The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 of Literature, Science and Art.
VOLUME I. AUGUST TO NOVEMBER, 1850.
Advancement of Learning. Portrait of Sir David Brewster, 312
Advocate, The Young.--_Household Words_, 81
_Arts, The Fine._--Elliott's Portraits, 73.--Pictures by Mr. Kellogg, 78.--Osgood's Portrait of Captain Sutter, 73. --Horace Vernet, 112, 175.--Mr. Healy, in Paris. 141,-- Powers's Statue of Calhoun, 174.--M. Ingres and M. de Luynes, 207.--Gallery of Illustrious Americans, 207.-- Dr. Waagen, in England, 207.--Art in Bavaria, 269.-- Exhibition at Valenciennes, 269.--Darley's Illustrations of "Sleepy Hollow," 269.--Chaucer's Monument, 269.-- Lessing's new Picture, 269.--Mlle. Rachel, again, 270.-- Gigantic Statue by Schwanthaler, 270.--Publications of Goupil & Co., 270.--Mr. Powell's Picture for the Capitol, 270, 324.--German Views of Art in America, 323.-- Plans for the Promotion of Catholic Art in Rome, 623.-- Charles Muller's Group of Statues, 323.--A Hundred Statues in Paris, 323.--Powers and his Statues, 324.-- The Barberigo Gallery at Venice, 324.--Paintings and Sculptures of Early Northern Artists, 324.--A Statue to Larrey, the Surgeon, 324.--The Standish Gallery, 324.--Exhibition at Dusseldorf, 324.--Works in Antwerp Churches, 324.--Leutze's New Works, 324.-- The Colossal Frescoes of Kaulbach, 482.--Fine Public Groups at Berlin, 482.--The Dusseldorf "Album," 482. --Statue of Columbus, 483.--Monument to Frederick the Great, 483.--Philadelphia Art Union, 483.--Original Portraits of Queen Elizabeth and Sir Isaac Newton, 483.--Kellogg's Full-Length of General Scott, 483.-- Mount's New Picture, 483.--Archæological Institute, 483.--Sarah Biffen, 484.--Statues of Herder, Oudinot, Professor Cooper, &c., 484.
_Authors and Books._--Rev. Dr. Smyth, 13.--Gen. Pepe's New Work, 13.--Mr. Mayne Reed, 13.--J. E. Warren, 13.--Dr. Hawks, 13.--The Princess Belgioioso, 13.--Eugene Scribe, 13.--Alice and Phoebe Carey, 14.--Mrs. Oaksmith, 14.--Prof. Nichol on America, 14.--Dr. Croly, 14.--Sir James Alexander, 14.--Mr. James and Copyright, 39.--Albert Smith and "Protection," 39.--R. H. Stoddard, 39.--Inedited Correspondence of Goethe and Schiller, 39.--Margaret Fuller, 39.--Dr. Hoefer _vs._ Dr. Layard, 40.--Mr. Boker's New Play, 40.--George Sand, 71.--G. P. R. James, 71.--Botta's Nineveh, 71.--Arago, 71.--Miss Fenimore Cooper, 72.--Prof. Agassiz, 72.-- Dr. Layard, 72.--Rogers, 72.--Harro Harring, 72, 112.-- Dr. Gutzlaff, 73.--Literature in Paris, 73.--E. P. Whipple, 105.--Evelyn's History of Religion, 105.--Leigh Hunt and the Laureateship, 105.--E. G. Squier, 105.-- Monument to Wordsworth, 105.--Francis Bowen, &c., 105.--Mrs. Child, 112.--The Literature of Supernaturalism, 138.--Remains of Poe, 138.--Dudley Bean, 138.-- Mr. Young's "Beranger," 138.--Livermore on Libraries, 139.--Prof. Johnson, Charlotte Cushman, Elihu Burritt, Perley Poore, Mr. Mountford, &c., 139.--Rev. James H. Perkins, 175.--Mrs. Esling, 175.--M. St. Hillaire and his Spanish History, 175.--The Author of "Dr. Hookwell," 175.--John Mills, 175.--Mr. Prescott, 175.--Maginn's Homeric Ballads, 175.--George Wilkins Kendall, 176.--Mrs. Trollope and her Son, 176.--Dr. Wm. R. Williams, 176.--Dr. Buckland, 176.--Dr. Wayland's Tractate on Education, 176.--Charles Eames, 176.-- Chateaubriand, &c., 176.--Parke Godwin and his Translation of Goethe's Autobiography, 194.--A new Life of John Randolph, 194.--Scotch Bookseller's Society, 194. --Prof. Dickson's Return to Charleston, 194.--John R. Bartlett and the Boundary Commission, 194.--William C. Richards, 194.--Guilliame Tell Poussin, 194.--Dr. John W. Francis, 195.--Illustrated Edition of Gray's Poems, 195.--M. Libri, Burns, Dr. Wiseman, &c., 195.-- Wordsworth's Posthumous Poem, 196.--Miss Cooper's Rural Hours, 196.--Sydney Smith's Sketches of Modern Philosophy, 196.--Beranger and the People, 232.-- Audubon and Washington Irving, 232.--Seba Smith in Mathematics, 232.--M. Flandin, on Persian Antiquities, 233.--Girardin and Chateaubriand, 233.--Guizot's Poverty, 233.--History of Art, by Schasse, 233.--History of Spain, 233.--The Paris Academy of Inscriptions, 234.-- Leverrier on the Telegraph, 234.--Works of Rev. Dr. Woods, 234.--Orville Dewey, 234.--The Author of the Amber Witch, 235.--The Night Side of Nature, 235.-- Milne Edwards, 235.--Miss Strickland, 235.--Sir E. L. Bulwer, 235.--Mr. Herbert's Sporting Books, 236.-- Works in Press, 236.--Meyerbeer, 236.--A German Prince in New Orleans, 265.--An Arabian Newspaper, 265.--Mrs. Loud's Poems, 265.--Literature of Socialism, 265.--Ebenezer Elliot, 266.--Memorial to Mrs. Osgood, 266.--Rev. Walter Colton on California, 267.--Gallery of Illustrious Americans, 267.--Max Schlesinger, 267.-- Mayo's "Berber," 267.--French Periodicals, 268.--The Vienne University, 268.--Works of the Asiatic Society at Paris, 318.--The French Academy and its Prizes, 318.-- Edward Everett, 319.--Mackay's "Progress of the Intellect." 319.--Lamartine, 319.--Theodore Parker, 319.--Sir Edward Belcher, 319.--Guizot, 319.--John G. Saxe, 319. --Eliza Cook, 319.--Institute of Goethe, 320.--Books on the Slave Trade, 320.--Jules Lechevalier, 320.--The Doctrinal Tract and Book Society's Publications, 320.-- Novel by Otto Muller, 320.--New Translation of M. Rochefoucauld's Maxims, 320.--"Armanese," 320.-- Thackery on the Literary Profession, 321.--M. de Luynes on the Antiquities of Cyprus, 321.--Sir Robert Peel's Memoirs, 321.--John P. Brown, 321.-- Burnet de Pesle on Egyptian Dynasties, 322.--Washington Irving a British Subject, 322.--Arago and Cremieux in History, 322.--New Poem by Holmes, 322.--Mr. Duganne's Satire, 322.--South Carolinian Epics, 322.--John Neal, 322.--The Baroness Blaze de Bury, 322.--Dr. Elliot on Slavery, 322.--Dacotah Dictionary, 322.--Judge Breeze on the History of Illinois, 322.--Mr. Layard, 322.--Mr. Wilson's Transted Hindu Hymns, 322.--Dr. Shelton Mackenzie, 322.-- Paris Editions of Greek Authors, 471.--MSS. of Schiller and Goethe, 471.--Henry Wheaton, 471.--_La Hongrie Pittoresque_, 472.--Contributions to Science by French Surgeons, 472.--Walter Scott in France, 472.-- Herman Melville, 472.--The Original Dr. Faust, 472.-- Rev. Albert Barnes, 473.--Ledru Rollin, 473.--Mr. Bigelow's "Jamaica in 1850," 473.--Mr. Prescott in England, 473.--Dr. Schoolcraft's Great Work on the Indian Tribes, 473.--Schools in American Literature, 473.--Leon de Wailly's "Stella and Vanessa," 474.-- Alaric A. Watts, "in bankruptcy," 474.--"The Lily and the Totem," by Dr. Simms, 475.--Dr. Wainwright on the Holy Land, 475.--Mr. Raymond's Discourse at Burlington, 475.--E. V. Childe's Translation of "Santarem on Americus Vespucius," 475.--Dr. Latham on the Natural History of Man, 475.--John Britton, the Antiquary, 476.--Dr. Layard, 476.--The "Vladika," 476.--Mr. Bancroft, 476.--Hebrew Translations at Padua, 476.--Theories of Light, 476.--Mr. Hildreth's History, 476.--Hungarian Tales, 476.--Yankee Hill, 476.--Criticisms by Dr. O. A. Brownson, 477.--James Nack, 477.--New Volume of Poems by Bryant, 477.--Science in America, 477.--Shiller's "Anthologie," 477. Griepenkerl, 477.--Mr Kimball's St. Leger, 477.--Etchings by Ehninger, 477.--The Weimar Festival, 478.--M. Bastiat, 478--Edinburgh Review for October, 478.--N. Lenau, 478.--"The Eclectic" upon Mr. Melville, 478.--"Lonz Powers." 478.--New English Reviewals of Ticknor, 479.--M. Villaume's History, 479.--Longfellow Illustrated, 479.--Thackeray, 479.--London Medical Schools, 480.--Robberies of the Vatican, 480.--Mr. Gallagher, 480.--Mr. McLaughlin, 480.--Lamartine in England, 480.--Discoveries in Africa, 480.--Louis Nicolardet, 480.--Hebrew Library, 480.--Berlin University, 480.--New Books, by Parke Godwin, Miss Dupuy, Timothy Pitkin, Dr. Ruffner, Mr. Putnam, De Quincy, J. I. Bailey, Grace Greenwood, and W. W. Lord, 481.
Author of "Ion," The. A Biographical Speech, 170
Balzac, and the Oration of Victor Hugo on his Death, 315
Beauty.--_The Leader_, 591
Belgian Lace-Makers.--_Household Words_, 123
Beranger, Jean Pierre. With a Portrait, 454
Brooks, Maria, and Southey, 67
Brougham, Lord, Anecdote of, 304
Brougham, Lord, Memoir of. (Portrait,) 305
Catching a Lion.--_C. Astor Bristed.--Fraser's Magazine_, 512
Chase, The.--_Miss Cooper's Rural Hours_, 77
Chemistry of a Candle.--_Household Words_, 292
Chinese, Remarkable Work by a 141
Church of the Vasa D'Agua.--_Eliza Cook's Journal_, 400
Class Opinions.--_Household Words_, 104
Cooling a Burning Spirit.--_De Vere_, 303
_Correspondence, Original_.--Letter from Dr. Layard, upon Ancient Art, 5.--Rambles in the Peninsula, by John E. Warren, 6, 37, 136
Count Monte-Leone, or the Spy in Society.--_From the French of Saint Georges_, 494
Crime, in England and France, 224
Csikos of Hungary,--_Max Schlesinger_, 258
Death and Sleep.--_From the German of Krummacher_, 255
_Deaths Recent_--Miss Jane Porter, 10.--Matthew L. Davis, 11.--Joseph S. C. F. Frey, 11.--Count de Vittré, 11.--Richard Wyatt, the Sculptor, 42.--Dr. Griffith, 104.--F. Mansell Reynolds, 104.--John Roby, 104.--Professor Canstatt, 104,--S. S. Prentiss, 140.--Nathaniel Silsbee, 140.--Sir Robert Peel, 172.--Boyer, Ex-President of Hayti, 172.--The Duke of Cambridge, 172.--George W. Erving, 173.--Professor John Burns, 174.--Horace Sumner, 174.--Mr. Kirby, the Entomologist, 206.--Rev. Dr. Gray, 207.--Augustus William Neander, 237.--Jacob Jones, U.S.N., 237.--Julia Betterton Glover, 239.--Madame Gavaudan, 240.--General Bertrand, 240.--Robert R. Baird, 250.--S. Joseph, the Sculptor, 240.--James Wright, 240.--M. Mora, 270.--B. Simmons, 290.--Louis Philippe, 338.--Dr. Judson, 340.--John Luman, 339.--Sir Martin Archer Shee, 341.--Gerard Troost, 342.--Professor White, 340.--Perceval W. Banks, 342.--Bishop Bascomb, 342.--Robert Hunt, 342.--John Comly, 342.--Count Pire, 342.--Admiral Dudley Oliver, 600.--Rev. Dr. Ingram, President of Trinity College, 600.--Professor Kolderup, 601.--M. Chedanau, 601.--Daniel Belknap, 601.
Death's Jest-Book: The Fool's Tragedy, 229
Decay of Great Families.--_Burke's Aristocracy_, 260
Democracy.--_The Age and its Architects_, 592
Dom of Dantzic, The.--_Fraser's Magazine_, 43
Duke of Queensbury.--_Burke's Aristocracy_, 260
Duke Lewis of Donauworth.--_Madame Blaze de Bury_, 584
Dust, or Ugliness Redeemed.--_Household Words_, 243
Ebba, or The Emigrants of Sweden.--_E. Marmier_, 345
Egypt and its Government.--_Sharpe's Magazine_, 524
Eldorado.--_John G. Whittier_, 74
Excellent Opportunity, An.--_Household Words_, 249
Fashions, Autumn, (Illustrated,) 602
Fire in the Woods.--_Miss Fenimore Cooper_, 95
Fitch, John, Life of, by Miss Leslie, 68
Frank Hamilton.--_W. H. Maxwell_, 145
Fuller, Margaret, Marchesa D'Ossoli, 162
Estimate of her Works and Genius, _by E. A. Poe_, 162
Poem upon her Death, _by G. P. R. James_, 165
Garibaldi, Life of General, 224
George Sand and Chateaubriand, 65
German Criticism of English Female Writers, 161
Germany in the Summer of 1850.--_The Leader_, 594
Ghost Stories: The Female Wrecker, and the House of Mystery.--_Bentley's Miscellany_, 402
Greece and Turkey.--_Bentley's Miscellany_, 255
Grote's History of Greece.--_The Times_, 10
Gutzlaff, the Missionary, 317
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, the _Athenæum_ upon, 102
Henry Lisle: A Story of the Civil War.--_G. P. R James_, 555
High Prices to Artists of the Opera, 165
Hunt, Leigh, Autobiography of, 35, 130
Hunter, on the Pilgrims Fathers.--_Literary Gazette_, 599
Hussar of Hungary, The Wild, 263
Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages, 69
Irving, Washington, and Campbell.--_The Albion_, 230
Is Love Blind?--_The Leader_, 536
Ivory Mine. The, a Tale of the Frozen Sea, 117, 156, 210
Jenny Lind at the Castle Amphitheatre. Illustrated, 448
Jones on Chantrey: A Biographical Criticism, 413
"Junius," New Discussions respecting, 469
Jurisprudence of the Moguls.--_Spectator_, 271
Kanasz, The.--_Max Schlesinger_, 262
Kane's Discourse on the Mormons, 36
Kemble's, Fanny, Readings of. (Illustrated,) 310
Killing a Giraffe.--_Cummings' Adventures_, 304
Kolombeski, The Veteran.--__, 304
Lady Lucy's Secret.--_The Ladies' Companion_, 409
Lamartine's Apology for his Confidences, 314
Lamartine's Introduction to "Genevieve," 132
Lamartine's "Genevieve" Reviewed, 466
Lamennais, The Abbe. (Portrait,) 449
Landor, Savage, Letter from.--_The Examiner_, 271
Landor, Savage, upon Savage Haynau.--_Examiner_, 586
Last of a Long Line, The.--_Dickens's Household Words_, 373
Latham on the Aborigines of America, 467
Lessons in Life.--_Eliza Cook's Journal_, 241
Lewis, George Cornewell, 4
Literary Coteries in Paris, 97
Literary Prizes in France, 458
Literature in Africa, 311
Lorgnette, The. (Portrait,) 459
Loss and Gain.--_Maria J. MacIntosh_, 548
Love, Is it Blind?--_The Leader_, 536
Man Ever the Same.--_Pendennis_, 580
Mansfield, The Great Lord.--_The Times_, 419
Marks of Barhamville.--_Fraser's Magazine_, 7
Marriage Ceremonies of the Kandians.--_Sirr's Ceylon_, 590
Memnon, The Sounding Statue of.--_Fraser's Magazine_, 528
_Miscellanies_.--Lord Brougham, 8.--A Mock Guillotine, &c., 8.--Ledru Rollin on the Decline of England, 9.--The Catastrophe of the Griffith, 9.--Poetical Composition, 29.--Death-Bed Superstitions, 30.--Arab Game, 30.--Marriage in America, 30.--Arabian Nights, 31.--Ambassadors, 32.--Guizot, 32.--Canning, 32.--The Cell of the Bee, 41.--Letter from the Duke of Wellington, 42.--Laughing in the Sleeve, 64.--Antiquarian Discovery, &c., 64.--Circumnavigating a Pope, 78.--Curious Titles of German Papers, 79.--Remarkable Trio, 79.--True Progress, 79.--Coffee among the Savans, 79.--Bad Cookery, a Cause of Drunkenness, 79.--The Monkey and the Watch, 79.--A Syrian Christian and Philosopher, 79.--The British Hierarchy, 79.--French Eulogy, 96.--What's in a Name? 104.--Names High Inscribed, 104.--Golden Rules of Life, 128.--Progress of Milton's Blindness, 128.--Once Caught, Twice Shy, &c., 128.--A Street Character of Cairo, 142.--Mendelssohn's Skill as a Conductor, 142.--Manuel Godoy,141.--Superstition in France, 143.--Libraries in Cambridge, 143.--Romantic History of the Two English Lovers, 143.--Modern School of Athens, 255.--The _Athenæum_ on American Reporting, 443.--The Emperor of Hayti, 443.--Louis Napoleon at Lady Blessington's, 443.--American Mummies, 443.--Daniel Webster in England, 443.--Coffins of the Chaldeans, 444.--Ancient Prices of Labor, 444.--Making the Postman Wait, 441.--The Restaurant of the Sister of M. Thiers, 444.--Languages of Africa, 444.--Richardson, the Traveller, 444.--The Peace Congress at Frankfort, 445.--Project for a Zoological Garden, 445.--Is D'Israeli a Jew? 445.--Dr. Gross, the Surgeon, 445.--The Herder Festival at Weimar, 445.--The Wordsworth Monument, 445.--Revolutionary Stamps, 445.--Descendants of Warren Hastings, 445.--Mr. Pennington's Steam Balloon, 445.--Catlin, the Indian Traveller, 445.--Ages of Public Men, 446.--Ancient Discovery of California, 446.--Mr. Gliddon's Mummy, 446.--Rachel, 446.--India Rubber in 1772, 446.--Convenient Umbrella, 446.--Irish Emigration, 447.--Dwarkanth Tagore, 447.--Madame Boulanger, 447.--Traveling in France, 447.--The Lowell Institute, 447.--M. Libri, 447.--Guizot and Ledru Rollin, 447.--Dr. Southwood Smith, &c., 447.--Anecdote of Guizot, 601.--Dr. Spencer, as a Monk, 601.--Slavery, treated by _The Times_, 601.--Marshal Haynau and _The Times_, 601.--English Titles, 601.--Guizot on Politics, 601--Anecdote of Stenterello, 601.
_Miscellanies, Scientific_.--Remingten's Bridge, 12.--Paine's Hydro-Electric Light, 12.--New Planet, &c., 12.--The Hair, 103.--Experiments by Lord Brougham, 112.--The Spanish Academy of Sciences, 264.--Improvements in the Telegraph, 264.--The British Association, 312.--American Association for the Advancement of Science, 313.--An American Academy, 313.
Morris, George P. Review of his Songs, 487
Music, or Home and Abroad, 484
My Novel.--_Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton_, 439, 566
Mysterious Compact, The.--_Dublin Univ. Mag._, 185
New Prophet in the East.--_Athenæum_, 300
Nimrod, A Mightier Hunter than.--_Household Words_, 218
Numismatic Archæology, 257
Old Brank, the Forger.--_Dickens's Household Words_, 521
Old Churchyard Tree, The.--_Household Words_, 254
Old Man's Bequest, The.--_Dublin University Magazine_, 106
Oriental Caravans.--_Fraser's Magazine_, 42
Outspreading of the British People.--_Fraser's Mag._, 593
Peasant Life in Germany.--_The Leader_, 288
Peel, Life of Sir Robert.--_The Times_, 196
Phantom World, The, 76
Poe, Edgar A.--_Rufus W. Griswold_, 325
_Poetry, Original_.--The Bride's Farewell, _M. E. Hewitt_ 37--To ----, _Mrs. R. B. K._, 37.--The Child of Fame, _Mrs. Hewitt_, 73.--Bob Fletcher, _Townsend Haines_, 104.--Azela, _Alice Carey_, 135.--Country Sonnets, _William C. Richards_, 136.--Retrospect, _Hermann_, 170.--Horoscope, _Elizabeth Oakes Smith_, 264.--Friendship, _William C. Richards_, 264.--The Balance of Life, _Herma_, 264.--Leonora to Tasso, _Mary E. Hewitt_, 488.--Forest Burial, _Sidney Dyer_, 488.--The Passionate Pilgrim, _Mary E. Hewitt_, 489.--A Rainy Morning, _W. C. Richards_, 489.--In Absence, 489.--Cradle and Coffin, _Elizabeth Oakes Smith_, 489.--The Hermit's Dell, _Hermann_, 489.
_Poetry, Selected_.--Nineveh, _Edwin Atherstone_, 16.--The Garden Gate, _Charles Mackay_, 29.--The Last Year's Leaf, _Philip Taylor_, 31.--The Ship "Extravagance," _Charles Swain_, 64.--Death, _Leigh Hunt_, 64.--Verses from the Bohemian of Wraitsell, 70.--"Press on," 92.--Flowers, 96.--Old Feelings, 112.--To the Memory of Mrs. Osgood, _Anne C. Lynch_, 114.--To W. G. R. with an Autograph of Poe, _R. H. Stoddard_, 192.--Our "In Memoriam," _Punch_, 192.--The Actual, _R. B. Kimball_, 192.--English Hexameters, _Walter Savage Landor_, 219.--Manuela, _Bayard Taylor_, 221.--Morning Song, _Barry Cornwall_, 241.--On a Portrait of Cromwell, _James T. Fields_, 271.--Summer Pastime, 287.--An Old Haunt, 303.--"Laugh and Get Fat, _John Kenyon_, 344.--The Speaker Asleep, Arminius, _Winthrop Mackworth Praed_, 230.--Legend of the Teufal Haus, Stanzas written under a Drawing at Cambridge, Ballad Teaching how Poetry is Best Paid For, Covenanter's Lament for Bothwell Brigg, Hope and Love, Private Theatricals, Alexander and Diogenes, _W. M. Praed_, 396.--Cassandra, My Little Cousins, _W. M. Praed_, 623.--The Convict, _Alice Carey_, 543.--Song, _George H. Boker_, 546.--Helen, _R. H. Stoddard_, 546.--Twilight, _Edith May_, 546.--The Tryst, _Alice Carey_, 546.--The First Doubt, _Grace Greenwood_, 548.--Sappho to the Sybil, _Mary E. Hewitt_, 548.--Thoughts at the Grave of a Departed Friend, Despondency, Thoughts on Parting, _John Inman_, 555.--Two Sonnets from the German of _Lenau_, 592.
"Poets and Poetry of America."--_Fraser's Magazine_, 165
Poets in Parliament.--_The Leader_, 144
Pompadour, Madame de.--_Fraser's Magazine_, 389
Porter, Jane, Life of. Illustrated.--_The Art Journal_, 201
Portrait of Cromwell.--_By J. T. Fields_, 271
Pottery and Porcelain.--_The Spectator_, 596
Power of Mercy, The.--_Household Words_, 85
Praed, Winthrop Mackworth, 230, 372, 523
Present Religion of Persia.--_Lieut. Colonel Chesney_, 259
Prentiss, Sergent S., Reminiscences of.--_T. B. Thorpe_, 289
Railway Wonders of the last year.--_Household Words_, 583
Religious Sects and Socialism in Russia, 461
Report of the British Registrar General.--_The Times_, 588
Rollin, Life of Ledru.--_Fraser's Magazine_, 222
Russian Serf, The, 160
Santa Cruz, General.--_Illustrated News_, 40
Serf of Pobereze, The.--_Household Words_, 177
Serpent Charming.--_Bentley's Miscellany_, 470
Sketches of the Town.--_Engraving after Darley_, 33
Snow Image, The.--_Nathaniel Hawthorne_, 537
Society in Turkey.--_Princess Belgiviso_, 595
Something about a Murder.--_Fraser's Magazine_, 24
Spanish Senate, The.--_Clarke's Guzpacho_, 261
Spirit of the Annuals for 1851, 488
Spotted Bower Bird, The.--_Fraser's Magazine_, 386
Summer Night, The.--_From Jean Paul Richter_, 38
Summer Vacation.--_The Fourth Canto of Wordsworth's Posthumous Poem_, 208
Suwarrow, The Great Marshal.--_Fraser's Magazine_, 87
Tea Smuggling in Russia, 129
Telegraph from New York to London.--_Mechanics Magazine_, 587
Tennyson's New Poem, "In Memoriam."--_Spectator_, 34
The Theatre in Russia and Poland, 225
The Three Gifts.--_By E. Oakes Smith_, 646
The Three Visits.--_From the French of Vitu_, 490
The White Lady, 309
Tomb of Lady Blessington.--_Bentley's Miscellany_, 126
Tupper, Martin Farquhar, 2
Undertaker, An, to the Trade.--_Household Words_, 93
Versification, English, 485
Virginia Two Hundred Years Ago.--_The Athenæum_, 416
Ward, the Author of "Tremaine."--_Spectator_, 113
Warilows of Welland, The.--_Household Words_, 560
Weber, Miss, and her Writings.--_Miss Harriet Sargent_, 463
Webster, as a Statesman and as a Man of Letters, 297
Wilde, Richard Henry, and Dante, 2
Wilde, Sir Thomas, the New Chancellor, 240
Willisen, General, of the Schleswig-Holstein Army, 585
Window Love.--_By Charles G. Leland_, 544
Women and Literature in France, 193
Wordsworth's New Poem.--_The Examiner_, 271
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+ |The unusual format of VOLUME I. AUGUST TO NOVEMBER, 1850. is as in the| |original. | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+
INTERNATIONAL WEEKLY MISCELLANY
Of Literature, Art, and Science.
Vol. I. NEW YORK, JULY 1, 1850. No. 1.
INTRODUCTION.
Of the revolutions of the age, one of the most interesting and important is that which has taken place in the forms of Literature and the Modes of its Publication. Since the establishment of the _Edinburgh Review_ the finest intelligences of the world have been displayed in periodicals. Brougham, Jeffrey, Sidney Smith, Mackintosh, Macaulay, have owed nearly all their best fame to compositions which have appeared first in journals, magazines and reviews; the writers of Tales and Essays have uniformly come before the public by the same means, which have recently served also for the original exhibition of the most elaborate and brilliant Fictions, so that we are now receiving through them by almost every ship from Europe installments of works by Dickens, Bulwer, James, Croly, Lever, Reynolds, Mrs. Marsh, Mrs. Ellis, and indeed nearly all the most eminent contemporary novelists. So complete is the change, that all mind, except the heaviest and least popular, is likely to flow hereafter through the Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Quarterly Miscellanies, which compete with universities, parliaments, churches, and libraries, for ascendency in the government of mankind.
In this country we must keep pace with the movements abroad. It will not answer that we issue literary productions as soon as possible after their completion. The impatient readers demand chapters by chapters, as they are spun from the brain and the heart of the author; facts, upon the instant of their discovery; and suggestions, as they flash from the contact of imagination and reflection.
The INTERNATIONAL WEEKLY MISCELLANY will be a result of efforts to satisfy a plain necessity of the times. It will combine the excellencies of all contemporary periodicals, with features that will be peculiar to itself.
I. A leading object will be to present the public, with the utmost rapidity and at the cheapest possible rate, the best of those works in Popular Literature which are appearing abroad in serials, or in separate chapters. With this view, we print in the first number the initial portions of the brilliant nautical romance now in course of publication in _Blackwood's Magazine_, under the title of "The Green Hand," by the author of the most celebrated fiction of its class in English literature, "Tom Cringle's Log;" and other works will be selected and carried on simultaneously, as they shall come to us with the stamp of sufficient merit.
II. The foreign periodicals are continually rich in novelettes of from two or three to a dozen chapters, which--being too short for separate volumes--are rarely reproduced at all in this country. Of these the INTERNATIONAL will contain the choicest selections.
III. Of the Quarterly Reviews the most admirable papers will be presented in full; and those works will in all cases be carefully examined for such valuable and striking passages as will be likely to interest the American reader, to whom the entire articles in which they appear may be unattractive.
IV. The Literary, Religious, Political and Scientific newspapers and magazines will be consulted for whatever will instruct or entertain in their several departments. The leading articles in the great journals, upon Affairs, and Philosophy, and Art, which are now very unfrequently reprinted in America, will appear in the INTERNATIONAL in such fullness and combination as to display the springs and processes of the world's action and condition.
V. But the work will not be altogether Foreign, nor a mere compilation. In its republications there will be a constant effort to display what is most interesting and important to the _American_; and in its original portions it will be supported by some of the ablest and most accomplished writers in all the fields of knowledge and opinion.
VI. As a Literary Gazette and Examiner, it is believed that it will equal or surpass any work now or ever printed in the United States. It will contain the earliest announcements of whatever movements in the literary world are of chief interest to general readers; its Reviews of Books will be honest and intelligent; and its extracts, when they can be given in advance of the publication of the works themselves, will be the choicest and most valuable possible. Without cant or hypocrisy, or the influence of any clique of feeble-minded and ambitious aspirants in letters, the INTERNATIONAL MISCELLANY will in this respect, the publishers trust, win and preserve the respect and confidence of all who look to published critical judgments as guides for the reading or purchase of books.
With a view to the more successful execution of the design to make the INTERNATIONAL MISCELLANY of the first class in Original Periodical Literature, as well as in Selections and Abstracts of what is already before the world abroad, contributors have been engaged to represent the various departments of Science, and to furnish sketches of manners, &c., from other countries, and the different sections of our own; the proceedings of Learned Societies will be noted; History, Biography, and Archæology will receive attention; and in foreign and American Obituary, such a record will be kept as will be of the most permanent and attractive value.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER.
The recent appearance of some half dozen editions--some of them very beautiful in typography and pictorial illustrations--of The Proverbial Philosophy of Mr. MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, reminds us of the observation of Dana, that something "resembling poetry" is oftentimes borne into instant and turbulent popularity, while a work of genuine character may be lying neglected by all except the poets. But "the tide of time," says the profound essayist, "flows on, and the former begins to settle to the bottom, while the latter rises slowly and steadily to the surface, and goes forward, for a spirit is in it." We are not without the hope that Richard H. Dana will one day be in as frequent demand as Martin Farquhar Tupper is now.
The merits of this "gentleman of acknowledged genius and sovereign popularity," we have never been able to discover. If oddity were always originality, if quaintness and beauty were synonymous, if paradox were necessarily wisdom, we should be ready to grant that Mr. Tupper is a wise, beautiful and original thinker. But thought, after all, is an affair of mind, and though a man of genius may write what is far more brilliant than common sense ever is, yet no man can utter valuable truth on mortal and prudential subjects, unless he possesses a vigorous and powerful understanding. Now Mr. Tupper's art consists in contriving, not thought, but things that look like thoughts; fancies, in imitation of truths. The Proverbial Philosophy, in fact, appears to us one of the most curious impositions we have ever met with. When you first read one of the aphorisms, it strikes you as a sentiment of extraordinary wisdom. But look more closely at it; try to apply it; and you will find that it is merely a trick of words. What flashed upon you as a profound distinction in morals, turns out to be nothing but a verbal antithesis. What was paraded, as a kind of transcendental analogy between things not before suspected of resemblance, discovered by the "spiritual insight" of the moral seer, is in fact no more than a grave clench,--a solemn quibble,--a conceit; arising not from the perfection of mind, but the imperfection of language. Those conceptions, fabricated by Fancy out of the materials that Fancy deals in, and colored by the rays of a poetic sentiment, wear the same relation to truths, that the prismatic hues of the spray of a fountain in the sunshine bear to the gems which it perhaps outshines. It dazzles and delights, but if we try to apprehend it we become bewildered; and finally discover that we were deceived by a brilliant phantom of air. You may admire Mr. Tupper; you may enjoy him; but you cannot understand him: the staple of his sentences is not stuff of the understanding. Take one of Mr. Tupper's and one of Lord Bacon's aphorisms; they flash with an equal bravery. But try them upon the glassy surface of life. Bacon's cut it as if it were air: Tupper's turn into a little drop of dirty water. One was a diamond, the other but an icicle: one was the commonest liquor artificially refrigerated; the other was a crystal in form, but in its substance the pure carbon of truth. If these bright delusions which Mr. Tupper turns out to the wonder and praise of his admirers, were really _thoughts_, is it to be supposed that he would go on in this way, stringing them together, or evolving one out of the other, as a spider weaves its unending line, or as a boy blows soap bubbles from the nose of a tobacco pipe! Fancies, conceits, intellectual phantoms, may be engendered out of the mind, brooding in self-creation upon its own suggestions: but _truth_ is to be mined from Nature, to be wrung from experience, to be seized as the victor's trophy on the battlefield of action and suffering. The flowers of poetry may bud spontaneously around the meditative spirit of genius, but the harvest of Truth, though, to be reaped by mind, must grow out of Reality.
RICHARD HENRY WILDE AND DANTE.
It appears that our accomplished and lamented countryman, Richard Henry Wilde, whose "Researches and Considerations concerning the Love and Imprisonment of Tasso" have been made use of with so discreditable a freedom by a recent English biographer of that poet, is--if another pretender prove not less successful--to be deprived also of the fame he earned by his discoveries in regard to Dante. A correspondent of _The Spectator_, under the signature of G. AUBREY BEZZI, writes as follows:--
"The questions are, what share Mr. Kirkup had in the recovery of the fresco of Giotto in the chapel of the Palazzo del Podesta at Florence, and whether directly or indirectly I have been the means of depriving him, or any of the coöperators in that good work, of the merit due to their labors. I shall best enable those who take an interest in this matter to arrive at a fair conclusion, by giving a short history of the recovery of that beautiful fresco. It was Mr. Wilde, and not Mr. Kirkup, who first spoke to me of this buried treasure. Mr. Wilde, an American gentleman respected by all that knew him, was then in Florence, engaged in a work on Dante and his times, which unfortunately he did not live to complete. Among the materials he had collected for this purpose, there were some papers of the antiquarian Moreni, which he was examining when I called one day, (I had then been three or four months in Florence,) to read what he had already written, as I was in the habit of doing from time to time. It was then that a foot-note of Moreni's met his eye, in which the writer lamented that he had spent two years of his life in unceasing and unavailing efforts to recover the portrait of Dante, and the other portions of the fresco of Giotto in the Bargello, mentioned by Vasari; that others before him had been equally anxious and equally unsuccessful; and that he hoped that better times would come, (verranno tempi migliori,) and that the painting, so interesting both in an artistic and historical point of view, would be again sought for, and at last recovered. I did not then understand how the efforts of Moreni and others could have been thus unsuccessful; and I thought that with common energy and diligence they might have ascertained whether the painting, so clearly pointed out by Vasari, was or was not in existence: several months, however, of wearisome labors in the same pursuit taught me to judge more leniently of the failures of my predecessors. Mr. Wilde put Moreni's note before me, and suggested and urged, that being an Italian by birth, though not a Florentine, and having lived many years in England and among the English, I had it in my power to bring two modes of influence to bear upon the research; and that such being the case I ought to undertake it. My thoughts immediately turned to Mr. Kirkup, an artist who had abandoned his art to devote himself entirely to antiquarian pursuits, with whom I was well acquainted, and who, having lived many years in Florence, (I believe fifteen,) would weigh the value of Moreni's testimony on this matter, and effectually assist me in every way, if I took it in hand. So I called upon him, either that same day or the next; and I found that he, like most other people, had read the passage in Vasari's life of Giotto, in which it is explicitly said, that the portrait of Dante had been painted with others in the Palazzo del Podesta, and was to be seen at the time the historian was writing; but that he had not read, or had not put any confidence in, the note of the Florence edition of Vasari published in 1832--1838, in which it is stated, that the Palazzo del Podesta had now become a prison--the Bargello; that the Chapel had been turned into a _dispensa_, (it was more like a coal-hole where the rags and much of the filth of the prison was deposited); that the walls of this dispensa exhibited nothing but a dirty coating, and that Moreni speaks of the painting in some published work; the annotator concluding thus--'It is hoped that some day or other we shall be able to see what there is under the coating of the walls.' So everybody hoped that some day or other the thing would be done, but nobody set about heartily to do it; and it is inconceivable to me that Mr. Kirkup, who shows in this letter, if it be his, such jealousy for the credit of the recovery, should have lived so many years in Florence either entirely ignorant of that which every shop-boy knew, or knowing there were chances of bringing such a treasure to light, that he should have never moved one step for that purpose. That Mr. Kirkup took no active part in this matter at any time, is quite proved by two admissions I find in the letter of your correspondent. He first says, 'I remember that the first time I passed to the Bargello to see it, I found Marini on a scaffold,' &c. The fact is, that several months had elapsed between the first presentation of the memorial and the erection of the scaffold, during which Mr. Kirkup admits that he never thought of visiting the place, while I had spent hours and hours there, under not very pleasant circumstances, and had detected raised aureolas and other evidences of old fresco. But he continues--'Marini was permitted to return to the work on account of the government; and at that point Bezzi returned to England. It was _some months afterwards that I heard that Marini had found certain figures_, and soon afterwards the discovery of Dante himself" (sic.) These two passages sufficiently show the nature of Mr. Kirkup's labors, and how far he was really eager in the pursuit of this object, both during the time when I was most deeply engaged in it, and also for 'some months' after I had quitted Florence. But to resume: Mr. Kirkup, however ignorant, or culpably negligent, or a little of both, he might previously have been on the subject, yet when I brought it before him, he at once admitted its importance, and made a liberal offer of money, if any should be required, to carry out the experiment. Thus encouraged by Mr. Wilde and by Mr. Kirkup, I sought and found among English, American, and Italian friends and acquaintances, many that were ready to assist the plan. Then it was that I drew up a memorial to the Grand Duke; not because I am an 'advocate,' as your correspondent is pleased to call me, for that is not the case, but simply because, having taken pains to organize the means of working out the common object, the coöperators thought that I could best represent what this common object was. In the memorial, I stated that, according to what Vasari, Moreni, and others had written, it was just possible that a treasure was lying hidden under the dirty coatings of the walls of the dispensa in the Bargello; that a society was already formed for the purpose of seeking with all care for this treasure; that all expenses would be gladly borne by the society; that should anything be found, we would either leave the paintings untouched, or have them removed at our expense to the gallery of the Uffizi, and that we begged of the Grand Duke the necessary sanction to begin our operations. The answer was favorable, and I was referred to Marchese Nerli, and to the Director of the Academy, to make the necessary arrangements. Then the real difficulties began: first, I was put off on account of the precautions that were to be taken in working in a prison; then, the Director was ill, or unavoidably engaged, or absent; I found, in short, that the object was to tire me out, and that I had to contend with the same power that had defeated Moreni and my other predecessors in the attempt. This battle continued many months. I have already spoken too much of my share in the pursuit of this object, and I will not enter into further details--some of them ludicrous--of this contention; but I will say explicitly, that, besides his encouragement, and his repeated offers of money, (which were not accepted because money was not wanted, at least not to any amount, and what was wanted I furnished myself,) Mr. Kirkup did not afford me any assistance. At this stage of the business, I met indeed with a most valuable ally, without whom I believe I should have been beaten; and that was Paolo Feroni, a Florentine nobleman and artist, to whom I have before expressed and now repeat my best acknowledgments. At the end of this long contention against obstacles which often eluded my grasp, the Grand Duke, in consequence of a second memorial I presented to him, issued a decree appointing a commission to carry out the proposed experiments. This commission was composed of two members I had myself proposed, viz. the sculptor Bartolini, and the Marchese Feroni, of myself, of the Direttore of the Edifizi Pubblici Machese Nerli, and of the Direttore of the Accademia delle Arti, the two latter ex-officio: further, the decree declines the proposed voluntary subscriptions, and places at the disposal of the Commissioners a sum of money which proved more than sufficient to cover all the expenses of the restoration of the fresco. The Commissioners employed the painter Marini, and the happy result of his carefulness and ability is now before the world.
"I will now conclude by asserting, that I had nothing to do with what has been said or written at Florence of this recovery, either in the _Strenna_, or at the meeting of the Scienziati, which was held in 1841, I believe, and at which the fresco of Giotto was naturally a great object of interest. I left Florence in May 1840, before the portrait of Dante was actually uncovered, so that I only saw a portion of the fresco. I have never heard, or read, or said, or written, anything tending to disparage the real coöperation of Mr. Kirkup, or of my late lamented friend Mr. Wilde, or of anybody else in this matter,--nay, that it was at my request that the editor of the English translation of Kugler's Handbook of the History of Painting, published in 1842, has in the preface of that book mentioned Mr. Kirkup as having assisted materially in the recovery. Besides the Marchese Feroni and the artist Signor Marini, there are many disinterested witnesses who have stated, and if called upon will repeat again, all the material points of my narrative; but, better than all, there is now in London an English gentleman, whom I am happy to be allowed to call my friend, who was in Florence part of the time, and saw with his own eyes the share I had in this laborious undertaking, which ought not to have brought this bitter contention upon me: he was an intimate friend of Mr. Wilde, with whom he had a long correspondence on this very subject, after Mr. Wilde's return to America."
We believe Mr. Bezzi is in error as to the incompleteness of Mr. Wilde's Life of Dante. Mr. Wilde, more than a year before his death, informed us that his work was nearly ready for the printer; and at the same time he confided to us for perusal his admirable translations of specimens of Italian Lyric Poets. We hope the descendants of our learned and ingenious friend will place these works, so creditable to his temper, scholarship, and genius, before the world.
GEORGE CORNEWALL LEWIS.
A work on _The Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion_ has lately attracted much and apparently well-deserved attention in England. It is by George Cornewall Lewis, M.P. for Herefordshire, and Under Secretary of State for the Home Department. He is the eldest son of the Right Honorable Sir Thomas Frankland Lewis, Bart., M.P. for Radnor District, was born in London, in 1806, and received his school education at Eton, which he entered in 1819, and where he was a pupil of Doctor Hawtrey, the present head master. The _Illustrated London News_ furnishes the following particulars of his subsequent career:
At Christmas, 1824, he left Eton, and in the following year entered Christ Church, Oxford, where as a student he was one of the few who gave attention to modern languages, and especially German, from which, jointly with Mr. Tufnell, he translated Müller's "Dorians." In 1828 he took his University degree as a first-class man in classics, and a second-class in mathematics. In the same year he entered the Middle Temple, and in 1831 was called to the bar, and joined the Oxford Circuit. He had studied for the bar with no less diligence than at the University; but in consequence of weakness of the chest, was obliged, after his first circuit, to abandon the profession, in which, had health allowed him, his success was certain. In 1835 he was placed upon the commission of inquiry into the relief of the poor, (on the report of which was founded the Irish Poor-law,) and the state of the Church in Ireland; and afterward drew up an able report on the condition of the Irish in Great Britain. In 1836 he was appointed, with Mr. John Austin, a Commissioner to inquire into the Government of the Island of Malta, especially as to its tariff and expenditure. The Commission laid an elaborate report before Parliament, in accordance with the recommendations of which, such reductions were made as rendered the tariff of Malta one of the least restrictive in the world, and materially extended its trade; and they succeeded in establishing the freedom of the press in the island.
In January, 1839, Mr. Lewis was appointed a Poor-Law Commissioner, and held the office until July, 1847; when, determining to enter Parliament, he resigned, and was returned, with Mr. Joseph Bailey, Jr., and Mr. Francis Wegg Prosser, both Conservatives and Protectionists, without opposition, for Herefordshire. In November, 1847, he was appointed joint secretary of the Board of Control, with Mr. James Wilson, M.P. for Westbury, and early in the following year made his first speech in the House, in opposition to a motion for the production of papers in the case of the lately deposed Rajah of Sattara. In April, 1848, Mr. Lewis was appointed Under Secretary of State for the Home Department, and was succeeded in the secretaryship of the Board of Control by the Hon. John E. Elliot, M.P. for Roxburghshire. In his present office Mr. Lewis has served on the Smithfield Market Commission, appointed in November, 1849, which has just brought up its report; and upon that subject, the Irish Poor-Law, and Mr. Disraeli's motion as to local burdens, has spoken in the House. Last year he brought forward a road bill to consolidate the management of highways, and dispose of the question of turnpike trusts and their advances. The bill was not proceeded with last session, and has again been brought forward this year, with reference, however, only to highways. Mr. Lewis has earned reputation as the translator of "Boukli's Public Economy of Athens," which, as well as the "Dorians," has become a textbook, and passed through a second edition; and is known as author of an able essay on the "Use and Abuse of Political Terms," published in 1832; on the "Origin and Formation of the Romance Languages," published in 1835; on "Local Disturbances in Ireland, and the Irish Church Question," in 1836; on the "Government of Dependencies," in 1841; and "On the Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion," in 1849.
ORIGINAL LETTER FROM DR. LAYARD UPON ANCIENT ART, &c.
We present in this number of the _International_ a communication from the most celebrated traveler of the nineteenth century, AUSTEN HENRY LAYARD, upon the sources of _Ancient Art_. It was addressed by the distinguished author to his friend and ours, Mr. MINOR K. KELLOGG, the well-known painter, who was for some time with DR. LAYARD in the East.
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MY DEAR FRIEND:
I frequently wish that you were here with me; I could find you subjects which would astonish you. However, I suppose you are desirous of hearing something about my proceedings. When I said that the arts may have passed from Egypt into Greece, I merely alluded to the popular opinion, without adhering to it. It is not altogether improbable that they came from another source. Phoenicia was too much of a trading province to devote any great attention to the higher branches of the arts, and I am not aware of any monuments existing which can be traced to that people, and show a very high knowledge of architecture or sculpture. The designs we have on their early coins, and particularly if the coins called "the unknown of Celicia," and those belonging to cities on the southern coast of Asia Minor, were introduced by the Phoenician colonists, evidently show that Phoenicia had borrowed from the Assyrians and not from the Egyptians. Indeed, as their language and written character (for the cuneiform, you must remember, appears only to have been a monumental character, perhaps Semetic, like the hieroglyphics of Egypt), coincided with those of the Assyrian, it is most probable that their sympathies were with that people.
I assume that the language of the two nations was the same; this may have been the case at one period, but whether throughout the existence of the Assyrian empire, may be doubtful. At any rate, I believe the real Assyrians and the Phoenicians, like all the nations occupying Syria and Mesopotamia, to have been of the pure Semetic stock. I regret that I have not time to make you a sketch of a bas-relief. A specimen of this kind would at once show you how much nearer allied the arts of Greece are with those of Assyria, than with those of Egypt. One thing appears now to be pretty certain--that all Western Asia, Persia, Susiana, Media, Asia Minor, &c. were fundamentally indebted to Assyria for their knowledge of the arts. Persepolis is a mere copy of an Assyrian monument, as far as the sculpture and ornaments are concerned, with the addition of external architecture, of which, as far as I am yet able to judge, the Assyrians appear to have been almost entirely ignorant.
There is no reason, therefore, to reject altogether the supposition that the Arts may have been transmitted from Assyria, through Phoenicia, into Greece, or, indeed, that the Arts may have passed into that country through Asia Minor. The Assyrians, in the extreme elegance and taste displayed in their ornaments, in their study of anatomy, and in their evident attempts at composition, had much in common with the Greeks. I think artists will be surprised when they see the collection of drawings I have been able to make, and that one of the results of the discoveries at Nimroud will be new views with regard to the early history of the arts.
When I first came here, all the Arabs around told me that Nimroud was built by Athur, or Assur, and that it was the ancient capital of Assyria. Great faith may generally be placed in such traditions in the East. In Mesopotamia, and in the country watered by the Tigris and Euphrates, it is astonishing how names have been preserved, even when, during Greek, Roman, or other dominion, other cities were built on the site and named anew. The new names have long been lost, and the old are this day to be found in the mouth of the Bedouin. I need only mention Tadmor and Harran. In a religious point of view, there is no doubt that much important information may be expected from a careful investigation of the monuments of Assyria. During my labors, without being able to devote much thought or attention to the subject, I have been continually struck with the curious illustrations of little understood passages in the Bible which these records afford. In an historical and archæological point of view, I know nothing more interesting and more promising than the examination of the ruins of Assyria. One of the vastest empires that ever existed--the power of whose king extended, at one period, over the greater part of Assyria--whose advance in civilization and knowledge is the theme of ancient historians--disappeared so suddenly from the face of the earth, that it has left scarcely a trace, save its name, behind. Even the names of its kings are not satisfactorily known, and out of the various dynastic lists preserved, we are unable to select one worthy of credit. As to their deeds, we have been in the most profound darkness, and were it not for the record of their strength and greatness which we find in the Scriptures, we should scarcely credit the few traditions which the Greeks have preserved to us. After the lapse of two thousand five hundred years, a mere chance has thrown their history in our way, and we have now their deeds chronicled in writing and in sculpture.
Were I much given to the explanation of such things by a reference to superhuman interference, I should be inclined to think that the Almighty had designedly kept these monuments buried in the Earth, until the time had arrived when man had sufficient leisure and knowledge to discover the contents of records, written in an unknown character, that He might prove to them how great was the power which He so suddenly destroyed, and how fully the prophecies upon the subject were fulfilled. Had these sculptures and inscriptions remained above ground, they would have utterly disappeared long ere any records could have been made of their former existence. Had they been casually discovered before the present century, they would most probably have been used for cement in the construction of the walls of a city. In fact, the moment for their discovery has, in every way, been most propitious. However, I will not enter into such speculations, but leave them to those who are that way inclined. A. H. L.
_ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE._
WANDERINGS IN THE PENINSULA.
GRENADA, May 18, 1850.
MY DEAR FRIEND--It affords me much pleasure to write you from the midst of the terrestrial paradise into which my romantic wanderings have at length brought me. Almost every one who sets out from home with the object of travel, looks forward to some one or two spots, which, in the light of imagination, glitter like stars in the bright prospective. To me, the two cities which most aroused my curiosity and pleased my fancy, were first, Grenada, in which I now am, and Venice, to which I still look forward with a brighter hope, gilded with the rays of memory, and clustering with the rosebuds of coming days. In Grenada, my expectations, sanguine as they were, have been more than realized. It is the nearest approach to paradise that I have yet seen: a spot that cannot disappoint any one, as the best part of its beauty, like that of a beautiful woman, is of a nature, that not even genius itself can describe. I visit the "Alhambra" daily, and write a letter within its sacred precincts. Externally the "Alhambra" has a severe and forbidding appearance, like that of an ancient fortress, but within, it exceeds in beauty all one's preconceptions, however warm and extravagant they may be. The terrace which conducts to it, after having passed through the huge gate which opens into its jurisdiction, is embowered with tall, straight, and overhanging elms, nicely trimmed and of the richest foliage, while here and there a fountain marks the bends in the road. Along this enchanting walk marble seats are arranged, where one can repose for a moment to listen to the notes of the nightingales in the adjacent groves, and charm his fancy with the melodious rippling of water at his feet. If one has any feeling in his soul, in such a spot as this he is sure to find it. If he has a woman with him he is certain to fall in love, and if he has not, he may perhaps fall--_asleep_!
Besides the "Alhambra," there are numerous objects of peculiar interest to be seen in Grenada. The Cathedral, though inferior to those of Seville and Toledo in magnificence and grandeur, is nevertheless a splendid edifice, and is rendered particularly interesting as being the last resting-place of Ferdinand and Isabella, the wisest sovereigns who ever ruled over Spain. Yesterday we visited the royal chapel, and beheld the beautiful monument erected to their memory. In its architecture it struck me as being exceedingly unique, the work of consummate skill and exquisite taste. It is of delicate alabaster, and was wrought, it is said, at Genoa, by Peralla. It is about twelve feet in length by some ten in breadth, profusely covered with figures and ingenious designs in relief, while upon it, as upon a bridal couch, the statues of Ferdinand and Isabella, in their royal robes, are extended side by side--their faces like those of life, in calm and beautiful repose, elevated toward heaven. Having examined the monument for some time, we descended into the little arched vault beneath, which contained the coffins of the deceased monarchs. These were of lead, strongly bound with iron, and the letter F., upon that of Ferdinand, was the only sign which distinguished them from each other. While in that small chamber of the dead, my memory ran back to the great events of the fifteenth century--the discovery of America and the conquest of Grenada--which owed their origin to the enterprise of the two famous personages whose ashes were inclosed in the heavy leaden cases at my feet; and I never felt more profoundly the insignificance of earthly renown, or the vanity of individual glory. "The paths of glory lead but to the grave." Coming from the tomb, we were next shown a sceptre and crown which had been used by the illustrious dead. Also a sword which Ferdinand himself wore in his battles with the Moors. Leaving the Cathedral, we proceeded along to the Moorish palace called "The Generaliffe." This edifice is not far from the "Alhambra," and is separated from it by a deep and romantic ravine. Passing through a level avenue of cypress and rosebushes, we arrived at its main entrance. The first view of the interior was ravishing. The virgin stream of the Daru, here collected in a narrow canal, was rushing with a musical sound through arbors of cypresses and files of flowery trees, arranged like fairy sentinels on either side. Passing on, we soon reached the "trysting-place" of Zoraya, the frail Sultana. This spot certainly is too exquisitely beautiful for me to describe. It is of a rectangular form, and bordered with beds of flowers and handsome trees. On one side is an arbor of gigantic cypresses, beautifully trained, the trunks of which were tastefully enamelled with delicate vines, laden with blooming roses. Within the square is an artificial pond of water, sparkling with golden fishes, in the centre of which is a fairy-like island, teeming with flowers of numerous kinds. The general effect of the view was like that of enchantment, or like one of those indescribable scenes that sometimes visit us in dreams, the beauty of which surpasses reality. But my time will not allow me to indulge very largely in detail. From the "Generaliffe" we proceeded to several of the churches, and afterward to an extensive mad-house. We were not a little amused. One old gentleman, _about_ the "_maddest of the lot_," who had formerly been a general in the Spanish army, told me he liked his present quarters very well, but that his companions were nothing better than a pack of fools! The grounds about this humane establishment are prettily laid out in gardens and handsome walks, and the patients themselves have a spacious and pleasant yard for their exercise and recreation. All this reflects favorably upon the character of the Spanish people, who are ever kind to such as are afflicted or in distress. They never scoff at human suffering in any form, however fond they may be of the savage ferocity of the bull-fight. They are compassionate to the poor, and even when the request of a beggar is denied, it is done in such gentle terms, that the denial is robbed of its sting. "Pardon me for God's sake, brother," is the usual form. I have found much to admire among the Spaniards. No nation, not even the French, exceeds them in true politeness or good breeding. When I left Madrid, a friend of mine procured for me an introductory letter, from a lady whom to this day I have never seen, addressed to her children living at Grenada. To my great surprise, the ladies called in their carriage yesterday and inquired for me, although I had not then presented my letter of introduction. To-day I called upon the family, in company with Mr. Wetmore, (a young American from New York, who has just reached Grenada from Madrid,) and was most hospitably and kindly received. One of the young ladies has perhaps the sweetest face I ever saw, and to her beauty her graceful manners add an indescribable charm. I am quite certain that it would be impossible for me or any other man to see her many times with impunity. The influence of such attractions with me, I confess, is quite irresistible. Beauty is more potent than any other agent of human power, and he who is able to resist it must be a heartless Samson indeed.
Truly yours, JOHN E. WARREN.
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BLACKWOOD ON DANCERS IN SMALLCLOTHES.
--For a man to be fond of shuffling and twirling himself out of the dignity of step which nature gave him--picking his way through a quadrille like a goose upon red hot bricks, or gyrating like a bad teetotum in what English fashionables are pleased to term a "valse"--I never see a man thus occupied without a fervent desire to kick him.
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Sincerity is like traveling on a plain beaten road, which commonly brings a man sooner to his journey's end than by-ways, in which men often lose themselves.
"MARKS OF BARHAMVILLE."
We were summoned one evening some three or four months ago to the house of an eminent New Yorker to hear read the manuscript verses of a gentleman from South Carolina, who was quite sure that he had earned for himself a name that should endure forever as a part of the national glory. We had good wine and the choicest company, and these kept us from sleep through numerous scenas and cantos, and if we formed any judgment in the premises we believe we did not express one. In due time Messrs. Appleton published the book, and as it has not been noticed much here, we copy from the June _Fraser_ the following paragraphs about it, premising that our author had no faith in American criticism, but was quite willing to abide the decisions of English reviewers:
"The general fault of carelessness and clumsiness runs through the volume of poems, apparently, of a Trans-atlantic author, 'Marks of Barhamville.' The book is just three times as large as it should have been--as is usually the case nowadays. When will poets learn that 'brevity is the soul of wit:' and more, that saying a thing in three weak lines is no substitute whatsoever for the power of saying it in one strong one? Of the first poem in the book, 'Elfreide of Guldal,' we are unable to speak, having been unable to read it; but it evinces at least more historic information than is common just now among our poets, who seem to forget utterly that _ex nihilo nihil fit_, and that the brains of man may be as surely pumped dry as any other vessel, if nothing be put in to replace what is taken out. Mr. Marks cannot avoid, too, giving us, like every one else, a set of clinical lectures on the morbid anatomy of his own inner man, under the appropriate title of '_Weeds_ from Life's Sea-shore;' forgetting that sea-weeds must be very rare and delicate indeed to be worth preserving in a _hortus siccus_, instead of being usefully covered out of sight in the nearest earth-heap, there to turn into manure. He is, however, more objective than most of his self-exenterating compeers; but he wants the grace and cheerful lightness of the American school. A large part of his volume is taken up with 'Maia, a masque'--an imitation of Milton's manner, but not, alas! of his melody and polish; as, for instance:--
"'Not a warbler wakes his lay, Not a dewdrop pearls the spray, Not a fleecy cloud-rack sails 'Fore the warm-breath'd summer gales, Shedding blessings on the earth, But heavenward points its primal birth.
"Hark! the green-sedg'd chiming rill, Weeding down yon cot-crown'd hill, The torrent's dash, the river's gush, The mighty wind-resounding crush Of the fallen monarch of the wood, Re-echo'd by the distant flood.
"However, this masque is readable enough, though Flora and Zephyrus, Oberon and Titania, not much wanted anywhere in the nineteenth century, seem oddly out of place amid 'whippoor-wills,' and 'mockbirds,' and other Yankee nationalities, pleasing and natural as they are in themselves. How did they get into the Alleghanies? By liner or steamer? In the main cabin or the steerage? And were they, were they sea-sick? One would fear it from the unwonted huskiness of their new utterances.
"The best thing in the book is 'Semaël,' though the plot is neither very apparent nor very novel, the imagery as trite as need be, the blank verse heavy and monotonous, without breaks, grouping, or relief, and the accents as often as not on the prepositions:--
"'_Thé_ felucca there With lateen-sail, seen _ín_ th' horizon-skirt Shaping its course t'ward _thé_ Egyptian shore,
"(Which Egyptian shore?)
"Gives _tó_ the moon the silv'ry foam, which breaks
"(Could it give the foam _from_ the moon?)
"'Gainst _thé_ sharp keel, and tracks the wave with light. While just beneath him bounds the lighter skiff With bird-like speed; and darting _tó_ the shore, Lowers _íts_ white sail,
"(Not another bark's, mind!)
and moors its painted prow
"(Oh, schoolboy's phrase!)
"Close _tó_ the cliff. Disporting _ín_ the sheen....
"And so forth.
"And yet this whole passage, and what follows, is really imaginative and picturesque, but spoilt by carelessness, carelessness, carelessness. Either write verses, we say again, or prose. And unless the metre and accent coincide with the sense, and make music when read merely as prose is read, the lines are a makeshift and a failure, and neither worth writing or reading, though they were as fanciful and overloaded as Mr. Browning's, or as grandiloquent and sugary as Mr. ---- Who's?"
* * * * *
Lord Brougham, who next to the Duke of Wellington is now unquestionably the first man of the British Empire, a few days ago in the House of Lords complained of an instance of libel of a species which is extremely common in the United States, and which is of all species the most irritating and offensive. Lord Brougham observed, that no one who had lived so long as he had in Parliament had ever taken notice so seldom of any libellous matter published, or of any breach of privilege committed against him. He might also add, that no person had ever been more the object of the most indiscriminate, and he might say the most absurd and the most unfounded abuse. Nevertheless, in all such cases he had adopted a neutral course, and had left the truth to come out in the natural lapse of events. There was, however, one species of breach of privilege which he had never been disposed to pass unnoticed. Attacks one must undergo. To be exposed to attacks was the fate of all men who lived in public. No man ought to shrink from or be too sensitive to attacks; but, under pretence of stating what a lord had said in Parliament, to put words into his mouth which he had never uttered, for the purpose, the express purpose, of calumniating him,--words which the writer of the calumny must have well known that he had never uttered, to put such words into his mouth for such a purpose, formed a case in which he thought that the party calumniated was bound to bring the party so offending under the notice of their lordships. Lord Brougham proceeded to arraign the _Daily News_ for an example of this crime which would have done no dishonor to the inventive faculties of the _Literary World_.
* * * * *
A MOCK GUILLOTINE.--DELIRIUM TREMENS ON THE STAGE.--It is stated in _Galignani's Messenger_ that at the end of the late carnival two married women of Vidauban Department of the Var manufactured a lay figure, entirely in white, and, after attaching a chain round its neck, placed it in a small cart. Many of the inhabitants then paraded it through the village in solemn procession, accompanied by a crowd of men carrying axes, &c., and singing revolutionary songs. After a while they formed a sort of revolutionary tribunal, and the figure, which was called "Blanc," was gravely tried, and, by the majority of the votes of the crowd, condemned to death, the principal judge, a man named Arnaud, saying, "Blanc! you prevent us from dancing farandoles, and therefore we condemn you to death!" Thereupon, a man seized the figure, placed it on a plank, and at one blow with his axe severed the head from the body. A bottle of wine had been placed in the neck of the figure, and, this having been broken by the blow, a resemblance of blood was produced. The head was then cast into the crowd and torn to pieces by them. This scandalous scene created a most painful impression throughout the department. A few days afterward, four men who played a principal part in the affair, and the two women who made the figure, were brought to trial on the charge of exciting citizens to hatred of each other. The men pleaded drunkenness as an excuse--the women declared that they had only intended to amuse their children. Four of the accused were acquitted, and the other two, who had acted as judge and executioner, were condemned to four and three months' imprisonment. It is a pity that by the application of some such law, the disgustingly vulgar and brutalizing piece called _The Drunkard_, which has lately been played with "immense success" at Barnum's Theatre, (and in which the chief characters appear in all the stages of degradation until one of them is nearly dead with the delirium tremens), cannot be suppressed. With all its pretensions to morality, the play is irredeemably bad and base.
* * * * *
The CINCINNATI ART UNION advertises Powers's Greek Slave as one of its prizes, and publishes an engraving of it which should frighten away all subscriptions.
* * * * *
AMERICAN EXTENSION AND CONQUEST.--The Daily News thus opens an article upon the recent attempt to invade Cuba:
"Shortly after the American war; a sapient French statesman, writing from Louisiana to his royal master in Paris, advised the French government to cultivate a close and intimate alliance with the Cherokee Indians, who, occupying as they did the defiles of the Alleghanies, would form a permanent bulwark between the young Anglo-Saxon republic and the French possessions on the Mississippi. But the permanent bulwark could no more resist the advancing wave than a lath and plaster breakwater could withstand the seas of the Channel. In a few short years not a vestige of it was to be found, and in less than a quarter of a century both French and Cherokees had disappeared from the scene. Not only were the defiles of the Alleghanies opened, but the Alleghanies themselves have since been virtually removed. Ever since the foundation of the republic, our American kinsmen have been anxious to emulate and surpass us in indulging that desire for territorial acquisition, which seems to be, for the present at least, the ruling passion of the Anglo-Saxon mind. Confined at first between the Alleghanies and the Atlantic, they gradually spread westward to the Mississippi, of both banks of which, from its sources to its _embouchure_, they possessed themselves as early as 1806. Their coast line, which, originally, did not extend beyond the St. Mary, was soon afterward carried round the peninsula of Florida, and along the northern shore of the Mexican Gulf, westward to the mouth of the Sabine. Not satisfied with this, they planted themselves in Texas, and some years afterward transferred their boundary to the Rio Grande. Oregon, New Mexico, and California, fell in quick succession within the grasp of the confederacy. The entire disappearance of the Spaniard from the continent is a consummation, not even doubtful, but simply awaiting the convenience of the encroaching Anglo-Saxon. For the accession of Canada, time is implicitly relied upon--the idea of conquest in that quarter being out of the question--and thus it is that even sober-minded men are beginning to believe that the time is not far off when the glowing prophecies of the most sanguine will be realized, that the boundaries of the republic would yet be the Isthmus, the North Pole, and the two oceans."
* * * * *
LEDRU ROLLIN'S new work, "The Decline of England," of which the first volume only has appeared, is, as might have been anticipated, savagely attacked in most of the British journals. The _Times_ observes:
"M. Ledru Rollin professes to be a philosopher and a statesman, and, being induced by somewhat peculiar circumstances to reflect upon the condition of this country, he was, he tells us, driven to the conclusion that we are a declining people, destined in no short period to exhibit to mankind a fearful spectacle of misery and ruin. Some persons have thought, that the many manifestations of material wealth and power which must have presented themselves to the eyes and mind of M. Ledru Rollin, even on the most casual observation, should have induced him in his character of philosoper to hesitate in deciding so hastily, and with such emphasis, that our destruction is imminent. But in our opinion there are events of everyday occurrence connected with our social habits and customs--events which from their frequency cease to excite our attention--which should be deemed still more important and significant, and which to one really deserving the name of a philosopher would appear more powerful guarantees for the future happiness of a people among whom they occur than any afforded by mere proofs of great wealth, power, or skill. It is much the fashion with those who delight to deal in doleful vaticinations as to the future destiny of England, to dwell with great emphasis upon the amazing diversity of conditions to be seen here--to exaggerate the suffering of the millions of our poor, and to place them in a sort of rhetorical contrast with the extravagant wealth of a favored few. But there is still something in the mutual relations of all classes of society in this country that proves a healthy condition to exist in our body politic, that shows that we are really brethren, and that whether interest or kind sympathies govern us we are still one people--with great differences of opinion among us indeed, openly expressed by all, but still with a feeling prevalent in all classes of the community that we form one people, and that we are, from the most powerful to the most weak, bound together by ties of great regard as well as national brotherhood."
* * * * *
THE LATE CATASTROPHE ON LAKE ERIE.--Our whole country has been once more shocked by an appalling and unnecessary loss of life, from the burning of the steamer Griffith. We use the expression, _unnecessary loss of life_, not from any hasty impulse, or undue excitement, but in view of the evident and undeniable fact, that two hundred and fifty human beings have been sacrificed for a culpable neglect on the part of the proprietors of the steamer to furnish suitable protection. No one competent to judge will doubt that every individual on the Griffith might have been saved had she been provided with life-boats. The avarice of proprietors has generally prevented their use, though the cost of a sufficient number for each steamer would not exceed _one thousand dollars_. The lives of hundreds of men, women and children are of little account to a corporation, when weighed against a thousand dollars of their capital stock. Life-boats cannot save their _burning property_, and why impair their own interests for the saving a few hundred lives now and then? We have the approbation of every _disinterested_ citizen, when we suggest to Congress some law which shall compel steamboat owners to protect their passengers in case of accident, by suitable life-saving apparatus. Fire-proof paints and other incombustible materials are very wisely demanded, but our navigation is exposed to a thousand other dangers, which can be guarded against by no other means so effectually as by life-boats; and it should be within the duties of the inspectors to see that steamers are in all instances furnished with a sufficient number of them to contain their full complement of passengers.
* * * * *
M. LAMARTINE has left Paris to visit his estate in the East.
_RECENT DEATHS._
JANE PORTER.--As in the case of the recent death of Miss Edgeworth, it is singular that so little notice has been taken of the demise of Jane Porter, one of the most distinguished novelists which England has produced. Miss Porter may be said to have been the first who introduced that beautiful kind of fiction, the historical romance, which has added such amusement and interest to English literature. The author of "Thaddeus of Warsaw" and "The Scottish Chiefs" has done much to deserve the lasting respect and gratitude of her country.
The family of this excellent woman and able writer, according to the _Illustrated News_, is of Irish descent. Her father was an officer of dragoons in the British service; he married a Miss Blenkinsopp, of the Northumbrian house of Blenkinsopp, which Camden styles "a right ancient and generous family." Miss Porter's father died in the prime of life, and left his widow with five almost infant children, in slender circumstances. The great talents of this orphan family raised them to affluence and distinction. Three of the children were sons; of these, the eldest perished in a dangerous climate abroad, at the commencement of a promising career; the second (the present Dr. William Ogilvie Porter, of Bristol) became a physician, and practiced successfully. The third was the late Sir Robert Ker Porter, K.C.H., distinguished as an author, a painter, and a soldier: some of our finest battle-pieces are the work of his pencil, and he himself followed heroes to the field; he was with Sir John Moore when he fell victoriously at Corunna, and he earned a high reputation throughout the Peninsular war. He afterward became a diplomatist, and was latterly consul at Venezuela. His "Traveling Sketches in Russia and Egypt" procured him also an author's fame. Sir Robert Ken Porter died suddenly about seven years ago; he left by his wife, a Russian lady, an only daughter, who is married, and resides in Russia. The two sisters of these brothers Porter were even more distinguished. The younger of them, Miss Anna Maria Porter, became an authoress at twelve years of age; she wrote many successful novels, of which the most popular were the "Hungarian Brothers," the "Recluse of Norway," and the "Village of Mariendorpt." She died at her brother's residence at Bristol, on the 6th of June, 1832. The elder sister, Miss Jane Porter, the subject of this notice, was born at Durham, where her father's regiment was quartered at the time. She, with her sister, Anna Maria, received her education under a famous Scotch tutor, Mr. Fulton, at Edinburgh, where her widowed mother lived with her children in their early years. The family afterward removed, first to Ditton, and thence to Esher, in Surrey, where Mrs. Porter, a most intelligent and agreeable lady, resided with her daughters for many years, until her death, in 1831. Mrs. Porter was buried in the churchyard at Esher; and on her tomb the passer-by may read this inscription, "Here lies Jane Porter, a Christian widow." As a novelist Miss Jane Porter obtained the highest celebrity. Her three most renowned productions were her "Thaddeus of Warsaw," written when she was about twenty years of age, her "Scottish Chiefs," and her "Pastor's Fireside." "Thaddeus of Warsaw" had immense popularity; it was translated into most of the Continental languages, and Poland was loud in its praise. Kosciusko sent the author a ring containing his portrait. General Gardiner, the British Minister at Warsaw, could not believe that any other than an eye-witness had written the story, so accurate were the descriptions, although Miss Porter had not then been in Poland. The "Scottish Chiefs" was equally successful. With regard to this romance, it is known that Sir Walter Scott admitted to George IV., one day, in the library at Carlton Palace, that the "Scottish Chiefs" was the parent in his mind of the Waverley Novels. In a letter written to her friend Mr. Litchfield, about three months ago, Miss Porter, speaking of these novels, said:--"I own I feel myself a kind of sybil in these things; it being full fifty years ago since my 'Scottish Chiefs' and 'Thaddeus of Warsaw' came into the then untrodden field. And what a splendid race of the like chroniclers of generous deeds have followed, brightening the track as they have advanced! The author of 'Waverley,' and all his soul-stirring 'Tales of my Landlord,' &c. Then comes Mr. James, with his historical romances, on British and French subjects, so admirably uniting the exquisite fiction with the fact, that the whole seems equally verity. But my feeble hand" (Miss Porter was ailing when she wrote the letter) "will not obey my wish to add more to this host of worthies. I can only find power to say with my trembling pen that I cannot but esteem them as a respected link with my past days of lively interest in all that might promote the virtue and true honor of my contemporaries from youth to age." These eloquent words become the more touching, when we consider that within three months after they were written, this admirable lady quitted this life in the honored maturity of her fame.
Miss Porter wrote, in conjunction with her sister, "Tales round a Winter's Hearth." She was also an indefatigable contributor to the periodicals of the day. Her biographical sketch of Colonel Denham, the African traveler, in the _Naval and Military Journal_, was much admired as one of the most affecting tributes ever paid to departed merit. Miss Porter was a Chanoiness of the Polish order of St. Joachim, which honor was conferred upon her after the publication of "Thaddeus of Warsaw." She is, in her portraits, generally represented in the habit of this order. Miss Porter died on the 24th ult., at the residence of her brother, Dr. Porter, in Portland-square, Bristol. That brother, so tenderly beloved by her, and so justly respected by all who know him, is now the last survivor of this brilliant company of brothers and sisters; and he, too, we are sorry to say, is in an enfeebled state from paralysis, aggravated by the recent shock of his gifted relative's demise. Except himself and his married niece in Russia, there remains no representative of a family which England has good cause to hold in grateful remembrance.
* * * * *
THE COUNT DE VITTRÉ.--The Paris journals announce the death of one of the most distinguished officers of the French army, General Count de Vittré, Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor, &c. Charles de Raity de Villeneuve, Count de Vittré, was descended from an old and noble family of Poitou, was the comrade of Napoleon at the Military School, and took a glorious part in the campaign of Russia, where he was severely wounded. He also distinguished himself in the Spanish expedition in 1823, where he had under his orders General Changarnier, the Duke de Crillon, and M.A. Carrel, who, on account of his valor, gave him the surname of the Bayard of the 19th Century. General Count de Vittré was uncle to M. Hugues de Coval, a distinguished political writer of Paris.
* * * * *
GLOVER, THE PAINTER.--A Van Diemen's Land newspaper announces the death, at the advanced age of eighty-two, of Mr. Glover, the painter, whose pictures of English scenery are well known to lovers of landscape art.
* * * * *
MATTHEW L. DAVIS died on the 15th June, at the age of 84. He had been for two or three years enfeebled, and for the last year confined to his room, but he retained his mental faculties and his physical powers until after his eightieth year, owing, in great measure, to the temperance of his habits, his fondness for exercise, and his elastic, hopeful temperament. Mr. Davis was preëminently a politician through life, and aided to organize and give triumph to "the Republican party," so called, more than half a century ago, when the Federal or Washingtonian party was prostrated not more by its own follies than by the ability and tact of its leading adversaries. Half the good management and efficient activity that served to elect Jefferson would have sufficed to defeat him. And nowhere was the battle of Democracy fought with greater address or against more formidable odds than in this State and City, under the consummate generalship of Aaron Burr, of whom Davis was the untiring lieutenant and confidential friend.
Though so long and so deeply immersed in Politics, possessing decided talents and a thorough knowledge of public affairs, Mr. Davis never held any prominent office. He did not seem to be an ambitious man. He was once wealthy, and became poor, but he never seemed elated by prosperity nor humbled by adversity. He was not a fortunate politician, and he seemed to love the smoke of the battle more than the plunder of the field. He was quite often on the unlucky side--for Crawford in '24--for Adams in '28--for Clay in '32,--and so on. His side was taken from impulse and personal liking, not from selfish calculation. He had known almost every man who figures in the history of our country since the Revolutionary era, and, while his faculties remained, his conversation was remarkably instructive and entertaining. In early life Mr. Davis was engaged in trade, and was moderately successful, but he gave up business to devote himself more entirely to politics, He reëntered commercial life before the last war with England, and his house (Davis & Strong) was fortunate in South American speculations, of the profits of which he himself received some $50,000, which, however, was soon lost. For half a century he was an industrious writer. He produced several very clever pamphlets upon men and affairs, and was for many years known as "The Spy in Washington" for the _Courier and Enquirer_, and "The Genevese Traveler" for the _London Times_. Burr bequeathed to him all his papers, and from these and his memoranda and recollections he prepared and published, in 1838, "Memoirs of Aaron Burr, with Miscellaneous Selections from his Correspondence," in 2 vols. 8vo., and "The Private Journal of Aaron Burr during his Residence of Four Years in Europe, with Selections from his Correspondence," 2 vols. 8vo.
* * * * *
REV. JOSEPH SAMUEL C. F. FREY, a well-known Baptist clergyman, died at Pontiac, Michigan, in the 79th year of his age, on the 5th of June. He was born of Jewish parents, in Germany, and was for several years reader in a Synagogue. When about twenty-five years old, he became a Christian, and soon after a student of divinity at Berlin. He was subsequently engaged nearly all the time in efforts to convert the Jews. It was at his suggestion that the London Missionary Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews, was founded, in 1808. In 1816 he came to the United States, and was for a time pastor of a Presbyterian Church in this city, but changing his views upon the subject of baptism, he joined the Baptist Church, and was settled over congregations at Newark and at Sing Sing, until, through his means, the Society for Meliorating the Condition of the Jews was founded, and he became its missionary. He wrote several books, which display considerable learning and an amiable and honorable temper. The most popular of his productions is one entitled "Joseph and Benjamin," designed to illustrate the points of difference between the Jews and Christians.
_SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANIES._
MR. PAINE'S HYDRO-ELECTRIC LIGHT.--All the past eras that are marked by especial characteristics and glories must yield before our own, the AGE OF DISCOVERY, which bequeaths to the new generations so many applications of steam and electricity, so many inventions in all the arts, and such vast enterprises undertaken and accomplished for the good of mankind. These, as the _Tribune_ eloquently says, are the immortal monuments of our times, and dwarf earlier performances into a very inferior position. What are the pyramids to a line of steamships? What is there in Homer or Plato worthy to be mentioned on the day when Professor Morse sets up his telegraph, and mightier than Jupiter, the cloud-compeller, with the lightnings of Heaven flashes intelligence from Halifax to New Orleans, as rapidly as the behests of the mind reach the fingers? How petty and narrow seem the ambition and desires of Alexander or Napoleon when the bold and prophetic genius of Whitney, dealing with continents and nations as with parishes and neighborhoods, stretches his iron road around half the globe and shows you, moving forward and backward over its rails, the flux and reflux of a world's commerce and intercourse, a sublime tide of benefits and universal relations! What poet, what artist, what philosopher, what statesman, has equalled in grandeur these conceptions of science, or the splendid results which have followed their practical realization? Not one. And the reason of this is plain. These things are filled with the spirit of future centuries, while our Art, Literature, Statesmanship, Philosophy, are either mere dead relics of the past, or the poor makeshifts of a present, not yet equal to the business Providence has given it to perform.
It is claimed for Mr. Paine that he has found out the means of producing the greatest revolution which physical science can well be supposed to make in the business and comfort of society. As far as we apprehend his claim, it is that he has established as a new principle of science that electricity possesses the qualities of weight, compressibility and gravitation; that he has proved water to be in reality a simple elemental substance, which he can decompose or transform into either hydrogen or oxygen gas according to its electrical condition, and according as positive or negative electricity is applied to it; and that he has invented the means whereby from water he can produce at will either of these gases without any other than mechanical agency and with no expense save that of the machine, which will cost at the outset $400 or $500, and last for an indefinite period. If this is true, it is unquestionably the greatest discovery of modern times, and will produce a change in affairs of all sorts so profound and extensive as to surpass and bewilder the mind which seeks to imagine it. When with a pail of water you can without expense light and heat your house; when coal mines are useless, and steamships draw their fuel from the waves they traverse; then the comforts and luxuries of life, and the means of traveling will be diminished in price so as to come within the ability of every man; a great deal of the most toilsome and disagreeable work now performed will become unnecessary; and a vast step will be made toward a more just and equal distribution of social advantages. Mr. Paine is now engaged at the Astor House in preparations to light that immense hotel with his hydro-electric gas, and the result of his experiment is looked for with profound interest. We confess little faith in his success.
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The story of an American inventor named REMINGTON--who a year or two since addressed to the late Mr. Senator Lewis, of Alabama, a history of his adventures, which was published in the _Merchant's Magazine_--must be well-remembered, for its intrinsic interest, and on account of the denials and refutations of portions of it by certain persons in London to whom allusion was made in Mr. Remington's letter. The invention, the Remington Bridge, seems now to be exciting no little attention both in England and in this country. The principle which gives to it its great strength, is the peculiar construction of its longitudinal supporters, investing them with all the tenacity that wood has when it is sought to be drawn apart. Thus it is capable of sustaining as great weight as would be required to _pull asunder the fibres_ of the longitudinal supporters. No wooden bridge can be built of so great a span. Mr. Remington believes that he can build a span at least 1320 feet in length, while the span of the old wooden bridge at Fairmount, near Philadelphia, which was one of the largest in the world, was but little over 300 feet. The annals of mechanical art afford few instances where a great invention has been developed and prosecuted under apparently more adverse circumstances.
* * * * *
NEW PLANET.--The _Tempo_, of Naples, publishes a letter from M. Leopold Del Re, Director of the Observatory at Naples, announcing that the celebrated astronomer, Don Annibale de Gasparin, late discoverer of the _Igea Borbonica_, has discovered a new telescope planet, being the ninth between Mars and Jupiter. It is a star of the ninth magnitude, and is at present in apposition with the sun.
* * * * *
IN SURGERY.--A correspondent of the _Lowell Courier_ claims for the late Dr. Twitchell, of Keene, the honor of successfully tying the carotid artery several months before Sir Astley Cooper made the attempt. The latter has always had the credit of being the first to achieve this extremely difficult and dangerous process.
AUTHORS AND BOOKS.
The Rev. THOMAS H. SMYTH, D.D. of South Carolina, whose work upon the Unity of the Human Races, suggested by the recent declarations of infidelity, by Professor Agassiz of Harvard College and others, has been published by Putnam, and received with a hearty applause by Christians and scholars, is not, as is commonly supposed, an American author, though he has long resided in this country. He was born in Belfast, in the North of Ireland, and educated at the Royal College in that city, pursuing afterward his theological studies in London, and at Princeton in New Jersey. He has been eighteen years minister of the Presbyterian church in Charleston, where he was married, and where he will probably always reside, while in this country; but his liberal fortune and inquiring spirit tempt him to frequent travel, and he is now absent upon a tour which will probably be extended to Nineveh and all the most interesting scenes connected with the history of religion in the eastern world. Dr. Smyth possesses one of the largest and most valuable private libraries in the United States, and has therefore been able to compose his learned works in theology, history, &c. under advantages but seldom enjoyed by our authors. His chief productions are, Apostolical Succession, 1842; Presbytery and not Prelacy the Scriptural and Primitive Polity of the Church, 1843; Ecclesiastical Republicanism; Ecclesiastical Catechism; Claims of the Free Church of Scotland; Life and Character of Thomas Chalmers, with Personal Recollections; Nature and Functions of Ruling Elders; Nature and Functions of Deacons; The Rite of Confirmation examined; Bereaved Parents Consoled; Union to Christ and His Church; The True Origin and Source of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, with a Continuation on Presbyterianism, the National Declaration, and the Revolution; Denominational Education; Pastoral Memento; Life and Character of Calvin; The Westminster Assembly; and the Unity of the Human Races proved to be the Doctrine of Scripture, Reason, and Science. Dr. Smyth has also written largely in the Biblical Repertory, the Southern Presbyterian Review, and other Periodicals.
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THE VETERAN ITALIAN GENERAL PEPE, known in the book-world heretofore by his Personal Memoirs, has just published a Narrative of Scenes and Events in Italy, from 1847 to 1849. It comprises the most interesting particulars respecting the Revolutions in Naples, Sicily, and Rome; the Military Operations of Charles Albert; and the Siege of Venice, of which city General Pepe held the command. It also includes the details of the General's confidential communications and interviews with the Italian Sovereigns, &c. &c.
* * * * *
MR. MAYNE REID, who in sundry letters published in this city last year, claimed that he was the real hero of the Mexican war--in which he served as a lieutenant of the New York volunteers--has recently published in London a brace of volumes under the title of _The Rifle Rangers_. In his preface he alleges that all his statements offered as facts are strictly true, though at times highly colored for the sake of effect. This will be obvious to every reader, for the book is full of adventures of all sorts--perils by sword, fire, rivals, wild animals, bloodhounds, &c.--which are related in a lively, dashing style, varied at times with descriptions of the scenery, plants, and inhabitants of Central America. One of the London journals, in a review of it, observes, "We would not wish a more lively or interesting companion than Captain Reid,--a _thorough Yankee soldier_, combining humor, imagination, and dashing bravery in the highest degree." The thorough Yankee, like many others much quoted abroad, is a clever Irish adventurer, who was in the United States altogether some four or five years, engaged chiefly as a writer for the journals in New York and Philadelphia.
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Among our frequent foreign correspondents the reader will be pleased to recognize the accomplished and adventurous traveler Mr. JOHN E. WARREN, whose work on South America, _Para, or Scenes and Adventures on the Banks of the Amazon_, has just been published, in two octavo volumes, by Bentley, of London. We present the first of a series from him in our initial number.
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The Rev. FRANCIS L. HAWKS, LL.D. will publish in the autumn a collection of very rare and curious tracts, illustrative of our early Colonial History, with copious notes, &c. Dr. Hawks may be safely regarded as an authority of the very highest value, upon whatever relates to the religious and social history of the country. He adds to persevering and well-directed research the soundest discrimination, and a judicial fairness; and we trust an impression which has obtained within a few years, that he is engaged upon an extensive work that will illustrate his abilities in this field, is not without foundation.
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The celebrated Princess BELGIOSO, whose achievements in the tented field, as in the showy salons of fashion, have long been familiar, has, as is well known in the gay world of Europe, been a successful cultivator of letters, and has frequently delighted the readers of French and Italian with brilliant sketches of society and manners. She is now traveling in Greece, whence she will proceed into the romantic and picturesque regions of Asia, and the proprietors of the _New York Tribune_ have engaged her as one of the regular foreign correspondents of that journal.
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M. EUGENE SCRIBE, the writer of the libretto of _Tempesta_, just brought out in London, at the age of eighteen years, was placed under the care of M. Dupin, now the President of the French Legislative Assembly, to study the Roman law. Shortly after reaching his majority he began his dramatic career by writing a vaudeville for the Gymnase. His success here led to an engagement to write for the Theatre Francais, and to the establishment of his reputation as a dramatic author. He has composed ten comedies in five acts, and twenty in one, two, or three acts, for the Francais. He has written one hundred and fifty vaudevilles for the Gymnase. As a lyrical poet he stands unequalled for the number of his _libretti_, having written the poetry of forty grand operas and of one hundred comic operas. His works, exclusive of novels, are three hundred and forty in number.
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The Literature of the Western States has not yet furnished any name that shines with a fairer and serener lustre than that of ALICE CAREY, several of whose poems, of "imagination all compact," and faultless in rhythmical art, will live among the contributions which this age offers to the permanent in literary creation. Her younger sister, PH[OE]BE CAREY, is also a woman of genius, and has written almost as largely as Alice, in a similar vein of thought and feeling. They are now on a visit to New York, and will pass the summer among the resorts in the vicinity of the city.
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MRS. OAKSMITH, we are pleased to be advised, is engaged upon an epic poem, which has been meditated several years. The _Jacob Leisler_ of Mrs. Oaksmith is probably the finest specimen of dramatic writing of which we can boast. Her other tragedy, _The Roman Tribute_, is in rehearsal in Philadelphia, where it will be produced with a strong cast and the utmost scenic magnificence. Mrs. Oaksmith will pass the summer among the seaside retreats of Maine, with Fredrika Bremer.
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PROFESSOR NICHOL'S sometime expected work upon the United States has just appeared, from the press of Parker, the publisher of _Fraser's Magazine_. It is about two years since Professor Nichol returned to Scotland, after giving his astronomical lectures in our principal cities, and traveling widely in the agricultural portions of the country. His book, we understood him to state, was to be addressed to the middling classes, and to treat principally of points connected with emigration.
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BAYARD TAYLOR'S "El Dorado" is praised in all the English journals as the best book that has been written upon California. Bohn has published it in his "Shilling Series," and it is also issued by Bentley.
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MR. CYRUS EATON, of Warren, Me. has in preparation a complete History of St. George's River, from its first discovery; of the early transactions, Indian wars, and especially the events at St. George's Fort and other military posts in the neighborhood; an account of the several settlements commenced under the Waldo Patent, up to the time of their incorporation as towns; and a full history of the town of Warren to the present time. The work to consist of about 400 pages octavo.
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Among the American Books reprinted by Bentley in the last month are Bayard Taylor's "El Dorado," and "Letters of a Traveler," by "Bryant, _the American novelist_." His original books from this country, for the same period, are "Life in the Forest and the Frontier," by Alfred B. Street, and a very charming book by a daughter of Fenimore Cooper, entitled "Rural Hours in the United States."
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The REV. DR. CROLY ON BAPTISM.--The Rev. Dr. Croly has again left poetry and romantic fiction for religious controversy. On the 13th June he published in London--we suppose in reply to the late work of Baptist Noel--a volume entitled, "The Theory of Baptism, or the Regeneration of Infants in Baptism vindicated on the testimony of Holy Scripture, Christian Antiquity, and the Church of England."
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MAJOR HERBERT EDWARDES, the son of a vicar in one of the midland counties, who went to the East Indies a few years ago, and rose rapidly by military prowess, diplomatic skill, and learning, has lately returned to England, and Bentley announces for publication in the month of June, in two octavos from his pen, a "Narrative of Service and Adventure on the Punjaub Frontier during 1848 and 1849."
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SIR JAMES ALEXANDER, who is well known in New York for his residence here during a considerable portion of the period described in his work on the United States, has just published in London, in two volumes, with illustrations, "Acadie, or Seven Years' Explorations in British America."
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A Second Series of Coleridge's "Friend" has been published in London, in three volumes, 8vo., under the title of "_Essays on his own Times_," by S. T. Coleridge; edited by his daughter. It is made up mostly of his political contributions to the _Post_ and _Courier_.
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A Complete Edition of the philosophical works of J. F. Herbart is announced for publication by Voss, of Leipzig. It will be completed in twelve volumes, 8vo., edited by Prof. Hartenstein, of Leipzig, and will be finished in about two years.
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MR. BAIRD, of Philadelphia, has in press a richly illustrated edition of Gray's Poems.
From the London Times.
THE HISTORY OF GREECE
BY GEORGE GROTE.
Mr. Grote's history has yet arrived only at the close of the fourth century B.C., and the fall of the Thirty Tyrants. Two of the six compartments in which he proposes, to use his own quaint phrase, "to exhaust the free life of collective Hellas," still remain to be accomplished. But the history of Greece is written. Stirring events and great names are still to come; the romantic enterprise of Cyrus and the retreat of the Ten Thousand, the elective trust of Thebes, and the chivalrous glories of her one great man. Demosthenes has yet to prove how vain is the divinest eloquence when poured to degenerate hearts. Agis and Cleomenes have yet to exhibit the spectacle, ever fraught with melancholy interest, of noble natures out of harmony with the present, and spending their energies in the vain attempt to turn back the stream of time and call again into existence the feelings and the institutions of an irrevocable past. The monarchy of Philip is yet due to fate. Macedon is still to Greece what Russia, before Peter the Great, was to Europe--a half-unknown and barbarous land, full of latent energy and power, and waiting for the rise of a master mind to discern its embryo greatness and turn its peasants into the unconquerable phalanx. Alexander must arise to carry forth with his victorious arms the seeds of Greek civilization over the Eastern world. Aristotle must arise to gather up in one boundless mind the vast results of Greek philosophy, and found an empire vaster and more enduring than that of his great pupil in the subjugated intellect of man. But the history of Greece is finished. Athens and Sparta, the two great antagonistic types of Greek society, politics, and education, have attained their full development, passed their allotted hour of trial, and touched upon their doom. The shades of night are gathering on the bright day of Hellas. The momentous work of that wonderful people is accomplished; the interest of the great intellectual and moral contest has centred in one man; the last scene of the _Phædo_ has been enacted, and Socrates has died.
The history of Greece is written, and the character of the historian is decided. Mr. Grote has achieved a noble work--a work which, unless the glory of classical literature is a dream, will well repay, in usefulness and in renown, the devotion of a scholars life. His book will be called great while Grecian story retains its interest. Even making allowance for the wonderful labors of the Germans and the extraordinary addition which their learned toils have made to our knowledge of the subject, we should say that the work before us has almost disentombed many portions of Greek life. We cannot sufficiently extol the wonderful knowledge of all the feelings, habits, associations, and institutions of an extinct people which every page exhibits, and the familiar mastery with which a mind steeped in Grecian lore analyzes, combines, criticizes, and unfolds the mass of heterogeneous and often conjectural materials on which it has to work. Not only have we been enabled to read Greek history with new eyes and a new understanding, but light has been poured upon its literature; and, to apply to Mr. Grote the compliment he pays to others, "the poets, historians, orators, and philosophers of Greece have been all rendered both more intelligible and more instructive to the student, and the general picture of the Grecian world may now be conceived with a degree of fidelity which, considering our imperfect materials, it is curious to contemplate." Two volumes more at least must be yet to come, but Mr. Grote's pedestal is sure; and nothing can diminish the satisfaction he must now feel at his decided and proclaimed success but the consciousness that the moment is approaching when he must part with the companion of many a sweet though toilsome hour, and experience the mingled feelings which Gibbon has so well portrayed in writing "the last page of the last chapter" of the history of Greece.
It is pity that such high intrinsic merits should be marred, both as regards the pleasure and the instruction of the reader, by a fatal deficiency of style. It is pity, but it is true. Mr. Grote seems to have lived in the works of the Greek writers till he has almost forgotten the forms and cadence of his mother tongue. It is not only that he so frequently has resort to an uncouth Greek compound when he might easily express the same idea in two or three English words, if not one; there is a perpetual clumsiness in his construction of common sentences and his use of common words. Clarendon himself is not harder or more tortuous. Even in purely narrative parts, which ought to flow most easily, the understanding of the reader can seldom keep pace with his eye. Cyclopean epithets are piled together almost at random on any substantive which will have the complaisance to receive them. The choice of expression and metaphor is sometimes such as almost to rival the achievements of Castlereagh in his happiest hour. We have people existing, "not as individual names on paper, but simply as an imposturous nominal aggregate,"--Thucydides "reserving his flowers to strew on the grave of Nicias,"--the Athenians "sailing out" to action, having "left their sails at Teichiassa," and their "sailing back" to Teichiassa for their sails,--Athens, "the mistress and successor of the Ionian Confederacy,"--inestimable stepping-stones toward a goal, and oligarchical conspirators against popular liberty "tying down the patient while the process of emasculation was being consummated." We are sorry to say that these instances are taken from the last two volumes, so that Mr. Grote does not improve as he advances. In the first volume, when relating the legends of early Greece, we are glad he does not imitate the forced simplicity with which Dr. Arnold tells the legends of early Rome; but it is too flat to describe Atalanta as "beautiful and matchless for swiftness of foot, but living in the forest as a huntress, and unacceptable to Aphrodite." The redeeming point, and a great redeeming point it is, is the total absence of anything like affectation. All the peculiarities are genuine, and everything that is genuine in composition, though it cannot be admired, may be borne. But for this we should be compelled to class one of the best of English books among the very worst of English writings. Mr. Grote must remember that no man who writes for posterity can afford to neglect the art of composition. The trimmer bark, though less richly laden, will float further down the stream of time, and when so many authors of real ability and learning are competing for every niche in the temple of fame, the coveted place will certainly be won by style.
It is this deficiency of art which can alone prevent Mr. Grote's history from completely superseding both the works already existing of the same magnitude. Neither the spirit of Mitford nor the solid sense of Thirlwall could long preserve them from eclipse. The light of the former indeed has long grown dim. He is always blundering, and his blunders are always on the Tory side. Arnold's good word has kept him a few years longer on our bookshelves. Dr. Thirlwall has higher qualities, but, not to mention that he has damaged himself by writing against Mitford instead of ignoring him, he is terribly dry, and Mr. Grote leaves him far behind in appreciation of all that belongs to Greece, in loving industry, in warmth of sympathy, and, well read scholars as they both are, in deep knowledge of his subject. The cheaper and more compendious histories of course are not affected. The light and credulous Goldsmith is still left to contend with the more correct but duller Keightley for the patronage of ingenuous youth. Perhaps both yield to the meritorious little work published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. But a place, and an honorable place, is still left for any one who can tell the story of Greece in a succinct and lively form, availing himself of the light which Mr. Grote has shed upon the subject, cultivating candor and right sympathies, cutting short the ante-historical period, bringing strongly out the great states and the great men, limiting himself to two moderate volumes, and addressing himself especially to the unlearned and the young.
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UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK.--At a recent meeting of the trustees and faculty, the Rev. George W. Bethune, D.D., was unanimously elected Chancellor of the University, in the place of the Hon. Theodore Frelinghuysen. At the same meeting Mr. G. C. Anthon, formerly of the College of Louisiana, son of the Rev. Dr. Anthon of this city, was chosen professor of Greek language and literature.
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NINEVEH
By Edwin Atherstone.
Of NINEVEH, the mighty city of old; The queen of all the nations. At her throne Kings worshipp'd; and from her their subject crowns, Humbly obedient, held; and on her state Submiss attended; nor such servitude Opprobrious named. From that great eminence How, like a star, she fell, and passed away; Such the high matter of my song shall be
The vision comes upon me! To my soul The days of old return: I breathe the air Of the young world: I see her giant sons. Like to a gorgeous pageant in the sky Of summer's evening, cloud on fiery cloud Thronging upheaped, before me rise the walls Of the Titanic city: brazen gates, Towers, temples, palaces enormous piled; Imperial NINEVEH, the earthly queen! In all her golden pomp I see her now; Her swarming streets; her splendid festivals; Her sprightly damsels to the timbrel's sound Airily bounding, and their anklets' chime; Her lusty sons, like summer morning gay; Her warriors stern; her rich-robed rulers grave: I see her halls sunbright at midnight shine; I hear the music of her banquetings; I hear the laugh, the whisper, and the sigh. A sound of stately treading toward me comes; A silken wafting on the cedar floor: As from Arabia's flowering groves, an air Delicious breathes around. Tall, lofty browed, Pale, and majestically beautiful; In vesture gorgeous as the clouds of morn; With slow proud step her glorious dames sweep by
And I look; and lo! before the walls, Unnumbered hosts in flaming panoply; Chariots like fire, and thunder-bearing steeds! I hear the shouts of battle: like the waves Of a tumultuous sea they roll and dash! In flame and smoke the imperial city sinks! Her walls are gone: her palaces are dust: The desert is around her, and within: Like shadows have the mighty passed away!
Whence and how came the ruin? By the hand Of the oppressor were the nations bowed; They rose against him, and prevailed: for he The haughty monarch who the earth could rule, By his own furious passions was o'er-ruled: With pride his understanding was made dark, That he the truth knew not; and, by his lusts; The crushing burthen of his despotism; And by the fierceness of his wrath, the hearts Of men he turned from him. So to kings Be he example, that the tyrannous And iron rod breaks down at length the hand That wields it strongest: that by virtue alone And justice monarchs sway the hearts of men: For there hath God implanted love of these, And hatred of oppression; which, unseen And noiseless though it work; yet in the end, Even like the viewless elements of the storm, Brooding in silence, will in thunder burst! So let the nations learn, that not in wealth; Nor in the grosser pleasures of the sense; Nor in the glare of conquest; nor the pomp Of vassal kings, and tributary lands; Do happiness and lasting power abide: That virtue unto man best glory is; His strength and truest wisdom; and that vice, Though for a season it the heart delight; Or to worse deeds the bad man do make strong; Brings misery yet, and terror, and remorse, And weakness and destruction in the end. So if the nations learn, then not in vain, The mighty one hath been; and is no more!
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The British Association will meet at Edinburgh, on Wednesday, the 31st of July, under the presidency of its founder, Sir David Brewster.
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A lover gazed on the eyes of his mistress till she blushed. He pressed her hand to his heart and said--"My looks have planted roses on thy cheeks; he who sows the seed should reap the harvest."
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IF I WERE A VOICE.
If I were a voice, a persuasive voice, That could travel the wide world through. I would fly on the beams of the morning light, And speak to men with a gentle might, And tell them to be true. I'd fly, I'd fly, o'er land and sea, Wherever a human heart might be, Telling a tale, or singing a song, In praise of the right--in blame of the wrong.
If I were a voice, a consoling voice, I'd fly on the wings of air. The homes of sorrow and guilt I'd seek, And calm and truthful words I'd speak To save them from despair. I'd fly, I'd fly, o'er the crowded town, And drop, like the happy sunlight, down Into the hearts of suffering men, And teach them to rejoice again.
If I were a voice, a convincing voice, I'd travel with the wind, And whenever I saw the nations torn By warfare, jealousy, or scorn, Or hatred of their kind, I'd fly, I'd fly, on the thunder crash, And into their blinded bosoms flash; And, all their evil thoughts subdued, I'd teach them Christian brotherhood.
If I were a voice, a pervading voice, I'd seek the kings of earth; I'd find them alone on their beds at night, And whisper words that should guide them right-- Lessons of priceless worth; I'd fly more swift than the swiftest bird, And tell them things they never heard-- Truths which the ages for aye repeat-- Unknown to the statesmen at their feet.
If I were a voice, an immortal voice, I'd speak in the people's ear; And whenever they shouted "_Liberty_," Without deserving to be free, I'd make their error clear. I'd fly, I'd fly, on the wings of day, Rebuking wrong on my world-wide way, And making all the world rejoice-- If _I_ were a voice--an immortal voice.--_C. Mackay._
From Blackwood's Magazine.
THE GREEN HAND.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "TOM CRINGLE'S LOG."