LETTER V.

ROANOKE, June 2d, 1813.

I did not receive your letter of the 26th until last evening, and then I was obliged for it to my good old neighbor Col. Morton, who never omits an occasion of doing a favor however small. The gentleman by whom you wrote is very shy of me, nor can I blame him for it: no man likes to feel the embarrassment which a consciousness of having done wrong to another is sure to inspire, and which the sight of the object towards whom the wrong has been done never fails to excite in the most lively and painful degree. My neighbor Col. C., who goes down to Petersburg and Richmond tomorrow, enables me to answer (after a fashion) your question—“how and where I shall pass the summer months?” To which I can only reply—_as it pleases God!_ If I go to any watering place it will be to our Hot Springs, for the purpose of stewing the rheumatism out of my carcase, if it be practicable.

It would have been peculiarly gratifying to me to have been with you when Leigh, Garnett, W. Meade and I must add M——, were in Richmond. If we exclude every “party man and man of ambition” from our church, I fear we shall have as thin a congregation as Dean Swift had when he addressed his clerk “Dearly beloved Roger!” What I like M. for, is neither his _courtesy_ nor his _intelligence_, but a certain warm-heartedness, which is, now-a-days, the rarest of human qualities. His manner I think peculiarly unfortunate. There is an ostentation of ornament (which school boys lay aside when they reach the senior class) and a labored infelicity of expression that is hurtful to one's feelings—we are in terror for the speaker—but this fault he has already in some degree corrected, and by the time he is as old as you or I, it will have worn off. I was greatly revolted by it, on our first acquaintance, and even now, am occasionally offended—but the zeal with which he devotes himself to the service of his friends and of his country makes amends for all. It is sometimes a bustling activity of little import to its _object_, but which is to be valued in reference to its motive.

* * * * *

I am not surprised at what you tell me of our friend. We live in fearful times, and it is a perilous adventure that he is about to undertake. In a few years more, those of us who are alive will have to move off to _Kaintuck_ or the _Massissippi_, where corn can be had for sixpence a bushel, and pork for a penny a pound. I do not wonder at the rage for emigration—what do the bulk of the people get here, that they cannot have for one-fifth of the labor in the western country? Surely that must be the Yahoo's paradise where he can get dead drunk for the hundredth part of a dollar.

What you tell me of Milnor is quite unexpected. He was one of the last men whom I should have expected to take orders—not so much on account of his quitting a lucrative profession as from his fondness for gay life. I am not sure that it is the safest path—The responsibility is awful—it is tremendous.

Thanks for your intelligence respecting my poor sister. If human skill could save her, Dr. Robinson would do it: but there is nothing left to smooth her path to that dwelling whither we must all soon follow her. I can give Mrs. B. no comfort on the subject of ——. For my part, it requires an effort to take an interest in any thing—and it seems to me strange, that there should be found inducements strong enough to carry on the business of the world. I believe you have given the true solution of this problem, by way of corollary from another—when you pronounce that free will and necessity are much the same. I used formerly to puzzle myself, as abler men have puzzled others, by speculations on this opprobrium of philosophy. If you have not untied the Gordian knot, you have cut it, which is the approved methodus medendi of this disease.

My neighbor C., who is the bearer of this, is called by the world a _hard man_—but I like him because he has a manliness of character—not common in this age of base compliance with what is and what is not (but supposed to be) the ruling opinions.

Write to me when you can do no better. Worse you cannot do for yourself, nor better for me. You can't imagine what an epoch in my present life a letter from you or Leigh constitutes. If I did not know that you could find nothing here beyond the satisfaction of mere animal necessity, I should entreat Mrs. B. and yourself to visit my solitary habitation. May every blessing attend you both.

Your's unchangeably, JOHN RANDOLPH, of Roanoke.

{570} LETTER VI.

ROANOKE, July 15, 1814.

I had begun to fear that my long visitation of last winter and spring, had put you so much out of the habit of writing to me, that you would never resume it—but your letter of the sixth (just received) encourages me to hope that I shall hear from you as formerly. It was a sensible relief to me—but I will say nothing about my situation.

Poor St. George continues quite irrational. He is however very little mischievous, and governed pretty easily. His memory of persons, things, events and words, is not at all impaired—but he has no power of _combination_, and is entirely incoherent. _His_ going to the Springs is out of the question—and mine, I fear, equally so—although my rheumatism requires the warm bath. By this time, you are on your way thither—except that it is too _cold_, the weather could not have been finer. What a climate we live under!

* * * * *

As to peace, I have not a doubt that we shall have it forthwith. Our folks are prepared to say that the pacification of Europe has swept away the _matters in contestation_, as M. the Secretary of State has it. All that we see in the government prints, is to reconcile us the better to the terms which they must receive from the enemy. From the time of his flight from Egypt, my opinion of the character of Bonaparte has never changed, except for the worse. I have considered him from that date a coward, and ascribed his success to the deity he worships—Fortune. His insolence and rashness have met their just reward. Had he found an efficient government in France on his abandonment of his brave companions in arms in Egypt, and return to Paris, he would have been cashiered for ruining the best appointed armament that ever left an European port. But all was confusion and anarchy at Paris, and, instead of a coup de fusil, he was rewarded with a sceptre. He succeeded in throwing the blame of Aboukir on poor Brueys. He could safely talk of “his orders to the admiral,” after L'Orient had blown up. His Russian and German campaign is another such commentary on his character; it is all of a piece.

If the Allies adhere to their treaty of Chaumont, the peace of Europe will be preserved—but in France I think the seeds of disorder must abound. Instead of the triple aristocracy of the Noblesse, the Church and the Parliaments, I see nothing but janissaries and a divan of ruffians: Algiers on a great scale. Moral causes I see none—and I am well persuaded that these are not created in a day. Matters of inveterate opinion, when once rooted up, are _dead_ never to revive: _other_ opinions must succeed them. But I am prosing—uttering a string of common place, that every one can write, and no one can deny. But you brought it on yourself—you expected I would say something, and I resolved to try. I can bear witness to the fact of Mrs. B's prediction respecting Bonaparte's retirement. I wish I were permitted to name five ladies who should constitute the Cabinet of this country: our affairs would be conducted in another guess manner. This reminds me of Mrs. G., of whom I have at last heard. Mr. G. wrote me late in February from London. They were going to Bath, and “if circumstances on the continent would permit, meant to take a tour through France.” How well timed their trip to Europe has been.

I am here completely _hors du monde_. My neighbor Clark, with whom I have made a violent effort to establish an intercourse, has been here _twice by invitation_. W. Leigh as often, on his way to court, and on Saturday I was agreeably surprised by stumbling on Frank Gilmer, who was wandering to and fro in the woods, seeking my cabin. He left me on Tuesday for his brother's in Henry. Except my standing dish, you have my whole society for _nine weeks_. On the terms by which I hold it, life is a curse, from which I would willingly escape, if I _knew where to fly_. I have lost my relish for reading—indeed I could not devour even the Corsair[3] with the zest that Lord Byron's pen generally inspires. My plantation affairs always irksome are now revolting. I have lost ¾ of the finest and largest crop I ever had.

[Footnote 3: It is very inferior to the Giaour or the Bride. The character of Conrad is unnatural. Blessed with his mistress, he has no motive for desperation.]

My best respects and regards to Mrs. B. I am as ever, yours, JOHN RANDOLPH, of Roanoke.

Dr. Dudley is (as you may suppose) a treasure to me above all price. Without him what should I do? He desires his respects to you both.

As to an English constitution for France, they will have one when they all speak the English language, and not before. Have you read Morris's oration on the 29th of June? His description of Bonaparte's “taking money for his crown” is very fine. It is a picture. I see him. There are some cuts in the same page that our _fulminating_ statesman will not like.

SUNDAY, the 17th.

I am compelled to be at Prince Edward Court tomorrow, and the weather is _now_ so intensely hot that I shall go a part of the way this afternoon, and put my letter in the Farmville P. O. whence it will go direct to Richmond, instead of waiting five days on the road. Our crops lately drowned, are now burning up, and I begin to feel the effects of the fresh in my _health_ as well as my purse. Dudley and myself have both experienced the ill consequences of our daily visits to the low grounds. The negroes, however, continue healthy: out of more than 200, not a patient since I came home. Who is it that says “il-y-a tant de plaisir à bavarder avec un ami!” Perhaps you will reply that the pleasure is not so great _etre bavardè_.

* * * * *

At Charlotte Court House yesterday, I saw Dr. Merry, who told me that your trip to the Springs was postponed. Pray let me hear from you. If you write by Saturday morning's post, address your letter to this place—otherwise, to Roanoke. We hear that you are in great consternation at Richmond, in consequence of Cochrane's appearance in the Chesapeake. Not a week ago it was ostentatiously announced that Porter was master of the South Pacific! The mail will arrive in less than half an hour, which brings the official account of his capture.

Again my best wishes and respects to Mrs. B., with whom, I fear, I have fallen out of favor. Compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Wickham.

{571} 18me May 1804.

_Messieurs_,—Vous étes priés d'assister au convoi et enterrement de la trés haute et trés illustre et trés puissante Citoyenne République Française; une, indivisible et iméprissable, décédée le 28me Floreal (18 May) en son Palais Conservateur—et á son service, qui se sera le 14me Juillet prochain.

REQUIESCAT IN PACEM!

“Citoyens! freres et amis Partisans de la République, Grands raisonneurs en politique, Venez d'assister, en famille, Au grand convoi de votre fille, Morte en couche d'un Empereur. L' indivisible Citoyenne N' a pû supporter, sans mourir, L' Opération Cœsarienne; Mais vous ne perdrez presque rien, Vous tous qui cet accident touche; Car si la mere est morte en couche, Le Fils au moins se porte bien.”

N. B. “Le Fils” ne se porte pas bien aujourdhui. 18me juin, 1815.

J. R. of R.

A POLITE STRUGGLE.

Terence Brannagan and Davy Dougherty were sworn brothers, and reckoned very much of the gentlemen, and happening to run against each other in turning a corner, stopped to make apologies.

“It was all my fault Davy my jewel,” says Terence.

“By St. Dan O'Connell, but it was all mine,” says Davy.

“By the honor of a gentleman, it was mine,” says Terence.

“By the Holy Poker, I say it was mine,” says Davy.

“Do you doubt the honor of a gentleman? I thought you had more politeness. Better manners to you say I,” says Terence.

“Do you reflect on my manners you spalpeen? If you wont take a genteel apology, take that,” says Davy, hitting Terence a click aside of his pate, which Terence returned with interest, and so they had a bloody battle all about politeness.

A PROFESSION FOR LADIES.

BY MRS. SARAH J. HALE.

Many good men, who really feel solicitous for the improvement and elevation of the female sex, doubt the expediency of bestowing on young ladies a regular scientific education. They doubt this, because there is no profession in which the talents of women may be employed without injury to the female character—to that retiring modesty which should ever

“Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.”

No person of reflection and good judgment, who wishes to promote the happiness and respectability of woman, would seek to place her in the lecture room of the physician—in the forum—the desk—or the halls of legislation. The attempt to inspire our sex with the ambition to appear like men, is too absurd to merit discussion. Would any lady consider herself competent to direct the management of a ship in a storm, or a fire-engine at a conflagration? The storms of the political ocean, and the fires of party spirit, would as little accord with her moral delicacy of mind and feeling. Still she was not formed to be a trifler on earth. She has mental powers which, if not equal with those of man, are yet far too precious to be wasted in indolence, or allowed to rest in ignorance of their duties. Women have a vast influence on society, which nothing can prevent; this influence will be beneficial or deleterious in proportion to the reasonable and enlightened manner in which it is exerted. To secure it on the side of virtue and intelligence, should be the aim of every person who wishes to promote individual and social improvement and happiness, and our national prosperity and glory. There is no country where the right direction of female influence is so necessary as in America, because here the popular breath guides and impels as it were, the bark of state. Our people must, therefore, be educated—not made learned in ancient lore merely, or even instructed deeply in modern sciences, but trained to the love of excellence, and habituated to the control of the passions. The heart and the understanding must alike be cultivated, and this can never be effected without the co-operation of women.

It is in the department of _teaching_, that women exert their greatest power. Important as is their influence in the nursery, the task of education is but commenced there. Females might be extensively employed in school keeping. Why should not a department so peculiarly fitted to their talents, feelings and station, be more generally appropriated to them? In New England, it is true, this has partially been done; and to that, more than to any other single cause, may be traced the general diffusion of learning among all classes of our people. Had only men been permitted to teach a common or district school, the expense would have prevented schools from being continued in our thinly settled towns, except for a small part of each year. Then, it is a truth, which few will feel disposed to question, that the young imbibe instruction more readily from female teachers than from those of the other sex. Another, and very important consideration, is the effect which the employment has had on those females engaged in it. Their own minds have been disciplined and strengthened, and when married, they have carried into their own families those habits of attention to intellectual improvement, which have qualified them to judge of the talents and to direct the studies of their own children. Thus, their influence on society has been continually active in promoting the _fashion_ of learning,—that peculiar mode of thinking, which, even among our poorest class, attaches infamy to ignorance, and incites the dullest laborer to consider himself disgraced if his children cannot at least read and write.

Here, then, is the _profession_ to which I would direct the talents and energies of my own countrywomen. The field is wide enough for the display of all their genius, and there are laurels sufficient to satisfy the most ambitious. Many distinguished female writers have likewise been distinguished as teachers of children and youth. Mrs. Hannah More was greatly indebted to her situation as an instructress for the cultivation and {572} development of her extraordinary talents. Mrs. Barbauld owed much of her literary excellence to the necessity she felt of assisting her husband in the education of his pupils. Miss Edgeworth, though not ostensibly a teacher, was nevertheless stimulated in her literary career—first entered upon to promote education—by the practical illustrations of its benefits, which she daily witnessed while assisting her father in the instruction of his numerous family. Among the French ladies, Madame de Genlis, and Madame Campan, were distinguished for their skill in teaching youth; and the genius and writings, of the first especially, are well known. The present king of the French was her pupil, and to her wise and efficient management, owes much of that practical knowledge and energy of character which has distinguished his career.

Indeed, there is no method by which a lady can, with safety and credit to herself, so surely and speedily acquire that very necessary knowledge for a popular writer—the knowledge of the human heart—as by becoming an instructress of the young. Let American ladies, who wish for literary distinction, if such there are, enter the school-room as their temple of fame—and then they will be useful if they are not celebrated. I shall be told that they cannot do this—that men have engrossed the employment of school-keeping, as well as that of every other, by which _money_ can be acquired; and that female teachers are excluded from all schools excepting those of the very youngest scholars. This is too true. Ought it thus to be?—Is it for the public benefit, to employ men to teach schools, when women could do that duty better,—even were the same compensation to be allowed to the female as to the male?

It has become a proverb, that none but a man of inferior abilities, will keep a school from choice—that it is a drudgery, in which no man of genius will engage, but from necessity,—or persevere in, but from pecuniary motives. Allow this repugnance to the business of instruction to proceed, as perhaps it does, from man's superior talents,—say, that it is not in accordance with the strong powers and stirring energies of his mind, to rest contented in the prison of a school-room; yet to women, less gifted with confidence in their own abilities, and having so few objects of pursuit, it would furnish an employment congenial as well as honorable. There is no branch of learning taught in our common schools which females would not be capable of teaching. They should also be employed, as assistants, in every school and seminary, where there are pupils of their own sex. One very important object to be effected by this arrangement, would be the saving of expense. Women can afford to teach for a less reward than men, even should they prove, as they often doubtless would prove, the more capable instructors. To make education universal, it must be afforded _cheap_. It is a false principle, which estimates the benefits of a privilege by the money it costs. If it were true, our Republican government would be a miserable one, in comparison with those of royal magnificence. It is, usually, the _abuses_ of our privileges, which form the largest item in their expense. Our nation has need of all the talents of its citizens, exerted in the most beneficial manner, to keep pace with the spirit of the age. Why then, refuse the assistance of female intellect, when it might be so usefully and appropriately exerted?—There are now, as it is reported, about ten thousand schoolmasters in the State of New York. One half of that number might, undoubtedly, be employed more profitably to the country, and pleasantly to themselves, in other business, and their duties, as teachers, better as well as cheaper, performed by intelligent women. There are many such to whom even a moderate compensation would be wealth, and would stimulate to unwearied exertion.

But above all, women should be at the head of establishments for the education of their own sex. If it be found necessary, let gentlemen be employed as teachers and lecturers occasionally,—but a lady should always preside as directress. This is invariably practised in every country, save America; and such a preposterous fashion, as that of committing the scientific education of young girls, mostly to men, cannot much longer continue here. Women will feel what is due to their own character and dignity, sufficiently to rouse themselves to the education, at least, of their own sex. The example of Mrs. Willard, Principal of the Troy Female Seminary, and that of Miss Catharine Beecher, not to mention others, demonstrate that ladies are capable of understanding the philosophy of the human mind, and of preparing works which facilitate the acquisition of knowledge. And then a lady, with talents and energy, unites those feminine accomplishments which men cannot know or teach.

In short, though there should be no encroachment on the prerogative or duties of the men, yet women should remember that they too have duties,—which they ought not, which they cannot, consistently with duty and delicacy, surrender. One of these duties, is the superintending the education of their own sex. This must not be abandoned. Then, should men commit to their care the tuition of boys, till the age of ten, twelve, or even later, they would probably find the effect very beneficial. The influence of a sensible, intelligent and pious woman, has a tendency to soften the turbulent dispositions, and foster the kindly affections of boys—to instil the love of virtue, and a horror of vice. Remember, the culture of the _heart_, as well as the _head_, is essentially necessary to make men good citizens of a Republic. A strong argument in favor of employing ladies as instructors of children, may be found in their purity of principles and feelings. A female advocating infidelity, or endeavoring to weaken the bonds of moral and social order, is a phenomenon. Can the same be said of the other sex?

Swift's “Liliputian Ode” is an imitation from Scarron. The French poet concludes a long tri-syllabic poetical epistle to Sarrazin, who had failed to pay him a visit, in the following words.

Mais pourtant Repentant Si tu viens Et te tiens Seulement Un moment Avec nous, Mon corroux Finira Et cætera.

{573}

_Editorial._

RIGHT OF INSTRUCTION.

In the article published by us this month, on the _Right of Instruction_, Judge Hopkinson has alluded to some opinions of Edmund Burke. It may perhaps be as well to copy here one or two of the paragraphs to which we suppose allusion is made.

In his speech in 1780, at the Guildhall in Bristol, _upon certain points relative to his parliamentary conduct_, we have what follows.

Let me say with plainness, I who am no longer in a public character, that if by a fair, by an indulgent, by a gentlemanly behavior to our representatives, we do not give confidence to their minds, and a liberal scope to their understandings; if we do not permit our members to act upon a _very_ enlarged view of things, we shall at length infallibly degrade our national representation into a confused and scuffling bustle of local agency.

Again, in the same speech—

What, gentlemen, was I not to foresee, or, foreseeing, was I not to endeavor to save you from all these multiplied mischiefs and disgraces? Would the little, silly, canvass prattle of obeying instructions, and having no opinions but yours, and such idle, senseless tales which amuse the vacant ears of unthinking men, have saved you from the “pelting of that pitiless storm” to which the loose improvidence, the cowardly rashness of those who dare not look danger in the face, so as to provide against it in time have exposed this degraded nation?

Again—

I did not obey your instructions. No—I conformed to the instructions of truth and nature, and maintained your interest against your opinions, with a constancy that became me. A representative worthy of you ought to be a person of stability. I am to look indeed to your opinions; but to such opinions as you and I must have five years hence. I was not to look to the flash of the day. I knew that you chose me, in my place, along with others, to be a pillar of the state, and not a weathercock on the top of the edifice, exalted for my levity and versatility, and of no use but to indicate the shiftings of every fashionable gale.

And farther—

As to the opinion of the people which some think, in such cases, is to be implicitly obeyed; near two years tranquillity, which followed the act, proved abundantly that the late horrible spirit was, in a great measure, the effect of insidious art, and perverse industry and gross misrepresentation. But suppose that the dislike had been much more deliberate, and much more general than I am persuaded it was.—When we know that the opinions of even the greatest multitudes are the standard of rectitude, I shall think myself obliged to make those opinions the masters of my conscience. But if it may be doubted whether Omnipotence itself is competent to alter the essential constitution of right and wrong, sure I am that such _things_ as they and I, are possessed of no such power. No man carries farther than I do the policy of making government pleasing to the people. But the widest range of this politic complaisance is confined within the limits of justice.... “But if I profess all this impolitic stubbornness I may chance never to be elected into Parliament.” It is certainly not pleasing to be put out of the public service. But I wish, in being a member of Parliament, to have my share of doing good and resisting evil. It would therefore be absurd to renounce my objects in order to obtain my seat.

In his speech, upon his arrival at Bristol, and at the conclusion of the poll in 1774, he says—

I am sorry I cannot conclude without saying a word on a topic touched upon by my worthy colleague. I wish that topic had been passed by, at a time when I have so little leisure to discuss it. But since he has thought proper to throw it out, I owe you a clear explanation of my poor sentiments on that subject. He tells you that the “topic of instructions has occasioned much altercation and uneasiness in this city,” and he expresses himself (if I understand him rightly) in favor of the coercive authority of such instructions. Certainly, gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative, to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion high respect; their business unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions to theirs; and, above all, ever and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. But his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure—no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you not his industry only, but his judgment, and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion. My worthy colleague says his will ought to be subservient to yours. If that be all the thing is innocent. If government were a matter of will upon any side, yours, without question, ought to be superior. But government and legislation are matters of reason and judgment, and not of inclination—and what sort of reason is that in which the determination precedes the discussion; in which one set of men deliberate and another decide; and where those who form the conclusion are perhaps three hundred miles distant from those who hear the arguments?

PINAKIDIA.

Under the head of “_Random Thoughts_,” “_Odds and Ends_,” “_Stray Leaves_,” “_Scraps_,” “_Brevities_,” and a variety of similar titles, we occasionally meet, in periodicals and elsewhere, with papers of rich interest and value—the result, in some cases, of much thought and more research, expended, however, at a manifest disadvantage, if we regard merely the estimate which the public are willing to set upon such articles. It sometimes occurs that in papers of this nature may be found a collective mass of general, but more usually of classical erudition, which, if dexterously besprinkled over a proper surface of narrative, would be sufficient to make the fortunes of one or two hundred ordinary novelists in these our good days, when all heroes and heroines are necessarily men and women of “extensive acquirements.” But, for the most part, these “_Brevities_,” &c. are either piecemeal cullings at second hand, from a variety of sources hidden or supposed to be hidden, or more audacious pilferings from those vast storehouses of brief facts, memoranda, and opinions in general literature, which are so abundant in all the principal libraries of Germany and France. Of the former species, the _Koran_ of Lawrence Sterne is, at the same time, one of the most consummately impudent and silly; and it may well be doubted whether a single paragraph of any merit in the whole of it may not be found, _nearly verbatim_, in the works of some one of his {574} immediate cotemporaries. If the _Lacon_ of Mr. Colton is any better, its superiority consists altogether in a deeper ingenuity in disguising his stolen wares, and in that prescriptive right of the strongest which, time out of mind, has decided upon calling every Napoleon a conqueror, and every Dick Turpin a thief. Seneca; Machiavelli;[1] Balzac, the author of “La Maniere de bien Penser;” Bielfeld, the German, who wrote, in French, “Les Premiers Traits de L'Erudition Universelle;” Rochefoucault; Bacon; Bolingbroke; and especially Burdon, of “Materials for Thinking” memory, possess, among them, indisputable claims to the ownership of nearly every thing worth owning in the book.

[Footnote 1: It is remarkable that much of what Colton has stolen from Machiavelli, was previously stolen by Machiavelli from Plutarch. A MS. book of the _Apophthegms of the Ancients_, by this latter writer, having fallen into Machiavelli's hands, he put them nearly all into the mouth of his hero, Castrucio Castricani.]

Of the latter species of theft, we see frequent specimens in the continental magazines of Europe, and occasionally meet with them even in the lower class of periodicals in Great Britain. These specimens are usually extracts, by wholesale, from such works as the “Bibliotheque des Memorabilia Literaria,” the “Recueil des Bons Pensées,” the “Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses,” the “Literary Memoirs” of Sallengré, the “Melanges Literaires” of Suard and André, or the “Pieces Interressantes et peu Connues” of La Place. D'Israeli's “Curiosities of Literature,” “Literary Character,” and “Calamities of Authors,” have, of late years, proved exceedingly convenient to some little American pilferers in this line, but are now becoming too generally known to allow much hope of their good things being any longer appropriated with impunity.

Such collections, as those of which we have been speaking, are usually entertaining in themselves, and, for the most part, we relish every thing about them save their pretensions to originality. In offering, ourselves, something of the kind to the readers of the Messenger, we wish to be understood as disclaiming, in a great degree, every such pretension. Most of the following article is original, and will be readily recognized as such by the classical and general reader—some portions of it may have been written down in the words, or nearly in the words, of the primitive authorities. The whole is taken from a confused mass of marginal notes, and entries in a common-place-book. No certain arrangement has been considered necessary; and, indeed, so heterogeneous a farrago it would have been an endless task to methodize. We have chosen the heading _Pinakidia_, or Tablets, as one sufficiently comprehensive. It was used, for a somewhat similar purpose, by Dionysius of Harlicarnassus.

* * * * *

The whole of Bulwer's elaborate argument on the immortality of the soul, which he has put into the mouth of the “Ambitious Student,” may be confuted through the author's omission of one particular point in his summary of the attributes of Deity—a point which we cannot believe omitted altogether through accident. A single link is deficient in the chain—but the chain is worthless without it. No man doubts the immortality of the soul—yet of all truths this truth of immortality is the most difficult to prove by any mere series of syllogisms. We would refer our readers to the argument here mentioned.

* * * * *

The rude rough wild waste has its power to please,

a line in one Mr. Odiorne's poem, “The Progress of Refinement,” is pronounced by the American author of a book entitled “Ante-Diluvian Antiquities,” “the very best alliteration in all poetry.”

* * * * *

The _Turkish Spy_ is the original of many similar works—among the best of which are Montesquieu's _Persian Letters_, and the _British Spy_ of our own Wirt. It was written undoubtedly by John Paul Marana, an Italian, _in_ Italian, but probably was first published in French. Dr. Johnson, who saw only an English translation, supposed it an English work. Marana died in 1693.

* * * * *

The hunter and the deer a shade

is a much admired line in Campbell's _Gertrude of Wyoming_—but the identical line is to be found in the poems of the American Freneau.

* * * * *

Corneille's celebrated _Moi_ of Medea is borrowed from Seneca. Racine, in Phœdra, has stolen nearly the whole scene of the declaration of love from the same puerile writer.

* * * * *

The peculiar zodiac of the comets is comprised in these verses of Cassini—

Antinous, Pegasusque, Andromeda, Taurus, Orion, Procyon, atque Hydrus, Centaurus, Scorpius, Arcus.

* * * * *

Speaking of the usual representation of the banquet-scene in Macbeth, Von Raumer, the German historian, mentions a shadowy figure thrown by optical means into the chair of Banquo, and producing intense effect upon the audience. Enslen, a German optician, conceived this idea, and accomplished it without difficulty.

* * * * *

A religious hubbub, such as the world has seldom seen, was excited, during the reign of Frederic II, by the _imagined_ virulence of a book entitled “The Three Impostors.” It was attributed to Pierre des Vignes, chancellor of the king, who was accused by the Pope of having treated the religions of Moses, Jesus, and Mahomet as political fables. The work in question, however, which was squabbled about, abused, defended, and familiarly _quoted_ by all parties, is well proved never to have existed.

* * * * *

The word Τυχη, or Fortune, does not appear once in the whole Iliad.

* * * * *

The “Lamentations” of Jeremiah are written, with the exception of the last chapter, in acrostic verse: that is to say, every line or couplet begins, in alphabetical order, with some letter in the Hebrew alphabet. In the third chapter each letter is repeated three times successively.

* * * * *

The fullest account of the Amazons is to be found in Diodorus Siculus.

* * * * *

Theophrastus, in his botanical works, anticipated the {575} sexual system of Linnæus. Philolaus of Crotona maintained that comets appeared after a certain revolution—and Æcetes contended for the existence of what is now called the new world. Pulci, “the sire of the half-serious rhyme,” has a passage expressly alluding to a western continent. Dante, two centuries before, has the same allusion.

De vostri sensi ch è del rimanente Non vogliate negar l'esperenza Diretro al sol, del mondo sensa gente.

* * * * *

Cicero makes _finis_ masculine, Virgil feminine. Usque ad eum finem—_Cicero_. Quæ finis standi? Hæc finis Priami fatorum—_Virgil_.

* * * * *

Dante left a poem in three languages—Latin, Provençal, and Italian. Rambaud de Vachieras left one in five.

* * * * *

Marcus Antoninus wrote a book entitled Των εις εαυτον—Of the things which concern himself. It would be a good title for a Diary.

* * * * *

Lipsius, in his treatise “De Supplicio Crucis,” says that the upright beam of the cross was a _fixture_ at the place of execution, whither the criminal was made to bear only the transverse arm. Consequently the painters are in error who depict our Savior bearing the entire cross.

* * * * *

The stream flowing through the middle of the valley of Jehoshaphat, is called, in the Gospel of St. John, “the brook of cedars.” In the Septuagint the word is κεδρον, darkness, from the Hebrew Kiddar, black, and not κεδρων, of cedars.

* * * * *

Seneca says that Appion, a grammarian of the age of Caligula, maintained that Homer himself made the division of the Iliad and Odyssey into books, and evidences the first word of the Iliad, Μηνιν, the Μη of which signifies 48, the number of books in both poems. Seneca however adds, “Talia sciat oportet qui multa vult scire.”

* * * * *

The tale in Plato's “Convivium,” that man at first was male and female, and that, though Jupiter cleft them asunder, there was a natural love towards one another, seems to be only a corruption of the account in Genesis of Eve's being made from Adam's rib.

* * * * *

Corneille has these lines in one of his tragedies;

Pleurez, pleurez, mes yeux, et fondez vous en eau— La moitié de ma vie a mis l'autre au tombeau

which may be thus translated,

Weep, weep, my eyes! it is no time to laugh For half myself has buried the other half.

* * * * *

Over the iron gate of a prison at Ferrara is this inscription—“Ingresso alla prigione di Torquato Tasso.”

* * * * *

Hedelin, a Frenchman, in the beginning of the 18th century, denied that any such person as Homer ever existed, and supposed the Iliad to be made up ex tragediis, et variis canticis de trivio mendicatorum et circulatorum—à la maniere des chansons du Pontneuf.

* * * * *

The Rabbi Manasseh published a book at Amsterdam entitled “The Hopes of Israel.” It was founded upon the supposed number and power of the Jews in America. This supposition was derived from a fabulous account by Montesini of his having found a vast concourse of Jews among the Cordilleras.

* * * * *

The word _assassin_ is derived according to Hyle from Hassa, to kill. Some bring it from Hassan, the first chief of the association—some from the Jewish Essenes—Lemoine from a word meaning “herbage”—De Sacy and Hammer from “hashish” the opiate of hemp leaves, of which the assassins made a singular use.

* * * * *

“Defuncti injuriâ ne afficiantur” was a law of the twelve tables.

* * * * *

The origin of the phrase “corporal oath” is to be found in the ancient usage of touching, upon occasion of attestation, the _corporale_ or cloth which covered the consecrated articles.

* * * * *

Montgomery in his lectures on _Literature_ (_!_) has the following—“Who does not turn with absolute contempt from the rings and gems, and filters, and caves and genii of Eastern Tales as from the trinkets of a toyshop, and the trumpery of a raree-show?” What man of genius but must answer “Not I.”

* * * * *

The Abbè de St. Pierre has fixed in his language two significant words, viz: _bienfaisance_, and the diminutive _la gloriole_.

* * * * *

There is no particular air known throughout Switzerland by the name of the Ranz des Vaches. Every canton has its own song varying in words, notes and even language. Mr. Cooper, the novelist, is our authority.

* * * * *

Incidis in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charybdim

is neither in Virgil nor Ovid, as often supposed, but in the “Alexandrics” of Philip Gualtier a French poet of the thirteenth century.

* * * * *

Under a portrait of Tiberio Fiurilli who invented the character of Scaramouch, are these verses,

Cet illustre Comedien De son art traca la carriere: Il fut le maitre de Moliere Et la Nature fut le sien.

* * * * *

A curious passage in a letter from Cicero to his literary friend Papyrius Pætus, shows that our custom of annexing a farce or pantomime to a tragic drama existed among the Romans.

* * * * *

In Cary's “Dante” is the following passage—

And pilgrim newly on his road with love Thrills if he hear the vesper bell from far That seems to mourn for the expiring day.

Gray has also

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day.

* * * * *

Marmontel in the “Encyclopedie” declares that the Italians did not possess a single comedy worth reading—therein displaying his ignorance. Some of the greatest {576} names in Italian Literature were writers of comedy. Baretti mentions a collection of four thousand dramas made by Apostolo Zeno, of which the greater part were comedies—many of a high order.

* * * * *

A comedy or opera by Andreini was the origin of “Paradise Lost.” Andreini's Adamo was the model of Milton's Adam.

* * * * *

Milton has the expression “Forget thyself to marble.” Pope has the line “I have not yet forgot myself to stone.”

* * * * *

The noble simile of Milton, of Satan with the rising sun in the first book of the Paradise Lost, had nearly occasioned the suppression of that epic: it was supposed to contain a treasonable allusion.

* * * * *

Campbell's line

Like angel visits few and far between,

is a palpable plagiarism. Blair has

Its visits Like angel visits short and far between.

* * * * *

In Hudibras are these lines—

Each window like the pillory appears With heads thrust through, nailed by the ears.

Young in his “Love of Fame” has the following—

An opera, like a pillory, may be said To nail our ears down and expose our head.

* * * * *

Goldsmith's celebrated lines

Man wants but little here below Nor wants that little long,

are stolen from Young; who has

Man wants but little, nor that little long.

* * * * *

The character of the ancient Bacchus, that graceful divinity, seems to have been little understood by Dryden. The line in Virgil

Et quocunque deus circum caput egit _honestum_

is thus grossly mistranslated,

On whate'er side he turns his _honest_ face.

* * * * *

There are about one thousand lines identical in the Iliad and Odyssey.

* * * * *

Macrobius gives the form of an imprecation by which the Romans believed whole towns could be demolished and armies defeated. It commences “Dis Pater sive Jovis mavis sive quo alio nomine fas est nominare,” and ends “Si hæc ita faxitis ut ego sciam, sentiam, intelligamque, tum quisquis votum hoc faxit recte factum esto, ovibus atris tribus, Tellus mater, teque Jupiter, obtestor.”

* * * * *

The “Courtier” of Baldazzar Castiglione, 1528, is the first attempt at periodical moral Essay with which we are acquainted. The Noctes Atticæ of Aulus Gellius cannot be allowed to rank as such.

* * * * *

These lines were written over the closet door of M. Menard,

Las d'esperer, et de me plaindre De l'amour, des grands, et du sort C'est ici que J'attends la mort Sans la desirer ou la craindre.

* * * * *

Martin Luther in his reply to Henry VIIIth's book by which the latter acquired the title of “Defender of the Faith,” calls the monarch very unceremoniously “a pig, an ass, a dunghill, the spawn of an adder, a basilisk, a lying buffoon dressed in a king's robes, a mad fool with a frothy mouth and a whorish face.”

* * * * *

The Psalter of Solomon, which contains 18 psalms, is a work which was found in Greek in the library of Ausburg, and has been translated into Latin by John Lewis de la Cerda. It is supposed not to be Solomon's, but the work of some Hellenistical Jew, and composed in imitation of David's Psalms. The Psalter was known to the ancients, and was formerly in the famous Alexandrian MS.

* * * * *

An unshaped kind of something first appeared,

is a line in Cowley's famous description of the Creation.

* * * * *

It is probable that the queen of Sheba was Balkis—that Sheba was a kingdom in the Southern part of Arabia Felix, and that the people were called Sabæans. These lines of Claudian relate to the people and queen,

Medis, levibusque Sabæis Imperat hic sexus; reginarumque sub armis Barbariæ magna pars jacet.

* * * * *

Sheridan declared he would rather be the author of the ballad called Hosier's Ghost, by Glover, than of the Annals of Tacitus.

* * * * *

The word Jehovah is not Hebrew. The Hebrews had no such letters as J or V. The word is properly Iah-Uah—compounded of Iah Essence and Uah Existing. Its full meaning is the self-existing essence of all things.

* * * * *

The “Song of Solomon” throwing aside the heading of the chapters, which is the work of the English translators, contains nothing which relates to the Savior or the Church. It does not, like every other sacred book, contain even the name of the Deity.

* * * * *

In the Vatican is an ancient picture of Adam, with the Latin inscription “Adam divinitus edoctus, primus scientiarum et literarum inventor.”

* * * * *

The word translated “_slanderers_” in I Timothy iii, 2, and that translated “_false accusers_” in Titus ii, 3, are “_female devils_” in the original Greek of the New Testament.

* * * * *

The Hebrew language contains no word (except perhaps Jehovah) which conveys to the mind the idea of Eternity. The translators of the Old Testament have used the word Eternity but once.

* * * * *

“The slipper of Cinderella,” says the editor of the new edition of Warton “finds a parallel in the history of the celebrated Rhodope.” Cinderella is a tale of universal currency. An ancient Danish ballad has some of the incidents. It is popular among the Welch—also among the Poles—in Hesse and Swerhn. Schottky found it among the Servian fables. Rollenbagen in his Froschmauseler speaks of it as the tale of the despised {577} Aschen-possel. Luther mentions it. It is in the Italian Pentamerone under the title of Cenerentola.

* * * * *

Porphyry, than whom no one could be better acquainted with the theology of the ancients, acknowledged Vesta, Rhea, Ceres, Themis, Priapus, Proserpina, Bacchus, Attis, Adonis, Silenus, and the Satyrs to be one and the same.

* * * * *

Servius on Virgil's Æneid speaks of a _bearded_ Venus. The poet Calvus in Macrobius speaks of Venus as masculine. Valerius Soranus among other titles calls Jupiter the _Mother_ of the Gods.

* * * * *

In Suidas is a letter from Dionysius, the Areopagite, dated Heliopolis, in the fourth year of the 202d Olympiad (the year of Christ's crucifixion) to his friend Apollophanes, in which is mentioned a total eclipse of the sun at noon. “Either,” says Dionysius “the author of nature suffers, or he sympathizes with some who do.”

* * * * *

The most particular history of the Deluge, and the nearest of any to the account given by Moses is to be found in Lucian (De Dea Syria.)

* * * * *

The Greeks had no historian prior to Cadmus Milesius, nor any public inscription of which we can be certified, before the laws of Draco.

* * * * *

So great is the uncertainty of ancient history that the epoch of Semiramis cannot be ascertained within 1535 years, for according to

Syncellus, she lived before Christ 2177, Patavius, ' ' ' ' 2060, Helvicus, ' ' ' ' 2248, Eusebius, ' ' ' ' 1984, Mr. Jackson, ' ' ' 1964, Archbishop Usher, ' ' 1215, Philo-Biblius from Sanconiathon, 1200, Herodotus about ' ' ' 713.

* * * * *

The book of Jasher, said to have been preserved from the deluge by Noah, but since lost, was extant in the time of Joshua, and in the time of David. Mr. Bryant thinks, however, very justly, that the ten tables of stone were the first written characters. The book of Jasher is mentioned Joshua x. 13, and 2 Samuel i. 18.

* * * * *

Andrè Chenier, imprisoned during the French Revolution, began thus some lines on his unhappy situation,

Peut-être avant que l'heure en cercle promenée Ait posè sur l'email brillant Dans les soixante pas ou sa route est bornèe Son pied sonore et vigilant, Le sommeil du tombeau pressera ma paupiere—

At this instant Andrè Chenier was interrupted by the officials of the guillotine.

* * * * *

Archbishop Usher, in a MS. of St. Patrick's life, said to have been found at Louvain as an original of a very remote date, detected several entire passages purloined from his own writings.

* * * * *

An extract from the “Mystery of St. Denis” is in the “Bibliotheque du Theatre Francois, depuis son origine, Dresde. 1768.” In this serious drama, St. Denis, having been tortured and at length decapitated, rises very quietly, takes his head under his arm and walks off the stage in all the dignity of martyrdom.

* * * * *

The idea of “No light but rather darkness visible” was perhaps suggested to Milton by Spenser's

A little glooming light much like a shade.

* * * * *

In the Dutch Vondel's tragedy “The Deliverance of the Children of Israel” one of the principal characters is the Divinity himself.

* * * * *

Darwin is indebted for a great part of his “Great poem” to a Latin one by De La Croix, published in 1727 and entitled “Connubia Florum.”

* * * * *

Mr. Bryant in his learned “Mythology” says that although the Pagan fables are not believed, yet we forget ourselves continually and make inferences from them as existing realities.

* * * * *

The shield of Achilles in Homer seems to have been copied from some Pharos which the poet had seen in Egypt. What he describes on the central part of the shield is a map of the earth and of the celestial appearances.

* * * * *

Anaxagoras of Clazomenæ is said to have prophecied that a stone would fall from the sun. This is a mistake of the learned. All that Anaxagoras averred may be seen in the Scholiast upon Pindar (Olymp. Ode. 1.) It amounts only to this, that Petros was a name of the sun.

* * * * *

The Hebrew language has lain now for two thousand years mute and incapable of utterance. The “Masoretical punctuation” which professes to supply the vowels was formed a thousand years after the language had ceased to be spoken, and disagrees in many instances with the Seventy, Origen and other writers.

* * * * *

James Montgomery thinks proper to style M'Pherson's Ossian, a collection “of halting, dancing, lumbering, grating, nondescript paragraphs.”

* * * * *

The paucity of spondees in the English language, is the reason why we cannot tolerate an English Hexameter. Sir Philip Sidney, in his Arcadia, thus speaks of Love in what is meant for Hexameter verse:

So to the woods Love runnes, as well as rides to the palace: Neither he bears reverence to a prince, nor pity to a beggar; But, like a point in the midst of a circle, is still of a nearnesse.

* * * * *

His form had not yet lost All _her_ original brightness,

is a very remarkable passage in Milton's Paradise Lost, wherein a _person is personified_.

* * * * *

It is certain that Hebrew verse did not include rhyme: the terminations of the lines where they are most distinct, never showing any thing of the kind.

* * * * *

Francis le Brossano engraved these verses upon a marble tomb which he erected to Petrarch at Arqua. {578}

Frigida Francisci tegit hic lapis ossa Petrarcæ. Suscipe, virgo parens, animam: sate virgine, parce, Fessaque jam terris, cœli requiescat in arce.

* * * * *

“Statua Statuæ” was an inscription handed about at Paris for the equestrian statue of Louis XV, begun by Bouchardon and finished by Pigal. The following also,

Bouchardon est un animal Et son ouvrage fait pitié: Il place les vices à cheval Et les vertus à pied.

And another,

Voila notre roi comme il est à Versailles Sans foi, sans loi, et sans entrailles.

* * * * *

Bochart derives Elysium from the Phœnician Elysoth, joy, through the Greek Ἠλυσιον. Circe from the Phœnician Kirkar, to corrupt—Siren from the Phœnician Sir, to sing—Scylla from the Phœnician Scol, destruction—Charybdis from the Phœnician Chor-obdam, chasm of ruin.

* * * * *

Attrogs, a fruit common in Palestine, is supposed to have been “the forbidden.” It has a rough rind, and resembles a citron or lemon.

* * * * *

The following quaint sentence is found in Saint Evremond. “I own I do not envy him, when I consider that there are in the next world such people as Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Eacus.”

* * * * *

The standard of Judas Maccabæus displayed the words “Mi camoca baelim Jehovah”—Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the Gods? This being afterwards intimated by the first letter of each word, in the manner of the S. P. Q. R., gave rise to the surname Maccabæus—for the initials in Hebrew form “Maccabi.”

* * * * *

Josephus, with Saint Paul and others, supposed man to be compounded of body, soul, and spirit. The distinction between soul and spirit is an essential point in ancient philosophy.

* * * * *

Lord Lyttleton acknowledged the authorship of two dialogues, in the first of which the personages were the Savior and Socrates, in the second king David and Cæsar Borgia.

* * * * *

Dante gives the name of _sonnet_ to his little canzone or ode beginning

O voi che per la via d'Amor passate.

* * * * *

Boileau is mistaken in saying that Petrarch ‘qui est regardé comme le pere du sonnet’ borrowed it from the French or Provençal writers. The Italian sonnet can be traced back as far as the year 1200. Petrarch was not born until 1304.

* * * * *

The learned Menage has this epitaph on Sannazarius

Ci git, dont l'esprit fût si beau, Sannazar, ce poete habile, Qui par ses vers divins approche de Virgile, Plus encore que par son tombeau.

* * * * *

The two reprehensible lines in Pope's Eloisa,

Not Cæsar's empress would I deign to prove; No—make me mistress to the man I love

are to be found in the original letters of Eloisa—at least the thought.

* * * * *

Mercier, in “L'an deux mille quatre cents quarante” seriously maintains the doctrines of the Metempsychosis, and J. D'Israeli says there is no system so simple, and so little repugnant to the understanding.

* * * * *

One of the best epigrams affixed to the statue of Pasquin was the following upon Paul III,

Ut canerent data multa olim sunt vatibus æra Ut taceam quantum tu mihi, Paule, dabis?

* * * * *

Milton in Paradise Lost, has this passage,

——when the _scourge_ Inexorably, and the _torturing hour_ Call us to penance.

Gray, in his Ode to Adversity, has

Thou tamer of the human breast Whose iron _scourge_, and _torturing hour_ The bad affright.

* * * * *

Gray tells us that the image of his bard, where

Loose his beard, and hoary hair Streamed like a meteor to the troubled air

was taken from a picture by Raphael: yet the beard of Hudibras is also likened to a meteor,

This hairy meteor did denounce The fall of sceptres and of crowns.

* * * * *

The lines

For he that fights and runs away May live to fight another day, But he that is in battle slain Will never rise to fight again

are not to be found, as is thought, in Hudibras. Butler's verses ran thus;

For he that flies may fight again Which he can never do that's slain.

The former are in a volume of ‘Poems’ by Sir John Mennes, reign of Charles II. The original idea is in Demosthenes. Ανερ ο φεογων και παλιν μαχησεται.

* * * * *

“Semel insanivimus omnes” is not from Horace but from Mantuanus, an Italian. In a work entitled “De honesto amore” is this line,

Id commune malum, semel insanivimus omnes.

* * * * *

Dryden in ‘Absalom and Achitophel’ has these lines,

David for him his tuneful harp had strung And heaven had wanted one immortal song.

Pope in his Epistle to Arbuthnot has

Friend of my life which did not you prolong The world had wanted many an idle song.

* * * * *

Tickell's lines

While the charmed reader with thy thought complies And views thy Rosamond with Henry's eyes,

are evidently borrowed from those of Boileau,

En vain contre ‘Le Cid’ un ministre se ligue; Tout Paris pour Chimene a les yeux de Rodrigue.

* * * * *

The expression, ‘nemorumque noctem’ occurring in one of Gray's Latin odes, has been repeatedly found fault with—yet Virgil has ‘medio nimborum in nocte.’

* * * * *

{579} Selden observes of Henry VIII, that he was a king with a pope in his belly.

* * * * *

In the ‘Nubes’ of Aristophanes, there are several Greek verses in _rhyme_.

* * * * *

Of the ten tragedies which are attributed to Seneca, (the only Roman tragedies extant,) nine are on Greek subjects.

* * * * *

Ariosto says of one of his heroes, that, in the heat of combat, not perceiving that he was a dead man, he continued to fight valiantly, dead as he was.

Il pover' huomo che non s'en era accorto, Andava combattendo, e era morto.

* * * * *

The author of ‘La Maniere de bien Penser’ speaks of a French divine who, to prove that young persons sometimes die before old ones, cited the text, ‘Prœcucurrit citius Petro Johannes et venit primus ad monumentum.’

* * * * *

There is no passage among all the writings of antiquity more sublime than these lines of Silius Italicus. The words are addressed to a young man of Capua, who proposed to assassinate Hannibal at a banquet.

Fallis te mensas inter quod credis inermem, Tot bellis quæsita viro, tot cœdibus armat Majestas eterna ducem: si admoveris ora Cannas et Trebium ante oculos, Trasymenaque busta, Et Pauli stare ingentum miraberis umbram.

* * * * *

Giace l'alta Cartago: à pena i segni De l'alte sui ruine il lido serba: Muoino le città, muoino i regni; Copre i fasti e le pompe arena et herba: E l'huom d'esser mortal per che si sdegni.

These lines of Tasso are a curious specimen of literary robbery—being made up entirely of passages from Lucan and Sulspicius. Lucan says of Troy

Jam tota teguntur Pergama dumetis: etiam perire ruinæ:

and Sulspicius in a letter to Cicero says of Megara, Egina, Corinth, &c.—“Hem! nos homunculi indignamur si quis nostrum interiit, quorum vita brevior esse debet, cum uno loco tot oppidorum cadavera projecta jaceant.”

* * * * *

An epigram upon the subject of Francois de Bassompiere being released from the Bastille upon the death of Richelieu, is a strange mixture of lofty thought and puerile conceit.

Enfin dans l'arriere saison La fortune d'Armand s'accorde avec la mienne: France, Je sors de ma prison Quand son ame sort de la sienne.

The line, “France, Je sors de ma prison,” is the anagram of Francois de Bassompiere.

* * * * *

The epigrams of the Greek Anthology are characterized more by _náiveté_ than point. They are for the most part insipid.

* * * * *

Longinus calls pompous and inflated thoughts, “reveries of Jupiter”—insomnia Jovis.

* * * * *

A French writer of celebrity dedicated a book to Richelieu in terms of the most blasphemous flattery. But being disappointed in his expectations, he suppressed all his praises in a second edition, and re-dedicated his volume “_á Jesus Christ_.”

* * * * *

The following inscription intended for the Louvre, possesses both simplicity and dignity:

Pande fores populis, sublimis Lupara: non est Terrarum imperio dignior ulla domus.

* * * * *

Under a fine painting of St. Bruno in solitude, some Italian wrote these words, “Egli è vivo, e parlerebbe se non osservasse la rigola del silentio.” Malherbe has taken the hint in his epigram upon a picture of Saint Catherine.

* * * * *

A fine sample of _galimatias_ is to be found in an epigram of Miguel de Cervantes:

Van muerte tan escondida, Que no te sienta venir; Porque el plazer del morir No me torne à dar la vida.

* * * * *

Quintillian mentions a pedant who taught obscurity, and who was wont to say to his scholars, “This is excellent—I do not understand it myself.”

* * * * *

An Italian metaphysician to disprove that greatness of mind is proportioned to the size of the skull, argues thus: “Non sano, che la mente è il centro del capo; e il centro non cresce per la grandezza del circolo.”

* * * * *

A horse is often seen on ancient sepulchral monuments. Caylus quotes a passage from Passeri, “de animæ transvectione,” implying that the horse designates the passage of the soul to Elysium.

* * * * *

The Satyre Menippée of the French is, in prose, the exact counterpart of Hudibras in rhyme.

* * * * *

A remarkable instance of concord of sound and sense is to be seen in the following stanza by M. Anton. Flaminius:

Ast amans charæ thalamum puellæ Deserit flens, et tibi verba dicit Aspera amplexu teneræ cupito a— —vulsus amicæ.

* * * * *

Voltaire's ignorance of antiquity is laughable. In his Essay on Tragedy, prefixed to Brutus, he actually boasts of having introduced the Roman senate on the stage in red mantles. “The Greeks,” as he asserts, “font paraitre ses acteurs (tragic) sur des especes d'echasses, le visage couvert d'un masque qui exprime la douleur d'un coté et la joye de l'autre!” The only circumstance upon which he could possibly have founded such an accusation is, that in the _new comedy_ masks were worn with one eyebrow drawn up and the other down, to denote a busy-body or inquisitive medler.

* * * * *

Several ancient tragedies, viz: Eumenides, Philoctetes, and Ædipus et Colonos, besides many pieces of Euripides, have a happy and enlivening termination.

* * * * *

The only historical tragedies by Grecian authors {580} were The Capture of Miletus by Phrynicus and the Persians of Æschylus.

* * * * *

The foundation of all the erroneous opinions on the subject of the old Greek comedy (Voltaire's opinion particularly) may be found in the comparison between Aristophanes and Menander, in Plutarch.

* * * * *

Schlegel says justly, that Harlequin and Pulcinello descend in a direct line from the buffoons of the ancient Romans. On Greek vases are seen also dresses like theirs—long breeches and waistcoats with arms, articles worn by neither Greeks nor Romans except upon the stage. At present Zanni is one of the names of Harlequin, and Sannio in the Latin farces was a buffoon who had a shaven head, and a dress patched together of all colors.

* * * * *

In Racine's _Berenice_ Antiochus says to the queen

——Je me suis tû cinq ans Madame, et vais encore me taire plus long tems,

and to give a direct proof of his intention, recites immediately no less than fifty verses in a breath.

* * * * *

In Voltaire's scruples about unity of place he has committed a thousand blunders. In the Mort de Cæsar the scene is in the Capitol, but the people seem not to know their precise situation. On one occasion Cæsar exclaims, “Courons au Capitole!”

* * * * *

Denis de Sallo's “Journal des Sçavans,” in 1665 may be considered as the origin of Literary Journals or Reviews.

* * * * *

Sous ce tombeau git Le Sage abattu Par le ciseau de la Parque importune, S'il ne fut pas ami de la fortune Il fut toujours ami de la vertu,

was Le Sage's epitaph.

* * * * *

These lines although extremely French are forcible,

Et comme un jeune cœur est bientot enflammé Il me vit, il m'aima, je le vis, je l'aimai.

* * * * *

On Cardinal Richelieu, Benserade made the following epitaph:

Cy gist—ouy gist par la mort bleu Le Cardinal de Richelieu, Et ce qui cause mon ennuy Ma pension avec lui.

* * * * *

The Jesuits called Crebillon ‘Puer ingeniosus, sed insignis nebulo.’

* * * * *

Dr. E. Young published “A true Estimate of Human Life, Part I,” dedicated to Queen Anne, and describing the _shades_ of existence. The second part, however, which should have contained the lights never appeared.

* * * * *

The “Batrachomyomachia,” is nothing more than a burlesque poem, much in the manner of Aristophanes, and doubtfully attributed to Homer. Philip Melancthon however, wrote a commentary to prove the poet's object was to excite a hatred for tumults and sedition. Pierre La Seine going a step farther, thinks the intention was to recommend to young men temperance in eating and drinking.

* * * * *

“Amare et sapere vix Deo conceditur,” is not Seneca's as generally supposed.

* * * * *

The heathen poets are mentioned three times in the New Testament. Aratus in the seventeenth chapter of Acts—Menander in the fifteenth chapter of I Corinthians—also Epimenides.

* * * * *

“Semper sub Sextis perdita Roma fuit,”

was a line written during the pontificate of Alexander VI. Sextus Tarquinius provoked by his tyranny the expulsion of the kings of Rome. Urban VI began the great schism of the West. Alexander VI astonished the world by the enormity of his crimes, and Pius VI did not falsify the saying.

* * * * *

A letter was once addressed from Rome “Alla sua Excellenza Seromfidevi,” in London. It caused much perplexity at the Post-office and British Museum, and after foiling the acumen of a minister of state, was found to be intended for Sir Humphrey Davy.

* * * * *

The vulgar Christian era is the invention of Dionysius Exiguus.

* * * * *

The book of Judith was originally written in Chaldee, and thence translated into Latin by St. Jerom. There are several particulars in our English version which are not to be found in St. Jerom's, and which seem to be those readings which he professes to omit as vicious corruptions.

* * * * *

The proverb, “Evil communications corrupt good manners,” which is found in Corinthians, is a quotation, intended as such, from Euripides.

* * * * *

Varro reckons three epochs: the first from the beginning of the world to the first flood, which he calls _uncertain_; the second from the flood to the first Olympiad, _fabulous_; the third from the first Olympiad to his own time, _historical_.

* * * * *

Politian, the poet and scholar, was an admirer of Alessandra Scala, and addressed to her this extempore:

To teach me that in hapless suit I do but waste my hours, Cold maid, whene'er I ask for fruit, Thou givest me naught but flowers.

* * * * *

In the Latin version of Herodotus, the lowest of the towers forming the temple of Belus, is said to be a furlong thick and a furlong high; and some writers concluding each of the eight to be as high, make the whole one mile in height. In the Greek text, however, the lowest tower is merely said to be a furlong _through_—nothing is said of its height. Strabo makes the temple a furlong altogether in altitude.

* * * * *

Jacobus Hugo was of opinion that by the Harpies Homer intended the Dutch; by Euenis, John Calvin; by Antinous, Martin Luther; and by the Lotophagi, Protestants in general.

* * * * *

{581} “Impune quæ libet facere id est esse regem,” is a definition of a king to be found in Sallust.

* * * * *

The first collection of the Iliad was by Pisistratus, or some of the Pisistratidæ. There were, after this, innumerable editions—but Aristarchus in the reign of Ptolemy Philometer, B.C. 150, published from a collection of all the copies then existing, a new edition, the text of which has finally prevailed.

* * * * *

Some one after the manner of Santeuil, composed the following quatrain for the gates of the market to be erected on the site of the famous Jacobin Club at Paris,

Impia tortorum longas hic turba furores Sanguinis innocui, non satiata, aluit. Sospite nunc patriâ, fracto nunc funeris antro, Mors ubi dira fuit, vita salusque patent.

* * * * *

A version of the Psalms was published in 1642 by William Slatyer, of which this is a specimen:

The righteous shall his sorrow scan And laugh at him, and say ‘Behold! What hath become of this here man That on his riches was so bold.’

* * * * *

At the bottom of an obelisk which Pius VI was erecting at great expense near the entrance of the Quirinal Palace in 1783, while the people were suffering for bread, were found written these words,

Signore, di a questa pietra che divenga pane. Lord, command that these stones be made bread.

* * * * *

Constantine Koliades wrote a book to prove that Homer and Ulysses were one and the same—but Joshua Barnes attributes the authorship of the Iliad to Solomon.

* * * * *

In Σ. xviii. 192, of the Iliad, Achilles says none of the armor of the chieftains will fit him except the shield of Ajax: how then did his own armor fit Patroclus?

* * * * *

In the reign of Edward VI, Dr. Christopher Tye turned the Acts of the Apostles into rhyme. They begin thus,

In the former epistle to thee Dear friend Theophilus I have written the veritie Of the Lord Christ Jesus.

* * * * *

Empedocles professed the system of four elements, and added thereto two principles which he called ‘principium amicitiæ and principium contentionis.’ What are these but attraction and repulsion?

* * * * *

The Count Bielfeld's definition of poetry is ‘L'art d'exprimer les pensées par la fiction.’ The German terms Dichtkunst, _the art of fiction_, and Dichten to _feign_, which are used for _Poetry_, and _to make verses_, are in full accordance with his definition.

* * * * *

The Germans have epic poems composed in metre of sixteen and seventeen syllables.

* * * * *

The following Vaudeville is one of the drollest of its kind:

Quand un bon vin meuble mon estomac Je suis plus savant que Balzac— Plus sage que Pibrac. Mon bras seul faisant l'attaque De la nation Cossaque La mettroit au sac. De Charon Je passerois le lac En dormant dans son bac. J'irois au fier Eac Sans que mon cœur fit tic ni tac Présenter du tabac.

* * * * *

On ancient monuments are often found the letters A. E. R. A. meaning Annus erat Regni Augusti. The ignorance of copyists may probably have formed of these letters the single word ÆRA. Would it not be a better derivation than the Latin ÆS?

* * * * *

The work of John Albert Fabricius, the Hamburg professor, entitled Bibliotheca Græca, in which his sole object is to render an account of the _Greek_ authors _extant_, occupies fourteen thick volumes in quarto.

* * * * *

The usual derivation of the word Metaphysics is not to be sustained. _Meta physicam_ is tortured into meaning _super physicam_, and the science is supposed to take its name from its superiority to physics. The truth is, that Aristotle's treatise on Morals is next in succession to his Book of Physics, and this order he considers the rational order of study. His Ethics consequently commence with the words Μετα τα φυσικα, &c. from which the word Metaphysics.

* * * * *

The commentators upon Mr. Beckford's Vathek say that the _locusts_ derive their name from having been so called by the first English settlers in America. The word comes evidently from _loco usto_, the havoc they made wherever they passed leaving the appearance of a place desolated by fire.

* * * * *

M. Patru was convinced that in all his prose writings no sentence or part of a sentence could be found so _cadenced_ as to form a verse. A friend, however immediately pointed out to him the words in his ‘Plaidoyers’

Septième plaidoyer pour un jeune Allemand.

* * * * *

Despreaux speaking of the cæsura in French versification, asserts,

Que toujours dans nos vers—le sens coupant les mots, Suspende l'hemistiche—en marquant le repos.

M. Despreaux seems to have forgotten that hemistich is a composite Greek word signifying a demi-line, and that consequently his own admired verses have no meaning at all.

* * * * *

Every one is acquainted with the excellent _commencement_ of the Annals of Tacitus. From this, principally he has acquired his reputation for concision. It is singular that no notice has ever been taken of the extreme prolixity of their _conclusion_.

* * * * *

There is a dissertation upon Hebrew, or Samaritan medals by Père Soucier, in which he proves the existence of Hebrew money struck by the Jews upon the model of the coins current before the captivity. All the Hebrew medals, however, bearing a head of Moses or of Christ, are manifestly forgeries.

* * * * *

{582} There is a book by a Jesuit, Père Labbe, entitled La Bibliothèque des Bibliothèques. It is a catalogue of all authors in all nations who have written catalogues of books.

* * * * *

Lucretius, lib. v. 93, 96, has the words,

——terras— Una dies dabit exitio.

Ovid the lines,

Carmine sublimis tunc sunt peritura Lucreti Exitio terras cum dabit una dies.

* * * * *

Albert in his Hebrew Dictionary, pretends to discover in each word, in its root, in its letters, and in the manner of pronouncing them, the reason of its signification. Loescher in his treatise De causis Linguæ Hebreæ, carries the matter even farther.

* * * * *

In Judges is this expression, ‘And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter.’ The phrase ‘to smite hip and thigh’ arises from these words. No meaning, however, can be attached to them as they stand—but the original will admit of a different signification, viz: ‘He smote them with his leg on the thigh,’ and alludes to the wrestling matches which were common in the east. In this sense the phrase exactly answers to the ‘crus femori impingere’ and the σκελιξειν or αποσκελιξειν of the ancients.

* * * * *

It is a remarkable fact, that during the whole period of the middle ages, the Germans lived in utter ignorance of the art of writing.

* * * * *

The silver shekel of the Hebrews has on its face the rod of Aaron with the inscription, Jeruschalaim Hakkedoucha, Jerusalem the Holy, and on the reverse a cup with the words Chekel Ischrael, money of Israel.

* * * * *

The Masoretical punctuation is a kind of critique upon the Hebrew text invented by the Jewish teachers to prevent its alteration. The first original being lost, recourse was had to the Masore as an infallible method of fixing the text. The verses, words, and even letters are there counted, and all their variations recorded.

* * * * *

Among the Hebrew text of the Old Testament are mingled a few passages of Chaldaic. _All the characters_ as we have them now, are properly speaking Chaldaic.

* * * * *

A version of the Psalms in 1564, by Archbishop Parker, has the following—

Who sticketh to God in stable trust As Sion's mount he stands full just Which moveth no whit, nor yet can reel, But standeth for ever as stiff as steel.

* * * * *

A part of the 137th Psalm runs thus: ‘If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,’ which has been thus paraphrased in a version of the Psalms,

If I forget thee ever Then let me prosper never, But let it cause My tongue and jaws To cling and cleave together.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW.

_The Old World and the New; or, a Journal of Reflections and Observations made on a Tour in Europe. By the Reverend Orville Dewey. New York: Harper & Brothers._

Mr. Dewey assures us, in the beginning of his _Preface_, that his volumes are not offered to the public as an itinerary—but it is difficult to say in what other light they should be regarded. To us they appear as strictly entitled to the appellation as any book of travels we have perused. They are indeed an itinerary of the most inartificial character—a journal in which unconnected remarks follow one upon another—object upon object—day upon day—and all with a scrupulous accuracy in regard to dates. Not that we have much objection to this methodical procedure, but that we cannot understand Mr. Dewey in declaring his book not to be what it most certainly is, if it is any thing at all. His subsequent remark, that every American traveller to the old world enjoys a vantage ground for surveying the institutions, customs, and character of his own country is what we can readily appreciate. We think, also, that in many respects our author has made excellent use of this advantage. But we would be doing our conscience a great wrong in recommending the work before us _as a whole_. Here is some amusement—great liberality—much excellent sense—a high spirit of sound morality and genuine philanthropy; but indeed very little, so we think, of either novelty or profundity. These two latter qualities are, however, of a nature so strictly relative, and liable to so many modifications from the acquirements or character of the reader, that we feel some hesitation in what we say—and would prefer leaving a decision where it _must_ finally be left—to the voice of the public opinion.

One remarkable feature in the _Old World and the New_, is its amusing _naiveté_ of manner—a feature which will immediately arrest the attention of every reader. We cannot do better than give a few specimens.

What a pity it is [says Mr. D., and so it is undoubtedly] that cities, or at least streets in cities, could not, like single edifices, be built upon some regular and well considered plan! Not that the result should be such regularity as is seen in Philadelphia or Dublin; the plan indeed would embrace irregularity. But there might be an arrangement, by which a block of buildings, a street, or indeed a whole city, might stand before us as one grand piece of architecture. If single specimens of architecture have the effect to improve, humanize, and elevate the ideas of a people; if they are a language, and answer a purpose kindred to that of literature, poetry and painting, why may not a whole city have this effect? To secure this result, there must, I am afraid, be a power like that of the autocrat of Russia, who, I am told, when a house is built in his royal city of St. Petersburg which does not conform to his general plan, sends word to the owner that he must remove that building and put up another of a certain description.

And again, speaking of the Menai bridge—

A celebrated lady (since dead) in speaking of this stupendous work, said that she first saw it from the Isle of Anglesea, so that it was relieved against the lofty mountains of North Wales; and she added in a strain {583} of eloquent and poetical comparison familiar to her, that Snowdon seemed to her a fit back ground for the Menai Bridge.

All this may be very true, but then only think of the _eloquent and poetical comparison_ of Snowdon being a back ground for the Menai Bridge!

Mrs. Hemans and our author go to church together.

She spoke (says he) of the various accompaniments of the service, and when she came to the banners she said ‘they seemed to wave as the music of the anthem rose to the lofty arches!’ I ventured here to throw in a little dash of prose—saying that _I was afraid that they did not wave, that I wished they might, and looked up to see if they did, but could not see it._

Mr. Dewey does not like oatmeal cake.

In good truth I should never desire to have any thing to do with it save as a specimen; for of all the stuff that ever I tasted, it was the most inedible, impracticable, insufferable, dry, hard, coarse, rasping, gritty, chaffy: I _could_ not eat it, and it seemed to me that if I could, it would be no more nourishing than gravel kneaded into mud, and baked in a lime-kiln. As to drink—whiskey! whiskey! the boatman said was the only thing, and the thing indispensable. I tasted of it—_and truly it had not the usual odious taste of our American whiskey!_

We quote these passages merely as specimens of the singular simplicity—more properly _naiveté_—which is the prevailing feature of the book.

Mr. Dewey left New York for England on the 8th June 1833, and arrived in St. George's channel _on the 24th of the same month_, having a fair wind and smooth sea during the entire passage. Leaving England, he visited Wales, Ireland, Scotland, France, Belgium, Prussia, Switzerland, and Italy. Returning by way of Liverpool, he reached home on the 22d of May, 1834.

RICHARDSON'S DICTIONARY.

_A New Dictionary of the English Language: By Charles Richardson. London: William Pickering—New York: William Jackson._

The _periodical_ nature of this publication absolves us from what would otherwise be a just charge of neglect in not speaking of it sooner. Five numbers have been issued, and twenty-five more are to be added, at intervals of a fortnight. These numbers are of quarto form, and contain eighty pages in triple columns. The paper is excellent, and the matter beautifully stereotyped. The whole will form, when the publication is completed, two very large quarto volumes, of which the entire cost will have been fifteen dollars. We say when the publication is completed—the work itself is already so—a consideration of great importance, and sure to be appreciated by the thousands of subscribers to the many costly periodicals which have failed in completing their issue, and thus thrown a number of odd volumes upon the hands of the public. In what farther we have to say of this Dictionary, we shall do little more than paraphrase the very satisfactory prospectus of Mr. Richardson himself.

When Dr. Johnson, in 1747, announced his intention of writing a Dictionary of the English language, he communicated the _plan_ of his undertaking in a letter to Lord Chesterfield. The plan was as follows. He would give, first—the natural and primitive meaning of words; secondly, the consequential—and thirdly the metaphorical, arranging the quotations chronologically. The book, however, was published in 1755, _without the plan_, and strange to say, in utter disregard of the principles avowed in the letter to the Earl of Chesterfield. That these principles were well-conceived, and that if followed out, they would have rendered important service to English lexicography, was not doubted at the time, and cannot be doubted now. Moreover, the necessity for something of the kind which was felt _then_, is more strongly felt now, for no person has as yet attempted to construct a work upon the plan proposed, and the difficulties which were to have been remedied, are greatly aggravated by time. Eighty years have passed, and not only has no new work been written upon the plan of Dr. Johnson—but no systematic work of reform upon the old basis.

The present Dictionary of Mr. Richardson is, distinctly, a _new work_, upon a system never attempted before—upon the principles of Horne Tooke, the greatest of philosophical grammarians, and whose developments of an entirely novel theory of language have excited the most profound interest and respect in the minds of all who think.

In the _Diversions of Purley_, it is positively demonstrated that a word has one meaning and one only, and that from this one meaning all the _usages_ of the word must spring. “To discover this meaning,” says Mr. Richardson, “etymological research was indispensable, and I have stated the results of such research with conciseness, it is true, yet with a fullness that will enable the more learned reader to form a judgment for himself, and the path of deeper investigation is disclosed to the pursuit of the curious inquirer.” In tracing the _usages_ of words, Mr. R. has availed himself of the materials collected by Johnson and his editors, “the various supplements and provincial vocabularies, the notes of editors and commentators upon our older poets, and of abundant treasures amassed for his own peculiar use.” The quotations are arranged chronologically, and embrace extracts from the earliest to the latest writers of English. The etymology is placed distinctly by itself for the convenience of hasty reference. As an example of the arrangement of the work, we will give the word _Calefy_.

CA´LEFY | Lat. _Calefieri_, to be or become hot. CALEFA´CTION | Calere, Vossius deduces from the Doric CALI´DITY | Καλεος for Κηλεος, burning. CA´LIDUCT |

To heat, to be, become, or cause to be hot.

But crystal will _calefie_ into electricity; that is, a power to attract straws or light bodies and convert the needle freely placed.—_Brown. Vulgar Errours_, b. ii. c. 1.

As [if] the remembrance of _calefaction_ can warm a man in a cold frosty night.—_More. Philos. Poems_, c. 2, _Pref._

But ice will dissolve in any way of heat; for it will dissolve with fire; it will colliquate in water, or warm oyl; nor doth it onely submit unto an actual heat, but not endure the potential _calidity_ of many waters.—_Brown. Vulgar Errours_. b. ii. c. 1.

Since the subterranean _caliducts_ have been introduced. _Evelyn_.

In his prospectus, Mr. Richardson has had occasion to speak in no measured terms of the Dictionary of Dr. Webster. We here repeat his observations because we think them entirely just.

{584} The author is conscious that he should be chargeable with great want of courtesy if he passed unnoticed the American Dictionary of Dr. Webster. His _censure_ however must be short. Dr. Webster disarmed and stripped himself for the field, and advanced unaided and unshielded to the combat. He abjured the assistance of Skinner and Vossius, and the learned elders of lexicography; and of Tooke he quaintly says, ‘I have made no use of his writings.’ There is a display of oriental reading in his Preliminary Essays, which as introductory to a Dictionary of the English Language, seems as appropriate and useful as a reference to the code of Gentoo laws to decide a question of English inheritance. Dr. Webster was entirely unacquainted with our old authors.

We believe the North American Review has remarked of the work before us, that its definitions are in some measure too scanty, and not sufficiently compact. This defect, which cannot altogether be denied, and which is, to say the truth, of more importance to the mass of readers than to the philologist, will be found, upon examination, a defect inseparable from the plan originally proposed, and which insists upon an arrangement of derivatives under primitives. We are not tempted, however, to wish any modification of the principal design, for the sake of a partial, and not very important amendment.

We conclude in heartily recommending the work of Mr. Richardson to the attention of our readers. It embraces we think, every desideratum in an English Dictionary, and has moreover a thousand negative virtues. Messrs. Mayo and Davis are the agents in Richmond.

BOOK OF GEMS.

_The Book of Gems. The Poets and Artists of Great Britain. Edited by S. C. Hall. London and New York: Saunders and Otley._

This work combines the rich embellishments of the very best of the race of Annuals, with a far higher claim to notice than any of them in its strictly literary department. If we regard this volume as the only one to appear, the title will convey no idea of the design—but we are promised a continuation. The whole, if we comprehend, will contain specimens of _all_ the principal poets and artists of Great Britain. In the present instance we have the poets as far as Prior, including a period of about four hundred years, with extracts from Chaucer, Lydgate, James I, Hawes, Carew, Quarles, Shirley, Habington, Lovelace, Wyatt, Surrey, Sackville, Vere, Gascoigne, Raleigh, Spenser, Sidney, Brooke, Southwell, Daniel, Drayton, Shakspeare, Walton, Davies, Donne, Jonson, Corbet, Phineas Fletcher, Giles Fletcher, Drummond, Wither, Carew, Browne, Herrick, Quarles, Herbert, Davenant, Waller, Milton, Suckling, Butler, Crashaw, Denham, Cowley, Marvell, Dryden, Roscommon, Dorset, Sedley, Rochester, Sheffield, and Prior. Of these, all the autographs have been obtained and are published collectively at the end of the book, with the exception of the nine first mentioned. The work is illustrated by fifty-three engravings, each by different artists. A sea-side group by Harding, and L'Allegro and Il Penseroso by Parris, are particularly good—but all are excellent.

We had prepared some observations in regard to the book itself, (over which we have been poring for many days with intense delight) and in regard more especially to the character and justice of that deep feeling with which most men, having claim to taste, are wont to look, even through a veil of exceedingly troublesome obscurity and antiquity, upon the writings of the elder poets and dramatists of Great Britain. But we have been so nearly anticipated in our design by a paper in the American Monthly Magazine for July, that what we should now say, and say _con amore_, would be looked upon as little better than a _rifacimento_ of the article we mention. At the same time it would be an ill deed to remodel our thoughts, and proceed to think falsely, for the mere purpose of proving that we can think originally. In this dilemma then, we will merely express our general accordance in the opinions of the Northern Magazine, copy, of its _critique_, a portion which seems to embody, in little compass, much of what we have said less forcibly and more diffusely, and add some few additional observations which have lately suggested themselves.

“Among the early English poets, so called,” says the American Monthly, “there is combined with marked individuality, a sort of general resemblance, not easily defined, but readily perceived by a discriminating reader. They lived in an age of invention, and wrote from a pleasurable impulse which they could not resist. They did not borrow from one another, or from those who had gone before them, nor pass their time in pouring from one vessel into another. Thus, however different their styles, however various their subjects, whether the flight of their genius be high or low, there is the same aspect of truth and naturalness in the poetry of them all; as we can trace a common likeness in all faces which have an open, ingenuous expression, however little resemblance there may be in the several features. Most of them were well acquainted with books, and many of them were deeply learned; and an air of ripe scholarship sometimes degenerating into pedantry, pervades every thing they wrote. As a class too, they are remarkable for a healthy, intellectual tone, defaced neither by moody misanthropy, nor mawkish sentimentality. The manly Saxon character beams out from every line; and that vigorous good sense, so characteristic of the English stock, every where leaves its impress. Another trait which, with a few exceptions, honorably distinguishes them, is the purity of their sentiments, and their high moral feeling, especially in all that touches the relation of the sexes. We shall find many coarse expressions, such as a man would not read aloud to his family; but very rarely any thing bordering upon heartless profligacy, or studied licentiousness, or any intimation of a want of respect for the great principles of the moral law. Due reverence is always shown for those high personal qualities which constitute the best security for the greatness and prosperity of a people. Homage is always paid to honor in man, and chastity in woman. The passion of love, in its multitudinous forms and aspects, supplies a large proportion of their themes, and it is treated with equal delicacy and beauty. In the amatory strains of the old English poets, we perceive a romantic self-forgetfulness, an idealization of the beloved object, a tenderness and respectfulness of feeling, in which the passion is almost wholly swallowed up in the sentiment, and a wooing with the best treasures of the intellect as well {585} as the heart, such as can be found in no other class of poets.”

Notwithstanding the direct truth of what has been here so well advanced, it cannot, we think, be a matter of doubt with any reflecting mind, that at least one-third of the _reverence_, or of the _affection_, with which we regard the elder poets of Great Britain, should be credited to what is, in itself, a thing apart from poetry—we mean to the simple love of the antique—and that again a third of even the proper _poetic sentiment_ inspired by these writings should be ascribed to a fact which, while it has a strict connection with poetry in the abstract, and also with the particular poems in question, must not be looked upon as a merit appertaining to the writers of the poems. Almost every devout reader of the old English bards, if demanded his opinion of their productions, would mention vaguely, yet with perfect sincerity, a sense of dreamy, wild, indefinite, and he would perhaps say, undefinable delight. Upon being required to point out the source of this so shadowy pleasure, he would be apt to speak of the quaint in phraseology and of the grotesque in rhythm. And this quaintness and grotesqueness are, as we have elsewhere endeavored to show, very powerful, and if well managed, very admissible adjuncts to Ideality. But in the present instance they arise independently of the author's will, and are matters altogether apart from his intention. The _American Monthly_ has forcibly painted the general character of the old English Muse. She was a maid, frank, guileless, and perfectly sincere, and although very learned at times, still very learned without art. No general error evinces a more thorough confusion of ideas than the error of supposing Donne and Cowley metaphysical in the sense wherein Wordsworth and Coleridge are so. With the two former ethics were the end—with the two latter the means. The poet of the _Creation_ wished, by highly artificial verse, to inculcate what he considered moral truth—he of the _Auncient Mariner_ to infuse the _Poetic Sentiment_ through channels suggested by mental analysis. The one finished by complete failure what he commenced in the grossest misconception—the other, by a path which could not possibly lead him astray, arrived at a certainty and intensity of triumph which is not the less brilliant and glorious because concentrated among the very few who have the power to perceive it. It will now be seen that even the “metaphysical verse” of Cowley is no more than evidence of the straight-forward simplicity and single-heartedness of the man. And he was in all this but a type of his _school_—for we may as well designate in this way the entire class of writers whose poems are bound up in the volume before us, and throughout all of whom runs a very perceptible general character. They used but little art in composition. Their writings sprang immediately from the soul—and partook intensely of the nature of that soul. It is not difficult to perceive the tendency of this glorious _abandon_. To elevate immeasurably all the energies of mind—but again—so to mingle the greatest possible fire, force, delicacy, and all good things, with the lowest possible bathos, baldness, and utter imbecility, as to render it not a matter of doubt, but of certainty, that the average results of mind in such a _school_, will be found inferior to those results in one (ceteris paribus) more artificial. Such, we think, is the view of the older English Poetry, in which a very calm examination will bear us out. The quaintness in manner of which we were just speaking, is an adventitious advantage. It formed no portion of the poet's intention. Words and their rhythm have varied. Verses which affect us to day with a vivid delight, and which delight in some instances, may be traced to this one source of grotesqueness and to none other, must have worn in the days of their construction an air of a very common-place nature. This is no argument, it will be said, against the poems _now_. Certainly not—we mean it for the poets _then_. The notion of _power_, of excessive _power_, in the English antique writers should be put in its proper light. This is all we desire to see done.

We cannot bring ourselves to believe that the selections made use of in the _Book of Gems_, are such as will impart to a poetical reader the highest possible idea of the beauty of the _school_. Better extracts might be made. Yet if the intention were merely to show the _character_ of the school the attempt is entirely successful. There are long passages now before us of the most utterly despicable trash, with no merit whatever beyond their simple antiquity. And it is almost needless to say that there are many passages too of a glorious strength—a radiant loveliness, making the blood tingle in our veins as we peruse them. The criticisms of the Editor do not please us in a great degree. He seems to have fallen into the common cant in such cases. In one instance the American Monthly accords with him in an unjust opinion touching some verses by Sir Henry Wotton, on the Queen of Bohemia, daughter of James I, and about which it is said that “there are few finer things in our language.” Our readers will agree with us, we believe, that this praise is exaggerated. We quote the lines in full.

You meaner beauties of the night That poorly satisfy our eyes, More by your number than your light, You common people of the skies What are you when the sun shall rise?

You curious chaunters of the wood That warble forth dame Nature's lays, Thinking your passions understood By your weak accents; what's your praise When Philomel her voice shall raise?

You violets, that first appear By your pure purple mantles known, Like the proud virgins of the year As if the spring were all your own, What are you when the rose is blown?

So, when my mistress shall be seen In sweetness of her looks and mind, By virtue first, then choice a queen, Tell me if she were not designed Th' eclipse and glory of her kind?

In such lines we can perceive _not one_ of those higher attributes of the Muse which belong to her under all circumstances and throughout all time. Here everything is art—naked or but awkwardly concealed. No prepossession for the mere antique (for in this case we can imagine no other prepossession) should induce us to dignify with the sacred name of Poesy, a series such as this, of elaborate and threadbare compliments, (threadbare even at the time of their composition) stitched apparently together, without fancy, without {586} plausibility, without adaptation of parts—and it is needless to add, without a jot of imagination.

We have been much delighted with the _Shepherd's Hunting_, by Wither—a poem partaking, in a strange degree, of the peculiarities of the Penseroso. Speaking of Poesy he says—

By the murmur of a spring Or the least boughs rusteling, By a daisy whose leaves spread Shut when Tytan goes to bed, Or a shady bush or tree She could more infuse in me Than all Nature's beauties can In some other wiser man. By her help I also now Make this churlish place allow Something that may sweeten gladness In the very gall of sadness— The dull loneness, the black shade That these hanging vaults have made, The strange music of the waves Beating on these hollow caves, This black den which rocks emboss Overgrown with eldest moss, The rude portals that give light More to terror than delight, This my chamber of neglect Walled about with disrespect— From all these and this dull air A fit object for despair, She hath taught me by her might To draw comfort and delight.

But these verses, however good, do not bear with them much of the general character of the English antique. Something more of this will be found in the following lines by Corbet—besides a rich vein of humor and sarcasm.

Farewell rewards and fairies! Good housewives now you may say, For now foul sluts in dairies Do fare as well as they: And though they sweep their hearths no less Than maids were wont to do, Yet who of late for cleanliness Finds sixpence in her shoe?

Lament, lament, old Abbies, The fairies' lost command, They did but change priests' babies, But some have changed your land; And all your children stolen from thence Are now grown Puritanes, Who live as changelings ever since For love of your demaines.

At morning and at evening both You merry were and glad, So little care of sleep and sloth These pretty ladies had: When Tom came home from labor Or Ciss to milking rose, Then merrily went their tabor And nimbly went their toes.

Witness those rings and roundelays Of theirs which yet remain, Were footed in Queen Mary's days On many a grassy plain; But since of late Elizabeth And later James came in, They never danced on any heath As when the time hath bin.

By which we note the fairies Were of the old profession, Their songs were Ave Marys, Their dances were procession; But now alas they all are dead Or gone beyond the seas, Or farther for religion fled— Or else they take their ease.

A tell-tale in their company They never could endure, And whoso kept not secretly Their mirth was punished sure; It was a just and christian deed To pinch such black and blue— O how the commonwealth doth need Such justices as you!

Now they have left our quarters A register they have, Who can preserve their charters— A man both wise and grave. An hundred of their merry pranks By one that I could name Are kept in store; con twenty thanks To William for the same.

To William Churne of Staffordshire Give laud and praises due, Who every meal can mend your cheer With tales both old and true. To William all give audience And pray you for his noddle, For all the fairies evidence Were lost if it were addle.

The _Maiden lamenting for her Fawn_, by Marvell, is, we are pleased to see, a favorite with our friends of the American Monthly. Such portion of it as we now copy, we prefer not only as a specimen of the elder poets, but, in itself, as a beautiful poem, abounding in the sweetest pathos, in soft and gentle images, in the most exquisitely delicate imagination, and in _truth_—to any thing of its species.

It is a wondrous thing how fleet 'Twas on those little silver feet, With what a pretty skipping grace It oft would challenge me the race, And when 't had left me far away 'Twould stay and run again and stay; For it was nimbler much than hinds, And trod as if on the four winds. I have a garden of my own, But so with roses overgrown, And lilies that you would it guess To be a little wilderness, And all the spring-time of the year It only loved to be there. Among the beds of lilies I Have sought it oft where it should lie, Yet could not till itself would rise Find it although before mine eyes. For in the flaxen lilies shade, It like a bank of lilies laid, Upon the roses it would feed Until its lips even seemed to bleed, And then to me 'twould boldly trip, And print those roses on my lip, But all its chief delight was still On roses thus itself to fill, And its pure virgin limbs to fold In whitest sheets of lilies cold. Had it lived long it would have been Lilies without, roses within.

How truthful an air of deep lamentation hangs here upon every gentle syllable! It pervades all. It comes over the sweet melody of the words, over the gentleness and grace which we fancy in the little maiden herself, {587} even over the half-playful, half-petulant air with which she lingers on the beauties and good qualities of her favorite—like the cool shadow of a summer cloud over a bed of lilies and violets, and “all sweet flowers.”

The whole thing is redolent with poetry of the _very loftiest order_. It is positively crowded with _nature_ and with _pathos_. Every line is an idea—conveying either the beauty and playfulness of the fawn, or the artlessness of the maiden, or the love of the maiden, or her admiration, or her grief, or the fragrance and sweet warmth, and perfect _appropriateness_ of the little nestlike bed of lilies and roses, which the fawn devoured as it lay upon them, and could scarcely be distinguished from them by the once happy little damsel who went to seek her pet with an arch and rosy smile upon her face. Consider the great variety of _truth_ and delicate thought in the few lines we have quoted—the _wonder_ of the maiden at the fleetness of her favorite—the “_little silver feet_”—the fawn challenging his mistress to the race, “with a pretty skipping grace,” running on before, and then, with head turned back, awaiting her approach only to fly from it again—can we not distinctly perceive all these things? The exceeding vigor, too, and beauty of the line

_And trod as if on the four winds,_

which are vividly apparent when we regard the artless nature of the speaker, and the _four feet_ of the favorite—_one for each wind_. Then the garden of “_my own_,” so overgrown—entangled—with lilies and roses as to be “a little wilderness”—the fawn loving to be there and there “_only_”—the maiden seeking it “where it _should_ lie,” and not being able to distinguish it from the flowers until “itself would rise”—the lying among the lilies “like a bank of lilies”—the loving to “_fill_” itself with roses,

And its pure virgin limbs to fold In whitest sheets of lilies cold,

and these things being its “_chief_” delights—and then the pre-eminent beauty and naturalness of the concluding lines—whose very outrageous hyperbole and absurdity only render them the more true to nature and to propriety, when we consider the innocence, the artlessness, the enthusiasm, the passionate grief, and more passionate admiration of the bereaved child.

_Had it lived long it would have been Lilies without—roses within._

SOUTH-SEA EXPEDITION.

_Report of the Committee on Naval Affairs, to whom was referred memorials from sundry citizens of Connecticut interested in the whale fishing, praying that an exploring expedition be fitted out to the Pacific Ocean and South Seas. March 21, 1836._

That a more accurate, defined, and available knowledge than we at present possess, of the waters, islands, and continental coasts of the great Pacific and Southern Oceans, has long been desirable, no unprejudiced individual conversant with the subject, is likely to deny. A portion of the community unrivalled in activity, enterprise and perseverance, and of paramount importance both in a political and commercial point of view, has long been reaping a rich harvest of individual wealth and national honor in these vast regions. The Pacific may be termed the training ground, the gymnasium of our national navy. The hardihood and daring of that branch of our commercial marine employed in its trade and fisheries, have almost become a proverb. It is in this class we meet with the largest aggregate of that cool self-possession, courage, and enduring fortitude, which have won for us our enviable position among the great maritime powers; and it is from this class we may expect to recruit a considerable proportion of the physical strength and moral intelligence necessary to maintain and improve it. The documentary evidence upon which the report before us is based, forms an appendix to it, and is highly interesting in its character. It awakens our admiration at the energy and industry which have sustained a body of daring men, while pursuing a dangerous and arduous occupation, amid the perils and casualties of an intricate navigation, in seas imperfectly known. It enlists our sympathies in the hardships and difficulties they have combatted, places in strong relief the justice of their claims upon the nation for aid and protection, and shows the expediency of the measure which has at last resulted from their representations. The report itself is clear, manly, decided—the energetic language of men who, having examined the data submitted to them with the consideration the interests it involved seemed to require, are anxious to express their sentiments with a force and earnestness suited to their views of the urgent occasion and of the course they recommend.

It is a glorious study to contemplate the progress made by human industry, from stage to stage, when engaged in the prosecution of a laudable object. Little more than a century ago, only the crews of a few miserable open boats, too frail to venture far from land, waged a precarious warfare with the great leviathans of the deep, along the shores of Cape Cod and Nantucket—then occupied, at distant intervals, by a few inconsiderable fishing stations. The returns even of these first efforts were lucrative, and more appropriate vessels for the service were fitted out. These extended their cruises northward to Labrador, and southward to the West Indies. At length the adventurers, in vessels of yet greater capacity, strength and durability, crossed the Equator and followed their hardy calling along the Eastern Shore of the Southern Peninsula and on the Western and North Western coast of Africa. The Revolution of course operated as a temporary check to their prosperity, but shortly thereafter these dauntless mariners doubled Cape Horn, and launched their daring keels into the comparatively unknown waste beyond, in search of their gigantic prey. Since that fortunate advent, the increase in the shipping, extent, and profits of the fishery, has been unprecedented, and new sources of wealth the importance of which it is at present impossible to estimate, have been opened to us in the same quarter. The trade in skins of the sea-otter and seal, in the fur of land animals on the North West coast, &c. has been extensive in extent and avails. The last mentioned animal, besides the valuable ivory it affords, yields a coarse oil which, in the event of the whale becoming extinct before the perpetual warfare of man, would prove a valuable article of consumption. Of the magnitude of the commercial interest involved in different ways in the Pacific trade, an idea may be gathered in the following extract from the main subject of our review. Let it be {588} borne in mind, that many of the branches of this trade are as yet in their infancy, that the natural resources to which they refer are apparently almost inexhaustible; and we shall become aware that all which is _now_ in operation, is but as a dim shadow to the mighty results which may be looked for, when this vast field for national enterprise is better known and appreciated.

“No part of the commerce of this country is more important than that carried on in the Pacific Ocean. It is large in amount. Not less than $12,000,000 are invested in and actively employed by one branch of the whale fishery alone; in the whole trade there is directly and indirectly involved not less than fifty to seventy millions of property. In like manner from 170 to 200,000 tons of our shipping, and from 9 to 12000 of our seamen are employed, amounting to about one-tenth of the whole navigation of the Union. Its results are profitable. It is to a great extent not a mere exchange of commodities, but the creation of wealth by labor from the ocean. The fisheries alone produce at this time an annual income of from five to six millions of dollars; and it is not possible to look at Nantucket, New Bedford, New London, Sag Harbor and a large number of other districts upon our Northern coasts, without the deep conviction that it is an employment alike beneficial to the moral, political, and commercial interests of our fellow-citizens.”

In a letter from Commodore Downes to the Honorable John Reed, which forms part of the supplement to the report, that experienced officer observes—

“During the circumnavigation of the globe, in which I crossed the equator six times, and varied my course from 40 deg. North to 57 deg. South latitude, I have never found myself beyond the limits of our commercial marine. The accounts given of the dangers and losses to which our ships are exposed by the extension of our trade into seas but little known, so far, in my opinion from being exaggerated, would admit of being placed in bolder relief, and the protection of government employed in stronger terms. I speak from practical knowledge, having myself seen the dangers and painfully felt the want of the very kind of information which our commercial interests so much need, and which, I suppose, would be the object of such an expedition as is now under consideration before the committee of Congress to give.

* * * * *

“The commerce of our country has extended itself to remote parts of the world, is carried on around islands and reefs not laid down in the charts, among even groups of islands from ten to sixty in number, abounding in objects valuable in commerce, but of which nothing is known accurately; no not even the sketch of a harbor has been made, while of such as are inhabited our knowledge is still more imperfect.”

In reading this evidence (derived from the personal observation of a judicious and experienced commander) of the vast range of our commerce in the regions alluded to, and of the imminent risks and perils to which those engaged in it are subjected, it cannot but create a feeling of surprise, that a matter of such vital importance as the adoption of means for their relief, should so long have been held in abeyance. A tabular view of the discoveries of our whaling captains in the Pacific and Southern seas, which forms part of another document, seems still further to prove the inaccuracy and almost utter worthlessness of the charts of these waters, now in use.

Enlightened liberality is the truest economy. It would not be difficult to show, that even as a matter of pecuniary policy the efficient measures at length in progress to remedy the evils complained of by this portion of our civil marine, are wise and expedient. But let us take higher ground. They were called for—_Firstly_: as a matter of public justice. Mr. Reynolds, in his comprehensive and able letter to the chairman of the committee on Naval Affairs, dated 1828, which, with many other conclusive arguments and facts furnished by that gentleman, forms the main evidence on which the late committee founded their report—observes, with reference to the Pacific;

“To look after our merchant there—to offer him every possible facility—to open new channels for his enterprise, and to keep up a respectable naval force to protect him—is only paying a debt we owe to the commerce of the country: for millions have flowed into the treasury from this source, before one cent was expended for its protection.”

So far, then, we have done little as a nation to facilitate, or increase, the operations of our commerce in the quarter indicated; we have left the adventurous merchant and the hardy fisherman, to fight their way among reefs of dangerous rocks, and through the channels of undescribed Archipelagos, almost without any other guides than their own prudence and sagacity; but we have not hesitated to partake of the fruits of their unassisted toils, to appropriate to ourselves the credit, respect and consideration their enterprise has commanded, and to look to their class as the strongest support of that main prop of our national power,—a hardy, effective, and well disciplined national navy.

_Secondly_. Our pride as a vigorous commercial empire, should stimulate us to become our own pioneers in that vast island-studded ocean, destined, it may be, to become, not only the chief theatre of our traffic, but the arena of our future naval conflicts. Who can say, viewing the present rapid growth of our population, that the Rocky Mountains shall forever constitute the western boundary of our republic, or that it shall not stretch its dominion from sea to sea. This may not be desirable, but signs of the times render it an event by no means without the pale of possibility.

The intercourse carried on between the Pacific islands and the coast of China, is highly profitable, the immense returns of the whale fishery in the ocean which surrounds those islands, and along the continental coasts, have been already shown. Our whalers have traversed the wide expanse from Peru and Chili on the west, to the isles of Japan on the east, gathering national reverence, as well as individual emolument, in their course; and yet until the late appropriation, Congress has never yielded them any pecuniary assistance, leaving their very security to the scientific labors of countries far more distant, and infinitely less interested, than our own.

_Thirdly_. It is our _duty_, holding as we do a high rank in the scale of nations, to contribute a large share to that aggregate of useful knowledge, which is the common property of all. We have astronomers, mathematicians, geologists, botanists, eminent professors in every branch of physical science—we are unincumbered by the oppression of a national debt, and are free from many other drawbacks which fetter and control the measures of the trans-Atlantic governments. We possess, as a people, the mental elasticity which liberal institutions inspire, and a treasury which can afford to remunerate scientific research. Ought we not, therefore, to be foremost in the race of philanthropic discovery, in every {589} department embraced by this comprehensive term? Our national honor and glory which, be it remembered, are to be “transmitted as well as enjoyed,” are involved. In building up the fabric of our commercial prosperity, let us not filch the corner stone. Let it not be said of us, in future ages, that we ingloriously availed ourselves of a stock of scientific knowledge, to which we had not contributed our quota—that we shunned as a people to put our shoulder to the wheel—that we reaped where we had never sown. It is not to be controverted that such has been hitherto the case. We have followed in the rear of discovery, when a sense of our moral and political responsibility should have impelled us in its van. Mr. Reynolds, in a letter to which we have already referred, deprecates this servile dependence upon foreign research in the following nervous and emphatic language.

The commercial nations of the earth have done much, and much remains to be accomplished. We stand a solitary instance among those who are considered commercial, as never having put forth a particle of strength or expended a dollar of our money, to add to the accumulated stock of commercial and geographical knowledge, except in partially exploring our own territory.

When our naval commanders and hardy tars have achieved a victory on the deep, they have to seek our harbors, and conduct their prizes into port by tables and charts furnished perhaps by the very people whom they have vanquished.

Is it honorable in the United States to use, forever, the knowledge furnished by others, to teach us how to shun a rock, escape a shoal, or find a harbor; and add nothing to the great mass of information that previous ages and other nations have brought to our hands.

* * * * *

The exports, and, more emphatically, the imports of the United States, her receipts and expenditures, are written on every pillar erected by commerce on every sea and in every clime; but the amount of her subscription stock to erect those pillars and for the advancement of knowledge is no where to be found.

* * * * *

Have we not then reached a degree of mental strength, which will enable us to find our way about the globe without leading-strings? Are we forever to take the highway others have laid out for us, and fixed with mile-stones and guide boards? No: a time of enterprise and adventure must be at hand, it is already here; and its march is onward, as certain as a star approaches its zenith.

It is delightful to find that such independent statements and opinions as the above, have been approved, and acted upon by Congress, and that our President with a wisdom and promptitude which do him honor, is superintending and facilitating the execution of legislative design. We extract the following announcement from the Washington Globe.

_Surveying and Exploring Expedition to the Pacific Ocean and South Seas._—We learn that the President has given orders to have the exploring vessels fitted out, with the least possible delay. The appropriation made by Congress was ample to ensure all the great objects contemplated by the expedition, and the Executive is determined that nothing shall be wanting to render the expedition in every respect worthy the character and great commercial resources of the country.

The frigate Macedonian, now undergoing thorough repairs at Norfolk, two brigs of two hundred tons each, one or more tenders, and a store ship of competent dimensions, is, we understand, the force agreed upon, and to be put in a state of immediate preparation.

Captain Thomas A. C. Jones, an officer possessing many high qualities for such a service, has been appointed to the command; and officers for the other vessels will be immediately selected.

The Macedonian has been chosen instead of a sloop of war, on account of the increased accommodations she will afford the scientific corps, a department the President has determined shall be complete in its organization, including the ablest men that can be procured, so that nothing within the whole range of every department of natural history and philosophy shall be omitted. Not only on this account has the frigate been selected, but also for the purpose of a more extended protection of our whalemen and traders; and to impress on the minds of the natives a just conception of our character, power, and policy. The frequent disturbances and massacres committed on our seamen by the natives inhabiting the islands in those distant seas, make this measure the dictate of humanity.

We understand also, that to J. N. Reynolds, Esq. the President has given the appointment of Corresponding Secretary to the expedition. Between this gentleman and Captain Jones there is the most friendly feeling and harmony of action. The cordiality they entertain for each other, we trust will be felt by all, whether citizen or officer, who shall be so fortunate as to be connected with the expedition.

Thus it will be seen, steps are being taken to remove the reproach of our country alluded to by Mr. Reynolds, and that that gentleman has been appointed to the highest civil situation in the expedition; a station which we know him to be exceedingly well qualified to fill. The liberality of the appropriation for the enterprise, the strong interest taken by our energetic chief magistrate in its organization, the experience and intelligence of the distinguished commander at its head, all promise well for its successful termination. Our most cordial good wishes will accompany the adventure, and we trust that it will prove the germ of a spirit of scientific ambition, which, fostered by legislative patronage and protection, shall build up for us a name in nautical discovery commensurate with our moral, political, and commercial position among the nations of the earth.

ELKSWATAWA.

_Elkswatawa; or the Prophet of the West. A Tale of the Frontier. New York: Harper and Brothers._

This novel is written by Mr. James S. French, of Jerusalem, Virginia—the author, we believe, of “_Eccentricities of David Crockett_,” a book of which we know nothing beyond the fact of its publication. The plot of _Elkswatawa_ is nearly as follows. About the period when rumors were abroad in our frontier settlements, and elsewhere, of contemplated hostilities by the Indians under Tecumseh, one Mr. Richard Rolfe, “a high-toned and chivalrous Virginian,” is a resident of Petersburg. He is left an orphan in early life—is educated under the guidance of an uncle, completes a course of studies at William and Mary, and finally practises law. His uncle now dying, he is left pennyless; and his want of perseverance precludes any hope of professional advancement. In this dilemma he falls in love. The young lady is “a gentle, quiet, little creature,” has hazel eyes, auburn hair, and “the loveliest face my eyes ever beheld.” Moreover, she is “intellectual without being too much book-learned, kind without seeming to intend it, and artless without affectation.” “Not a dog” says Mr. French, “but read her countenance aright, and would follow her until he obtained his dinner.” Besides all this, she has some little {590} property, a penchant for Mr. Richard Rolfe, and a very pretty appellation, which is Gay Foreman. But that the course of true love may not run altogether smooth, the young lady's father “knows a thing or two,” and will have nothing to do with our hero. The damsel too refuses to run away with him, and so he is forced to run away by himself. In a word, he resolves “to leave the scene of his unhappiness and seek a home in the western wilds.” “Oh poverty! poverty!” says Mr. Richard Rolfe, in throwing his leg over the saddle, “how often hast thou been sketched in some humble sphere, as fascinating in the extreme—and indeed lovely art thou—_in the abstract!_”—a very neat and very comfortable little piece of positive fact, or as Ben D'Israeli would call it—of æsthetical psychology.

Our hero is next seen in Kentucky, where we find him, on the night of the 10th of August 1809, in the woods, on the banks of the Ohio, in company with one Mr. Earthquake, a hunter. A cry is suddenly heard proceeding from the river. Stealthily approaching the banks, Mr. R. and his friend look abroad and discover—nothing. Earthquake, however, (whom our hero calls Earth for brevity) is of opinion that the Indians have been murdering some emigrant family. While deliberating, a light is discovered on the Illinois bank of the river, and presently a band of Indian warriors become visible. They are dancing a war-dance, with a parcel of bloody scalps in their hands, and (credat Judæus!) with Mr. Rolfe's very identical little sweetheart in their abominable clutches! “Is there a human bosom callous to the appeals of pity?” here says Mr. Richard Rolfe, attorney at law, placing his hand upon his heart. Mr. Earthquake, unfortunately, says nothing, but there can be no doubt in any reasonable mind, that had he opened his mouth at all, “Humph! here's a pretty kettle of fish!” would have come out of it.

It appears that Mr. Rolfe having decamped from Petersburg, old Mr. Foreman, as a necessary consequence, becomes unfortunate in business, fails, and goes off to Pittsburg—or perhaps goes to Pittsburg first and then fails—at all events it is incumbent upon him to emigrate and go down the Ohio in a flat-boat with all his family, and so down he goes. He arrives, of course, before any accident can possibly happen to him, exactly opposite the spot where that ill-treated young attorney, Mr. Rolfe, is sitting as aforesaid, with a very long face, in the woods. But having got so far, it follows that he can get no farther. The Indians now catch him—(what business had he to reject Mr. Rolfe?) they give him a yell—(oh, the old villain!) they kill him—(quite right!) scalp him, and throw him overboard, him and all his family, with the exception of the young lady. Her they think it better to carry across to the Illinois side of the river, and set her up on the top of a rock just opposite our hero, with a view, no doubt, of letting that interesting young gentleman behold her to the greatest possible advantage.

But the glaring improbability of this _rencontre_ (an incident upon which the whole narrative depends) is perhaps the worst feature in Mr. French's novel. Matters now proceed in a more rational manner. The Indians, eight in number, having finished their war-dance, make off with their prey. The two hunters (for Mr. R. has turned hunter) swim the river and proceed to follow in pursuit, with the view of seizing any favorable opportunity for rescuing the young lady. There are now some points of interest. At one time, our friends, hiding in the trunk of a tree, are near being discovered by the red men, when these latter are turned from the path by the rattling of a snake. This is a manœuvre on the part of Earthquake, who carries the rattles about his person. Something of the same kind, however, is narrated by Cooper. At another period, one of the eight becoming separated from the party, is waylaid and dexterously slain. Mr. Rolfe too, manages to obtain a glimpse of the face of the captive, and is convinced of her being his inamorata. The pursuit, however, is unsuccessful, and the maiden is carried to the camp of Tecumseh.

We have now a description of this warrior—of his brother Elkswatawa, the Prophet—of Net-nok-wa, the female chief of the Ottawas—and of Mis-kwa-bun-o-kwa her daughter. The two latter are on a visit to Tecumseh, who refuses, for state reasons, the proffered hand of Mis-kwa-bun-o-kwa. This princess, becoming interested in the fate of our heroine, begs her of the Prophet as a slave. The Prophet yields, and Miss Foreman is carried by Mis-kwa-bun-o-kwa to visit some of the latter's friends on the Wabash, before setting off for the more distant regions of her tribe. In the meantime, our hunters, arriving at the camp, and having reconnoitred it in vain for any traces of the captive, boldly enter the camp itself, and demand the maiden at the hands of the Prophet. His hostile intentions not being yet sufficiently ripe, Elkswatawa receives them with kindness, and gives them fair words, but disclaims any knowledge of Miss Foreman. Being desired, however, to aid the search by means of his power as a Prophet, the Indian finally points out the true route of Mis-kwa-bun-o-kwa's party, and our hunters taking leave, determine, as nothing better can be done, to return home for assistance. On their way they come across the body of the Indian, who, it will be remembered, was separated from his party and killed by our friends. Upon his person they find, among other articles, a handkerchief marked with the letters _R. Rolfe_, in the hand-writing of our hero. He remembers having exchanged handkerchiefs with Miss F. on the day of his leaving Petersburg, and his doubts are now, consequently, resolved into certainty. This incident determines Rolfe to proceed immediately up the Wabash. Here, too, he fails in the object of his search, and the hunters commence their return. On the route an Indian woman is discovered, bearing a torch, and looking for her son whom she supposes to have been murdered by the whites. Touched with pity, our friends aid her in the search, and the son is found, grievously wounded, but not dead. In her lamentations, the mother drops some few words about a white maiden who has taken shelter in her wigwam, and the hopes of Rolfe are rekindled. They bear the wounded man to the hut, and the white maiden, who is found dead, proves _not_ to be Gay Foreman. But the kindness of Rolfe and his companion have excited a deep gratitude in the breasts of the Indian mother and son—the latter is called Oloompa. They pledge their aid in recovering the lady—and, Rolfe having entrusted Oloompa with a letter for his mistress, the hunters resume their journey. Reaching Indiana, they find that, owing to the unsettled state of Indian affairs, no assistance can be rendered them in regard {591} to the rescue of Miss Foreman. They proceed to Kentucky. Earthquake is made sheriff. Rolfe practises law, and having written to Petersburg in relation to Miss F. receives an answer inducing him to believe himself mistaken in regard to the identity of the captive. In the meantime Netnokwa, Mis-kwa-bun-o-kwa and Miss Foreman are living on the banks of the Red River. The lady is, in some measure, reconciled to her fate by the kind attentions of her Indian friends—who are only prevented from restoring her to the settlements, through dread of the Prophet's resentment. Elkswatawa and Tecumseh are busied in uniting the Indian tribes with the view of a general attack upon the whites. An emissary is thus sent to the wigwam of Netnokwa. Influenced by Miss Foreman the princesses treat the messenger with contempt and laugh at the pretensions of the Prophet. He returns home vowing vengeance, and Elkswatawa is induced to send a party of six warriors for the purpose of bringing all the inmates of Netnokwa's cabin to his camp.

The friendly Indian, Oloompa, determines, in the meantime, to redeem his promise made to the two hunters, finds out the wigwam of Netnokwa, delivers the letter of Rolfe, receives an answer from Miss Foreman, proceeds with it to Kentucky, searches out our hero, and returns with him as a guide to the dwelling of the Indian princess. Earth accompanies them. The cabin is found deserted—the inmates having been carried off the day before in the direction of the Prophet's camp. But the ingenuity of Mis-kwa-bun-o-kwa has contrived to leave, on a shelf of the cabin, a letter for the perusal of Oloompa—whose return was, of course, expected. This letter consists of a parcel of little clay figures, representing Netnokwa, Mis-kwa-bun-o-kwa, and Miss Foreman, driven by six Indians in the direction of the camp of the Prophet. Upon this hint our hero starts with his two companions in pursuit. They fail, however, in overtaking the Indians in time to accomplish a rescue. The captive with her friends is carried to Tippecanoe, where the Prophet (Tecumseh having gone to the South) is expecting an attack from the American army under General Harrison. Entering the camp, Oloompa mingles with the Indians and finally discovers the tent in which are the princesses and Miss Foreman. Learning that the Prophet has granted to Mis-kwa-bun-o-kwa the privilege of passing in and out of the tent at pleasure, restricting her only to the limits of the camp, he obtains an interview with her, and prevails upon her to disguise Miss Foreman to represent herself, (the princess) and thus enable the captive to pass out. The scheme succeeds, and our heroine is restored to the arms of Mr. Rolfe, who is awaiting her beyond the lines. In the meantime, the impatient Indians urge the Prophet to a night attack upon Gen. Harrison. They are repulsed, and at the conclusion of the battle, our friends make their way into the American army. All difficulties now vanish. The lovers are married, and the narrative is brought to a conclusion.

The dry compendium we have given will of course do little more than afford some idea of the _plan_ of the novel. Its chief interest depends upon matters which we have avoided altogether, as being independent of this plan, and as forming a portion of our Indian history. Here Mr. French has been very successful. The characters of Tecumseh and of Elkswatawa appear to us well drawn, and the manœuvres skilfully detailed by means of which the vast power of the Prophet was attained. It is possible however, that the bear, tiger, Indian, and snake stories of our friend Earthquake, (with which the volumes are plentifully interlarded,) will be considered as forming the better portions of _Elkswatawa_. We have already adverted to the gross improbability of the main incident upon which the narrative is hinged. In the entire construction of the tale Mr. French has fallen too obviously, we think, into some mannerisms of Sir Walter Scott.

In him (Sir Walter) these _mannerisms_, until the frequency of their repetition entitled them to such appellation, being well managed and not over-done, were commendable. They added great force and precision to the development of his stories. They should now be avoided—as a little too much of a good thing. And to a man of genius the world of invention is _never_ shut. There is always something new under the sun—a fact susceptible of positive demonstration, in spite of a thousand dogmas to the contrary. The mannerisms we particularly allude to in Mr. French, are involved in what he so frequently calls the “_bringing up_” of his narrative. Fixing in his mind, every now and then, some particular epoch of his tale, he deems it of essential importance (when it is by no means so) that the action of his various characters should be “brought up,” with entire regularity, to this epoch. The attention is no sooner engaged in one train of adventure, than a chapter closes with some such sentence as the following. “_Leaving_ him to prosecute his journey, and the hunters with a perfect knowledge of the route he had taken, we return to the camp of the Prophet,” see chapter 21—or with “_Leaving_ the hunters to hover about the temporary camp of the Indians, we must bring _forward other parts of our story_,” see chapter 3—or with “Thus amusing themselves, they continued their journey, to perform which we must leave them, while we _bring forward other parts of our story_,” see chapter 8—or “And now having _brought up_ the history of the Prophet to the period of which we are writing we will proceed with our narrative,” see