what's the matter?" while the little Frenchman reiterated still more loudly his piteous cries of "murder! mon dieu! murder! murder!" A scene of such indescribable confusion ensued, that some time elapsed before the equally terrified tavern keeper, who had joined the throng, had the least chance of unravelling the mystery. At last, however, sufficient quiet was restored to enable him to understand from the little Frenchman, why he had fled from his room with such precipitation. An irrepressible burst of laughter had nearly suffocated the poor landlord, before he could gain sufficient breath to explain to his guests, that the whole cause of their dreadful alarm, was nothing more than the fat gentleman's tuning and preluding upon his nasal instrument, as was his invariable custom, preliminary to the much deeper sleep that always followed; and which was indicated by a combination of such unearthly sounds, that they might reasonably thank their stars that the preparation they had received was no worse.

SWIMMING.

Some of our readers will doubtless remember an allusion in the tale of "The Doom" to an individual who performed the feat of swimming across the James, at the falls above this city. A valuable correspondent, who was the bold swimmer alluded to, writes us as follows:

"I noticed the allusion in the Doom. The writer seems to compare my swim with that of Lord Byron, whereas there can be no comparison between them. Any swimmer 'in the falls' in my days, would have swum the Hellespont, and thought nothing of the matter. I swam from Ludlam's wharf to Warwick, (six miles,) in a hot June sun, against one of the strongest tides ever known in the river. It would have been a feat comparatively easy to swim twenty miles in still water. I would not think much of attempting to swim the British Channel from Dover to Calais."

"THE GRAVE OF FORGOTTEN GENIUS."

The summer of 18—, was the fourth which I had spent at C—— College, and with it, ended my collegiate life. The scenes, which my long residence there had made sacred to the memory, were now becoming still more sacred as the time of my departure drew near. Every object, which was at all associated with meeting-scenes and parting-adieus, had become a magician's wand,—recalling the absent and the dead—towering hopes, now buried in the tomb, and anguish, which, thus recalled, is but the bliss which the dreamer enjoys, when he wakes and feels himself secure from the precipice, from whose edge a moment before he was plunging into a gulph below. No scene was to me so sacred as the student's grave-yard; for in it, I often mourned over the woes and ills of life, and almost unconsciously wished for a fate like the young men's who slept in its repose. There were then only four graves—three were side by side, having tomb-stones, epitaphed to the memory of those whose ashes reposed beneath them. The fourth stood alone—over it was a rude stone, on which was visible no tribute to him, whose remains were there. His was a destiny which often made me look upon the unlettered stone with the deepest sympathy. One only thing seemed to be known of this grave—one tribute only did time pay to his memory—for to the pilgrim who passed by and hastily inquired "who sleeps there?" naught was ever replied but the simple, yet eloquent elegy, "that is the 'Grave of the Forgotten Genius.'" In this unconscious elegy, there was that which made me look upon it, almost as the grave of a brother.

It was here that I often retired during the last days of my stay at C—— College. Here I could enjoy an uninterrupted revery, and call before me the spirits of the dead and weep o'er the destiny of forgotten genius; yet, even then, I sometimes thought their fate the happiest which could fall to the lot of man. Perhaps they have prayed for the gift of oblivion. Perhaps they have wished not to be remembered. Their last desire may have been,

A few days before my departure from the college, I was walking thoughtfully through the grove, which surrounded this little grave-yard, when suddenly I beheld a stately figure, standing near the unepitaphed grave. He stood for a moment—then approached the gravestone—seemed to take something from it, and pressing his hand to his forehead for a moment, look fixedly at the stone. He arose—hastily left the grave and directed his course towards a little village below. Here was a mystery! Is this a relative—a brother of the "forgotten genius," who has at last come to pay a tribute to his long neglected memory? I ran to the grave. Behold! the name of him who had so long been forgotten! The mysterious stranger had discovered the name of the being who was buried there, which had been almost covered by the moss that had collected upon the stone, and which till then I had never observed.

At twilight I was again in the grove, and again saw the same figure approach the grave. He stood over it, and I distinctly heard these words, "hapless being! Would that I had been here to ease thy dying agony. Yet 'tis well! I grieve not! Thy spirit is at rest."

I did not hesitate, but immediately approached the stranger, who seemed a little surprised, but by no means disconcerted.

"Stranger," I said, "thou grievest not alone! Pardon me for intruding upon thy grief. I wish only to add my sympathy to your anguish."

"Thou'rt welcome!" said the stranger, "I thank thee for thy sympathy: but tell me? Is the tale of him, who sleeps in that grave still known?"

"It is only known that he was once a student of C—— College, and that his tomb has long been called the 'Grave of the Forgotten Genius'" I replied. But the stranger seemed not to hear me—made no answer and approached again to the grave, and by the light of the moon which now shone brightly, read the name "Walter ——," exclaiming, "yes 'tis my younger brother, who died fifteen years ago." "And were none of his friends" I inquired, "at his side during his last illness?"

"Alas" said he, "his spirit was gone, ere the news reached them, that he was sick!" and then after a short silence the stranger continued. "But come with me to yonder village? I will there give you all the information you want." I immediately gave my assent, and after the stranger had again stood silently over the grave seemingly engaged in supplicating the favor of heaven, we approached the village. We entered the village inn,—the stranger left me for a moment, but soon reentered the room in which he had left me, bearing in one hand a small manuscript, and in the other a purse. "This manuscript" said he, "will give you the tale of him, who is now known only as the Forgotten Genius. This purse contains one hundred and fifty crowns, half of which you must cause to be applied to the erection of a monument over my brother's grave, and the other half to be deposited in the county treasury, the interest to be applied to the cultivation of the grove around the student's grave-yard."

"It is now late" said the stranger, "my duty calls me one hundred miles hence before to-morrow evening. I must rest a little, and continue my journey."

I then pressed the stranger's hand. Neither spoke. The tears flowed down the stranger's cheeks, and I felt that I was parting from a brother; without the least hope that I should ever see him again, I retired to my room, but it was only to give vent to the excess of my feelings. I continued walking through my apartment until dawn, and on going out, was informed that the stranger had just set out on his journey. I rushed to my room again, full of doubt and grief—opened the manuscript which had been given to me by the stranger, and read as follows:—

Walter Dunlap was born in Chestatee Village, which is situated on one of the tributary streams of the Tennessee river, and surrounded by those beautiful vallies, so numerous on both sides of the Cumberland mountains. His father had been the first, and was at his birth the principal merchant in Chestatee Village. He was not wealthy, yet his economy had enabled him to afford means for the education of his sons at one of the first colleges in the east. The procurement of this had been his whole ambition, and it may well be imagined, that any evidences of talent and genius in his sons, would please him much. In his infancy, Walter displayed in his slightest actions, a nobleness, a generosity, and a dauntlessness which at once won the heart of his father, and Walter had not been placed under the instruction of a tutor more than six months, ere he was far in advance of those who had spent years in the school-room. Already did the fathers and mothers of Chestatee Village hold up Walter to their children as a model for their imitation. He had not passed his twelfth year before he was sent with an elder brother to a college three hundred miles distant from his paternal home.

We arrived at C—— College full of hope and expectation, for the writer of this narrative was the next elder brother of Walter. We looked only for that continual flow of spirits and sprightliness, which the changing and novel scenes of our journey had excited, and were therefore illy prepared to meet the rigid confinement and discipline of a college-life. At first we sat out with ardor, and Walter especially, seemed delighted with the prospect of pleasure which lay before him. Yet the most ardent and ambitious, are not always the most successful students. A sudden prospect of an adventure, full of romance and chivalry, seldom fails to bewitch their imagination, and those who before were first and most ardent in the pursuit of knowledge, are often, by a single incident of mirth and pleasure converted into ring-leaders of insubordination, unwilling to reap the advantages of a liberal education, and constantly contriving means of interrupting the peace of those around them. There were such at C—— College, and it was not long ere Walter was ranked among the most ungovernable members of the institution. Six months had not elapsed, ere he was represented to his father, as one who was no longer fit for the station he occupied, and was thus privately dismissed. These were the circumstances: Walter and myself were placed under the guardianship of a distant relative who was connected with the institution, and he was to supply us with whatever money we needed. The frequent applications which Walter had made to his guardian at last caused a prompt refusal, which greatly displeased Walter. He went to the apartment occupied by his guardian, and took the sum for which he had applied. This act he did not attempt to conceal, for he was not yet able to distinguish between right and wrong,—so that it could not have entered into his mind that he was then committing a crime, which was subject to the severest punishment. His guardian, offended at the indignity which he thought had been offered him, reported the child who was placed under his peculiar protection, to the president of the college, for theft. Thus was the thoughtless, the generous and noble Walter, beloved by all his companions, implicated and deemed guilty of an act, among the basest in the catalogue of crimes. This news might well astonish the too confiding father of Walter. He was scarcely able to think, or to speak, when be received the request which the faculty had made. It was a journey of several days, yet this did not stop the weeping father, who hastened to the college to examine in person the nature of the offence. On his arrival, he too was convinced of the guilt of his son. In vain did his youthful eloquence attempt to make a distinction between taking that which was his own, and that which was another's. His father's rigid justice could not comprehend the distinction, which though incorrect, was perfectly natural. Well do I remember the sad and woe-worn countenance of our parent. Never have I seen, during a lapse of almost twenty year's observation, a father lament so bitterly over the fate of his son.

"My son," said he to me, as he was about to set out with Walter, to leave me to solitude and tears, "act honorably for my sake," and as we shook hands, tears came to relieve the agony which oppressed us. Walter, too, who till now had been firm and unmoved, boldly informing his companions of his situation and defending his actions, embraced me tenderly, and then more than at any other time during my life, when my feelings were only suggested by nature, did my heart respond to the thrilling lines

We parted! Months passed on and not a word from Walter. At last a letter came from my father. It breathed still the same feelings and anguish which he felt at our separation. "Walter," said he, "still remains inexorable! He is ruined, and I am not able to control him. You, my son, you alone can cheer my heart and recal me from the woe which Waller has caused me." At the end of one year from the time I had separated from my father, he informed me that he had just sent Walter to live with an uncle, who resided on the Elk—a river whose banks were then but thinly settled, where he hoped the retirement of his situation and the good counsel of his uncle, would work a reformation in the feelings and principles of Walter.

"If this fail," he concluded, "I am at an end—my last hope is destroyed and my heart is broken." More than two years had elapsed since my departure for the college, and for the first time was I summoned to my paternal home. I returned, and oh, how changed was the scene! I had left my father's a house of constant happiness, but now scarcely a smile was familiar to the face of a person in the family. My father was absent in mind, and talked of forsaking business. I remained two months, and used all my endeavors to recal his thoughts to the objects around him, and in some measure succeeded. I again returned to C—— College—where I remained two years longer, not forgetting to write often to my father in such a style as to make him forget that subject which weighed so heavily upon his spirits; nor did I forget Walter, to whom I often wrote, although my letters were never answered, and had reason to hope that they were not only agreeable to him, but gladly received. The last year of my collegiate life ended! I flew to my home, in obedience to the urgent request of my father, who still spoke of the disgrace and ruin of Walter, who had just returned. I was greeted with the sincerest joy—and Walter, as my father informed me, wept for the first time since our separation four years before, and I felt, that I had been restored to a long lost brother. He, indeed, seemed to be suddenly wrested from the gloom which had so long surrounded him, and we rambled over the hills, sacred to the memory of school-boy sports, again mingled together in the society of youthful friends, and were again as happy and as joyous, as we were, ere we experienced the pestilential influence of a college.

Immediately after my return home, my father entreated me to use every means for the reformation of Walter, at the same time, evincing all the bitterness of grief and despair. My whole object was now to gain an ascendancy over the mind of Walter. We read together—talked and laughed together—and indulged together those anticipations of the future, so bright and enchanting to the minds of the young. Often did his eye brighten at the suggestion of his future glory and greatness. Thus, by slow but certain progress, did he allow himself to be dragged from the despair and gloom by which he was surrounded. He read the tales of the great and renowned, and again was fired with ambition which prompted him to look for a name equal to theirs. Long had he been accustomed to look upon himself as an offcast from society—as one scorned and shunned by the good and the generous: for none had encouraged him to hope even that the disgrace which had come so soon to snatch him from the light of joy, and sink him to the depths of despair could ever be forgotten. How many noble, ardent and ambitious youths, have thus been driven to the night of woe and mental desolation? How many have been urged to the extremity of human depravity by the too rigid decree of a father's or a guardian's justice? How many like Walter, have been driven before the gale of prosperity, then suddenly abandoned, left scorched and desolate, as the proud vessel which is cast upon the barren shore, and left to moulder in the "winds and rains of heaven!" Yet there was one thing which seemed to afford some ground for the hope that all was not lost. For when we participated in the amusements of youth together, and he again received such evidences of respect from those around him, that he could not believe them insincere, and when he had forgotten his hopeless destiny, there came over his spirit lucid intervals, in which he explored the sublime philosophy of Locke and Paley, and became master of all the descriptions and sentiments of Addison. As we rambled one day in a solitary grove, Walter suddenly stopped, and after a moment's silence, said in a firm but melancholy tone, "my brother, the last four years of my life have been desolate, dreary like—a solitary waste. Yet this was not my fault! I have been an outcast—no human being sympathized with me—none trusted me—none esteemed me—none would receive my company but the profligate and abandoned, with whom I was taught to class myself ere I distinguished between error and truth? Thou alone hast remained faithful, and I now thank you for all your kindness and advice. I was exiled from my paternal home, I returned heart-stricken and miserable, yet I received no sympathy, until you came like an angel of mercy, to recal me to light. May heaven——." Here his voice faltered, and a flood of tears came to his relief. After a few moments he continued: "I have resolved to return to C—— College and there retrieve the happiness, the honor and character, which a youthful folly has taken from me. I thank you for your tears of sympathy. You can participate in my feelings and do justice to my motives." It was thus, in one of the most intensely interesting conversations which I ever held, that Walter disclosed to me the very purpose which I had prayed in all the fervor of supplication he might resolve upon. I soon after made known his feelings to his father, and soon, almost instantaneously, he again left his paternal home to return to C—— College. He left us agitated with doubt and the deepest anxiety for his success. He left us, warmed with the admiration which his noble purpose could not fail to inspire, but racked with that awful feeling of dread, which the uncertainty of hope always occasions. Walter did not weep—he did not seem moved, and yet there was that in his countenance which spoke eloquently of feeling. And yet there were tears to hallow the memory of our separation. A little brother, scarce able to realize the scene around him, shed tears of childish sorrow—a sister, enthusiastic in her affection for her brother shed tears—and a father too, whose locks were whitened with grief, showed youthful sympathy at his son's adieu—and I too, was not unmoved.

Walter Dunlap is again at C—— College! The farewell scene, which had convinced him how deeply the happiness of his relatives could be affected by his success—the powerful sympathy which such an occasion had displayed, at once establish him in his purpose. Fame, honor, and usefulness, were the beacon-lights which illumined his path, and the eternal gratitude of a sister—a brother—a heart-broken father, the ministering spirits which cheered him amid the storms of passion and misery, incident to the human heart. Kirke White was the model which he set before his mind—because there was a sympathy to his mind between their destinies, although White had never received a moral blight, yet it was enough that they had both been pursued by the rigor of fate.

From the moment he entered the walls of the college, he began a rigid discipline of the mind. What elevated Milton, he would ask, to an equality with the gods? What gave to Newton a comprehension of the mysteries of the universe, and to Franklin a power over the elements? and then triumphantly answer, study—unceasing study. "If Socrates had contented himself with only wishing and sighing to enter the field of philosophical truth—if he had prayed, however fervently, could that have sufficed to make him the Prince of Philosophers? Naught but the deepest, unbroken thought could have made him sport familiarly with the subtleties of philosophy, clothed as they then were, in all the gloom of ancient mythology." So thought Walter Dunlap. Night after night did he wear himself away by the intensity of his study and the depth of his thought. A year had not passed, ere he had run through much of the whole collegiate course—made himself master of the ancient languages, and gained a prize in astronomical calculations. Mind cannot conceive the joy which he felt at this success. The image of a father, smiling with tenderness and approbation, blessing him with the unbounded gratitude which a father only can feel, was ever present to his mind. Who can measure the depth of his joy? Who can count the sighs of anguish which these moments of joy now repayed? Well might he say, in reference to his own life,

Yet he did not esteem his work yet ended—his purpose yet realized. Innumerable difficulties, calling for energy to brave the prospect of years of application, presented themselves. He resolved to banish from his heart every image of despair, and if the attainment of glory and usefulness required it,

He received no joy but in the action of mind—in converse with the proudest philosophers of the world. If he was but allowed to walk with Plato and Aristotle, in the grove of Academus, and listen to their discourses he was content. And yet, philosopher as he was, he did not wish to die unlamented, with no epitaph to his memory. How could he remain in the world, and leave it, without having made one discovery in science—established one truth which might benefit mankind—done aught that could endear his name to posterity—caused one heart's gratitude to follow him to the tomb? Such a thought was sad—unutterable! It was thus he was hurried on in his mental application, till at last it became far too incessant for the safety of his life. He saw the consequence, yet could not stay the impetuous workings of his own mind—now beyond his control. His last letter to me, thus concluded, "since I cannot expect a long residence on this earth, my only wish is, that I may have at least one kind friend who will candidly inscribe upon my tomb, this simple epitaph,

Soon after the reception of this letter, we were informed by the president of C—— College, that Walter Dunlap had died suddenly, from an inflammation of the lungs occasioned by an exposure to the air for several hours, while observing the corruscations of the Aurora borealis.

Thus died Walter Dunlap—a child of sorrow—a being of the strongest aspirations—possessing a genius which would have elevated him to a rank with the profoundest philosophers—and wept by his companions whose tears form his only funeral eulogy.

His life may show the danger of exposing a child too early to the contagion of a college—the folly of dealing too harshly with youthful errors—the force of sympathy on the heart, and the elevation at which a mind may instantly arrive. Farewell.

I will only add that the "student's grave yard" now contains a monument over the tomb of the Forgotten Genius, and that in compliance with my promise, I caused to be inscribed to the memory of Walter Dunlap, the eloquent epitaph contained in his last letter to his brother, so justly due to the actions of his short life.

West Point, 18th April, 1835.

THE HOUSE MOUNTAIN IN VIRGINIA.

This double mountain forms a conspicuous object in the romantic county of Rockbridge. It stands seven miles west of Lexington, from whose inhabitants it hides the setting sun, and not unfrequently turns the summer showers. Being separated from the neighboring ridge of the North mountain, and more lofty, it presents its huge body and sharp angles full to the western winds. Clouds are often driven against it, cloven asunder, and carried streaming on to the right and left with a space of clear sky between, similar in form to the evening shadow of the mountain.

Sometimes however, a division of the cloud after passing the town, will come bounding back in a current of air, reflected from another mountain. It is not uncommon to see a cloud move across the great valley in Rockbridge, shedding its contents by the way—strike the Blue Ridge on the south eastern side, wheel about and pursue a different course until it is exhausted. The traveller, after the shower is over, and the clear sunshine has induced him to put off his cloak and umbrella, is surprised by the sudden return of the rain from the same quarter towards which he had just seen it pass away.

What is called the House Mountain, consists in fact, of two oblong parallel mountains, connected at the base, and rising about 1500 feet above the common level of the valley. The summits which are about a mile and a half long, resemble the roof of a house; the ends terminate in abrupt precipices; and round the base, huge buttresses taper up against the sides, as if designed to prop the mighty structure. The students of Washington College make a party every summer to visit this mountain for the sake of the prospect. They set out in clear weather and spend the night on the mountain in order to enjoy the morning beauties of the scene, which are by far the most interesting. Having twice been of such a party, the writer gives the following description, from a memory so deeply impressed by what he saw, that years have scarcely abated the vividness of its ideas.

The first time, we were disappointed by the cloudiness of the atmosphere, and should have made an unprofitable trip, had not an unexpected scene afforded us a partial reward for the toils of the ascent. We lodged like Indian hunters not far from the summit, where a little spring trickles from the foot of the precipice. After we had slept awhile, one of the company startled us with the cry of fire! He saw with astonishment in the direction of the Blue Ridge, a conflagration that cast a lurid glare through the hazy atmosphere. The flame rose and spread, every moment tapering upwards to a point, and bending before the night breeze. We first imagined that a large barn was on fire, and then as the flame grew, that the beautiful village of Lexington was a prey to the devouring element. While we gazed with fearful anxiety, the fiery object in rising yet higher, seemed to grow less at the lower extremity, until it stood forth to our joyful surprise, the MOON half full, reddened and magnified by the misty air beyond what we had ever seen. Its light afforded an obscure perception of the most prominent objects of the landscape. Shadowy masses of mountains darkened the sight in various directions, and spots less dark in the country below, gave indications of fields and houses. We perceived just enough to make us eager for a more distinct and general view of the scene. In the morning, every thing was hidden by the cloudy confusion of the atmosphere.

The next time, our party lodged on the aerial summit of the mountain, by a fire of logs, which might have served the country for a beacon. The weather proved favorable, and we rose before the dawn to enjoy the opening scene. The sky was perfectly serene, but all the world below was enveloped in darkness and fog. Our fire had sunk to embers. The gloom, the desolation, the deathlike stillness of our situation, filled every mind with silent awe, and prepared us for solemn contemplation. We spoke little, and felt disposed to solitary musing. I retired alone to a naked rock which raised its head over a precipice, turned my face to the east, and waited for the rising sun, if not with the idolatrous devotion, yet with the deep solemnity of the Persian Magii. Presently the dawn began to show the dim outline of the Blue Ridge along the eastern horizon, at the distance of twelve or fifteen miles. When the morning light opened the prospect more distinctly, the level surface of the mist which covered the valley became apparent; and the mountain tops in almost every direction, looked like islands in a white, placid, and silent ocean. I gazed with delighted imagination over this novel and fairy scene; so full of sublimity in itself, and from the sober twilight in which it appeared, so much like the work of fancy in visions of a dream. The trees and rocks of the nearest islands soon became visible; more distant islands were disclosed to view, but all were wild and desolate. I felt as if placed in a vast solitude, with lands and seas around me hitherto undiscovered by man.

Whilst I gazed with increasing admiration over the twilight scene, and endeavored to stretch my vision into the dusky regions far away, my attention was suddenly arrested by sparks of dazzling brilliancy which shot through the pines on the Blue Ridge. In the olden time, when Jupiter's thunderbolts were manufactured in the caverns of Ætna, never did such glittering scintillations fly from under the forge hammers of Cyclops. It was the sun darting his topmost rays over the mountain, and dispersing their sparkling threads in the bright and cloudless atmosphere. Very soon the fancied islands around me caught the splendid hue of the luminary, and shone like burnished gold on their eastern sides. In the west, where they were most thickly strown over the white sea of mist, and where their sides alone appeared, I could imagine them to be the islands of the blessed (so famous in ancient poetry,) where light and peace reigned perpetually. But the pleasing illusion was soon dissipated. The surface of the mist hitherto lying still, became agitated like a boiling caldron. Every where light clouds arose from it and melted away. Presently the lower hills of the country began to show their tops as if they were emerging from this troubled sea. When the sun displayed his full orb of living fire, the vapory commotion increased, the features of the low country began to be unveiled, and the first audible sound of the morning, the barking of a farmer's dog, rose from a deep vale beneath, and completely broke the enchantment of the twilight scene. When the sun was an hour high, the fog only marked the deep and curvilinear beds of the waters. Nor was I less delighted with the realities of the prospect before me.

The country lay beneath and around me to the utmost extent of vision. Along the uneven surface of the great valley, a thousand farms in every variety of situation were distinctly visible, some in low vales, some on the upland slopes, and here and there a few on the elevated sides of the mountains.

On the northeast, the less hilly county of Augusta was seen in dim perspective, like a large level of blueish green. Stretching along the eastern horizon for many a league, the Blue Ridge shewed a hundred of its lofty pinnacles among which the Peaks of Otter toward the south, rose pre-eminently conspicuous. The valley in a southwestern direction was partly concealed by the isolated line of the Short Hill: but beyond that appeared at intervals the vales of James river, from the gap where the stream has burst through the Blue Ridge, up to the place where it has cloven the North mountain, and thence round by the west, to the remarkable rent which it has made in the solid rock of the Jackson mountain, a distance altogether of some forty miles.

On the western side, the view is of a different character. Here it seemed as if all the mountains of Virginia had assembled to display their magnificence and to exhibit with proud emulation, their loftiness and their length. Line upon line, ridge behind ridge, perched over one another, crossed the landscape in various directions, here swelling into round knobs, and there stretching off in long masses far and wide; until they faded away in the blue of the atmosphere, and distinction of form and color was lost in the distance.

When I was able to withdraw my eyes from the collective whole of this sublime prospect, and to examine the particular objects that appeared around me, I was struck with the long narrow vales on the western side. The cultivated low grounds and streams of water, all converging towards the wider stream and valley of the James river, presented a beautiful contrast with the rude grandeur of the mountains among which they lay. When I looked down upon the country in the immediate vicinity of the House Mountain, I admired the beauties of the scene. The woody hillocks and shady dells had lost every rough and disagreeable feature: the surface of the woods was uniformly smooth and green, like a meadow, and wound before the elevated eye with the most graceful curves imaginable. The little homesteads about the foot of the mountain, the large farms and country seats further away in the valley, and the bright group of buildings in the village of Lexington, formed a gentle scene of beauty, which relieved the mind from the almost painful sublimity of the distant prospect, and prepared us, after hours of delightful contemplation, to descend from our aerial height, and to return with gratified feelings to our college and studies again.

Lexington, Virginia.

VISIT TO THE VIRGINIA SPRINGS,

On the morning of a bright and beautiful day early in July, I resumed my seat in the mail coach at Lexington, with the prospect of soon reaching the Virginia Springs. The line having been recently established was as yet little known, and on this occasion I was the only passenger. Ample opportunity was afforded for viewing the charming scenery which surrounds this village; and, certainly, the world can scarcely present a more lovely landscape than that which lay before us as we entered upon the turnpike which leads to the Springs.

At the foot of the hill which we were descending, "Woods's Creek" was stealing along through the shaded retreats and the velvet green which lines its banks; the adjoining hills were crowned with waving fields, now ripening for the harvest; the chimnies of the "Mulberry Hill" residence could just be seen, peering above the groves and the foliage which throw their charms around its retirement; the ruins of the "Old Academy"—where Alexander, Baxter, Matthews, Rice, and others of the first men in the Presbyterian Church were educated,—with its mouldering, ivy-covered walls, stood in melancholy solitude on the borders of the neighboring forest. Beyond, was the rolling country in its variety of scenery; and in the back ground, the House, Jump and North Mountains marking their clear outline, against the deep azure of a cloudless sky.

After winding among the hills for a few hours, we came in view of the long, unbroken range of mountains, over which we were to pass; and though still some miles from the base, the road could be distinctly traced, running in straight, and then in zigzag directions along the precipitous ascent. Soon after, we commenced our slow progress up the mountain, which might have been tedious had it not been that every successive moment which increased our elevation, revealed new beauties. The road itself is one of the curiosities of this region; it would scarcely seem possible for the ingenuity and energy of man to construct so safe and so delightful a passage over these rough and almost perpendicular ridges. At one point you may look from your carriage window upon the traveller some fifty feet below, parallel with yourself, and, paradoxical as it may appear, proceeding in the same direction, although he is bound for the opposite end of the road. So great are the angles necessary to be made in order to overcome the obstacles which nature had interposed. The declivity of the turnpike, however, is now so slight as to admit of travelling at almost any speed.

On reaching the summit, the view was inexpressibly grand. One of the loveliest sections of the Valley of Virginia spread its beauties below us. On one hand the "House Mountain" rose in solitary grandeur above the surrounding hills, and on the other the dark spurs of the Alleghany projected out into the more cultivated country. On the southwest, as far as the eye could reach, mountain after mountain could be seen. Immediately below and before us, were laid out as a map, the fertile fields, comfortable farm-houses and county roads of Rockbridge; the numerous streams reflected in silvery sheets, as they wound through the broken country and hurried along to pour their waters into the bosom of the James. Across the "Valley" at the distance of perhaps twenty miles, the great "Blue Ridge" stretched away towards the north and south, until it was lost in the deeper azure of the evening sky, or hid by the dark and heavy clouds which bear the summer's storm.

We were now upon the boundary which separates the "Valley" from Western Virginia. After gazing in admiration on the beauties of the country through which we had just travelled, I turned to enjoy similar scenes on the opposite side. But nothing except successive piles of mountains met the view. The deep vales and sun-tinged peaks, seemed to be still slumbering in their original wildness, and had it not been for the traces of art exhibited by our turnpike, and the sight of an iron foundry in the valley below, I should have been almost forced to the conclusion, that we were disturbing the silence of those forests which had never before echoed but to the cry of the panther, or the war-whoop of the wandering Indian.

Having halted a few minutes, the driver "shod" our coach, and rolling away with the sound of thunder down the mountain, we reached the inn where the stage stopped for the night, just as the sun was sinking behind the western hills. Our landlord and his better half were themselves Dutch, and had raised up a stout rosy-looking family, who attended to the domestic concerns of the establishment without the aid of servants. The house was situated on a level lawn between two lofty ridges of the Alleghany, part of which was neatly enclosed, and clothed with the richest green. The domicil itself was one story in height, with a piazza in front; and the peculiar national taste of the proprietor could be seen in the free use of red and black paint with which the establishment was ornamented. But the interior presented an aspect rather more inviting, after the fatigue of the day's ride. The snow-white table cloth, and the clean and plain, yet delightful fare, with which the table was bountifully supplied, gave evidence of the existence of taste in the culinary department, which amply compensated for the want of it in matters of less substantial importance. A handsome coach and four had driven up just as we arrived. After tea the guests assembled in the piazza, and we passed away in cheerful conversation the hours of a lovely summer's evening, in this wild valley among the mountains.

We reached Covington, a village on Jackson's river, to breakfast the next morning, and by ten o'clock had arrived at Callaghens, a comfortable country tavern, where we intersected the line from Staunton. On the arrival of that stage, I changed conveyances, and with it the light and rapid travelling of the former coach, for the slow and heavy motion of one loaded down with passengers and baggage. I found as my new companions, a very agreeable gentleman from Philadelphia, with his wife and son, an intelligent young South American, a huge and awkward Mississippian, an incog. gentleman with a good countenance and a white hat of the first magnitude, a youth of about seventeen, whose emaciated countenance, hectic flush and distressing cough, told that consumption had marked him as its victim, together with one or two others not peculiarly interesting. We were now but fifteen miles from the White Sulphur; and the impatience of our passengers seemed to increase almost in the duplicate ratio as the distance diminished. Every few moments the interrogatory, "How far are we now?" was heard from some one of the company. At length the number of handsome vehicles, persons on horseback and on foot, which were passing and repassing us, shewed that we were in the vicinity of the Springs. In a few moments the enclosure came in view, and immediately after we drove up in front of the hotel at the White Sulphur. Groups of gentlemen were collected about the lawn and in the long piazza of the hotel. All eyes were eagerly turned towards our coach, and many came crowding round, in hopes of espying the face of an acquaintance among the new arrivals. The first physiognomy which greeted our vision was that of the manager of the establishment, who has no very enviable notoriety among the visitors. According to his usual system, he had our baggage deposited for the remainder of the day at the foot of the tree where we landed, whilst we were left to wander about the premises, without even a domicil in which to change our dusty travelling garb for one more in unison with our personal comfort, and the general appearance of those who were to constitute our temporary associates.

There is something in the first view of the White Sulphur, very prepossessing and almost enchanting. After rolling along among the mountains and dense forests, the wild and uncultivated scenery is at once exchanged for the neatness and elegance of refined society, and the bustle and parade of the fashionable world. Almost every state in the Union, and some of the nations of Europe may find their representatives at the White Sulphur, during the months of July and August. The last season was honored with an uncommon assemblage of interesting personages. We had Messrs. Clay and Poindexter of the United States Senate; McDuffie and others from the House of Representatives; Commodores Chauncey, Biddle and Rogers of the Navy; Judges Carr, Brooke and Cabell of the Court of Appeals; Col. Aspinwall, American Consul at London; the Hon. Mr. Sergeant of Philadelphia, and a host of dignitaries of somewhat lower degree,—also from the religious community, Rev. Doctors Johns and Keith of the Episcopal Church, and Rev. Messrs. Chester, Styles, (of Georgia) and others of the Presbyterian. Mr. Clay was just recovering from an injury he had received from the upsetting of the stage, but he moved about with the lightness and activity of a boy of 15. Indeed we almost thought that he descended from his dignity by his frivolous and careless air. He was affable and accessible to all. Mr. McDuffie, on the contrary, with his hard and forbidding countenance, was morose and distant, and the very reverse of the orator of Kentucky. Perhaps, however, due allowance should be made in favor of the former, on account of the infirm state of his health.

But the White Sulphur itself must not pass unnoticed. Its charms are worthy of being celebrated. The buildings, which are situated on a gradual acclivity, are arranged in the form of a hollow square. Adjoining the Kanawha turnpike, which passes the springs and parallel with it, are two large white hotels. One of these contains the dining and drawing rooms, and in the other there is a spacious saloon for music, dancing, &c. This is also used on the Sabbath as a chapel. In a line with these, and running in each direction, is a row of cottages one story in height, for the use of visitors. With this at the eastern extremity unites a continued range of beautiful white cottages, with venitians and long piazzas, forming another side of the quadrangle. At the distance of several hundred paces from the hotels, and parallel with them on the hill side, is the third range, which is built entirely of brick and extends for several hundred yards, until its lower termination is concealed amongst the trees which form a thick grove on the brow of the hill. On the western extremity of the area are the bathing houses, and above all, that which constitutes the great attraction—the spring. The reservoir in which the spring rises, is an octagon of about five feet in diameter, from which a constant and copious stream flows off, supplying the bathing houses. A few steps lead up from this reservoir, to a platform some twenty-five feet in diameter, furnished with seats and surrounded by a neat railing. The whole is protected by a beautiful temple, composed of lofty white pillars surmounted by a dome. From the interior of this dome is suspended a chandelier, by which the temple is lighted up in the evenings. A lawn of the richest green, tastefully laid out with gravelled walks, and shaded by an abundance of oaks and locusts, extends over the area of the quadrangle. At the distance of a few feet from the cottages is a light railing, along which, as also along the walks, are lamp-posts, from which the area is brilliantly illuminated in the evening.

We know of no scene more romantic and picturesque than that presented to a spectator from one of the cottages on the hill, after the lamps have been lighted for the night. The floods of light, streaming among the trees, and from every window; the throngs of the gay and fashionable, crowding the walks for the evening's promenade, and the thrilling melody of the rich music from a fine German band, throws quite a fairy-like influence around this pleasant retreat among the mountains.

On the Sabbath, the saloon usually occupied as a dancing room, was consecrated to more hallowed purposes. At the call of the bell, a large and very respectable congregation assembled, and listened to a solemn and eloquent discourse from the Rev. Doct. Johns of Baltimore. It seemed peculiarly appropriate, that while resorting to these waters for healing the diseases of the body, we should also have recourse to the wells of salvation which have been opened in the house of David for the diseases of the soul. The grace and elegance with which the speaker on this occasion presented the truths connected with his office, was calculated to render them interesting, as well as to convey a sense of their importance even to the most indifferent.

It would be perhaps superfluous to speak of the healing efficacy of this celebrated spring; its renovating effects are annually exhibited, and have been for years. It has been, however, a matter of regret, that so little has been certainly known, as to the peculiar properties of this as well as the other mineral springs of Virginia, and of their application to different diseases. It is a lamentable fact that invalids, by resorting to one of the springs which was not at all suited to their case, have only aggravated their diseases, and hurried themselves more rapidly to the grave. No impression is perhaps more common and none more erroneous, than that if the use of a particular spring is efficacious in one complaint, it will be equally beneficial in others, no matter how different their nature, and that at all events if no good is gained, no positive injury is received. The very opposite of this is the fact. Unless there is a clear understanding of the pathology of the disease, and of the properties of the water, as well as the adaptation of its constituents to remove the malady in view, we are for the most part groping in the dark, and playing at best but a hazardous game. The want of a mineral water suited to the case of invalids, need however deter no one from visiting the Virginia Springs. Providence has supplied in this region a variety sufficient to answer the necessities of almost any case. The only difficulty is, to ascertain which of these watering places is adapted to the particular disease.

Doctors Bell and Horner have given to the public the results of some investigations in reference to these waters, but the former had never visited the springs, and the latter only for a few weeks of one season, without either proper apparatus to perfect a complete analysis, or sufficient opportunity for witnessing their practical effects. The consequence is, that both of these gentlemen, though eminent in their professions, have given their authority to statements which are in many respects erroneous. Difficulties from this source however will soon be remedied. Professor Rogers of William and Mary College, a gentleman eminently qualified for the purpose, visited the springs last summer with complete analyzing apparatus, and it is to be hoped that the cause of humanity will speedily realize the benefit of his valuable investigations. Dr. Tindall, who has made the White Sulphur his place of residence for several seasons, has devoted his attention to ascertaining the practical effects of the waters, and intended issuing a volume on the subject before the commencement of the next summer.

The efficacy of the White Sulphur is principally confined to affections of the liver, and derangements of the sanguiferous and biliary systems. Where there is any tendency to pulmonary disease, the use of this water should by all means be avoided. Its exciting effects are exceedingly prejudicial to such constitutions. A continued use of the water will occasion a rapid progress of the disease. Individuals of a consumptive habit have been known to hasten their end by a residence at the White Sulphur. One case at least has come within my own observation.

We cannot leave the White Sulphur without a deep feeling of regret, that the proprietors of this otherwise attractive and delightful place, should make so little provision for the comfort of visitors. The buildings, though extensive, are not at all sufficient to accommodate the numbers which now resort thither. During the last summer almost every house for miles on the roads leading to the springs, was thronged with persons who had been turned off at the hotel. Many of those who could obtain the privilege of remaining upon the ground, received exceedingly unpleasant accommodations. The table too, which assumes a prodigious importance after a week's residence and use of the water, is by no means such as should be afforded at such an establishment. Every visitor will recollect his dining-room experience at the White Sulphur. But one of the most unpleasant features of the whole, is found in the person of the manager, who, although naturally possessed of an amiable and accommodating disposition, we must say, in our opinion, is not qualified for the situation. It is much to be lamented, that this place which possesses decided advantages over any watering place in the United States and perhaps in the world—whose climate, scenery and healing properties are no where surpassed, and to which, notwithstanding the accommodations, crowds resort, should not be fitted up in a style suited to its merits.

THE FINE ARTS.

The sixteenth century was remarkable for the transcendant excellence of the Italian painters; every city had its school, and each school preserved a different style, distinguished for expression, grace or dignity. By schools, we do not mean academies, for there were none when these great men came forth ennobling nature: they studied in the "academic groves" of the Arno and the Tiber, and were themselves the establishers of those schools, that fettered genius with scholastic rules, and from that day the arts began to decline; each succeeding generation became imitators of the preceding one, and neglecting the study of nature and the poetry of art, they fell into a manerism, growing worse and worse down to their present puerile and meretricious style. And here permit us to correct a very prevalent error, that Italy at this day is distinguished far its living artists, when in fact no country of Europe is so deficient in men eminent in sculpture and painting; but for the present we will confine our remarks to the masters of the sixteenth century and their unrivalled works.

For three centuries the palm of excellence has been awarded to Michael Angelo for originality, to Raphael for correctness of design and expression, to Titian for color, and Correggio for grace; but that in which they all agree is sublimity. "This," says Longinus, "elevates the mind above itself, and fills it with high conceptions and a noble pride." The sources of the sublime he makes to consist of "boldness or grandeur in thought, pathos, expression, and harmony of structure," and these characterize the works of the Italian masters, and place them amongst the epics of the pencil. It is not, as pretended connoisseurs assert, in the high relief, the wonderful foreshortening, the boldness of the touch or fine finish, or even harmony of coloring, that these works claim superior merit, for in all these the Dutch as a school surpass them, but it is "in the grandeur of the thought, in the pathos, expression and harmony of the whole."

Michael Angelo's originality and creative powers surpassed those of all men, and his knowledge of the human figure constituted his praise and his reproach, for in the desire to display his anatomical learning, he overstepped the modesty of nature and exhibited his figures with a muscular developement, disproportioned to the strength required. In the Sistine Chapel, a little child holding the Cybeline book, is represented with the arms of an infant Hercules; and in his holy family at Florence, naked men are seen in the back ground at gymnastic exercises, having no connection with, or reference to the modesty of the subject; the execution of this picture is hard and the color opaque. Well might he exclaim after finishing it, "Oil painting is unworthy of men, I leave it to boys." Raphael was the boy against whom this sarcasm was hurled, whose works in oil will long survive his frescos, and who freed from envy—that passion of little minds—"thanked his maker that he had lived in the days of Michael Angelo." But the Last Judgment is the work on which M. Angelo's reputation rests as a painter; it was the last he ever executed, and is strongly impressed with the peculiar character of its author, originality and vigor of thought, with incongruity of persons and place. The son of man appears in wrath to take vengeance on his enemies, and with an uplifted hand and frowning brows, seems to say "depart, ye cursed into everlasting punishment," and they are tumbling headlong down in every conceivable attitude; on the other hand the righteous are rising to eternal life, in groups of a masterly design, executed with such strength and simplicity as to convey the most sublime ideas of the subject; but the improper mixture of mythological fable and Christian faith detract much from its merit, and we are scarcely less disgusted with Charon ferrying his boat in hell, than with the angels playing with the cross in heaven; they are equally out of keeping, and the whole scene is deficient in drapery—even the blessed being stands exposed in the nudity of this frail tenement.

The work most justly to be brought in comparison with this, is the Transfiguration by Raphael. The subject is equally sublime, and composed with equal simplicity. The whole scene rises before you with such propriety of expression in every countenance, that it requires no interpreter to know them; no trifling ornament diverts the attention from the subject, and no idle levity detracts from the solemnity of the occasion. Human infirmity is brought in strong contrast with omnipotent power, and the mind is led by a natural gradation from our dependance up to his goodness. An epileptic boy of interesting age is supported in the arms of his father, and surrounded with friends and relations, who bring him to the disciples to be healed, and the imploring mother, the beautiful countenance of the sister, the anxious parent and suffering boy, excite our sympathy, and we look to the apostles for their miraculous power of healing, but their faith had failed them; sweet charity remained, and

as they point to the mount "from whence their help cometh." Following the direction we behold the prostrate three, Peter, James and John, veiling their faces in the ineffable presence; above, self-poised in mid air and bright in the radiance of supernatural light, the "son of man" is seen between Moses and Elias. It has been objected that there are two subjects here in one picture, but they are so closely allied in the history of the event, and simultaneous in time, that to separate them would be to destroy the effect and interest of both; nothing could be omitted without detracting from its merit, and nothing added without impairing its grandeur; with the exception of two men ascending the mount in sacerdotal robes, doubtless introduced against the wish of the artist, to gratify some officious patron.

These two paintings may represent the schools of Rome and Florence, and are justly esteemed the sublimest style of art. The former in fresco, the latter in oil, and both unattractive by the beauty of coloring or the magic of effect, but sublime in thought, expression and design. In presenting these to the admiration of the amateur and the study of the artist, we would not limit excellence to any one manner, but on the contrary, reprehend those who see no beauty save in a smoked antique, or in a modern English portrait, in the boldness of Salvator Rosa or the finish of Carlo Dolci. These may be all beautiful in their kind and have equal claims to admiration, though inferior in sublimity of design.

The Venetian school revelled in the luxury of colors and feasted the eye with the most harmonious arrangement of the brightest tints and broadest light and shade; and some have supposed could these have been added to the Roman school, it would have been the perfection of art, but Sir Joshua Reynolds thought them incompatible, and it is not without probability that a gayer dress would have detracted from the simplicity and greatness of the Roman paintings, as would pearls in the ears of a fine statue. If the Venetians therefore, were not so sublime, they were more beautiful:

Of these, Titian stands pre-eminent in the truth of nature and the choice of the beautiful; a refinement is impressed on every product of his pencil, and from the portrait of Charles the 5th to the assumption of the Madonna at Venice, (his greatest work) there is a nobleness of air, an elevation of thought above common men or common things; it was this, not less than the truth of his coloring, that employed his pencil upon so many crowned and noble heads; his carnations glowed with the freshness of life, neither erring with too much of the blossom of the rose or the yellow of the marigold, and it is probable from his works, Fresnoy drew that admirable precept:

Correggio comes next in the scale of excellence, who with less truth of color than the Venetians, or greatness of design than the Romans, surpassed them all in grace, that indescribable "je ne sais quoi," so delightful in the movements of some persons, and equally opposed to the rules of polished society and clownish rusticity. His figures repose with a nature unstudied, and his children play with an infant's artless innocence—though frequently homely in feature and badly drawn, they irresistibly charm the learned and the simple, and command at once the highest admiration and the highest price.¹ His finest work is probably the St. Jerome at Parma, so called from this saint's forming one figure in the group, with the infant Saviour, his mother, and Mary Magdalene. The anachronism of thus introducing persons who lived at different eras, did not affect the minds of good Catholics three centuries since, more than the same discrepancy does the modern reader of Anacharsis.

¹ A Holy Family, only 9½ by 13 inches in the national gallery in England, was purchased for 3000 guineas.

RECENT AMERICAN NOVELS.

The year '35, rich as may be its promise of social and political good, has so far done little for the cause of letters. The seductions of political distinction, or the more substantial attractions of the lucrative professions, have turned from the paths of literature all whom genius and education have fitted to attain a high degree of intellectual rank; while in the peculiar department of romance, the master spirits, those who ruled the realms of fiction with undisputed sway, have retired from the scenes of their glory, and left their neglected wands to be played with by the puny arms of dwarfish successors. COOPER¹ has sheltered himself from the furious storm, which an injudicious and silly political pamphlet raised about his head, in some quiet nook in his own native state; while IRVING, the elegant, but over-nice, the gentle but languid IRVING, has abandoned romance for reality, to favor the world with sketches of Indian manners and scenery. PAULDING and Miss SEDGEWICK have ceased for a time, to inflict their stories of humor and love, upon the proprietors of circulating libraries, and provincial book-sellers. But the press has not ceased: others have been found to succeed to, if not to fill the places of those, whose genius the sanction of the world had approved, and whose names ranked high in our infant literature. Who are the new comers? Do they write as men having authority—the authority of heaven-stamped genius, to claim to be heard for themselves, and their cause?—or are they but raw, brawling braggarts, who have broken into the sacred circle, rioting like buffoons, disgracing what they could not honor? Are they menials of the mind, underlings of the intellect, who have filled the rich banqueting hall just abandoned by their superiors, sitting in squalid rags on the splendid seats of genius, and gulping down the dregs of the deserted wine, and the scraps of the half consumed feast—boors rioting in the sumptuous apartments of their lords? Are they men, who, by a vigorous and educated intellect, and the patient study of the works of the great writers of romance, have fitted themselves to pour forth words of burning eloquence, of bitter satire, of side-shaking humor, and irresistible pathos? Are they artists, who, by the curious and intricate construction of their fable, know how to excite and sustain the deepest interest, ever urging upon the heart some tender affection, some exalted feeling of honor and chivalry?

¹ Since this sentence was penned, we have noticed the advertisement of a new (satirical?) novel, (The Mannikins,) from the pen of this gentleman, to be published during the summer.

At a period when the crowd of novels issued almost daily from the press, threatens serious injury to the literature of the age, not only by withdrawing men of high natural capacities from the arduous study of graver and more important subjects, but by throwing before the public such a mass of matter, that unless they be neglected, (which from their seductive character is not likely to be the case,) nothing else can be read, it is of the highest importance, that an elevated standard should be fixed by which to measure these productions. The popular objection so often urged against this species of literature, is not without some foundation in truth; and the only mistake made by those who have brought it forward, consists in applying to the species, that which is true only in individual cases. The influence of these fictitious histories, from the rude form of the early romance, down to the brilliant productions of the best writers of the present century, has been, however, on the whole, advantageous to general literature, and of the most humanizing effect upon society. Nothing could betray more silly ignorance, than to contrast this class of authors with those who have chosen higher and more essentially important subjects; and because law, and philosophy, and mathematics, may be in themselves, of a deeper interest and more universal value, to regret the time and talent devoted to this elegant and refining department of letters, as so much labor and opportunity thrown away. So far from being wasted, we question, if even the most brilliant discoveries in science, have contributed as much to the comfort and enjoyment of society. It would be difficult to calculate the actual amount of moral good, that may have been effected by the constant holding up to the young and ardent, but plastic mind, the bright and winning examples of female loveliness and manly virtue, that abound in these popular and ever attractive volumes. And those who underrate their powerful influence, know little of the actual workings of the human heart—of the secret influences that direct, for good or for evil, the wayward thoughtfulness of the young. The whole class of romances, then, viewed as a means of forming individual character, must assume in the eyes of the moralist and statesman, an importance far beyond their intrinsic value, as literary works; and it is the forgetting of the ulterior and vastly more interesting purpose which they serve, in the general economy of society, that has misled many virtuous and even able men, to undervalue and despise the whole species as frivolous and worthless. A proper regard to their influence, exerted in this way, must lie at the bottom of all sound criticism, or the labors of the reviewer degenerate at once far below the flippancy of the most trashy of the works he reads but to condemn. The novel is only valuable as illustrating some peculiarities, defects, or excellencies of character—passages of historical interest, or the manners and customs of a class; and its success must depend on the ability with which it is adapted to the end desired to be accomplished. It is only the more unthinking class of writers, who mistaking the means for the end, have lost sight of all object in the composition of their tales. Don Quixotte was not written as a mere record of amusing absurdities; its purpose was to put down the injurious and ridiculous follies, which the wit of Cervantes happily lashed out of Spain. And it will be found that no work has obtained an extensive and lasting popularity, that did not recommend itself by something beyond the mere detail of the story, and the humor of the dialogue. But to return from this long digression.

THE INSURGENTS. We commence with these volumes as decidedly superior, in point of ability and interest, to other works on our table, from the pens of American writers. They are the production of one who has written before, who knows his own strength, and has fallen, (if we may use the expression,) into the regular gait of authorship—he is broken to the press. An outline of the plot, will the better enable those who may not have perused the work itself, to comprehend the justice of the scenes, and to understand the excellencies or defects of the various characters that figure on the stage. The story is laid in Massachusetts, at the period of the insurrectionary movements, among the inhabitants of some of the interior counties, during the administration of Governor Bowdoin, and immediately after the close of the revolutionary war. Col. Eustace, an officer of the revolutionary army, a generous but careless manager of his own affairs, has after several years of arduous service, and in consequence of ill health, retired to an estate fast falling to ruin, under the thriftless conduct of the open-handed thoughtless veteran. Henry Eustace, his eldest son, had served for two years as an adjutant to his father, and returned after the close of the war, full of ardent aspirations, and without any regular profession, to his paternal home. Elizabeth Eustace, is the only daughter of the old Colonel, and as the propriety of the novel requires, a lovely and interesting girl. Tom Eustace, a younger brother, plays a subaltern part in the developement of the story. Frank Talbot, an officer but a few years the senior of Henry Eustace, succeeds to the Colonelcy, vacant by the retirement of the elder Eustace; and after the disbanding of the army, returns to his residence in the village, near the estate of Col. Eustace, and is soon deeply immersed in professional business as a lawyer, and in the political duties of a representative of his native town, in the General Court, the title by which the Legislature of Massachusetts was then distinguished. Frank too, has a sister, Mary, somewhat the senior of Elizabeth, and distinguished from her by a reserved manner and studious habit, but little characteristic of her age and sex. The concluding portion of the second chapter, discovers the secret attachment, which Elizabeth Eustace already bore the young legislator, and drops the reader a hint of what the after pages of the work more fully disclose.

The great sacrifices of property, incident to a war of seven years, and the heavy imposts which the necessities of the state government impelled it to levy on those who were already deeply involved, stirred up among that class of the people, a spirit of sullen discontent; and the legislature was already the arena on which the relief, or popular party on the one hand, and the creditors on the other, had arrayed themselves in fierce opposition. Talbot, who is represented as "devoured by an ambition for political power and distinction," with an active restless spirit, determined to disregard all principle, whenever a more conscientious course might interfere with the gratification of his political aspirations, embraced the side of the malcontents, and was now on a visit to his constituents, for the purpose of rousing them up to more active remonstrance against the measures of the creditors' or government party, already supposed to have secured a majority in the lower house of the State Legislature. Henry Eustace, at this time, visits his friend, and consults with him on the choice of a profession. Medicine, to which he at first inclined, is soon abandoned, for the more attractive employment of politics; and fascinated by the popular eloquence of Talbot, whose enthusiasm had already enflamed the ardent blood of Henry, he becomes one of the most violent of the partizans of the party to which Talbot was then attached. While on this visit to the neighborhood, Talbot engages himself to Elizabeth Eustace. His talents and influence had already attracted the attention of the friends of the government, and they resolve to tempt him to desertion from his present associates, by the offer of electing him, by their support, to the Senate, to which he already aspired, but with little hope of success, from the votes of his own party. Having espoused the popular cause, from motives of personal interest, he as readily abandons it, when more seductive offers are held out by the opposite party. The baseness of Talbot, who seizes the first opportunity to betray the cause he had formerly supported, is an unexpected blow to Eustace, and severs the friendship that before existed between them. The latter assumes the secret command of the conspirators, while Talbot devotes all his energy and abilities to the service of his new friends of the government; and every day widens the difference between them. A large portion of the two volumes is taken up with descriptions of the various marchings and counter-marchings of the insurgents and the militia, in the course of which Talbot and Eustace engage in single combat; the latter strikes the sword from his adversary's hand, and spares him his life. The story then goes on, without any thing of importance occurring, until the conflict between the two parties in the Legislature, is decided in favor of the government, by the passage of a law for the suspension of the habeas corpus act. The hatred between Talbot and Eustace had already become of the most rancorous and malignant character, and the arrest of the latter, who had been once saved by the sister of Talbot, is now effected by her brother at the head of a party of soldiers. Thus deprived of their chief support, in the person of Eustace, the insurgents are soon dispersed, not however without a skirmish, in which they are put to flight, in a way at once ludicrous and conclusive. The first fire disperses them, never to recover. Elizabeth Eustace and Mary Talbot, in the mean time, manage to bring about a reconciliation between the two hostile brothers, to whom they had been respectively engaged, and a double marriage consummates the happiness of this quartette, and concludes the second and last volume of the "Insurgents." So much for the story, which though simple enough in the detail, is liable to the serious objection, that must ever lie against that division of interest, the necessary consequence of introducing a double set of characters into a plot, that should be single and simple. The unities of the drama are not more essential to the perfection of pieces designed for theatrical representation, than is the preservation of an individual and prominent interest in the hero of a novel. The narrow compass of a couple of duodecimos, is not more than sufficient for the painting of one chief character, with the sketches of the minor personæ, necessary to sustain the interest of a plot. An attempt at double teaming a novel, with two sets of heroes, invariably results in destroying that prominence of interest, which a closer adherence to the legitimate form of the fable, naturally and necessarily insures; and no more striking illustration of our position could be found, than in the volumes before us. The characters of Eustace and Talbot, neither contrast with effect, nor harmonize in the general management of the plot; and the awkward and unnatural reconciliation, which is finally brought about, to say nothing of the perplexities into which the cross-loves of the four, plunge the writer, is the best evidence that this double-plotting has injured the effect of the story, by rendering it necessary to force a conclusion.

As the fidelity to nature, in the character of the principal actors, must always be one of the highest sources of interest to a critical reader, we shall notice very briefly, the manner in which the author of the "Insurgents" has succeeded in the personnel of his descriptions. The old Colonel, the father of Henry Eustace, is exactly such a personage as every reader may have met with—brave, generous, careless, and ignorant, he is, perhaps, a very correct picture of the better part of the ancien regime of our colonial and revolutionary times. Without any striking peculiarities of character, and playing but a subaltern part in the story, he only appears as a piece of the family furniture, brought into play, by the casual location of the scene. The reader has no cause to regret the slightness of the acquaintance. The Colonel's second son, Tom, is but an appendage to the story. Henry, one of the heroes, begins in the army, a mischief loving, rule breaking, but active and gallant youth; and in the progress of the story, becomes an eloquent, restless, rebellious demagogue—stirring up insurrection among the people—defending in the Legislature, with consummate ability, their pretended wrongs and actual treason; and upon one occasion, displaying in the field, the chivalrous courage of his hot and impatient years. He is, however, always honorable and sincere. His treason is infatuation, and his demagogueism (if we may coin a much wanted word,) the frenzy of passion and thoughtlessness. Talbot, on the contrary, is bold and eloquent; a brave soldier, and an accomplished advocate; but a cunning and unprincipled politician, who, in the beginning of his career, espouses the cause of the malcontents, as the only means of securing the representation of his native village in the Legislature, and as quickly abandons it, when a higher office is promised him by the friends of the government, as the price of his desertion. Dr. Talbot, a country physician "of long practice and high repute," is an abrupt, rough, but good natured disciple of Esculapius, and seems to have been intended for no other purpose, than to enable the author to discharge his wit at the expense of some of the ill mannered admirers of the surly blackguardism of the Abernethy school of medical gentility. Of the two heroines, Mary Talbot is a thoughtful, reserved, bright eyed blue; Elizabeth Eustace is younger, and prettier, but more entirely the child of nature. Neither of them, however, say or act any thing that can distinguish them from the common materiel of all novel-women, and serve rather the necessities of the plot, than the illustration of any of the more touching or exalted beauties of female character. Of the Dii minorum gentium—the lower order of character, Zeek Morehouse, a worthless understrapper about the old Colonel's domestic establishment—Hezekiah Brindle, another domestic, who, when fortune had abandoned the standard of the Insurgents, with the most simple hearted treachery, "'lists for a private" in the adverse army—Deacon Hopkins, a thin visaged, flint hearted knave, the usurer of the parish—Captain Moses Bliss, the inn keeper, one of those pert, low rogues, so often found in village taverns—Captain Shays, the leader of the insurgents, and the very impersonation of the spirit of the militia service—Mrs. Appleton and Mrs. Shattuck, specimens of the virago, are all rather amusing examples of Yankee low life, and afford occasion for much characteristic, if not very interesting dialogue. The other characters brought out in the developement of the story, scarcely deserve to be noticed, serving as they only do, like soldiers drafted from the cobbler's stalls and tailors benches, for the use of the stage, to help the author through the necessities of his plot.

The conduct of the story, is in some respects extremely, and very often unnecessarily, faulty. The introduction of Zeek Morehouse, in the second chapter, is a bungling expedient to beat out the author's materiel, over a larger surface for the publisher: and the whole scene in the kitchen, and afterwards in the presence of the Colonel's family, is low and dull. The Doctor (Talbot,) is always an unnecessary personage, and we hardly think there is any thing about him, to compensate the delay in the story which his presence occasions. The affair of "Mary Gibbs's misfortune," is awkwardly brought in, and unsatisfactorily disposed of. We are sorry for the misconduct of Eustace, and rather vexed at the facile forgiveness with which his mistress overlooks it; while the silence of the novelist gives a venial character to one of the most crying offences against individual happiness and social order. Osborne, and his adventures, from the commencement, through his trial and mock punishment, down to the period of the marriage with Miss Warren, form an episode that only swells the volume, without helping on the story, or affording the author any opportunity (that he had not before,) for remark, or the illustration of character. He is nothing but the shadow of Eustace, in point of character; and Miss Warren, as a sketch of a flirting fashionable, is not worth the pains taken to introduce her to the reader. The capital defect of the plot, however, is in the conclusion. The bitter contempt which Eustace must have felt, (and which he seizes every opportunity to express,) for the baseness of Talbot, in betraying the cause of the popular party, and the rancorous hatred which his subsequent violent persecution of him, had engendered in the breast of Eustace, (see vol. 2, p. 266-7,) to say nothing of the cordial detestation with which Talbot returned his ill will, (see vol. 2, p. 268,) renders the reconciliation, effected without any sort of explanation, apology, or clearing up of the guilt of either, unnatural and disgusting. Eustace knew the baseness of Talbot, and the latter (a bearded man, and a soldier,) had just declared that he would sooner follow his sister to the grave, than see her united to his enemy; and yet, presto! the author having finished out his second volume, the traitor and his bitter foe, shake hands, and enter at once into an exchange of sisters by a double marriage! In this particular, the story is contrived with great want of skill.

The author seems to have been aware of the propriety and good taste of preserving historical correctness in a novel, founded on scenes in real life; but he does not comprehend, to its full extent, the spirit of that sound canon. So far as the progress of the story, in the movements of the insurgents, is concerned, the events are in strict keeping with Bradford's account of the insurrections in Massachusetts. But this was but a small part of the duty of the novelist; and he has violated all the rest. The open rebellion of the greater part of the population of several counties, threatened the most serious and alarming evil; perhaps the total overthrow of the government of the state; and the spirit of the people had become sullen and gloomy. In the "Insurgents," however, the whole affair is treated with ridicule, and the reader of the novel is left with an impression that the insurrection was of a character, compared with which, the adventures of Don Quixotte and his squire, were serious and important! Shays, who was the head of the malcontents, and commander in chief of the disorderly forces that were arranged against the government, is painted in the novel, as a despicably ignorant and silly creature. Now, such would not have been the character of a man, elected to head a band of desperate insurgents, upon the point of engagement with the forces of a powerful commonwealth! We may add, that the whole body of the relief party, with the exception of Eustace, and his friend Osborne, are described as frivolous gasconading clowns. In this respect, then, there has been a gross falsification of history, and the extremely literal adherence of the author, to historical correctness in events, renders this striking variation the more apparent, and the more to be lamented.

The moral of the "Insurgents," is defective. The treachery of Talbot, and the indignant virtue of Eustace, are rewarded with the same final happiness; and the unfortunate Mary Gibbs does not even suggest to the author a word of censure, upon her guilty seducer. We should have been glad to have made such extracts from the work, as would have enabled our readers to judge for themselves of its merit; but there are few, if any passages, in either volume, of very striking interest, and any partial quotation would rather have misled, than corrected their judgment.

Men of humor are always, in some degree, men of genius; wits are rarely so, although a man of genius may, amongst other gifts, possess wit, as Shakspeare.

LETTERS ON THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

DEAR HENRY,—You have requested me to give you some information concerning the science and literature of the United States, which have been so often the subjects of ridicule and derision in the critical reviews and other literary journals of our country. I take great pleasure in complying with this request, as far as my limited opportunities have enabled me to judge of their condition. I have read almost every American work of any merit I could obtain, and mingled with some of their men of science and letters, for the purpose of being directed in my researches, and of acquiring from personal observation, a better knowledge of their living authors.

In science, perhaps, for so young and growing a nation, its progress has been as steady and rapid as could reasonably have been expected. In the exact and physical sciences, there are some who, though they have not greatly enlarged their circle, are nevertheless profoundly versed in them, and who would not be ranked below the best in Europe. In chemistry, mineralogy, and botany, several have acquired great distinction, and these sciences are becoming daily more popular and more generally cultivated. Many of the young of both sexes attend occasional and regular lectures on each, but especially on the first and last, and it is not rare to meet with females conversant to a certain degree with both. In the northern cities, public lectures are delivered on various branches of science, which are attended by both sexes. There are at present several scientific journals published in the United States, which are said to be pretty generally patronized, and two or three scientific associations, whose transactions have been given to the public. Of the former, the most meritorious are—Silliman's Journal of Science, the Franklin Quarterly Journal, Chapman's and some other medical journals, and two or three law journals. Of the philosophical transactions I can say but little. I have merely glanced over those of the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Literary and Philosophical Society of New York, but that glance has not impressed me very favorably with the genius or learning of their members. Some few papers are indeed valuable, and exhibit considerable research and erudition, but they appear to be deficient in originality, depth and lucidness. I have, however, never been very partial to these associations. The amount of their contributions to science or literature has never been so great as to render their formation desirable in my eye, and certainly they are not to be compared with the individual labors of those great luminaries who have shed such radiance over the paths of science. Scientific men here have published from time to time the result of their labors in the different physical sciences, to the cultivation of which they have devoted a large portion of their lives. The botanical works of Bigelow, Nutall, Barton, Eaton and Elliott, the works on American birds by Wilson, Bonaparte and Audubon, that on mineralogy by Cleveland—on entomology by Say, and on natural history by Goodman, are highly creditable to the country in which they were produced. Law and medical lectures are frequently published, and law reports are numerous. I believe every State has its reporter, and every year brings forth a volume or two of decisions. Jurisprudence appears to be in this country a more complicated science than in Europe. The student has not only to make himself acquainted with the elements and principles of English law, maritime, civil and criminal, but he has to acquire a knowledge of the laws of the particular state in which he practices, and to know what the courts of the different states have decided, where he does not practice. Law is a favorite science, if indeed it can be called a science, among the Americans. There is scarcely a youth who has received the most ordinary education, that does not undertake to study and practice, or attempt to practice it. In a government of laws like this, law will be a desirable object of attainment, and hence almost every citizen is more or less conversant with the laws by which he is governed. The medical science too, is very extensively cultivated, and this profession has produced several distinguished men, of whom the nation has reason to feel proud. But metaphysical science is almost entirely neglected, which is a matter of surprise when we consider the very inquisitive and refining character of the American mind. Men here, however, have no time for mere abstract speculation; and though many of them refine and subtilize, and split hairs on constitutional questions, they are not very anxious to analyze or investigate mere abstractions, or to attempt to elicit light from the darkness of metaphysical obscurity.—One of the most extensively informed scientific men this country has produced, was Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell of New York, who died during the summer of 1831. He had devoted his life to the cultivation of science, especially the physical sciences, in all of which he was well skilled; but, in consequence of that vanity which sometimes accompanies great attainments, he often became an object of ridicule to his countrymen, who seemed more inclined to depreciate than to exalt his real merits.

Of the literature of America you are almost as well informed as myself. I have looked into most of the native productions of this country with an impartial eye, and am sorry to say that its literature does not rank so high as one might be led to suppose from the intelligence of its people and the nature of its political institutions. Literature does not receive that encouragement and patronage under this Republic, which are calculated to give it a vigorous growth or a permanent and healthy existence. There is not much individual wealth, and few can afford, if they had the inclination, to purchase the productions of native authors. There is, however, another cause which operates to the disadvantage of American literature, and will continue to do so, until some measure be adopted to remedy the evil; it is the cheapness and facility with which the productions of the British press can be republished is this country. The American author has to struggle against many disadvantages, especially when young, unknown and inexperienced. British works of established reputation can be obtained at little or no expense, and reprinted in this country, while the native writer is often obliged to publish the productions of his mind at his own cost, or give them to any one that will undertake to put them to the press. Few can afford to write for mere fame, and no great inducement is offered to write for any thing else. Hence there are but few, if any, professional authors in the United States. For a long time too, the people of this country were disposed to underrate their own literary powers, and many believed that none but the works of the British press were worthy of perusal or patronage. This prejudice is, however, now beginning to wear away, especially since the critics of our country have been forced to acknowledge the genius and literary excellence of some of the native writers of America. But still when the extent, population, age, and comparative refinement of the United States are considered, it must be a matter of surprise that so few authors of distinction are to be found within its widely extended limits. May not this very extent be prejudicial to the cause of American letters? The expense of transportation from one portion of the Union to the other is so considerable, that the publisher finds it safer and more profitable to confine his sales to a limited and convenient range, than to spread his books over an almost boundless surface, from which but few satisfactory returns are ever made. The Americans, though not a nation of shop-keepers, as ours has been denominated, are nevertheless a money making and thrifty people, and almost all are engaged in some lucrative kind of business or occupation, which affords them but little leisure for either literary pursuits, or the cultivation of a taste for the fine arts; and though most of them are readers, their reading is generally confined to newspapers, and the political productions of the day. In the latter I do not think they have made any very great progress since the period of the revolution. In force and perspicuity of style, felicity of illustration and logical power, the authors of the Federalist have not since been surpassed. This is a work written in periodical numbers by Hamilton, Madison and Jay, recommending and enforcing with great ability and eloquence, the adoption of the constitution which now exists. It is a work which every man should read who wishes to understand the principles of this great charter of American liberty, and the motives, feelings and views of its framers and supporters.

In the walks of romance the most distinguished writers of this country are the late Charles B. Brown of Philadelphia, and J. Fenimore Cooper of New York, both men of unquestionable genius. The novels or romances of the former having been recently republished in England, you have no doubt seen them, and those of the latter, but few who read at all have not read. Miss Sedgewick has also written some popular novels and ranks deservedly high among the few literati of her country; and Mr. Paulding has lately published some tales which have been well received and possess a good deal of merit. I can scarcely class Washington Irving among the romance writers of this country. Most of his tales were written abroad, and I do not think that novel writing is his forte. He has excelled in the other walks of literature so greatly that he need not covet the fame of a writer of fictitious history. Brown unfortunately belonged to the satanic school of our countryman Godwin, and all his dramatis personæ, plots, incidents and pictures partake of the gloom and ferocity of that school; but Brown was unquestionably a man of genius, and capable of giving lustre to the literary reputation of his country. Godwin was his model, as Scott seems to be that of Cooper. Brown's picture of the yellow fever in Philadelphia cannot be surpassed in accuracy of coloring and intensity of interest, and it may very justly be classed with the description of the plague at Athens by Thucydides, and that of the same terrible pest at Florence by Boccacio. In detached scenes Brown is very powerful, but he never appears inclined to complete what he begins, or to present a perfect whole. He sometimes breaks off abruptly, or hastens too precipitately to a close. He delights in gloom and the more ferocious and uncontrollable workings of the human passions. His object is to excite terror and not tenderness—to raise up storms and tempests, and not to breathe over the scene a quietness and repose calculated to soothe and tranquillize. His novels like those of his model, are now but seldom read, and he is rapidly sinking into oblivion.

The dramatic romance of Scott and Cooper is now preferred to all others, and has caused Brown's novels to be cast aside. Cooper's rise to fame was as rapid as it was deserved. He had been for some years an officer in the American Navy, where he acquired a knowledge of all the minutiæ of nautical life, which was of great service to him in the composition of some of his tales. These are justly considered as his best. They display a perfect intimacy with sea life, and his characters, incidents and sentiments are such as belong to the "mountain wave," and are always in admirable keeping. His dialogues, though sometimes tedious and unnecessarily prolonged are on the whole dramatic, and serve not only to develope character but to excite the interest of the reader. His descriptions, though at times graphic and striking, are rather too minute for effect. The unities of time and action are well preserved, and his plots, though very simple in their construction, are usually wrought up with great power, and often produce the most intense and thrilling interest. Of his female characters, generally two in number, but little can be said; they are Siamese twins, but with different dispositions and styles of beauty, and play the respective parts assigned to them in the drama with proper decency and effect. His sketches of American scenery and his delineations of savage life and character are admirable. There is in the former perhaps too much detail, and in the latter too high coloring for nature; but they are unequalled, and display the vigor of Cooper's genius and the strength of his conceptions. His style is easy, perspicuous and fluent. In short, he is a writer of whom any country might justly feel proud. Were I to attempt a parallel between the American Novelist and the "Northern Magician," I should say that Scott has more varied powers and a finer poetical mind, but in the management of their plots, intensity of interest, and the description of natural scenery, they are not very unequal. The Scotch romancer has greater acquirements and a more minute and intimate acquaintance with the history, manners and customs of past ages, but in all that appertains to sea life Cooper is superior, and does not fall short of his model in the ability with which he works up his incidents and developes his plots. This, you will think, is saying a great deal for a Scotchman, but such is my unbiassed opinion and the impression left upon my mind, after a careful perusal of the productions of both of these eminent writers of fictitious history.

OBSERVATIONS

The importance of the metallic ores and other mineral substances, considered as instrumental in the advancement of national prosperity, is obvious to every one. In announcing that a certain country possesses extensive and skilfully worked mines, either of coal, of iron, copper, tin, lead, or other of the numerous ores, we at once proclaim her wealth in terms that all must understand. They are readily perceived to be essential to the prosecution of the various arts and manufactures that flourish in the present age, and to form a fruitful source of wealth to the country in which they happen to abound.

The facility, however, with which one nation can procure these from another, owing to the free intercourse and system of exchange subsisting between them, which thus enables a country, barren itself in mineral treasures, to attain a respectable rank among the wealthy nations of the earth, occasions us to assign to the possession of them within our own soil, an importance infinitely less than is due. We are disposed to consider them too much in the light of mere articles of export, and valuable, chiefly as commodities of exchange: or, if we do not bestow too much consequence on their exchangeable value, we at least allow too little to their intrinsic worth. Yet, when we assign to the products of the mineral kingdom their proper rank in the scale of national blessings, they take their place beside that of a fertile soil, or a salubrious climate,—blessings we may still enjoy, though we adopt the exclusive and selfish policy of ancient Egypt, or of modern China. In short, we should value these mineral productions, not as we value one of our great staple commodities, tobacco, on account of its nominal price, but on their own account—not by the gain derived from parting with, but that derived from keeping them. Nor should we confine our solicitude to procuring now, on the easiest terms, the means of supplying our immediate wants; but with a more comprehensive view, look forward and provide for the period, when the growing wants of the unborn millions destined to people our almost boundless territory, will create a demand for these substances, in quantities which either foreign nations, with comparatively exhausted mines, will be unable to supply, or to purchase which, we must appropriate that produce (the produce of a large portion of the surface of the soil,) which should be devoted to the more legitimate purpose of furnishing to its inhabitants the means of subsistence and employment.

We are apt too to forget, that were it possible, with or without the intervention of war, for a people to be cut off from all intercourse with other nations, and to be destitute themselves of mineral resources, that their very existence, at least as a civilized people, would be next to impossible. That the different degrees of refinement attained by the human race in different periods of antiquity, are marked with a precision sufficiently distinct, by their acquaintance with the metals, and the uses to which they are susceptible of being applied: and, that nearer our own times, the aboriginal inhabitants of our own continent were found existing in a higher or lower stage of progress towards civilization, in proportion to their knowledge or their ignorance of these substances.

To trace a little further, the connection of mineral wealth with national prosperity, we may observe, that the wants of a people may be said to be mainly supplied, when they are provided with food, clothing and habitation, and they are better or worse supplied, according to the nature and abundance of the materials they possess for the fabrication of these, and the perfection of the instruments they may have, proper for fashioning them into convenient forms. The nation which can command for its subsistence, in greatest profusion, the varied vegetable and animal productions, of whatever clime, that constitute the necessaries and luxuries of life; whose well stored magazines of merchandize furnish, for its apparel, the finest fabrics and the richest stuffs; and which can boast, for its places of dwelling, the most commodious, splendid and durable edifices, with the various conveniences that necessarily keep pace with improvements in these, may be said, physically considered, to have well nigh attained the pinnacle of prosperity. Let us observe in what manner the mineral substances to which we have alluded, contribute to accomplish this end. Let us suppose man rude and barbarous, for the first time, to be presented with that best of gifts—iron; and for the sake of proceeding, let us anticipate the slow progress of events, and give it to him in the form into which he would soon convert it—that of the simplest implements. Instantly his habits are changed: his wandering mode of life is abandoned: his abode becomes fixed, and he himself devoted to labor. In a little time, the rugged face of nature is made to assume a softened and a brightened aspect, and to smile upon him with a novel beauty. The ample and ancient forest, his former range, falls with continued crash, day after day, beneath the repeated stroke of his axe: on all sides, broad and sunny plains open around him: the broken soil heaved up to the influence of the atmosphere by his plough, or stirred with his hoe, begins to yield in abundance the fruits of the earth; the prostrate timber rent asunder by his wedge, and hewed, sawed, or chiseled into appropriate shapes, furnishes materials of building: these, arranged and secured by means of pins or nails of the same material, rise in orderly succession one above another, till there is erected for his habitation a comfortable and commodious dwelling:—while the surrounding fields, now that he has ample food in store for their support, are overspread with the flocks he has domesticated, to provide for his use unfailing supplies of clothing and subsistence. Already he has made himself acquainted with the rudiments of agriculture, architecture and manufactures, and has laid the foundation of the useful arts.

Compare his condition now, with that in which he existed before his acquaintance with the uses of iron: contrast the savage of the forest with the cultivator of the field—the scanty and precarious sustenance of the one, with the regular and abundant subsistence of the other—the covering of skin, with the garment of wool—the hut, with the commodious dwelling—the hardships attendant on one mode of life, with the numerous conveniences that follow as a necessary train to the other; and from this rough-drawn and very imperfect outline, there may be formed some slight idea of the revolution effected in the condition of man, even by a limited acquaintance with the simpler uses of this single, though most important of all the mineral substances.

It is scarcely necessary to direct the reader's attention to the accession to the comforts, the conveniences, the elegancies of life, or to the vast acquisitions to the power of man, which, in successive periods of time, have been gained by a more extended and familiar acquaintance with the various properties of iron, and the innumerable purposes to which, with increased advantage, human ingenuity has discovered it to be applicable. It is sufficient to turn the eye on some great and populous city—the seat of busy manufactures;—on a Sheffield, a Manchester, or a Birmingham,—those nurseries of the arts, and workshops of the world: to view its immense establishments in active operation, and look on the tens of thousands of the industrious they maintain and employ. It is sufficient to hear the eternal din and incessant roar of stupendous machinery, laboring in the service of man, in obedience to laws and impulses he has given to it;—to see its multifarious and complicated parts performing each its allotted movement;—swinging heavily, with measured time, and force, or shooting to and fro with regulated rapidity; revolving slowly, and lazily around, or flying with inconceivable velocity, and whirling smoothly, each in its proper sphere,—moving, all in harmonious cooperation, to effect some beneficial end, with a precision unerring—as if impressed with the intelligence and volition of animated being. It is sufficient, to be convinced of the great acquisition we have in iron, to witness the wondrous effects of the steam-engine,—that giant machine, which performs to our hands the labor of countless hosts; which enables us to penetrate into the secret recesses of the solid earth, and to master the ocean, and the very elements themselves. "It rows, it pumps, it excavates, it carries, it draws, it lifts, it hammers, it spins, it weaves, it prints;"—that masterpiece of human skill, which, in the language of the celebrated Doctor Black, is the most valuable present ever made by philosophy to the arts.

Again, when we behold materials of every known description, in the rude state in which nature presents them, before they have been subjected to the first elementary process in their manufacture, and look upon them, after they have undergone the various mechanical operations to which they are successively submitted, and are produced in a finished state, of every form and fashion that can minister to the wants, or gratify the caprice of man, we almost doubt their identity, and are at a loss which most to admire, the utility of the substance by means of which so wonderful a change has been effected, or the sagacity of him, who moulds and constructs it into complicated machines, to which he gives motion and almost life, to work out his own advantage. And, lastly, when there is displayed before us the endless variety of manufactured goods and wares;—-of instruments, and implements, and utensils;—of machines, and engines, and mechanical contrivances to abridge human labor; when we gaze on the immense fleets that wait to receive them, in an hundred ports of some great manufacturing country, or survey the seas whitened with the sails, and heaving beneath the burthens of whole navies, busied in transporting them to distant and expectant nations, and even piloted in their course, through the wide and trackless waste of waters, with unerring accuracy, by a property peculiar to iron,—we turn from the contemplation more fully persuaded of the extent to which we are indebted to this single metal, to which in truth, if we except the spontaneous productions of nature, (of little comparative value unwrought,) we owe every thing we possess.

We are enabled, perhaps, by this review, hasty though it has been, of the numerous and varied uses of iron, better to estimate its real worth, and we do not hesitate to assign to it, an importance among the elements of national prosperity of the highest order, and to consider it, what truly it is, the most valuable of all acquisitions. We look upon the country rich in the possession of its ores, with feelings of rivalry, and are prompted to emulate her in acquiring this true species of substantial wealth. Our national ambition is excited to grasp at this mighty instrument of power, and our energies should be roused into ceaseless activity, until, by untiring assiduity in surveying and exploring our own tempting regions, guided by the lights borrowed from geological science, we succeed in enlarging our mineral domain to at least an equal extent.

Before proceeding to the consideration of any other of the substances we have proposed to treat of, it may not be improper, here, to annex (more in the form of notes) a few facts illustrative of the history of the very interesting mineral which has occupied our attention in the preceding remarks.

Of all the metals, iron is the most widely and universally distributed, being confined to no particular formation as its repository, but discoverable in every class of rocks, from the oldest granite to the newest alluvial deposit. It is also the most abundant of the metallic ores: whole mountains composed of it occurring in the northern parts of the globe. As instances of the great masses in which it is found, it may be mentioned, that the sparry iron ore found in the floetz limestone in Stiria, has been worked to an immense extent and with great profit, for more than twelve hundred years: and, that the Rio mountain in the island of Elba, five hundred feet in height and three miles in circumference, known at an early day to the Romans, (in which mines are still wrought,) is wholly composed of specular iron ore. Though this metal, as we have stated, exists in every kind of rock and soil, it has been remarked, that the dark oxides or its richest ores are confined exclusively to primitive rocks. The ores are generally, it has also been observed, of a purer quality, and more abundant in northern regions. What are denominated iron-stones, or the ores containing a larger proportion of earthy matter, are found in the secondary strata, and exist commonly in great abundance in those accompanying coal.

Although iron was known in the remotest ages, and was in use among some particular nations even at a time anterior to the deluge, according to Moses, (Gen. iv. 22) we are not to presume it was in general use:

Nor must we forget, that the useful arts, and among them the art of working metals, were lost to the generality of mankind, in consequence of that universal calamity. Gold, silver and copper seem to be the metals of which the knowledge and uses were earliest recovered after that period; owing, no doubt, to their being oftener found on the surface of the earth, or in the beds of streams—to their more frequent occurrence in the metallic state, and to the greater ease with which they are separated from their ores. Copper, though greatly inferior to iron, yet possesses considerable tenacity, and sufficient hardness to furnish a substitute in the construction of cutting instruments, and either pure, or alloyed with tin to increase its hardness, constituted the materials of which were formed the swords, hatchets, and artist's tools of many ancient nations. The arms and tools of the American nations were similarly made, and by means of this awkward substitute, the Mexicans and Peruvians made considerable advances in manufactures and the arts—greater perhaps than any other people unacquainted with the use of iron. The inconvenience experienced by these nations from their ignorance of this metal, and the awkward expedients to which in consequence they had recourse, afford an important lesson in teaching us what estimate to make of the value of a substance, which, its very requisiteness to every common purpose of life so familiarizes us with, as to cause us daily to pass by with little or no notice. The evils which we are taught would inevitably follow its loss, make a deeper impression of its importance, than all the advantages, manifold though they be, which in heedless enjoyment, we are continually deriving from its possession. With no better substitute for iron tools in cutting stone, than the sharp edged fragments of flint,—without carriages, or machines of any kind,—how tedious and laborious must have been the work of separating from the quarry, of shaping, of transporting to a distance, and elevating to a proper height, the huge blocks of stone with which the Mexicans and Peruvians contrived to erect their temples and other public edifices!—structures that have commanded the admiration of more modern nations. What toil and what time must have been expended in the operation of dividing a single block, by means of continued rubbing of one rock against another! What pains and what efforts of ingenuity must it have cost the artizans of Montezuma, without the aid of nails, to form the ceilings of his palace, by an arrangement of the planks so artificial, as mutually to sustain each other! With what eagerness the Peruvian would have accepted nails of iron, to fasten together the pieces of timber he employed in building, and have laid aside as worthless, the cords of hemp his necessities compelled him to apply to that purpose! What an acquisition would have been even a common needle, in the place of the thorn, to which, in the fashioning of their cotton garments, they were obliged to have recourse!

Iron differs from the metals we have mentioned as earliest known, by its occurring rarely in a metallic state, and being then most difficult of fusion: its uses were in consequence a later discovery. The methods, besides, of disengaging it from the ores in which it is usually found in nature, are far from being obvious, consisting of various processes,—such as pounding, roasting, smelting in contact with charcoal, to render it fusible; requiring too, additional heatings and hammerings to render it malleable, and a still more complicated process to convert it into steel. Yet it was in use, as has been remarked, in very remote ages: Moses, in Deuteronomy, makes frequent mention of it. He speaks of mines of iron, and alludes to furnaces for melting it; and from the circumstance of swords, knives, axes, and tools for cutting stone, constructed of that metal, being mentioned by the same authority, we are entitled to conclude that the art of tempering and converting it into steel was also known. The mode of tempering it was certainly known to the Greeks as early as the days of Homer; for that poet borrows from the art some of his similes. Thus in the Oddyssey:

It is by its conversion into steel, that we are furnished with a material retentive of an edge, and adapted to cutting the hardest substances, and are enabled to fabricate that most important class of implements, edge-tools, all of which, from the ponderous pit saw to the finest lancet, are formed in part with this metal.

It was not, however, until very late in modern times, that we may be said to have acquired absolute dominion over this individual of the mineral kingdom, so as to be able at command, to press it into service, whatever may be its locality, in relation to the surface of the earth or its interior. For, before the improvements made in the steam-engine by the discoveries of Watts, we were limited in the power of availing ourselves of the known existence of iron, however abundant in any particular spot, by the necessity of the concurrence of a stream of water in the same location with that of the metal, as a means of impelling the machinery for producing the blast requisite in the operation of smelting. Since those improvements, steam power may be employed wherever the ore and fuel is found in sufficient quantities to authorize the erection of furnaces; and the manufacture of iron has in consequence, especially in Great Britain, risen into great importance. The annual produce of smelted ore in that kingdom, is estimated now to be about seven hundred thousand tons.

We cannot avoid suggesting here, to the owners and workers of coal property in Virginia, the propriety of investigating the strata through which they necessarily pass in their mining operations, with reference to the discovery of argillaceous iron-stone, with more minuteness than hitherto they have done—if indeed, (which we are inclined to doubt,) their attention has been in any degree directed to such examination. It is from this species of iron-stone, accompanying coal-strata, that Great Britain derives at least nineteen twentieths of the metals which she possesses in such abundance, and to which, in connection with its convenient location in the immediate vicinity of the fuel necessary in its reduction, she owes her towering eminence as a manufacturing country. The coal formation of Virginia contains the same clays, shales, sandstones and slates, and these are characterized by the same vegetable impressions that mark the series in other countries. And may we not reasonably ask, why should we hastily conclude this usual concomitant of the coal strata in England, Scotland, France and Germany, to be wanting here; or rather, why may not we hope to find it equally abundant in our own coal district. We are induced to urge this suggestion the more, from the circumstance, that this species of ore presents in its external characters, so little indicative of its metallic nature or chemical composition, that but for its greater weight, it might well escape the notice of an inexperienced or unobservant eye, unless arrested by some such hope as we have been induced to hold out. Even in England, where from its great abundance it might have been expected to be generally better known, instances have occurred in some districts, of its being wastefully misapplied, through ignorance, to the common purpose of mending the roads. The immense benefits that would result from success attending a research directed to this object, as well to the city of Richmond, as to a few fortunate individuals, are too obvious to require comment. It is sufficient to remark, that it would prove an abundant source of individual wealth, and would, in connection with her other great advantages and increasing facilities of transportation, be the means of elevating the metropolis of Virginia to an exalted rank in the class of large cities, and enable her to vie in importance with the proudest seat of manufactures, or the most extensive emporium of commerce.

It was our intention, as our title announces, to have passed rapidly on, and glanced at the history, uses, and national importance of coal, and some of the most valuable of the other mineral substances, as well as to have pointed out in a short series of remarks, some of the advantages to be derived from the cultivation and pursuit of mineralogical and geological inquiries in connection with this subject; but we have loitered on the way, and the contracting limits of our paper admonish us to hasten to a close. We may at another time, if leisure permit, and if on reflection, we deem our endeavors at all likely to attract attention to subjects which have too long been almost universally neglected, again resume, after our own fashion, a subject which under better management, could not fail to prove interesting as well as instructive.

Henrico, April 28th, 1835.

LETTERS FROM A SISTER.

LETTER ELEVENTH.

Malmaison, Tomb of the Ex-Empress Josephine—Engine for Conveying Water to Versailles and St. Cloud—St. Germain en Laye—Nanterre—St. Geneviéve.

Dear Jane:

Although quite fatigued, I cannot retire to rest ere I have rendered my dear sister an account of to-day's excursion to St. Germain and to Malmaison the favorite residence of the late Ex-Empress Josephine. We took an early breakfast, and sat off by ten o'clock; the Danvilles in their carriage, accompanied by Sigismund, and we in a remise, or, as it is termed in England, a glass coach. We soon alighted at Malmaison, it being only two leagues from Paris, and spent more than an hour in walking over the house and grounds, and thinking of poor Josephine. A great deal of the furniture yet remains as she left it; even her music books are kept as she arranged them. The room she occupied as her chamber, is exceedingly beautiful. It is circular, lined with cloth of crimson and gold, and surrounded by mirrors inserted in the walls and doors. The bed is supported by golden swans, and the coverlid and curtains are of silver lama. In the library we saw the writing table and inkstand of Napoleon. The first bears evident marks of his penknife; which, while meditating, he used to strike into the wood. The domestic who conducted us through the apartments, spoke of the Ex-Empress with great affection; and so did the gardener, a West India negro, whose ebony visage was a novel spectacle to us. They said she was beloved by all the household and neighborhood, for her affability and kindness. The green house is filled with gay and choice flowers and shrubs; and it is melancholy to reflect that these the frailest productions of nature, have outlived their lovely mistress, and still blossom and flourish and shed their fragrance around, while she, like a shadow has passed away! After following awhile the windings of a stream that meanders through the garden, we found ourselves at the threshold of a pretty little temple dedicated to Cupid. The mischievous urchin himself, treading upon roses, is placed in the centre, and on the pedestal beneath him, this vindictive couplet is inscribed:

We quitted the shades of Malmaison with regret, and proceeded to the neighboring village of Ruelle to visit the tomb of Josephine in the church there, where her ashes repose. The monument is of white marble, and was erected to her memory by Eugene Beauharnais, her son. On its summit she is represented clad in a folding robe with a diadem on her head, and kneeling before an open breviary. It is a handsome tribute of filial love.

Near Ruelle is a chateau that once belonged to Cardinal Richelieu, and since then to Marshal Massena, whose widow still inhabits it.¹ Being informed that the family were absent and that it was customary for strangers to visit this sojourn of those distinguished men, we drove there; and, alighting from our carriages, were demanding permission of a person in the yard to see the mansion and its grounds, when a lady suddenly made her appearance, and we had the mortification to find that we were intruding on the privacy of Madame Massena herself. We immediately explained our mistake, and would have come away but she insisted on our entering, and was so polite that we could not refuse. The chateau is very plain, and furnished with corresponding simplicity. In front of it is a limpid sheet of water, and behind it a pleasant garden, where we wandered awhile and then took leave, gratified with our adventure, awkward as it was at the commencement.

¹ This lady is since dead. She died soon afterwards.

Retracing our steps a short distance, we continued our ride to Saint Germain en Laye, and observed on our left a stupendous steam engine which, on inquiry, we found is used for supplying the fountains of Versailles and Saint Cloud with water from the Seine, and has succeeded the famous machine of Marly. This machine had become so decayed in some parts before its removal, that it occasioned the death of several persons who were examining its construction—and heedlessly stepped on an old board, which giving way they were precipitated into the river and drowned, or crushed to death by the wheels. Saint Germain en Laye derives its name from the extensive forest adjoining it, which is considered the finest in France, and has ever been the favorite hunting ground of the French monarchs. While partaking of the pleasures of the chase they inhabited the spacious palace, that still exists and is at present a barracks for soldiers. That abject king James the Second, resided in it twelve years, supported by the munificence of Louis le grand, and finally closed his earthly career in this noble retreat. He was buried in the adjoining church, and his heart is enshrined in a paltry looking altar, before which a lamp is constantly burning, and upon which is an inscription informing the reader why it was erected. But what renders the palace at Saint Germain peculiarly interesting, is its having been the residence of the Duchess de la Vallière; and in the ceiling of one of the rooms appropriated to her use there is a trap door, through which it is supposed her enamored sovereign descended when he visited her clandestinely. On the left of the castle is a terrace one mile in length, and bordering an acclivity that overhangs the Seine, and is highly cultivated in vineyards and fruit trees. This terrace is much frequented by persons who resort there, for the purpose of enjoying fresh air and a fine prospect. Some go in carriages, but the usual mode of conveyance is by a donkey, and this we chose. The streets of the town are wide and the houses generally large; which might be expected, as court festivities were so often held here; and now-a-days, many of the Parisian gentry pass the summer months here.

We finished the day by dining at a neat auberge, (inn) with a garden teeming with flowers just in front of our parlor. Returning home we passed through the village of Nanterre, (the birthplace of St. Geneviéve) and stopped an instant to buy some of the cakes for which it is renowned; they are merely buns, and we did not think them deserving of their fame. Nanterre beer and Nanterre sausages are also held in great estimation, but of these we did not taste, being quite satisfied with our trial of the cakes. I imagine you know the history of St. Geneviéve; though lest you should not, I will tell you in a few words that she was a shepherdess, whose virtues and piety caused her to be canonized after her death, and made the patron saint of Paris. There is a lovely picture of her at the Louvre, by Pierre Guerin, representing her turning a spindle while guarding her flock. Good night.

LETTER TWELFTH.

Lafayette and his Family—Sévres Manufactory—Palace of St. Cloud—Madame de Genlis—Savoyards—Ballet of Mars and Venus.

Dear Jane:—

We have formed acquaintance with some delightful characters since I wrote to you a few days since. We have been introduced to the good and brave General Lafayette and his family! On Wednesday he came with his son, Mr. George Lafayette, to see Mr. Danville, and the latter presented us to them. The print you have seen of this distinguished patriarch, is a correct likeness; and his manners are as benevolent as his countenance. He has a soirée on every Wednesday night, and we have gladly accepted the kind and pressing invitation he gave each of us to attend them. The ladies of the family, consisting of his daughters, his grand-daughters, and daughter-in-law Madame G. Lafayette, have also called, and we find them very amiable and pleasing. We have likewise had an introduction to Madame de Genlis, for which we are indebted to Mrs. Danville; who, rightly conjecturing it would be gratifying to us to know this celebrated lady, and being well acquainted with her, requested her permission to present us to her. This was readily granted, and this morning appointed for the visit. Accordingly, after an early ride to the Sévres manufactory of porcelain and the palace of Saint Cloud, the most splendid of all the king's habitations, we repaired to her residence. On arriving we were conducted up stairs by a tidy looking femme de chambre and ushered through a small bed-room, plainly furnished, into an apartment that, from the variety of its contents, might be compared to Noah's ark. Besides the usual appendages of a parlor, it contained a piano, a harp, a guitar, a folding screen, and several tables loaded with books, papers, baskets and boxes, &c. We found the venerable authoress seated in an arm chair, near the window. Her regular and delicate features and fair skin, still indicate former beauty. Her nose is aquiline, and her eyes clear blue; as they are weak, she is obliged to wear a green shade to protect them from the light, but has never yet found it necessary to use spectacles: this is astonishing, for she will be eighty-two on the 25th of next January! She wore a black silk gown, and a simple muslin cap; and when Mrs. Danville introduced us she offered her hand to each, and as soon as we were seated entered into conversation with a degree of vivacity that quite surprised us; we were still more so, at her vanity. She talked a great deal about her own works, and in their praise! We asked her if she continued to play on the harp. "Oh oui! très bien!" she replied. "And on the piano and the guitar, Madame?" "Oh, oui, tout, tout, très bien!" She told us she often practised on the harp and composed in prose at the same time; and that while reciting verses aloud in a distinct voice and with strict attention to punctuation and emphasis, she could read a page from any author and then recount to you in regular rotation, every idea therein expressed; and this proved, she said, that the mind is capable of two operations at once. Papa observed that Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, proved it a century ago, when he played chess while dictating letters to different persons. She did not notice this remark, but proceeded to extol a novel she wrote some years since, entitled "Alfred the Great." She considers it one of her best productions, and gave it to a physician who attended her during a dangerous illness and declined being paid for his services. She said she thought she could not compliment him more, than by making him a present of her work; that he seemed delighted with it, and declared he would have it published immediately, but that much to her regret he had not kept his promise. Alfred is her favorite hero, and she expressed her wonder that he is not often made the subject of a romance. She informed us that she always retires to bed at half past ten o'clock and rises at seven, and is careful to eat very moderately. Her faculties continue perfect, and she knows fifty-two trades; such as sewing, knitting, spinning, embroidering, making baskets, weaving purses, &c. &c. We saw on the chimney-piece a snuff box that Mademoiselle d'Orleans, her ci-devant pupil, had sent to her. On the lid she had painted a harp entwined with a garland of flowers, and below it this sentence was written: "C'est votre ouvrage." Having sat with her two hours we took leave, and had quitted the room, when she called us back to show us with what ease she could rise from her chair without resting her hands on the arms of it to aid herself, as old people are commonly obliged to do. She has invited us to call on her whenever we can, and was so polite as to say she felt quite flattered by our visit.

On reaching home we found Mr. Danville and Leonora much diverted at the exploit of a monkey that had climbed in at the window, and ere they perceived it, twitched from Leonora's hand a bunch of raisins she was eating. It was the property of a little Savoyard, who had taught it a variety of tricks in order to gain a few sous by their exhibition. The Boulevard abounds with these little wanderers, and their marmosets.

This evening we are going to a fête at the Tivoli Garden; the New Tivoli as it is called; the old one (which I am told was far handsomer) has been converted into ground for building. We have seen the Ballet of Mars and Venus, at the grand opera; nothing can be more beautiful and splendid than it is! Leaving it for your imagination to fancy, I subscribe myself your affectionate

LETTER THIRTEENTH.

Fête at Tivoli—The Catacombs—Cemetery of Montmartre—Abattoirs— Lady Morgan—Mrs. Opie—A Quaker Meeting.

Dear Jane:

We were much entertained at Tivoli. The garden was brightly illuminated, and all sorts of amusements went on; and what a variety of these the French have, and with what zest they partake of them! We did our part very well too. We swung, we rode on wooden horses, we sailed in ships, looked at a cosmorama, witnessed a phantasmagoria, rope dancing and fire works, a play performed by puppets, and some metamorphoses of little paste board figures, that were quite wonderful; for instance:—a tiny lion was changed, as if by magic, into a cupid driving a car drawn by swans, a young lady into a basket of flowers, a butterfly into a beau, &c. &c. These transfigurations, I think, must be produced in the following manner: Two different objects are painted on a bit of pasteboard, one on the back and the other on the front of it; the pasteboard is then folded into the shape of one of them, and threads, too fine to be visible at a moderate distance, attached to it; after exhibiting the first figure a sufficient time, the threads are pulled and the pasteboard adroitly turned round and thrown open, thus displaying the second figure, to the form of which its edges are trimmed. As no person was visible, the threads were undoubtedly passed through the scenes of the miniature stage into the hand of the skilful operator,—for skilful he or she was who conducted the business. When tired of strolling we entered a fine café, situated in the centre of the garden, and refreshed ourselves with ice creams; afterwards, attracted by the sound of music, we repaired to an open space, where an orchestra was erected and a band of musicians were playing quadrilles for a party of beaux and belles, who danced away merrily, not on the turf but in the sand; they were, however, so inspired by the tones of violins and clarionets, that they moved along as if on a board floor.

You will wonder, perhaps, how we sailed in ships without the aid of wind or tide! I will tell you. Two poles, with a little ship suspended by a rope from each end, were placed crosswise on a pivot, and turned as rapidly as you chose, carrying you round and round in the air, with an undulating motion, not dissimilar to that of a vessel at sea, and so unpleasant to our feelings that we soon disembarked. This diversion is termed "les Espagnolettes." The wooden horses are arranged in like manner, except that they are firmly fixed on the ends of the poles, and consequently, in riding on them you do not experience the sickening, waving motion. The machine for swinging, is denominated a "Balancoir." This also consists of a couple of beams placed athwart each other, with chairs attached to their ends, which are thrown alternately up and down. Several parties, as they glided round on the wooden horses, amused themselves by trying to pass a stick through a large ring which was held towards them by a woman mounted on a bench. Whenever a ring was caught and borne off, it was instantly replaced by another, until one of the competitors had obtained five and thus won the game. I must now change my theme and inform you of our disappointment as respects seeing the catacombs. They are closed at present by order of the government—I believe on account of the danger there is in visiting them. We have been to the "cemetery of Montmartre," or "Field of Repose," as it is likewise styled. It is of much older date than "Pére la Chaise," but not so extensive, nor does it contain such handsome monuments; there are however some shady, melancholy dells and moss covered tombs, that render it peculiarly interesting. Vestris the celebrated dancer and Very the chief of Restaurateurs, are buried there. From the cemetery we proceeded to the "Abattoir," or "Slaughter-house of Montmartre;" an establishment of this kind is erected in every department of the city. Within them the butchers exercise their sanguinary functions, and the expense of them is defrayed by taxes on the animals that are killed. They are kept in the neatest order and composed of numerous buildings, each of which is appropriated to a particular branch of the business. In one the poor animals are knocked in the head; and there is a receptacle for the blood, which trickles into it through furrows made in the floor: in a second the carcase is skinned: in a third quartered: in a fourth the entrails are separated and cleansed: in a fifth the fat is boiled in an immense kettle. There are besides spacious tables, where the unconscious victims are sheltered and amply supplied with food and straw, while awaiting their fate. It made me quite sad to behold them eating and reposing so calmly, and then to think of their bloody destiny! The "Abattoirs" are liberally watered and often washed, and therefore no disagreeable odour is perceptible about them. I wish our butchers would follow the example of their French brethren as regards these places!

We had the gratification of meeting with Lady Morgan last night at Madame B——'s. Mamma had a great deal of conversation with her and found her extremely affable and agreeable. You know we were told she was ugly—we do not think her so, but she certainly dresses too girlishly, rouges too highly and seems too desirous of admiration. This cannot be said of Mrs. Opie, to whom we were also introduced. She was as plain in her attire as a dark grey silk gown and a white muslin kerchief and cap could make her. In her manners she is unaffected, in her conversation animated and intelligent. Her countenance is open and expressive of her lively mind. The moment we beheld her we recognized her as a lady we had seen at a quaker meeting which we attended from motives of curiosity on Sunday. A quaker meeting in Paris! you will exclaim. Even so my dear, for what is there on the face of the earth (that depends not on soil or climate) which may not be found in this bustling capital? The meeting was held in a house in the Champs Elysèes, belonging to a quaker family with whom Mr. D. was acquainted, and who gave him a cheerful permission to bring with him whenever he wished it, any friends desirous of going there. We were shewn into a neat parlor, where about twenty persons were sitting in solemn silence, and for nearly an hour not a sound was heard, save the occasional sneezes of an old lady who had a violent cold in her head. At length however the spirit moved a dark eyed gentleman and he gave us a tolerable sermon. I conclude with love from all of us to yourself, aunt M. and Albert, and to our relations and friends in the vicinity of Morven Lodge. I have not always room for affectionate messages, or be assured they would always be inserted.

LETTER FOURTEENTH.

Soirée at General Lafayette's—Benjamin Constant—Messrs. Perrier, Laffitte and Ternaux, &c.—"Conservatory of Arts and Trades"—Diorama—Georama—Neorama—"Royal Printing Office"—Manufactory of Plate Glass—Hospital of the Quinze Vingts—Castle of Vincennes—Fountain of the Elephant—Franconi's Circus—The Duchess of Berri's children.

Dear Jane:

Another busy week of pleasure and amusement has glided by since you have heard from us, and two evenings of it have been spent at two delightful soirées. The first at Madame de N——'s, the second at the gallant old General Lafayette's, in the rue d'Anjou; where he has a suite of small and neat apartments illuminated for the reception of his expected guests on every Tuesday evening. We made our debut there about 9 o'clock and found them crowded. Among the throng were many celebrated and interesting personages, for the worthy and enlightened of all nations seem ever ready to do homage to the virtuous patriarch of Lagrange. At his soirées the greatest ease prevails—the refreshments are simple and plentiful, and in compliment to the Americans and English, tea is always served, a custom not practised among the French. We again saw Sir Charles and Lady Morgan and Mrs. Opie, with whom by the bye we have exchanged visits. Then there was the orator Benjamin Constant, a pale, thin man, with light blue eyes and snowy hair, looking as if he were far on his passage to the next world. He was environed by a crowd of gentlemen, to whom he was speaking very earnestly with a great deal of gesture. Not far from him we observed other stars of the Chamber of Deputies, and these were Messieurs Casimir Perrier, Laffitte and Ternaux, whose countenances bespeak their noble minds. Monsieur Ternaux has introduced here and carries on the manufacture of cashmere shawls, and they not only equal those of India in tints and texture, but surpass them in the beauty and richness of the borders. To him also is attributed the discovery of the art of stamping patterns in relief on cloth table covers, &c. In the next room, we saw Mr. Cooper, the American novelist, and his lady—the two Miss P——'s, cousins of Lord Byron and Mr. and Mrs. ——. She is the daughter of Gen. Bertrand, and a beautiful creature she is. The lovely countess d'A—— was sitting near her. She is the sister of Madame George Lafayette, and is an intelligent and fascinating woman. She called here yesterday with Madame Lasteyrie and her daughters.

It is now time to speak of some of the curiosities of Paris to which we have recently been devoting our mornings. I believe the "conservatory of arts and trades" stands first on the list. It is also termed the "museum of industry," and is a collection of all sorts of machines and models, patterns and specimens of things that French genius and labor have produced; for the government obliges every Frenchman to deposit here a sample or model of whatever he improves or invents, and to accompany it with an account of its manufacture or construction. Besides several halls exhibiting machines and models, there are others filled with specimens of porcelain, glass, stone ware, lace, silks, ribbons, tapestry, colored and stamped paper, scissors, knives, fans, watches, clocks, lamps and a thousand other articles. One of the halls contains a number of miniature buildings, representing sundry manufactories. They are open in front, and display in different apartments the various processes of each business and the implements required in it, not omitting the most trifling tool. Another hall contains a library of 10,000 volumes, written in almost every language, and treating on subjects connected with the purport of the establishment—and professors of geometry and natural philosophy give lectures there to such pupils as are recommended by the minister of the interior. Would it not be shameful if the French nation did not rapidly progress in the arts and sciences, when the government is so liberal in encouraging them, by affording those persons who possess talents every advantage gratuitously, so that the poor may rise as well as the rich, if blessed with abilities? Among the patterns of tapestry is one concerning which a droll story is related, viz. that Vaucanson, a skilful mechanic, being offended with the inhabitants of Lyons for undervaluing some looms he had invented, tied an ass to one of them and made him execute the piece of embroidery from which this specimen was cut, and which excelled any they had ever done.

We have also visited the Diorama, the Georama and the Neorama, the royal printing office, the manufactory of plate glass and the hospital of the "Quinze Vingts." A diorama you have seen. A georama is a panoramic representation of the earth with its divisions of land and water; the spectator standing in the centre. A neorama is a painting so ingeniously designed and arranged, as to produce the illusion of your being within whatever building it represents. The one we saw is a picture of the interior of St. Peter's at Rome, and Mr. Dorval who has been there says it is an exact copy. The royal printing office is an establishment of great magnitude. There is a vast collection of types and several hundred presses. We were informed that Pope Pius VII visited this office during his sojourn in Paris, and that while he was there the Lord's prayer was printed in no less than 150 languages and presented to him. At the plate glass manufactory we beheld mirrors of wonderful magnitude. The plates are cast at Cherbourg and at St. Gobin, (a castle in the department of Aisne) and sent here to be quick-silvered and polished. Eight hundred workmen are constantly employed in the business. The French are indebted to the great Colbert for this establishment; prior to its foundation plate glass could only be had by sending for it to Venice. Having satisfied our curiosity here, we proceeded to the hospital of the "Quinze Vingts," founded by St. Louis in 1220 for the maintenance of 300 blind—a larger number is now admitted. It was customary in the age of St. Louis to count by twenties, and there being 15 twenties in 300 this institution derived its appellation from having that number of pensioners. We were pleased with the neatness and comfort that reigned, and arrived there just in time to hear a class of the blind sing and play; for those who evince a talent for music are instructed in it. The women were the vocalists and the men performed on various instruments. Even the leader was sightless! They kept time very well and we enjoyed their concert exceedingly, though the distorted faces some made while singing were horrible. They are taught a variety of trades, and not only reading but the art of printing, and we saw a man arrange the types and print several words with both skill and quickness. The types were extremely large and made of wood, and no ink was used in the operation, but the letters pressed on the paper, so as to leave the traces of them perceptible to the slightest touch.

On Wednesday we went to the castle of Vincennes, a gothic fortress, about three miles from the city. It contains the state prisons and an armory. A note to the commandant, from Mr. Warden, the American Ex-Consul and a kind friend of the Danvilles, gained us admission, and we spent two hours in examining the castle within whose gloomy turrets, nobles and monarchs have sighed in captivity. The celebrated Mirabeau was a prisoner there during four years, and there wrote his letters between Gabriel and Sophie. The duke d'Enghien was shot in a moat of this castle—the spot where the execution took place is designated by a willow tree and a black column, bearing this inscription, "Here he fell." In the chapel is a handsome mausoleum enclosing his ashes. Returning from Vincennes we stopped on the Place de la Bastille (once occupied by that terrific building) to view the model of the fountain of the Elephant. It is of plaster, and 72 feet high! A tower on the animal's back is to serve as a reservoir for the water which is to flow from the proboscis, and one of the legs is to contain the stair case leading to the tower. The whole mass is to be of bronze, but it is doubtful if this grand fountain will ever be made; it was one of Napoleon's gigantic designs, which adversity and death prevented his accomplishing. Last night we witnessed the wonder of an Elephant acting a part in a play at the Cirque Olympique, a theatre of the same description as that of Astley's in London. The house was crowded almost to suffocation, and the docile and astonishing creature excited universal admiration by her performance. She is called "Mam'selle Dyjeck," is a native of the island of Ceylon, and was purchased from some Indian jugglers by Monsieur Huguet her present owner. She is so attached to him that she shews evident distress if he is long absent from her, and extreme delight when he returns. If he be fatigued or indisposed, it is said that she even undresses him, puts him to bed and watches by him while he rests. Travellers I know are expected to exaggerate, but I assure you I am not availing myself of the privilege in the present instance. The play was entitled "l'Elephant du roi de Siam," and was written expressly to exhibit the address and sagacity of M'lle Dyjeck, who really acted throughout as if she were a human being. At the close of the performance the audience vociferated for her re-appearance, and after a few moments elapsed the curtain was raised and the royal lady came forth proudly tossing her trunk. She advanced to the edge of the stage and made three courtesies, retreating all the while, and looking round on the spectators as she rose, until she had sufficiently receded, she walked off amidst a roar of applause. It was quite an inspiring scene. The Duchess of Berri and her suite were present.

Apropos—Madame F. lately gave us a most interesting account of her Highness' children, the little Duke of Bordeaux and M'lle Louise. She says they are both remarkably amiable and le petit Duc holds a levee daily, is dressed en militaire and assumes all the airs of a grown gentleman. He is so proud of his sword, that the severest penalty his tutor can inflict, when he misbehaves, is to deprive him of it. He is a pretty boy—we have often met him taking an airing in his coach and four, surrounded by gens d'armes, for the Bourbons are so unpopular that for fear of his sharing the fate of his father, he is always strongly guarded whenever he appears in public. He pays dearly for his lineage, poor little fellow! and I never see him without thinking sorrowfully of the probability of his perishing by the ruthless hand of an assassin. But mercy! what a packet. Have patience dearest! with your

LINES

Saco, Maine.

TO SPRING.¹

Saco, Maine.

¹ On the warm banks of the James, this Apostrophe to Spring may probably appear altogether too late for the season, but on the banks of the Saco, where a good fire is still necessary to comfort, and the May-flower, the most daring of our wild flowers, is just putting forth its blossom in token of approaching Spring, it is quite early enough.

SPRING.

Lovingston, April 1, 1835.

TO A. L. B.

Raleigh, N. C.

SPRING.

MR. T. W. WHITE.

Dear Sir:—You have been so kind as to solicit something from my pen for your interesting periodical. With great pleasure I transmit the enclosed sheets, in the hope that you may find them suitable to the Messenger.

The subject I consider as particularly congenial with this delightful season, which has been truly said to constitute the "great jubilee of nature;" awakening our sympathy with young life, and drawing our attention to the promise and hazards of the vegetable creation, amid the cheerful labors of agriculture.

But I am sure that my subject has an interest, independent of the delightful associations of the season at which I write, and that most of your readers will be ever ready to exclaim in the gallant strain of the sweet Irish Bard,

What I have written in this first number of my Dissertation, has reference principally to what may be termed the sentimental portion of our nature. I must therefore beg of your readers, to suspend all judgment as to the partiality or impartiality of the execution, until I have drawn the whole picture. I am yet to compare the sexes together, in relation to the intellectual powers.

May 12, 1835.

DISSERTATION

On the Characteristic Differences between the Sexes, and on the Position and Influence of Woman in Society.

When we survey with a philosophic eye the varied and complicated works of nature, there is nothing upon which the mind rests with more pleasure, than the contemplation of the harmony, the order, and the unity of design, manifested throughout. The physical philosopher points to the centripetal and centrifugal forces, to the annual and diurnal revolutions of the earth, to the periodical return of the seasons, the regular succession of day and night, to the laws of cohesion and repulsion, and shows with pride the wondrous harmony which exists in all the departments of the physical world, all working and conspiring to one great end. The political economist delights to look to the nations of the earth, composed of vast multitudes of individuals; to scan the great variety of occupations which the endless division of labor has generated, and to see how the almost countless millions of inhabitants, although each one is busily and selfishly engaged in the pursuit only of his own little narrow schemes, are nevertheless, when we embrace the grand whole, working, in as perfect harmony and accord, as if the spirit of unbounded wisdom and universal philanthropy guided every head and touched every heart.—While to the common observer, the great volume of the human mind is uninteresting, with its pages confused and scattered like the sybil leaves of antiquity, it becomes to the metaphysician who can arrange and interpret it, a source of knowledge, of pleasure, and of gratitude. He beholds the nice lineaments of feelings and passions—observes the operations of our various intellectual powers and faculties. He sees a beautiful harmony and unity of design in the whole Ideal Republic; and finds with wonder and astonishment, that all our passions, instincts and faculties are so nicely arranged in relation to each other, that, like the bodies in our planetary system, not one could be struck from existence without endangering the harmony of the whole. Thus shall we find, look where we will, through the wide range of nature's works, part corresponding to part, power to power, mind to mind, and to matter too; and the whole moving forward with that beautiful harmonious action, which at once demonstrates the illimitable wisdom of the designer,—his benevolence and his consistency. Among all these beautiful adaptations in the universe, there is not one perhaps, which presents itself to the mind under a more engaging, a more interesting aspect, than the relations of the sexes. To increase and multiply, seems to be the great law of animated creation; and the attractions by which the sexes are brought together for the fulfilment of this universal law, are so many, so complicate, and yet so beautiful and delightful, while shedding their benign influence over the rugged journey through life, that it is impossible to contemplate them, without an immediate acknowledgment of their sublime harmony, and of the benevolent design of him who ordered and established them. My mind of late has been more than usually engaged in the contemplation of this subject; and to amuse my leisure hours, I have determined to throw together, however loosely, some thoughts on the constitutional differences between the sexes—to point out the effects which those differences have produced upon their moral, social and political characters—to show that the position of woman in society is not an accidental one, but results from the law of nature; and that the benign and powerful influence which she exerts over the destiny of man, is due principally to that very state of things which woman is so apt to condemn. From this investigation, we cannot fail to see that a constant amelioration in her condition is calculated to enlarge and diversify the pleasures of the whole human family, while it urges forward with irresistible power, the march of civilization.

Whether there be any original natural differences between the sexes, in a moral and intellectual point of view, is a question extremely difficult to determine. Education has commenced, long before children have arrived at that age and growth of intellect, which will enable them to manifest with certainty their passions, propensities, tastes, and mental powers. The wide intellectual and moral differences existing among individuals similarly situated and similarly educated, lead us to conclude that they have different original capacities and dispositions. But so different is the education of the sexes—so different is their position in society, that we cannot say with certainty, whether their moral and intellectual differences are due wholly to education, or partly to nature. The discussion of this question I shall waive, as not being of much importance to the view which I propose to take of the subject, and shall proceed to show how the education of the two sexes is calculated to produce the differences which we observe among them, and how their relative positions in society are the results of the force of circumstances, and not of accident, as some have most ingeniously contended; and this I hope to be enabled to show, even upon the supposition of perfect intellectual equality between the sexes at birth.

Before entering upon this subject, it is proper to state, that I use the word education in its most extended sense,—to mean not only the moral and intellectual discipline which we derive from our parents and teachers, but to include the influence of physical organization, of the physical circumstances by which we are surrounded, of opinion—in fine, all those influences which are extraneous to the mind itself, but capable of forming and directing it. There is both a physical and moral education, to which we are constantly subjected, from birth to manhood, entirely independent of professed teachers, which perhaps exercises the greatest sway in the formation of our characters. Most persons are apt to forget, in the calculation of character, the effect of physical circumstances; but these must never be lost sight of. Physics govern morals, to a certain extent, all over the world. It is impossible to withdraw ourselves wholly from the influence of physical causes. In the beautiful language of Mr. Allison, "Wander where we will, trees wave, rivers flow, mountains ascend, clouds darken, or winds animate the face of heaven; and over the whole scenery, the sun sheds the cheerfulness of his morning, the splendor of his noonday, or the tenderness of his evening light;—there is not one of these features of scenery, which is not fitted to waken us to moral emotion; to lead us, when once the key of our imagination is struck, to trains of fascinating and endless imagery; and in the indulgence of them, to make our bosoms either glow with conceptions of mental excellence, or melt in the dreams of moral good. Even upon the man of the most uncultivated taste, the scenes of nature have some inexplicable charm: there is not a chord perhaps of the human heart, which may not be awakened by their influence." Again, let us wander where we will, and in vain shall we attempt to escape the moral influences which are exerted around us. Opinions, manners, customs, fashions, &c. exercise a silent, but potent sway, from which none can hope to be exempt. We sometimes indulge the wish of flying from our native land, to escape these influences in a foreign clime. How vain the wish! Go where we will, the mighty spell is still laid over us—the enchantment is still unbroken—and as long as man's nature remains unchanged, so long must he be subject to the guidance and direction of that mighty physical and moral machinery, which if ever at work around him, silently developing and forming his character. These causes, in their all pervading influences, may almost be considered as emblematical of the omnipresence of the Divinity. In our remarks then, upon the distinctive characteristics of the sexes, it is proper to commence first with the operation of physical causes; and among these, without doubt the difference of physical organization exercises the most powerful influence—perhaps so powerful as to be itself sufficient to account for all the characteristic differences between man and woman. Of course, the remarks which follow, apply to the entire sexes, and not to individual cases; for the individual female will frequently be found to have all the masculine traits of character more perfectly developed than the individual man. Few men, for example, can be compared with an Edgeworth or De Stael in point of intellect—and few have shown more persevering courage and masculine heroism, than Queen Margaret of England, or Joan d'Arc of France; but these are specimens from which we can draw no just conclusions concerning the entire sex.

What then is the difference in physical organization? "Woman," says Voltaire, "is in general less strong than man; smaller and less capable of lasting labor. Her blood is more aqueous; her flesh less firm; her hair longer; her limbs more rounded; her arms less muscular; her mouth smaller; her hips more prominent, and her abdomen larger. These physical points distinguish woman all over the earth, and of all races, from Lapland unto the coast of Guinea, and from America to China."¹ The physiologists all agree in the main points of difference here asserted. They say that woman differs from man in the whole of her lower stature—in the delicacy of her organization—in the predominance of her lymphatic and cellular system, which softens down the projections of the muscles, and gives to all her limbs those rounded and graceful forms, of which we see in the Venus de Medicis the inimitable model. "In woman, sensibility is also more exquisite; and, with less strength, her mobility is greater. The female skeleton even, is easily distinguished from that of the male, by striking differences. The asperities of the bones are less prominent; the clavicle is less curved; the chest shorter, but more expanded; the sternum shorter, but wider; the pelvis more capacious,"² &c. Comparing the sexes together then, all over the world, man appears to be decidedly the stronger and better formed for war, for hard and persevering labor; woman for retirement, for the mild and less laborious occupations. The camp, the field, the woods, and the sea seem to be the natural theatres for the display of man's powers. Woman fills with peculiar grace, all the domestic occupations and sedentary employments. In fact, the same amount of exercise is not necessary to the preservation of her health, as for that of man. Hence she is more naturally sedentary and quiet, and perhaps less industrious. Her labor, in a purely politico-economical light, is universally considered less valuable. The severer labors of cutting, mauling, ditching, carpentry, masonry, &c. are performed by men. The management of children, sewing, knitting, washing, &c. are performed most frequently by women. The working in lace, Rousseau considered an occupation particularly suited to a delicate modest female. He never could exercise the slightest patience towards men tailors. The needle and sword ought not to be managed by the same hands. In his Emile, he says, "If I were sovereign, I would not permit sewing and the occupations of the needle to any but women and lame men."

¹ See Phil. Dic. Vol. 6, Art. Woman.

² Richerand's Physiology. Chapman and Goodman's Edition: p. 381.

Occupation produces a mighty influence on character. Women in all countries will talk about their dresses and domestic matters: Men talk of war, politics, horse-racing, field sports, and the labors of the farm. At a very early period of life, we find the boy delighting in his top, his bow and arrows, and his mimic wagon or cart. The girl finds most pleasure in dolls, in pretty dresses and glittering toys, which amuse her without much exertion on her part. "With what a languid yawn," says Mary Woolstoncraft in her Rights of Woman, "have I seen an admirable poem thrown down, that a man of true taste returns to again and again with rapture; and whilst melody has almost suspended respiration, a lady has asked me where I bought my gown." And whilst the men converse about business, politics or literature, "how naturally," says Swift, "do women apply their hands to each other's lappets and ruffles." The learned lady whom I have just referred to, might have saved herself a great deal of vexation and pretended mortification, if she had only reflected, that difference in occupation between the sexes is due principally to difference in physical organization; and that the conversation of men and women will always run more or less upon their occupations. Our very dreams are but too frequently dictated by the occupations which engage us. Queen Mab gallops

The relative position of the sexes in the social and political world, may certainly be looked upon as the result of organization. The greater physical strength of man, enables him to occupy the foreground in the picture. He leaves the domestic scenes; he plunges into the turmoil and bustle of an active, selfish world; in his journey through life, he has to encounter innumerable difficulties, hardships and labors which constantly beset him. His mind must be nerved against them. Hence courage and boldness are his attributes. It is his province, undismayed, to stand against the rude shocks of the world; to meet with a lion's heart, the dangers which threaten him. He is the shield of woman, destined by nature to guard and protect her. Her inferior strength and sedentary habits confine her within the domestic circle; she is kept aloof from the bustle and storm of active life; she is not familiarized to the out of door dangers and hardships of a cold and scuffling world: timidity and modesty are her attributes. In the great strife which is constantly going forward around her, there are powers engaged which her inferior physical strength prevents her from encountering. She must rely upon the strength of others; man must be engaged in her cause. How is he to be drawn over to her side? Not by menace—not by force; for weakness cannot, by such means, be expected to triumph over might. No! It must be by conformity to that character which circumstances demand for the sphere in which she moves; by the exhibition of those qualities which delight and fascinate—which are calculated to win over to her side the proud lord of creation, and to make him an humble suppliant at her shrine. Grace, modesty and loveliness are the charms which constitute her power. By these, she creates the magic spell that subdues to her will the more mighty physical powers by which she is surrounded. Her attributes are rather of a passive than active character. Her power is more emblematical of that of divinity: it subdues without an effort, and almost creates by mere volition;—whilst man must wind his way through the difficult and intricate mazes of philosophy; with pain and toil, tracing effects to their causes, and unravelling the deep mysteries of nature—storing his mind with useful knowledge, and exercising, training and perfecting his intellectual powers, whilst he cultivates his strength and hardens and matures his courage; all with a view of enabling him to assert his rights, and exercise a greater sway over those around him. Woman we behold dependant and weak; but out of that very weakness and dependance springs an irresistible power. She may pursue her studies too—not however with a view of triumphing in the senate chamber—not with a view to forensic display—not with a view of leading armies to combat, or of enabling her to bring into more formidable action the physical power which nature has conferred on her. No! It is but the better to perfect all those feminine graces, all those fascinating attributes, which render her the centre of attraction, and which delight and charm all those who breathe the atmosphere in which she moves; and, in the language of Mr. Burke, would make ten thousand swords leap from their scabbards to avenge the insult that might be offered to her. By her very meekness and beauty does she subdue all around her. The Grecian poet of old has told us where her power lies.

We must recollect, however, that it is beauty of mind, of grace, of accomplishment; and not beauty of person alone, which constitutes her power. When the beautiful mother of mankind is described by the matchless poet, he mentions not one purely physical trait of beauty.

When Juno too, tries the old and successful cheat of love with her imperial husband, the poet of antiquity makes her borrow the beauties of mind, rather than those of body.

Even Waller, the sycophantic poet of a corrupt and profligate court, pays all due homage to the beauty of mind.

As woman then cannot conquer by physical strength, she must depend upon other attributes of a more passive quality. The following little anecdote well illustrates the characteristic differences between the sexes in this respect. I was once giving a handsome and accomplished lady a description of the Menagerie Royal at Paris, and was describing the apartment of a large ferocious lion that had been brought from Africa. The apartment was double, with a partition wall between the chambers. Whilst the lion would be in one chamber eating, it was the custom of the keeper to go into the other for the purpose of cleaning it out, taking care to shut the door between them. One day he neglected this; and the lion leaving the meat which he had been devouring, suddenly entered the room, advanced to the man, who backed against the wall, then leaped upon his breast, and looked him steadily in the face. Just at this point, I paused and asked the lady, for she seemed agitated, what she would have done in a similar crisis. Her answer was characteristic indeed: I would have kissed him! Now I assert that there is not a man in the wide world who would have ever thought of appeasing the wrath of the monarch of the forest by a kiss. His power does not depend on a kiss. From him it is not sufficiently appreciated to make it coveted by others, and therefore a source of his power. But with woman it is far otherwise; it is one of her most potent means—a sort of reserve, not to be resorted to but under the pressure of necessity. Had you addressed the same question to man, he would have told you, that he would have stood quiet and firm, (as did the individual just mentioned,) till assistance could be brought; or he would have summoned up all his courage and all his strength for one desperate effort, and attempted to hurl the lion from him; but never would he have thought of purchasing his life by giving him a kiss. This is one of woman's resources in the hour of peril, and woman alone would ever have thought of it.

In that darkest and most dismal hour of Josephine's life, when the dread secret of the divorce was first hinted to her by that great but wily and unprincipled statesman Fouche, how does she act? In all the agony and concentrated grief which preys upon her heart, she seeks in his chamber the solitary chieftain, whose martial prowess had shaken all the thrones of Europe, and filled the world with a fame which eclipsed that of the Cæsars and Alexanders—she seats herself in his lap—she strokes back the hair from his forehead: in the mild and faltering tone of injured honor, she asks him if it be so? He answers no! And with beauty, grace and tears supplicating, who could have answered otherwise! Then imprinting a kiss upon his brow, she asks the dismission of Fouche as an earnest of his attachment. This was denied her; and at that moment despair seized upon her heart. She knew her power was gone—the charm was broken—the spell was dissolved. Ambition triumphed over love. But the Colossus of Europe could have told you, that the melancholy triumph of that moment, had cost him more than the conquest of kingdoms and the dethronement of monarchs; or he could have told you afterwards, that when he for the first time beheld the barren rock of St. Helena, with that countenance unmoved and unchanged, which so astonished those who observed it,—the internal struggle by which he chained down the conflicting emotions of his soul, was not to be compared with that which could firmly resist the request of a beloved but injured wife in tears.

So far, I have been considering the effects of mere inferiority of strength in the female. But independently of this, there is another portion of her organization, attended with consequences no less marked on the whole character. I allude of course to the great law of nature, which imposes upon her the burden of gestation—of nursing and of training the rising population of the world. That woman is destined to the office of nursing and rearing her children, the arrangement of nature evidently demonstrates. It is she alone whom nature provides with the food adapted to the support of the fragile constitution of the newly born babe. She has known and felt all the solicitude, anxiety and pain pertaining to its existence. It is a law of our nature, to love that with most ardor, which has cost us most pain and most anxiety in the attainment. For this reason perhaps, it may be that even at birth, a mother's love for her babe is more intense than that of the father; and hence an additional reason of a moral character, why the office of tutoring and nursing should devolve more particularly on her. Let us now proceed, for a moment, to trace the consequences of this position of woman. It is evident that its tendency must be, to narrow the circle in which she moves; a considerable portion of her life must be spent in the nursery and the sick room. Here, at once, would be presented an insurmountable barrier against that ambition which would lead her into the field, into politics, or any of the regular professions. She never could compete with man. In fact, to succeed at all, she would be obliged to desert the station and defeat the ends for which nature intended her. A physician, a lawyer, or statesman, who should be obliged to attend to the suckling, clothing, and the thousand little wants of a helpless babe, would be distanced in the race by him, who with any thing like equal power of intellect, was unimpeded in his career by any of those embarrassing obstacles.

This organization of woman now under consideration, renders circumspection and virtue more absolutely indispensable to her than to man. Guilt and infidelity are much more certainly detected in her case than in his, and are attended with much more lamentable consequences. Her whole moral character is formed in some measure in view of this state of things: chastity and virtue become her points of honor; modesty becomes her most pleasing and necessary attribute.

may truly be said to constitute one of her greatest and most indispensable ornaments. The great point of honor in man, is undoubtedly courage; and in woman, chastity and virtue. "In books of chivalry, (says Addison, in one of the Nos. of the Spectator,) where the point of honor is strained to madness, the whole story runs on chastity and courage. The damsel is mounted on a white palfrey, as an emblem of her innocence; and to avoid scandal, must have a dwarf for her page. She is not to think of a man until some misfortune has brought a knight errant to her relief. The knight falls in love, and did not gratitude restrain her from murdering her deliverer, would die at her feet by her disdain. However, he must waste many years in the desert, before her virginity can think of a surrender. The knight goes off—attacks every thing he meets that is bigger and stronger than himself—seeks all opportunities of being knocked on the head—and after seven years' rambling, returns to his mistress, whose chastity in the mean time has been attacked by giants and tyrants, and undergone as many trials as her lover's valor." The following inscription on a monument erected in Westminster Abbey, to the Duke and Duchess of New Castle, particularly pleased Mr. Addison, as illustrative of the difference in the points of honor between the sexes. "Her name was Margaret Lucas, youngest sister to the Lord Lucas of Colchester; a noble family—for all the brothers were valiant, and all the sisters virtuous." Voltaire in his Philosophical Dictionary remarks, that all animals, if they could talk, would tell you they considered the female, each one of its own species, as the most beautiful creature in the world. The remark is a philosophical one; and will no doubt apply with great force to man, especially in a civilized condition. All our writers on taste, rank woman in point of beauty at the head of creation; and make her the most beautiful of her sex, whose beauty is combined with virtue and loveliness, and fortified by modesty. How beautifully has Barrett described the superior excellence of the female character in the following lines:

We are now prepared to see at once, the foundation of that difference observable among the sexes all over the world, in all ages, in relation to the conduct which they observe towards each other. Man makes all the advances towards the weaker sex. He is the wooer, and woman the wooed, in every age and country: whilst she is coy and retiring, and blushes deeply at the very idea of her preferences and attachments for the opposite sex being even suspected, man acknowledges with candor his devotion to woman; seeks her society every where; confesses his enthusiastic delight at the charms of her conversation, and glories in the performance of those civilities and gallantries, which the laws of social intercourse have always demanded at his hands. The desires and inclinations of man, are open and confessed; those of woman, kept doubtful and secret. "Man (says Rousseau,) depends on woman on account of his desires; woman on man both on account of desires and necessities." The difference, however, is that the former are avowed, the latter concealed.³ The charms and fascination of woman, are so contrived as to hide all art itself, and to appear entirely aimless. Yet in this very circumstance frequently rests the great power of her attractions.

³ Broussais, the materialist, supposes a difference in this respect between the sexes, founded on differences in irritation and animal sensibility, and this is the reason why "she is contented to win him [man] by gestures and speech, but never does she undertake to subdue him by force." Whether this be the fact, must be decided by physiologists. To those who wish to examine this subject, I can only refer them to Broussais's Physiology, ch. 13, sec 2.

It is easy to deduce from the foregoing, that what is called character or reputation, in the eyes of the world, is infinitely more necessary to woman than to man: her virtue is the true sensitive plant, which is blighted even by the breath of suspicion. Cæsar would not have a wife upon whom suspicion fell, even though convinced of her innocence. Man may, by reformation, regain a lost character, but woman rarely can. Man may, and often ought to rise superior to the opinion of the world; woman never can. Hence the bold assertion of Rousseau, in his Emile: "L'opinion est le tombeau de la virtue parmi les hommes et son trône parmi les femmes." Under these circumstances, does not the guilt of the individual, who undermines or asperses the female character, become a thousand times more atrocious? In regard to woman, Madame de Stael observes, in her work on literature, that "to defend themselves is an additional disadvantage; to justify themselves a new alarm. They are conscious of a purity and delicacy in their nature, which the notice even of the public will tarnish." And those who suppose themselves clothed in panoply complete, because of their superior talents, she likens to "Erminia in her coat of mail:" the warriors perceive the helmet, the lance, and the dazzling plume; they expect to meet with equal force; they begin the onset with violence, and the first wound cuts to the heart. Well then does it behoove every man of honor and chivalry to guard against the injury of a being so defenceless, and to contribute all in his power, to the elevation and amelioration of her position, if it be only as compensation for the many disadvantages to which she is subjected, in comparison with man. I have thus endeavored to trace out the causes which produce the modesty, gentleness and virtue, which certainly characterize the female sex.

Upon the same principles we may explain that extraordinary command over her feelings, which is certainly another of the characteristics of woman. She cannot give utterance to her passions and emotions like man. She is not to seek, but to be sought. She is not to woo, but to be wooed. She is thus frequently required to suppress the most violent feelings; to put a curb on her most ardent desires, and at the same time to wear that face of contentment and ease which may impose upon an inquisitive and scrutinizing world. How often do we see in the gay circles of fashion and of folly, that while apparent joy it beaming from the countenance, a secret grief is preying on the heart, and working the soul into an agony. We are told by Plutarch, that the institutions of Lycurgus had so disciplined the Spartans in the art of enduring pain without complaint, that a boy permitted a stolen fox to eat down to his bowels, without complaining or exhibiting his sufferings in his countenance. The education and position of woman, produces an influence in this respect similar to that produced by Spartan legislation. She can suffer much, and she can suffer long, in silence, without complaint. How admirably has Shakspeare described this trait of character, in the description of Viola, in the 12th Night: though so often quoted, I cannot forego the pleasure of repeating it:

All persons placed in situations requiring great self command, by constantly curbing the passions and allaying the rising emotions, arrive at last at that self control, that perfect apparent mental equilibrium which appears so wonderfully difficult to the ordinary spectator. This is often most strikingly exemplified in statesmen, diplomatists and gamblers, and sometimes in mercantile men. The great reserve of Washington on state affairs, is well known: Davilla, the historian, praises the deep dissimulation of Catherine de Medicis. Lord Clarendon, and Locke, have spoken with commendations of the same traits in the characters of the Earls of Bristol and Shaftsbury; whilst Cicero even, has bestowed his eulogy on the same qualities, and points to the characters of Homer's Ulysses, Themistocles the Athenian, Lysander the Spartan, and to Marcus Crassus of Rome, for examples. Talleyrand, the great diplomatic wonder of the nineteenth century, it is said, possesses this "talent pour le silence," on state affairs, in a most extraordinary degree. With such a being, every thing becomes a matter of calculation, down even to the responses to the ordinary questions of "how do you do?" and "how have you been?" Such a man may truly be said to carry his heart in his head, as was said of Mr. Pitt the younger.⁴

⁴ Bulwer, in his France, pp. 107 and 8, has given us the following little anecdotes illustrative of this trait of character; and the first admirably exhibits the opinion which that deep searching and wily politician entertained of the candor of statesmen. "But why is not M. de S. here?" said M. de Talleyrand. "M. de S. est malade," said an acquaintance. "Ha! ha!" replies the old statesman, shaking his head, "M. de S. est malade! mais qu'est ce donc qu'il gagne à être malade!" Again, "which do you like best, M. de Talleyrand," said a lady, "Madame de —— or myself?" The reply was not so decisive as the fair and accomplished questioner expected. "But now," said she, "suppose we were both to fall into the sea, which should you first try to save?" "Oh! Madame," said the Prince, "I should be quite certain that you could swim." After these, we may well believe the late response which he is said to have made to his physician, who asked him some questions about Spain. "Doctor," said he, "you must have remarked, that I never give an opinion, except upon subjects which I do not understand. I am happy to talk about physic."

Upon the same principles we can explain a seeming moral paradox, in the fact, that phlegmatic men, when once suddenly excited, become perfectly ungovernable; exhibiting follies and extravagances, beyond those we see manifested by men of great imagination and warm feelings. Very phlegmatic persons, when suddenly in love, are sometimes to be ranked among the most amusing and laughable objects in nature: with them a new feeling has just been called, for the first time, into action: it entirely unhinges and deranges the whole internal man: it is a new power, which, for a moment, subjects every thing to its capricious dominion, and the man becomes instantly like Ahmed, the pilgrim of love, so beautifully described in the tales of the Alhambra, mounted upon the suddenly disenchanted steed, clad in the magic armor, and overturning, without the possibility of managing himself or steed, both friend and foe.

It has generally been supposed, that sudden love is a symptom of much imagination, and excitable feelings: this is not always true; it may sometimes be a proof of the reverse. Very cold phlegmatic men, may frequently be suddenly roused and enamoured, because they have no control over the little imagination and feeling which they possess, when once that little has been roused. One of the most phlegmatic men I ever knew, married in less than three months after the death of a wife, whom he had loved while alive, as much as such a nature was capable of loving; and an affectionate squeeze of the hand, and a more than usually tender tone of voice, were the simple means by which this sudden flame was kindled.

The remarks made above, are susceptible of extensive generalization. Mr. Stuart says, in the third volume of his Elements of the Philosophy of Mind, "In one of our most celebrated universities, which has long enjoyed the proud distinction of being the principal seat of mathematical learning in this Island, I have been assured, that if at any time a spirit of fanaticism has infected (as will occasionally happen in all numerous societies,) a few of the unsounder limbs of that learned body, the contagion has invariably spread much more widely among the mathematicians, than among the men of erudition. Even the strong head of Waering, undoubtedly one of the ablest analysts that England has produced, was not proof against the malady; and he seems at last (as I am told by the late Dr. Watson, Bishop of Landaff,) to have sunk into a deep religious melancholy, approaching to insanity. When Whitefield first visited Scotland, and produced, by his powerful though unpolished eloquence, such marvellous effects on the minds of his hearers, Dr. Simpson, the celebrated professor of mathematics at Glasgow, had the curiosity to attend one of his sermons in the fields, but could never be persuaded, by all the entreaties of his friends, to hear another. He had probably felt his imagination excited in an unpleasant degree, and with his usual good sense resolved not to subject himself to the danger of a second experiment." Now it is well known, that mathematical studies exercise the imagination less perhaps than any other whatever; and the powerful influence spoken of by Mr. Stewart, was no doubt owing to the fact, that the individuals in question, had no control over the imagination; when once excited, they had never learned to manage and restrain it. Upon the same principles we can explain the wonderful control which the coquette ultimately acquires over all her feelings. The general opinion is, that coquettes are cold and feelingless, and have always been so, and that all their demonstrations of emotion, are the result of hypocrisy. This may sometimes be the case, but not always. Persons of this description, may even have intense feelings; but from constantly watching, restraining and curbing them, after they have been called into action, they acquire perfect mastery over them. In some cases, the feelings may be so chained down by habit, as almost to be destroyed; in fact, this is generally the case with coquettes, and when they do marry, it is frequently more from policy than love. Ambition and vanity, in their case, triumph eventually over love and feeling; and the love of riches, standing, pomp, and show, determines their choice.⁵ There is one species of coquetry for which I have much compassion and sympathy; it is where the affections of a lady have really been won by an individual, whom prudence and the advice of friends, will forever prevent her from marrying. In this case it sometimes happens, that tenderness on her part, and a desire to avoid wounding his feelings, may cause her to excite hopes which are never to be realized. In this case, he may drink too deeply of what Shakspeare calls

and at last will awaken to a disappointment, whose melancholy influence I shall describe, when I come to speak of the effects of love on the sexes. Perhaps in a case like this, prompt decision, and the concealment of every thing like tenderness, may be the stern mandate of reason and prudence; but we must recollect that it is not that of feeling and sympathy; and we often, in our passage through life, meet with cases of this kind, when too loose a rein is given to the feelings upon Sterne's principle, that it is not always agreeable to be fighting the d——l.

⁵ Sometimes coquettes appear to love after marriage more intensely than others: in most cases I am disposed to doubt the reality of the affection. Sometimes they have remained single until the decline of their charms, the advance of age, and an unfavorable public opinion, have destroyed their reign. This condition is almost insupportable, and marriage becomes an asylum for their refuge. In this case the coquette is in love with marriage, rather because of the insupportable ills which she has escaped, than of the love which she bears her husband. In other cases, after marriage, want of something to engage her attention, and exercise her powers of pleasing; of something that may amuse and excite her; in fine, as Mademoiselle de L'Enclos, who will readily be acknowledged first rate authority on this subject, expresses it, "La necessité d'avoir quelque gallantrie," may induce her to lavish upon her husband, all those attentions, finesses, and displays of feeling, which she before bestowed upon the world at large. In this case, she makes her husband the very personification of the gallantries of the world, and proceeds to play out the game with him, which she had before been carrying on with the dashing beaux of the fashionable world. Lastly, in some cases, mere vanity itself may be sufficient, by its intense action, to make the coquette wear in her countenance, and manifest by her actions, that love which she feels not in her heart. I do not think then the coquette will often make a fit companion for the man of delicate sensibility and all searching penetration. He should seek for some sensitive, deep feeling heart, which can return him back a full measure of the love of which his own fond, devoted heart is so lavish. True and genuine affection cannot long be deceived: it has too many nice and exquisitely delicate chords, to be played upon with success by the coarse fingers of hypocrisy.

A gentleman, for similar reasons, often indulges sentiments of love towards her whom he knows that circumstances will never permit to be his. I have seen many cases of most tender attachment, of this kind. Travellers in foreign countries, and persons in lower stations of life, suddenly brought into contact with the upper, furnish the most frequent illustrations.

We are now prepared to compare the sexes together, as to two most important traits in character—pride and vanity; and before entering upon this investigation, it is proper to premise, that I use these words in their technical philosophical meaning: Pride to mean that quality which makes us set a high value on ourselves, independently of the esteem of the world—and vanity, to be that which makes us desire the esteem of others, and value ourselves accordingly.

False pride is the valuing ourselves for properties which are really contemptible, or not praiseworthy; and false vanity is the desire of the esteem of those whose opinions we should disregard, either because of the inferiority of their judgments, or because of the insignificance of the merit, for which we claim their approbation. The meaning which I have here given to false pride and vanity, is what is generally attached in ordinary parlance to the simple terms pride and vanity.

Now, according to the definition given above, it follows, that these two qualities belong, in some proportions, to all the members of the human family. Man is evidently made by his maker, a being of relations and dependencies: coming into the world in the most helpless and dependent condition, the preservation of his life, and the training of infancy, demand the continued assistance of others: those who are around him, give him his daily food, and teach him his daily lessons: their esteem and love is the reward of his little virtues and merits: their censures and frowns his punishments. As he grows to manhood, and his mind expands, his relations with the world become more numerous, and more extensive, and he ultimately seeks the applause and esteem, not only of the little family circle in which he was reared, but of his neighborhood, of his State; then, if his ambition be great, of mankind, and of the generations that are to follow. Thus the desire of the applause of the world, and the dread of its censure, becomes one of the most powerful motives to action, in the breast of man—this is vanity.

But at the same time, there is that within us, which produces happiness from the reflection, that we have done our duty, and that our conduct is praiseworthy, whether we have the esteem of the world or not. We value ourselves for what we consider our real intrinsic merits, and not for the applause of the world—and this is pride.

As thus explained, it is very evident that these two great principles, pride and vanity, must have almost omnipotent sway in the formation of character. Chenevix, in his work on national character, and Adam Smith in his theory of moral sentiments, make the whole human character to hinge on these two qualities. When pride is excessive, you have for the most part a haughty isolated independent taciturn being, who, wrapt up in himself, and his own ideal perfections, despises the opinions of those around him, and treats the world with austerity and scorn. His social defects are bluntness, rudeness, and a want of sympathy and compassion. But then he is a being who is firm and steady in his character, and unwavering in his resolves. He may be relied on, if you can ever win him to your side. When vanity is excessive, you have a being the very reverse of the one just described. He is social, loquacious, polite and attentive to all around him. He has no fixed character or opinion of his own: the opinion of the world is the looking glass in which he daily dresses himself. Affectation and disingenuousness are his social defects. Win him to your side to-day, and to-morrow when he finds the other the most popular, he will desert you without hesitation. He is a treacherous friend. When these two qualities are properly combined, you have the perfect character.

Now it is easy to see, from what has already been said, that of the two sexes man is the prouder, and woman the vainer. The greater physical strength of man, the occupations in which he is engaged, his self dependence and self sufficiency, make him generally more proud and less vain than woman, who being weaker than man, and more dependent on others, is obliged to seek their esteem and applause, in order that through their attachment and love, she may exercise a power which she finds not within herself. The desire to please is undoubtedly the ruling passion in the female heart. As I have before observed, her virtue is a much more sensitive and tender plant, than that of man: it can much more easily be tarnished, by the breath of public opinion; and when her reputation is once lost, it can never be regained. Hence the good opinion of the world is all in all to her. She endeavors to secure it by every means. She is generally more gay and cheerful, more loquacious and polite, infinitely more amiable and agreeable in the social circle, and she trifles with more grace and elegance. For the same reason she adorns and perfects her beauty more, and endeavors to heighten and polish her natural endowments by the aid of artificial ornaments. "I have observed, (says Ledyard,) among all nations, that the women ornament themselves more than the men; that they are ever inclined to be gay, cheerful, timorous and modest." They are more observant of fashions and of etiquette, and, as we shall presently see, they have more tact, more nice discrimination of feeling and discernment of character than men have. Women are precisely what the men make them, all over the world. Addison says, "that had women determined their own point of honor, it is probable that wit or good nature would have carried it against chastity;" but our sex have preferred the latter, and woman has conformed to the decision.

The vanity of woman, under proper regulation, makes her the most fascinating being in creation, when it is the virtuous, the intelligent, and the just, whose approbation she attempts to win, by the charms and graces of virtue, innocence, modesty, and accomplishment, where "she is the darling child of society, indulged not spoiled, presiding over its pleasures, preserving its refinements, taking nothing from its strength, adding much to its brilliancy, permitted the full exercise of all her faculties, and retaining the full endowment of all her graces."

And this same being, who, in her unmarried state, is the delight and charm of every circle in which she moves, may after marriage look to the esteem and approbation of him who has won her hand and heart, as the jewel of greatest price. His opinion may become to her what that of the world was before. His taste is the one which she may delight to please.

⁶ Paradise of Coquettes, generally ascribed to the pen of the late Dr. Thomas Brown, the professor of moral and mental philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, of whom Mr. Dugald Stewart said, "in my opinion even Dr. Brown would have been a still better metaphysician, if he had not been a poet, and a still better poet if he had not been a metaphysician." I have no doubt of the truth of this remark, though we must acknowledge, that whether we examine his metaphysics or his poetry, we shall find that none has ever better understood the heart of a truly virtuous and constant female, or more highly appreciated it.

Such a companion makes the home of her husband a paradise on earth, and the thought of him and his happiness, soon interweaves and intertwines itself with all her little schemes and projects, with all her desires and ambition, and her house becomes the true scene of domestic happiness and of the domestic virtues.

On the other hand, when vanity is excessive, or badly regulated, woman is too apt to substitute art for nature, and to attempt to impose upon the world by outward show and hollow pretensions; to manage and intrigue for the purpose of carrying her plans, and consummating her schemes; and when in danger of detection, she has recourse to evasions and devices, which in the end may produce the character of falsehood and hypocrisy.

"A person (says Adam Smith,) who has excessive vanity, in attempting to win the applause of those around him, is apt to fall into the practice of lying, but the lies are not of a black or very hurtful character to society; they are intended to deceive you, and make you think more of the person who tells them, and not to injure others; whereas a proud man but rarely lies, and when he does, it is apt to be a dark and malicious falsehood, which he tells; one intended for the injury of others, not for the exaltation of himself." It is badly regulated vanity, which produces that character for cunning, which Rousseau considered one of the distinguishing characteristical traits in the female. He was so much impressed with the predominance of this trait in woman's character, that he was disposed to attribute it, (I think falsely,) rather to nature than to circumstances and education. He tells us of the following device, practiced by a girl of six years old, who had been strictly forbidden to ask for any thing at table. For the purpose of inducing her parents to help her to a dish which she had not tasted, she pointed her finger at the several dishes, saying, I have eaten of that, and of that, &c. until she came to the one of which she had not eaten, passing that by in silence. A cunning hint was thus given to the parents, without violation of their commands, that she would like to be helped to it. This little stratagem Rousseau thinks far beyond what a boy of the same age would have planned, and hence he comes to the conclusion, that "La ruse est un talent naturel au sex"—he thinks this a wise dispensation of nature, for, says he, "La femme a tout contre elle nos defauts, sa timidité, sa faiblesse; elle n'a pour elle que son art et sa beaute. N'est il pas juste qu'elle cultive l'un et l'autre?" When these devices and stratagems, which the softer sex practice for the attainment of their ends, become too apparent, they disgust; when well concealed, they frequently succeed: but honesty here, as every where, will prove to be the best policy; and I cannot agree with Rousseau, that generally they are advantageous to those who practice them: they always endanger more or less the character of the individual. In spite, however, of all our caution and advice on this subject, in the little concerns of life, and the petty tactics of the drawing and ball rooms, woman will always display more skill and cunning than man. These are the scenes with which she is more conversant, and which she studies far more deeply than he. A skilful tactician in the drawing room, may almost be compared to a general in the field. She notes, without being perceived, every movement, and by skilful evolutions she brings about that arrangement of parties which best suits her taste, and which seems to others, who have not the sagacity to see the game, the effect of magic, rather than of art. With man it is very different; concealment and stratagem in the little courtesies and plans of life, are never expected of him. The maxim of David Crockett, "go ahead," is the one on which he practices. As woman is the most skilful manager on these occasions, so is she the most sagacious observer, and she can sometimes greatly amuse us, by furnishing a key to the manoeuvring in the social and fashionable world.

I now proceed more particularly to the consideration of the effects produced upon the female character, by that most interesting and tender tie, the relation of mother and child. We have already pointed out the reasons why the mother should be considered, as intended more particularly by nature, for the office of nursing, rearing, and tutoring the infant. Although the effects of this position, are first manifested upon mothers, yet, as they constitute so large and influential a portion of females, their character, whatever it may be, will quickly diffuse itself over the whole sex, and consequently we may predicate of the whole, to a certain extent at least, the properties and peculiarities of character, which flow from the relation of mother and child.

There can scarcely be conceived in the whole range of nature, a more tenderly interesting object, than the perfectly helpless and innocent babe. The writers on the sublime tell us, that that obscurity and indistinctness which prevents us from seeing the exact proportions of objects, is favorable to sublimity, by the increased play which it gives to the imagination. Now, what is there so well calculated to rouse the imagination and excite our anticipations, as the listless, inactive infant,—slumbering from the moment at which he takes his milky food to the moment at which he awakes to require it again? What is that infant to become? What is to be his destiny? What the rôle which he is to play in the great drama of life? He is now at the starting point; the future lies latent within him. He is to be nursed and taken by the hand, and led gently along the path of life, until the growth of body, and the developement of mental powers, shall enable him, unaided, to combat the difficulties and obstacles which beset him on his way.

Then, is he to select the part which he is to act? Is he to be the great warrior, "striding from victory to victory, and making his path a plane of continued elevation"—dethroning and unmaking princes, and grasping the destiny of empires in his single hand? Or is he, by overturning the fair fabric of his country's government, and wading through war, anarchy and blood, at last to triumph over the law and the constitution, and build up his own throne on the melancholy ruins of his country's liberty? Or will he be the philosopher of his age, taking

numbering the planets, noting their complex but harmonious movements, and deducing the unerring laws by which they are governed? Or, by pouring truth after truth upon the world, is he to break up the prejudices and dissipate the errors which have before bound down the restless energies of the mind under the fatal spell of ignorance and superstition? Perhaps he is to be the genuine philanthropist, and like Howard, to travel from country to country, "not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces or the stateliness of temples; not to make accurate measurement of the remains of ancient grandeur; not to form a scale of the curiosity of modern arts; nor to collect medals or to collate manuscripts: but to dive into the depths of dungeons—to plunge into the infection of hospitals—to survey the mansions of sorrow and pain—to take the gauge and dimensions of misery, depression and contempt—to remember the forgotten, to attend to the neglected, to visit the forsaken—and compare and collate the distresses of all men in all countries." Or is he to be the simple, but contented being, whose world is bounded by his visual horizon,—

Well, this being who is now rocked in his cradle, with these germs infolded, but unperceived, in his heart and in his feeble intellect, although the most helpless and dependent of animated creation, commands the sympathies and love of those who were the authors of its being, and possesses already so great an influence, that he cannot in after life, "by the most imperious orders which he addresses to the most obsequious slaves, exercise an authority more commanding, than that which in the first hours of his life, when a few indistinct cries and tears were his only language, he exercised irresistibly over hearts of the very existence of which he was ignorant." But it is the mother that gave it birth, who feels the deepest sympathy with all its pains and wants, and carries in her heart, the most unbounded and unremitting affection for it. Man as I have before observed, has a ruder and a hardier nature than woman: the out of door world, with all its bustle and jostling, its difficulties, dangers, hardships and labors, is the theatre for his actions. He only enjoys the domestic scenes during the intervals of his labors, and then perhaps worn down by toil and fatigue, he dandles for a moment his smiling infant on his knee, and retires to rest, or to muse on the projects of his ambition, or to form schemes for the accumulation of wealth and the extension of his influence. And when he thinks of his child, he associates him with those schemes and projects with which he is to be connected in after life, and looks upon

The prayer which Homer puts into the mouth of Hector for his son Astyanax, at the parting with Andromache, most beautifully illustrates the nature of a father's love. "O Jupiter, and ye gods! grant that this my son may be like his father, a leader among the Trojans, brave in battle, and a brave king of Illion. And hereafter, may the people say of him as he comes from battle, he is far braver than his father, and may he bring back the bloody spoils, having slain his enemy, and please his mother's heart." A Brutus and a Titus Manlius, who would condemn their own sons to death for the satisfaction of public justice, may be found among fathers, but never among mothers. Agamemnon may consent to the sacrifice of Iphigenia, but Clytemnestra, although a woman of depravity, could not,—because she loved the daughter more than she loved Greece. Joy it is well known, may sometimes be so intense as to produce death. Listen to the three following cases of death from joy: they will illustrate the difference between the father's and mother's love. Pliny tells us, that Chilo the Spartan died upon hearing that his son had gained a prize at the Olympic games. Again—the three sons of Diagoras were crowned on the same day victors in the Olympic games, the one as a pugilist, the other as a wrestler, and the third, at the pancration, or game combined of wrestling and boxing; and Aulus Gellius tells us, that the father's joy was so great, that he expired in the arms of his sons in the presence of the assembled multitude, "ibi in stadio inspectante populo, in osculis atque in manibus filiorum animam efflavat." In both of these cases joy came from gratified ambition. Livy tells us of an aged mother, who, while she was plunged into the depths of distress from the news of her son's death in battle, died in his arms from the excess of joy, on his sudden, unexpected safe return; the mother loved her son, not for the lustre which he might shed on her name and family, but for himself, and well might she, for it is the lot of a mother to watch with unremitting care over her infant during the first years of its existence. She notices with a tender anxiety all its little movements, and administers to all its wants. She alone learns to

she alone learns to read all the emotions of its heart by gazing on the play of its features. To her the voice of laughter is as delightful and beautiful as the most ravishing music; and the tones and cries of sickness and distress, are as afflicting and melancholy, as the fall of stocks, revulsions of commerce, and the disasters of trade and business are to man.

Even in women of the most wicked character, those who are the very fiends of their sex, we sometimes see this maternal fondness bursting out, and demonstrating at once, the difference between the wickedness of man and that of woman. Mrs. Jameson admires very much those touches of Shakspeare's pencil, which mark in the midst of all her atrocities and dark crimes, the womanly character of Lady Macbeth. How beautiful is the recollection of a mother's love, even in this fiend:

And again she shows the woman, when she exclaims:

Well, then, are we prepared in the fifth act for the declaration of this monster of depravity, under the stings of a tormenting conscience, when she gazes on the hand that had done the deed and exclaims:

But let us quit such specimens as these, and go back to our subject.

Who is there among us, who can look back to the period of his infant career, and not shed a tear of gratitude for a mother's love, and a mother's care? What heart does not heave with emotion at the recollection of the first years of our education, when day by day we were clasped in our mother's arms, and with the kiss of affection imprinted upon the brow, were charged to be good boys, and learn with cheerfulness the lesson that was assigned us. Black indeed must be that heart which can forget a mother's solicitude. The recollection of her advice and admonition has often saved the individual in the hour of temptation, and we can almost forgive Marmontel for his vices and his sins, while breathing the atmosphere of a profligate and abandoned court, when we peruse in his interesting memoirs the following paragraph, occasioned by the farewell which he took of his mother in declining health. "Yet a little while, and she will be no longer mine; this mother who from my birth has breathed only for me; this adored mother whose displeasure I feared as that of heaven, and if I dare say it, yet more than heaven itself. For I thought of her much oftener than of God, and when I had some temptation to subdue or some passion to repress, it was always my mother that I fancied present. What would she say, if she knew what passes in me? What would be her confusion? What would be her grief? Such were the reflections that I opposed to myself, and my reason then resumed its empire, seconded by nature, who always did what she pleased with my heart. Those who, like me, have known this tender filial love, need not be told what was the sadness and despondency of my soul." Montaigne in his singular, but highly amusing and ingenious essays, places Epaminondas of Thebes, among the three men who were "more excellent than all the rest" of whom he had any knowledge; and the very first proof which he adduces of his excessive goodness is the declaration of Epaminondas, "that the greatest satisfaction he ever had in his whole life, was the pleasure he gave his father and mother by his victory at Leuctra."

The influence which a mother's care and a mother's love produces upon a girl, is much greater than that wrought on a boy. The girl is more constantly with her mother; she is taught to imitate and act like her; she is more constantly with the younger children of the family; her attentions, her kindnesses, her sympathies and her love, come in process of time to resemble those of the mother, much more than of the father. Hence it is fair to say, that all the effects wrought on the mother by the nursing, training, &c. of the infant, are produced in some degree on all her daughters.

Having thus pointed out the character of that love which a mother bears for her children, I will now proceed to show the effects which it produces on the character of the mother herself. Marmontel in his "Lecons Sur la Morale," pronounced "the heart of a good mother, to be the masterpiece of nature's works;" and Stewart, on the Active and Moral Powers, endorses the assertion,—and adds, "there is no form certainly, in which humanity appears so lovely, or presents so fair a copy of the Divine image after which it was made."

The tender offices of a mother, combined with that inferiority of strength which I have before noted, together with difference in physical organization, will no doubt contribute to increase the number and sensibility, if I may use the expression, of the chords of affection and sympathy. They will cultivate to a much greater extent, the finer and the lovelier feelings of our nature. They understand better and receive more readily those finer and more fugitive impressions which come under the description of sentiment. We become hackneyed by the rough and rude business of the world, our feelings become coarse and less delicate, and less minute. In consequence of their domestic life, "that reciprocation of social kindnesses which is only a recreation to men, is to women in some sense a business. It is their field duty, from which household cares are their repose. Men do not seek the intercourse of society as a friend to be cultivated, but merely throw themselves on its bosom to sleep." In the same manner, we shall find that woman possesses much more tact, and much nicer discernment of character than man. Perhaps in the rough storms of life, when the master passions are called into action, and mind is brought into conflict with mind, under the most powerful agitation, man then may be the best judge of character; for the tragedy has become too deep and dark for woman's penetration and experience. She is not so well acquainted with the deep feelings of the heart, when lashed into a tempest by the strife and conflicts of the political world. But of the fireside character, of those inequalities exhibited by the temper under all the manifold aggravations of social injury, she is decidedly the best judge, and knows best how to administer the proper remedies. Under the influence of sorrow and pain, we may often wear a countenance that will deceive man,—rarely one that will impose on woman, when she is interested in our fate. Every man will have observed occasionally how quickly a woman discerns the wound which she has involuntarily inflicted upon his feelings, and how soon and how tenderly she will repair the mischief; making him by the manner of reparation, not only forgive the injury, but admire her more than ever. With man it is but too often very different, and he must be asked for explanation before he is aware of the injury.

Woman, in all conditions, is a better comforter and a better nurse than man. She reads in the countenance with more facility all our little wants, and is ever ready to administer to them. Her sympathy is more alive, and her familiarity with the distresses around, make her more humane and compassionate than man. Mercy and mildness have always been her attributes; and the horrors and barbarities of war were never moderated, until chivalry and religion brought forward the mighty influence of woman to suppress them.

The following most beautiful and just eulogy of one of the most distinguished travellers which the world has ever produced, written without any view to publication, is so apposite to the views which have just been presented, that I will give it entire from Sparks's Life of Ledyard, with the exception of portions already quoted. "I have observed among all nations (says Ledyard,) that wherever found, they (women,) are the same kind, civil, obliging, humane, tender beings. They do not hesitate like man to perform a hospitable or generous action; not haughty, nor arrogant, nor supercilious, but full of courtesy, and fond of society; industrious, economical, ingenious, more liable to err than man, but in general, also more virtuous, and performing more good actions than he. I never addressed myself in the language of decency and friendship to a woman, whether civilized or savage, without receiving a decent and friendly answer. With man, it has often been otherwise. In wandering over the barren plains of inhospitable Denmark, through honest Sweden, frozen Lapland, rude and churlish Finland, unprincipled Russia, and the wide spread regions of the wandering Tartar, if hungry, dry, cold, wet or sick, woman has ever been friendly to me, and uniformly so; and to add to this virtue so worthy of the appellation of benevolence, these actions have been performed in so free and so kind a manner, that if I was dry, I drank the sweet draught, and if hungry, ate the coarse morsel with a double relish."⁷

⁷ The author of "Leaves from my Log Book," relates the following incident which occurred while he was passing through a village near Rochefort in France, as a prisoner under a military escort. It affords so fine an illustration of the truth of Ledyard's eulogy on the sex, that I am induced to insert it in a note.

"I had obtained a fresh supply of canvass for my feet, which were much blistered and extremely sore; but this was soon worn out, and I suffered dreadfully. About noon, we halted in the market place of a small town bearing every mark of antiquity, (I think it was Melle,) to rest and refresh. To escape the sun, I took my seat on an old tea chest, standing in front of a Huckster's shop, and removed my tattered moccasins. Whilst doing this, an elderly woman came out of the shop accompanied by a young girl very prettily dressed, and 'pauvre garcon! pauvre prisonier!' were uttered by both. The girl with tears in her eyes looked at my lacerated feet, and then without saying a word returned to the house. In a few moments afterwards she reappeared, but her finery had been taken off, and she carried a large bowl of warm water in her hands. In a moment the bowl was placed before me. She motioned me to put in my feet, which I did, and down she went upon her knees and washed them in the most tender manner. Oh what luxury was that half hour! The elder female brought me food, while the younger having performed her office, wrapt up my feet in soft linen, and then fitted on a pair of her mother's shoes." Well then might this grateful writer exclaim, in conclusion of this little narrative,

Far, indeed, might this poor prisoner have journeyed without meeting in our sex, with such a kind, tender being, as the fair Evlalie.

Marmontel tells us that Madame de Tencin, one of the most distinguished and fashionable ladies at Paris, and one who possessed a deep and exquisite knowledge of men and women, advised him always to seek for friends among women, rather than among men. "For by means of women (said she,) you may do what you please with men; and these are either too dissipated or too much occupied with their own personal interest to attend to yours: whereas women think of your interest, be it only out of indolence. Mention this evening to a woman who is your friend, an affair that intimately concerns you; to-morrow at her spinning wheel, at her embroidery, you will find her occupied with you, torturing her fancy to invent some means of serving you. But be careful to be nothing more than the friend of her whom you think may be useful to you; for between lovers, where once there happens any cloud, dispute or rupture, all is lost. Be then assiduous to her, complaisant, gallant even, if you will, but nothing more. You understand me?"

So strongly does woman sympathize with the distress and suffering of those around her, that under peculiar circumstances, she sometimes is carried to perform acts of enterprise and heroism, which rival the achievements of the ages of chivalry. Under the impulse of highly excited feelings, she has sometimes forgotten her inferiority of strength, and the dangers to which she is exposed by collision with the rudeness and roughness of the out of door world. On such occasions, she has braved all the hardships and labors which have opposed her, has crossed mountains and rivers, and penetrated alone into Siberian deserts; or visited courts and camps, and importuned monarchs and generals, until she has accomplished her humane purposes. How interesting is Elizabeth to us, in the Exiles of Siberia, by Madame Cottin, when she determines to go alone from the heart of the Siberian desert, to beg the Emperor for the liberty of her exiled father; and how much more deeply interested do we become in this tale when we know that it is not only founded on fact, but that the real dangers and difficulties which Elizabeth encountered, were of such a character as to make Madame Cottin suppose that they would not be believed, if faithfully narrated. The deep and thrilling interest excited by the character of Jeannie Deans, in the Heart of Mid Lothian, is due in a great measure to her magnanimous and heroic resolution, taken under the influence of sisterly love, to make a journey on foot, unprotected and alone, from her father's mansion near Edinburg, to London, for the purpose of obtaining the pardon of her sister, and to the difficulties, dangers and hardships which she is represented as surmounting with unshaken fortitude. Mrs. Jameson in her Visits and Sketches, has given us a narrative of the adventures of Mademoiselle Ambos, equal to those of Elizabeth in the Exiles of Siberia, or to those of Jeannie Deans in the beautiful fiction of Sir Walter Scott.

This young lady formed the bold and daring project of visiting the court of Russia for the purpose of obtaining the pardon of her brother Henri Ambos, who was exiled to Siberia. She actually visited St. Petersburg alone,—obtained after a triumph over the most appalling difficulties, the pardon of her brother from the Emperor Nicholas,—and then under the impulse of those Divine feelings which can exist in woman's heart alone, she determined herself to be the bearer of the glad tidings which would restore a lost son to a broken hearted mother, and an affectionate sister. And the reader can scarce refrain from dropping a tear of sympathy, when she received for answer to the pardon which she had delivered to the commandant of the fortress, with a hand trembling with impatience, and joy almost too great to be borne, "Henri Ambos is dead!"—In order to estimate the heroism, the sublimity of such deeds, we must call to mind the relative positions of the sexes in society; we must recollect the weakness, the modesty, and above all the shrinking timidity of the female, before we can estimate the depth of that feeling which can conquer all the weaknesses of her nature, in the execution of her benevolent purposes.

"Ye who shall marvel," (says Byron in his very interesting description of the Maid of Saragossa,)

The sympathies, the feelings of woman on such occasions, impart a courage and fortitude which seem to be almost the inspiration of heaven itself; the rude uncourteous world, is awed into respect and admiration by the forbidding dignity of her demeanor, and the fearless determination with which she executes her resolves. When Mademoiselle Ambos was asked if she had ever met with insult, she said she had twice met "with wicked men"—but she felt no alarm, she knew how to protect herself; and as she said this, (says Mrs. Jameson,) her countenance assumed an expression which showed that it was not a mere boast.

I come now to the consideration of the character of the sexes in relation to a passion, which is one of the most universal, powerful and interesting, implanted in the human breast—the passion of love. A passion which has agitated alike, the philosopher and the poet, the nobleman and the peasant; which in the language of the Edinburg Review, "has filled the parsonage house with chubby children, and beats in the breast of the Baptist, animates the Arminian, melts the Unitarian maid, and stirs up the moody Methodist, to declare himself the ready victim of human love." My limits will not of course allow me to enter fully into a subject upon which so much has been written, and so much more has been felt. The sexes throughout the whole animated creation are determined towards each other by an instinct, and this is animal love. Under its operation but little preference is shown for individuals, except in those cases where the joint aid of male and female is necessary to the rearing of the offspring. There nature, ever consistent with herself, and with that harmonious design and beautiful adaptation observed throughout the universe, has established a temporary union among the sexes, similar to marriage in the human family. But this connexion seems to be determined more by the operation of mere instinct, than by reason, imagination, and the association of ideas. With man, love is no doubt founded on animal instinct; but then all the powers of the human mind, all the passions of the heart, all the affections and emotions; in fine, the whole moral and mental machinery of our nature are brought to bear on this instinct, to foster or stifle, to develope or exterminate it. By means of the mighty power of imagination, and the laws of association, such a complicated and magnificent fabric is reared, as occasionally to obscure and almost hide the instinct material which lies at the bottom. It is under the influences of these higher and more exalted powers of the mind, that this passion of our nature is directed towards one object alone, and that all the world is so readily forsaken for the possession of that one.

Most of our desires, although natural, are determined as to their particular direction by the operation of circumstances—take for example the desire for society. There is no doubt that this is a natural instinctive desire; man is certainly a gregarious animal; he delights in intercourse with fellow-man; solitude is at war with the condition of his nature, and so strong is his desire for society, that if man be deprived of intercourse with man, he will make companions of brutes and reptiles themselves. Horses, dogs, cats, even spiders and rats, have become his very dear associates in his solitary condition. And yet, under the operation of reason, imagination, and the passions, together with that endless variety of character which we find in the human family, this desire is directed to particular persons and particular circles. We may shun the society of A and B—we may court that of C and D—and indeed, under the very severe pressure of calamity, when all our hopes and our darling schemes of ambition and aggrandizement are blasted forever, by the perfidious machinations and wily projects of those very individuals whom we had fondly called our friends, there is an almost irresistible tendency in the mind, at such a melancholy crisis, to indulge the gloomy feeling of misanthropy, and plunge into the depth of solitude, where we may escape the persecution and treachery of a dissembling world. Thus do we find circumstances controling, directing, and sometimes almost exterminating our natural passions and propensities.

Love in the human family is eminently under the control of circumstances. The original, natural passion implanted in the breast, may be compared to the common quantities in algebra—it belongs to all. Cupid cares not for creeds, nor occupations, nor professions; but the development of the passion, under the guidance of reason, association and imagination, assumes as many shapes as the dispositions and intellects of the myriads who compose the human family. In the civilized countries of Europe, and in our own, woman has been liberated from that state of servitude and debasement, to which either the condition of barbarism, or the laws of Mahommedanism had too long confined her. The institution of chivalry, and the diffusion of the humane spirit of christianity, have assigned her that station in society which makes her in the social circle the equal of man. She has been disenthralled from that jealousy which would quietly immure her within the walls of the Seraglio, and which, in attempting to preserve her chastity by constraint, prevents the development of mind, extinguishes the vigor and intensity of the affections, and really in the end, debauches the heart, whilst it guards the person. Under a system of free and equal intercourse among the sexes, love assumes a totally different form from that which exists in society where woman is not looked on as the equal of man. In the former case, she must be wooed and won; in the latter, she is bought and locked up. In the former case, she is allowed the free employment of all her faculties, and the full play of all her graces and accomplishments. In the latter, becoming the slave of man, and losing all those higher inducements to mental and moral excellence which freedom alone can foster, she degenerates into a mere being of ignorance and sensuality, going through the dull round of solely animal pleasures, unattended by that grace and refinement which throw so bright a lustre around the female character.

When freedom of intercourse exists among the sexes, what is called courtship, becomes a longer and more assiduous task to the gentlemen, than where such freedom does not exist. The heart of woman may be likened to the besieged and fortified castle. It must be regularly invested; slowly and cautiously, or boldly and daringly approached, according to circumstances. The whole science of social tactics must be studied, and a skilful application made to the heart which is to be won. Under these circumstances, when all the affections of a man's heart have really been concentrated upon one object, if he possess a keen sensibility and a highly wrought imagination, the period of his love and of his courtship, may be the most important of his whole life: like the fabled wand of the magician, it may but wave over the character, and change the whole inner man. Ardent and intense love is certainly the master passion of our nature, whilst it exists; but like all tyrants, it may reign but for a season; it is liable to dethronement. Whilst, however, it is enthroned, it conquers every other. Ambition, interest, patriotism, all have yielded during the hour of its ascendancy. Whilst this passion endures, it clusters around its object all the dearest associations and fondest recollections of our life. It is the spirit which has only to move over the chaos of our existence, and attract to itself all the elements of our nature. It enters the heart, and makes us brood over dreams of joy, and look with rapturous gaze and supplicating eye,

It mixes itself with all our thoughts, our desires, our hopes and actions. It is the realization of the fable of the fish, which imparted its own beautiful color to every object that approached it. How often when we have stood amid the lone majesty of nature's works, "all heaven above" and earth beneath, with no eye gazing on us, save that of him who doeth his will and ruleth in the armies of heaven, have we felt this unseen spirit to move within us—to touch, as if with magic hand, all the springs of our moral sensibility, and waken up all the tender emotions of our soul. Even with the prayer which we address to heaven from this great temple of nature we cannot refrain from mingling the name of her whose beauty and loveliness have excited within us the sympathetic emotions of virtue and piety. This passion of love, when it is genuine, accompanies us wherever we go; it associates the beloved object with all our plans and schemes of ambition, and casts its own bright radiance over all the objects which surround us:

Even the circle of friends by which we are surrounded, become associated in our imagination with the sole object of our affections; our tastes are often changed, our friendships altered, our very opinions and inclinations are sometimes revolutionized by the potent but silent sway of that being whose beauty and loveliness have placed us under this mysterious spell. Love like this, terminating in marriage, founded on reciprocity of affection, must be productive of the most exquisite and refined happiness which the frail condition of man will allow us in this world. It is such love as this which will quickly bring two heterogeneous beings to harmonize in temper and disposition. It is such as this which will tame down the ferocity of the tiger and triumph over the savage spirit of the hyena. Under its operation the corsair has been sometimes arrested in his bold career, the robber has been reformed, and the arm of the bloodthirsty villain has been withholden from an infliction of the deadly blow.

When, however, such love is unfortunate, and fails to win its object, there comes perhaps one of the heaviest blows to which mortality is subject; then does it become necessary to gather up the shattered resources of mind and body to withstand the storm which is overwhelming us with calamity. This is a period fraught with infinite danger even to the character of man. At such a time we seem suddenly arrested in our mid career by the cruel hand of misfortune. The bright, the delusive prospects which we beheld reflected in the mirror of hope, have suddenly disappeared from the mental vision. But a little while ago and we were like him who had wandered into the splendid repository of the works of art, illumined by the bright lamp whose radiant light was beautifully reflected from the thousand polished surfaces which glittered around; now we are like him in that same mazy hall, with his lamp extinguished and total darkness around.

The very sun of our moral and social existence seems suddenly struck from the heavens, and well may we in the agony of despair exclaim, "how stale, flat, and unprofitable" is this world to us now. When we wander abroad, how dismal is the prospect which lies before us. The sun, and the moon with her nightly train, seem to have lost that celestial spirit which a little while ago had made us gaze upon them in silent and pensive bliss. Our homes, our firesides, our friends have lost the charm which can neutralize woe; for a period the desire for fame and honor is lost, and the voice of ambition is silenced within.

This period of agony which I have just described has often infused the gall of bitterness into the cup of life, turned benevolence into misanthropy, soured the temper, and destroyed the tranquillity of existence. When the shock has come after matrimonial engagement, which has been ended by woman's caprice, or the wily artifices of the mischief-making meddler, then the stroke is still more dreadful, and productive of effects still more marked in the character of the man; and oftentimes is the conduct of that being, who stands an anomaly in the eyes of the world, to be traced back to this cause. We have seen an individual mysteriously settle down in our vicinage, immure himself in his solitary mansion, shrink from the gaze of the world as from the dragon's visage, and live as though life were a burden which was to him insupportable. Pry into his history, and you will find, when you have traced it out, that it was the treachery of her upon whom he had lavished all the affections of his soul, which separated him from his original home and happiness. Look again—there is another being whose brilliant, but meteor like career, alarms the selfish statesman and puzzles the philosopher. To-day, listening senates are hanging on his words, and electrified by the magic of his soul-stirring eloquence. To-morrow, in the social circle, he displays those powers of fascination and attraction which fix the gaze of all on the play of his features, while the brilliancy of his fancy and the vivid corruscations of his wit and intellect, are delighting all around with his wonder-working speech.

At times he realizes the fable of Orpheus; he draws the very trees after him, melts the hearts of stone that are around him, and makes them forgive the wrongs which he has done—then his reason seems to be dethroned, the very demon of malice enters his heart; his shafts of calumny transfix alike friend and foe, and he traverses seas and continents almost like the deluded victim of knight errantry, impelled by a spirit which urges forward with irresistible impetuosity, whilst it seems to have lost its destination. The world stands amazed whilst this brilliant meteor is playing above the horizon. One ascribes his course to the waywardness of nature, and calls him a lusus naturæ; another traces his character to the diseases of the body; another tells you he was ambitious, and that all his schemes of promotion and self-aggrandizement were wrecked.

But go to him who has shared his confidence, and nursed him in the hours of his misfortune—to him who can best tell you his history, and he will tell you his was a heart with feelings as intense and pure, as ever were given to the heart of man; he will tell you that that heart poured forth the mighty stream of its affections upon another, and that his love, great as it was, was returned by that being,—when the spoiler came, and then came mystery, converting the very affections of the heart into the scorpions of the furies, and the garden of Eden into a place of torment, which deranged his faculties and destroyed the equilibrium of his mind; and that thus all those fitful moods which puzzle the world, may be traced back to disappointed love.

The effects which I have been describing as flowing from disappointed love, are certainly of an extreme character, happening only in the case of ardent temperaments, combined with a concurrence of circumstances which generate intense and all absorbing affection for the beloved object. In these cases, when all hope is entirely eradicated, there is certainly a tendency to peevishness, fretfulness, whim, suspicion and misanthropy; and against these consequences the individual ought always to be on his guard. He should not charge to the human race, or even to the whole sex, the vices which he thinks he sees in a single individual. This is a case in which kind friends, especially females, may do much to soothe and tranquillize the mind. Women alone seem to have enough of that deep discernment, nice tact, and generous sympathy, which can administer consolation to a wounded heart and calm the irritated feelings of blasted hope. In the great majority of cases however, the disappointed lover plunges into the business and scenes of active life, forms new associations and attachments, and quickly forgets his former love, without any permanent effect being produced on the character by mere disappointment. Man (says Dr. Cogan on the passions) rarely runs any serious risk from disappointment in love. "If he have not speedy recourse to the pistol or the rope, he will probably survive the agonies under which the softer sex will gradually pine and die."

I will now examine briefly, a few of the effects produced on the character of the male, during the period of courtship in society, organized as it is in this country and Europe,—and certainly one of the most marked effects, is the strengthening of vanity and the weakening of pride. As it is the province of man to woo and to win, his constant aim must be to render himself agreeable to the object of his affections. To gain her esteem, her approbation, her love, is the object of all his efforts. Now this is vanity. The proudest heart, the soul of sternest stuff, by the operation of this all subduing passion of love, is made to yield—to become a candidate for the praise of her whose affections he so much covets. In this condition we are all more or less like Petrarch, who declared that "she (Laura) was the motive and object of all his studies—that he coveted glory only as it might secure her esteem—that she alone had taught him to desire life, and to lift his thoughts towards heaven." In his "Conversations with St. Augustin," he even confesses that he was more ardent in his desire for the Laurel Crown, on account of its affinity to the name of Laura. Now, although this vanity seeks the approbation directly of but one, yet as she is regulated by the opinion of the world, we quickly find it necessary to gain the good opinion and esteem of those around us, in order, by their means, to win the approbation of the object of our affections. Hence, however proud the man, love and courtship will in the civilized countries of our globe soon infuse a degree of vanity, which will temper his overweening pride and make him more social, more loquacious, more attentive to all the little courtesies of life, and much more cheerful than he was before. In all the Mahommedan countries, where woman is bought and locked up, and the alternately sweet and painful solicitudes of love and courtship are never known—how proud, how taciturn, how forbidding, unsocial and grave, is the character of man! In France, where the influence of women is very great, how entirely opposite is his character; there, vanity is his predominant trait. Montesquieu, in his "Lettres Persannes," makes Usbeck say to Ibben, in a letter from Paris, on the characters of the French and Persians, "It must be allowed that the seraglio is better adapted for health than for pleasure. It is a dull uniform kind of life, where every thing turns upon subjection and duty; their very pleasures are grave, and their pastimes solemn; and they seldom taste them but as so many tokens of authority and dependence. The men in Persia are not so gay as the French; there is not that freedom of mind and that appearance of content which I meet with here in persons of all ranks and estates. It is still worse in Turkey, where there are families, in which from father to son, not one of them ever laughed from the foundation of the monarchy." Now these proud, taciturn, grave beings would at once be changed, by giving full freedom to the females, and rendering it necessary for each one to woo, to interest and to delight her whom he would make his wife.

In fact, we have never learned so well to know the unappreciable, the priceless value of a woman's heart, as when we have experienced the pains and the pleasures, the doubts and hopes, pertaining to the period of courtship. There have been instances of husbands losing all affection for their wives in the quietude of their possession, but who were suddenly roused to the most tormenting love, as soon as they saw that their cold and brutal indifference had destroyed that affection which they once possessed. Mrs. Jameson, in her very interesting description of the beauties of Charles 2d, tells us that Lady Chesterfield, the daughter of the Duke of Ormond, when first married to Lord Chesterfield, received from him in return for her own pure, warm and innocent affection, a negligent and frigid indifference, which astonished, pained and humiliated her. Finding however that all her tenderness was lavished in vain, mingled pique and disgust succeeded to her first affection and admiration: and in this condition she was suddenly taken by her husband to the Court of Charles the 2d, where, from a neglected wife, living in privacy and even in poverty, she suddenly became a reigning beauty. Lord Chesterfield, when he found his charming wife universally admired, was one of the first to sigh for her; and his passion rose to such a height, that casting aside the fear of ridicule, he endeavored to convince her by the most public attentions, that his feelings towards her were entirely changed. And let the result be a warning to all negligent husbands.—"Unfortunately," says Mrs. J., "it was now too late: the heart he had wounded, chilled and rejected, either could not, or would not be recalled; he found himself slighted in his turn, and treated with the most provoking and the most determined coldness."

The author of the "Journal of a Nobleman at the Congress of Vienna," has given us a still more interesting and striking illustration of the assertion which I have made, in the case of the Count and Countess of Pletenburg, whom he saw in the gay circles of Vienna during the period of the session of the Holy Alliance in that city. Pletenburg had married, without much courtship or difficulty, a young and beautiful woman, for the purpose of securing a fortune which had been left to him, on the condition that he married before he was twenty-five. He soon plunged into every kind of debauchery and dissipation, conceived the greatest disgust for his lovely and loving wife of sixteen—left her almost broken hearted, for the purpose of travelling in Europe, returned after some years, saw her, and saw that she had ceased to love him: then he loved in turn, and loved most violently and hopelessly. He is thus described by the author of the Journal just mentioned, who met with him at a party of the Countess Freck's in Vienna. "The poor man has become an object of ridicule by the servility of his devotion; always sighing, as at the age of eighteen, and, as jealous as a sexagenarian, he never moves from her side. He is ever taking up her gloves and her handkerchief, and pressing them to his bosom in public. But all this tends only to increase the aversion he has raised. Proscribed from the nuptial bed which he had so long disdained, he complains of this rigor in prose, and laments his fate in verse. In short, his enthusiasm has become so great, that if it continues for any length of time, his intellect must become affected by it." And thus is it that the disenthralment of woman will always cause her to be more respected and loved, and by her influence on man she will be sure to make him more agreeable, more social, less proud.

Besides this, virtuous love has a tendency to improve the morals of man, to increase his sympathies and call into play all his most tender feelings. This moral tendency of love in the male, arises partly from imitation of the virtues and character of her whom we love; but mostly from that exquisite, indescribable pleasure, which one in love feels, from the performance of those acts of kindness and virtue which excite the gratitude and esteem of the lady beloved. In this case his minute, tender and ever anticipating attentions to the female, have an effect on man similar to that which I have described as being produced on woman by the relation of mother and child.

I know of nothing so well calculated to soften the heart, to smooth down the asperities of character, to excite all the kindly, sympathetic and amiable feelings of our nature, as ardent affection for a virtuous and pious female. Mr. Randolph in his letters to a relation, has spoken with great force and propriety of this effect of virtuous love.

So far, I have been describing the nature of man's love, and the effects which it produces on his character. The love of woman however, is much more interesting, and if not more ardent, it is perhaps more devoted, more tender and more constant than that of man. "Man," says Irving, "is the creature of interest and ambition. His nature leads him forth into the bustle and struggle of the world. Love is but the embellishment of his early life, or a song piped in the intervals of the acts. He seeks for fame, for fortune, for space in the world's thoughts, and dominion over his fellow men. But a woman's whole life is the history of the affections. The heart is her world; it is there her ambition strives for empire—it is there her avarice seeks for hidden treasures. She sends forth her sympathies on adventure; she embarks her whole soul in the traffic of affection; and if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless,—for it is a bankruptcy of the heart." Madame de Stael tells us that love is but an episode in the history of man's life, but it is the serious business of a woman's. And a man, says Thomas, is more to a woman than a whole nation. Under these circumstances, when a woman's affections have been won, when, casting aside all passions, feelings, joys of earth, save for one alone, she settles down,

to brood over dreams of felicity to be enjoyed with him—how overwhelming, how crushing must his treachery be, to her all confiding heart. Her bygone dreams of deep enthralling bliss are all a mockery. Her pride is wounded, her modesty is shocked. For a time she may still affect gaiety; she may travel the routine of apparent pleasure; but the worm is at the heart, and she sinks at last a martyr to her affections. Where one man falls a victim to love, there are perhaps at least ten women. No wonder then she should be more inveterate in her antipathies and animosities when she has once been wronged—when once deceived she rarely forgives.

But if the affections of a woman are once fixed on a man,—so absorbing, so overwhelming do they become, that she will forgive the stain which his conduct has inflicted on his own honor; she will forgive him for her own ruin; she will pardon every thing in fine, save the loss of his love for her. For this wrong, and for this alone, will she conceive the most bitter and deadly hatred and revenge. How admirably did Sir Walter Scott understand this trait in woman's love. When in the heart of Mid Lothian, Effie Deans is visited in prison by her sister, who makes mention of the being who had disgraced and ruined her, but who nevertheless loved her and was anxious to save her life, he makes Effie exclaim, in the overflowing and forgiving fulness of her affection, "O Jeannie, if ye wad do good to me at this moment, tell me every word that he said, and whether he was sorry for poor Effie or no." A woman in this situation is sometimes like Antigone in the Oedipus—she may become fond of the very misery which she feels for his sake.

The constraint which is put upon the passion of love in woman, nurses and invigorates it. Fear and modesty mingle inquietude with her love, and double its force. The confession of her affection is of itself a mighty sacrifice; but a woman is then only the more tender for the great sacrifice which she has made. The more the confession has cost her, the more fondly does she love him to whom she has made it. "She attaches herself," says Thomas, "by her sacrifices. Virtuous, she enjoys her denials; guilty, she glories in the favors she bestows. Women therefore, when love is a passion, are more constant than men; but when it is only an appetite they are more libertine. For then they feel no more of those anxieties, those struggles, and that sweet shame which impressed the delicious sentiment so strongly on their hearts." With what facility a Ninon de l'Enclos and a Catherine of Russia would change their lovers, every body knows; theirs was more of an appetite than of an affection and sentiment, and where this is the case, woman's love is more fickle than man's; in every other instance it is more constant and faithful.

I have thought proper, in this dissertation, to speak of the effects produced upon the character of man during the period of courtship and love; and we have seen that the effects in his case are decidedly beneficial. I doubt whether the same may be asserted in all cases with regard to woman. The time which a woman passes between the period of her entrance into society and her marriage, is perhaps the most important and the most perilous of her career. Having led a previous life of retirement and comparative seclusion, unacquainted with the wiles and stratagems of the world—endowed almost always with a vivid imagination and warm feelings, she comes forth into society with buoyant hopes and an animating gaiety, which throw a charm over the whole face of nature, that conceals from view the snares and deceptions of the world. She may then fall a sacrifice to some artful deceiver, and suffer the pangs of disappointment, which I have just been describing.⁸ Or she may acquire a love of conquest in the wars of Cupid—may become fascinated by the applauses and flattery of the world, until nothing but the incense of adulation can satisfy her perverted vanity. This period, is one, during which, a woman enjoys more fame, more worldly glory, than during any other of her life. It is not to be wondered at then, that she is so frequently seen suppressing her feelings and smothering her affections, in order that she may protract this period of her glory and reputation.⁹ There is nothing more seducing, more captivating to the vanity and imagination of woman, than to see all hearts enchained, and rendering the willing homage of love and admiration to her graces and accomplishments. But she must beware, lest this delightful devotion implant in the heart a lust for applause and notoriety, at the sacrifice of all the more feminine and lovely virtues. And she must recollect too that the very pain of disappointment, which she is obliged to inflict and to witness from day to day, in her unfortunate lovers, is of itself calculated to weaken and obtund her feelings and sympathies, and to generate coldness and hardness of heart. Metaphysicians tell us that the active feelings are strengthened, but the passive are weakened by too frequent repetition—the frequent sight of beggary, of death, of pain and misery of every description, when it is beyond our power to administer relief, always tends to weaken our sympathy and harden the heart. Now there can be no pain,—no anguish more exquisite, than that which the disappointed lover feels in the melancholy hour of his rejection; and the woman, who witnesses such scenes too frequently, may at last lose the generous sympathies of her nature. Like the man of deep feelings and keen sensibility, who the historian informs us, was at first unwillingly dragged to the amphitheatre to witness the horrid, the revolting combats of the gladiators, she may at last by repetition so conquer the feelings of nature as even to experience a savage delight in the pain and suffering of human sacrifice and human woe.

⁸ "It is easier for an artful man who is not in love, (says Addison) to persuade his mistress he has a passion for her, and to succeed in his pursuit, than for one who loves with the greatest violence. True love has ten thousand griefs, impatiences and resentments, that render a man unamiable in the eyes of the person whose affection he solicits: besides that, it sinks his figure, gives him fears, apprehensions and poorness of spirit, and often makes him appear ridiculous, where he has a mind to recommend himself."

⁹ A lively French writer, says Mary Wolstoncraft, asks what business women turned of forty can have in this world.

Before leaving this topic, I beg leave to add one word of advice to the gay and fascinating belle, who is moving forward in her victorious career,—conquering all hearts before her,—until, like the Juan of Moliere, she may wish for other worlds, not for purposes of conquest, like Alexander, but to win the hearts of those that inhabit them. A lady in this situation ought always to be mindful of the great influence which she is exerting on those around her. Her lightest words are treasured up with the fondest zeal, her very defects are sometimes considered as surpassing beauties. A principle advocated by her, no matter how erroneous,—a doctrine advanced, no matter how false, is apt to make an impression, sometimes deep and indelible, on the susceptible hearts of her admirers. She should ever recollect that the cause of virtue and of piety is peculiarly hers; and when she is walking the golden round of her pleasures, shedding her influence on all who approach her, let her be conscious to herself of no word or deed which can injure the sacred cause of morality and religion. We all know the irresistible influence of association. A writer of antiquity said he would rather believe drunkenness no vice, than that Plato could have one. The stuttering of Aristotle and the wry neck of Alexander were admired on the same principle: and Des Cartes, the great philosopher, declared he had a partiality for persons who squinted; and he says that in his endeavor to trace the cause of a taste so whimsical, he at last recollected, that, when a boy, he had been fond of a girl who had that blemish. I have rarely known a very devoted lover who did not love all the peculiarities and even oddities of his mistress. We are all like the Frenchman, whose mistress had a twisted nose, of which the lover used to say, "C'est au moins la plus belle irregularité du monde." Hence, for the very same reason that Dr. Johnson remarks, "if there is any writer whose genius can embellish impropriety, or whose authority can make error venerable, his works are the proper object of criticism,"—would I say, that if there be any being whose opinions and actions form the

let such beings remember the nature and responsibility of their station, and manage well the talents which are committed to their charge. I shall for the present, pass over all consideration of the married state, with the sole remark, that in all ages and countries the women love more constantly and more devotedly in that state than the men, possessing a more exclusive and more engrossing affection, and that their errors and infidelity have generally been the result, not the cause, of those of the men. Hence, the more attentive, the more sedulously tender and kind the husband is, the more virtuous, affectionate and faithful the wife becomes. All over the world, the woman who marries from love, covets, beyond every thing else, the entire affections of her husband. He is all in all to her,—and it will be only his indifference and infidelity which will ever alienate her affections; then, in the spirit of chagrin and mortification, may she bewail her lot, in the language of Dryden:

DANCING, WALTZING, &c.

J'ai toujours cru que le bon n'etait que le beau mis en action.—Rousseau.

Amid the various changes in the customs and fashions of society, the abolition of old, and the introduction of new modes, which an age prolific in intelligent and important improvement has effected, it is matter of surprise, that some of the engines of reform, some of the batteries of satire, have never been unmasked upon the crude and barbarous fashion of dancing. Start not, gentle reader, when I say barbarous fashion, for such dancing unquestionably is. Its very origin is barbarous. In a rude state, when the untutored savage is agitated by any strong emotion, as joy, patriotism, admiration, &c., his first impulse is to caper and skip about like a grasshopper. Among the records of the customs and manners of the most polished and civilized nations of antiquity, we seek in vain for the importance and admiration which attaches to this miscalled accomplishment at the present day. The Romans, perhaps the most accomplished and polite of the ancients, held the art in very low esteem. Indeed we find Cicero striving with all the force of his matchless eloquence, to vindicate his friend Muræna from the charge of being a dancer, preferred against him by Cato. So conscious is he of the weight of the imputation, that he makes it the subject of one branch of his defence, and, in a digression, recounts the brilliant services and devoted patriotism of his client's ancestors, to discountenance a charge affecting so seriously, the value and dignity of his character.

The Greeks, we are told, held the art of dancing in higher estimation, and it is said, considered graceful dancing one of the necessary constituents to the character of an accomplished gentleman; but the very word, and indeed the only one used by them to express the motion, [Greek: orchêsis], signified mimicry; plainly intimating its derivation from the buffoons and jesters of the stage, and consequently it never could have had much popularity in their more refined and elegant circles. As a religious rite it was in use, it seems, among the ancient Jews, and in celebration of the worship of the heathen deities of Greece and Rome, we find it only practised in the orgies of Bacchus, a fact of itself sufficient to mark it as a lewd, licentious and vulgar pastime. It was a favorite amusement of the ancient Scythians, the Chinese, the Goths, the Vandals, the Persians, and other barbarous nations of antiquity, and is yet in practice among the modern French and Italians, who, first introducing it in theatrical amusements, and then having carried the art to great perfection, have now transplanted it to the fashionable circles of domestic society. But it is rather in reference to its effects upon the present constitution of society, and its awkward adaptation to the chastened simplicity of the republican character, that I propose to consider dancing, than in regard to its estimation among the ancients.

Excellence in national dances, as such, may deservedly be ranked among the highest efforts of skill and grace. We discover much elegance, certainly, in the easy and graceful evolutions of the Spanish waltz. There is a charming vivacity in the romping gaiety of the French gallopade; and even the oriental mazourka, is not devoid of a certain graceful beauty. But they derive their interest from the national and historical associations connected with them. We see the haughty Spaniard, proud indeed, but pliant, aptly pictured in the mysterious intricacy of the mazy waltz. The lively gallop presents to our mind at once, the reckless nonchalance and chivalrous gaiety of the Frenchman; and thus these dances come to us as faithful types of their national origin. But why may we not be content to witness this delineation of national characteristics upon our theatrical boards? Why should we take them from their appropriate sphere, and introduce them to the frivolous and undignified imitation of the polite and refined? I do not know a scene more faithfully descriptive of rude, boisterous, and unbecoming merriment, than an American ball room. Place your hands upon your ears, and look down the hall. You will see the most unmeaning grimaces—the most ridiculous contortions of body in one quarter—while another view presents to you the unwelcome picture of man, lordly man, fallen from his high estate, and going through the laborious operations of the dance, with the farcical solemnity of a monk, or the clownish rapture of a mountebank. People may say what they please, about those only opposing this capering vice, who cannot dance themselves. They may tell us, that Lord Byron wrote his fretful satire upon waltzing, because his lordship could not participate in that fashionable dance, owing to his club foot. They may preach, that the ignorant alone complain of those accomplishments which they cannot attain themselves; that the dances in practice, from time immemorial, among our ancestors, were equally objectionable as those we now adopt and admire, which certain bold critics, going beyond their province, dare to denounce as dangerous innovations, savoring of foreign modes and manners, licentious and demoralizing. All this will not do, Mr. Editor. Dancing is dangerous, and the waltz especially: and a virtuous and intelligent community will unite, I feel assured, to frown these vicious amusements out of society, and consign them to the barbarous regions whence they were so irreverently introduced among us.

This mania for dancing, waltzing, &c., is the bane of every social circle. Do you go to pass the evening sociably with your friend, where you have a vague instinctive idea you will meet the pretty creature you passed in the street, on the Thursday previous—you will enter—your fondest anticipations are realized—you draw your chair towards her, and fall into a charming tete-a-tete, with the dear object for whom you already conceive a nascent passion—who has made you lose a whole week's sleep, break your mirror, tear your black silk bonnet de nuit into fragments, and kick your faithful valet de chambre down stairs, because your laundress has failed to impart the due degree of rigidity to your collar linen. Now you promise yourself a full indemnity for all the contre-temps of the past week—you are just arranging a most pleasant excursion with the lady the next afternoon, when, alas! the vanity of human hopes! an impertinent coxcomb, whose only merit consists in a well arranged dress and capacious whiskers, demands the honor of the lady's hand for the next waltz. Odious, detested waltz! You have too much taste to dance yourself: your inamorata, however, must yield to the unrelenting tyranny of fashion, and you are left in a posture of amiable abstraction, musing on the provoking scene enacting before you. To sit quietly and await the termination of the dance, might not be an unattainable effort of patience; but to see her partner's place supplied again and again—you take leave of hope and the company together, and pass the next week to the manifest infringement of your own peace of mind, and your aforesaid ill-fated valet's physical comforts.

Now, Mr. Messenger, I take you to be a sensible and discreet man, anxious for the purity of public taste, and ever vigilant to rid society of all nuisances; I doubt not, therefore, that I shall find in you, an able and willing coadjutor in the remedy I propose to apply, for the extirpation of this unspeakable annoyance; and I hope the undignified, graceless, dancing fraternity, aye, and sisterhood too, (for sorry am I to say, the ladies are the most untiring patrons of this capering vice,) will take the hint forthwith. I propose, through the "Messenger," to give to the public the result of my best labors to eradicate this odious practice from society. I know not if my efforts will ever receive their deserved reward. The public is an ungrateful master, and ever incredulous and uncourteous when you propose to reform him. It is not, however, the part of a philanthropist and reformer, to abate his efforts on that account. Immortality will be the price of success, and posterity will pay it. Had Columbus abandoned his attempts to explore the western main, because bigoted and ignorant monarchs would not accept the world he offered them, we might now have been the wretched subjects of some European despot instead of the countrymen of Washington, under a government of equal laws, and in a land of liberty.

On a visit a few evenings ago, to a maiden aunt, I was glad to find, that among the ladies assembled on the occasion, the utmost unanimity prevailed as to the importance and utility of the proposed reform. Miss Betsy Bloomever declared it would be one of the most extensively beneficial reformations which the world has witnessed, since the proscription of hoops, stays, and stomachers. Miss Debby Creaktone pronounced it a more important revolution than that achieved by Signorina Garcia, in the musical style of the American vocalists; and Miss Judith Knowell said, that in her estimation, (and she was a Protestant Episcopalian, she added,) Luther's reformation would sink to insignificance before it.

You can imagine my gratification, Mr. Messenger, at so numerous and so respectable an accession to my opinions; a fact upon which I could not forbear to felicitate myself, to Miss Sophronisba Grundy, adding, that I was confident my exertions would now be duly appreciated by an enlightened public, when it should be apprised, that I was aided in my labors by ladies, from whose age and experience, so much might be expected, when——conceive my astonishment, the whole group rose upon me, with unanimous rage; and declared it was a positive insult—

"Age and experience indeed! humph! Call me old at thirty-five!" screamed Miss Deborah.

"And me, at forty—only five years more!" shouted Miss Betsy.

"And I," said Miss Judith, scornfully, "that will let you know, Sir, I shall not be thirty-five till the 29th day of June next."

"Impudence!" said Miss Primrose.

"Insult!" echoed Miss Grundy.

In short, I found it impossible, Mr. Messenger, to compose the troubled elements, thus innocently put in motion, and was forced to retire. All my attempts at expostulation and entreaty, being overborne and silenced by the volume of voice and clamor sent after me—my aunt even intimating to me, at the hall door, that I must not visit her house, unless I could better estimate the feelings of her friends, who certainly had much cause to complain of my wanton outrage upon them.

I was electrified—was astounded—and tossed on my pillow the whole night, vainly laboring to unravel the inexplicable problem. That ladies of such seeming propriety, should evince such passion at an allusion to that to which I considered them alone indebted, for any consequence they might have in the world, was more than my philosophy could estimate, or my ingenuity explain.

As some compensation, however, for the defection of these young ladies with delicate feelings, I am rejoiced to find that the sex can appreciate my exertions in the cause of elegance and refinement, and are determined to aid me in my patriotic labors. Last evening the penny post brought me the two following letters, on the subject of the great reformation of manners in which we are engaged; and as they strengthen my opinions with great force of argument, I am unwilling to suppress them, and beg leave you will give them at once to the dear public, whose welfare I have so much at heart. With the kind and very welcome invitation contained in the first, I shall certainly comply, and hope ere long, to give you the result of the deliberations of a body, from whose wisdom, (I will not say age or experience,) so much may be justly expected; and in the mean while, I am very faithfully, yours and the public's dear friend,

Mr. Absolute:

I am secretary to the "Society of Young Ladies for the suppression of vulgar practices, and the promotion of elegance and gentility among young men," and am directed by a resolution of the Society, at its last meeting in Quality Hall, to convey to you the assurance of their hearty good will and ready co-operation, in your philanthropic efforts in the dancing reformation. Our society has long deplored the absence of some efficient and active measures for the suppression of a practice so derogatory to the dignified grandeur of the human form and character, and congratulate themselves and their co-laborers in the same cause, upon the highly important and gratifying results, which your beneficent zeal and energy promise. They have ever since the formation of their society, regarded the practice of dancing—of waltzing particularly, and especially in private circles—as seriously obstructive to that "march of mind," which is elsewhere effecting such important improvements in the domestic economy and wealth of nations; and hail with delighted enthusiasm the dawn of a brighter and better period, in our beloved country. An anti-dancing clause is found in the constitution of our society. Our members have all abandoned the custom very long ago; indeed, our president, among the oldest of our number, being nearly sixty years of age, says, that at the last dancing party she attended, she saw General Washington dance a minuet with her aunt Fanny. There was, she says, so much stately grace in that dance, that she would not object to seeing minuets danced always; but nothing else. We all agree in unanimous condemnation of the rapid, whirling, graceless waltzes, hops, gallops, and all those Frenchified follies, which are now, alas! by the depraved taste of the day, considered so fashionable.

Pray do not spare any pains to wipe off this dreadful stain upon our domestic customs and manners, and let not dancing be any longer urged against us as a national reproach. The next meeting of our society will be held on the afternoon of this day week, when I am directed to invite your attendance. Pray do not fail to come and give us your aid in working the speedy extirmination of this great vice from among us. And, in the meantime, wishing you perfect success in your virtuous labors, I remain your friend, in the sympathy which unites the advocates of a common cause.

Mr. Absolute:

Hearing of your intended efforts, by a series of essays, and by forming societies throughout the country, to draw the public attention to the demoralizing tendency and intrinsic ungentility of dancing, I cannot forbear to wish you entire success, in a reformation fraught with the best interests of society.

I am a young lady of respectable connexions, of some reading, more property, and, unless my glass plays me false, of a person quite agreeable. With youth and these advantages, one would think I could get along very well among the patrons of dancing; but you must know I never could dance fashionably, and as no body dances otherwise, the consequence is, that I go to party after party, and never dance at all. Pa sent me to the dancing school almost a whole quarter, but I had hardly in that time learned more than the positions, when our master dislocated his ankle joint in teaching one of the scholars (a fat Dutch girl from the mountains,) the French gallopade, and since then, we have never got another one in our neighborhood. How much more sociable it is to pass the evening in agreeable conversation, in which all can participate, than by dancing, to gratify one part of the company at the expense of the other.

Lord Chesterfield, (whose letters I have sometimes read,) advises his son never to play on any musical instrument. It is an accomplishment, he says, of the necessitous or vulgar. If he wants to hear music, he directs him to send for a professed performer, and pay him for his services. Thus ought it be in regard to dancing. Confine it to the circus or theatre, and society will not be annoyed by the practice. Until this is done, rely upon it, Mr. Absolute, none of your disciples will do more to drive it from the polished circles of domestic society, than your obedient servant,

LION-IZING. A TALE.

I am—that is to say, I was, a great man. But I am neither the author of Junius, nor the man in the mask—for my name is Thomas Smith, and I was born somewhere in the city of Fum-Fudge. The first action of my life was the taking hold of my nose with both hands. My mother saw this and called me a genius. My father wept for joy, and bought me a treatise on Nosology. Before I was breeched I had not only mastered the treatise, but had collected into a common-place book all that is said on the subject, by Pliny, Aristotle, Alexander Ross, Minutius Felix, Hermanus Pictorius, Del Rio, Villarêt, Bartholinus, and Sir Thomas Browne.

I now began to feel my way in the science, and soon came to understand, that, provided a man had a nose sufficiently big, he might, by merely following it, arrive at a Lionship. But my attention was not confined to theories alone. Every morning I took a dram or two, and gave my proboscis a couple of pulls. When I came of age my father sent for me to his study.

'My son'—said he—'what is the chief end of your existence?'

'Father'—I said—'it is the study of Nosology.'

'And what, Thomas'—he continued—'is Nosology?'

'Sir'—I replied—'it is the Science of Noses.'

'And can you tell me'—he asked—'what is the meaning of a nose?'

'A nose, my father'—said I—'has been variously defined, by about a thousand different authors. It is now noon, or thereabouts. We shall therefore have time enough to get through with them all by midnight. To commence:—The nose, according to Bartholinus, is that protuberance, that bump, that excrescence, that'——

'That will do Thomas'—said my father. 'I am positively thunderstruck at the extent of your information—I am, upon my soul. Come here! (and he took me by the arm.) Your education may be considered as finished, and it is high time you should scuffle for yourself—so—so—so (here he kicked me down stairs and out of the door,) so get out of my house, and God bless you!'

As I felt within me the divine afflatus, I considered this accident rather fortunate than otherwise, and determined to follow my nose. So I gave it a pull or two, and wrote a pamphlet on Nosology. All Fum-Fudge was in an uproar.

'Wonderful genius!'—said the Quarterly.

'Superb physiologist!'—said the New Monthly.

'Fine writer!'—said the Edinburg.

'Great man!'—said Blackwood.

'Who can he be?'—said Mrs. Bas-Bleu.

'What can he be?'—said big Miss Bas-Bleu.

'Where can he be?'—said little Miss Bas-Bleu.

But I paid them no manner of attention, and walked into the shop of an artist.

The Duchess of Bless-my-soul was sitting for her portrait. The Marchioness of So-and-so was holding the Duchess's poodle. The Earl of This-and-that was flirting with her salts, and His Royal Highness of Touch-me-not was standing behind her chair. I merely walked towards the artist, and held up my proboscis.

'O beautiful!'—sighed the Duchess of Bless-my-soul.

'O pretty!'—lisped the Marchioness of So-and-so.

'Horrible!'—groaned the Earl of This-and-that.

'Abominable!'—growled his Highness of Touch-me-not.

'What will you take for it?'—said the artist.

'A thousand pounds'—said I, sitting down.

'A thousand pounds?'—he inquired, turning the nose to the light.

'Precisely'—said I.

'Beautiful!'—said he, looking at the nose.

'A thousand pounds'—said I, twisting it to one side.

'Admirable!'—said he.

'A thousand pounds'—said I.

'You shall have them'-said he—'what a piece of Virtû!' So he paid me the money, and made a sketch of my nose. I took rooms in Jermyn street, sent his Majesty the ninety-ninth edition of the Nosology with a portrait of the author, and his Royal Highness of Touch-me-not invited me to dinner.

We were all Lions and Recherchés.

There was a Grand Turk from Stamboul. He said that the angels were horses, cocks, and bulls—that somebody in the sixth heaven had seventy thousand heads and seventy thousand tongues—and that the earth was held up by a sky-blue cow with four hundred horns.

There was Sir Positive Paradox. He said that all fools were philosophers, and all philosophers were fools.

There was a writer on Ethics. He talked of Fire, Unity, and Atoms—Bi-part, and Pre-existent soul—Affinity and Discord—Primitive Intelligence and Homoomeria.

There was Theologos Theology. He talked of Eusebius and Arianus—Heresy and the Council of Nice—Consubstantialism, Homousios, and Homouioisios.

There was Fricassée from the Rocher de Cancale. He mentioned Latour, Markbrunnen and Mareschino—Muriton of red tongue, and Cauliflowers with Velouté sauce—veal à la St. Menehoult, Marinade à la St. Florentin, and orange jellies en mosaiques.

There was Signor Tintontintino from Florence. He spoke of Cimabue, Arpino, Carpaccio, and Argostino—the gloom of Caravaggio—the amenity of Albano—the golden glories of Titian—the frows of Rubens, and the waggeries of Jan Steen.

There was the great Geologist Feltzpar. He talked of Hornblende, Mica-slate, Quartz, Schist, Schorl, and Pudding-stone.

There was the President of the Fum-Fudge University. He said that the moon was called Bendis in Thrace, Bubastis in Egypt, Dian in Rome, and Artemis in Greece.

There was Delphinus Polyglot. He told us what had become of the eighty-three lost tragedies of Æschylus—of the fifty-four orations of Isæus—of the three hundred and ninety-one speeches of Lysias—of the hundred and eighty treatises of Theophrastus—of the eighth book of the Conic Sections of Apollonius—of Pindar's Hymns and Dithyrambics, and the five and forty Tragedies of Homer Junior.

There was a modern Platonist. He quoted Porphyry, Iamblichus, Plotinus, Proclus, Hierocles, Maximus, Tyrius, and Syrianus.

There was a human-perfectibility man. He quoted Turgot, Price, Priestly, Condorcet, De Staël, and the "Ambitious Student in rather ill health."

There was myself. I talked of Pictorius, Del Rio, Alexander Ross, Minutius Felix, Bartholinus, Sir Thos. Browne, and the Science of Noses.

'Marvellous clever man!'—said his Highness.

'Superb!'—said the guests: and the next morning her Grace of Bless-my-soul paid me a visit.

'Will you go to Almacks, pretty creature?' she said.

'Certainly'—said I. 'Nose and all?'—she asked.

'Positively'—I replied.

'Here then is a card'—she said—'shall I say you will be there?'

'Dear Duchess! with all my heart.'

'Pshaw! no—but with all your nose?'

'Every bit of it, my life,'—said I. So I gave it a pull or two, and found myself at Almacks. The rooms were crowded to suffocation.

'He is coming!'—said somebody on the stair case.

'He is coming!'—said somebody farther up.

'He is coming!'—said somebody farther still.

'He is come!'—said the Duchess—'he is come, the little love!' And she caught me by both hands, and looked me in the nose.

'Ah joli!'—said Mademoiselle Pas Seul.

'Dios guarda!'—said Don Stiletto.

'Diavolo!'—said Count Capricornuto.

'Tousand Teufel!'—said Baron Bludenuff.

'Tweedle-dee—tweedle-dee—tweedle-dum!' said the orchestra.

'Ah joli!—Dios guarda!—Diavolo!—and Tousand Teufel!' repeated Mademoiselle Pas Seul, Don Stiletto, Count Capricornuto, and Baron Bludenuff. It was too bad—it was not to be borne. I grew angry.

'Sir!'—said I to the Baron—'you are a baboon.'

'Sir!'—replied he, after a pause,—'Donner and Blitzen!'

This was sufficient. The next morning I shot off his nose at six o'clock, and then called upon my friends.

'Bête!'—said the first.

'Fool!'—said the second.

'Ninny!'—said the third.

'Dolt!'—said the fourth.

'Noodle!'—said the fifth.

'Ass!'—said the sixth.

'Be off!'—said the seventh.

At all this I felt mortified, and called upon my father.

'Father'—I said—'what is the chief end of my existence!'

'My son'—he replied—'it is still the study of Nosology. But in hitting the Baron's nose you have overshot your mark. You have a fine nose it is true, but then Bludenuff has none. You are d——d, and he has become the Lion of the day. In Fum-Fudge great is a Lion with a proboscis, but greater by far is a Lion with no proboscis at all.'

LIONEL GRANBY.

CHAP. I.

My name is Lionel Granby. I was the second and youngest son of the Honorable Edmund Granby, a gentleman distinguished for his polished education and stately aristocracy. The earliest associations of my eventful life, steal from memory more of joyousness than of pain; and gathering in a gilded horizon of light around the darkness of my destiny, they whisper a consolation which despair cannot efface, nor misfortune obliterate.

Chalgrave, (an ominous name for a patrician family,) was the proud mansion of my ancestors. It was a huge and gnarled pile of Dutch brick, surrounded by a cumbrous wall of the same material. Situated on the western side of Chesapeake Bay, it frowned with stubborn misanthropy, on the mingled beauty which softened the silent landscape. It stood alone in the silence of its grandeur,—cold, fearful and noiseless. A broad and level plain swept round its base, dotted into life with the cottages of my father's numerous slaves. From them sprung the only voices which soothed the chilled solitude of the scene. Here, at all times might be heard the merry laugh, the jocund song, or the unalloyed mirth of alternate ease and idleness. One of those noble and beautiful rivers, which dally, as if it scorned to arise from an humble rivulet, with the bosom of the Chesapeake, gushed up its full waters fresh as in the morning of its creation. Much rude and incongruous taste disfigured the interior of Chalgrave. A dark and gloomy heaviness sate on the antique wainscotting, the massy sofas, and the blackened windows. From the dinner hall, the portraits of my ancestors looked down, as if in contempt on the degeneracy of modern times. Here was a cavalier, with flowing locks and iron-bound brow, who had lost his life in the memorable field of Naseby. Opposite to him, was the stiff and rigid portrait of a grave and thoughtful face. He was one of those inflexible and independent lawyers, whose moral courage had labored in the war of our revolution, and whose inflexible spirit had inspired successful resistance. Mothers with children in their arms; infants with toys, and belles with flowers and books, filled the wall alike with vermillion and smiles.

The number seven was curiously interwoven, in the circumstances of my birth. I was born on the seventh day of the seventh month, at seven o'clock, being the seventh of May. In our old family Bible, I find the record of my birth in my father's hand writing, followed with this fearful sentence. "Curse him not, oh God! with the —— of our family." Amid the desolations of despair—the anguish of broken hearted affliction, and the contempt of the world, I turn to the gentle and joyous hours of my childhood, even as the "hart which panteth after the water brooks." My memory is my heart, and my affections hourly trace themselves on its index. My mother's dark and deep blue eye, even now beams over her wretched child, and I live alone in the regenerative charity of this blessed passion.

I have a faint and indistinct recollection of my father's death and burial. The solemn ceremony of his funeral, and the dull and harsh sound of the earth as it touched his coffin, deeply affected my youthful spirits. I cried bitterly in the arms of my old nurse, and wondered at my mother's chilled and tearless eye. My father was dead! He had been stern and imperious to me; and as my gratitude was no reasoning power, I soon laughed brightly again in the serious and melancholy face of my mother. My old nurse Ellen, had lived in the Granby family for three successive generations, and was addressed by the endearing epithet of "Mammy." Her grandson, a well formed and athletic youth, named Scipio, four years older than myself, had been given to me by my father, and I soon learned the deep and abiding fidelity of his affection. He was my friend, companion and slave; and I thank God! that the pride of dominion never insulted or degraded him. In his obedience, he was dignified; and in his devotion, ardent, generous and sincere. He taught me to ride the unbroken colt—to steer the frail periogue, and to fish with success for the active boneta. According to the custom in Virginia, he did no service but wait on his young master. Thus separated from the great mass of my father's slaves, he grew into manhood with a gentleness of character and a dignity of address which would have honored the proudest gentleman in the state.

My old uncle Charles, who was one of the happiest and most dignified specimens of the "decayed gentleman," had found a resting place for his adversity in the Chalgrave family. He had been a Colonel in the militia; and having on one occasion, performed with his whole regiment before an admiring court yard, the difficult and vexatious manoeuvre of "the hollow square," he instantly resigned his commission; and under the shade of his laurels, he lamented the decay of military spirit, and the ignorance of the officers. The "hollow square," was the first mathematical figure I learned. Every thing in nature was pressed by my uncle into this fortified figure (as he called it,) of fortification. The trees, the flowers, the grass plats, backgammon men,—and the flies trained with honey, presented the solemn outline of my uncle's pride and learning. His peculiarities were few, and deeply tinctured with enthusiasm. As an antiquary alone, in the cause of Virginian history, he was bigoted, obstinate and credulous; and, considered as the first of books, "the Metamorphoses of Ovid, done into English by Mr. George Sandys, the company's treasurer." He contended that Clayton, the botanist, was greater in learning, than Linnæus; and, told with much indignation, the minutiæ of Clayton's quarrel with Gronovius, the Amsterdam printer. My uncle was experienced in the diseases of dogs and horses, and perfectly familiar with the technical jargon of the racing calendar. He had travelled in Europe, but would never mention the incidents of his tour, except to inform his auditory that the best saddles were made in London, and the finest pointers were bred at Padua. Yet my uncle had learning, taste and erudition, which he guarded, from every profane eye, with a repulsive and dogged obstinacy; and the few flashes which occasionally broke from him, glittered like the trembling rays which play around the edge of some sombre cloud. As an admirer of the fair, he was courteous, dreamy and fantastic, and would ever and anon, refer, for an evidence of his family gallantry, to the speech of one Sir Danvers Granby, who was a commissioner under Henry VIII, for dissolving the nunneries. When the nuns were shivering in the rude gaze of the populace, Sir Danvers, looked at them with tears in his eyes, exclaiming, "God bless you! I could marry you all, if I did not adore you!" This story my uncle told with a smile and a bow.

My gallant, gifted, and noble brother Frederick! how bright was the star which shone over thy boyhood! Alas! that its flickering light should only beam o'er thy pallid couch!—He was several years my senior, and had been sent to Europe for the purpose of acquiring a military education, but had returned at the age of nineteen with a broken and impaired constitution. He was studious, solitary and reserved; while the hectic flush of consumption, which irradiated his cheek, nerved alike the fortitude of his character, and awakened the sympathy of every eye. His heart was gentle, though his studies were severe—and he saved from the wreck which ambition ever makes of feeling, no jewel so rich as the untainted tenderness of his character. He had become a member of the bar; and I have often gazed on his high and marbled brow, as a living monument, on which destiny had inscribed its fiat of despair. Political life! that maddening turmoil of empty nothingness! was the goal on which he had fixed his dream of hope; and, though ill health prostrated him to the earth, his sunny smile breathed a freshness, and a gloom, as brilliant, and as melancholy as the tremulous twilight of an autumn sky. He cared naught for wealth, love or pleasure. Ambition was the demon which moved around him, in a track of its own desolation; and though beauty had lured him almost to the confines of matrimony, he could trample down the sympathies of his nature beneath its despotic rule.

My sister Lucy, was two years younger than myself; she was fair, delicate, and singularly beautiful. Her raven and luxuriant hair, fell in prodigal ringlets over a brow of Parian whiteness, giving that struggling halo of beauty which darkness throws around the solitude of the snow drift. She was deeply versed in the fashionable accomplishments of female education, and had added to them the acquirements of solid learning. The old library was the resort of her solitary hours; and as her light and sylph-like form, would flit through its darkened walls, fancy might easily personify her into Fame, hovering over the tomb of Genius.

The coachman, ostler, and dining room servants, are all important characters in the dramatis personæ of a Virginian household. With them I was a pet. The first, taught me to drive—the second, initiated me into the mysteries of Tree Hill and Broad Rock; while the third, corrected with severity, any breach of etiquette or violation of morals, inconsistent with his own or the Granby's dignity.

Such was the Granby family. Where are they now? The spider has woven her web, and the owl has built her nest in the crumbling walls of Chalgrave. The silent grave reads but one lesson—for the breeze which sighs over its dewy grass, tells me that I alone, am the last of that proud and gifted name.

DAGGER'S SPRINGS,

Among the numerous watering places in Virginia, our attention has been drawn to that which is named at the head of this notice, by several individuals who tested its virtues during the last season, and who speak highly of the situation and management of the Springs, and the efficacy of its waters. The mineral qualities of these Springs have been long known, and they have been resorted to for some years by persons living in their vicinity. But the character and circumstances of the original proprietor, a descendant of the early Dutch settlers of the country, prevented their improvement until within the last year or two. He had a full sense of the mineral treasure which enhanced the value of his property, and refused all offers from those who wished to purchase the site of the Springs; while he had not the means of bringing them into profitable use, by erecting buildings for the accommodation of visiters. Many individuals were, nevertheless, in the habit of drinking the waters of the Springs during the warm season, and of sojourning for a few days in the rude and imperfect dwellings which he had erected: and with the moderate income thus obtained from this mine of natural wealth, its sturdy proprietor seemed well satisfied. At his death, his successors disposed of the Springs and the adjacent lands to the present proprietors; and buildings were erected last year, on a limited scale, with every regard to the comfort of the traveller and the invalid. The consequences of a more liberal arrangement were immediately felt. The number of visiters last season exceeded the means of accommodation; and the managers have in the interim, made the most active exertions to meet the growing popularity of their establishment, having completed additional apartments, which will enable them to provide for the comfort of one hundred persons. The scenery in the vicinity of the Springs has been described to us in glowing colors, as combining every variety of the magnificent and the beautiful—and we have also been assured that the fare and attendance are worthy of all praise; so that we feel safe in recommending the enlarged establishment of the proprietors (Messrs. Dibrell and Watkins,) to the attention of travellers for health or pleasure.

Dagger's Springs are situated within easy distances from some of the most interesting towns in the Valley of Virginia—they are forty-five miles from the White Sulphur; twenty-two from Lexington; eighteen from Fincastle, and sixteen from Pattonsburg. The following letter from a distinguished physician, affords all necessary information as to the medicinal properties of the waters, and the management of the establishment:

I visited Dagger's Spring on the 24th of last July, and on the next day proceeded to subject the water to a number of chemical tests. The experiments performed, though not as full and as satisfactory as I could have wished, were sufficient to demonstrate that the water possesses highly valuable properties, and sufficient also to make us somewhat acquainted with the nature of those properties. The most active mineral ingredients in the water are carbonated alkalies. In this it differs materially from the White and Salt Sulphur, and is more nearly assimilated in its qualities to the Red and Gray Sulphur. It is however more decidedly alkaline than either of those Springs. This peculiarity will ever recommend it to persons subject to acidities of the stomach, and to the other concomitants of dyspepsia; while the large quantity of hydrogen that it contains, will render it useful in all of those complaints for which sulphur water is usually prescribed.

The following experiment was performed with the view of ascertaining the quantity of gas contained in the water. Three measures of the water were placed in a retort, and the bulb of the retort plunged in water, heated to the temperature of 108 Fahrenheit. The gas, as it was extricated, was received over mercury, in a graduated measure. The result was, that the three measures of water yielded one measure of gas. This gas was subsequently tested, and found to consist of sulphuretted hydrogen, azote, and atmospheric air—principally of the former.

The presence of iron is not detected by the usual tests; but the water, when treated with prussiate of potash, and subsequently with sulphuric acid, yields a blue precipitate, which is evidently prussiate of iron—the sulphuric acid having a stronger affinity for potash than the prussic acid, disengages the latter. The acid thus disengaged, unites with the iron in the water, and forms the prussiate of iron or prussian blue.

Although the water contains but about 36 grs. of mineral substances to the gallon,¹ it acts, under certain circumstances, with great promptness. It effects upon the system are invigorating: it promotes digestion and improves the secretions generally; it strengthens without producing an undue excitement, and may therefore be used beneficially in some cases, in which the water of the White Sulphur, from its stimulating properties, would prove destructive.

¹ The smaller of two springs at the Red Sulphur contains about 60 grs. per gal. The larger, which is most used, does not contain but about 24 grs. per gal.

I will only say in conclusion, that I was pleased with the manner in which the establishment appeared to be conducted, with the spirit of enterprise manifested, and the taste displayed in the plan of improvement, which was kindly exhibited to me. I met with no situation among the mountains susceptible of as great improvement as that selected for the buildings. It may be made a second Eden.

I am engaged in preparing a work for the press, in which this Spring will be more particularly noticed, and attention directed to objects of interest in the surrounding country. It would have been completed before this, but for the peculiarities of my situation, which allow me but little leisure for literary pursuits.

I was told of another spring belonging to the establishment, from which I was informed it was designed to supply the bathing house. From the account given of it, I have no doubt but that it is highly alkaline. I regret very much that it was not in my power to examine and test its properties.

THE RED SULPHUR SPRINGS.

We have received, and shall insert in the next No. of the Messenger, a continuation of the "Visit to the Virginia Springs," the first portion of which will be found in the preceding pages. The second part contains much valuable information, relating particularly to the Red Sulphur, which has recently risen into importance under the management of Mr. Burke, whose amiable and intelligent character is well known to the citizens of Richmond. As we consider it important, that the qualities of the healing waters which abound in this state, should be made known as extensively as possible, we anticipate the more ample information of our correspondent, by making the following extract from a circular just issued by the proprietor of the Red Sulphur Springs, (Mr. Burke):

"In that species of pulmonary disease attended by hemorrhages, unless the energies of life are completely exhausted, it never fails to afford relief. Sometimes, when the pulse beats 110 to 115, and the emaciated figure of the patient too plainly indicates the ravages made by repeated hemorrhages, and the unavailing efforts of physicians to arrest them, he comes to the Red Sulphur, drinks about four quarts of the water in twenty-four hours, lives upon plain farinaceous articles of diet, takes all the exercise his case will admit, and at the end of that brief period, his pulse falls to 80 or 85;—his spirits revive, he continues daily to improve, and almost invariably, to gain a pound in weight every day. At the expiration of fifteen days, he becomes renovated, and pours forth his gratitude, by extolling the virtues of the waters on every occasion. This is the usual action of the waters, but there are cases in which their advantages are not perceived for two or three weeks. Such is the exhilarating effect of confidence and hope, that he soon forgets his late deplorable condition, and becomes guilty of some unhappy imprudence that endangers his prospects.

"The luxuries of the table, or violent exercise, if indulged in, at this crisis, will cause incalculable mischief. In affections of the bronchia, this water, visited early, affords certain relief. In asthma, it is highly valuable. In the early stage of genuine phthisical consumption, it will arrest its progress; and, by repeating the visit annually, and using the utmost self-denial, life may be protracted for many years, and rendered comparatively comfortable; but in the later stages, it is vain to hope for relief from any earthly remedy; and it is therefore unwise to remove from the consolations and comforts of home, the unfortunate patient, whose approaching dissolution is apparent to all except himself and his nearest relatives.

"When the patient has alternate chills and fevers, copious night sweats, and a pulse at 120 or 130; moreover, when it becomes necessary to check diarrhoea by opiates, and to sustain his sinking strength by juleps, what rational hope can be afforded by any remedy whatever?

"In diseases of the liver, this water is highly efficacious. In dropsy, rheumatism, gravel, gout, dyspepsia, tic doloreux, and epilepsy, it has been used with advantage. In cutaneous diseases, it seldom fails to effect a cure."

From the same circular we learn, that the accommodations at the Red Sulphur have been much enlarged since the last season, and that provision has been made for the reception of two hundred and twenty visiters, with their servants and horses. The efficacy of the waters in cases of incipient consumption, renders this an important place of resort for a large class of invalids, who may be assured of finding in Mr. Burke, a humane and considerate entertainer.

FEMALE EDUCATION.

There is no subject which claims greater attention than the judicious education of females. It has justly been considered by some of the most eminent writers, of vast importance that the minds of the gentler sex should be cultivated and enlarged by every practicable means; that the mothers of an enlightened nation should be well prepared to train the mental faculties of their offspring; and that, as the earliest intellectual as well as physical nutriment is derived from the mother by the child, she should be fitted with care for her responsible and momentous duty. Much greater attention is now bestowed upon the culture of the female mind than formerly; and parents generally seem more impressed with the propriety of giving to their daughters a solid education. Accomplishments, which at one time seemed to make up the sum of their acquirements, are beginning to be considered as secondary to those studies which strengthen the intellect and store the mind with useful knowledge. We have no doubt that a change which carries such beneficial consequences into the bosom of every well-ordered family, will gain ground. The importance and the advantages of a thorough course of study for females, in the present enlightened state of society, are too obvious to need enforcement. The parts they have to act in this world's drama, require that their early years of freedom from care and anxiety, should be employed in preparation for the performance of the high duties of their after lives, with ease, with dignity and usefulness. The time has, we trust, arrived when the general cultivation of the female intellect will be deemed, (as it is) absolutely necessary for her happiness, and for the well-being of those whom providence may render dependent upon her guidance, her councils, or her affections—when she will be educated with a view to her becoming the companion, and not the plaything of the other sex. The importance of her position in civilized society, and the vast influence of her benignant qualities, demand that she should be prepared to fill the one, and to exercise the other with dignity and effect.

Our attention has been called to this subject by the encomiums bestowed by many intelligent individuals, on the "YOUNG LADIES SEMINARY at Prince Edward Court House, Va.," which is conducted by Mr. E. Root, in the most satisfactory manner. This institution has been established about four years, and has met with great success, as is shown by the fact that it had upwards of one hundred pupils during the past year. It has been the object of its director to fix upon a thorough course of study, rigidly to be pursued, under the superintendence of the best teachers in the various departments; rendering solid study the main object of attention, but without neglecting those ornamental branches which embellish and refine the more important acquirements. Music and the French language are taught by proficients in each, and in fact every means is afforded at this seminary for giving young ladies a finished education. To build up an institution of this description, where every important branch of study is ably and faithfully imparted, is a work of no ordinary difficulty, as it is one of great public benefit: and Mr. Root and his assistants are deserving of public commendation for the manner in which this establishment is conducted, divested as we believe it to be of the faults too often found in such schools, and which have rendered the epithet "Boarding School Miss," almost a term of contempt. We can conscientiously recommend the Prince Edward Seminary, for its efficient method of instruction—not short and easy, but such as is best adapted to the developement and strengthening of the mental energies—for able and well qualified teachers—a discipline which combines kindness and gentleness with order and propriety—a careful attention to the manners and morals of the pupils—and moderate expense. Believing such to be the characteristics of Mr. Root's Seminary, we have deemed it our duty to call to it the public attention by these brief remarks.

LITERARY NOTICES.

I PROMESSI SPOSI, or the Betrothed Lovers; a Milanese Story of the Seventeenth Century: as translated for the Metropolitan, from the Italian of Alessandro Manzoni, by G. W. Featherstonhaugh. Washington: Stereotyped and published by Duff Green. 1834. 8vo. pp. 249.

The appearance of this work strongly reminds us of the introductory remarks with which the Edinburg Review, thirty years ago, prefaced its annunciation of Waverley. We would gladly appropriate them, were it fair to do so; but "honor among thieves!" Reviewers must not steal from Reviewers; and what is it but theft, when he who borrows, can never have anything worthy of acceptance to give in return?

We may, nevertheless, so far imitate "the grand Napoleon of the realms of criticism," as to congratulate our readers on the appearance of a work, which promises to be the commencement of a new style in novel writing. Since the days of Fielding, unimitated and inimitable—and of Smollett, between whose different productions there was scarce a family likeness, we have had a succession of dynasties reigning over the regions of romance. We have had the Ratcliffe dynasty, the Edgeworth dynasty, and the Scott dynasty; each, like the family of the Cæsars, passing from good to bad, and from bad to worse, until each has run out. Partial movements in the provinces have occasionally set up the standard of rival aspirants: but these have soon passed away. Heroines from the bogs, and heroes from the highlands of Scotland, or the Polish wilds, could not maintain their pretensions, though uniting in themselves all that is admirable both in the civilized and the savage character. Perhaps this was the reason. We like to read of things that may a little remind us of what we have seen in real life. Sir Charles Grandison in the Scottish Kilt, is a startling apparition.

The younger D'Israeli has indeed, occasionally flashed upon us the light of his capricious genius; but one of his caprices has been to disappoint the hope that he had raised. He has shown us what he could do, and that is all. Mr. Bulwer too, in a sort of freak of literary radicalism, has set up for himself. He scorned to add to the number of those who dress themselves in the cast-off habiliments of Scott; and study, as at a glass, to make themselves like him, as if ambitious to display their thefts. He learned the craft of plagiarism in the Spartan school, where detection was the only disgrace. He would not steal, not he, from any but "the poor man, who had nothing save one little ewe lamb, that lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter." He would imitate none but himself, and draw from no other models. His novels are all echoes of each other. There is hardly a page which might not be known for his, nor a favorite character which is not an exhibition of one of the phases of his exquisite self. The variety is between what he imagines himself to be, and what he imagines that he might have been, had he been a cavalier of the seventeenth century, or had circumstances made him a highwayman or a murderer. We are aware that he denies all this, and may be unconscious of it: but his identity can no more be mistaken than that of the one-eyed companion of Hogarth's "idle apprentice." We are aware too, that Mr. Bulwer is a member of a certain literary cabal, who aspire to direct the public taste, and bring all the influence of wealth and fashion and political connexion in aid of their pretensions. He is a sort of literary Jack Cade. "His mouth is the law." We know that the "amphitrion on l'on dire" is always the true amphitrion. But we never expect to travel as caterers for a public journal. We in the south do not do that sort of thing. We are not taught so to "raise the wind." We are not up to perpetual motion, nor to the art of making our living by taking our pleasure. We feel ourselves therefore under no obligation to admire Mr. Rogers's poems, though he be a banker—nor Mr. Bulwer's novels, nor himself, though he be a member of Parliament; nor though his female doublure Lady Blessington, "have the finest bust," and "the prettiest foot," and be "the finest woman in London." We do not put the names of our fine women in the newspapers. The business of female education with us, is not to qualify a woman to be the head of a literary coterie, nor to figure in the journal of a travelling coxcomb. We prepare her, as a wife, to make the home of a good and wise and great man, the happiest place to him on earth. We prepare her, as a mother, to form her son to walk in his father's steps, and in turn, to take his place among the good and wise and great. When we have done this, we have accomplished, if not all, at least the best that education can do. Her praise is found in the happiness of her husband, and in the virtues and honors of her sons. Her name is too sacred to be profaned by public breath. She is only seen by that dim doubtful light, which, like "the majesty of darkness," so much enhances true dignity. She finds her place by the side of the "Mother of the Gracchi," and of her whom an English poet, who well knew how to appreciate and how to praise female excellence, has simply designated as

We much fear, that after all this, the author of the work before us will have no reason to thank us for our praise. On the contrary, there may be danger of involving him in the displeasure, which we may draw upon ourselves from that same cabal, which has its members on both sides of the Atlantic. "Ca me; Ca thee," is the order of the day. If half the praise be due, which is lavished on the works that daily issue from the press, we may live to see the writings which instructed and delighted our youth, laid on the same shelf with Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus. Men can no more read every thing than they can eat every thing; and the petits plats, that are handed round hot-and-hot, leave us no room to do honor to the roast beef of old England, nor to the savory Virginia ham. But these are the food by which the thews and sinews of manhood are best nourished. They at once exercise and help digestion. Dyspepsia was not of their day. It came in with French Gastronomy. Are we mistaken in thinking, that we see symptoms of a sort of intellectual dyspepsia, arising from the incessant exhibition of the bon bons and kickshaws of the press?

Well! here is something that will stick by the ribs; a work of which we would try to give a sort of outline, but that it cannot be abridged. The machinery of the story is not intricate, but each part is necessary to the rest. To leave anything out is to tell nothing.

It might be too much to say that this novel is, in every sense of the word, original. The writer is obviously familiar with English literature, and seems to have taken at least one hint from Sir Walter Scott. The use made by that writer of the records and traditions of times gone by, has suggested this hint. It naturally occurred to Manzoni, a native of Italy, that much of the same sort of material was to be found among the archives of the petty Italian states, now blotted from the map of Europe. It is obvious that the collisions of small states, though less interesting to the politician than those of mighty nations, must afford more occasion for a display of individual character, and the exercise of those passions which give romance its highest interest. But what is known of the great and good men who nobly acted their parts in these scenes, when the very theatre of their acts is crushed and buried beneath the rubbish of revolution? To drag them from beneath the ruins, and permit the world to dwell for a moment on the contemplation of their virtues is a pious and praiseworthy task. It is sad to think how the short lapse of two centuries can disappoint the hope that cheered the last moments of the patriot and the hero. "For his country he lived, for his country he died;" his country was all to him; but his country has perished, and his name has perished with it. With the civil wars of England we are all familiar; and our hearts have glowed, and our tears have fallen, in contemplating the virtues and the sufferings of those who acted in those scenes; but, if we may credit the traditions imbodied in this book, a contemporary history of the Italian Republics would display characters yet more worthy of our admiration and our sympathy. The Cardinal Borromeo is an historical character. The writer obviously means to paint him as he was; and the annals of mankind may be searched in vain for a more glorious example of the purity, the enthusiasm, and the inspiration of virtue.

We might suspect that something of a zeal for the honor of the Romish Church had mingled itself in the rich coloring of this picture. But Manzoni was as much alive, as Luther himself, to the abuses of that church. In an episode, which will be found at page fifty-eight, he discloses some, of the precise character of which we were not hitherto aware. We knew that something was wrong, but what that something might be, was never certainly known. The author has unveiled the mystery. He has withdrawn a curtain, behind which we had never been permitted to look. We had guessed, and we had read the guesses of others; but we never knew precisely what was there. The moral coercion, more cruel than bodily torture, by which a poor girl, the victim of the heartless pride of her parents, without command, without even persuasion, (for both it seems are forbidden) is driven to the cloister, that her brother may have more ample means to uphold his hereditary honors; this was a thing inscrutable and inconceivable to us. In reading such works as Mrs. Sherwood's Nun, we feel that we are dealing with conjectures. We turn to the scene exhibited in this work, and we know it to be real life. We would gladly grace our pages with it. It would probably be read with more interest than any thing we can say; but it is before the public, and we have no right to discharge our debts to our readers, by giving them what is theirs already. We will only pray their indulgence so far as to offer a short extract, as a specimen of the writer's power. It is a picture of some of the horrors of the plague, as it raged in Milan in the year 1628. It may serve to show us that the pestilence, which lately stooped upon us, was in comparison, an angel of mercy.

The cars spoken of in the following extract, are those in which the uncoffined bodies of the dead were borne to a common receptacle, "naked for the most part, some badly wrapped up in dirty rags, heaped up and folded together like a knot of serpents." The "monalti" were men who, having had the plague, were considered exempt from future danger, and were employed to bury the dead.

"A lady came from the threshold of one of the houses, whose aspect announced youth advanced, but not yet passed away. Her beauty was obscured, but not obliterated, by distress and mortal languor; that sort of beauty, at once majestic and soft, which is so conspicuous in the Lombard race. She walked with pain, but did not stagger; her eyes shed no tears, but bore marks of having done so abundantly. There was, in her grief, a something inexpressibly quiet and deep, betokening a soul imbued and filled with it. But it was not her own appearance alone, that in the midst of so much wretchedness, marked her especially for commiseration, and awakened in her favor a feeling now deadened and worn out in all hearts. She bore in her arms a girl about nine years old,—dead, but dressed in a white frock of spotless purity, with her hair divided in front, as if her own hands had adorned her for a feast, long promised as the reward of her goodness. She held her, seated on one of her arms, with her breast upon the lady's breast; and she might have been thought to be alive, but that her young white hand hung heavy and lifeless on one side, like wax-work, and her head lay upon her mother's shoulder, with an air of abandonment heavier than that of sleep. Her mother! If the resemblance had not proclaimed the relation, the distress of the survivor announced it too plainly.

"A coarse monalti drew near the lady, and silently offered to relieve her from her burthen, but with an air of unwonted respect and involuntary hesitancy. But she, with an action betokening neither disgust nor scorn, drew back, and said, 'No; do not touch her now; I must lay her on that car myself; take this.' She opened her hand, showed a purse, and dropped it into his. She then continued: 'Promise me not to take a thread from her, and to suffer no other to do so, and to put her in the ground just as she is.'

"The monalti placed his hand on his breast, and then with an obsequious zeal, rather like one subdued by a new and strange emotion, than as if prompted by the unexpected gift, he busied himself to make room on the car for the little corpse. The lady placed her there, as on a bed, laid her straight, kissed her cold brow, spread over her a white sheet, and then spoke for the last time. 'Adieu, Cecilia! Rest in peace! This evening we meet again, to part no more. Pray for us, my child, and I will pray for thee, and for the rest. You,' added she to the monalti, 'when you pass again at vespers, will come and take me too, and not me alone.'

"Having said this, she re-entered the house, and presently appeared at the window, holding in her arms a still younger darling, alive, but with the marks of death on its face. She stood, as if contemplating the unworthy obsequies of the first, until the car moved, and while it remained in sight, and then she disappeared. What remained, but to lay her only surviving babe upon the bed, place herself by her side, and die with her; even as the stately blossom, with the bud beside it on its stem, falls before the scythe that levels all the plants in the meadow."

There is a power in this to which we do not scruple to give great praise. We regret to say that the translation has many faults. We lament it the more, because they are obviously faults of haste. The translator, we fear, was hungry; a misfortune with which we know how to sympathize. The style is, for the most part, Italian, in English words, but Italian still. This is a great fault. In some instances it would be unpardonable. In this instance, perhaps, it is more than compensated by a kindred excellence. In a work like this, abounding in the untranslatable phrases of popular dialogue, it gives a quaint raciness which is not unacceptable. It does more. Such translations of such works, would soon make the English ear familiar with Italian idioms, which once naturalized, would enrich the language. It is already thus incalculably enriched by the poetry of Burns and the novels of Scott. A familiarity with Shakspeare, (which is not the English of the present day,) preserves a store of wealth which would else be lost. The strength of a language is in the number and variety of its idiomatic phrases. These are forms of speech which use has rendered familiar, and emancipated from the crippling restraint of regular grammar. They enable the speaker to be brief, without being obscure. His meaning, eliptically expressed, is distinctly and precisely understood. Should any other work of Manzoni fall into the hands of Mr. Featherstonhaugh, we hope he may have time to correct those inaccuracies of which he is doubtless sensible; but we trust he will not consider his popular Italian idioms as among his faults. Smollett, in his translation of Don Quixotte, through extreme fastidiousness, threw away an opportunity of doubling the force of the English language.

This work comes to us as the harbinger of glad tidings to the reading world. Here is a book, equal in matter to any two of Cooper's novels, and executed at least as well, which we receive at the moderate price of forty-two cents! It forms one number of the Washington Library, published monthly, at five dollars per annum. At this rate, a literary gourmand, however greedy, may hope to satisfy his appetite for books, without starving his children. The author has our praise, and the translator and publisher have our thanks.

HORSE-SHOE ROBINSON; A Tale of the Tory Ascendency. By the Author of 'Swallow Barn.' Philadelphia: Carey, Lea and Blanchard.

We have not yet forgotten, nor is it likely we shall very soon forget, the rich simplicity of diction—the manliness of tone—the admirable traits of Virginian manners, and the striking pictures of still life, to be found in Swallow Barn. The spirit of imitation was, however, visible in that book, and, in a great measure, overclouded its rare excellence. This is by no means the case with Mr. Kennedy's new novel. If ever volumes were entitled to be called original—these are so entitled. We have read them from beginning to end with the greatest attention, and feel very little afraid of hazarding our critical reputation, when we assert that they will place Mr. Kennedy at once in the very first rank of American novelists.

Horse-Shoe Robinson (be not alarmed at the title, gentle reader!) is a tale, or more properly a succession of stirring incidents relating to the time of the Tory Ascendency in South Carolina, during the Revolution. It is well known that throughout the whole war this state evinced more disaffection to the confederated government than any other of the Union, with the exception perhaps of the neighboring state of Georgia, where the residents on the Savannah river, being nearly allied to the Carolinians in their habits and general occupations, were actuated, more or less, by the same political opinions. But we will here let the author speak for himself.

"Such might be said to be the more popular sentiment of the state at the time of its subjugation by Sir Henry Clinton and Lord Cornwallis. To this common feeling there were many brilliant exceptions, and the more brilliant because they stood, as it were, apart from the preponderating mass of public judgment.... There were heroes of this mould in South Carolina, who entered with the best spirit of chivalry into the national quarrel, and brought to it hearts as bold, minds as vigorous, and arms as strong, as ever in any clime worked out a nation's redemption. These men refused submission to their conquerors, and endured exile, chains, and prison, rather than the yoke. Some few, still undiscouraged by the portents of the times, retreated into secret places, gathered their few patriot neighbors together, and contrived to keep in awe the soldier government that now professed to sway the land. They lived on the scant aliment furnished in the woods, slept in the tangled brakes and secret places of the fen, exacted contributions from the adherents of the crown, and, by rapid movements of their woodland cavalry, and brave blows, accomplished more than thrice their numbers would have done in ordinary warfare.... In such encounters or frays, as they might rather be called, from the smallness of the numbers concerned, and the hand to hand mode of fighting which they exhibited, Marion, Sumpter, Horry, Pickens, and many others had won a fame, that, in a nation of legendary or poetical associations, would have been reduplicated through a thousand channels of immortal verse. But alas! we have no ballads! and many men who as well deserve to be remembered as Percy or Douglas, as Adam Bell or Clym of the Clough, have sunk down without even a couplet epitaph upon the rude stone, that, in some unfenced and unreverenced grave yard, still marks the lap of earth whereon their heads were laid."

"One feature that belonged to this unhappy state of things in Carolina was the division of families. Kindred were arrayed against each other in deadly feuds, and not unfrequently brother took up arms against brother, and sons against their sires. A prevailing spirit of treachery and distrust marked the times. Strangers did not know how far they might trust to the rites of hospitality, and many a man laid his head upon his pillow, uncertain whether his fellow lodger might not invade him in the secret watches of the night, and murder him in his slumbers. All went armed, and many slept with pistols or daggers under their pillows. There are tales told of men being summoned to their doors or windows at midnight by the blaze of their farm yards, to which the incendiary torch had been applied, and shot down, in the light of the conflagration, by a concealed hand. Families were obliged to betake themselves to the shelter of the thickets and swamps, when their own homesteads were dangerous places. The enemy wore no colors, and was not to be distinguished from friends either by outward guise or speech. Nothing could be more revolting than to see the symbols of peace thus misleading the confident into the toils of war—nor is it possible to imagine a state of society characterized by a more frightful insecurity."

It will here be seen at a glance that the novelist has been peculiarly fortunate in the choice of an epoch, a scene and a subject. We sincerely think that he has done them all the fullest justice, and has worked out, with these and with other materials, a book of no ordinary character. We do not wish to attempt any analysis of the story itself—or that connecting chain which unites into one proper whole the varied events of the novel. We feel that in so doing, we should, in some measure, mar the interest by anticipation; a grievous sin too often indulged in by reviewers, and against which, should we ever be so lucky as to write a book, we would protest with all our hearts. But we may be allowed a word or two. The principal character in the novel, upon whom the chief interest of the story turns, and who, in accordance with the right usage of novel writing, should be considered the hero, and should have given a title to the book, is Brevet Major Arthur Butler of the continental army, to whose acquaintance we are first introduced about two o'clock in the afternoon of a day towards the end of July, 1780. But Mr. K. has ventured, at his own peril, to set at defiance the common ideas of propriety in this important matter, and, not having the fear of the critic before his eyes, has thought it better to call his work by the name of a very singular personage, whom all readers will agree in pronouncing worthy of the honor thus conferred upon him. The writer has also made another innovation. He has begun at the beginning. We all know this to be an unusual method of procedure. It has been too, for some time past, the custom, to delay as long as possible the main interest of a novel—no doubt with the very laudable intention of making it the more intense when it does at length arrive. Now for our own parts we can see little difference in being amused with the beginning or with the end of a book, but have a decided preference for those rare volumes which are so lucky as to amuse us throughout. And such a book is the one before us. We enter at once into the spirit and meaning of the author—we are introduced at once to the prominent characters—and we go with them at once, heart and hand, in the various and spirit-stirring adventures which befall them.

Horse-Shoe Robinson, who derives his nick-name of Horse-Shoe (his proper prænomen being Galbraith)—from the two-fold circumstance of being a blacksmith, and of living in a little nook of land hemmed in by a semi-circular bend of water, is fullly entitled to the character of "an original." He is the life and soul of the drama—the bone and sinew of the book—its very breath—its every thing which gives it strength, substance, and vitality. Never was there a rarer fellow—a more laughable blacksmith—a more gallant Sancho. He is a very prince at an ambuscade, and a very devil at a fight. He is a better edition of Robin Hood—quite as sagacious—not half so much of a coxcomb—and infinitely more moral. In short, he is the man of all others we should like to have riding by our side in any very hazardous expedition.

We think Mr. K. has been particularly successful in the delineation of his female characters; and this is saying a great deal at a time when, from some unaccountable cause, almost every attempt of the kind has turned out a failure. Mildred Lindsay, in her confiding love, in her filial reverence, in her heroic espousal of the revolutionary cause, not because she approved it, but because it was her lover's, is an admirable and—need we say more?—a truly feminine portrait. Then the ardent, the eager, the simple-minded, the generous and the devoted Mary Musgrove! Most sincerely did we envy John Ramsay, the treasure of so pure and so exalted an affection!

With the exception of now and then a careless, or inadvertent expression, such for instance, as the word venturesome instead of adventurous, no fault whatever can be found with Mr. Kennedy's style. It varies gracefully and readily with the nature of his subject, never sinking, even in the low comedy of some parts of the book, into the insipid or the vulgar; and often, very often rising into the energetic and sublime. Its general character, as indeed the general character of all that we have seen from the same pen, is a certain unpretending simplicity, nervous, forcible, and altogether devoid of affectation. This is a style of writing above all others to be desired, and above all others difficult of attainment. Nor is it to be supposed that by simplicity we imply a rejection of ornament, or of a proper use of those advantages afforded by metaphorical illustration. A style professing to disclaim such advantages would be anything but simple—if indeed we might not be tempted to think it very silly. We have called the style of Mr. K. a style simple and forcible, and we have no hesitation in calling it, at the same time, richly figurative and poetical. We have opened the pages at random for an illustration of our meaning, and have no difficulty in finding one precisely suited to our purpose. Let us turn to vol. i. page 112.—"The path of invasion is ever a difficult road when it leads against a united people. You mistake both the disposition and the means of these republicans. They have bold partizans in the field, and eloquent leaders in their senates. The nature of the strife sorts well with their quick and earnest tempers; and by this man's play of war we breed up soldiers who delight in the game. Rebellion has long since marched beyond the middle ground, and has no thought of retreat. What was at first the mere overflow of popular passion has been hardened into principle—like a fiery stream of lava which first rolls in a flood, and then turns into stone."

While we are upon the subject of style, we might as well say a word or two in regard to punctuation. It seems to us that the volumes before us are singularly deficient in this respect—and yet we noticed no fault of this nature in Swallow Barn. How can we reconcile these matters? Whom are we to blame in this particular, the author, or the printer? It cannot be said that the point is one of no importance—it is of very great importance. A slovenly punctuation will mar, in a greater or less degree, the brightest paragraph ever penned; and we are certain that those who have paid the most attention to this matter, will not think us hypercritical in what we say. A too frequent use of the dash is the besetting sin of the volumes now before us. It is lugged in upon all occasions, and invariably introduced where it has no business whatever. Even the end of a sentence is not sacred from its intrusion. Now there is no portion of a printer's fount, which can, if properly disposed, give more of strength and energy to a sentence than this same dash; and, for this very reason, there is none which can more effectually, if improperly arranged, disturb and distort the meaning of every thing with which it comes in contact. But not to speak of such disturbance or distortion, a fine taste will intuitively avoid, even in trifles, all that is unnecessary or superfluous, and bring nothing into use without an object or an end. We do not wish to dwell upon this thing, or to make it of more consequence than necessary. We will merely adduce an example of the punctuation to which we have alluded. Vide page 138, vol. i. "Will no lapse of time wear away this abhorred image from your memory?—Are you madly bent on bringing down misery on your head?—I do not speak of my own suffering.—Will you forever nurse a hopeless attachment for a man whom, it must be apparent to yourself, you can never meet again?—Whom, if the perils of the field, the avenging bullet of some loyal subject, do not bring him merited punishment,—the halter may reward, or, in his most fortunate destiny, disgrace, poverty, and shame pursue:—Are you forever to love that man?"—

Would not the above paragraph read equally as well thus: "Will no lapse of time wear away this abhorred image from your memory? Are you madly bent on bringing down misery on your head? I do not speak of my own suffering. Will you forever nurse a hopeless attachment for a man whom, it must be apparent to yourself, you can never meet again—whom, if the perils of the field, the avenging bullet of some loyal subject, do not bring him merited punishment, the halter may reward, or, in his more fortunate destiny, disgrace, poverty and shame pursue? Are you forever to love that man?"

The second of Mr. K's volumes is, from a naturally increasing interest taken in the fortunes of the leading characters, by far the most exciting. But we can confidently recommend them both to the lovers of the forcible, the adventurous, the stirring, and the picturesque. They will not be disappointed. A high tone of morality, healthy and masculine, breathes throughout the book, and a rigid—perhaps a too scrupulously rigid poetical justice is dealt out to the great and little villains of the story—the Tyrrells, the Wat Adairs, the Currys, and the Habershams of the drama. In conclusion, we prophecy that Horse-Shoe Robinson will be eagerly read by all classes of people, and cannot fail to place Mr. Kennedy in a high rank among the writers of this or of any other country. We regret that the late period of receiving his book will not allow us to take that extended notice of it which we could desire.

JOURNAL—By FRANCES ANNE BUTLER. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard. [Presented to the Editor of the Messenger, by Mr. C. Hall.]

Perhaps no book has, for many years, been looked for, long previous to its publication, with such intense curiosity, as this record of Miss Fanny Kemble's observations and opinions of men and women, manners and customs, in the United States. We say Miss Fanny Kemble's opinions—for while bearing that name, most of those opinions were formed. Under that name she was hailed in this country, as the inheritress of the genius of Mrs. Siddons, whose fame is connected in the minds of Americans with all that is noble, and majestic, and powerful in the dramatic art. Under that name she received the admiration of thousands, was made a sharer of the hospitality of many of the most distinguished citizens of the country—and received a homage to which nothing but the highest genius, and the purest moral worth could have entitled her. It is not therefore as Mrs. Frances Anne Butler, the wife of an American citizen, that we look upon her in her character of authoress—but as the favorite actress, applauded to the echo, surfeited with flattery, and loaded with pecuniary rewards.¹ It is impossible to consider this book in any other than a personal point of view. Its very form forbids our separating the author from the work—the opinions and sentiments, from the individual who utters them. The idea of both exist in an indivisible amalgamation. Nor we fear, will it be possible for nine-tenths of her readers to weigh a single expression of Fanny Kemble the authoress, unmingled with the idea of Fanny Kemble the actress, the star—the "observed of all observers." Hence this Journal will have an effect probably far beyond the anticipations of its writer. It will not only be looked upon as the test of Mrs. Butler's ability as an author; but it will, whether justly or not, convey to the thousands who have already perused, and the tens of thousands who will hereafter peruse it, a picture of her character and dispositions. The picture may, and doubtless will be an exaggerated one—few pictures are otherwise; but still it will be received as true, because the outlines have been traced by the original herself. We are sorry to say that the "counterfeit resemblance" of the fair authoress, presented by her book, displays many harsh and ill-favored lineaments, and the traces of passions which we could wish did not disfigure its many noble and magnanimous features. Mrs. Butler cannot claim for herself the immunity which she awards with great justice to poetical writers, of a distinction between their real and their written sentiments.² If this book contains as we suppose, the faithful transcripts of her daily observations and opinions, revised long after they were penned, and thus exhibiting her true, unexaggerated impressions, by them must she be judged—and in passing judgment upon her work, a candid critic will find much, very much, to admire and approve, and much also to censure and condemn.

¹ We are far from wishing to convey the idea that a popular actor of real merit is in any way placed under obligation, (especially such an obligation as would render it improper or ungrateful for him to speak with freedom of the communities of which his audiences formed parts,) by the pecuniary benefits received from the public for the exhibition of his talents. Mrs. Butler has, we think, settled that question in her book; and it will be better for both the audiences and the actors, whenever differences arise between them, to consider each other on the footing of equality, which she points out as the equitable and common-sense relation of the two parties. Nothing can be more rational than the following:

"It may not be amiss here to say one word with regard to the gratitude which audiences in some parts of the world claim from actors, and about which I have lately heard a most alarming out-cry. Do actors generally exercise their profession to please themselves and gratify their own especial delight in self-exhibition? Is that profession in its highest walks one of small physical exertion and fatigue, (I say nothing of mental exertion) and in its lower paths is it one of much gain, glory, or ease? Do audiences, on the other hand, use to come in crowds to play-houses to see indifferent performers? and when there do they out of pure charity and good-will, bestow their applause as well as their money upon tiresome performers?—I will answer these points as far as regards myself, and therein express the gratitude which I feel towards the frequenters of theatres. I individually disliked my profession, and had neither pride nor pleasure in the exercise of it. I exercised it as a matter of necessity, to earn my bread,—and verily it was in the sweat of my brow. The parts which fell to my lot were of a most laborious nature, and occasioned sometimes violent mental excitement, always immense physical exertion, and sometimes both. In those humbler walks of my profession, from whose wearisomeness I was exempted by my sudden favor with the public, I have seen, though not known, the most painful drudgery,—the most constant fatigue,—the most sad contrast between real cares and feigned merriments,—the most anxious penurious and laborious existence imaginable. For the part of my question which regarded the audiences, I have only to say, that I never knew, saw, heard or read of any set of people who went to a play-house to see what they did not like; this being the case it never occurred to me that our houses were full but as a necessary consequence of our own attraction, or that we were applauded, but as the result of our own exertions. I was glad the houses were full, because I was earning my livelihood, and wanted the money; and I was glad the people applauded us, because it is pleasant to please, and human vanity will find some sweetness in praise, even when reason weighs its worth most justly." Vol. ii. pp. 109-110.

² "Moore talks about Byron's writing with the same pen full of ink, 'Adieu, adieu, my native land,' and 'Hurra, Hodgson, we are going.' It proves nothing, except what I firmly believe, that we must not look for the real feelings of writers to their works—or rather that what they give us, and what we take for heart feeling, is head weaving—a species of emotion engendered somewhere betwixt the bosom and the brain, and bearing the same proportion of resemblance to reality that a picture does—that is—like feeling, but not feeling—like sadness, but not sadness—like what it appears, but not indeed that very thing: and the greater a man's power of thus producing sham realities, the greater his qualification for being a poet." Journal, vol. i., pp. 21-22.

We have read Mrs. Butler's work with untiring interest—indeed the vivacity of its style, the frequent occurrence of beautiful descriptions, of just and forcible observations, and many sound views of the condition of society in this country—the numerous characteristic anecdotes, and some most discriminating criticisms of actors and acting, must stamp her work as one of no ordinary merit. And these attractions in a great measure neutralize, although they cannot redeem, her innumerable faults of language, her sturdy prejudices, her hasty opinions, and her ungenerous sarcasms—These abound in the Journal, and yet it is more than probable that her censorious spirit has to a great extent been suppressed, as almost every page is studded with asterisks, indicating, we may presume, that her sins of hasty censure have been greatly diminished to the public eye, by the saving grace of omission.

The defects of the work are not confined to the exhibition of prejudices and the expression of unjust opinions: the style and language is often coarse, we might say vulgar; and her more impassioned exclamations are often characterized by a vehemence which is very like profanity, an offence that would not be tolerated in a writer of the other sex. We cite a few, from among the many passages which we have noted, as specimens of undignified, unfeminine and unscholarlike phraseology: The word "dawdled" seems a great favorite with Mrs. Butler—as, for instance: "Rose at eight, dawdled about," &c. vol. i. p. 18. "Rose at half past eight, dawdled about as usual," p. 21. "Came up and dawdled upon deck," p. 47. "Came home, daudled about my room," p. 97.—And in numberless other instances this word is used, apparently, to signify loitering or dallying, spelled indiscriminately dawdled, or daudled. Indeed so much does our fair authoress seem to have been addicted to the habit which the word implies—be it what it may—that in the second volume she speaks of having "dressed for once without dawdling," as an uncommon occurrence. She is also fond of the word "gulp," and uses it in strange combinations, as—"My dear father, who was a little elated, made me sing to him, which I greatly gulped at," p. 61. "I gulped, sat down, and was measured," (for a pair of shoes,) p. 103—"on the edge of a precipice, several hundred feet down into the valley: it made me gulp to look at it," &c.

At page 97, she tells us, that "when the gentlemen joined us they were all more or less 'how come'd you so indeed?'" and shortly after, "they all went away in good time, and we came to bed:

She thus describes the motions of persons on ship-board, in rough weather: "Rushing hither and thither in all directions but the one they purpose going, and making as many angles, fetches, and ridiculous deviations from the point they aim at, as if the devil had tied a string to their legs, and jerked it every now and then in spite." p. 18.

At page 99: "Supped, lay down on the floor in absolute meltiness away, and then came to bed." "When I went on, I was all but tumbling down at the sight of my Jaffier, who looked like the apothecary in Romeo and Juliet, with the addition of some devilish red slashes along his thighs and arms," p. 107. "Away walloped the four horses," &c. p. 131. "How they did wallop and shamble about," &c. p. 149. "Now I'll go to bed; my cough's enough to kill a horse," p. 153. "Heaven bless the world, for a conglomerated amalgamation of fools," p. 190. "He talked an amazing quantity of thickish philosophy, and moral and sentimental potter." In truth, "potter" and "pottering," seem to be favorites equally with daudling, and she as frequently makes use of them. For instance, "He sat down, and pottered a little," p. 58. They "took snuff, eat cakes, and pottered a deal," p. 182. "After dinner pottered about clothes," &c. p. 220. "Sat stitching and pottering an infinity," p. 230—and many other varieties of the same word. But of the infinite number of literary novelties of this sort, it would be impossible, within the limits we have prescribed to ourselves, to give more than a few specimens. We will take two or three more at random: "My feet got so perished with the cold, that I didn't know what to do," p. 230. "He was most exceedingly odd and dauldrumish. I think he was a little 'how come'd you so indeed.'" p. 195; "yesterday began like May, with flowers and sun-shine, it ended like December, with the sulks, and a fit of crying. The former were furnished me by my friends and Heaven, the latter by myself and the d——l." p. 198. "At six o'clock, D—— roused me; and grumpily enough I arose." 1b. "At one o'clock, came home, having danced myself fairly off my legs." p. 227.

Such blemishes as these, apparently uniting the slang of the boarding school and the green room, deform the work of Mrs. Butler, and are much to be lamented, became they may have the effect of blinding the hasty, prejudiced or fastidious reader, to the many beauties which are to be found in its pages. Indeed the work has already encountered the severest criticisms from the newspaper press, imbittered by the many censorious remarks of Mrs. B. upon the manners and institutions of the country; her severe, and in many instances just strictures upon the state of society in the cities in which she sojourned; and the supercilious sneers which she has uttered against the editorial fraternity, "the press gang," as she uncourteously denominates that numerous and powerful body. The censures of her book, are doubtless, in the main, well deserved; but in their excess, the merits which the "Journal" unquestionably possesses in great abundance and of a high order, have in many cases been passed by unheeded by her indignant critics. And here we cannot refrain from the utterance of a remark which has frequently occurred to us, and which is brought forcibly to mind by the reception which Mrs. Butler's criticisms upon America have met with: we think that too much sensitiveness is felt by our countrymen, at the unfavorable opinions expressed by foreigners, in regard to our social, political, and moral condition—and that the press, as the organ of public sentiment, is prone to work itself into a superfluous frenzy of indignation, at what are generally considered "foreign libels" upon us. To be indignant at gross misrepresentations of our country, is an exhibition of patriotism in one of its most laudable forms. But the sentiment may be carried too far, and may blind us to evils and deficiencies in our condition, when pointed out by a foreigner, which it would be well for us rather to consider with a view to their amendment. It may so far blunt our sense of the justice of the maxim "fas est, ab hoste doceri," as to induce us to entertain jealousy and aversion for the most judicious suggestions, if offered by others than our own countrymen. Entertaining these views, we have read Mrs. Butler's work, with a disposition to judge of it impartially; and while we have perceived many instances of captious complaints in regard to matters of trifling importance in themselves; and frequently a disposition to build up general censures upon partial, individual causes of disgust, displeasure or disappointment—we feel bound to say, that, taking the work as a whole, we do not think a deliberate disposition to misrepresent, or a desire to depreciate us, can be discovered in it. The strictures upon our modes of living, our social relations, &c. are often unworthy the writer. She complains for instance, that "the things (at the hotel in New York,) were put on the table in a slovenly, outlandish fashion; fish, soup, and meat, at once, and puddings, and tarts, and cheese, at another once; no finger glasses, and a patched table cloth—in short, a want of that style and neatness which is found in every hotel in England. The waiters too, remind us of the half-savage highland lads, that used to torment us under that denomination in Glasgow—only that they were wild Irish instead of Scotch." vol. i. p. 49.

Frequently too, she complains of the audiences before whom she performed, with occasional reproof of their ungracious conduct in not sufficiently applauding her father or herself: She says, of the first appearance of the former at the Park Theatre:

"When he came on they gave him what every body here calls an immense reception; but they should see our London audience get up, and wave hats and handkerchiefs, and shout welcome as they used to do to us. The tears were in my eyes, and all I could say was, 'they might as well get up, I think.'" Vol. i. p. 93.—And on another occasion: "The people were stupid to a degree to be sure; poor things, it was very hot. Indeed I scarcely understood how they should be amused with the School for Scandal; for though the dramatic situations are so exquisite, yet the wit is far above the generality of even our own audiences, and the tone and manners altogether are so thoroughly English, that I should think it must be for the most part incomprehensible to the good people here,"—p. 110.

At the Philadelphia audiences, she grumbles as follows:

"The audiences here, are without exception, the most disagreeable I ever played to. Not a single hand did they give the balcony scene, or my father's scene with the friar; they are literally immoveable. They applauded vehemently at the end of my draught scene, and a great deal at the end of the play; but they are nevertheless intolerably dull, and it is all but impossible to act to them,"—p. 157.

Of the ladies of this country, she seems to have formed a low estimate in many respects, and to look upon them generally with no little contempt. Of those in New York, she says: "The women dress very much, and very much like French women gone mad; they all of them seem to me to walk horribly ill, as if they wore tight shoes."—And again: "The women here, like those in most warm climates, ripen very early, and decay proportionably soon. They are, generally speaking, pretty, with good complexions, and an air of freshness and brilliancy, but this I am told is very evanescent; and whereas, in England, a woman is in the full bloom of health and beauty, from twenty to five and thirty; here, they scarce reach the first period without being faded, and looking old. They marry very young, and this is another reason why age comes prematurely upon them. There was a fair young thing at dinner to-day, who did not look above seventeen, and she was a wife. As for their figures, like those of the French women, they are too well dressed for one to judge exactly what they are really like: they are, for the most part, short and slight, with remarkably pretty feet and ancles; but there's too much pelerine and petticoat, and 'de quoi' of every sort to guess any thing more,"—p. 88.

This is a delicate subject, and one on which we should be averse to enter the lists with Mrs. Butler, prejudiced as she most probably is. But some of her observations on the mode of nurturing females, strike us as exhibiting good sense: In the following note to the above, we apprehend there is much truth:

"The climate of this country is made the scape-goat upon which all the ill looks, and ill health of the ladies is laid; but while they are brought up as effeminately as they are, take as little exercise, live in rooms heated like ovens during the winter, and marry as early as they do; it will appear evident, that many causes combine with an extremely variable climate, to sallow their complexions, and destroy their constitutions."

We are sorry to be forced to say, that there is also much sound sense and unwelcome truth in her remarks upon the situation of married females in our fashionable circles generally, (although the picture is overwrought and is more peculiarly applicable to northern females,) which we quote from Vol i. p. 160.

"The dignified and graceful influence which married women among us exercise over the tone of manners, uniting the duties of home to the charms of social life; and bearing, at once, like the orange tree the fair fruits of maturity with the blossoms of their spring, is utterly unknown here. Married women are either house-drudges and nursery-maids, or, if they appear in society, comparative cyphers; and the retiring, modest youthful bearing, which among us distinguishes girls of fifteen or sixteen is equally unknown. Society is entirely led by chits, who in England would be sitting behind a pinafore; the consequence is, that it has neither the elegance, refinement, nor the propriety which belong to ours; but is a noisy, racketty, vulgar congregation of flirting boys and girls, alike without style and decorum."

This view of manners is drawn from the society of the cities of New York and Philadelphia;—appended to the above extract, is a note, entering more into the details of her impressions regarding their fashionable circles, which we give entire:

"When we arrived in America, we brought letters of introduction to several persons in New York; many were civil enough to call upon us, we were invited out to sundry parties, and were introduced into what is there called the first society. I do not wish to enter into any description of it, but will only say, that I was most disagreeably astonished; and had it been my fate to have passed through the country as rapidly as most travellers do, I should have carried away a very unfavorable impression of the best society of New York. Fortunately, however, for me, my visits were repeated and my stay prolonged: and in the course of time I became acquainted with many individuals whose manners and acquirements were of a high order, and from whose intercourse I derived the greatest gratification. But they generally did me the favor to visit me, and I still could not imagine how it happened that I never met them at the parties to which I was invited, and in the circles where I visited. I soon discovered that they formed a society among themselves, where all those qualities which I had looked for among the self-styled best, were to be found. When I name Miss Sedgewick, Halleck, Irving, Bryant, Paulding and some of less fame, but whose acquirements rendered their companionship delightful indeed, amongst whom I felt proud and happy to find several of my own name; it will no longer appear singular that they should feel too well satisfied with the resources of their own society, either to mingle in that of the vulgar fashionables, or seek with avidity the acquaintance of every stranger that arrives in New York. It is not to be wondered at, that foreigners have spoken as they have, of what is termed fashionable society here, or have condemned, with unqualified censure, the manners and tone prevailing in it; their condemnations are true and just as regards what they see: nor perhaps, would they be much inclined to moderate them, when they found that persons possessing every quality that can render intercourse between rational creatures desirable, were held in light esteem, and neglected, as either bores, blues, or dowdies, by those so infinitely their inferiors in every worthy accomplishment. The same separation, or if anything a still stronger one, subsists in Philadelphia, between the self-styled fashionables, and the real good society. The distinction there, is really of a nature perfectly ludicrous; a friend of mine was describing to me a family whose manners were unexceptionable, and whose mental accomplishments were of a high order; upon my expressing some surprise that I had never met with them, my informant replied, 'Oh, no, they are not received by the Chestnut street set.' If I were called upon to define that society in New York and Philadelphia, which ranks (by right of self-arrogation,) as first and best; I should say it is a purely dancing society, where a fiddle is indispensable to keep its members awake; and where their brains and tongues seem, by common consent, to feel that they had much better give up the care of mutual entertainment to the feet of the parties assembled, and they judge well. Now, I beg leave clearly to be understood, there is another, and a far more desirable circle; but it is not the one into which strangers find their way generally. To an Englishman, this fashionable society presents, indeed, a pitiful sample of lofty pretensions without adequate foundation. Here is a constant endeavor to imitate those states of European society, which have for their basis the feudal spirit of the early ages; and which are rendered venerable by their rank, powerful by their wealth, and refined, and in some degree respectable, by great and general mental cultivation. Of Boston I have not spoken. The society there, is of an infinitely superior order. A very general degree of information, and a much greater simplicity of manners render it infinitely more agreeable,"—pp. 161-2.

As few matters, worldly or spiritual, escaped the observation of our authoress, it is not wonderful that her pen was occasionally dipped in the political cauldron. But as her ideas are in most instances tinged with her own national prejudices, we shall not dwell upon them longer than to say that she sees already a decided aristocratic tendency among us, and to quote the following summary of her opinion as to the permanence of our institutions and government:—"I believe in my heart that a republic is the noblest, highest, and purest form of government; but I believe that according to the present disposition of human creatures, 'tis a mere beau ideal, totally incapable of realization. What the world may be fit for six hundred years hence, I cannot exactly perceive—but in the mean time, 'tis my conviction that America will be a monarchy before I am a skeleton." p. 56. If argument with a lady on such a subject could be reconciled to the precepts of gallantry, it would certainly be unprofitable where the causes of her belief are so vaguely stated. And we think she has furnished the best argument against herself in her frequent comparisons of the condition of the mass of the people of this country to that of the laboring class in England, in which she constantly decides in favor of America. It will scarcely be argued that a people enjoying such blessings as she ascribes to the condition of the mass of American citizens, could easily be induced to change their government, and yield up a certain good for a doubtful improvement—far less that they would willingly submit to a form of government which they look upon as particularly odious. The following passage shows what are her views of the condition of the laboring classes among us:

"I never was so forcibly struck with the prosperity and happiness of the lower orders of society in this country, as yesterday returning from Hoboken. The walks along the river and through the woods, the steamers crossing from the city, were absolutely thronged with a cheerful, well-dressed population abroad, merely for the purpose of pleasure and exercise. Journeymen, laborers, handicraftsmen, tradespeople, with their families, bearing all in their dress and looks evident signs of well-being and contentment, were all flocking from their confined avocations, into the pure air, the bright sunshine, and beautiful shade of this lovely place. I do not know any spectacle which could give a foreigner, especially an Englishman, a better illustration of that peculiar excellence of the American government—the freedom and happiness of the lower classes. Neither is it to be said that this was a holiday, or an occasion of peculiar festivity—it was a common week-day—such as our miserable manufacturing population spends from sun-rise to sun-down, in confined, incessant, unhealthy toil—to earn, at its conclusion, the inadequate reward of health and happiness so wasted—the contrast struck me forcibly—it rejoiced my heart; it surely was an object of contemplation, that any one who had a heart must have rejoiced in."

We had intended to make several additional extracts from what we think the better portions of the Journal, such as would exhibit the authoress in her most favorable light. But we have "daudled" so long on the way, that those extracts must be brief, and will probably fail to do the justice we proposed to the fair writer. As however, we have not selected the worst of the passages from those which we deemed it our duty to censure, we may be forgiven, if we should fail to quote the best of those which exhibit her good sense and ability as a writer.

Of the fate of the aborigines of this country, she says:

"The chasing, enslaving, and destroying creatures, whose existence, however inferior, is as justly theirs, as that of the most refined European is his; who for the most part, too, receive their enemies with open-handed hospitality, until taught treachery by being betrayed, and cruelty by fear; the driving the child of the soil off it, or, what is fifty times worse, chaining him to till it; all the various forms of desolation which have ever followed the landing of civilized men upon uncivilized shores; in short, the theory and practice of discovery and conquest, as recorded in all history, is a very singular and painful subject of contemplation.

"'Tis true, that cultivation and civilization, the arts and sciences that render life useful, the knowledge that ennobles, the adornments that refine existence, above all, the religion that is its most sacred trust and dear reward, all these, like pure sunshine and healthful airs following a hurricane, succeed the devastation of the invader; but the sufferings of those who are swept away are not the less, and though I believe that good alone is God's result, it seems a fearful proof of the evil wherewith this earth is cursed, that good cannot progress but over such a path. No one, beholding the prosperous and promising state of this fine country, could wish it again untenanted of its enterprising and industrious possessors; yet even while looking with admiration at all they have achieved, with expectation amounting to certainty to all that they will yet accomplish; 'tis difficult to refrain from bestowing some thoughts of pity and of sadness upon those, whose homes have been overturned, whose language has past away, and whose feet are daily driven further from those territories of which they were once sole and sovereign lords. How strange it is to think, that less than one hundred years ago, these shores, resounding with the voice of populous cities—these waters, laden with the commerce of the wide world, were silent wildernesses, where sprang and fell the forest leaves, where ebbed and flowed the ocean tides from day to day, and from year to year in uninterrupted stillness; where the great sun, who looked on the vast empires of the east, its mouldering kingdoms, its lordly palaces, its ancient temples, its swarming cities, came and looked down upon the still dwelling of utter loneliness, where nature sat enthroned in everlasting beauty, undisturbed by the far off din of worlds 'beyond the flood.'"

There is eloquence and good feeling in the following:

"In beholding this fine young giant of a world, with all its magnificent capabilities for greatness, I think every Englishman must feel unmingled regret at the unjust and unwise course of policy which alienated such a child from the parent government. But, at the same time, it is impossible to avoid seeing that some other course must, ere long, have led to the same result, even if England had pursued a more maternal course of conduct towards America. No one, beholding this enormous country, stretching from ocean to ocean, watered with ten thousand glorious rivers, combining every variety of climate and soil; therefore, every variety of produce and population; possessing within itself every resource that other nations are forced either to buy abroad, or to create substitutes for at home; no one, seeing the internal wealth of America, the abundant fertility of the earth's surface, the riches heaped below it, the unparalleled facilities for the intercourse of men, and the interchange of their possessions throughout its vast extent, can for an instant indulge the thought that such a country was ever destined to be an appendage to any other in the world, or that any chain of circumstances whatever, could have long maintained in dependance a people furnished with every means of freedom and greatness. But far from regretting that America has thrown off her allegiance, and regarding her as a rebellious subject, and irreverent child; England will surely, ere long, learn to look upon this country as the inheritor of her glory; the younger England, destined to perpetuate the language, the memory, the virtues of the noble land from which she is descended. Loving and honoring my country, as I do, I cannot look upon America with any feeling of hostility. I do not only hear the voice of England in the language of this people, but I recognize in all their best qualities, their industry, their honesty, their sturdy independence of spirit, the very witnesses of their origin, they are English; no other people in the world would have licked us as they did; nor any other people in the world, built upon the ground they won, so sound, and strong, and fair an edifice.

"With regard to what I have said in the beginning of this note, of the many reasons which combined to render this country independent of all others; I think they in some measure tell against the probability of its long remaining at unity with itself. Such numerous and clashing interests; such strong and opposite individuality of character between the northern and southern states; above all, such enormous extent of country; seem rationally to present many points of insecurity; many probabilities of separations and breakings asunder; but all this lies far on, and I leave it to those who have good eyes for a distance." Vol. i. pp. 187-8.

From her description of a voyage up the Hudson river, which is one of the most beautiful portions of the work, we can give but two brief passages:

"We passed the light-house of Stoney Point, now the peaceful occupant of the territory, where the blood in English veins was poured out by English hands, during the struggle between old established tyranny and the infant liberties of this giant world. Over all and each, the blessed sky bent its blue arch, resplendently clear and bright, while far away the distant summits of the highlands rose one above another, shutting in the world, and almost appearing as though each bend of the river must find us locked in their shadowy circle, without means of onward progress." Vol. i. p. 207.

"Where are the poets of this land? Why such a world should bring forth men with minds and souls larger and stronger than any that ever dwelt in mortal flesh. Where are the poets of this land? They should be giants, too; Homers and Miltons, and Goethes and Dantes, and Shakspeares. Have these glorious scenes poured no inspirings into hearts worthy to behold and praise their beauty? Is there none to come here and worship among these hills and waters, till his heart burns within him, and the hymn of inspiration flows from his lips, and rises to the sky? Is there not one among the sons of such a soil to send forth its praises to the universe, to throw new glory round the mountains, new beauty over the waves? is inanimate nature, alone, here 'telling the glories of God?' Oh, surely, surely, there will come a time when this lovely land will be vocal with the sound of song, when every close-locked valley, and waving wood, rifted rock and flowing stream shall have their praise. Yet 'tis strange how marvellously unpoetical these people are! How swallowed up in life and its daily realities, wants, and cares; how full of toil and thrift, and money-getting labor. Even the heathen Dutch, among us the very antipodes of all poetry, have found names such as the Donder Berg for the hills, whilst the Americans christen them Butter Hill, the Crow's Nest, and such like. Perhaps some hundred years hence, when wealth has been amassed by individuals, and the face of society begins to grow chequered, as in the old lands of Europe, when the whole mass of population shall no longer go running along the level road of toil and profit, when inequalities of rank shall exist, and the rich man shall be able to pay for the luxury of poetry, and the poor man who makes verses, no longer be asked, 'Why don't you cast up accounts?' when all this comes to pass, as perhaps some day it may, America will have poets. It seems strange to me that men such as the early settlers in Massachusetts, the Puritan founders of New England, the 'Pilgrim Fathers,' should not have had amongst them some men, or at least man, in whose mind the stern and enduring courage, the fervent, enthusiastic piety, the unbending love of liberty, which animated them all, become the inspiration to poetic thought, and the suggestion of poetical utterance. They should have had a Milton or a Klopstock amongst them. Yet after all, they had excitement of another sort, and moreover, the difficulties, and dangers, and distresses of a fate of unparalleled hardship, to engross all the energies of their minds; and I am half inclined to believe that poetry is but a hothouse growth." Vol. i. pp. 212-13.

Our friends, Oliver Oldschool and Anthony Absolute, will be pleased to observe that Mrs. Butler abjures the Waltz, and agrees with them in objecting to its tendency:

"Dr. —— called, and gave me a sermon about waltzing. As it was perfectly good sense, to which I could reply nothing whatever, in the shape of objection, I promised him never to waltz again, except with a woman, or my brother.... After all, 'tis not fitting that a man should put his arm round one's waist, whether one belongs to any one but one's self or not. 'Tis much against what I have always thought most sacred,—the dignity of a woman in her own eyes, and those of others. I like Dr. —— most exceedingly. He spoke every way to my feelings of what was right to-day. After saying that he felt convinced from conversations which he had heard amongst men, that waltzing was immoral in its tendency, he added, 'I am married, and have been in love, and cannot imagine any thing more destructive of the deep and devoted respect which love is calculated to excite in every honorable man's heart, not only for the individual object of his affection, but for her whole sex, than to see any and every impertinent coxcomb in a ball room, come up to her, and, without remorse or hesitation, clasp her waist, imprison her hand, and absolutely whirl her round in his arms.' So spake the Doctor; and my sense of propriety, and conviction of right, bore testimony to the truth of his saying. So, farewell, sweet German Waltz! next to hock, the most intoxicating growth of the Rheinland. I shall never keep time to your pleasant measure again!—no matter; after all, anything is better than to be lightly spoken of, and to deserve such mention." Vol. i. pp. 227-28.

Mrs. Butler seems to have no great love of the dramatic art—that is, the art of stage performance. Several pages in the second volume are devoted to this subject, (pp. 59, 60 and 61) in which she argues with great force in support of the position, that acting is "the very lowest of the arts." Like all her criticisms of subjects connected with the stage, it is an admirable passage; but it is too long for quotation. A shorter one conveys the same idea, in eloquent language:

"I acted like a wretch, of course; how could I do otherwise? Oh, Juliet! vision of the south! rose of the garden of the earth! was this the glorious hymn that Shakspeare hallowed to your praise? was this the mingled strain of Love's sweet going forth, and Death's dark victory, over which my heart and soul have been poured out in wonder and ecstacy?—How I do loathe the stage! these wretched, tawdry, glittering rags, flung over the breathing forms of ideal loveliness; these miserable, poor, and pitiful substitutes for the glories with which poetry has invested her magnificent and fair creations—the glories with which our imagination reflects them back again. What a mass of wretched mumming mimickry acting is. Pasteboard and paint, for the thick breathing orange groves of the south; green silk and oiled parchment, for the solemn splendor of her noon of night; wooden platforms and canvass curtains, for the solid marble balconies, and rich dark draperies of Juliet's sleeping chamber, that shrine of love and beauty; rouge, for the startled life-blood in the cheek of that young passionate woman; an actress, a mimicker, a sham creature, me, in fact, or any other one, for that loveliest and most wonderful conception, in which all that is true in nature, and all that is exquisite in fancy, are moulded into a living form. To act this! to act Romeo and Juliet!—horror! horror! how I do loathe my most impotent and unpoetical craft!" Vol. ii. pp. 16-17.

In another and sadder strain, there are many beautiful portions, from which we can only select the following—and with this our extracts must end:

"'Tis strange, that Messenger Bird threw more than a passing gloom over me. If the dead do indeed behold those whom they have loved, with loving eyes and fond remembrance, do not the sorrows, the weariness, the toiling, the despairing of those dear ones rise even into the abodes of peace, and wring the souls of those who thence look down upon the earth, and see the wo and anguish suffered here? Or, if they do not feel,—if, freed from this mortal coil, they forget all they have suffered, all that we yet endure, oh! then what four-fold trash is human love! what vain and miserable straws are all the deep, the dear, the grasping affections twined in our hearts' fibres,—mingled with our blood!—how poor are all things—how beggarly is life. Oh, to think that while we yet are bowed in agony and mourning over the dead,—while our bereaved hearts are aching, and our straining eyes looking to that heaven, beyond which we think they yet may hear our cries, they yet may see our anguish, the dead, the loved, the mourned, nor see, nor hear; or if they do, look down with cold and careless gaze upon the love that lifts our very souls in desperate yearning towards them." Vol. ii. pp. 54-55.

We have thus endeavored to give our readers an idea of this very remarkable book—a task of no little difficulty from its variable features, its mixture of sense and silliness, of prejudice and liberality—almost every page bearing a distinct and peculiar character. There are many things which have elicited censure, on which we have not laid any stress, and among these are the frequent exhibitions of attachment to her native country, and preference of its people, its customs, its laws, &c. to those of America. We cannot find fault with her for so noble and so natural a sentiment, even though it should lead her to depreciate and underrate us. Besides, she acknowledges the blindness of her partiality to England, and speaks of it with great candor, as a national characteristic:

"How we English folks do cling to our own habits, our own views, our own things, our own people; how in spite of all our wanderings and scatterings over the whole face of the earth, like so many Jews, we never lose our distinct and national individuality; nor fail to lay hold of one another's skirts, to laugh at and depreciate all that differs from that country, which we delight in forsaking for any and all others." Vol. i. p. 90.

The chief fault of the work will be found in the dictatorial manner of the writer. A female, and a young one too, cannot speak with the self-confidence which marks this book, without jarring somewhat upon American notions of the retiring delicacy of the female character. But the early induction of Mrs. B. upon the stage, has evidently given her a precocious self-dependence and a habit of forming her own opinions. There is perhaps no situation in which human vanity is so powerfully excited, as that of the favorite actor. The directness of the applause which greets his successful efforts is most intoxicating, and mingles so much admiration of the performer with delight at the performance, that he or she, whose vanity should resist its fascinations, must be a stoic indeed.³ The effects of this personal homage, added to the advantages of her birth, and her really masculine intellect, are apparent in Mrs. B's Journal. But she also displays some fine feminine traits, which the flatteries of delighted audiences, the admiration of ambitious fashionables, and the consciousness of being the chief Lion of the day, could not destroy. Her sympathy for a sick lady, lodging in the same house in Philadelphia, is frequently and delicately expressed; and various other incidents shew that kindness and generosity are among her prominent qualities. Many pages are devoted to the subject of religion, and as appears from them, she was attentive to the performance of her devotions: Yet we cannot but think her religion as displayed in this book, more a sentiment than a principle; rather the imbodying of a poetical fancy, than that pervading feeling of the heart which enters into and characterizes the actions of those who feel its influence.—In conclusion, we will repeat what we have said before, that there is much to admire and much to condemn in this work—enough of the former to render it one of the most attractive (as it is one of the most original) that has recently issued from the press; and in censuring its faults it will be but justice to bear in mind a sentiment of Mrs. B.; "After all, if people generally did but know the difficulty of doing well, they would be less damnatory upon those who do ill." p. 114, vol. i.

³ This position has been beautifully illustrated by some modern English writer, but by whom we have forgotten. Mrs. Butler is fully aware of the intoxicating nature of the applause bestowed on actors, and speaks most sensibly on the subject, although she is probably unconscious of its full effects upon her own feelings, and manner of thinking and writing.

"Excitement," says she, "is reciprocal between the performer and the audience; he creates it in them, and receives it back again from them: and in that last scene in Fazio, half the effect that I produce is derived from the applause which I receive, the very noise and tumult of which tends to heighten the nervous energy which the scene itself begets."

The idea is farther carried out in the following striking passage:

"The evanescent nature of his triumph, however an actor may deplore it, is in fact but an instance of the broad moral justice by which all things are so evenly balanced. If he can hope for no fame beyond mere mention, when once his own generation passes away, at least his power, and his glory, and his reign is in his own person, and during his own life. There is scarcely to be conceived a popularity for the moment more intoxicating than that of a great actor in his day, so much of it becomes mixed up with the individual himself. The poet, the painter, and the sculptor, enchant us through their works; and with very, very few exceptions, their works, and not their very persons are the objects of admiration and applause; it is to their minds we are beholden; and though a certain degree of curiosity and popularity necessarily wait even upon their bodily presence, it is faint compared with that which is bestowed upon the actor; and for good reasons—he is himself his work. His voice, his eyes, his gestures, are his art, and admiration of it cannot be separated from admiration for him. This renders the ephemeral glory which he earns so vivid, and in some measure may be supposed to compensate for its short duration. The great of the earth, whose fame has arisen like the shining of the sun, have often toiled through their whole lives in comparative obscurity, through the narrow and dark paths of existence. Their reward was never given to their hands here,—it is but just their glory should be lasting." Vol. ii. pp. 61-62.

EDITORIAL REMARKS.

In presenting the ninth number of the Messenger to our readers, we take occasion to make some brief references to its contents. Besides contributions from old friends, to whom we have been formerly indebted, it contains seven prose articles from new correspondents, some of whom are entirely unknown to us, all of whom are welcome to our pages.

Of the sixth number of "Sketches of the History of Tripoli," it is only necessary to say that it is worthy of and sustains the character of the preceding numbers. The same may be said of the "Letters of a Sister," in which the vivacity that has elicited so much praise of the former numbers, is not diminished.

The descriptions of Virginia scenery, in the article on "The House Mountain," and the "Visit to the Virginia Springs," are highly attractive. The former is remarkable for its graphic delineations and glowing imagery—the latter abounds with useful information, conveyed in an attractive style; and its writer describes the scenes he visited with great clearness.

The third number upon the "Fine Arts," is an admirable article. The writer warms as he progresses with his subject.

We would particularly recommend the article on the "National Importance of Mineral Possessions," &c. The application of general truths to our own peculiar situation, is made with much force in that article.

Our stranger correspondent, Anthony Absolute, has very delicately satirized the opposers of the amusement of dancing. His style is evidently modelled after that of some of the numbers of the Spectator, and he is uncommonly happy in keeping up a vein of quiet humor throughout. His grave irony is highly amusing.

The writer of an article on "Recent American Novels," seems to us to have expressed some opinions hastily, and to estimate the merits of some of our native writers incorrectly. He has surely overlooked the author of Calavar, in classing the successors of Cooper and Irving, as "dwarfish," and their efforts as "puny." He was not in fault in passing over the author of "Horse-Shoe Robinson," as that work had not appeared when his article was penned; and Swallow Barn does not rank as a novel. We believe that Mr. Kennedy and Dr. Bird will prove themselves worthy successors to Cooper and Irving (so far as the latter may be considered a novel writer,) when the mantles shall fall from their shoulders—nor will Mr. Sims, the author of Guy Rivers and the Yemassie, (either of which, we apprehend, are superior to the Insurgents,) be far behind. The reviewer seems to us rather inconsistent in his allusions to Cooper, Irving, Paulding and Miss Sedgewick: But we have not room to particularize. With regard to the two former, the opinions of a Young Scotchman, in the interesting letter which we publish in this number, are worthy of attention. We are happy to say, that extracts from his "Letters on the United States," will be continued in the Messenger. We doubt not they will be read with avidity.

"Lion-izing," by Mr. Poe, is an inimitable piece of wit and satire: and the man must be far gone in a melancholic humor, whose risibility is not moved by this tale. Although the scene of the story is laid in the foreign city of "Fum Fudge," the disposition which it satirizes is often displayed in the cities of this country—even in our own community; and will probably still continue to exist, unless Mrs. Butler's Journal should have disgusted the fashionable world with Lions.

The prominent article for this month, we have not yet alluded to; it is the "Dissertation on the Characteristic Differences between the Sexes; the Influence of Woman," &c.—a subject of great and abiding interest, treated in a masterly manner. The comprehensive views taken by the writer, of the whole subject; the copiousness of his illustrations, and the happy manner in which they are brought to sustain his various positions, are striking features in this able article. We think we incur no risk in expressing the belief, that this Dissertation when completed, will be the most perfect essay on the subject, in the whole range of English literature.

"The Grave of Forgotten Genius," and "Lionel Granby," will have their attractions, we doubt not, for many of our readers. The writer of the latter possesses powers of description of no mean order. He paints objects and characters skilfully, though at times his style is somewhat overloaded with words. We shall receive his future chapters with pleasure.

The poetical contributions for this number are generally excellent. We are constrained to forbear any particular notice of them, by the briefness of the space which we have to occupy.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

The humorous strictures on modern fashions, by our friend "Oliver Oldschool," did not reach us in time for insertion in the present number; he will appear in our next. We have received two tales from "an inexperienced girl of sixteen," entitled "Lucy Carlton" and "The Sanfords," which, although they exhibit considerable talent, are very deficient in incident. The sketching of character is mostly good, but the author fails to make effectual use of the materials which she brings together. We shall insert "The Sanfords" in our next, as the best of the two. The story entitled "Remorse," is inadmissible. The narrative presents some dramatic scenes and situations, of which the writer has but partially availed himself; but defects of language form the principal objection to his story. In answer to Octavian's inquiry, we must say that his lines are by no means equal to those from his pen formerly inserted in the Messenger. And as it would be impossible to publish all the contributions received, unless the Messenger were twice its size, we are constrained to leave out some which are even passable. "English Poetry, Chap. II," and further extracts from the MSS. of D. D. Mitchell, will appear in the next No. "The Curse of the Betrayed One" possesses considerable merit, but is deformed by faults of metre, easily amendable. With the author's consent we will make a few corrections in his poem, and insert it in our next number. We will exercise the same pruning prerogative upon the tale of "The Reclaimed." The poetical contributions of Mrs. Emma Willard, of Troy, are welcome, and will appear as early as possible; also some beautiful effusions of a deceased lady of Matthews county, Virginia. "Extracts from the Autobiography of Pertinax Placid, Chap. I," will have an early insertion.

In addressing the numerous correspondents whose favors have not yet appeared in our numbers, we avail ourselves of the opportunity to make a few general remarks, which are due both to ourselves and to those who write for the Messenger.

Although our poetical contributions have in general met with high approbation, and though many effusions which we have had the honor to present to the public, have received the just praise due to the lofty promptings of the muse—we have noticed some strictures upon certain articles which we had considered it our duty to insert in that department. We do not purpose to defend all our poetical contributions from censure. It is far from us to claim for them the merit of uniform excellence. But we wish to show our readers, that to look for such uniformity in the contents of a work like ours, would be unreasonable, and to inform them of the principle upon which our selections are made from the mass of materials placed before us.

It must be held in mind that the Messenger is a new enterprise, in a section of country where such a work has never before been sustained for any considerable length of time—that one of its leading objects is to draw forth and encourage literary talent, and to build up in the south a literature distinct and separate from that which shines in the legal forum or the arena of politics. In order to carry into effect this object, (which we think laudable in itself,) it is necessary that we should display a greater degree of forbearance with inexperienced aspirants to literary honors, than would be expected from a discriminating editor, placed in other circumstances. Had we merely the task before us to amuse our readers, it would not be difficult to select from other sources the materials for our work, and abandoning all editorial responsibility, render the contents of our pages unexceptionable, by a choice of the best productions from other publications. But would this course fulfil the great object of the Messenger?—would it compensate our readers for the suppression of the many noble productions which we have already presented to them—works which, although in a minor form, we trust those who have perused them "would not willingly let die?" The duty we have assumed, is to foster the productions of native writers—to awaken, especially in the south, a literary spirit, an ambition to excel in the cultivation of polite learning—and to give our humble aid in stimulating the ambition of our youth, by offering a fit repository for the offspring of taste and genius. Whether we collect and place on permanent record the fugitive productions of men already known to fame in other walks, or bring forward to public applause the first efforts of youthful talent, we equally fulfil the main object of our labors, by exciting the admiration and awakening the ambition of others, possessing latent powers perhaps unknown to themselves, until struck forth by a natural and praiseworthy emulation.

In the performance of the duty which this object enjoins upon us, there are many sources of perplexity of which our readers can scarcely be aware. Our judgment in regard to the numerous contributions which we receive from all quarters, leans, as it ought, to "mercy's side." The exhibition of ability, although qualified by many faults of conception or manner, claims our attention and favor. We look to the future; and if in the most faulty production we find promise of improving excellence, or redeeming traits which counterbalance the writer's errors, we think it our duty to afford him an opportunity and stimulus for improvement. For these reasons articles are not seldom inserted in the Messenger, which exhibit defects of conception and style, which it is no part of our duty to amend, but which we believe to be counterbalanced by beauties or merits indicating that their authors are capable of better things.

One complaint that we have to make of our contributors, regards the carelessness with which they write; for this want of correctness, mostly verbal it is true, but frequently extending to the sense, rendered obscure by faulty construction of language, imposes upon the editor the constant task of revision, and the responsibility of correcting manuscripts at his own discretion. The labor we do not grudge; but it should be performed by the writers themselves; and we cannot too strenuously urge upon our friends greater care than in many instances they have thus far bestowed upon the finishing of their articles. Their own careful revision would no doubt lead to the more perfect amendment of inaccuracies than could be made by an editor, who in most instances cannot be supposed to share the full views of the writer on the matters in hand. Our own relief from the labor of revision is a secondary consideration, and one which we should not urge; but by relieving us from much of that labor, the writers would greatly increase the value of their contributions.

DEFERRED ARTICLES.

Among the numerous articles for which room could not be found in the present number, are, reviews of Lee's Napoleon, Bancroft's History of the United States, Sparks's Washington Correspondence, The Infidel, a novel, by Doctor Bird, and a notice of the excellent Inaugural Address of President Vethake, of Washington College.