Part 5

This is the outline, and we will now examine parts more minutely. The author, in the first thirty pages, proceeds to introduce the hero to the reader, in the bar-room of the “Royal George” at Dorchester, which “belongs to Ashley no longer,” and gives a tedious account of sundry _bullyings_ and threats, between the two rivals, Sergeant Hastings and John Davis, a doughty Goose-creeker, which ended without many blows, thanks to the benign influence of the pretty bar maid, whose influence seems directly the reverse of the heifer in Virgil’s Comparison. The next thirty pages bring our hero to the swamp, and on the ride thither, Humphries gives a learned disquisition upon the manner of building causeways through the swamp, which he proves most conclusively should be built with a “back bone,” and logs placed “up and down the road.” In the following, we have a description of some twenty men, who are under arms in the swamp. “The gloomy painter would have done much with the scene before them,” says our author. Would that the gloomy painter _had_ done it, or some one, who would have done more in fewer words. It is a fault with this author, as it is with all who have a lack of genius or vivid imagination, that, instead of seizing upon the prominent and striking points in a scene, and sketching them with a bold hand, leaving the picture to be filled out by the awakened imagination of the reader, he tires, by giving minute descriptions of every tree, grape vine, and pool of water, and the appearance and position of each individual, as if all-important to the “story,” as well as to the mind of the reader. As the surprize of the tories is the first thing like an incident, that we find in the work, although we are through with half of the first volume, was this one of even common interest, it should be here transcribed, but it is too prolix, and the most of it is the chase of Frampton, the maniac, after a hang-man tory corporal, who at length became dreadfully _bit_ by the maniac’s sword. The rest of the work has little more of interest, than that which we have thus seen: it is all the transactions of a few men in a swamp, to illustrate the partisan warfare in the south, without interest or useful information. The work is made up of these _illustrations_, and the trivial adventures of an individual. There is nothing startling enough to please, or to excite but a drowsy interest. Notwithstanding the author tells us that it is his aim “to delineate with all the rapidity of one, who, with the mystic lantern, runs his uncouth shapes and varying shadows along the gloomy wall, startling imagination, and enkindling curiosity,” his delineations are slow, and imagination and curiosity are left to their slumbers. The author who promises a novel purely historical, in which true history is his chief object, promises much—such promises it requires no ordinary mind to fulfill; and the work before us must be looked upon only as a novel—one, in which fiction, as usual, supplies most of the material.

In this, as in the other works of this author, there is shown the want of all those powers which mark genius. It has no deeply drawn characters, no marks of deep insight into the human heart. There is nothing about the hero, that should set him apart from other men in his vocation; and Col. Walton, with a weakness that seems like dotage, although he is in the prime of life, hesitates long between private interest and patriotism; and is at last _driven_ to side with his country—a character despised to the last—a lie upon the high minded patriots of the south, who staked their princely fortunes and their lives, in the cause of freedom. The other characters, by which the author has endeavored to excite a higher interest, are Frampton and Porgy. Both are failures, and the most accurate idea we get of the latter, is where he is turned _grunter_, to catch three terrapins, that are “_basking_ in the starlight,” upon a tree that has fallen into the creek. Mr. Simms should never again attempt wit, or humor, unless when he is dealing with the negro character, in which he sometimes succeeds.

Kate Walton is a high minded girl enough. We see but little of her; but she should not have aimed the pistol at Col. Proctor; and when she snapped it, the weapon should not have missed fire. Singleton shows little sense of propriety, not to speak of affection, when he pressed his suit the moment after leaving the bedside of his dying sister; and the girl rebukes him well: “How can you know it—how can you feel it, Robert, when you come from the presence of one already linked, as it were, with heaven, and thus immediately urge to me so earthly a prayer?” Emily Singleton—the fading flower—

“There is a beauty in woman’s decay;”

and no one,—the coldest hearted, cannot contemplate the scene—a lovely woman, looking her last upon her existence here—“a flower gathered for the tomb,” ere the sweet bud is fully opened—without being excited to feeling. The death bed scene is affecting, and well portrayed. That, and the description of the hurricane, are almost the only parts of the work that command our feelings or admiration, and the rude entrance of a stranger jars harshly upon us, and turns our sympathies to hate against the intruder.

This author has few beauties of style—we believe that those who have praised him most, have ventured only _to be silent_ concerning this. There are no beauties of this description, to atone for want of incident; nothing in the manner, to charm us into indifference to the matter; and those who pretend to admire his writings the most, cannot point out in them all, one sentence that contains peculiar beauty, or originality of thought or expression. Mr. Simms at best is but an imitator. His characters, so far as he delineates them, are familiar. We can point out the original to each of them, in the writings of others. We would not do an author wrong. We would be the last to discourage talent, but we do not believe that Mr. Simms is one to give a helping hand to our literature, but, on the reverse, he will injure it. Aside from his works, we know nothing of him, and therefore cannot have “set down aught in malice.” He proposes “a series” of works, of which “The Partisan” is the first,—three to be devoted to the events of the Revolution in South Carolina; and we cannot calculate the number destined for other parts of the country. But he says, “I know not that I shall complete, or even continue the series; much will depend upon the reception of the present narrative.” There is then yet some small hope that the threatened inundation may not flow upon us. Heaven grant that voices enough may be raised to stay the coming flood, and say, “_peace, be still_.”

GREEK ANTHOLOGY.—No. II.

HONEST FRIEND—

I call thee _honest_, because thou needs must be such, since thou art reading what neither toucheth thy cupidity, nor enkindleth a flame of self-dedicated love. I call thee _friend_, as in common courtesy I should, till I perceive some demonstrations of enmity.

It is deep night. I have trimmed my lamp, taken a _turn_ across the room, and am again seated at my pleasing toil. The Anthology lies open before me—a brown, German page, rough, but scholarlike. I have pondered each word and phrase, till they all bear a distinct and tangible significance. I have been striving to draw forth the beauty that lies locked in the cold, dead arms of an unspoken language. It requires a mightier magician, and a more prevailing charm. Lines, that are instinct with holy feeling, I have turned and labored with fruitless minuteness. I can transcribe the form—but the _life_—where is it? My spirit weepeth over its own stupidity. Yet not utterly am I in fault. I am a modern, and an American, and almost—but _not quite_—a Yankee. I have breathed a dollar-and-cent atmosphere. There is no soul—no enthusiasm in the land. Utility—cold, base utility is the all-in-all. Money is the shibboleth of rank and influence.

O cives, cives, quærenda pecunia primum.

Every thing is reduced to a standard of rationality, as if it were not the most irrational thing that ever sickened a liberal eye, to bind down passion, and poetry, and the “life of life,” by the frigid rules of mathematical exactness. It is my solemn belief, that within fifty years a double-track rail-road will run through the very vale of Tempe, and a steam-engine be propelled by the waters of Arethusa. Improvement! By the little toe of the Great Mogul, may the wheels of such improvement “long tarry in their coming!” Reader, I will not fret. My profit therefrom would be about as much as thy pleasure. But thou knowest not the feelings with which I uncork a bottle of pure Samian wine; and, in transferring it into an American jug, behold its strength and fragrance evaporate—the body swelling with dropsical inflation, while the spirit is oozing away through each treacherous pore. Sed satis. “Quid me querelis exanimas tuis?”

Behold! an enigmatic squib from Euclid, the geometer—him, whose labors I was wont to burden with “the mountain of my curse.” He was, probably, the first to solemnize a marriage so unnatural as that of Geometry and Poetry—January and May.

An ass and mule were bearing wine one day: Hard on the ass the vinous burden lay; When thus the mule her fainting dam addressed— “Why, like a maiden’s, pants thy groaning breast? Should’st thou _give_ me one portion of thy share, Then I should double of thy burden bear. Should’st thou _take_ one, alike are our conditions.” Solve me this problem, ye arithmeticians.

If the reader be at all skilled in threading the labyrinths of Algebra, he may discover that the ass bore five, and the mule seven measures. (Vide Day’s Alg. passim.)

Here we have a compliment to a beautiful girl, from Plato, even from the veritable Ipse Dixit himself, whose frosty philosophy thawed before the fire of love.

Thou gazest at the stars, my star, And would I were the sky, That I might view thee from afar With many a glowing eye.

By Theodorus, to Harmocrates, whose nasal developement was uncommonly huge.

Thy nose, my friend, is so excessive, To call it _thine_ would be a wrong to’t, But rather _that_ is the possessive, And we should judge that you belong to’t; And having met thee, properly I say, Nose’s Harmocrates I saw to-day.

Ammianus gives quite a caustic turn to the common wish, that the earth may lie lightly on the breast of the departed.

Light lie the earth, Nearchus, on thy breast, That dogs may tear thee from thy place of rest.

Here follows a little thing, replete with that still despair, so natural to a thoughtful Heathen.

_By Archias._

I praise the Thracians, since for those they mourn, Whose eyes are opening to the light of day, But joy, when Death, the slave of Fate, has torn Their sons and daughters from their arms away. For we, the living, through each cruel ill With painful steps continually go, While they, who sleep beneath the grave’s green hill, Have found, at last, a refuge from their wo.

Here is a most beautiful epitaph upon Sophocles, composed by Limmias, the Theban. In the first place, I will render it literally and consecutively into plain English, although, reader, thou knowest that—saving only in the Bible—the life and loveliness of all poetry dies under this _ossifying_ process. “Gently over the tomb of Sophocles, gently, oh! ivy, mayst thou creep, pouring thy green curls abroad; and all about it may the petals of the rose bloom, and the grape-loving vine, scattering its moist branches around, on account of the wise docility, which he of the honey-tongue displayed, among the Muses and the Graces.”

It was thus elegantly translated many years since:

Wind, gentle evergreen, to form a shade Around the tomb where Sophocles is laid: Sweet ivy, wind thy boughs, and intertwine With blushing roses and the clustering vine; Thus will thy lasting leaves, with beauties hung, Prove grateful emblems of the lays he sung, Whose soul, exalted like a god of wit, Among the Muses and the Graces writ.

Beautifully done—yet somewhat marred by the incongruous idea of _a soul writing_. For my own attempt, I claim no merit, save something of fidelity.

Gently, oh! ivy, gently curl thy tresses, Where the cold bones of Sophocles repose; May thy young tendrils clasp in soft caresses The bursting petals of the blushing rose. May the green vine, its dewy branches flinging, A lasting bower above thy grave entwine, For the deep wisdom thou didst show, when singing Among the Graces and the heavenly Nine.

Thou knowest how the cruel Acrisius committed his daughter Danaë, with her infant Perseus, to the protection of a small ark, and the mercy of a raging sea. In this—certainly one of the most touching fragments of all antiquity, and written by Simonides, the Ceian, a poet, heart and soul—Danaë is introduced, alone and cheerless, yet watching, with a mother’s tenderness, over her sleeping son.

Round the frail boat the wild winds, roaring, swept, And shook the heart of Danaë with fear, While from her cold, pale cheek, as Theseus slept, Dropt the fast tear. And round her little boy, with closer strain, Her folding arm the desolate mother flung, And to the heedless winds her humble plain Half said, half sung. “Sweetly thou restest in thy joyless dwelling, And slumber sealeth up thy spirit mild, Though the dark waves be far around thee swelling, Perseus, my child. O’er thy bright locks while angry winds are lashing The storm-chafed spray, still sleeps thy careless eye: Little thou heedest, though the waves be dashing Insanely by. Wrapped in thy purple cloak—my breast thy pillow— Thou driftest helplessly—the ocean’s toy— Rocked in thy slumbers by the rolling billow— My little boy! Did not this peril at thy heart lie lightly, Unto thy little ear my words would creep: But _now_ thy face even through the gloom shines brightly— Oh! Perseus, sleep. And may the waves, and may our sorrows slumber, And may all snares be broken in our path; And on our foes, great Jove, for Perseus number Thy tenfold wrath.”

“Solventur _fletu_ tabulæ: tu, _lector_, abibis.”

HERMENEUTES.

“OUR MAGAZINE.”

Reader, our salutation must be brief—our correspondents have left us but brief space, in which to give it thee; nevertheless, we cannot take our leave, without introducing to you the dignified personage on our title-page. ’Tis but his likeness. He has long since gone—otherwise, we should not dare take upon ourselves this familiarity; but now we may here both gaze at, and converse about him with freedom. All will readily recognize that distinguished individual, GOV. ELIHU YALE, the patron of our Institution, (whose name it bears,) and the benefactor of mankind. We have not space, were we able, to give him his deserts. Let his epitaph, written in the good old style, and being that which expresses most in the fewest words, speak for us.

“Born in America, in Europe bred, In Afric travell’d, and in Asia wed, Where long he liv’d and thriv’d; at London dead. Much Good, some Ill he did: so hope all’s even, And that his soul thro’ Mercy’s gone to Heav’n.”

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

The “Lines to M. S.” and “A Sabbath Morning,” were received too late for insertion. They shall appear soon.

The “Lover’s Avowal,” is not after the present fashion.

“Little Jane” is wanting in dignity.

O.’s piece is rejected. We felt ourselves somewhat endangered in the perusal, particularly in the stormy parts of it.

H. and Imo, are respectfully declined.

We are highly pleased with the “Dramatic Fragment.” It shall appear in our next.

PROSPECTUS

OF THE

YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE.

TO BE CONDUCTED BY THE STUDENTS OF YALE COLLEGE.

An _apology_ for establishing a Literary Magazine, in an institution like Yale College, can hardly be deemed requisite by an enlightened public; yet a statement of the objects which are proposed in this Periodical, may not be out of place.

To foster a literary spirit, and to furnish a medium for its exercise; to rescue from utter waste the many thoughts and musings of a student’s leisure hours; and to afford some opportunity to train ourselves for the strife and collision of mind which we must expect in after life;—such, and similar motives have urged us to this undertaking.

So long as we confine ourselves to these simple objects, and do not forget the modesty becoming our years and station, we confidently hope for the approbation and support of all who wish well to this institution.

* * * * *

The work will be printed on fine paper and good type. Three numbers to be issued every term, each containing about 40 pages, 8vo.

_Conditions_—$2,00 per annum, if paid in advance, or 75 cents at the commencement of each term.

Communications may be addressed through the Post Office, “To the Editors of the Yale Literary Magazine.”

* * * * *

This No. contains 2½ sheets. Postage, under 100 miles, 3¾ cents; over 100 miles, 6¼ cents.

Footnote 1:

Johnson.

Footnote 2:

If any one is curious enough to make the inquiry, I can inform him, that this story is founded on fact;—the individual, herein mentioned, was a graduate of this Institution.

Footnote 3:

The inquiry has naturally arisen, how these Confessions came into his possession, who presented them to the Editors of this Magazine. It can be answered in a few words. While a class, which has since graduated, was in its Junior year, it was joined by an individual of rather rustic manners, dressed in a complete suit of grey cloth; yet he was by no means deficient in that important requisite, manly beauty. He roomed alone, and mingled but little with his classmates. It was observed that his temperament was exceedingly variable, sometimes highly excited, at others, as much depressed. His recitations evinced talents of a high order. He continued with the class until the close of the year, and then disappeared. His classmates have heard nothing from him since. In his table-drawer—left by accident or design—these manuscripts were found, which, with a few alterations, are now presented to the public.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. 2. Anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed. 3. Footnotes have been re-indexed using numbers and collected together at the end of the last chapter. 4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.