THE KNICKERBOCKER.

[457]

AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES.

NUMBER FOUR.

In view of the reasons heretofore suggested, why it is improbable
that either the Egyptians, the Carthaginians, or the Romans, were
the first inhabitants of this continent, and why, from the present
state of our knowledge, no other distinct nation of people is entitled
to the exclusive reputation of having been the primitive discoverers
of America, the reader is very naturally led to inquire for the evidences
assigned by the advocates of particular theories for the
sources of their origin. These evidences, although important to the
antiquarian, cannot, from the brevity and popular mode proposed
by us in treating this subject, be critically stated. We have, nevertheless,
offered some reasons and inferences of our own, why those
evidences cannot be conclusive; and we would refer others to our
own or other means of information, should they feel disposed to
make farther investigations. However plausible the story of Votan
may have appeared, as testimony in point, the reader shall judge,
from a few facts which will be here noticed, whether even that has
much probability to support it. No one at least can deny the greater
safety of doubting, where there is no better proof, should he not, with
others, arrive at the ultimate conclusion, that the best evidence of all
may be in favor of the opinion that these people originated where
their relics are now found.

It has been said that the occasional resemblance observed among
the ruins of Tulteca to those of the Egyptians, Romans, etc, affords
no just grounds for attributing their origin to those nations, any
more than to others whose remaining arts they equally resemble.
Almost every ancient people might, in fact, from similar points of
resemblance, claim the same distinction. Beside the particulars
noticed in previous numbers, it might be mentioned, en passant, that
had the Tultecans been Egyptian, they would most certainly have
retained the language of Egypt, the signs, the worship, etc.; but this
was not the fact. Had they been Romans, they would likewise
have continued the language, the customs, and the religion of Romans;
yet this was not the case; and so it would have been, had
they been derived from any other nation. Above all, perhaps, would
they have borne a personal resemblance to their progenitors, a circumstance[458]
far from truth. Religion, without doubt, is the last thing
in which a people becomes alienated; yet we see no cöincidence in
this respect between these people and their reputed originals. How
then shall we account for their origin, but by supposing them, sui
generis, Tultecans? Finally, it will be admitted, that unless the story
of Votan presents some clue by which to solve the problem—and
we do not see that it has even the claim of probability—we are not
permitted, by the facts in evidence, to attribute the first American
population to any other people of the earth.

The illustrious Fegjro, quoted as the best authority by the very
author of Votan’s story, and himself as much interested in propagating
a theory favorable to popular Catholic opinions as any one of
his clerical brethren, says upon this subject: ‘After long study and
attentive examination of so many and such various opinions, I find
no one having the necessary appearance of truth, to satisfy a prudent
judgment, and many that do not possess even the merit of probability.’
Again, Cabrera says: ‘To the present period, no hypothesis
has been advanced, that is sufficiently probable to satisfy a
mind sincerely and cautiously desirous of arriving at the truth.’
And yet this is the man who holds forth the story of Votan as a true
‘hypothesis.’ It is plain, in all this writer says, by way of comment,
that he himself doubts the truth of the whole matter, although he has
pompously styled his treatise ‘The Solution of the Grand Historical
Problem of the Population of America!’ The bishop, we will do
him the justice to say, manifests much candor in speaking of the
conduct of his brotherhood toward the relics of the people whose
religion they had resolved to destroy. ‘The injudicious and total
destruction of the annals and records of the American nations,’ says
he, ‘has not only proved a most serious loss to history, but very prejudicial
to that religion whose progress it was supposed would thereby
have been accelerated.’ He asserts what is very true, in this;
and also in his conclusion, that ‘both in the means and the object,
this practice is too frequently the result of prejudice or of ignorance.’
Antonio Constantini, also cited as primary authority, declares, that
‘whatsoever may be advanced upon this subject does not pass beyond
the limit of mere opinion, as we have neither histories, manuscripts,
nor traditions of the Americans!’ And with the design
farther to prevent all belief by posterity that their conquered subjects,
whose admirable relics and records they had destroyed, possessed
any knowledge of the arts, or the means of governing themselves,
he says, ‘when they were discovered, they were ignorant
and uncultivated!’ etc. Clavigero justly concludes, likewise, that
‘the history of the primitive population of Anahuac, (Central America,)
is so obscure, and so much involved in fable, as to render it not
merely a most difficult matter for solution, but totally impossible to
come at the truth.’ These and similar declarations of the most
accredited writers upon the early history of the inhabitants of Central
America, one would think quite conclusive. If there had been
other facts to be obtained, calculated to settle the question as to the
origin of the first Americans, these, or other writers would have
obtained them. Instead of this, however, they merely speak of
works which ‘probably‘ contained the facts announced as truth, without[459]
ever having seen them themselves, or stating plainly that they
had, in reality, any facts within their reach. Thus numerous
authors, whose means of information are said to have been complete
on this subject, are mentioned by Cabrera; yet he professes to know
nothing beyond conjecture or hearsay of the contents of their works.
We will notice one or two instances, to show what confidence can
be placed upon his assertions and gratuitous inferences in relation to
Votan, and as samples of the whole.

After parading the titles of a great number of works, which may or
may not exist, so far as his own knowledge of their contents is concerned,
or perhaps that of any one else, he says: ‘There is in the Jesuits’
College of Tepozotlan,’ (preserving the same particularity, as to titles,
localities, dates, etc.,) ‘a history of the voyages of the Aztecas to the
country of Anahuac, written by a noble Mestee Mexican. The title of
this manuscript,’ he continues, ‘shows it to be one of importance, as it
very probably contains an account of the voyage of the Mexicans, who
are the Aztecas, and of the primitive families of the Culebras, (snakes)
who, I shall demonstrate, were from the old continent to the new, with
an account of the first empire they founded in America, its duration,
and their expulsion from the first settlements of Anahuac!’ Again,
after enumerating a list of works, to which he would have the reader
infer he has had access, he says: ‘The fourth is some historical
memoirs of the Tultecas, and other nations of Anahuac, all of which
works were preserved in the library of the college before-mentioned.
It is probable, that the last production treats of their coming from the
old to the new continent, of their expulsion from the first settlement
at the city of Palenque, in the kingdom of Amaguemecan, and the
cause thereof,’ etc. Thus there is, from beginning to end, the same
ambiguity, the same want of personal inspection, and yet the same
display of authority. How important such works would have been
to him and to the world, had they existed, in satisfactorily settling this
question! The author of Votan’s account does not seem to have
known a solitary fact himself, which bears upon the subject matter
of his story, though he proposes to ‘demonstrate,’ etc. The several
representations, of a mysterious character, which he has so wofully
distorted to an agreement with the said story, mean and represent,
in fact, any thing else than the incidents of that story; indeed, this
is the lamest part of the fabrication. Truly unfortunate is it for
all the materials concerned in the case, ‘that they were,’ to use his
own language, ‘unfortunately lost;’ ‘did not appear, in consequence
of his death,’ etc., ‘very probably,’ so and so. Again he says: ‘It
is to be regretted, that the place is unknown where these precious
documents of history were deposited, but still more that the great
treasure should have been destroyed!’ And, in the next paragraph
he says: ‘It is possible that Votan’s historical tract, alluded to by
Nunez de la Vega’—for he is indebted, after all, for the sum total
of this now simple historical tract, to the allusions of some unknown
writer—’or another,’ he says, ‘similar to it, may be the one now in
the possession of Don Ramon de Ordonez y Aguiar,’ (though before
pronounced to have been destroyed!) So much for the proof of this
story, good, bad, or indifferent. To have continued out these observations,
we could have more clearly shown its folly and untruth; but,[460]
though necessary to satisfy the mind of the curious on so important
a subject, yet we would avoid unnecessary minutia, and deem what
has already been stated, quite sufficient to establish our position.

Now for the story itself. This, he says, was ‘communicated’ to
him by some ‘valuable notices,’ (how, we are left entirely to conjecture,)
‘by the above writer,’ (Aguiar,) ‘who’ he says, ‘is engaged at
this time in composing a work, the title of which I have seen!’ The
said title is ‘Historia del Cielo y de la Tierra!’ (History of Heaven
and Earth!) ‘that will not only embrace the original population of
America, but trace its progress from Chaldea, immediately after the
confusion of tongues, its mystical and moral theology, its mythology,
and most important events!’ Such a work we should be glad to see,
and so would all the world beside; but ‘unfortunately’ it has never
appeared, though ‘this time’ spoken of, was more than forty years
ago! The title of the work, and the abilities which he ascribes to
its author, he says, ‘lead us to anticipate a work so perfect in its
kind as will completely astonish the world!’ Let the reader notice
the agreement between this source of ‘communicated’ information,
and that ‘alluded to’ by Nunez de la Vega. ‘The memoir in his
possession, (Aguiar’s) consists,’ he continues, ‘of five or six folios of
common quarto paper, written in ordinary characters in the Tzendal
language; an evident proof,’ he farther adds, ‘of its having been
copied from the original in hieroglyphics, shortly after the conquest.’
We do not see, in this circumstance, the ‘evident proof mentioned,
or ‘the shadow, thereof;’ but this is in keeping with all his
‘proofs.’

The tract is then stated to go on by means of a painted description,
on the first leaf, in different colors, of the two continents. This
is declared to be characterized by the letters s and ss, with works
which he made, (Votan, it is supposed,) signifying on the margin,
the places he had visited on the old continent. Between these
squares stands the title of his history, viz: ‘Proof that I am Culebra,’
(a snake) which title he proves in the body of his work, by saying,
that he is Culebra, because he is Chivim.’ This is ‘demonstration,’
of course! He then states that he conducted seven families from
Valum Votan to this continent, so says Cabrera, and assigned lands
to them; that he is the third of the Votans; that having determined
to travel until he arrived at the root of heaven! (who can tell where
the root of heaven is, and what road should be taken to get there?)
in order to discover his relations, the Culebras, and make himself
known to them; (mark, his relations in America,) he made four
voyages to Chivim, which is expressed by repeating four times from
Valum Votan to Valum Chivim, from Valum Chivim to Valum Votan;
that he arrived in Spain, and that he went to Rome; that he
saw the great house of God building; that he went by the road
which his brethren Culebras had bored; that he marked it, and that
he passed by the houses of the thirteen Culebras. He relates that,
in returning from one of his voyages, he found seven families of the
Tzequil nation, who had joined the first inhabitants, and recognised
in them the same origin as his own, that is, of the Culebras. He
speaks of the place where they built their first town, which from its
founders received the name of Tzequil. He affirms that he taught[461]
them refinement of manners in the use of table-cloths, dishes, basins,
cups, and napkins; that, in return for these, they taught him knowledge
of God, and of his worship, his first ideas of a king, and obedience
to him, and that he was chosen captain of all the united
families!

Having announced all this badinage from a work not read nor even
written, with as much confidence as if he had seen the narrated circumstances,
he says: ‘Let us now follow the progress of this celebrated
chief of the first inhabitants of the American continent!’
He then goes into the descriptions of Del Rio, and his ingenious
but labored and wordy commentaries. How much there may be
to ‘demonstrate’ with these premises, we shall not undertake to
prove; but it would excite a smile in the reader, to notice with
what avidity he seizes hold of the supposed hieroglyphical drawings
of the before-mentioned explorer, and explains what they mean,
from the wonderful light thrown in his path by the title of a work
not then, nor yet now, written, and also from the ‘allusions’ of some
reputed writer, unknown even to himself!

What the curious specimens of sculpture and of phonetic representation,
before referred to, actually mean, is alike unknown to all
inquirers, notwithstanding Bishop Cabrera’s commentaries. The
‘historical treasure’ respecting Votan’s Voyages, etc., is represented
by the author first mentioned, viz. Vega, among other historical
manuscripts, to state, or rather he states for Votan, that ‘Votan is the
third gentile placed in the calendar; that he wrote an historical
tract in the Indian idiom, wherein he mentions by name the people
with whom, and the places where, he had been. Up to the present
time,’ says he, ‘there has existed a family of the Votan’s in Teopizca.’
He says, also, that ‘he is lord of the Tapanahuasec; that he (Votan)
saw the great house,’ meaning, as the writer says, the Tower of Babel,
‘which was built by order of his grand-father, Noah! from the earth to
the sky; that he is the first man who had been sent hither to divide and
portion out these Indian lands.’ (How came the Indian here so soon
after his grand-father Noah’s flood?) We had thought himself and his
seven families were the first; and that, at the place where he saw the
great house, (the Tower of Babel,) a different language was spoken!’
This ‘historical tract,’ so invulnerable to the effects of time, under the
varied circumstances to which, ‘it is very probable,’ it had been exposed,
was indeed a treasure; but the venerable prelate, not having
the fear of antiquity before his eyes, and intent only on destroying
all ‘the means of confirming more strongly an idolatrous superstition,’
says, ‘he did give them up, when they were publicly burned in
the square at Heuguetan, on our visit to that place in 1691!’ (One
hundred years before Cabrera wrote.) The Indian tradition of this
treasure, says Cabrera, though he omits any reference to authority,
‘was, that it was placed by himself (Votan,) as a proof of his origin,
and a memorial for future ages, in the casa cabrega, ‘house of darkness,
that he had built in a breath!’ He committed this deposite to
a distinguished female, and a certain number of plebeian Indians,
appointed annually for the purpose of its safe custody. His mandate
was scrupulously observed by the people of Tacoaloya, in the
province of Socanusco, where it was guarded with extraordinary care,[462]
until, being discovered by the prelate before-mentioned, he obtained
and destroyed it.

‘It ‘consisted,’ observes Vega, who now speaks for himself, ‘of
some large earthen vases, of one piece, and closed with covers of the
same material, on which were represented, in stone, the figures of
the ancient Pagans, whose names are in the calendar, with some
Chalchihnites, which are solid, hard stones, of a green color, and other
superstitious figures!’ All this looks a good deal like a ‘historical
tract,’ as Cabrera calls these earthen pots, etc. These ‘historical
treasures’ were taken from a cave by the Indian lady herself!’ Quite
an accommodating and antique-looking lady, we imagine, having
held in charge the venerable relics from the time of Votan, the grandson
of Noah, according to the document itself, until delivered in
person to the trusty and veracious bishop, and by him burned as aforesaid!
This, then, is the whole of the story of Votan! Forbid, Muse
of History! that we should weaken or destroy one syllable of the
description, or a jot of its meaning—its force or probability!

The pious bishop, it should be said, in proof of his blind devotion,
whatever may be thought of his acts by liberal-minded men, faithfully
expressed his reckless bigotry and wild fanaticism, by destroying
all the valuable remains of the Tultecan people, ‘lest,’ as he says,
‘by being brought into notice, they should be the means of confirming
more strongly an idolatrous superstition!’ History weeps over
the ruins created by such mad and superstitious zealots; and no
where with more reason than in Central America. The history of
man is, indeed, but a record of persecution for opinion’s sake, the
result only of peculiar yet mainly unavoidable circumstances; and
that record is black with deeds of shame and bloodshed. Poor human
Nature!—we could almost wish that oblivion had hidden for ever thy
acts from posterity!

Having, as we presume, satisfied the curious in respect to the
foundation of the ‘hypothesis’ for peopling America, as proposed by
the story of Votan, we shall next notice some interesting particulars
in the early history of the Tultiques, which may shed light upon our
inquiries. After this, we shall describe other and not less remarkable
ruins of ancient time, in the various provinces of Central America;
notice their connection with the relics and people of North
America, the singular works of art, and the primitive inhabitants of
portions of this country.

The Tultecan people, or Chiapanese, being the original inhabitants
of America, and having quietly dwelt within the central provinces
before-mentioned for an unknown period of time, all intelligence
respecting them—if, in fact, we have any thing on which to rely,
save the remains of their magnificent arts—is completely disconnected
from all other people prior to the destruction of their capital.
At what period this occurred, we are equally ignorant, notwithstanding
the assurance with which some have given dates, and attempted to
establish epocha in the history of the primitive American people. It
is certain that the evidences of their antiquity are coëval at least with
the most ancient of the human family. Tradition, at best, is a very
uncertain guide for the antiquarian; that, therefore, of the grandson
of Noah coming ‘from the north’ to people this continent by[463]
express command of God, may be regarded as hypothetical. Still,
if the first Americans were to be considered the immediate descendants
of Noah, the ruins of Central America might be aptly compared
with the date at which the deluge and the dispersion at the
Tower of Babel are reported to have occurred. Votan, according to
this tradition, is said to have been one of those who built the great
tower, which was to reach to heaven, that he was selected from among
those which tradition likewise made to attempt building so high a structure,
and that he was commanded to travel ‘off north,’ with a colony of
the people, for the purpose of inhabiting this unknown land. How he and
his colony got here by travelling north, we shall not attempt to explain,
and particularly with a trackless sea, of three thousand miles in extent,
intervening. This colony, it is said, also divided on their arrival
at Soconusco, South America, a part remaining in the province of
Chiapa, and the others proceeding on to Nicaragua. But from what
we have already stated, this colony consisted, according to Votan’s
records, of only seven families; each colony, therefore, comprised
three whole families! The form of government of this people thereafter,
until they numbered many millions, was vested in two military
chiefs, chosen by the priests. So says tradition.

Humboldt thinks that there existed other people in Mexico, previous
to the arrival of the Toultecs, the date of whose appearance in
Mexico he has put down at 648, of the Christian era. It matters not
by what name the people who first inhabited America are called;
nor does this writer name the people he supposes to have preceded
the Toultecs. We have called the primitive inhabitants Tultecans;
and we are justified by the best authorities, certainly by the most
numerous, in giving them this appellation. But we think Humboldt
was mistaken in the antiquity of the Tultiques. The date assigned
by him for their appearance may have been when they were driven
by the northern nations of Chicemecks, or perhaps by the Olmecas,
from their ancient city, and forced to mingle with the other nations
that about that time made their appearance in Mexico, from the
north. It is possible that the dates given by writers, and purporting
to have been derived from the hieroglyphic paintings of the ancient
inhabitants, may have some truth for their bases; but these, liable
as they were to misinterpretation, have induced writers to come
to the conclusion, that no certainty exists in the dates which have
been given for the population of Central America. Whether
the inhabitants of Palenque, the famous ruins of which we have
noticed, are the Toultecs known at a subsequent period, or whether
the name of that people is ‘past finding out,’ our means do not allow
us to determine at present. That they had a different name,
prior to the appearance of the Toultecs in 596 of Clavigero, or 548
of Humboldt, may be admitted. Still, it is not improbable that they
may have left their country in 544, as thought by some, arrived in the
valley of Mexico in 648, and founded the city of Tula in 670; but
to suppose that this people afterward reared the monuments we have
before mentioned, is not at all probable; on the contrary, the period
of their origin supposed by the ‘hypothesis’ already mentioned and
some three thousand years since, would be altogether more in accordance
with their ruins. The Tultiques were evidently the first people[464]
known in Mexican history; but from whence they came, and the date
of their first establishment in Central America, is unknown. Humboldt
himself says, ‘We do not know on what authority these dates
are founded.’ We shall speak of the people here mentioned as the
Toultecs, and as entirely distinct from the ancient inhabitants of Palenque,
though we have designated the latter by a similar name, for the
sake of preserving cöincidence with others. All must be agreed, in
accordance with our statement, and with Humboldt, that a people
existed in Anahuac long previous to the appearance of these Toultecs
we now speak of, though this distinguished traveller had no knowledge
of the great ruins of Palenque.

The history of the Toultecs, like that of all the nations which
have subsequently peopled Central America, is involved in fable. It
is said, however, that their history relates that they were banished
from their own country of Huehuetapallan, in their year 1, (Teepatl,)
which is likewise said to correspond with our year 596; that proceeding
southerly, under the direction of their chiefs, they arrived, after
sojourning at various places on the way, for the space of one hundred
and twenty-four years, on the banks of a river, where they built a city, and
called it Tollan, or Tula, which, as Clavigero thinks, was the name of
the kingdom they had left, situated north-west of Mexico. This then
was the oldest, as it was one of the most celebrated cities in the history
of Mexico, and the capital of the Toultec kingdom. This kingdom
lasted three hundred and eighty-four years, which was divided
into cycles of fifty-two years each; and each cycle was occupied by
the reign of one king. Seven kings had thus ruled the people, when,
during the twenty-eighth year of the reign of the eighth monarch,
the nation was destroyed by a pestilence. If a monarch died during
one of these cycles, the government was administered by the nobles.
Tradition, as well also as the paintings of this people, beside Tollan
and Huehuetapallan, mention Aztlan as their first residence. This
fact, in connection with the remaining arts of a numerous and highly
civilized people, now found in Wisconsin Territory, and near St.
Louis, Missouri, have given rise to the opinion that there was their
first residence. It has been contended that the Castine Ground, in the
vicinity of that city, was the identical Aztlan of the wandering Toultec
nation. We shall hereafter refer to the facts which induced us
to announce in our first numbers that a connection existed between
the inhabitants of Mexico and the original people of the western
valleys of the United States.

The Toultecs, as has already been said, exhibited a high
state of civilization, and an astonishing knowledge of the arts
and sciences, at the earliest periods of their history. Their government
was the most permanent, efficient, and happy; and to
them have all succeeding nations acknowledged their indebtedness
for their knowledge of the arts, and of agriculture. They were familiar
with the working of metals, cutting gems, with hieroglyphical
paintings, etc.; and in their divisions of time, they were much more
perfect than the Greeks or Romans. ‘But where,’ inquires a distinguished
writer, ‘is the source of that cultivation? Where is the
country from which the Toultecs and Mexicans issued?’ If we have
no evidence that they came from the United States, nor from Asia, is
not the query solved, by supposing that they were the Palencians?[465]
dispersed by the pestilence which deprived them of their eighth and
last monarch, with the bulk of the Toultec people. The magnificent
arts still presented to the curious traveller in Mexico, are the work
of this people, and they exhibit a degree of skill, industry, and intellect,
which astonish those of our times. But they differed from all
others in these arts. Where then shall we find their analogue?
Did they come from China, as De Guignes would prove from the
Chinese annals, subsequent to 458? Horn, in his ‘De Originibus
Americanis,’ and M. Scherver, would make this by no means difficult,
nay, extremely probable. They ‘might have been a part of those
Hiongnoux, who, according to the Chinese historians, emigrated
under Punon, and were lost in the north of Siberia; or, were they
the Indians of North America? The pastoral character of the Toultecs
resembled that of the Asiatics, and their arts those of Egypt;
but they cultivated no other gramina than maize, while the Asiatic
tribes cultivated various cereal gramina, at the earliest periods of their
history. To the Chinese, and particularly the Japanese, they bore
a striking similarity, so far as regards the state of civilization; yet, in
their facial and cranial characteristics, they differed materially. On
the whole, it is much more reasonable to suppose that the people of
whom we are now speaking, were of the Mongol race, than that the
Palencians were any particular race now known.

Whether the last mentioned people, after their dispersion from
their great capital in the province of Chiapa, were or were not the
nucleus around which the many distinct tribes that afterward constituted
the people of the great Mexican empire, all our inquiries are
unable clearly to establish; still, there are strong evidences in favor
of that opinion. Hence the name Tultecan, by which we have designated
the primeval inhabitants of this continent, and the authors
of the extensive arts, the ruins of which have been noticed, may be
identical with the Toultecs. All agree that there was a race of people
existing for an unknown period of time in Central America before
the Toultecs, the Aztecs, or the Chichimecas appeared in the beautiful
Mexican valley. This agreement, in connection with the antique
relics found on the site of the famous Palencian city, and the indisputable
evidences of the superior knowledge of the ancient Palenquans,
renders the conclusion to which we have arrived inevitable.

It is also extremely probable, from the analogy observed among
the arts of succeeding inhabitants of Mexico, the similarity of
their manners and customs, and their knowledge of the arts and
sciences, in which the original Tultecans were so highly distinguished,
that a part of the latter people, after the destruction of their
great capital, was united with the former. This probability, though
unnoticed by writers upon the early inhabitants of Mexico, amounts,
in our mind, to conviction. It forms a basis to the only conclusion
which presents itself in attempting to explain the origin of the extraordinary
arts now found throughout the Mexican valley, and in
other parts of that once extensive empire. The inference is not
less conclusive in relation to the people with whom the original
Tultiques became united, and with whom they in part constituted
the subsequent great nation of Mexicans. This people were clearly
the previous inhabitants of our own western states. Their arts[466]
are distinctly traced from Wisconsin and Missouri Territories, all
the way into the valley of Mexico. Among those which now
characterize that valley, are to be seen numerous specimens so
closely resembling the relics of the United States, that no other
inference can be drawn from the fact, than that they were the
work of the same people. Still, it will be observed that others
exist in Mexico, which as plainly show the existence of a distinct
and peculiar class of men. The most remarkable of these are
found among the ruins of Palenque, Copan, and at other places
in the province of Chiapa, Yucatan, and Guatemala. Others again
exist, scattered throughout both Peru and Mexico, among the
Pacific Islands, and west of the Rocky Mountains, which differ in
many striking particulars from those of this country, from those
of Palenque, and among themselves. This is strongly in evidence
of the historical fact, that the ancient Mexicans were composed
of numerous and very different tribes of people. That various
tribes have also dwelt in our western valleys, is quite certain;
and that our whole country has, at remote periods, been the theatre
of strange events, and the residence of peculiar people, cannot
admit of doubt. While some of that people were unacquainted
with the use of metals, others must have possessed a very good
knowledge of them, and withal the mode of working them. A
well-finished steel bow, found in one of the western tumuli, and the
scoria, evidently the product of forges discovered among the works
which have been left by some previous inhabitants of the Ohio
valley, are among the proofs of this fact. Hieroglyphical writing,
long a desideratum among the remains of the primitive inhabitants
of the United States, has also been discovered. Descriptive paintings
similar to those executed by the Mexicans, may in like manner
have been left by this people, but they would have disappeared, had
they been so left, from the effects of time. No stone edifices resembling
those of Mexico have however been found among us; no
piles of rude masonry, stone fortifications, bridges, viaducts, etc.,
as at Palenque and other places. There are some traces, if recent
accounts be true, of tumuli and walls in this country, which were
built in part of burnt bricks, not unlike those with which the great
pyramid of Chollula was built; yet there are none in the same style
and magnificence. Enough, however has been noticed, among the
ancient arts of this country, to satisfy us that our primitive inhabitants
may have been among the builders of that stupendous structure.
The same form may now be noticed in a tumulus near Cincinnati.
Others have been destroyed, which had the same pyramidal
form, with regular off-sets. On the tops of these, and particularly
those of a large size, it has been conjectured that structures similar
to those of Mexico were built. The one ruthlessly destroyed at
Circleville, Ohio, affords strong evidences of its having been devoted
to the worship of the sun, and to the offering of human sacrifices.
But more of this anon. Subsequent remarks will tend to show,
when we shall have furnished other particulars of newly-discovered
ruins in Central America, how far those of our own country agree
with the ancient arts of Mexico.

[467]

THE ENCAGED BIRD TO HIS MISTRESS.

Cedar-Brook, Plainfield, (N. J.), 1837. E. C. S.

[468]

THE SOUL’S TRUST.

‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in
God; for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance and my God.’

Psalms.

G. P. T.

MR. AND MRS. TOMPKINS.

A SIMPLE TALE.[1]

BY THE LATE ROBERT C. SANDS, ESQ., AUTHOR OF ‘YAMOYDEN,’ ETC.

In a certain village—pleasant enough to behold, as you ride or
walk through it, but abominably unpleasant to remain in, on account
of the unconquerable propensity of its inhabitants for scandal and
tittle-tattle, which prevails to a degree infectious even among decent
people—in this village, about ten years ago, a man and his wife, of
plain appearance, both in person and dress, came to reside, having
the fear of God before their eyes; and in that fear, I trust, they
died. But they were the subjects of much speculation; and the
presidential question has not, to my certain knowledge, called forth
so much original argumentation among the people of that village,
as did the arrival of this couple; unpretending, unquaint, and inoffensive
as they were.

They came in a stage, with but small incumbrance of luggage for
persons who meant to remain in one place for any long time; and
[469]according to an arrangement previously made, took up their quarters
in the house of a respectable widow, whose modest mansion afforded
to them the only room they wanted, and whose modest circumstances
made their coming to board with her, in that single room, a
decided convenience.

The fact being ascertained, in an hour’s time, throughout the village,
that the widow Wilkins had got two boarders who were to
occupy her spare room, it became a subject of conversation at the
post-office, the tavern, the grocery, the prayer-meeting, and in
every domestic circle. But nobody was able, that evening, to throw
light upon the question of who the new comers were; and conjecture
was left free to range through the mazes of its own world of
imagination.

Three ladies, a widow, a widow bewitched, and a middle-aged
single woman, namely, Mrs. Steele, Mrs. Hawkins, and Miss Cross,
had gone immediately, on observing that the stage had dropped two
passengers with the widow, to ascertain who they were, where they
came from, what they had in view, and whither they were going next.
All the information, however, that Mrs. Steele, Mrs. Hawkins, and
Miss Cross had been enabled to obtain, (albeit they would have
wormed the one secret which a man ought to keep from his wife out
of him, after the Holy Inquisition had given him up in despair,)
was, that Mrs. Wilkins had taken a man and his wife to board at her
house; and that their name was Tompkins. They had retired to their
own apartment, and had not been seen by the respectable triad;
yet Miss Cross said, she thought from the looks of an old pair of
boots, which were tied to one of Mr. Tompkins’s trunks, which was
standing in the entry, that ‘they were no great shakes.’ As to this
point she had a right also to speak her opinion, seeing that her father
had been a respectable retail shoe-maker. So, therefore, the report
of Mrs. Steele, Mrs. Hawkins, and Miss Cross, did but whet the
curiosity of the congregation as to the private history, present estate,
and future prospects of poor Mr. Tompkins and his wife. Many
supposed that his name was assumed for the occasion. So many,
they urged, were indicted or sued, who had such an alias, that he
must have broken out of the state prison, or run away and left his
bail in the lurch. An inveterate reader of all the newspapers observed,
that a Mr. Tompkins was advertised as having left his wife
without any means of subsistence, who would pay no debts contracted
by him. It was probable that he had a female partner of his
flight; and the circumstance of his coming in such a clandestine
way to the house of the widow Wilkins, was certainly a singular
coincidence. It would be endless, and scarcely amusing, to mention
all the suppositions broached on the subject. One, which was quite
popular, was, that this Mr. Tompkins must be the man who had been
hanged in Alabama some months before, and who, it was rumored,
had been resuscitated.

The most speculatively benevolent hoped that these people would
be able to pay their board to the widow, as she was a good sort of
woman, though none of the wisest, and could not afford to lose it.
The most scrupulously decorous hoped this couple were actually
married, and had not come to bring disgrace into Mrs. Wilkins’s[470]
house, as she had always passed for an honest woman, as had her
mother before her, though there had been some strange stories about
her aunt and the Yankee doctor.

The next morning, after breakfast, Mr. Tompkins came forth from
the widow’s house, and walked through the village to the barber’s
shop. His gait was that of a grave gentleman who has passed the
meridian of life, and has nothing to excite him immediately to unnecessary
action. There was nothing in his manner that was at all
singular, nor was there even the inquisitive expression in his countenance,
which would be natural in that of an entire stranger in the
place. He walked as a man walks who is going over ground he has
trodden all his life, in the usual routine of his occupations. His
clothes were plain black, cut after no particular fashion or fancy,
but such as old gentlemen generally wear. His walking-stick was
plain, with a horn handle. He wore apparently no ornaments, not
even a watch. Those whom he met in the street, or passed as they
stood in their doors, looked hard and sharply at him; but he neither
evaded nor responded to their glances of interrogation.

The barber who shaved him, extracted from him the facts that he
had come last from York city, where there was no news; and that
he meant to stay for some time in the village. After leaving him in
possession of this valuable information, Mr. Tompkins sallied forth,
and strayed, at the same leisurely pace, up a hill, the summit of
which commanded a picturesque view of the village, and of the
adjacent country. The barber observed something like a cicatrix,
in a rather suspicious part of his neck, but he did not feel justified
in pronouncing an opinion as to whether he had ever been actually
hanged or not.

In the mean time, or not long after, Mrs. Steele, Mrs. Hawkins,
and Miss Cross, paid a visit to the widow, to tell her not to forget to
come to a charitable sewing society that afternoon, and to make another
effort to relieve their minds about the case of poor Mrs. Tompkins.
They found the latter lady sitting with her hostess. She was
knitting cotton stockings. She was a plain middle-aged woman,
forty years old or upward, attired in a dark-colored silk dress, with
a cambric ruff and cap, not exactly like those worn by the straitest
sects of Methodists and Friends, but without any ornament. An
introduction having been effected, the ingenuity of the three ladies
was immediately exercised in framing interrogatories to the stranger.
She was civil, amiable, and apparently devoid of art or mystery;
but never was there a more unsuccessful examination, conducted
with so much ability on the part of the catechists, and so much
seeming simplicity in the witness. Without resorting to downright
impertinence, these ladies could extract no more from Mrs. Tompkins,
than that she had come with her husband last from New-York,
where they had left no family nor connexions, and that they meant
to spend some time in the village.

‘Had she always lived in New-York?’

‘No—she had travelled a great deal.’

‘Was it her native place?’

‘No—she was born at sea.’

‘Had her husband been long settled in New-York?’

[471]

‘No—he had lived there some time,’ etc., etc., etc.

With this highly unsatisfactory result, the fair inquisitors were
compelled to return from their mission. Something, however, in the
placid manner of Mrs. Tompkins, had produced an influence upon
them which counteracted the natural effects of the irritability arising
from ungratified curiosity. Their hypotheses in relation to her were
by no means so uncharitable as might have been expected. Mrs.
Steele actually maintained that she believed her to be Mrs. Fry,
travelling incog. through the United States. Mrs. Hawkins had no
doubt it was Dorothy Ripley, a woman who had a call to straggle
through the country, vending her religious experience; and that her
escort was no less a personage than Johnny Edwards, a lay enthusiast
of great notoriety. Miss Cross, the least complimentary in her
conjectures, supposed it was Mrs. Royal, a travelling authoress, and
bugbear to book-sellers and editors.

After a walk of two hours or more, Mr. Tompkins returned from
his perambulations, and stopped in at the tavern or stage-house,
where he seated himself in an unobtrusive place, and began to read
the newspapers. He perused these budgets of literature systematically
and thoroughly; and the anxious expectant of the reversion
of any particular journal he had in hand, waited in vain for him to
lay it down. When he had finished one broad-side, and the fidgetty
seeker after the latest news had half thrust forth his hand to grasp
the prize, Mr. Tompkins, gently heaving a complacent sigh, turned
over the folio, and began to read the next page with the same quiet
fixedness of attention, and unequivocally expressed purpose of suffering
nothing it contained to escape his attention. It thus took him
about two hours to finish his prelection of one of the issues of that
great moral engine, as it is called, by whose emanations the people
of this country are made so wise and happy. Advertisements and
all he read, except poetry, which he seemed to skip conscientiously,
generally uttering an interjection, not of admiration. Notwithstanding
he thus tried the patience of those who wanted a share of periodical
light, he was so quiet and respectable a looking man, that not
even a highwayman, or a highwayman’s horse (supposing that respectable
beast to be entitled to its proverbial character for assurance,)
would have attempted to take the paper away from him by violence.
His person was in nobody’s way. His elbows and knees were kept
in; and there was no quarrelling with his shoe or his shoe-tie. There
was a simplex munditiis—a neat-but-not-gaudiness about him, which
every body understood without understanding Latin.

When he had apparently exhausted the contents of all the periodicals
that lay on the bar-room table, just as the village clock struck
one, Mr. Tompkins asked for a glass of cider, which he drank and
departed. I need make no apology to an intelligent reader for a
detail of these minute particulars; because they engrossed the attention
of many at the time, and were severally the subjects of conflicting
hypotheses. And beside, the history of his first day’s residence was
so exactly that of every other which followed, that it is expedient to
be particular in recording it.

He returned then to his lodgings, and after dinner was seen sitting
in the porch of the widow’s house, smoking a cigar, and reading in[472]
an ancient-looking volume. Toward sundown he again walked forth,
with his wife (if wife she was) under his arm; and they strolled to
some distance through the lanes and among the fields adjacent to the
village. Thence they returned at tea-time, and at an early hour
retired to their apartment.

Mrs. Wilkins had not for a long time received so many visiters
as called upon her that evening, to inquire after her health, and
the ‘names, ages, usual places of residence, and occupations’ of
her boarders. For the best of all possible reasons, she was unable
to satisfy them on many of these points. The appearance of Mr.
Tompkins at the tavern, however, had produced a rëaction in the
opinions of the men, as that of his wife had in those of the ladies;
and he was supposed to be some greater character than a runaway
husband, a fraudulent insolvent, or a half-hanged malefactor. They
were determined to make an Æneas under a cloud out of him. One
was convinced that he was Sir Gregor McGregor; another that he
was Baron Von Hoffman, (a wandering High-Dutch adventurer,
much in vogue at that time,) and a third ventured the bold conjecture
that he was Napoleon himself. A rumor, then rife, that the
most illustrious of dêtenus had effected his escape, gave greater accuracy
to the last surmise than to any other. Napoleon was then
in ——!

The post-master advised the speculative crowd, whose imaginations
were perturbed and overwrought by this suggestion, to keep
themselves quiet and say nothing about it for the present. Letters
and packages must necessarily come to the mysterious visiter, which
would be subject to his inspection; and from the post-marks, directions,
and other indices, which long experience had taught him to
understand, he assured them that he should be able to read the riddle.
By this promise, the adult population were controlled into forbearance
from any public manifestation of astonishment. The little
boys, however, whose discretion was not so great, kept hurraing for
Bonypart to a late hour, around the widow’s house; for which the
biggest of them suffered severely next morning at school; their
master being what was called an old tory.

‘Days, weeks, and months, and generations (in the chronology of
curiosity) passed;’ but the post-master was unable to fulfil his promise.
Nothing came to his department directed to our Mr. Tompkins;
nor did that gentleman ever inquire for any letters. During
this period, which was about half a year, the daily occupations of
Mr. T. were almost uniformly the same with those mentioned in the
diary I have given. So punctual was he, that a sick lady, having
marked the precise minute at which he passed before her house, on
his return to dinner, set her watch regularly thereafter by his appearance,
and was persuaded that it kept better time than those of her
neighbors. One would have thought that she ought to have felt
grateful to the isolated stranger who thus saved her the trouble of
a solar observation; but whether it arose from the influence of the
genius of the place, the irritability of sickness, or her association of
Mr. Tompkins with ipecacuanha, certain it is, that her guesses about
his identity, and his motives for coming to that town, were of all
others the most unamiable.

[473]

I must mention, however, some of the other habits of Mr. Tompkins,
and some of the peculiarities of his character. For, though
the former were systematic, and the latter monotonous, he was yet
not a mere animated automaton; and was distinguished from other
male bipeds by certain traits, which his acutely observant neighbors
of course did not fail to note.

Neither he nor his wife ever bought any thing for which they did
not pay cash. Their purchases were few in number, and small in
amount; and they generally seemed to have exactly the requisite
sum about them, rarely requiring change, and never exhibiting any
large surplus of the circulating medium. On Sunday, unless the
weather was very bad, they attended at the Episcopal church regularly,
sitting in Mrs. Wilkins’s pew; and regularly did Mr. Tompkins
deposite a sixpenny-piece in the plate which was handed round.
They did not, however, partake of the communion in that church;
why, I know not. It was in vain that Mrs. Tompkins was urged by
the ladies with whom she became acquainted, to attend religious
meetings of different kinds, held in the evening. It was also in vain
that either her husband or she was solicited to subscribe to any
charity, of whatever description. They severally answered, ‘I cannot
afford it,’ so naturally, that the ladies and gentlemen on the several
committees appointed by the several charitable meetings, gave
them up in despair. They rarely accepted invitations to tea-drinkings;
and yet there was nothing unsocial in their manner or conversation.
They could converse very agreeably, according to the opinions
of many of the people; and what was strange, was, that they
neither talked about scandal, religion, or politics. Sometimes they
spoke of other countries so familiarly, that the question, ‘Have you
ever been there?’ was naturally asked; and the answer was generally
‘Yes.’ Avoiding, however, any communion other than what
was inevitable, with those who were decidedly gross and vulgar in
intellect and feeling, and forming no intimacies in the small social
circle into which they were thrown, the barrier was never passed by
their acquaintances, which precluded familiarity. The amusements
of Mr. Tompkins, other than those I have stated—to wit, walking
and reading the newspapers—were extremely limited in kind or
degree, so far as they were observed. Books of his own he had
none. The widow’s collection was small: but he availed himself
of it occasionally, when smoking, or when the weather was bad.
As it was more than a quarter of a century since any of the volumes
had been purchased, and they were mostly odd ones, his studies
could neither have been profound nor extensive. He also very frequently
played backgammon with an old Danish gentleman, Mr. Hans
Felburgh, who had brought his wife from the West Indies, to reside
in this village for the benefit of her health, and had buried her there.
It had been a subject of much dispute why he remained; whether
from regard to her memory, want of funds, or because he was afraid
or too lazy to go back. My readers, I trust, are troubled with no
such impertinent curiosity. No human being can long move and live
in the same society, without contracting a preference for somebody
or other; but the intercourse between these two gentlemen arose[474]
very naturally, as they were near neighbors and both strangers, and
as the Dane was without kith or kin in the country.

Thus, as I have said, six months passed away, and the mystery
which enshrouded Mr. Tompkins yet hung about him ‘as a garment.’
Curiosity, ‘like the self-burning tree of Africa,’ had almost consumed
itself in its own ardors; but the vital fire yet glowed under the embers.
The people had worn threadbare all the arguments on the
questions who Mr. Tompkins was, and why he did not publish to them
his autobiography. The all-absorbing topic of conversation now
was, ‘How did he live? what were his resources?’ He ran in debt
to no one, borrowed from no one, and kept no account in either of
the four village banks; he paid his board regularly, as was regularly
ascertained from the widow, who became indignant, however, at the
frequent recurrence of the question. The tax-gatherer in his rounds
called upon him, and found him only liable to be assessed at the same
rate as those were who had neither realty nor personalty subject to
taxation.

It was now suggested, and became the current report, that Mr.
Tompkins and his wife were secretly connected with a gang of counterfeiters,
for whom they filled up bank notes, and with whom they
had means of holding clandestine intercourse. Often were they both
dogged, on their rambles, by gratuitous enthusiasts in the cause of
justice. Mrs. Tompkins was seen to stoop for some time, removing
a stone that lay under a hedge. The observer in his eagerness, approached
too incautiously, and trampled among the dry leaves. She
turned her head and saw him, and went onward, making a pretext
of pulling up a handful of violets. Nothing was to be found under
the stone, or near it; but there could have been but little doubt, it
was supposed, that she had intended to deposite counterfeit bank
notes, where her accomplices knew how to find them. Mr. Tompkins
was observed in his morning walks, to stop occasionally to talk
to some very poor people, who lived in the outskirts of the village,
and even occasionally to enter their ricketty and tumble-down habitations.
Many inquiries were of course made of them, both in an
insinuating and a fulminating tone, as to the object of Mr. Tompkins’s
visits, and the purport of his communications. But these virtuous,
though impecunious democrats, made no other reply, than that Mr.
Tompkins was a good man, and a better man than those who came
to examine them; and, when threatened, they stood upon their integrity
as individuals, and their rights as free citizens, and contrived
to empty their tubs and kettles ‘convenient,’ as the Irish say, to the
ankles of the questioners.

But now an event occurred—or rather seemed likely to occur.
One afternoon, a horseman, dusty with travel, rode up to the tavern,
and having alighted, inquired if a Mr. Tompkins lived in that town.
Now there was also a shoe-maker of that name who had long dwelt
there. But when the stranger added, that the person he sought for
could not long have been a resident, all doubts vanished. Between
their impatience, however, to assure him he had come to the right
place, and uneasiness to get out of him the facts which were to explain
the mystery, the dusty traveller had much difficulty in obtaining
answers to his first question, and to his second, ‘where Tompkins[475]
lived?’ All the information he gave, in exchange for that which he
received, was, that he had business with the gentleman. He also
asked, where he could find the nearest justice of the peace? A bandy-legged
individual, with a hump-back, and a strange obliquity in both
his eyes, who was drinking beer, came forward immediately, and
said he was the ‘squire. The traveller looked as if he thought the
people had a strange taste in selecting their magistrates; but, telling
the crooked functionary that he might have occasion to call on him in
a short time, set forth in the direction indicated to him, to find the
person he was in search of.

He marched at a round pace; but not so fast that others were not
on the ground before him. Several persons who had heard what had
passed, scudded off in different ways for the same point, announcing
as they ran, in half-breathless accents, to every one they met, that a
sheriff had come for Mr. Tompkins. A party kept at no great distance
behind the stranger, among whom was the justice himself, who
seemed disposed not to be out of the way, should his services be
demanded.

As Mr. Tompkins, who was sitting in the porch of the widow’s
house, reading a volume of the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1749, and
had just exhaled a cloud of many-colored smoke, was watching the
delicate spiral curve of sapphire hue, which did not intermingle with
the other vapor, but wound through it like the Jordan through the
Dead Sea, (to give the coup de grace to a figure worn to tatters, and
beggarly tatters too,) I say, as Mr. Tompkins lifted up his eyes and beheld
the prospect before him, he was aware of a man in riding trim,
lifting the latch of the widow’s little court-yard; behind whom a small
crowd, headed by the cross-eyed and cross-legged Coke of the parish,
advanced in a huddle, all earnestly gazing upon himself. And,
glancing around, through the rose-bushes, lilac-trees, and pales which
surrounded the modest enclosure in which he was ensconced, he beheld,
peeping and chuckling, the quaint and dirty faces of divers boys
and girls, with dishevelled hair and goblin expressions; and he marvelled
what in the world was the matter.

The stranger entered the court-yard, and touching his hat respectfully,
asked if Mr. Tompkins was at home?

‘That is my name, Sir,’ said the gentleman.

‘I beg your pardon, Sir,’ said the stranger. ‘I have been mistaken.
I was looking for another gentleman.’

So saying, he again touched his hat, and retired, looking rather
surlily upon the people who gathered round him, and followed in a
cluster his retiring footsteps. My tale does not lead me to tell how
he got along with them, nor do I know more than what I have heard,
which was, that having proceeded a little distance, and feeling them
treading upon his heels, he got upon a stump, and looking around
him, asked if the place was a Sodom or Gomorrah, that a Christian
man, dressed like themselves, could not come into it without being
mobbed in that manner? Upon which he marched on at a quicker
step, some of the men shouting, and a few of the little boys following
and throwing stones after him, till he remounted his horse; and
mingling with the clatter of the charger’s retiring hoofs was heard[476]
the rider’s hoarse and coarse malison upon the town, and all the people
that lived in it!

‘Time rolled his ceaseless course,’ as he does now while I write;
and I shall record but one more anecdote, being an incident which
happened several months after that last mentioned.

A fondness for getting up charitable societies had always prevailed,
to a greater or less extent, in this village. But at this particular
time it became a rage, in consequence of the organization in larger
towns of associations on a grand scale; the notices of whose meetings,
with the names of the several official dignitaries, as published in
the newspapers, inflamed the ambition of the country folks. A society
for the Suppression of Pauperism was immediately formed. Under
its auspices, at the same time, was organized a society for the relief
of the poor and destitute; and, subsidiary to the latter, an auxiliary
branch was instituted, for the purpose of seeking out and examining
the condition of such poor and destitute people, with a view of reporting
their cases to the parent society. The executive committee
of the auxiliary branch consisted of four ladies and three gentlemen;
who met twice a week regularly, with the power of calling extra
meetings, for the purpose of reporting and consulting.

It was certainly most unfortunate that a system so complicated and
so admirable should be framed, without any subjects being found to
try it upon. It was like a fine new mill, with a double run of stones,
without any grist to be ground in it. The executive committee were
not inactive; but, strange to relate, unless they patronised some of
the members of one or all of the three societies, thus compacted like
Chinese boxes, there was never a soul in the place upon the causes
and actual extent of whose poverty and destitution they could report,
without going to the gentiles whom I have mentioned before, who
lived in the crazy and deciduous tenements in the outskirts.

To them, however, the three gentlemen, urged partly by their zeal
in the cause, and partly by some sly intimations from the four ladies,
that they were afraid of receiving injury to their clothes or to their
persons, were induced to repair. Their mission was fruitless enough.
While they were talking to some of the members of this small
Alsatia below, others from above contrived accidentally to administer
libations of ancient soap-suds and dish-water to the philanthropists,
which sent them back in no amiable mood, and in a pickle by no
means prepossessing, to report to the executive committee of the
auxiliary branch.

What was to be done? It was necessary that some report should
be made, which, having been approved by the branch and the parent
institution, and laid by them before the Pauperism Society of the village,
might be transmitted to the great Metropolitan Branch of the
General State Association. The grand anniversary was approaching;
and what a contemptible figure their returns would make. Under
these circumstances Miss Cross called an extra meeting of the
executive committee.

I do not intend to report the proceedings of this illustrious delegation,[477]
but merely the upshot of them. They actually appointed a
sub-committee, consisting of Miss Cross, who was all of six feet high,
and a pot-bellied tinman who was only four feet eleven, to wait upon
Mr. and Mrs. Tompkins; and to inform them, in a delicate way, that
the auxiliary branch had viewed with satisfaction their efforts to
maintain a decent appearance, and had taken into very particular
consideration the causes of their poverty, and the mode of applying
suitable relief. It was well known, the committee were instructed
to say, that they were destitute people, because nobody wrote to
them, and it was a universal subject of wonder how they lived. They
were growing paler and thinner under the influence of hope deferred,
or more probably of no hope at all; and if they would quit Mrs.
Wilkins’s, whose charge for board was too high, they might yet have
bright and pleasant days before them, under the patronage of the
society. They might lodge with the aunt of Miss Cross, who had
a nice room in her garret, and took as boarders half a dozen of the
cabinet-maker’s apprentices. Mrs. Tompkins could improve her
time by washing and ironing; and something might be done for her
husband, in the way of getting him accounts to cast up for grocers,
running about to collect them, dunning, etc.

So Miss Cross and the tinman went the next afternoon; and, I believe,
that with all the importance they assumed or felt, as members
of the auxiliary branch, there was a little hesitation in their entrance
into the demesne of Mrs. Wilkins. At any rate, I know, that in
mounting the three steps before the door, Miss Cross, by a twitch of
her foot, either nervous or accidental, kicked her colleague, who was
behind her, on his back, or some other part; and set him a rolling
with such emphasis, that he found it troublesome to stand up again
fairly; or, indeed, to know the four points of the compass.

Mr. Tompkins was playing backgammon with his Danish friend,
when his wife opened the door suddenly, with her face flushed, and
said, ‘My dear, here are a lady and gentleman, who wish to inquire
into the causes of our poverty, and the means of relieving it.’ She
laughed as she spoke, but as she turned away and went up stairs,
cried hysterically.

Mr. Tompkins, who had a man taken up, as the phrase is, and had
just thrown doublets of the very point in which he could not enter,
rose, and issued forth to talk to the sub-committee. I believe, most
devoutly, that he was an amiable man; and as to the vulgar practice
of profane swearing, I do not think he ever had indulged in it before
in his life. But when he discharged this sub-committee, I am credibly
informed, that he availed himself of as round and overwhelming
a volley of blasphemy as ever was heard on board a man-of-war. I
hope it has been pardoned him, among his other transgressions.

Time rolled on, and five years had passed away since the arrival
of Mr. Tompkins and his wife at ——. Curiosity as to them had
become superstition; though the vulgar imaginations of the mechanical
bourgeois of the village had not enabled them to conjure up any
spirit or demon, by whose assistance this inoffensive couple were enabled
to exist without getting into debt. No letters had come, during
all this period, through the hands of the conscientious and intelligent
post-master. No deposite had been made by Mr. Tompkins in any[478]
one of the four banks; nor, to the best of my knowledge and belief,
had he ever seen the inside of either of them; for he never went to
a place where he had no business to transact, or was not required by
courtesy to go.

Death!—which we must all expect, and meet as we can—Death
came, and makes tragical the end of a narrative which I have written,
perhaps, in a strain of too much levity. A fever, occasioned probably
by local influences, seized Mrs. Tompkins, and after a few days’
illness, unexpectedly even to the doctor, she died. Such was the
fact; and if I had all the particulars, I know not why they should be
given. It is hard, however, to realize that any body is dead, with
whom we have long associated; still harder, if we have dearly loved
the friend who has gone before us. I suppose this was the case with
Mr. Tompkins, who did not long wear his widower’s weeds. He
died too, only eight weeks afterward.

He followed his wife to the grave, leaning on the arm of his friend,
the Dane—for I may be allowed to call him his friend, as he had no
other—and shed no tears that any body saw. His habits of life were
ostensibly the same as before. He took his morning’s walk, and his
afternoon’s walk, although he had no wife to accompany him then. He
caused a plain white marble tomb-stone to be erected at the head of
her grave, on which was simply inscribed, ‘Susan Tompkins: Died
in the 49th year of her age.’ A fever of the same type with that
which carried off his wife, seized him, and he died as I have already
mentioned.

There is no difficulty in getting up a funeral procession in such
country places. Those who would have cheerfully consigned their
own blood connexions to Don Pedro or the Dey of Algiers, while
living, will make it a matter of business to follow any body’s corpse
to its last home: and there is no religion, sentimentality, or poetical
superstition, in their so doing. It is a mere way they have.

Therefore there was no lack of people to make up a procession,
either at the funeral of Mrs. Tompkins or of her husband. There
was a group of rather ragged-looking people, men, women, and children,
who remained after the crowd had gone away, near the graves
on both occasions. They had reason to cry, as they honestly did, for
the loss of those who had been kind to them.

It was a strange circumstance, but it was actually true, that when
Mrs. Wilkins, under Mr. Felburgh’s inspection, came to settle up
what was due for the funeral expenses of Mr. Tompkins, and to herself,
they found exactly the amount required, and neither a cent more
nor less. What papers he might have burned after his wife’s death
I know not; but the lady and gentleman above-mentioned, who acted
as his legatees, did not find the smallest memorandum or scrap of
paper left by him. The wardrobe of both husband and wife was not
extensive, and the trunks containing their wearing apparel were preserved
inviolate by the respectable Mrs. Wilkins. She has since
died. Mr. Felburgh went shortly after Mr. Tompkins’s death to
Denmark. If any private revelations were made to him, he has
never divulged them, and I know he never will. When I saw him
in Copenhagen, in the summer of 1826, I did not think he looked like
a man who was to stay much longer in this world of care. He had[479]
not any thing to trouble him particularly, that I know of; except that
he had nobody to inherit his property, and that was not much.

There was another strange circumstance, which I must not pass
over. A few weeks after Mr. Tompkins was buried, a plain tomb-stone,
shaped exactly like that which had been erected by his order
over his wife, appeared at the head of his grave; and on it was inscribed,
‘Hugh Tompkins: Died in the 58th year of his age.’
Who put it up, no one could tell, nor is it known to this day.

The burying-ground is as forlorn a place as can well be imagined.
There is only a ragged fence around it, and nothing but rank common
grass, dandelions, and white-weed grow in it. There is nothing
picturesque in or about it; and a Paris belle would rather never die
at all, than be stowed into such vile sepulchral accommodations.

These are all the facts in my knowledge, relating to my hero and
heroine, as to whom and whose resources curiosity is yet so lively, in
the village which I have referred to, but not named, in order to avoid
scandal.

and his wife, whose name was Tompkins.

I superscribe my story ‘A Simple Tale,’ and ‘simply,’ as Sir Andrew
Aguecheek has it, I believe it is such. It can possess no interest
save from the mystery which hangs over its subjects; no pathos,
except from their loneliness on the earth, into whose common bosom
they have been consigned, leaving only such frail memorials behind
them as their laconic epitaphs and this evanescent legend.

ROSALIE.

G. B. Singleton.

[480]

STANZAS.

Campbell.

I.

II.

III.

Philadelphia, October, 1837.
John Augustus Shea.

‘NURSERIES OF AMERICAN FREEMEN.’

NUMBER TWO.

The preparation and selection of suitable text-books for schools is
a matter of great importance. Books are the great means by which
the mind acts, in the acquisition of knowledge. But it is not every
thing which bears the name of a book, that is to be regarded as the
means of mental improvement. Since the invention of the art of
printing, an immensity of paper and ink has been wasted in giving a
wide extension to works which display the ignorance and imbecility
of their authors, while at the same time, this noble art has placed
within the reach of all the result of the mental labors and inquiries
of the most gifted minds. The choice of books is of vast moment in
the business of education, and text-books for schools require to be
selected with great judgment and care.

School-books constitute the only species of American literature
which has hitherto met with adequate encouragement. Stimulated
by the vanity of authorship, by the desire of wealth, or by a wish to
be useful, or by all these principles combined in different degrees,
hundreds of competitors have started in this race. American talent
has been very prolific in this species of authorship; and that person[481]
must be well versed in the subject, who can give even the names of
those who have produced spelling-books, reading-books, English
grammars, arithmetics, geographies, astronomies, natural philosophies,
and other books of school literature and science. In order
to avoid the character of plagiarism, or from an ambition to produce
something new, or from whim and caprice, changes have perpetually
been made in text-books for schools, until there has come to be among
them a confusion like that of Babel. Innovation, without substantial
improvement, is the bane of school authorship.

That person has a very inadequate idea of the subject, who supposes
that it requires only ordinary talents and acquirements to produce
good text-books for schools. There is a great difference in these
works, indeed, as it respects the ability necessary to produce them.
It may require, for example, less talent to compile a good reading-book,
made up merely of selections from different authors, than to
compose a good text-book on natural philosophy, where the matter
requires to be thoroughly digested; but the hand of a master is required
to mould every species of material into a proper form. It is
a high effort of genius to simplify knowledge, and to bring down the
loftiness of science to the familiar comprehension of the youthful
mind. A mind of a high order will generally leave its impress on
whatever it undertakes; and although it may compose a primer for
children, there will generally be something in its matter or form,
which will show that it is not the production of ordinary talents and
acquirements. Dr. Watts displays the same genius in the books
which he wrote for children, as in those profound works in which he
developed the philosophy of mind. When the storm of the French
revolution was raging, and sending forth its lightning and its thunder,
and threatened to rive the British nation in pieces, Hannah
More was one of those master-spirits that rode upon this whirlwind
and directed this storm. By her small ‘Cheap Repository Tracts,’
addressed to the common people of England, who in a mental point
of view were a kind of children, she became the safe-guard of the
morals of her country; and the principal men in church and in state
hailed these simple publications, as most happily adapted to their
purpose, and as saying that which they could not themselves have
said so well.

While distinguished talents and extensive knowledge are necessary
for those who would write good books for children, a familiar
acquaintance with young minds, the fruit of much study or of experience
in instructing them, is of essential importance. For this reason,
some practical teachers have succeeded better in producing
school-books than some other men, who have possessed greater talents
and superior knowledge. But talents and knowledge, when combined
with experience, will give superior advantages. Thomas H.
Gallaudet, of Hartford, whose sermons have received high commendation
from English criticism, and which are among the best
specimens of fine writing which Americans have produced, if he had
never engaged in the business of teaching, might have been an elegant
scholar and a fine writer, but he could never have composed the
‘Child’s Book on the Soul.’ His capacity to produce works of that[482]
description was acquired in teaching the deaf and dumb. In the institution
for their instruction, over which he presided, being concerned
with minds peculiarly uninstructed, he learned by experience
the avenues to untaught minds, and his simple works are among the
finest exhibitions of his talents. An English Review of his ‘Class-Book
of Natural Theology for Common Schools and Academies,’ has
the following remarks: ‘This work has much heightened our opinion
of Mr. Gallaudet’s talents as a writer for the young. He has learned
(by educating the deaf and dumb,) what gentle patience, and what
clear and precise explanation must be used to convey instruction to,
and fix correct ideas in, minds not yet unfolded, nor imbued with
knowledge. A book like this is no work of chance, but is the result
of great expense of time, thought, and tact, in devising and perfecting
it.’

To produce text-books for schools, such as are needed, the best
talents of the country should be put in requisition. In some instances,
such talents have been engaged on this subject; but there is a necessity
that they should be much more extensively employed than they
have hitherto been. How utterly unqualified many authors have
been to produce good school-books, their crude and ill-digested
works bear abundant testimony.

It cannot be expected that text-books for schools should contain
treatises very much in detail on some of the sciences to which they
relate, and hence they should be very select in their materials. In
constructing them, it requires as much judgment to know what to
omit, as what to insert. Text-books on the sciences for schools should
be peculiarly simple and perspicuous in their language, and clear as
day-light in their arrangement and their illustrations.

Very considerable advances are supposed by many to have been recently
made in school-books. These pretended improvements have often
consisted more of show than of substance, and much remains yet to
be done, although it is not to be denied that some advances have been
made. In works of this kind, there was, in former times, too little
adaptation to the comprehension of the youthful mind. In recent
times, school-books have been made more simple and more intelligible
to children, and it is questionable whether the tendency be not,
at present, to an unprofitable childishness. It is not necessary to
adopt all the familiarities of children, in order to be understood by
them; and the language used in instructing them should always be
a little in advance of their present attainments, that they may be continually
raised to a higher standard. The Roman women were peculiarly
attentive to the language of their children, and by habituating
them from early childhood to a pure and elevated diction, they prepared
them, under great disadvantages for education, compared with
those which are now enjoyed, to be either themselves distinguished
orators, or if not, to be capable of apprehending the beauties and
feeling the force of the highest efforts of their orators.

In school-books, a great deal of noise and useless parade has been
recently made about the introduction of the ‘Analytic Method.’
Many persons seem to consider this improvement to be like the exchange
of the logic of Aristotle for that of Lord Bacon. The
analytic method begins with the particular parts of a subject, and[483]
after having surveyed them in detail, combines them into a systematic
whole; while the synthetic method takes a general view of a subject,
and then proceeds to an examination in detail of its several parts.
Now it is a well-established opinion in metaphysical philosophy, that
while the analytical mode is the only true method for the discovery
of truth not always known, the synthetic system has important
advantages in teaching well-settled truth. That person must be a
novice in the business of communicating instruction, who has not
learned that a summary, general view of a subject is an important
preparation for a profitable consideration of its several parts, and
that great confusion will result from attention to particular parts,
without some general and connected views of the whole subject.

A great improvement was supposed to have been made, some
years since, in geography, by a new method of classification and
arrangement. The subjects on which it treats were associated according
to their relation to each other, and not according to their relation
to a particular country. Thus, a chapter would be devoted to
colleges, and these institutions would be treated of in connection
with each other, throughout the world, instead of being separately
treated of, when the particular country in which they are ‘located’
was under consideration. The author of this system was Mr.
William C. Woodbridge, and his larger work contains, perhaps, a
greater variety of valuable matter than any work on the subject, of
equal size, in the language. His geography has had a circulation
sufficiently wide to satisfy a reasonable ambition, or even cupidity
itself. But it is questionable whether his system of classification is,
after all, the best. One principle of association is laid hold of, while
another and more important principle of association is abandoned.
Location of place is every thing in geography; and an association
of particular facts with the country to which they belong, is more important
than an association of these facts with similar facts, in other
parts of the world. After an abundant trial of this plan, it is believed
that public opinion is reverting back to the old method of
classification. Other geographies, on a different plan, have in a considerable
measure superseded Woodbridge’s smaller geography,
while as yet no work has been produced on a different plan, which
has sufficient merit to occupy the place of his larger geography, unless
the recent work of Bradford, taken chiefly from Balbi’s Geography,
be of this character. This work will be found to be exceedingly
rich in its materials, and peculiarly lucid in its arrangement.

Among the attempted improvements in arithmetic, what is generally
denominated ‘mental arithmetic,’ stands conspicuous. That
arithmetics in former times were too abstract, too little applied to the
business of life, is undoubtedly true. To obviate this, mental arithmetic
has been introduced. This exercise the scholar generally commences
at the beginning of his course. A little of it might not be
unprofitable; but it is believed that the tendency, at present, is to
give it too great a prominence. It would seem as if, in the view of
some writers on this subject, the first efforts of the child in numbers
should be to invent to himself rules of arithmetic, a work to which
he is utterly unequal. In some recent arithmetics, vulgar fractions
will be found mingled, with simple addition, and the child will be required[484]
to solve difficult questions in the former, before he is well acquainted
with the latter. This is altogether preposterous. Mental
arithmetic has much less application to the business of life, than is
often supposed. Few men of business rely very extensively on mental
calculations, in preference to their pen or their slate, for two reasons.
The one is, that in written calculations there is more certainty
of correctness, and the other is, that they are incapable of inventing
shorter and better rules for arriving at their results, than the rules of
a good arithmetic. As an exercise of the mind, mental arithmetic
may serve to sharpen the ingenuity, and give vigor to the faculties.
But there is another exercise, which has been strangely overlooked
by the writers of arithmetics for schools, which would be superior to
it as a mental discipline, and that is, a demonstration of the rules of
arithmetic, in which the reasons for every operation, in every rule,
should be scientifically unfolded. The scholar would thus be led, in
the true analytical method, to unravel the mental process by which
the inventor of the rule arrived at it as a conclusion. Not more than
two or three arithmetics, intended for common schools, have attempted
this, in a general and scientific manner.

Among the improvements in regard to text-books for schools, many
familiar treatises on general science stand conspicuous. School-literature
is taking a wider range than formerly. Even in common
schools, by the introduction of such a work as the ‘Scientific Class-Book’
as a reading-book, two important objects would be secured at
the same time; while youth are learning to read with propriety, their
minds will also be stored with many of the principles of natural
philosophy, astronomy, chemistry, botany, and political economy,
with other important subjects. Reading-books for schools have extensively
been of that character usually denominated ‘light reading.’
But too much light reading, it should never be forgotten, is exceedingly
well calculated to make light heads. Works for the youth of
our schools, should be filled with substantial and systematic knowledge.

Among reading-books for schools, the Bible holds a distinguished
place; and there is reason to apprehend that, of late years, it has
been too often excluded from these institutions. Moral instruction
in schools is of equal importance with that which is intellectual; and
no means of moral instruction can be compared to the Scriptures.
And even aside from their sublime doctrines, their pure morality,
their immense practical bearing upon the heart and the life, there is
no book where grandeur of thought is equally combined with simplicity
of language, and where lofty ideas are so completely brought
down to the comprehension of children. It will hence be found, that
the reading of the Scriptures will be to them the most easy kind of
reading, and well calculated to produce that natural tone and manner
which constitute its perfection. They contain no high-sounding
words, introduced to give a factitious dignity, where real dignity is
wanting; no inversion, for the purpose of surrounding an idea with
a mist, which may magnify its importance. Whether the whole
Bible is used, or the New-Testament only, or extracts from different
parts of the whole Scriptures, may be safely left to the decision of
those who are charged with the selection of school-books. Several[485]
volumes of sacred extracts, well fitted to this object, have from time
to time been made; and among them, one was executed, some years
since, with great judgment and taste, by Dr. McKean, Professor of
Rhetoric and Oratory in Harvard University, and another, more recently,
by Dr. Porter, President of the Andover Theological Seminary.

To undertake to discuss, at large, the subject of school-literature,
or the merits of the more prominent text-books for schools, would
greatly exceed the limits of this paper. But it is a subject of great
importance, and one of which no person should be ignorant, who has
any concern in the management of schools. Such is the ignorance
of many teachers, and even of the most intelligent men in the community,
in regard to school-books, that many works of this kind have
obtained a circulation to which they are not entitled. No person of
general information should suffer himself to be uninformed in regard
to school-literature. School books need a literary censorship, very
different from that to which they have hitherto been subject. If all
the literati of the country were well versed in this matter, and would
bring their opinions to bear on school-authors, a public opinion might
be formed which would fix the seal of approbation on valuable school-books,
and a mark of censure, which would help to consign them to
speedy oblivion, on those of a different description. If teachers should
not be suffered to instruct without having their qualifications put to a
strict test, still less should text-books be introduced into schools,
until they have undergone a still more rigid scrutiny, by persons competent
to decide on their merits.

It has been suggested, in some of the public prints, that it should
be the business of the superintendent of common schools to select
text-books for the common schools in the state of New-York. It is
questionable whether any single man could be found, to whom it
would be safe to trust this important concern. De Witt Clinton
himself, were he now living, would be unequal to the work, unless
he were to qualify himself for it by an attention to the subject, such
as he never gave. He, in conjunction with other distinguished literary
men, recommended ‘Bartlett’s National School Manual,’ a work
containing many good things, but exceedingly defective as a whole.
Like Pharaoh’s lean kine, it is calculated to devour all other school-books,
but after having done so, it would be a meagre skeleton still.
The truth is, that a great majority of the most distinguished literary
men in the country have devoted so little attention to school-literature,
that on their recommendation of school-books but little reliance
can be placed. But such ought not to be the case; for the subject
is too important to be delivered over to less competent hands.

A systematic arrangement and vigilant inspection of schools, stands
intimately connected with their prosperity. They are a complicated
concern, and like all such concerns, they require great and systematic
attention. School-houses must be provided, fitted up with neatness and
convenience, and worthy of the names of temples of science. It is disgraceful
to science, to have mean and incommodious school-houses, in the
midst of commodious or splendid dwelling-houses. They should be well
lighted, have convenient benches and desks, and at the proper season,
be easily and comfortably warmed. Every teacher knows how important[486]
these things are to the successful prosecution of the business of
a school. If the school-room be hung round with maps and charts,
and scientific diagrams, it will be so much the better. According to
the laws of association by which the course of thought in the human
mind is regulated, these things will take a strong hold of the susceptible
minds of children, awaken a scientific curiosity, and divert them
from their play to the proper business of the school-room, as well as
afford valuable aids to the teacher in the business of instruction.

A number of well-qualified and laborious inspectors constitute an
essential part of every good school organization. It should be the
business of these inspectors to examine into the qualifications of
teachers, and to see in what manner the business of instruction is
carried on. No teacher should be employed, until his qualifications
have been put to a rigid test. In the case of public schools, this
should be done by public authority; and in private schools, the patrons
should select a suitable number of persons, competent to perform
this work. ‘Good recommendations,’ as they are called, are
obtained with such facility, and given, even by persons of respectability,
with so much carelessness, that comparatively but little reliance
can be placed on them.

Inspectors of schools should frequently visit them, see them in
their every-day dress, and learn whether instruction is thoroughly and
judiciously given. The competent and faithful teacher will be highly
pleased with such visitation. It will show him that his work is not
undervalued, and will stimulate him to greater exertion, while the
incompetent teacher will be likely to expose his deficiencies in a way
which will lead to their correction. Scholars, also, will be greatly
stimulated to effort by the frequent and judicious visitation of schools.
It will show them that they are engaged in no unimportant employment,
and convince them that an education is worthy of their strenuous
and persevering exertions.

Public inspectors have generally been selected from intelligent
men of business; and experience has proved that, amidst their other
numerous avocations, this is very likely to be neglected. Perhaps
a different arrangement of this business would be more effectual.
Let a thoroughly competent person, a man of large views, and general
knowledge, be selected and appointed an inspector, and receive
a sufficient compensation to devote a considerable portion of his time
to this subject; let him have under his charge the schools of a sufficiently
extensive district; let him spend a considerable time in these
schools in rotation, inspect the manner in which they are instructed,
suggest to the teachers any improvements in the method of instruction
and government, and be, in fact, a kind of regimental school-master.
In some of the states, it has been found difficult to procure
men of sufficient legal attainments for judges of the county courts.
To remedy the evil, a chief judge has been appointed, of extensive
legal science, to travel from county to county, and to preside, with associate
judges, in these courts; and the arrangement has been found
eminently beneficial. The course just proposed would equally contribute
to raise the character and promote the interests of common
schools.

Among the improvements which have been recently introduced[487]
into schools, that of illustrating the sciences by means of simple and
appropriate apparatus, deserves to be particularly noticed. Apparatus
for the illustration of the sciences has long existed in colleges,
and no institution of the kind would be thought worthy of patronage,
which did not possess it. But apparatus is not more necessary in colleges,
than is appropriate apparatus in schools. Indeed, from the
nature of the case, it would seem to be more necessary in schools
than in colleges. Children and youth, in the earlier stages of their
education, are naturally volatile, and need something to fix their attention.
They are less accustomed to abstract reflection than persons
of a more advanced age, and therefore have greater need of a
visible illustration of the sciences.

Apparatus for schools needs to be materially different from that
usually found in colleges, which is generally so expensive, as to be
altogether beyond the reach of ordinary schools. Apparatus for
schools must be cheap, or it will not be generally introduced; it
must be neat, or scholars will turn away from it with disgust, and
science will be disgraced by its slovenly appearance; it must be
scientific, or it will be good for nothing. It may be scientific without
being expensive. The value of a machine for scientific illustration
depends much more upon its peculiar construction, than upon
its mechanical execution.

By the use of apparatus, two avenues are opened to the mind
where but one existed before, and the eye becomes auxiliary to the
understanding, in the acquisition of knowledge. Appropriate apparatus
is alike calculated to illustrate the sciences, and deeply to impress
their principles upon the memory. Some kinds of apparatus
have long been found in schools. Geography has long had the aid
of maps, and no teacher would use a geography which was not furnished
with a respectable atlas. But maps alone are not a sufficient
apparatus in teaching geography. A globular revolving map
of the world, a globe, and a cylindrical revolving Mercator’s chart,
will furnish important aid in explaining the globular, polar, and
Mercator’s projections of a map of the world. Astronomy and
natural philosophy can no more be successfully taught without the
use of machines, than can geography without the use of maps. No
text-book on these subjects would be thought fit for use, which was
not furnished with plates and diagrams. But plates and diagrams
are but an inferior kind of apparatus; the objects which they represent
are extensively presented in perspective, and the coarse manner
in which these plates are executed, as well as the intrinsic difficulties
of the subject, render them but imperfect substitutes for
machines and models for illustration. The great leading principles
of descriptive astronomy may, by means of a cheap machinery, be
made matters of ocular demonstration, and thus be rendered intelligible
to children. Natural philosophy acquires a greatly increased
interest, in an illustration by experiment. All that variety of labor-saving
machinery by which human toil is so extensively superseded,
and the arts and conveniences of life so signally advanced, are but
different combinations of the mechanical powers. Mechanics, not
illustrated by machinery, is a dry study, but by its use a great interest
is created in the subject, and some slumbering genius may be[488]
awakened in a common school, that may originate discoveries in the
arts, which will tell on the destinies of men, like the cotton-gin of
Whitney, the cotton-spinning machines of Arkwright, or the
steam-boat of Fulton. The time is rapidly coming, when no school
will be considered well furnished, which has not a respectable apparatus
for the illustration of the sciences, nor any teacher well qualified
for his work, who does not understand how successfully to use
it. Skill in the use of apparatus must be the result of much attention
to the subject; and the teacher should labor to acquire it with
the same assiduity with which he strives to make himself acquainted
with the sciences which he professes to teach.

It is interesting to reflect on the cheering prospect which the
advancing cause of education holds out in regard to the perpetuity
of the American government, and the extension of the blessings of
freedom to the civilized world. In passing over the long tract of
time which authentic history discloses to the view, it is painful to
observe how extensively tyranny has swayed an iron sceptre over the
destinies of men; how governments, instead of being calculated to
promote the interests of the people, have been artfully contrived to
cause the multitude to toil and sweat for the gratification of the
pampered few. How few are the green spots in the history of man,
on which the friend of human rights delights to fix his contemplations!
There have indeed existed some commonwealths, under the
name of republics, but they have generally failed to affect, to any
great extent, the purposes of a well-organized government. Greece
and Rome, in their best estates, though denominated republics, were
turbulent democracies, or over-bearing aristocracies, and both by
turns. Deriving their notion of republics from these splendid failures,
European politicians, on the commencement of the American
experiment, predicted for it a disorderly course, and a speedy termination.
They seemed to have overlooked the fact, that the constitution
of the American government, and of American society, is
wholly unlike that of the ancient republics. But while they have
been watching, and waiting, and in many instances, hoping, for its
downfall, their hopes have been signally disappointed. The American
government has indeed been exposed to agitations. The storm of
party violence and of sectional interest has beaten around it. But, like
the majestic oak, instead of being prostrated by the blast, it has only
caused it to strike its roots more deeply, and to obtain a firmer footing
in the soil.

A general and well-conducted education nursed American liberty
in its infancy, and is destined to sustain it in its maturity. The first
settlers of New-England, whose example has told so widely on the
destinies of the American people, after constructing a few log-houses,
for the accommodation of their families, generally proceeded to the
erection of a church, and planted a school-house by its side. The
cause of education has never been regarded with indifference by the
people of the United States, and it is yearly taking a deeper hold of
the public mind. The governors of the states recommend it in their
annual speeches to the fostering care of the legislatures, as one of
the most important public interests, and laws are frequently enacted
for its protection and advancement. Means are in increasing operation[489]
to raise up a nation of intelligent freemen. There is no fear
that the cause of education will become retrograde in the United
States. The old states are laboring to supply their former deficiencies,
and some of the first acts of sovereignty in the new states
consist in legislating for the advancement of the interests of schools.

Every intelligent citizen of this republic cannot fail to be convinced
of the excellency of the government under which he lives,
and of feeling a deep interest in its stability and perpetuity. He
will perceive how abundantly it secures to him the unmolested enjoyment
of all his rights, and at how cheap a rate all this protection is
afforded. However the great Johnson may scowl upon the sentiment
of the equally great Milton, that ‘the trappings of a monarchy
are sufficient to set up an ordinary commonwealth,’ many a man,
under an oppressive monarchy, who has been taxed from the crown
of his head to the sole of his foot, and from his cradle to his grave,
has felt the full force of its truth and importance. Education, by
enabling the American citizen to compare the excellencies of his
own government with the defects of different governments, in other
nations, and through all time, has a tendency to strengthen his love
of country, and thus tyranny itself becomes auxiliary to the support
of the American constitution.

One of the greatest dangers to which the government of the
United States is exposed, is party spirit, which arms one portion of
the community against another, and causes measures to be approved
or disapproved, not from their intrinsic excellencies or defects, but
from a blind devotion, or a virulent opposition, to those by whom
they are supported. This is one of the evils incident to freedom.
But party spirit can never put on its most appalling form among an
intelligent people. However a few men, who are seeking for stations
of honor and of profit, may pursue a course which has their own
advancement only for its object, the mass of the people can have no
interest which is separate from that of their country. And with
intelligence to understand the true interests of the republic, and to
judge correctly of public men and public measures, they will be
proof against the arts of ambitious demagogues, and extensively
free from party violence. They will cling to the constitution of their
country, as the ark of their safety, and the charter of their hopes.

Education is not only moving onward in the United States, but it
is also assuming a more promising aspect in other parts of the world.
In Prussia, in Great Britain, in France, in Germany, and in some
other European countries, it is advancing, and in some instances
with surprising rapidity. That this advancement will be favorable
to civil liberty, there can be no doubt. The most intelligent nations
have always been the most free, and the most difficult to be enslaved.
There is not a throne in Europe, but is based, to a greater or less
extent, upon the ignorance of the people, and which will not totter
and fall, or be greatly modified in its structure, by the general prevalence
of education. Oppression and abuses will not abide the light.
The multitude are too strong for their oppressors. They need only
to understand their rights, in order to assert them, and they need only
to assert, in order to maintain them. They now obey despotic rulers
for the same reason that the inferior animals are subject to man,[490]
because they know not how to resist, or that resistance would be
availing. Education will instruct them on both these points.

Beneath the whole surface of European society are smouldering
fires, which threaten to break forth in some terrible volcano, that
may spread desolation and destruction far and wide. The privileged
few are marshalling themselves against the oppressed many,
and the many are preparing for a conflict with the few, and their
several pretensions must at length be put to issue. The monarchs
of Europe, supported by the prescription of ages, and surrounded
by powerful aristocracies, as so many body-guards, may refuse to
listen to retrenchment and reform, and set themselves in array against
the rights of the people. With the means at their command, they
may oppose powerful obstructions to the progress of civil liberty;
but it will be like damming up a mighty river, the force of which
will be augmented by the resistance with which it is opposed, and
which must at length break loose, and bear all before it. Revolutions
in European governments are as sure as the progress of time;
and the increasing intelligence of the people affords reason to expect
that their result will be the more firm establishment of human rights.
A great intellectual and moral training is necessary, to prepare a
people for freedom; and a great change must take place in regard
to the intelligence and virtue of every nation in Europe, before an
entirely free government would be to them a blessing. Lafayette,
though a republican in principle, judged, and no doubt correctly,
that a limited monarchy was the best government which France is
prepared at present to enjoy, and to the erection and support of such
a government he contributed his influence.

The advancing cause of education, however, is preparing Europe
for a higher destiny; and there is reason to hope that she will not
stop in her career of improvement, until the intelligence and virtue
of her population shall prepare them for the full enjoyment of freedom,
and put them in possession of its substantial blessings. How
long it will be before such an event will occur, no human sagacity
can precisely predict. The struggle of freedom may be protracted
and arduous, but her ultimate triumph is certain; and even the distant
prospect of it will be cheering to every friend of human
rights.

H.

OLD AGE.

BY REV. C. C. COLTON, AUTHOR OF ‘LACON.’

[491]

HUNTING SONG.

I.

II.

Wilmington, (Del.,) Nov., 1837.
Hack Von Stretcher.

THE POOR RELATION.

AN AUTHENTIC STORY FROM REAL LIFE.

It was in the early days of Codman county, that Eldred Worthington
swung his axe upon his shoulder, and departed to seek his
fortune in her almost untrodden wilds. Like thousands of others, the
early pioneers of our land, he ‘kept bachelor’s hall,’ until he had
‘made an opening, and reared his rustic cot.’ Then, with buoyant
heart, he returned to the place of his nativity, to claim the plighted
hand of Miss Abiah Perley, to become his help-mate in his future
home.

To those who know any thing of the difficulties encountered by
the first settlers, it will be unnecessary to portray the toils and hardships
they had to overcome, before the savage was driven farther back
to his forest-lair. They went forward, growing with the growth of
the place; and, in a series of years, rearing a family of eight sons
and four daughters. It was a natural wish of the parents that their
children should not suffer for want of education, as they themselves
had done in early life; and hence they yielded to their particular
wishes. Benjamin, the eldest, desired to be a limb of the law; the
second was for physic, and had his choice; and Thomas, the third,
also, was much gratified, when arrangements were made for his
departure to a neighboring sea-port, to serve a mercantile apprenticeship.[492]
His father was so fortunate as to place him in the house
of an old acquaintance, Mr. John Howard, one of the first merchants
of the city. This gentleman, having commenced life with nothing
but his hands, had become extensively concerned in commerce. It
was the very field for the mercantile propensity of Thomas. He
devoted himself with unceasing assiduity; won the confidence of
his employer; was made supercargo of his vessels in several voyages;
and finally, as the good ship Ajax was bound on an East
India voyage, he again bade farewell to his friends, and went forth
upon the distant seas. He was faithful to the important trusts
reposed in him. The ship was laden and ready to return; when,
to the sad dismay of all on board, who were greatly attached to him,
he could not be found! Every effort was made, for weeks and
weeks, but the ship was finally compelled to sail without him.

Sad was the news for his disconsolate parents, and his good master,
Mr. Howard. Conjecture followed conjecture, but all was mysterious
and appalling. The Ajax returned again to the Indies. The
strictest injunctions were made by Mr. Howard, that no efforts should
be wanting in the endeavor to discover the fate which had befallen
his young friend. Captain Bradshaw, a most excellent man, was indefatigable;
but deeply did he deplore the day that once more compelled
him to weigh anchor, without the slightest tidings to cheer the
anxious parents. Though no voyage was made to the Indies for
many years afterward, without all possible inquiries, yet the conviction
had almost ripened into certainty, that the young man had been
murdered, perhaps in the hope of booty, at his last visit to the shore,
among an unknown people.

Years rolled away. The region of Codman county advanced
rapidly in settlement, enterprise, and industry. Where once stood
the farm of the elder Worthington, now the thriving, bustling, and
enterprising village of Weckford shot up its aspiring head, with its
immense factories, its capacious stores, and rich and tasteful dwellings.
It was upon the banks of one of the noblest rivers in the
world, where the elder Worthington had sagaciously sat himself
down, relying upon his axe and his arm. But how little did he think,
that ere fifty years had rolled away, the acres he then reclaimed would
become the abode of thousands, and himself thereby rendered one
of the wealthiest men of Codman county. Yet this is but one case
of that talismanic power which has converted the forest into cities,
and given to the poor great riches, in the mighty march of enterprise,
industry, and intelligence, in the marvellous realm of the New
World. Weckford had become a place of great note. It was a
central point of trade for the surrounding country, which was peopling
with astonishing rapidity; and all contributed to give an importance
to the family of the Worthingtons. They were not only
very rich, but were eminent in the estimation of ‘all the region
round about.’ The sons had grown up under all the advantages
which wealth and connexion could impart. They had studied
learned professions, as a matter of course, and settled in Weckford,[493]
relying upon the immense wealth which the extraordinary rise of
property had poured into the lap of the family. Honors thickened
upon them. Benjamin was twice elected to congress, and all the brothers
were at times elevated to favor in the municipality, or the
honors of state partialities.

The father and mother of this numerous family were now in the
vale of years. The prudence, economy, and simplicity, which won
the esteem of all, and laid the foundation of their wealth, continued
to shed a benign influence over their declining days. They were
the very antipodes of the new races who had come upon the stage
of human action; and often did they deplore, in the bosom of their
own domestic circle, that heartless etiquette and cold formality,
which had rendered their children so ambitious to outshine others, and
to be looked up to as the exclusives of Weckford. But there was
a deeper feeling still, which hung heavily over their wasting years;
the painful disappearance of their son, who had ever been their
favorite, but who had also been regarded by the brothers and sisters
with that unnatural jealousy which such a feeling is apt to beget in
the minds of mere worldlings. In October of this year, the
aged veteran was forewarned, by the insidious influences of flickering
mortality, that he was soon to be ‘gathered to his fathers:’

and, with the prudence, foresight, and calmness, which had actuated
him through all his well-spent life, he sent for his estimable attorney,
the honorable Phillip Longfellow, and by his ‘last will and testament’
divided his immense estate equally among his children; but
an especial provision was inserted, reserving in the hands of a trustee,
during the period of twenty years, an equal portion of the whole
estate for Thomas, the income of which was to be annually divided
among all the children. The trustee was to use all diligence in the
almost ‘forlorn hope’ of endeavoring to gain tidings of the long-lost
son. The widow, beside her ‘thirds,’ had some benefices, which
were to go to the lost son, should he ever be discovered; but if no
intelligence should be gained, within the twenty years, then the
whole reservations were to be equally divided among the other children.

Winter at length came, with its awful severity to lengthened life,
and the good old Mr. Worthington, mourned by all the villagers, was
followed to the family vault, in the Oaklands of Mount Pleasant, at
the ripe age of ninety-eight years. There is a wedded sympathy
between those who have been united in true love, that but ripens
with the lapse of time. Sixty-nine years had passed away, since
Miss Abiah Perley left her paternal abode, for the rude but rural
cot of Weckford. She had lived, during this long period, in the
bonds of holy love, a pattern of affection, kindness, and peace; and
the death of her husband severed a chord which nothing on earth
had power to unite. It weaned her affections from this world, and[494]
she sighed only to join him in that ‘better country’ to which, in the
fullness of time, he had been called away; and in less than two years
afterward, the last rites of earth were performed over her departed
spirit, as her mortal ashes were laid beside his to whom her soul had
so long been wedded.

Several years had now elapsed since the death of the parents.
Weckford had continued to advance in population and wealth; and, as
a consequence, the Worthingtons had grown richer and richer. They
had indeed attained the apparent summit of their ambition, for none
assumed to rival them in fashion, wealth, or importance. They were
the leaders of the ton, and the very apex of the élite, in all things.

There were two principal streets in the village of Weckford,
stretching along the banks of the river, as far as the eye could reach;
and the offices, stores, dwellings, and factories of the Worthingtons,
their children, and connexions, were everywhere to be seen. Many
of the mansions, along Pleasant-street, were embellished with
balustrades, where the residents, at the close of the labors of the
day, came forth to enjoy the sweet odors from the flowers of the
gardens, the ornamental trees of the walks, and the cooling breezes
from off the beautiful river. It was at such an hour, that a stranger,
clad in miserable tatters, with a long beard, dishevelled ringlets, and
leaning upon a rough stick, cut from the woods, tottered slowly and
feebly into the village.

‘Will you tell me,’ said the stranger, inquiring at the door of a
descendant of the Worthingtons, ‘where the dwelling of Thomas
Worthington, Esq. is?’

‘It is that noble edifice which you see yonder, beyond the long
row of factories.’

The inquirer moved slowly on, apparently scarce able to sustain
himself, from physical imbecility. He was met at the outer gate
by a servant.

‘Will you tell your master that a distant relation, from across the
water, who has experienced many misfortunes, desires to see him?’

The servant returned, and ushered the traveller into the outer hall;
and in a few minutes, the owner of the mansion appeared.

‘I am, Sir, your supplicant,’ said the stranger. ‘You doubtless
recollect, that a brother of your mother, residing in Scotland, had
many sons. Misfortunes have thickened upon one of them. He is
poor, and, from a recent loss of every thing by shipwreck, is now
pennyless. He begs a lodging at your hands, and something wherewith
to clothe his almost naked frame.’

‘I have nothing to give to stragglers,’ said the lord of the mansion.
‘Most persons like you are impostors.’

‘I am no impostor,’ said the petitioner; ‘here is proof that I am
not,’ taking a letter from the American consul from his pocket;
‘but I am your poor unfortunate cousin; and if you will but relieve
my pressing wants, Providence may put it into my power to reward
your kindness.’

‘I repeat, I have nothing to give; and I should advise you to get
some daily work to supply your wants.’

[495]

The stranger heaved a deep sigh, and left the house. He tottered
on. It was impossible to pass many dwellings, without encountering
one owned and occupied by a Worthington, or his descendant.
He called upon many; told his misfortunes, and solicited relief; but
all were deaf to his petition, and most of them shut the door in his
face.

Late in the evening, an old Quaker gentleman, who accidentally
heard the ‘poor relation’s’ story, while passing the door of one of
the Worthingtons, offered him a lodging and supper. He went with
the benevolent old gentleman; and on the following morning he
again wandered forth, to renew his calls of the day before. It was
observed that he was very particular not to neglect to call upon
every son of the deceased Mr. Worthington. He expended several
days in this way, but every where there appeared the same undisguised
dread of a ‘poor relation.’

At length, he sought the magnificent dwelling of the Honorable
Benjamin Worthington, which was situated about two miles from the
main settlement of the village of Weckford. It stood upon a commanding
eminence, which overlooked the village, and was justly
regarded as one of the most delightful rural retreats that the country
could boast. After going through the usual ceremonies of the
door, he was introduced to the business-office of the ‘Oaklands
Mansion.’ Presently, the Hon. Mr. Worthington appeared. The
stranger repeated his solicitation for relief, and his claim as a relation;
but here, too, he met nothing but coldness and neglect.

‘Then,’ said the stranger, ‘if you will not relieve the wants of
your most unfortunate cousin, perhaps I can tell you something that
will move your pity. You had a brother Thomas, who, many long
years ago, most mysteriously disappeared?’

‘Yes,’ said the honorable gentleman; ‘but he is no doubt dead,
long and long ago.’

‘He is NOT dead!’ said the stranger, ‘but after an age of misery
and misfortunes, he has returned in poverty and in rags; and now
solicits you to clothe and feed him.’

‘Impossible!’ exclaimed the Honorable Mr. Worthington.

‘Here is a mark upon my arm, received by a burn, when a child,
which proves the truth of what I say,’ said the long-lost son.

Horror seemed to convulse the frame of the lord of the Oaklands.
‘Take this note,’ said he; ‘go to the Swan Hotel, a small tavern
directly upon the road, about two miles beyond this, and I will come
to you with some clothes, and money to provide you a passage over
the seas.’

The stranger departed; but not to the Swan inn did he bend his
footsteps. He wandered to the confines of Weckford, where he
was told that a distant relation of the Worthingtons lived, in a small
cottage, a few miles beyond. Here he resolved once more to make
himself known. He did so; and found the inmate, the widow of a
cousin who had come to this country, and settled many years before,
in a neighboring sea-port. He had died, leaving a very small property
to his widow, and an only child. Mrs. Amelia Perley—for
this was the name of the young widow—was overjoyed to see a
relative of her ‘dear husband,’ although in rags. She bade him[496]
welcome to her table; provided some proper clothing for him at
once; and with a sweet smile, that added new pleasure to the offer,
she proffered him a home beneath her humble cottage, until he
should find one more congenial. The poor stranger accepted the
favor of the kind-hearted widow, with becoming thankfulness, and
remained under her roof a short time; but at length suddenly and
mysteriously disappeared! Whither he had gone, his kind hostess
knew not, and the rich Worthingtons took no pains to inquire. They
were not a little delighted to be so easily rid of a ‘poor relation,’
who might have been a burthen, and a shame; but most of all was
rejoiced the Hon. Benjamin Worthington, to whom the disclosure of
his relationship had been so alarming.

Time passed on, and the disappearance of the mendicant was forgotten
in the whirl of fashion, business, and pleasure; although the
honorable elder brother was now and then visited by a painful recollection
of the ‘unfortunate’ mark upon the arm of the returned
wanderer.

It was a holiday in Weckford. Business was suspended, and the
people were abroad, participating in the pastimes of the day. A
superb carriage, with four white horses, and servants in livery, drove
through Pleasant-street, and stopped at the ‘Mansion-House,’ the
first hotel of Weckford. Parlors were taken in the name of ‘Mr.
Edmund Perley, and servants, from Scotland.’ Forthwith it went
upon the wings of rumor, that ‘the rich Mr. Perley had arrived from
Scotland.’ As the Worthingtons were aware that the relations of
their mother were reputed to be very rich in Scotland, they gathered
to the hotel, in great numbers, to offer their respects, and solicit
the pleasure of the Honorable Mr. Perley’s acquaintance. Day after
day did the Worthingtons, and all the descendants, down to the
lowest contiguity of blood, pour into the ‘Mansion-House,’ to ‘beg
the honor of the rich and Honorable Mr. Perley’s visits.’ The carriage
of the ‘Hon. Benjamin Worthington’ was out from the Oaklands,
and the barouche of ‘Edward Worthington, Esq.’ from the
‘Worthington Mansion.’ There was neither end to the family outpouring,
nor to their solicitude to bestow attentions. The stranger
was polite in his replies; and at last, in return, he invited all his
kind relatives to honor him at his levee, at ‘the Mansion.’

There never was such an outpouring of Worthingtons. The
great halls of the ‘Mansion-House’ were filled to repletion. All
was gayety, beauty, and fashion. It was a magnificent assemblage
of the richest and most respectable families of the town; and each
one was most anxious to outstrip the others in doing honors to ‘the rich
and distinguished Mr. Perley, from abroad;’ when the ‘poor relation’
made his appearance, in the midst of the brilliant assembly,
dressed in precisely the same clothes in which he wandered through
the village, and holding in his hand the same uncouth stick, cut from
the wilds, which supported his feeble steps from house to house!

It would be impossible to delineate the various countenances
which were there exhibited. We must leave the filling up of that
picture to the imagination of the reader. It is only necessary to[497]
add, that the stranger was the long-lost Thomas, who had made an
immense fortune in the Indies. He now immediately took steps to
carry out the will of his beloved parent, receiving all the property it
gave him. In the year following, he purchased the delightful retreat
of ‘Auburn Grove,’ where he erected a charming residence. He
soon after led to the altar the amiable and affectionate young widow,
Mrs. Amelia Perley, who was not too proud to welcome him to her
humble cottage, as a relative of her departed husband, even though
he appeared there in the borrowed tatters of poverty and misfortune.
It was a lesson which is often repeated by the villagers at
Weckford, and will do no harm by being repeated elsewhere.

TO A BELLE.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

Written in 1828.
J. G. Percival.

[498]

FLORAL ASTROLOGY.

‘Flowrets, that shine like small blue stars in the green firmament of the Earth.’—Carové.

Cambridge University.
H. W. Longfellow.

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTINCTIONS OF COLOR.

‘Look through nature up to nature’s God.’

Perhaps the most important benefit resulting to mankind from
the study of the natural sciences, is the invention to which it leads of
new arguments in favor of the being and benevolence of the Deity.
And were this the only advantage arising from this study, it would
render it well worthy the attention of the wisest and greatest of men.
For every discovery which philosophers have hitherto made, whether
of some new material element, or of some law or property of matter,
has invariably disclosed fresh proof of the existence of an All-wise
Intelligence. The chemical constitution and governing laws of a
drop of water, even so far as they are now understood, may afford
weapons, wherewith the weakest champion of religion might prevail
against the most ingenious of the worshippers of the Goddess of
Chance. Nay, were the atheist really in search of truth, no champion
would be needed. The humblest flower, the meanest worm,
even the dust beneath his feet, would seem to disclaim an origin in
chance, and to warn him not to neglect the worship of their common
Creator.

There can be no more interesting object of attention, than the examination
of the evidences of design, as exhibited in parts of the
intricate machinery of Nature. Physical principles, which, at first
sight, or indeed after much philosophical investigation, have appeared
of but limited importance, or perhaps wholly accidental or unnecessary,
have, upon farther study, been found to rank among the number
of most beautiful and convincing proofs of creative intelligence;
have formed the most important links in the chain which holds together
the material universe.

Such has been the train of thought suggested to the mind of the
writer of this article, by an examination of the nature and physical
relations of COLOR. This property of matter might appear to a superficial
observer as one of inferior importance. He would admit that
the differences of color add to the happiness of the human race, inasmuch
as they give variety and beauty to material objects, and afford
one of the most easy methods of distinguishing them from each
[500]
other, but would probably deny that the existence of animal life is at
all dependant upon color, and that it is essential to the present constitution
of things. But let such an one reflect a little more upon
this property—let him consider attentively all its relations—and
he will doubtless change his opinion.

In travelling from the equator toward the poles, we cannot but be
struck with the fact, that there exists a difference of color corresponding
to a change of climate. Under the equator, the covering of
the earth, that is, the vegetation, is darker than in any other part of
the globe; and, as there is but little change of climate through the
year, this dark covering does not give place either to the light tints
of autumn, or to the snowy robe of winter. In advancing north, the
foliage becomes lighter in proportion to the increase of latitude. In
the temperate zone, the dark, rich robe of the tropics gives place to
one of livelier hue, which, after covering the earth during a part of
the year, assumes the light colors of decay, and is buried beneath
the snow. Thus this change continues to keep pace with the diminution
of temperature, till we enter the frigid zone, and reach the
region of eternal frost.

From this difference of color in the north and south, and in summer
and winter, we may deduce this general fact, that the earth adapts
itself in color to the variations of temperature, presenting a dark
surface to the heat of summer and the tropics, and a light one to the
cold of winter and the frigid zone.

So much then for the fact. Let us now consider the design of
such an arrangement. When a body contains more caloric than the
air, or the other bodies by which it is surrounded, heat is given off
from it in all directions, till the equilibrium is restored. Three, and
perhaps more, physical operations take place in this case; radiation
from the heated substance, reflection and absorption by the surrounding
bodies. Now it has been proved, by repeated experiment, that
these changes depend, as it regards their extent and rapidity, upon
the color of the bodies. The more light-colored the heated substance
is, the more slowly will it part with its superfluous caloric. Were
it entirely black, the change would take place with more rapidity
than in any other case. If the surrounding bodies were of a light
color, a large portion of the heat radiated upon them would be reflected,
and but little absorbed. Just the contrary would take place
were they dark. The caloric would nearly all be absorbed, and but
little reflected.

Similar to these are the phenomena of light. Bright substances
reflect, and dark absorb, the rays from a luminous body. This, however,
is hardly a correct method of expressing the fact intended.
Philosophers believe that darkness of color is not the cause of the
absorption of the luminous rays, but, on the contrary, that this absorption
is the cause of the darkness. The fact in question then is
this; some bodies are of such a chemical constitution, that they
readily absorb light, and, as a consequence, little being reflected to
the eye, they appear dark. Others, differently constituted, reflect
nearly all the light that is thrown upon them, and, therefore, the lightness
of their color bears proportion to such reflection.

Let us apply these facts to the explanation of the design of the[501]
geographical distinctions of color, of which we are treating. Suppose
that the arrangement were different. Suppose, for instance,
that the portion of the earth near the equator presented, throughout
the year, a white surface to the sun. The rays of heat from that
body would nearly all, upon reaching such a surface, be reflected
back into the atmosphere, and would heat that part of it immediately
bordering the earth, and most exposed to this reflection, to
such a degree as to make the climate insupportable. The consequence
would be, that a large portion of the earth would be rendered
uninhabitable. But, by the existing provision, the rays of caloric pass
directly through the air, heating it comparatively little, and are, for
the most part, absorbed by the earth. The principle is similar in
regard to light. Had the constitution of the covering of the earth in
the tropics been such as to reflect the luminous rays, which are far
more numerous and brilliant there than at the poles, the overpowering
glare of light would alone have been sufficient to render those
regions uninhabitable by any known species of animals.

Again: Let us suppose that the earth were clothed with a dark
covering in the frigid zone. The few and oblique rays of heat, in
that part of the globe would, after imparting but little of their caloric
to the atmosphere, in their passage through it, be absorbed by the
earth. The same effect would take place in regard to the rays of
light, which are similarly few and feeble. It is easy to perceive the
effect these things would have in darkening the polar regions, in
greatly diminishing the temperature of the atmosphere, and, as a
consequence, in contracting the extent of the inhabitable part of the
globe. Thus we see, that by means of the snow, nay, by one, and
as some would think, the least important of its properties, i. e., its
color, man and his fellow animals are enabled to live in regions, the
climate of which, without the instrumentality of this property, would
destroy them.

After speaking of the change of color corresponding to change of
latitude, it were superfluous to dwell at length upon the corresponding
change of season, since the principle is precisely the same in
each case. There can be no doubt but that in the temperate zone,
the climate throughout the year is to a great extent equalized by this
happy arrangement; that, without it, our winters would be much
more rigorous, and our summers proportionably oppressive.

In passing, we might speak of another evil that would arise from
snow being of a darker color. Upon a sudden change of temperature,
it would melt very rapidly, and, if collected in any quantity,
would occasion dreadful inundations, which would sweep and desolate
the country. Such accidents occur even now in some parts of
the world. How much more frequent and destructive they would be,
in the case we have supposed, it is easy to conceive.

Who then can deny that we have, in the general principle which
unites these phenomena, a well-attested instance of benevolent design?
Who will assert that so beautiful and necessary a provision
could be the result of chance?

But perhaps some one will say: ‘It is true that there appears to be
a happy adjustment of the color of the surface of the earth. It is
true that this adjustment has an important influence in diminishing[502]
the difference of the temperatures of the polar and equatorial regions,
and in rendering them both fit abodes of animals. But then,
unhappily for the symmetry of the whole theory, no exception to the
general principle is made in favor of the animals themselves. The
inhabitants of the torrid zone, and man in a more marked and invariable
manner than all the rest, are distinguished by the dark color
peculiar to that part of the globe; so that they absorb the heat in an
equal degree with, or perhaps greater than, the earth, since its color is
even lighter than theirs. We find the same fact to exist as we advance
from the equator toward the poles. The covering of the greater
part of animals becomes lighter proportionally with the surface of
the earth. In the frigid zone, the light color of man as well as of
other animals, for instance the white bear, ermine, etc., must necessarily
repel from their bodies by reflection a quantity of heat proportional
to that which the atmosphere gains by reflection from the
snow. This fact strikes us still more forcibly in the temperate zone,
where the difference of climate, resulting from change of season, is
greater than in any other part of the globe. Here our color is actually
darkened by the heat of summer, in proportion to our exposure
to it, and becomes lighter at the approach of winter. So that we are
rendered by the heat itself more capable of absorbing it, and, consequently,
of suffering from it. Surely, we cannot consider these things
as evidences of design.’

But let us attentively examine these facts, and we shall find that
the seeming difficulty disappears, and that the truths which gave rise
to it, unite in a symmetrical whole with the others which we have
mentioned, to form a cumulative and unanswerable argument in favor
of the existence of a benevolent Creator.

Animal bodies do not depend for the quantity of caloric necessary
to their existence upon the sun. By chemical changes, not yet well
understood by philosophers, depending upon that subtle ethereal
principle which we call life,[3] a sufficient quantity of animal or vital
heat, as it is called, is evolved within the body itself. As this heat is
constantly generated, it is necessary, in order that the body may not
acquire too high a temperature, that it be as constantly conducted or
radiated off. When the atmosphere contains too little caloric, its
power of absorbing heat is so great as to deprive the animal body of
it more rapidly than it is generated; thus producing the sensation of
cold. On the contrary, when the weather is too warm, the air and
other surrounding bodies, having less attraction for caloric, do not
withdraw it as fast as it is generated; thus producing the feeling of
heat. Perhaps, however, this is scarcely a scientific method of
stating the fact in question. It is generally supposed by philosophers,
that all bodies, whether in equilibrium, as it regards temperature,
with surrounding substances, or not, are constantly radiating and
absorbing caloric. When equally heated, the cause of their continuing
so is, that they receive as much as they give off. When unequally
heated, that which contains most caloric radiates more than
the rest, and, of course, absorbs less than it parts with. By this
[503]means, an equilibrium of temperature is after a time brought about.
Now, in cold weather, the heat which an animal body radiates is greater
in quantity than the sum of what it generates itself, and absorbs from
the sun and other bodies. The consequence is, it experiences the
feeling of cold. In warm weather, the caloric radiated is less than
that absorbed and generated; in which case, the animal suffers from
heat. The vital heat of the generality of quadrupeds and other
warm-blooded animals is several degrees greater in intensity than
that of the atmosphere, during the warmest season in the tropics.
The temperature of the human body is about ninety-eight degrees.
The mean equatorial temperature Humboldt proved by repeated experiment
to be eighty-one and a half degrees. It is evident, therefore,
that in warm regions it is more important that the physical state
and constitution of animal bodies should be adapted to the radiation
of internal, than to the reflection of external heat, since the intensity
of the former exceeds that of the latter.

Now we have before mentioned the fact, that the rapidity of the
radiation of caloric from a heated body is in proportion to the darkness
of its color. This then, taken in connection with the facts just stated,
readily explains the reason why the color of animals varies with the
temperature. The negroes of Africa, for example, are provided
with a dark complexion, in order that the great quantity of heat
which the warmth of their climate causes them to absorb, may be
compensated for by an increased radiation. These unfortunate people,
when they come to the north, as might be supposed, suffer at
first extremely from the cold. They in time, however, become somewhat
inured to it. Nature provides for them by another species of
adaptation, which we cannot stop minutely to describe, but which
may be proved to take place. The effect of it is to increase the
evolution of animal heat, and thus to make up for the excessive radiation.
Natives of high latitudes, however, are white, as has been
said, and consequently their limited absorption of heat is compensated
for by an equally limited radiation. We see, also, from this
general principle, the design of the skin being so formed as to become
tanned by exposure to the sun.

It is needless to dwell longer upon these facts. Taken in connection,
they present perhaps one of the most interesting and harmonious
arrangements that are to be met with in any of the departments
of natural science. But it is by no means one of a few evidences
of design, by which the advocate of religion may strengthen and confirm
his faith. The whole universe is full of such examples. We
have reason to believe, too, that we have but a very imperfect insight
into the philosophy of Nature; that beyond the veil which separates
the conquests of the human intellect from the vast tracts of knowledge,
the possession of which yet remains to be acquired, there are
myriads of beautifully-ordered systems, far surpassing in extent and
grandeur any thing which the fancy of the wildest schemer has ever
suggested to his mind. A few pebbles only have been gathered from
the shore of the great ocean of truth. No wonder that the poet, impressed
with this belief, should exclaim:

B. R. W.

[504]

TO A LOCK OF HAIR.

Δ.

WILSON CONWORTH.

NUMBER EIGHT.

Although I joined Collins in much of his dissipation, yet I persuaded
myself that I had his good at heart; and thinking a change
of scene might have a beneficial effect, I proposed a jaunt to the
Falls of Niagara. It was the month of June; we were in possession
of a handsome equipage, and plenty of money; we had all the
means of making the journey pleasant.

C—— got wind of this project, and although we had not spoken
for weeks, he came to my room the evening before our departure,
and told me I was a ruined man, unless I gave up this journey. He
explained to me the reasons of his coldness, and the reserve of
others; it was to induce me to give up my association with Collins.
He said all were interested for me, and besought me to listen to his
advice; that some things had leaked out respecting Collins, which
he was not at liberty to tell me. I knew I ought to hear him. I
was convinced he was disinterested; but I remained fixed, for I
intended to pass through N——, and was in hopes to see Alice
once more; and this, after once getting into my heart, I could not
get out. We departed upon our excursion of pleasure, which
proved one of pain. With whom is hope more faithful?

Following the river, we soon emerged from the level meadow
country, and began to ascend the hills of Vermont. The moon was
at her full, and we rode mostly in the night-time. Collins could not
bear the day, and I was willing to give in to his caprices, for the
night gave a calmness and amiable tone to his feelings. His heart
was open to the influences of nature, though he pretended to hate
mankind.

[505]

The Connecticut river, in the north, has a swift and sparkling
current, so that it makes music as it flows. Tall trees bend over it,
all along its course, as if inclining to kiss its nimble waters. These
trees are of one kind, and resemble the graceful elm. To the lover
of nature, I know of no scene so fitted to call out his enthusiasm.
After toiling up an ascent of three or four miles, as you stop to
breathe your panting steed, which, if bred in the country, toils so
faithfully for you, your eye is filled with all kinds of scenery. Here
on your right reposes a village, with its neat white houses, in a rich
valley, the land rising in hills in every direction from it, partly
wooded, with here and there a wide pasture of close-cropped green,
dotted with the fleecy flock and lowing kine. The river bounds it,
on one side of which is a circle of meadow land, and on the other a
steep rocky precipice, falling abruptly to the water.

It was twelve o’clock at night—a clear moon-light night—when
we gained one of these elevations of land. No sound broke the
stillness, save the voice of the ‘solemn bird of night’ marking by
contrast the depth of the solitude of silence. Collins wept like a
child. He had associations he would not communicate to me. Possibly
he had been there before. He refused to speak. We stopped
at the first public house, and he retired to his room without uttering
a word.

Until this evening, I had never spoken to Collins of my own love
affair. I had never told him of my difficulties, nor let him know
that I had had any. My object was to divert his melancholy, not to
find relief from my own sorrows. That night, as we sat in silence
contemplating the scene, some lines of poetry had escaped me,
which Alice Clair had been fond of repeating. I felt Collins start
as he listened, and soon after, he gave vent to a torrent of tears, the
first I had ever seen him shed.

The next morning we rode and travelled on in moody silence.
Not a word was exchanged between us. Collins’s whole manner
toward me had changed. Now and then I discovered a black look
upon his face, as he glanced toward me. I treated him with
my usual kindness. I had, in the relation of my own unhappy
attachment, concealed the name and personal appearance of Miss
Clair, and the place, too. I was free from suspicion, supposed his
reserve was a freak, and waited patiently for the recovery of his
usual manner.

We now left the river, and struck off to the Green Mountains,
taking the road to N——, where we arrived about dark. All the
town knew of our arrival, almost as soon as we were settled in our
apartment. I found that Collins was known there as well as myself,
though under a different name. He was greeted as ‘Mr. Cowles,’
by every one, and the people stared at him as they would at a
spectre.

When I asked the explanation of this mystery, after we had
retired to a private room, he stared at me for some moments, with
the glare of a maniac in his eyes, and then sprang upon me, drawing
his dagger from his bosom. This was no time for parley. I
flung him from me, wrested the dagger from his hand, and then[506]
allowed him to rise. Seeing that he intended no violence, I sat upon
the bed while he walked the room, gnashing his teeth, and mumbling
to himself ‘curses not loud but deep;’ then stopping suddenly
opposite to me, he said:

‘You, fiend!—why did you seek me? Can you be the friend
who feels an interest in me? Why have you proved a traitor to
my peace?

I assured him his words were inexplicable to me.

‘Where,’ said he, ‘did you learn those words you quoted last night?
Do you know her too? Have you, too, been a victim to those super-human
charms? I am a slave; she bound me; I am helpless. Oh,
God!—but I have wronged you; you could not know; you are
not to blame. I had better destroy myself. I am crazed—mad!
I know not what I say. Oh! leave me, if you value your life or
mine!’

This was all strange. What could he mean? He had no
acquaintance with Alice. She had told me that she never had an
attachment before the one she confessed for me. What other lady in
town could there be to excite affections so refined as his? It could
not be Alice; this was a vagary too wild to be listened to. However,
determined to solve the difficulty, I went immediately to the
house of Mr. Clair, and asked for his daughter; ‘she was out of
town;’ for Mrs. Clair; ‘she was sick;’ for any of the family; ‘I
could not be admitted.’ This was as unceremonious as I could
bear; so I walked back to the hotel, and calling the inn-keeper
aside, asked him what had become of Miss Clair. Inn-keepers in
a country village know all the small news that any one does, for
they hear the same story assume so many different shapes over the
grog they deal out, that by night they become perfectly saturated
with a piece of scandal, and give forty readings of the same event to
suit the customer.

Mr. Shuffle gave me a full account of the affair. He said that
Alice was with her sister in Albany; that she had been very sick,
and not expected to live. After I had been out of town for a few
months, she returned to her father’s; used to go moping about, and
people thought her mind was affected; he wondered that people could
be so unreasonable, as to keep young folks that loved each other
separate; if he had been me, he would have run away with her.

I did not wait to hear farther, or even to inquire about Collins,
but ordered a horse, left a note for Collins, in which I advised him
to return, as important business required my presence at Albany for
a few days; and that I could not undertake our contemplated journey,
after what had happened.

That very night I started across the mountains for Albany, and
did not sleep until I saw the house that contained all I thought I
loved on earth. The visit to old scenes had renewed all the
fervor of my affection. Not wishing to be recognised, I stopped
at a dwelling in an obscure part of the town, and sent a little boy to
the house with a note, directing him only to give it into Miss Clair’s
own hand. If her health permitted, I requested an interview; but
certainly some token of recognition by the bearer. She was well
enough to meet me, and we agreed to take a walk that afternoon.

[507]

I pass over the agonizing bliss of meeting. All was forgiven in an
instant. She had been sick indeed—sick at heart. She had heard
of my disgraceful course of life in the city, after parting from her,
and then again of my relapse at L——. She had supposed that I
had given up all thoughts of her, and she said that she had tried to
banish me from her thoughts; but, smiling through her tears, her
words were: ‘You know, Conworth, you were my first and only love.
I had determined to run the risk of what I feared would happen.
I was willing to risk something for one who might be so much, if he
did truly love me in return as I did him. I have been forsaken,
and forgotten, and disregarded; but the fault was in me in the first
instance in trusting to you. I could hardly expect you to change
your character for one like me.’

I could not bear this; I implored her to accuse me, to upbraid
me—any thing but such words; and then I endeavored to palliate
my faults, and in doing so, I told the exact truth. I led her back to
motives, and temptations, and despairing states of mind, through
which I could distinctly trace my own lapses; convincing her that
all resulted from my separation from her; that ‘could I have her with
me to guide, comfort, and encourage me, I should, I felt confident, do
every thing to make her happy.’

The idea of marriage had not crossed my mind until this instant.
In consoling her, and drawing the picture of our union, I was so
charmed with the notion, that I began to speak in earnest, and did,
upon the spot, adopt the resolution of making the attempt to persuade
her to unite herself to me on the instant.

I succeeded. She consented. We were to be married on the
next morning. By good luck, her brother-in-law was absent from
home, and I knew her sister possessed rather a romantic turn of mind.
The devil lent me cunning and eloquence, and I persuaded her it
was the only way to save Alice’s life and mine.

To bring this about, I had, without premeditation, to invent plans
which should have the appearance of having been well-digested. I
told her ‘that I came authorized from my father to bring Alice to his
house, if I could do so as my wife.’ I then showed her the wealth
that I possessed—for beside my own money, Collins, on starting, had
constituted me his banker—and the whole story was so well got up,
that she seemed delighted with the novelty of the scheme.

Behold me then on the eve of perpetrating marriage. Every thing
was prepared. My carriage, (one I had hired, and called mine,) was
at the door; the trunks were lashed on, and we were standing before
the minister, in her sister’s parlor; the justice’s daughter, and a friend
I had picked up, acting as witnesses. The ceremony began. Hardly
had a word been spoken, when the door flew violently open, and
Collins, wild and haggard, with his dress torn and soiled, and without
a hat, rushed into the room. He looked about him for a few moments
in triumph, and then said, slowly: ‘I am come in time, false woman!’
He stepped toward Alice, who, pale and trembling, was sinking to
the floor. A dagger gleamed in the madman’s hand. I rushed forward,
and taking the blow aimed at her, I fell senseless to the earth.

[508]

When I awoke from my delirious dream, which followed the
wound I had received, I found myself in a small private house. My
father was standing by my bedside, and my sister was wiping the
cold sweat from my forehead. I had been thus for a fortnight. My
father and sister had arrived upon the earliest intelligence after the
accident. They imagined they were journeying to attend my funeral.
Would it had been so!

My father took my hand, as my eyes closed, upon meeting his anxious
gaze, and said: ‘It is all well—all is forgiven. Be calm; you
are better, God be praised! I ask no more.’

I could not speak. His kindness, his affection, wounded me worse
than ten thousand daggers. I covered my eyes with my hand, and
wept. When I was strong enough to bear it, my sister told me all
that had happened. Alice had confessed to her every thing. The
substance was this.

‘Collins had some years before met Alice Clair at a boarding-school
in the city, and he fell violently in love with her. He was
then an exile from home for his vices, and was living in the city, without
plan or object. His assumed name was Cowles, to prevent his
friends from hearing of his pranks. Alice had been pleased with
his manners, and received his attentions, in walking in the street, to
hold an umbrella over her when caught in a shower, and to bow with
a smile when she met him; to be at home when he called to see her;
as far as a school miss can go, in a love matter, she had been; which
is just no way at all. The word love never had entered her head;
she was gratified in being noticed and admired, and felt grateful for
his kindness and attentions in bringing her new books and music. But
with the playful coquetry of a child, she had impressed the heart of
Collins with a lasting devotion. She did not know how much he loved
her. The principal of the school had always allowed his visits, until
ascertaining the knowledge of his true character, and seeing some
instances of his misdemeanor one night at the theatre, he was dismissed
from the acquaintance of the ladies, and Alice thought no
more of him.

Soon after, she returned home, and was continually persecuted
with letters, which were returned unread. At last, he went to N——,
and behaved like a madman; threatened to kill himself in the presence
of her father and mother, and committed other extravagances,
which would have subjected him to arrest, had he not left town. All
these facts were never hinted to me, during my stay at N——.
Probably they were forgotten, except by the parties more immediately
interested.

No wonder some surprise was manifested at seeing myself and
Collins ride into town together. Well, after I had left Collins, and
departed for Albany, he by a bribe found out my object in going
thither, and immediately followed me on the next day. With
a mind already shattered by excess, and stimulated to insanity,
he imagined himself the victim of treachery, and determined on consummate
vengeance on both of us. The reader knows the rest.
The wound I received nearly proved fatal. My father was summoned,
perhaps to attend my funeral. Mr. Clair followed us, so soon[509]
as he got wind of our intended visit, to protect his daughter from two
madmen, and arrived the day after the result. Alice was taken home
with difficulty. Mr. Clair was inexorable. Some gratitude was expressed
in a letter written to me by him after he heard of my recovery,
for saving the life of his child.

‘When you are older and more settled,’ it said, ‘in your views, if
you ever are, I shall be glad to show you how much I am willing to
forget, for the sake of your happiness and that of my child. You
have perhaps unwittingly destroyed the peace of my family. You do
not know the pain you have inflicted. Time must elapse. Your
case is not hopeless. All depends upon yourself.’

My sister in a few days gave me a lock of black glossy hair, tied
with a blue ribbon. It needed not to tell me where it came from.
I have worn it next to my heart ever since that fatal morning. It is
now placed before me, and tears course down my cheeks as I record
this passage in my history, and look upon all that is left in this world
of one who might have made this earth a heaven to any man, but one
incapable of estimating the value, or rather incapable of profiting by
the gift, of her affections.

Collins was released, by my father’s request, after the question of
my danger was over, and went I know not whither. From that day
to this, I have never heard of him. The money of his in my possession
was placed in the hands of a lawyer, and no trace can be found
of his connections or of himself, by the most careful search.

We returned to my father’s house. Hardly had we arrived, when
we heard of the sudden death of Alice Clair. Worn out by fatigue
and disappointment, she was attacked by fever, which was followed
by delirium; and she went out of a cruel world, unconscious of her
misery. My cup of bitterness was full. I neither hoped, nor excited
expectation. I was considered a broken, ruined man. I remained
some time a burthen upon my father’s hands, leading a harmless but
restless, good-for-nothing life, which only doubles the misery of
existence.

Time works wonders. I began to have hopes of myself, and determined
to leave my native city; to give up all old acquaintances;
to go afar from all who knew me. I made arrangements to receive
annually a small sum, to enable me to carry my projects into execution,
and bidding adieu to all those I truly loved, and who I knew
still loved me, I embarked on board a packet bound for New-Orleans.

HOPE.

[510]

A PRACTITIONER, HIS PILGRIMAGE.

PART TWO.

END OF PART TWO.

OUR BIRTH-DAYS.

The anniversary of our birth-days is always an interesting period,
and should be noticed accordingly. Each of such days is a mile-stone
on the road of life, reminding us of the rapid rate at which we have
been advancing on its journey, and approaching its close. It is true
that in life’s morning, these mile-stones appear to be farther apart than
they do in later years; still, they are days of hope and promise.
Thousands are then rejoicing that they are one year nearer to the
boasting age of twenty-one, when a young man feels himself lord of
his own actions, and glories in his liberty. To thousands of the
fairer part of creation, these annual monitors are welcome, as harbingers
of the day when they shall shine in the ball-room or circles of
fashion; attract all eyes, and command all attention; or perhaps
fasten some silken chain around the heart of an individual admirer,
and lead him in delightful captivity. To other thousands of the
same sex, the anniversary will tell a tale of sadness; of departed
hours and departed charms; of withered roses and withered hopes;
when the looking-glass has lost its magic power, and speaks nothing
save in the plain language of unwelcome truth and soberness. Thousands
[514]are reminded that many of the intervals, between one mile-stone
and another were distinguished by lovely landscapes and countless
beauties; by health and enjoyment—by joy and gladness of
heart. To thousands of others, such intervals have been gloomy and
cheerless; without the consolations of friendship, the comforts of
society, or the flattering promises of hope. Surrounding prospects
have only increased the gloom of the mind, and made the heart sick.

Yet in all these recollections, we may find instruction and nourishment
for our better feelings. If our course has been checkered with
good and evil, we may profit by tracing consequences to their proper
causes; and thus learn how many miscalled misfortunes are the offspring
of folly, or imprudence, or wrong; the natural results of our
own wanderings from the path of innocence and duty; or else have
been so fortunate as to have discovered by experience, that our happiness
and duty are intimately connected, and that wisdom’s ways are
always ways of pleasantness and peace. In both cases, this annual
review of the days and years that have taken their farewell of us,
will be salutary in its effect, and teach us the value of virtuous resolutions
of amendment, when we have gone astray, and the peaceful
feelings and sweet anticipations of those whose desire it is to preserve
their moral health in the bowers of innocence and purity, and amid
the green pastures and still waters of life.

This very day, I have arrived at the seventy-third mile-stone on the
journey to another country, where we all hope to enjoy happiness
unending. And here I must avail myself of the old man’s privilege;
that of speaking of himself, and the incidents of exciting or soothing
interest which have marked his onward course. I have abundant
occasion to indulge in the pleasing retrospect. Through the smiles
of heaven, I may truly say, that in the long vista I can scarcely discover
an unpleasant object, to mar the beauty of the scene. It still
appears margined with foliage and flowers, almost as green and
bright as ever. The surface of the way still seems smooth, and the
sky is clear and summer-like, as in the days of my youth and early
manhood. Surely, these are distinguished blessings to me, and as
such I fondly cherish them. Heaven has given me a firm constitution,
and long-continued health. These are precious foundations to
build upon; and I have improved them for that purpose. But much
has been effected by the formation of certain habits, and by an attention
to certain rules; and I feel their tendency and effects as valuable
medicines. It is not vanity in an old man to recommend them to
others. I am influenced by better motives. In the first place, when a
child,

and I hope I have never forgotten them, or in any situation disregarded
their benign influence, but reverenced them as important
safe-guards. The rules I have adopted have never, to any extent,
deceived me.

1. I have always found, that if I had injured any one, especially
if intentionally, I could enjoy no peace of mind, until I had asked and[515]
obtained his forgiveness. When forgiven, all was calm and sunshine
in my bosom. I never solicited in vain.

2. Knowing by experience the value of this blessed sunshine, I
have always endeavored so to be on my guard, as not to offend by
indulged passion, suspicion, or want of respect and courtesy. This
has always insured courtesy and kindness in return, from all others.

3. If on a sudden I have for a few moments been guilty of indulging
in passion, the sun never went down on my wrath. I never
did and never could retain resentment against any one, and cherish
a desire of revenge; for such a desire would have been painful
and distressing. A word from him who had excited my momentary
anger, spoken to me in kindness, never failed to disarm every disturbed
feeling. I have always found a peaceful disposition a source
of comfort, and to produce the same calm within, as is caused by gentle
breezes on a summer day, refreshing an invalid who is walking
abroad to inhale them.

4. By the aid of the foregoing rules, I have thus far through life
been habitually cheerful; and cheerfulness is easily diffused, and
cheerful feelings multiplied. It is a sort of letter of introduction,
and insures a welcome, when duly exhibited. It adds to the charms
of society, while at the same time it gives a youthful movement to
the pulsations of the heart.

5. In order to preserve this youthful feeling of our nature, while
advancing in years, I have steadily maintained the custom of associating
freely with the young as well as the old; of joining in the social
or fashionable circle, and breathing the atmosphere of the library or
the drawing-room, with ladies and gentlemen, more especially with
those whom I am in the habit of meeting, on other occasions, upon
terms of easy intercourse. By this practice, my social feelings have
remained almost unchanged. Though I am an old tree, my leaves
remain nearly as green as ever. The scenes I have just described,
I enjoy now as well and as pleasantly as I did forty or fifty years ago.
Are not these blessings? Men and women may grow old, if they
please, and lose all relish for social intercourse, even among those
of their own age; and if they please, they may retain most of the
better feelings of their early years, in the particulars before mentioned;
and the honest, frank, and cheerful expression of them will
generally be reciprocated, even in the circles of the young and gay.
These interchanges of thoughts and feelings, in hours of easy and
virtuous relaxation, are mutually beneficial, in producing kinder dispositions
toward each, and bringing the distant periods of life nearer
together, and forming a temperate zone, where the climate becomes
more mild, uniform, serene, and salutary. Are not my rules and my
practice, then, worthy of imitation, as having an evident tendency to
preserve a green old age, and protract the ‘Indian summer of the
soul,’ and keep the heart warm amid the gathering frosts of the December
of life?

We cannot open a newspaper, without seeing advertisements of
those who have compounded numberless medicines for curing almost
all the pains and diseases ‘which flesh is heir to;’ and are desirous
of diffusing them, for the relief of all classes of sufferers, for a moderate
pecuniary compensation. And surely there can be no impropriety[516]
in my publishing this article for the benefit of all concerned,
and giving them, gratis, my friendly advice, on so interesting a subject.
My object is as commendable as theirs; and I presume my prescriptions,
if duly observed, would promote the moral health of thousands,
and save them from the penalty of ‘low spirits;’ quicken the healthful
circulation of the ‘social blood,’ and add to the life of multitudes
years of comfort, ending in a golden sunset.

Senex.

Portland, (Maine,) Nov., 1837.

LAY OF THE MADMAN.[9]

‘This is the foul fiend! He begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock; he gives the web
and the pin, squints the eye, and makes the hare-lip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor
creature of earth. Beware of the foul fiend!’

Shakspeare.

Savannah, (Geo.,) 1837.
R. M. C.

OLLAPODIANA.

NUMBER XXII.

——As I was saying last month, beloved reader, that ‘I am thine
in promise,’ or to that purport, I have anchored myself in my fauteuil,
to the end that I may be thine in fulfilment. In our conversation
about the Catskills, I omitted sundry pertinent matters, with
the which, however, malgré the postponement, I shall not here afflict.
Since that period, I have for the most part been pent i’ the populous
city, amid the wakeful noises by day thereof, and by night the calm
security of the streets thereof. I affect the supernatural bawl of the
watchman, as it rings up to my pillow; I love the serenade which
the neighboring lover sings to his fair, and of which I get the good
as well as herself; I like to see the straggling cloud go floating over
the slumbering town at midnight, with the moon silvering its edge;
or mayhap to note the sheen of a star greeting the vision over a chimney-pot.
All these have charms for my eye and ear; I seem to see
holy sights and shapes in the firmament; the winds come and go on
their circuits, unknowing how many brows they fan; and at times
they hush a whole metropolis to silence, insomuch that its wide
boundary scarce produces so much noise ‘as doth a chestnut in a
farmer’s fire.’

By-the-by, when the sun begins to set at right descensions, and
make his winter arches, I always think of the roaring fires in the
domicil of the rural husbandman, with feelings akin to envy. Ye
who toast your heels by anthracite; who survey the meagre ‘blue
blazes’ of Liverpool coal, and whose nostrils take in the dry odor
thereof, being reminded thereby of those ever-burning brimstone
beds, where Apollyon keeps his court, and Judas has his residence;
ye, I say, who have a life-long intimacy with these sorts of fuel, can
have but small conception of a winter’s fire in the country. Far
round doth it illumine the apartment where it rages; intolerable is
proximity thereunto; and its ‘circle of admirers’ is always large,[519]
because they cannot come a-nigh. A pleasant disdain is felt for the
snow which whirls on whistling winds against the pane; the herds
are huddled in their cotes secure; and the storm has permission to
mumble its belly full, and spit snow at its pleasure. Hugeous
reminiscences of delight come over my spirit, in this connexion;
post-school hours; the steaming bowl of flip, or those orthographical
convocations, where buxom maidens exulted in their secret heart,
as tall words were vociferously mounted, in correct emission, by greenhorn
swain. Sleigh-rides likewise; amatory pressures, under skin
of buffalo or bison; long processions through wintry villages, whose
tall smokes rose from every chimney; pillars of blue, standing
upright in the air, like columns of sapphire. Cider, with its acidity
of remembrance; apples, that melted on the tongue, as they
descended toward the diaphragm; landscapes of snow; and slides
down hill!—not forgetting those skating achievements, which for
the time being fill the mind with such pride, that one scarcely wishes
to reach heaven at last, if that amusement be interdicted among the
just made perfect! All these circumstances and events, with curious
confusion, hang in a nucleus about my memories of a rural hearth;
‘but these I passen by, with nameless numbers moe.’ Shakspeare
had a good notion of the comforts to which I refer. He puts a lovely
sentiment into the mouth of King Richard II., when he causes him
to utter to the royal lady this tender language:

I have not, howbeit, reader, as might be inferred from what has
been herein before written, spent all the mean season spoken of, in
the busy capital. I have made, with household appurtenances, and
delights, and responsibilities, an autumnal tour or ‘excrescence’ into
the country, round about the Empire Town. Quotidian columns have
borne the register thereof; hence Benevolence prompt to crucify farther
infliction. The landscapes surveyed were beautiful; though it
may be said of the eminences, as Mr. William Lackaday observes in
the play, of his boy-seen uplands: ‘Them there hills wasn’t clothed
with much werder.’

How many steam-boat accidents are occurring constantly! One
of late astonished the peaceful Delaware. But it did one good act.
The explosion blew away a piece of very bad orthography in the
cabin of one of those craft which ply between Philadelphia and
Camden. Perilous voyages do they make, indeed! Nurses with
their blooming charges, and who have never been to sea, embark in
them to behold the wonders of the deep! The disaster I speak of
arose from that which made the angels fall. ‘Twas curst ambition.
One boat was going several inches ahead of another, and urged its[520]
engine to the rate of at least fifty miles the hour. Rivalry was
awakened; the captain of the hapless craft yelled to his assistant:
‘Josey, we’ll have a race with that t’other imperent boat! Put that
other stick of wood into the furnace! My pride is elewated. Never
mind the expense this time!’

The command was given; the boiler collapsed; and ambition
was ended! The orthography blown from the steamer was this:

‘No smoking aloud in the cabing!’

This was an injunction obeyed per force, for it could not be broken.[10]
It specified tacit fumigation:

and the unnecessary monition was no great loss, either to luxury or
learning.

Let me here register a letter which I have received from the Jehu
who voted for Smith, of Smithopolis. He conveys several curious
sentiments; and among other matters, records the demise of the
person to whom he was indebted for a lecture:

‘November the 5th, 1837.

‘My Dear Sir:

‘I have seen a piece which you made and put into a perryogue published down into
the city of New-York, to which I am a-going to indict a reply. My indictment will be
short, as some of the parties is not present to which you have been allusive. But
with respect of that there diwine person you spoke of, I am sorry to remark, that he is
uncommonly dead, and wont never give no more lectures. He was so onfortnight as
to bu’st a blood-vessel at a pertracted meeting; and I ha’n’t hearn nothing onto him
sence. His motives was probable good; but in delivering on ’em, it struck me forcibly
that he proximated to the sassy. However, I never reserves ill will, not ag’inst nobody;
and I authorize you to put this into printing, ef’so be that you deem it useful.
That’s what Smith used to say, when he published his self-nominations in the newspapers,
that a man with a horn (they tell me that he has a very large circle of kindred)
used to ride post about, and distribit.

‘In the sincere congratulation that there has not nothing been said in this communication
unproper for the public ear, and for giving you the descriptions of the rackets,
and other messuages respecting me, which you deeded to the public, I remain yours
until death do us part.

‘Post Tillion.‘

‘Mr. Ollapod, M.D.’

Now there is no finding fault with a correspondent of this description.
Plain, unadorned, he gives his thoughts the drapery of
ink—dresses them in black—and there they stand, (‘what is written
remains,’) evidences at once of his frankness and his erudition.
To me, such documents, though light, and perhaps unpalatable to
[521]those who prefer the heavier condiments of literature, form the
cream or the dessert of life’s plenteous table.

Talking of desserts—by which (whisper) I don’t mean the
boundless contiguity of western wildernesses, nor the sandy bounds
of Zahara, but the after-glories of a dinner—I have of late arrived
at some curious embellishments of delicacies, on the part of those
who are bent upon improving the English language, at all hazards;
upon extending it to the utmost latitude of dainty expression and
culture. The Astor-House, I learn, at its Ladies’ Ordinary, has
furnished forth some glorious specimens of English improved. ‘Sir!’
said an exquisite, desirous of partaking a certain delicacy for himself
and his fair:

‘Have you at present any of the chastised idiot-brother?’

‘Han’t seen no relations of your’n here to-day,’ murmured the
waiter, ‘with an imperturbable and ‘furtive’ smile.’

‘Don’t be impertinent, fellow!’ was the reply; ‘I mean something
to eat!’

‘If you want to eat any thing in the idiot line,’ replied the servant,
aside, as his inquisitor fingered his moustache, ‘I guess you’d better
put some butter on your hair, and swaller yourself!’ And here the
sacrilegious usher of sauces and glasses indulged in a half-suppressed
guffaw.

‘Dar’ say you consider that funny, my short help,’ said the inquirer:
‘but what I want is what you call whipped-syllabub. Heaven help
your ignorance!’

The requisite was handed—the exquisite appeased. But his
quiet was brief. Calling to him the same locomotive assistance, he
inquired:

‘Now, individual, I want some sacrificed-threshed-indigent-williams.
Have you got any?’

‘Not one, upon my soul, your honor; that is, if you mean turnips.’

‘Turnips!—curse turnips!—you double-distilled Vandal—you
Goth—you Visigoth! I mean, have you any roasted whippoorwills?’

‘Holy Paul!’ said a Hibernian ‘help,’ who had drawn a-nigh, attracted
by the discussion; ‘in the name of the Vargin, what is
them?’

Just at this juncture, the eaves-dropping by-stander who furnishes
the mem. of this, came away, leaving the emerald son—more verdant
to look at than his native isle—staring as if in a fit of astronomy,
in eclipse-time.

One of my autumnal recreations, good my reader, is hunting. I
pull a most fatal trigger. Venerie delighteth me, when the day is
good and the game abundant. I love, (heaven forgive me!) to bring
down the squirrel, with the half-munched chestnut in his teeth, what
time his bushy tail, (no longer waving in triumph over his back, as
he bounds from limb to limb,) quivers in articulo mortis. I confess
me none of your cockney venators. Some of these I have seen[522]
place the deadly muzzle of a double-barrel rifle at the unsuspecting
tail of a wren, while the proximity of metal and feathers was less than
an inch; and when they fired, they plunged back some several yards,
overcome with horror, though the bird had flown without injury,
save indeed some blackened down, in extremis—a trifle, with life
safe, and the world before her.

The poetry of gunpowder is in making it tell. To go out when
the woods are so beautiful that you deem a score of dying dolphins
hang on every tree,

to hear the delicate tread of the game on the leaves, rustling amid
the murmur of solemn winds, as the westering sun scampers down
the west, with a face as red as if he had disgraced the solar family
by some misdemeanor; and then, in some thick recess of passing
foliage, and innumerous boughs, then and there to bore wingéd fowl,
and my gentleman quadrupeds of the sylvan fastness, with cold lead,
is exhilarating. All kinds of volant things that wing the autumn
air—all sorts of movers on four legs—to make these succumb to
the behests of minerals, deadly salts, and a percussion cap to set
them on, is a kind of great glory in a very small way. I miss in my
excursions of this nature, the kind of sport which I fancy they who
course the fields and glades of England must peculiarly enjoy;
hare-hunting, namely. ‘The ancients,’ saith my choice ‘Elia,’ must
have loved hares. Else why adopt the word lepores, (obviously from
lepus,) but from some subtle analogy between the delicate flavor of
the latter, and the finer relishes of wit in what we most poorly translate
pleasantries. The fine madnesses of the poet are the very decoction
of his diet. Thence is he hare-brained. Haram-scarum is a
libellous, unfounded phrase, of modern usage. ‘Tis true the hare
is the most circumspect of animals, sleeping with her eyes open.
Her ears, ever erect, keep them in that wholesome exercise, which
conduces them to form the very tit-bit of the admirers of this noble
animal. Noble will I call her, in spite of her detractors, who from
occasional demonstrations of the principle of self-preservation (common
to all animals,) infer in her a defect of heroism. Half a hundred
horsemen, with thrice the number of dogs, scour the country in
pursuit of puss, across three counties; and because the well-flavored
beast, weighing the odds, is willing to evade the hue and cry, with
her delicate ears shrinking perchance from discord, comes the grave
naturalist, Linnæus, perchance, or Buffon, and gravely sets down the
hare as—a timid animal. Why, Achilles, or Bully Dawson, would
have declined the preposterous combat!’ This is speaking sooth,
and vindicates the fame of that class of tremulous tenants of rural
haunts, whose ears, most unhappily, are sometimes longer than their
lives.

Sometimes I surmount my pony, and traverse for miles the banks
of the Schuylkill; moving, now fast, now slow, as humor prompts,
or clouds portend. The city fades behind me; the beautiful eminence[523]
of Fairmount, its spouting fountains, its statues in the many-colored
shade; the sheen of the river; the trellised pavilions that
hang on its side; the hum of waters, or the cheerings of some regatta,
mingle with far obscurity and airy nothing; and then, as I ride, I
sing the song of Anacreon Little, laying every tone to my heart, like
a treasure and a spell:

Thus I murder the post-meridian hours, when the weather-office is
propitious, and its clerks attentive.

By-the-way, how often have I pondered on the extreme surprise
experienced by Balaam, of Old-Testament memory, when he rode
out one day on business. His meditations were most unexpectedly
interrupted by the beast he rode; and he was immensely astounded,
when he found out the garrulity of the animal. True to her sex, (for
she was of the tender gender,) she commenced a few sentences of
small-talk, greatly to his dismay. And who could marvel? What
man but would listen, auribus erectis, when he ascertained that his
own ass was opening a conversation with him? ‘Twas thus with
Balaam. He was well nigh demented. He pommelled his beast
with great vehemence; but she turned her head to him, and said in
the Hebrew dialect—’No Go!‘

Is it not wonderful, that those who are skilled in biblical history,
who weigh evidence by the ounce, and inference by the pound, is it
not a marvel, that they have never traced the obstinacy of this four-footed
individual to the right motive? She was, in sooth, the great
progenitress of Animal Magnetism; and she presented, in her own
person, the first instance of clairvoyance on record, either in prose or
rhyme. It was at her hinder feet that Mesmer sat, in thought, and
caught the inspiration of his science. Balaam sat on her patient
back, burdened her hallowed vertebras, nor knew how much wisdom
he bestrode. Blinded mortal! He looked ahead for the cause of
his detention. He saw no reason why he should not push on; and in
the Egyptian obliquity of his heart, he ‘whaled’ his ass to a degree.
It did no good; on the contrary, ’twas quite the reverse. The ass
and the angel were looking steadfastly at each other; but Balaam
saw but one of the parties. He noted not the glittering and glorious
obstacle that stopped the narrow way. The loose and expressionless
lips of his ass spoke like a book; the clairvoyance was established;
but the effect was slow. Henceforth, when the magnetic science is
discussed, honor its foundress. Render unto that ass the things
which are asses.’

I have achieved a victory which should fire the heart of any tasteful
bibliomaniac. I stand seized of Lamb. Understand me, reader,
’tis no juvenile mutton, whereof I am possessed; not adolescent merino,
or embryo ram. By no manner of means; contrariwise, it is
Talfourd‘s brief memoir, and a most succulent correspondence, by[524]
the author of ‘Elia.’ ‘Tis a thing over which a father may waken
his boy, in the small hours of the morning, (being yet unmovéd bedward,)
by a multitudinous guffaw. Rosy slumber, ruptured by
obstreperous laughter; but ah! how decidedly unavoidable!

Yes; I write myself proprietor for the nonce of a London edition.
My name is written in ‘Lamb‘s Book of Life;’ say rather, in a Book
of the Life of Lamb. Most hugeously do I relish his quaint conceits,
and those dainty sentences, the fashioning whereof came to him unbidden,
from spirits of the olden time, bending from the clouds of
fame. (By-the-by, what an unconscionable dog was Ossian! He
always kept a score or two of heroes, sitting half-dressed on cold
clouds, making speeches. ‘Twas most unkind of him. But he lived
in a rude age.) Lamb was one of those precious few of whom the
world is not worthy. He wrote from the impulses of a noble heart,
guided to new expression by a mind clear as the brook of Siloa, that
flowed by the oracles of God. He was not one of your persons who
are dignified by the phrase ‘all heart,’ for he had a prolific brain,
which all-hearted people generally lack. Of course, he disciplined
himself betwixt a desk at the India-House, and his social hours, or
studious; but what golden fruitage sprang therefrom! None of your
crude sentences, half-formed, unlicked, unpolished; but full of meaning;
succinct to the eye, and harmonious to the ear. There is a
light from his pen, which can illumine the saddest hour. He went
forth to amuse and enlighten, as the sun gets up in the morning to
cheer the world, ‘with all his fires and travelling glories round him.’
Essayist incomparable! How would he have looked writing a prize-tale
for the horror-mongers!

In respect of these latter things, how many double-distilled atrocities
of that kind are now and then committed at this day! They
must be filled with blood and murder; piracy, thieving, villany of
all sorts, must be thrown in, to make the mixture ‘slab and good.’
This is the result of the ten thousand pages of trash, which the want
of a copy-right law entails upon us from England. Improbability
is the first ingredient, to which assassination, seduction, and all kinds
of crime, must approximate. Let me give a specimen:

‘THE FATAL VOW.’

‘It was late in the fall of 18—, (convenient blank!) when, as the night had come on, on
a stormy evening, a dreadful tempest arose in the west. The lightning flashed, the thunder
faintly bellowed for a time; but soon the lightning discontinued, though the thunder moaned
on. It was pitch dark—darkness Egyptian. The sight was palsied and checked within
an inch of the eye. At this juncture, two men on horseback might have been seen, at the
distance of half a mile from the river ——, riding through a thick wood. One of them
was of sallow complexion, with huge black whiskers; he rode a horse of the color
called by rural people ‘pumpkin-and-milk,’ or cream-color, rather. In his holster were
two pistols. He wore a broad slouching hat, apparently unpaid for. A frown, blacker
considerably than hell, darkened his brow. Turning to his companion, a weazen-faced
man, with a red head, mounted on what is called a ‘calico mare,’ he said:

‘Well, Jakarzil, shall we do the deed to-night?’

‘It would ill befit the noble Count d’Urzilio de Belleville,’ said the dependant, ‘to
shoot that ill-fated lady at the present time. It would not look well.’

‘I care not for the looks!’ replied the count, curling his lip, and placing in his sinister
cheek a piece of tobacco, ‘I must have vengeance! If the candle is not at the casement,
I shall bu’st the door. I want revenge!’

‘TO BE CONTINUED.’

[525]

This is like the modern tales. Meditated butchery, successful
scoundrelism, and other delectables, make up their sum. As the
fragment just read may never be concluded, I will mention the fate
of the parties. The hero shot his grandmother out of pique, and was
hung; Jakarzil, his man, is in the penitentiary for horse-stealing.

Some of my unpoetical friends think I have underrated the Falls at
Catskill. Heaven save the mark! They have never seen Niagara,
and are therefore contented with a few grim rocks, the gate of a mill-dam,
and grandeur by the gallon; for thus, in a manner, is it sold.
No! Let these untravelled but clever fellows once hear the roar that
shakes Goat-Island, and the region round about; see the river that
pours its mile-wide breakers down, and mark the rainbow smile!
Ever thereafter will they hold their peace.

One or two credulous persons have fancied that the sketch of
‘Smith of Smithopolis’ was designed as an imputation upon the name.
The said imputation is disdained, by these presents. I have a decided
regard for that style and title: companionship, familiarity, personal
knowledge, (so grateful to the inquiring mind,) are its synonyms.
Beside, I honor the name, for sundry associations. Who has never
rode in a rail-car, a steam-boat, or a coach, with a person of the
name of Smith? Or heard him speak at a public meeting? Or
owed him a trifle? Or had a trifle due from him, the Smith aforesaid?
Nemo—’I undertake to say’—(in fact I not only undertake
this vocal enterprise, but I accomplish it.) Aside, reader, ’tis
a criticism on the phrase; which whoso uses when he knows what
he is about to set down in palpable chirography, is a sumph unqualified:
Anglice, one of the flat ‘uns, named of Stulti.

The Smiths are numerous, ’tis said. Grant it. Who pays more
post-office revenue? Who more quickly resents a jeer upon the
name? Tell me that. ‘Not nobody.’ Would you look for heroes?
The Smiths could supply them. For female goodness and devotion?
The same, from the same. For wit, genius, and elevated-talent?
Vide Horace and James, of the Addresses, and Richard Penn; the
studious scholar, good lawyer, quaint citizen, novelist, poet, dramatist—every
thing clever.

I had many more things to say, courteous reader; but I fear, from
what I have written, you may augur a bore. Heaven forfend! Consequently,
thine in conclusion, I write myself, henceforth, now, and
formerly,

Ollapod.

EXAMPLE.

[526]

THE COMING OF WINTER.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

X.

New-Haven, November 13th, 1837.
B. T. W.

[527]

OCEOLA’S CHALLENGE.

Late accounts from St. Augustine state, that the recent capture of the Indian chiefs has by no
means increased the friendly feelings of the red men toward the whites. ‘There will yet be hard
fighting, and they will be rendered more desperate than ever. Even the captives seem to doubt
that they will be sent out of the country.’

November, 1837.
H.

RANDOM PASSAGES

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

NUMBER EIGHT.

PRUSSIA—BELGIUM.

Cologne, September 14th.—On the arrival of the steam-boat,
(alias, dampschïffen, or le bateau à vapeur,) the bells of the town
were ringing, cannons firing, a band of music playing, and the
quais were filled with at least five thousand people, who were
kept in order by a party of soldiers. Some distinguished personage
seemed to be expected in the boat, but there was none forthcoming.
The military cleared a passage through the crowd, and we landed
without any confusion, although it was dark, and there were three
hundred passengers (picked up on the way,) to be supplied with
porters and lodgings; and the place was known to be full. At the
fourth hotel I applied to, alone, in the dark, in a strange place, I
succeeded in securing an attic; but many others were even less fortunate.

After supper, I made a sally through the principal streets, which
are well lighted with gas. It seems to be a busy and cheerful place,
much like Paris; buildings irregular, streets crooked, and ill-paved.[528]
The far-famed Eau-de-Cologne forms a considerable article of its
trade, and has contributed not a little to familiarize its name all over
the world. The four brothers Farina rival each other in the manufacture;
but the most noted artist is Jean Maria Farina. I took a
peep into his establishment; and were it not that His Majesty of
England would make me pay for it over again, I should like to send
you some of the ‘genuine article.’

Aix la Chapelle, September 15th.—My present date is from
the city of Charlemagne. ‘To begin where I left off.’ While writing
last evening in my lofty apartment, looking out upon the Rhine,
the music on the quay suddenly re-commenced, and the enthusiastic
shouts of the populace announced that the expected visitor had
arrived. It proved to be the crown prince of Prussia, and his two
brothers. Prussia now extends, as you are aware, this side of the
Rhine as far as Aix. The present king and all his family are said
to be exceedingly and deservedly popular with the people. The
government, although in theory despotic, is evidently mild and
liberal in practice. In education, I need not tell you, Prussia stands
prëeminent; and if you are curious for information on this point, I
would refer you to the recent report of Victor Cousin.[11] The regulations
of the police, the public conveyances, etc., in the Prussian
dominions are certainly excellent.

I was early awake this morning, in order to finish exploring Cologne
before six, the starting hour for Aix. Escorted by a young
cicerone, who ‘politely volunteered his services,’ I went first to the
cathedral, one of the most celebrated on the continent. Five hundred
years have elapsed since this edifice was commenced, and yet
it is scarcely half finished! The choir only is quite completed, and
this is very elaborately decorated within and without. The grass is
actually growing on the towers, which have as yet attained but one
third of their intended elevation, (five hundred feet,) and being connected
with the choir merely by a temporary structure, they look
like ruins of a separate edifice. Yet, even in its present state, the
cathedral of Cologne is a wonderful specimen of human ingenuity
and perseverance. I followed my cicerone to the head of the choir,
behind the great altar, where he pointed to a richly-ornamented monument,
as the tomb of the ‘Three Kings of Cologne.’ It is to be
hoped you are versed in the veritable history of these same three
kings, as well as that of the eleven thousand virgins before-mentioned,
for neither memory nor time will permit me to edify you in
‘legendary lore.’

Mass had already commenced, at this early hour, and the good
people were kneeling reverently on the marble floor, saying their
paternosters and counting their beads, or watching, with humble
simplicity, the movements of the priest before the altar. I observed
one of the boys employed to swing the censers of burning incense,
turn round occasionally, with a piteous yawn. The painted windows
[529]in this cathedral are very elaborate and beautiful. I had time to
‘drop in’ to several other churches during matins, where I saw much
that was curious and dazzling, and heard some fine organ-music.

There were twenty-two passengers ‘booked’ for Aix, and according
to law, they were obliged to send extras for as many as applied
before the hour. This route to Brussels and Ostend is much
travelled by the English, in preference to continuing on the Rhine
to Rotterdam.

It was a bright morning again, and the ride proved rather pleasant,
though somewhat monotonous. The country, for several miles
out of Cologne, is nearly level, and almost quite treeless: near the
city, it is laid out in one vast vegetable-garden, without any enclosure,
as is often the case on the continent. Poaching does not seem
to be dreamed of. The fortifications of Cologne, and those of Juliers,
our first stopping-place, are of the most substantial kind.
Juliers is surrounded by three distinct walls, each about twenty feet
thick, and separated by broad deep ditches, or canals. And yet in
the present refined state of the art of war, this fortress is far from
being impregnable.

We arrived at Aix at 3 P. M., and having taken a place for an evening
ride to Liege, and had my passport vised at the Hotel de Ville,
the next thing was to visit the cathedral containing the bones of the
great Charlemagne. His tomb is under the floor, in the centre of
the church, and is covered by a plain marble slab, on which is inscribed
in lofty simplicity,

‘CAROLUS MAGNO.’

After looking at the throne of the ‘grand monarque,’ and at the
immense windows of the choir, (remarkable for the lightness and
elegance of their frames,) we were conducted by a priest to a closet,
or sanctum sanctorum, to see the famous cabinet of precious relics.[12]
I send you a printed account of these veritable relics, and as to their
authenticity, it is to be hoped your bump of marvelousness is too
large to permit you to doubt. Will you not look upon me with a
‘thrilling interest,’ when I tell you that I have seen and touched
them with my bodily hands? They gravely tell you how the ‘sacred’
articles were obtained, and how they were presented to Charlemagne
by the patriarch of Jerusalem. I doubt not they really find them
precious articles of speculation, and would be grieved to hear a suspicion
of their being genuine. The linens worn by the virgin when
Christ was born, are among those too sacred for common eyes, and
are only shown in seven years, with much ‘pomp and circumstance.’

[530]

By the way, I saw also the splendid crown of Isabella of Castile
and Arragon, (the patron of Columbus,) of pure gold, covered with
diamonds. And in London I forgot to tell you of Charlemagne’s
Bible, a magnificent folio MSS., on parchment, richly illuminated, etc.
It had intrinsic and unquestioned evidence of being executed for the
emperor by Eginhard, the historian of that period. It was ‘bought
in’ at auction, for £1500, ($7,500,) but finally sold to the British
Museum. But you must be tired of relics.

Liege, September 16.—Last evening I reconnoitred the town of
Aix la Chapelle, heard two acts of the ‘Marriage of Figaro’ admirably
sung in the Grecian Opera-House, and then stepped into the
‘Schnell-Post.’ On the frontiers of Belgium, about midnight, we
were stopped at a ‘Bureau de Police,’ our luggage was all taken off
and searched, and our passports examined, during which operations
we all ‘kept our patience,’ save a poor Frenchman, who had to pay
duty on a couple of boxes of cologne, snugly stowed in his trunk.
After rewarding the worthy gentlemen for their politeness, we were
suffered to proceed.

Liege, you will recollect, beside being famous in history, was the
scene of the tragedy so vividly pictured in ‘Quentin Durward,’ the
murder of the bishop by the ‘Wild Boar of Ardennes.’ The bishop’s
palace was a short distance from the town, but no traces of it remain.
His city palace, (noted for its eccentric architecture, each of
the interior pillars being in a different style,) is now used as a market-house.
Liege is built on both sides of the river Meuse. It is
quite a manufacturing place, as well as lively and pleasant, and seems
to be regaining its former importance. The shop-windows present
a really brilliant display of merchandise, of every description. Two
of the modern streets, strange to say, are well paved, and have sidewalks
four feet wide; an unusual phenomenon on the continent. In
the course of my ramble, I dropped into three or four churches,
for the churches in these countries are open at all times; and they
have abundant attraction, at least in painting, sculpture, architecture,
and music; in short, they are museums of the fine arts.
The prevalence of superstition among the good people seems
strange in this ‘enlightened age;’ and yet on the whole, we cannot
wonder at it, if the proverb be true that ‘Ignorance is the mother of
Devotion.’ One of the printed notices of holy days, etc., in honor of
the virgin and the saints, commences on this wise: ‘Marie le Mère
de Dieu, est dignes de notre homage,’ etc.

Namur, 16.—The ride from Liege to this place (forty miles,)
along the banks of the Meuse, was delightful.[13] The scenery, if not
pittoresque, in the Frenchman’s sense, is at least beautiful. There
[531]was a very perceptible difference in the diligences on leaving the
Prussian dominions; the Belgian vehicle being large, clumsy, heavy-loaded,
and drawn by three miserable, creeping compounds of skin
and bones. On leaving Liege, we passed several close-looking, high-walled
convents and nunneries in the environs. There was little else
to notice during the journey, except the boats on the Meuse, drawn
up by horses; and the cathedral and walls of Huy, the half-way town.
In approaching Namur, the road makes a broad circuit, and enters
the gate on the Brussels side, giving the traveller an imposing view
of the fortifications on the heights overlooking the town. It was late
in the evening, when the diligence set us down near the Hotel de
Hollande, in which I am now snugly disposed of, a solitary guest.

Brussels, 17th.—I was on the top of the diligence this morning
at six, for another ride of thirty-six miles to the capital of Belgium,
over the field of Waterloo. The only village on the route worth
mentioning is Genappe. At noon we came in sight of a large
mound, in the form of a pyramid, surmounted by a figure of an animal.
It proved to be the Belgic lion-monument, commemorating the
great victory of the allies. We soon came up to, and passed over
the centre of, the battle-field, our conducteur meanwhile pointing out
the various localities which he doubtless has often had occasion to do
before: ‘Le Maison ou Napoleon logé.’ ‘Wellington et Blucher.’
A tablet over the door of the cottage explained: ‘La belle Alliance.
Recontre des Generaux Wellington et Blucher dans la bataille memorable
de Juin 18, 1815.‘ On the right of the road, ‘L’armie
Prusse;’ farther on, ‘L’armie Anglais;’ on the left, ‘L’armie Française.’
We had now come where the fight raged thickest, at present
marked only by the monuments to the more distinguished victims.
The field is smaller than I supposed. Those great armies must
have been necessarily in close contact. This is the spot, then, where,
at the expense of the lives of twenty thousand men, the mastership
not only of France but of all Europe was decided.

And here, where on that dreadful night, the groans of the wounded
and dying went up to heaven, calling aloud for retribution on their
ambitious fellow man, who sought, at whatever cost, to

here you now see only the peaceful labors of the peasant women,
planting their flax and potatoes over the graves of the slaughtered,
which scarcely have a ‘stone to tell where they lie,’ or to remind
you of the stirring scenes of the night when the gayety of the ball
at Brussels was changed to anxious terror, by the cry of ‘The foe!
they come!—they come!’

After leaving the field, we passed through the straggling village
of Waterloo, (now the abode of cicerones and speculators in old[532]
swords, muskets, and sundry other relics of the ‘grand bataille,’
most of which are doubtless manufactured for the special benefit of
credulous tourists), we entered a thick and beautiful grove, two or
three miles long, and soon came in sight of the capital, which is
nine miles from Waterloo. The general view of Brussels, on this
side, is not more imposing than that of several minor towns; and
the quarter we entered was still less favorable for a ‘first impression.’
Instead of the fortified portal, usual in insignificant villages in Germany,
the city is guarded at the ‘Porte de Namur’ by a wooden fence,
scarcely fit for a cow-pasture. In the ‘Rue Haute,’ which we first
traversed, the houses are neither high nor handsome; most of them
with gable-ends to the street, in the primitive Dutch style. But
when I arrived at the ‘Hotel de Bellevue,’ (chosen at random from
the list,) the face of things was changed. This hotel is in a large
and splendid square, next to the king’s palace, and the public buildings,
and directly opposite the park, one of the most beautiful in
Europe. The Rues Royale, de Brabant and de Zoi, which enclose
that charming promenade, are decidedly superior to Rivoli, the boast
of Paris. The royal palace and that of the ‘prince hereditary,’ are
near each other, in a corner of the square; and on the opposite side,
extending the whole length of the park, is the immense palace of
the States’ General. These buildings are all of the light cream color,
so prevalent in Paris and Frankfort. The park is adorned with
several fine pieces of sculpture, including a series of the Roman
emperors. The views from the various avenues through the trees
are magnificent. In rambling through the fairy place, I heard, from
a building in the corner,

It certainly has gathered a quantity of English visitors, for the
hotels are full of them, and they are now listening to ‘music with
its voluptuous swell,’ at the opera, where I doubt not

18th.—Just finished lionizing. Firstly, churches; St. Jacques;
Corinthian order; remarkably elegant and tasteful: Notre Dame
des Victoires, Notre Dame de Chapelle, and St. Michael; cathedrals
richly adorned with paintings and sculpture. The towers of St.
Michael are massive and conspicuous objects in the panorama of the
city; and the magnificence of the interior is really astonishing.
High mass was here also in operation in more than usual splendor,
but I need not detail the ceremonies, with which I am free to say
I was more amused than edified. In these cathedrals, as you are
aware, there are no such things as pews, or permanent seats. The
multitude are content to kneel on the cold stone floor, or if perchance
a few chairs are provided, the occupants are often interrupted in their
‘Ave Marias’ by a summons for the rent thereof. Much did some
of them seem to marvel that my heretical self touched not the holy[533]
water. ‘While I stood wrapped in the wonder of it,’ comes up a
batallion of about one hundred young ladies, all dressed alike, in
black silk frocks and straw bonnets, respectable and intelligent-looking
girls, probably belonging to some large Catholic seminary.
They were escorted by two ladies into the choir.

Close by Notre Dame, I passed a grog-shop with this sign, verbatim.

In all these churches there are little chapels around the walls, dedicated
to the different saints, with contribution-boxes at the entrance,
labelled in French and Dutch, ‘Ici on offre à St. Roch, patron contre
maladies contagieuse.’ ‘Ici on offre à St. Antoine patron contre;’
something else, I forget what. ‘Ici on offre à Notre Dame des doleurs
aux pieds de la croix;’ and so on.

The next curiosity is the Hotel de Ville, a very large and curious
old building, with a tower after the model of that of Babel. It was
in this edifice that the Emperor Charles V. signed his abdication.

The beautiful palace built for the Prince of Orange, was just completed
and furnished, when the revolution of 1830 broke out. Leopold,
it seems, is too honorable and conscientious to use it, so that it
is kept as a show-place. The interior is superb. It is a small edifice,
comparatively, but a perfect gem of its kind. Visitors are required
to put on cloth slippers, and slide, not walk, over the floors of polished
oak. In some of the rooms, the walls are of variegated marble;
others are covered with the richest satin damask. There is a
fine collection of choice paintings by Rubens, etc., in this palace.
They showed me also, in the stable, the state-carriage of the Prince of
Orange, which he had not time to save when he lost Belgium.

In the king’s palace the furniture is rather plain, and somewhat the
worse for wear. As their majesties are at present ‘absent from
home,’ I was permitted to invade the sanctity even of the private
apartments. Some of the halls are very large, particularly the ‘Salle
à Manger.’

Antwerp, 18th.—At two o’clock, or an hour and a half ago, I
was in Brussels, twenty-four miles distant. The flight was not in a
balloon, or in a ‘bateau à vapeur,’ but in the car of the ‘Le Chemin
de Fer;’ for be it known, the yankee notions are spreading so far,
that there are two rail-roads, of twenty-four and sixty miles, actually
in operation on the continent of Europe; and moreover, there are
three or four more contemplated, or commenced, viz: From Frankfort,
first to Ostend, the port of Belgium; second, to Hamburgh;
third, to Berlin; fourth, to Basle, in Switzerland; and from Vienna
to Trieste and Milan. Verily, the tour of Europe will be no such[534]
great affair, ‘when such things be.’ It will lose all its romance; and
the book-making tourist’s ‘occupation’ will be ‘gone’ for ever! It’s
lucky I came before a ‘consummation so devoutly to be wished.’

The low countries are, of course, well adapted for rail-roads and
canals. There is scarcely an elevation of six feet on the whole course
from Brussels to Anvers.[14] This rail-road is under excellent regulations.
The train consisted of fifteen cars, part of which were open;
and the fare was only about twenty-five cents. You may breakfast
in Brussels, go to Antwerp to church, and return to Brussels before
dinner, with the greatest ease. I had seen the opening ceremonies
of a Catholic holy-day, at the church of St. Michael, in the capital,
and now I have been to see them finished in the cathedral of Antwerp.
I went into this grand temple just at sunset, when they were performing
Te Deum on the immense organ, accompanied by a large
vocal choir; and nearly thirty persons in gorgeous robes were officiating
around the altar. This is one of the largest churches in the
world. The spire is far-famed for its immense height and graceful
design. Among the gems of art to be seen in the interior, is the
celebrated chêf d’œuvre of Rubens, the Descent from the Cross.

I walked out this evening to the citadelle which sustained, under
Gen. Chasse, the terrible siege of the French, in
1832.[15] It is a mile
in circumference, and is enclosed by five bastions. The walls and
the houses in the vicinity yet bear sad traces of the bombardment.
During the siege, which lasted a month, including ten days of incessant
cannonading, sixty-three thousand cannon balls were fired by
the French into the citadel, and often no less than a dozen bombs
were seen in the air at once. The interior of the fortress, and several
warehouses near by, were reduced to a heap of ruins, before the
resolute Dutch general surrendered. Such an affair is more in keeping
with the days of Louis XIV., than with our own.

The diplomatists have not yet settled matters amicably between
Holland and Belgium. King William and several of the despotic
powers refuse to recognise Belgium’s independence, and there is
little or no intercourse between the two countries. Travellers are
not permitted to enter Holland from this side, without special permission
from his Dutch majesty, for a Belgian passport is good for
nothing. Leopold, le premier, may thank his stars if he continues
secure on the throne he acquired so easily; for there is apparently
much discontent among the people, especially the trading classes,
who feel the loss of the market for their goods at the Dutch sea-ports.
The Antwerpers, at least, are decidedly inclined towards Holland.

[535]

Antwerp, which in the sixteenth century was one of the most important
commercial places in the world, has long been on the decline.
It once contained more than two hundred thousand inhabitants—now,
scarcely sixty thousand; and it is said there are no less than eight
hundred houses at present tenantless. Its docks, once crowded with
vessels, laden with the wealth of the Indies, are now almost deserted;
and the streets are strangely quiet, for a place even of its present
size.

The chief curiosities are the churches, for which Antwerp is renowned.
But I have already inflicted enough of this topic upon
you, and the Antwerp churches are much like those I have written
about, save that they are yet more rich and profuse in their decorations.
Those of St. Jacques, St. Paul, and the Jesuits, are the principal.
Superb altars, and pillars of the finest marble, statues and
paintings, in every variety, are to be seen in them. In St. Jacques, I
stood on the tomb of Rubens, who was a native of Antwerp, and of
a patrician family. Over his monument is a fine picture, by himself,
of his wife and children. In the church-yard of St. Paul’s is a fearfully
vivid representation of Mount Calvary, the crucifixion and entombment
of Christ, and of purgatory! While gazing at the lofty
tower of the Cathedral, I was accosted by a cicerone: ‘Voulez vous
mounter?’ ‘Combien demandez vous?’ ‘Deux francs.’ ‘Trop beaucoup?’
‘Oui, Monsieur; mais tres belle vue; magnifique; vous pouver voir
Bruxelles.’ ‘Eh bien, je veux mounter.’ This is the way they get
one’s francs away; for, as the book says, the Belgian lions must be
fed as well as others. The view is certainly very extensive, though
Brussels, I must say, was rather indistinct. But the Tower of Malines,
or Mechlin, (that famous place for lace,) was very conspicuous,
though twelve miles off. The prospects over such a country as Belgium
are more extensive than varied. Antwerp is situated near the
mouth of the Scheld, and the windings of the river may be seen for
several miles toward Ghent and the sea-board. The tops of the
houses in the city are mostly covered with red tiles.

In the tower, I saw a chime of no less than forty-six bells, and was
shown the operation of winding the clock, with a weight of one thousand
pounds attached. The large bell, meanwhile, struck eleven,
and all the rest followed like dutiful children. Somewhat of a sound
they made, sure enough! Chimes originated in this country, and all
the churches have them, playing at concert every half hour. This
tower is ascended by six hundred and twenty-six steps. I went to
the very top, thinking of some one’s exclamation at the cathedral of
Cologne, ‘What will not man achieve!’

From thence, made a call at Ruben’s house, which still remains,
and then looked in at the Museum, where are three hundred
‘tableaux,’ comprising eighteen pictures by Rubens, and six by
Van Dyck. In the garden adjoining, is a bronze statue of Mary of
Burgundy, on her tomb.

Ghent, (or Gand,) Sept 19.—His majesty of Holland not seeing
fit to admit me into his dominions, from his late rebellious territory
of Belgium, the alternative was to cross over Flanders, by Ghent[536]
and Bruges, to Ostend, and there embark, instead of at Rotterdam,
for London. A ferry-boat took passengers over the Scheld to the
‘Tête de Flandre,’ where the diligence was in waiting. We ‘niggled’
over a flat, fertile country, at the five-mile pace, seeing nothing
very strange until nine P. M., when we passed through a long village
of one-story houses, rattled over an excellent stone-bridge, and found
ourselves in the worthy old town of Ghent, or rather Gand; but if
the people are ganders, they have shown some wisdom, nevertheless,
in making so many nice, large, open squares, in their respectable
city.

Ostend, 20th.—This morning was to be my last on the continent.
I rose at six from my last coucher, in the fifth story, took my last
breakfast in the salle à manger, made my last visit to cathedrals,
paid my bill at the Hotel de Vienne, and took my diligence seat for
the last time. The last trunk was placed on the top, the last passenger
took his place, the three lazy horses were affixed, the postillion
mounted, the diligence rumbled forward, crossed two or three spacious
squares, and as many bridges, (for the river or canals pass in several
places through the town,) entered the great archway under the ramparts,
and proceeded with slow and stately step toward Bruges.
The whole of the road is broad, well paved, lined with rows of
elms and poplars, and for several miles keeps along the banks of the
broad canal connecting Ghent with Bruges; and so level is the soil,
that the towers of Ghent were in full view for six miles.

Bruges, or Brugge, is a beautiful town, replete with reminiscences
of the Counts of Flanders; yet it is far from being what it once was,
in wealth and importance. Like Antwerp, there is an unnatural
stillness in the streets; you would almost think an epidemic had
depopulated them. And yet there are many handsome private dwellings,
and many wealthy people in Bruges. It has also a considerable
number of English residents.

Ostend is dull enough. The harbor is bad, not admitting large
vessels, except at high tide; otherwise, this place would improve
rapidly; for, save Antwerp and Dunkirk, it is the only sea-port of
Belgium. When the rail-road to Brussels is finished, Ostend will
begin to look up. The Belgians have always been a manufacturing
rather than a commercial people; but now they are cut off from exporting
their goods from the ports of Holland, they must necessarily
build up a commerce of their own. They are now engaged in improving
the harbor, etc., of Ostend.

As an evidence of the discontent caused by the depression of trade
since the revolution, it is said Leopold was grossly insulted by the
people of Ghent, about a year since. He was on a visit there, and
was going to the theatre; but the Ganders hired all the best boxes,
and locked them up! The Ostenders, however, are more loyal. The
king and queen were greeted at the theatre here, a few evenings
since, with a poetical address. The queen is here now; but her
consort has gone to England to negotiate, as the papers say, for the
Princess Victoria, in behalf of his nephew. Whether he or his beloved
cousin of Orange will succeed, yet remains a problem.

[537]

Well—Bologne was the Alpha, and now, after travelling two thousand
miles, the Omega of my continental tour. To imitate the lofty
style of Chateaubriand’s preface to his memoirs: I have been solitary
in crowded cities, and in the recesses of the Highlands of Scotland,
and the Alps of Switzerland; I have promenaded the Regent-street
of London, and the Boulevards of Paris; the parks of Brussels,
the Canongate of Edinburgh, the ramparts of Stirling and Geneva;
sailed on Loch Katrine and Lake Leman, on Loch Lomond and
‘fair Zurich’s waters;’ slept on the Great St. Bernard, and by the side
of Lock Achray. I have gazed on magnificent panoramas of cities,
mountains, lakes, valleys, from the summits of the Trosachs and the
Rhigi, from St. Paul’s and Notre Dame, from the towers of Antwerp,
and Edinburgh, of Stirling and Windsor. I have sailed on the Tay
and the Rhine, the Clyde, the Thames, the Rhone, the Seine; scaled
rocky heights on the Swiss mule and the Highland pony; climbed to
the sources of glaciers, water-falls, and the Frozen Sea. I have been
in the princely halls of Windsor and Versailles, of Warwick, Scone,
and Holyrood; the Louvre, Tuilleries, and Luxembourg; rambled
amidst the ruins of Melrose and Kenilworth; of Dryburgh and the
Drachenfels. I have heard the ‘loud anthem’ in the splendid temples
of York and Antwerp, Westminster and Notre Dame, St. Paul’s
and Cologne. I have stood over the ashes of Shakspeare and of
Scott; of the poets and heroes of England and France. I have gazed
on the Works of Raphael and Angelo, of Reynolds and Rubens, of
Flaxman and Canova. My hand has been in Rob Roy’s purse, and
on the skull of Charlemagne; on Bonaparte’s pistols, and Hofer’s
blunderbuss; on the needle-work of the Queen of Scots, and the
school compositions of the great Elizabeth; on the crown of the
Spanish Isabella, and the spear of Guy, Earl of Warwick! I have
traversed the battle fields of Bannockburn and of Morat, of Leipsic
and of Waterloo. I have seen men and women of all grades, from
the monarch to the chimney-sweep; kings, queens, princes, heirs
apparent, nobles and duchesses; and I have seen Daniel O’Connell!
I have been preached to by the plain presbyters of Scotland, and the
portly bishops of England; and heard mass in the convent in sight of
Italy, and in the gorgeous cathedrals of Belgium. I have seen wretchedness
and magnificence in the widest extremes. I have been dazzled
by the splendors of royalty, and have shuddered at the misery
of royalty’s subjects. In short, (for I am giving you a pretty specimen
of egotism,) I have seen much, very much, to admire; much
that we of the ‘New World’ might imitate with advantage, and more
still to make me better satisfied than ever that we are, on the whole,
or ought to be, the happiest people in the world. Let us but pay a
little more attention to our manners, (for they certainly may be much
improved,) and let us check the spirit of lawless and fanatical agrarianism,
which has shown itself to be already dangerous to our liberties
and prosperity, and we may with conscious pride take our station
first among the nations of the earth. Yes, my dear ——, I now feel
more than ever, that

[538]

LITERARY NOTICES.

Ernest Maltravers. By the author of ‘Pelham,’ ‘Eugene Aram,’ ‘Rienzi,’ etc. In
two volumes, 12mo. pp. 411. New-York: Harper and Brothers.

This novel is but half finished. At the conclusion of the second volume, Mr. Bulwer
remarks: ‘Here ends the first portion of this work; it ends with what, though
rare in novels, is common in human life; the affliction of the good, the triumph of the
unprincipled. Ernest Maltravers, a lonely wanderer, disgusted with the world,
blighted prematurely in a useful and glorious ambition; ‘remote, unfriendly, melancholy;’
Lumley Ferrers, prosperous and elated; life smiling before him; rising in
the councils of the proudest and perhaps the wisest of the European nations, and
wrapped in a hardy stoicism of levity and selfishness, that not only defied grief, but
silenced conscience. If the reader be interested in what remains—if he desire to
know more of the various characters which have breathed and moved throughout
this history—he soon will be enabled to gratify his curiosity, and complete what the
author believes to be a faithful survey of the Philosophy of Human Life.’

Such is the author’s apology for one of the most dangerous and seductive books
which it has ever been our fortune to read. Let us examine its plan. Alice Darvil,
a beautiful child of nature, wholly uneducated and perfectly innocent, saves the life
of Ernest Maltravers, an English graduate of a German university, who had sought
shelter at her father’s cottage. The murderous and revengeful barbarity of the father
compels the daughter to desert him, and she is immediately thrown in the way of the
student. Impelled by gratitude and pity, Maltravers shelters the destitute beauty,
takes her to a country-seat, which he purchases on purpose, teaches her music, elevates
her benighted and earthward mind to heaven, falls in love with, and seduces
her! The father of Alice goes on from crime to crime, till his burglaries extend to
the cottage of Maltravers’ mistress, and his own child, who, in the temporary absence
of her lover, is carried away beyond his protection. Maltravers returns, misses his
Alice, grows melancholy, visits Paris in company with an impertinent and selfish
acquaintance, Lumley Ferrers, falls in love with another man’s wife, is rejected by
her, quits Paris in disgust, goes to Italy, forms an affectionate, platonic attachment for
another married lady, and then returns to London. In the meanwhile, Alice flies
from her father a second time, with Maltravers’ child at her breast. She seeks the
cottage-scene of her early and unsophisticated enjoyments, finds it occupied by other
tenants, and is finally thrown on the fostering protection of a saint-like banker, who
makes her Mrs. Templeton.

While the foregoing events are taking place, Maltravers falls in love again, and
as he is on his knees, kissing the hand of his mistress, Alice, who happens to be in
the next room, enters, is heart broken, goes away and gets married, as aforesaid.
Among other important characters now introduced, is the Lady Florence Lascelles,
a great beauty, and a greater fortune, who scorns all the fascinations of rank, and
falls so in love with Maltravers, that she writes to him ardently and anonymously.
But as other beauties sometimes are, this one, though her whole soul is filled with[539]
Maltravers, is also a coquette, and she gains the affections of poor Cæsarini, who is on
a visit to London, in the desperate adventure of getting fame for poetry. Maltravers is
flattered into a pseudo attachment for Lady Florence, which ripens into love. This
excites the madness of Cæsarini, and the hatred of Lumley Ferrers, who, as cousin of
the lady, had been led to believe that his own pretensions might be advanced in that
quarter. Lumley now copies Iago, and makes use of Cæsarini as his Cassio, who
becomes instrumental in effecting a break in the love-chain of Maltravers and Lady
Florence. The latter sickens, and dies of a broken heart. Alice is made a widow, after
having been made a lady, and Lumley Ferrers inherits her husband’s title. The daughter
of Maltravers and Alice is betrothed to his worst enemy, while the Cassio of the
drama goes mad. Such is the state of things at the conclusion of the second volume,
which suggests the explanation by the author, already quoted.

In reviewing this novel, we are struck with the consummate power of the writer.
To an imagination raised to the very focal-point of burning, Mr. Bulwer unites the most
penetrating intuition of those psychological relations, which are comprehended by master-spirits
alone. The conceptions of his mind are invested by a transparent robe of
spirituality, through which they are mellowed and disguised, like the beautiful time-stricken
edifices in the gold-dust atmosphere of Italy. A manifestation of this power
is one of the strongest characteristics of genius; but it serves to veil deformities and
disarm criticism. We are spell-bound while gazing on his creations. We are so fascinated
by the enchantment, that we cannot be fastidious if we would. The true and the
false are mysteriously blended together; and, as in every distortion of the natural, we
are led, by a sort of metaphysical mirage, to be captivated more by misrepresentation
than by truth. Ernest Maltravers is certainly a brilliant production. No other than
Mr. Bulwer could have written it. It is full of passionate beauty; it is glowing with
ardent aspirations for the beau ideal. It contains many just reflections on human conduct,
and many valuable hints on education. We are willing to concede all this, and
more. But its faults are too glaring to be passed over, for they are the premeditated
faults of a skilful designer, who with an insincere spirit, would have the reader imagine
them to be out-shadowings of his own nature, the very portraiture of his humanity.

We are not disposed to be hypercritical with Mr. Bulwer’s writings; but we can no
longer concede that which we have heretofore claimed for him, a purpose to hold up to
the world the rewards of virtue and the consequences of vice. On the contrary, the
tendency of his morality seems to be, that we are the victims of destiny, and that circumstances
alone determine the phases of character, and prescribe the paths of virtue and
vice. He attacks the sanctity of marriage with unholy zeal. In ‘Ernest Maltravers’
he inculcates the principle that illicit love may in certain cases be innocent, and that
where true affection is, the bond of matrimony is unavailing. His morality has sometimes
the coldness of moonlight, but seldom the radiance and the warmth of the sun;
and it is owing to the separation of the affections from the understanding, the disunion
of Love and Truth in his nature, that Mr. Bulwer delights in the hollow and unsatisfactory
fascinations of his intellect, and is led astray by his self-hood to despise the religion
of the heart. With all his genius, he is wide from the path of greatness. The deep
well of German metaphysics, at which he has drunk so largely, may invigorate the mind
and mystify the imagination; but the logical acumen which it imparts, does not direct
to usefulness, nor lead to truth; and the discursive powers which range through its
suggested labyrinths, come back at last to the goal they started from, weary and disgusted
with unavailing efforts after good.

It is a truth, inseparable from the relative condition of man, that he could not possibly
have had an idea of God, unless it had been revealed to him. After a revelation,
we find in nature concurrent proof of his existence; but by a law of mental action,
we transfer the truth derived from the revelation to the evidence which is around us,
and flatter ourselves that we reason à priori from this source. Mr. Bulwer has a[540]
glimpse of this great truth, and only a glimpse; for in the work under notice, he inculcates
the sophism that the idea of the Creator could not arise in an uneducated mind.
He does not perceive, that under the divine dispensations manifested in the Word, a
revelation has already taken place, which is reflected from the face of nature; and that
it is impossible for one, in this advanced state of man, not to read the record of the
divine creation—not to mention the extreme improbability, that a child of fifteen
should never have heard the name of God, when it is oftener on the lips of the uneducated
than on those of the refined, though abused and taken in vain.

Our limits will enable us to glance at only one more of the prominent faults of this
book. We refer to Mr. Bulwer’s ideas on duelling. What do our readers think of such
sophistry as this: ‘There are some cases in which human nature and its deep wrongs
will be ever stronger than the world and its philosophy. Duels and wars belong to the
same principle; both are sinful on light grounds and poor pretexts. But it is not sinful
for a soldier to defend his country from invasion, nor for a man, with a man’s heart, to
vindicate truth and honor with his life. The robber that asks me for money, I am
allowed to shoot. Is the robber that tears from me treasures never to be replaced, to
go free?’ Again: ‘As in revolutions all law is suspended, so are there stormy events
and mighty injuries in life, which are as revolutions to individuals.’ It follows, of course,
that a revolution may take place ‘in the little kingdom man,’ whenever his majesty
sees fit. It is unnecessary to show up the monstrosity of such politics, and of that
morality which, guided alone by worldly philosophy, makes it sometimes sinful, and
sometimes not, to take the life of a fellow being. There are men enough in the world
who will fight as they judge expedient; but Mr. Bulwer is the only one who has had
the hardihood to defend the practice, as sometimes under the sanction of omnipotence.

We had some remarks to make on the sudden transitions of character, as delineated
by our author, which strike us as exceedingly unnatural. But we have already transcended
our space, and only record an impression here, which must be apparent to every
reader. On the appearance of the sequel to Ernest Maltravers, we may examine this
fault at leisure.

Memoirs of Aaron Burr. With Miscellaneous Selections from his Correspondence.
By Matthew L. Davis. In two volumes. Volume Two. pp. 449. New-York:
Harper and Brothers.

This volume will prove even more generally interesting than its attractive predecessor,
heretofore noticed in this Magazine. The early pages are devoted to an account of
Col. Burr’s habits and character, as a man and a lawyer; a history of the rise of political
parties in this state, with copious extracts from various letters written during the
war of the revolution; an account of the Clinton and Schuyler parties; Burr’s political
position on being elected Vice-President, and his course in that office; and a report of
false entries made by Jefferson in his ‘Ana,’ of conversations said to have been held
with Burr. Farther than this, we have not found leisure to read attentively; but on
glancing hurriedly over the remaining pages, we perceive that they are devoted to a
detail of the most prominent and interesting events in the life of the notorious subject,
interspersed with letters from various eminent Americans, and including a correspondence
with his daughter Theodosia, a full account of the premeditated and disgraceful
duel with General Hamilton, his departure for England, the ‘incidents of travel’ in
Great Britain, France, Germany, and Sweden, and his return to New-York, in 1811.
We shall take another occasion to refer more in detail to the work, and in the mean
time commend it to the attention of our readers, with the single remark, that we see
nothing in its pages to change our opinion that the murderer of Alexander Hamilton
can only pass without censure while he passes without observation; and that the less
his friends or apologists meddle with his memory, the kinder they will be to his reputation.

[541]

An Address delivered before the Members of the American Institute. By the
Rev. Orville Dewey. Published at the request of the Institute.

It was our good fortune to form one of the dense auditory before whom this excellent
Address was delivered; and although we are unable to convey to the reader an adequate
idea of the effect its verbal publication produced, we may nevertheless afford a ‘taste of
its quality,’ by a few choice extracts. We were pleased, at the very opening, to perceive
that the Address was not to embrace political questions, connected with the arts of industry,
nor to be a compendium of minute statistics, relating to the Institute, and
manufactures in general—a course so common on such occasions. ‘Figures cannot
lie,’ perhaps, but they can do things quite as disagreeable. Mere statistics are dismal
bores to great masses, oftentimes, in the hands of matter-of-fact, hum-drum speakers,
oppressively full of information; reminding the hearer of Swift’s elixir, ‘which being
drank, presently dilates itself about the brain of the orator, whence instantly proceed
an infinite number of abstracts, summaries, compendiums,’ etc., all reducible upon paper,
and fruitful of the most potent oscitant qualities. How many new members of Congress,
who felt it their duty to attend to the public weal, in gratitude to their constituents,
have been wakened by the watchful sergeant-at-arms, after the house had adjourned,
from a deep sleep which had fallen upon them, as they ‘by parcels something heard, but
not attentively,’ of ‘figure-works and statistics,’ from some arithmetical debater! ‘In
1834, Sir, before the passage of the law creating the ‘North American Window-Glass
and Putty Company,’ owing to the high price of putty in the United States, there were
in ten counties in the state of Mississippi, nine hundred and sixty-two windows and a
half, utterly destitute of glass; and it is worth stating, as a remarkable fact, that of the
three hundred and twenty-seven panes which were fastened with a cheap adhesive substitute,
the large number of two hundred and eighty-three were utterly useless. That
putty—I say that putty, Mr. Speaker—would not stick!’ And thus proceeds the bore
statistical,[16]
in a speech ‘thin sown with profit or delight.’ But we are keeping the
reader from ‘metal more attractive.’

After a felicitous exordium, descriptive of the scene which the Fair presented to the eye
of the spectator, the writer proceeds to consider the connection between the arts of industry,
and especially the mechanic arts, and the intellectual and moral improvement of
[542]society. He shows that the mechanic, laboring at his work-bench, is toiling for the general
improvement; that the man who designs and erects a noble structure, speaks to
passing multitudes, who may never read a book, and helps to refine and humanize
the ages that come after him; that ‘even he who makes a musical instrument, is laying
up, in those hidden chambers of melody, the sweet influences that shall amuse, and
soften, and refine many a domestic circle through life; and he, yet more, who can place
upon our walls the canvass glowing with life, becomes the household teacher of successive
generations.’ The orator next repudiates the idea, that labor-saving machinery
has ever been the cause of permanently injuring the working-classes; and this position
he clearly establishes, by a variety of well-chosen illustrations. A few remarks succeed,
in relation to improvements in matters of comfort and economy, of which advantage
might be taken by American house-keepers. The French bed, consisting of two thin
matresses of wool, upon a foot deep of hay or straw, is pronounced to be four times as
cheap as ours, and twice as comfortable. One half of the fuel, too, which is burnt in
this country, the writer avers, is literally thrown away, the heat passing into the dead
wall of the chimney. This is doubtless true. The excellent stoves of Dr. Nott, however,
now so generally demanded in all parts of the country, from his capable successors,
Messrs. Stratton and Seymour, of this city, have done much toward awakening
attention to the great economy of heat and fuel, which they exemplify and inculcate.

Labor, the writer justly contends, exercises and tasks the intellect; and he repels,
with proper earnestness and force, the too common error, that the mind never labors,
save over the written page or the abstract proposition. ‘The merchant, the manufacturer,
the mechanic, is often a harder thinker than the student. The machinist and
the engineer are employed in some of the finest schools of intellect.’ The tasks for
which no such consideration can be pleaded, such as the dull, heavy labors of the hod,
the writer humanely hopes some method may yet be found to relieve.

Could any thing be more admirably reasoned, or more beautifully set forth, than the
arguments in favor of the true nobility of labor, contained in the annexed paragraphs:

“How many natural ties are there between even the humblest scene of labor, and the noblest
affections of humanity! In this view, the employment of mere muscular strength is ennobled.
There is a central point in every man’s life, around which all his toils and cares revolve. It is that
spot which is consecrated by the names of wife, and children, and home. A secret and almost imperceptible
influence from that spot, which is like no other on earth, steals into the breast of the
virtuous laboring man, and strengthens every weary step of his toil. Every blow that is struck in
the work-shop and the field, finds an echo in that holy shrine of his affections. If he who fights to
protect his home, rises to the point of heroic virtue, no less may he who labors, his life long, to
provide for that home. Peace be within those domestic walls, and prosperity beneath those humble
roofs! But should it ever be otherwise; should the time ever come when the invader’s step approaches
to touch those sacred thresholds, I see in the labors that are taken for them, that wounds
will be taken for them too; I see in every honest workman around me, a hero.

“So material do I deem this point—the true nobility of labor, I mean—that I would dwell upon
it a moment longer, and in a larger view. Why, then, in the great scale of things, is labor ordained
for us? Easily, had it so pleased the great Ordainer, might it have been dispensed with. The world
itself might have been a mighty machinery for the production of all that man wants. The motion
of the globe upon its axis might have been the power, to move that world of machinery. Ten
thousand wheels within wheels might have been at work; ten thousand processes, more curious and
complicated than man can devise, might have been going forward without man’s aid; houses might
have risen like an exhalation,

——’with the sound

Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet,

Built like a temple;’

gorgeous furniture might have been placed in them, and soft couches and luxurious banquets spread,
by hands unseen; and man, clothed with fabrics of nature’s weaving, richer than imperial purple,
might have been sent to disport himself in these Elysian palaces. ‘Fair scene!’ I imagine you are
saying; ‘fortunate for us, had it been the scene ordained for human life!’ But where then, tell me,
had been human energy, perseverance, patience, virtue, heroism? Cut off with one blow from the
world; and mankind had sunk to a crowd, nay, far beneath a crowd of Asiatic voluptuaries. No,
it had not been fortunate. Better that the earth be given to man as a dark mass whereon to labor.
Better that rude and unsightly materials be provided in the ore-bed and the forest, for him to fashion
into splendor and beauty. Better, I say, not because of that splendor and beauty, but because the
act creating them is better than the things themselves; because exertion is nobler than enjoyment;
because the laborer is greater and more worthy of honor than the idler. I call upon those whom I
address, to stand up for that nobility of labor. It is heaven’s great ordinance for human improvement.
Let not that great ordinance be broken down. What do I say? It is broken down; and[543]
it has been broken down for ages. Let it then be built up again; here if any where, on these shores
of a new world, of a new civilization. ‘But how,’ I may be asked, ‘is it broken down?’ ‘Do not
men toil?’ it may be said. They do indeed toil, but they too generally do it because they must.
Many submit to it as, in some sort, a degrading necessity, and they desire nothing so much on earth,
as escape from it.” * * * “This way of thinking is the heritage of the absurd and unjust
feudal system; under which serfs labored, and gentlemen spent their lives in fighting and feasting
It is time that this opprobrium of toil were done away. Ashamed to toil, art thou? Ashamed of
thy dingy work-shop and dusty labor-field; of thy hard hand, scarred with service more honorable
than that of war; of thy soiled and weather-stained garments, on which mother Nature has embroidered,
midst sun and rain, midst fire and steam, her own heraldic honors? Ashamed of these
tokens and titles, and envious of the flaunting robes of imbecile idleness and vanity? It is treason
to nature; it is impiety to heaven; it is breaking heaven’s great ordinance. Toil, I repeat—Toil,
either of the brain, of the heart, or of the hand, is the only true manhood, the only true nobility!”

The orator next passes to the policy and necessity of extending a fostering care to the
domestic industry of families, on their own property, and laments the want of employment,
oftentimes, for the female members, who are in this country generally unwilling
to seek it beyond the paternal roof. Manufactures, as of woollen cloths, stockings, etc.
the culture of the mulberry, and the making of silk, are recommended as purely
domestic occupations. The suggestions in regard to the disposition of our ample supply
of water, when the Croton shall roll its refreshing stores into the metropolis, are conceived
in a far-seeing and liberal spirit, and deserve earnest heed. We need not ask the
reader to admire with us the subjoined extract, illustrating the advantages and comforts
which have followed in the train of mechanical improvements:

“Our steam-boats and rail-roads are tending constantly to make us a more homogeneous, sympathizing,
and humane people. A visit to one’s distant friends, every body knows, is a very pleasant
thing; but are its uses in the great family of society often considered? Intercourse, in such
circumstances, is usually an interchange of all the thoughts, views, and improvements that prevail in
different parts of the country. ‘Their talk is of oxen,’ if you please, or it is of soils and grains, or
it is of manufactures and trade, or it is of books and philosophers; but it is all good—good for somebody
at least—good in the main for every body. Thus, our steam-boats are like floating saloons,
and our rail-roads like the air-pipes of a mighty whispering gallery; and men are conversing with
one another, and communicating and blending their daily thoughts, throughout the whole length
and breadth of the land. These means of communication are thus constantly interchanging, not
only different views, but the advantages of different kinds of residence. They are imparting rural
tastes to the citizen, and city polish to the countryman. I cannot help thinking, that in time, they
will produce a decided effect upon city residence; relieving us, somewhat, of our crowded and overgrown
population; sending out many from these pent-up abodes in town, to the green and pleasant
dwelling places of the country.

“The progress of communication during the last twenty years, leaves us almost nothing to wish,
and yet entitles us to expect every thing. Many of you remember what a passage up the Hudson
was, thirty years ago. You remember the uncertain packet, lingering for a wind at the wharf, till
patience was almost exhausted; and then, at length, pursuing its zigzag course, now waving in the
breeze, now halting in the calm, like a crazy traveller, doubtful of his way, or whether to proceed
at all. And now, when you set your foot on the deck of one of our newly invented fire-ships, you
feel as if the pawings of some reined courser were beneath you, impatient to start from the goal;
anon, it seems to you as if the strength and stride of a giant were bearing you onward; till at
length, when the evening shadow falls, and hides its rougher features from your sight, you might
imagine it the queenly genius of the noble river, as it moves on between the silent shores, and flings
its spangled robe upon the waters.”

Scarcely less beautiful, are the following reflections upon the moral tendencies of the
mechanic arts, in leading the mind to the infinite wisdom of Nature and of the Author
of Nature:

“If an intelligent manufacturer or mechanic would carefully note down in a book all the instances
of adaptation that presented themselves to his attention, he would in time have a large volume; and
it would be a volume of philosophy—a volume of indisputable facts in defence of a Providence.
I could not help remarking lately, when I saw a furnace upon the stream of the valley, and the
cartman bringing down ore from the mountains, how inconvenient it would have been if this order
of nature had been reversed; if the ore-bed had been in the valley, and the stream had been so
constituted as to rise, and to make its channel upon the tops of the ridges. Nay, more; treasures
are slowly prepared and carefully laid up in the great store-houses of nature, against the time when
man shall want them. When the wood is cut off from the plains and the hills, and fuel begins to
fail, and man looks about him with alarm at the prospect, lo! beneath his feet are found, in mines
of bitumen and mountains of anthracite, the long hid treasures of Providence—the treasure-houses
of that care and kindness, which at every new step of human improvement, instead of appearing
to be superseded, seems doubly entitled to the name of Providence.” * * * “All nature
is not only a world of mechanism, but it is the work of infinite art; and the mechanic-inventor and
toiler is but a student, an apprentice in that school. And when he has done all, what can he do to
equal the skill of the great original he copies; to equal the wisdom of Him who ‘has stretched out
the heavens like a curtain, who has laid the beams of his chambers in the waters!’ What engines
can he form, like those which raise up through the dark labyrinths of the mountains, the streams[544]
that gush forth in fountains from their summits? What pillars, and what architecture can he lift
up on high, like the mighty forest trunks, and their architrave and frieze of glorious foliage?
What dyes can he invent, like those which spread their ever-changing and many-colored robe over
the earth? What pictures can he cause to glow, like those which are painted on the dome of
heaven?

“It is the glory of art, that it penetrates and develops the wonders and bounties of nature. It
draws their richness from the valleys, and their secret stores from the mountains. It leads forth
every year fairer flocks and herds upon the hills; it yokes the ox to the plough, and trains the fiery
steed to its car. It plants the unsightly germ, and rears it into vegetable beauty; it takes the dull
ore and transfuses it into splendour, or gives it the edge of the tool or the lancet; it gathers the filaments
which nature has curiously made, and weaves them into soft and compact fabrics. It sends
out its ships to discover unknown seas and shores; or it plunges into its work-shops at home, to
detect the secret, that is locked up in mineral, or is flowing in liquid matter. It scans the
spheres and systems of heaven with its far sight; or turns with microscopic eye, and finds in the
drops that sparkle in the sun, other worlds crowded with life. Yet more is mechanic art the handmaid
of society. It has made man its special favourite. It clothes him with fine linen and soft raiment.
It builds him houses, it kindles the cheerful fire, it lights the evening lamp, it spreads before
him the manifold page of wisdom; it delights his eye with gracefulness, it charms his ear with
music; it multiplies the facilities of communication and ties of brotherhood; it is the softener of
all domestic charities—it is the bond of nations.”

The Address is neatly executed, and will appear, as we learn, in the ‘Journal of the
American Institute.’ It cannot fail to command a wide perusal and general admiration.

Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart. By J. G. Lockhart. Part Fifth.
Philadelphia: Carey, Lea and Blanchard.

Each succeeding volume of this work impresses us more thoroughly with the belief,
that it is one of the most delightful biographies which the present century has produced.
This may seem extravagant praise, to those who have not read the several ‘Parts,’ as
they have appeared; yet it will be deemed but simply just, by all who have been so fortunate
as to share with us in the pleasure of their perusal. The work has been a God-send
in these ‘juice-drained’ literary times; and in the way of bright and eminent example,
is now working its gentle triumphs upon the hearts of thousands in this country.
We are more and more struck, as we read, with the great goodness, as well as intellectual
greatness, of the illustrious subject; with the simplicity, truth, and sincerity ever
in alto-relievo in his character; the beauty of his daily life, adorned with integrity and
honor; a course, public, literary, and domestic, replete with the noblest traits, born of
good and generous impulses, ingrained and innate. The leading chapter in the ‘Part’
before us, describes Scott’s hospitality and urbanity, as host at Abbottsford. When
at the acmé of his fame, honored by kings and admired by the world, he would cheerfully
devote his precious hours to intruding lion-hunters, and submit with patience and
politeness to be over-poeted with small browsers on Parnassus, bored with the solemn
applauses of learned dullness, the self-exalting harangues of the ‘hugely literate,’ the
pompous simpers of condescending magnates, the vapid raptures of bepainted and periwigged
dowagers, and questions urged with ‘horse-leech avidity by under-bred foreigners.’
Byron says of himself that ‘none did love him.’ How different from his
great contemporary! Those who knew Scott, loved him not less than they admired
his genius. Without pretence or self-esteem at home, he was equally so abroad.
‘I am heartily tired,’ he writes to his son from London, where literary menageries for
the reception of ‘lions’ were constantly opened wide to him, ‘I am heartily tired of fine
company, and fine living, from dukes and duchesses, down to turbot and plover’s eggs.
It is very well for a while; but to be kept at it, makes one feel like a poodle-dog compelled
to stand for ever on his hind-legs.’ The spirit herein breathed, he preserved
throughout his life, which was spent in delighting the literary world, and in the exercise
of those qualities of the heart which ‘assimilate men to angels, and make of earth a
heaven.’

In reading the volume under notice, we experienced an ‘excess of participation’ in the
richness of its stores. Hence it is full of dog’s-ears, and pencilled passages, which we[545]
find it impossible to extract, and yet can scarcely consent to omit. For the present,
however, we yield to necessity, promising our readers and ourselves the pleasure of an
early renewal of this notice, after the volumes shall have been completed. We make
a single extract, representing Scott as escaping from Abbotsford, upon which an avalanche
of bores had descended, and taking refuge in the summer-cottage of his son-in-law,
a mile or two distant. The touching allusion of the biographer to his recent loss,
will not escape the notice of the reader:

“The clatter of Sybil Grey’s hoofs, the yelping of Mustard and Spice, and his own joyous shout
of reveillée under our windows, were the signal that he had burst his toils, and meant for that day to
‘take his ease in his inn.’ On descending, he was to be found seated with all his dogs and ours about
him, under a spreading ash that overshadowed half the bank between the cottage and the brook,
pointing the edge of his woodman’s axe for himself, and listening to Tom Purdie’s lecture touching
the plantation that most needed thinning. After breakfast, he would take possession of a dressing-room
up stairs, and write a chapter of The Pirate; and then, having made up and despatched his
packet for Mr. Ballantyne, away to join Purdie wherever the foresters were at work—and sometimes
to labor among them as strenuously as John Swanston himself—until it was time either to
rejoin his own party at Abbotsford or the quiet circle of the cottage. When his guests were few
and friendly, he often made them come over and meet him at Chiefswood in a body toward evening;
and surely he never appeared to more amiable advantage than when helping his young people
with their little arrangements upon such occasions. He was ready with all sorts of devices to supply
the wants of a narrow establishment; he used to delight particularly in sinking the wine in a
well under the brae ere he went out, and hauling up the basket just before dinner was announced;
this primitive process being, he said, what he had always practised when a young house-keeper, and
in his opinion far superior in its results to any application of ice; and in the same spirit, whenever
the weather was sufficiently genial, he voted for dining out of doors altogether, which at once got
rid of the inconvenience of very small rooms, and made it natural and easy for the gentlemen to
help the ladies, so that the paucity of servants went for nothing. Mr. Rose used to amuse himself
with likening the scene and the party to the closing act of one of those little French dramas, where
‘Monsieur le Compte,’ and ‘Madame la Comtesse,’ appear feasting at a village bridal under the
trees; but in truth, our ‘M. le Comte’ was only trying to live over again for a few simple hours his
own old life of Lasswade.

“When circumstances permitted, he usually spent one evening at least in the week at our little
cottage; and almost as frequently he did the like with the Fergusons, to whose table he could bring
chance visitors, when he pleased, with equal freedom as to his daughter’s. Indeed it seemed to be
much a matter of chance, any fine day when there had been no alarming invasion of the Southron,
whether the three families (which, in fact, made but one) should dine at Abbotsford, at Huntly
Burn, or at Chiefswood; and at none of them was the party considered quite complete, unless it
included also Mr. Laidlaw. Death has laid a heavy hand upon that circle—as happy a circle I
believe as ever met. Bright eyes now closed in dust, gay voices for ever silenced, seem to haunt me
as I write. With three exceptions, they are all gone. Even since the last of these volumes was
finished, she whom I may now sadly record as, next to Sir Walter himself, the chief ornament and
delight of all those simple meetings—she to whose love I owed my own place in them—Scott’s
eldest daughter, the one of all his children who in countenance, mind, and manners, most resembled
himself, and who indeed was as like him in all things as a gentle innocent woman can ever be
to a great man deeply tried and skilled in the struggles and perplexities of active life—she, too, is
no more. And in the very hour that saw her laid in her grave, the only other female survivor, her
dearest friend Margaret Ferguson, breathed her last also. But enough—and more than I
intended.”

A spirited portrait by Raeburn, pronounced the most faithful of the early likenesses
taken of Scott, prefaces the present volume, which presents its usual excellence of
paper and typography.

Rory O’More. A National Romance. By Samuel Lover, Esq. In two volumes,
12mo. pp. 429.

Old Dan Tantalus himself was not more sadly bothered, than is a reviewer, tied to
certain limits of space, and feeling the impossibility of dividing with his readers the
pleasure of perusing a work of rare spirit and humor. Such emotions are ours, and
such a work is ‘Rory O’More.’ Mr. Lover has no superior in depicting—with the
nicest perception of character and the keenest eye for fun—the peculiarities of the
Irish people. We can give the reader no better idea of his ability and manner, than
by saying, that he effects all with his pen which Power achieves in his admirable personations
of his countrymen. There is a life, a vraisemblance in his pictures, which will
win for them enduring applause. This is our verdict; and we ask the reader to confirm
it, as sure we are they will, by a perusal of the volume whose title stands at the head
of this brief and inadequate notice.

[546]

EDITORS’ TABLE.

A Glance at By-gone Times.—Commend us to an old newspaper! Well does
Cowper term it a ‘happy work,’ that ‘folio of four pages.’ In what a faithful and
striking spirit of delineation are the features of the hallowed years behind the mountains
called up, as one pores desultorily over a file of time-worn gazettes! It is exploring a
Herculaneum of history, and ferretting out the minuter fragments which lie buried beneath
the rubbish of old days, and which are fertile in materials for reflection, instruction,
and amusement. A kind female friend (God bless the women! they are always
devising some good or kind action,) has sent us an old volume of the Boston Centinel,
the most ancient newspaper of which the Union can boast. Greatly have we fructified
by the contents thereof; and at the risk, perhaps, of beguiling some reader, who may
prefer neoterics before ancients, of a hearty yawn or two, we propose to devote a couple
of pages, or more, to a notice of the dingy folio-tome in question.

After all, Solomon was right, when he said, ‘The thing that hath been, is that which
shall be, and that which is done, is that which shall be done;’ there are few ‘new
things under the sun.’ In glancing over these abstract and brief chronicles of the olden
time, we find many points of resemblance between the past and the present. Then, as
now, metaphysical adepts imagined they were invigorating their intellects, in the same
manner as archers strengthen their arms, by shooting into the air; political wranglers
were ‘blowing the bellows of party, until the whole furnace of politics was red-hot with
sparks and cinders;’ popular fallacies were flourishing, and wonderful seemed the vigor
of their constitutions; commentators were elucidating old authors into obscurity, quite
after the manner of the present era; many of the religii seem to have had religion
enough to make them hate, but not enough to love, their brethren; officious meddlers
were looking over other people’s affairs, and overlooking their own; tragedians were
strutting on public boards, ‘with tin pots on their heads, for so much a night;’ and small
comedians, with brass enough to set up a dozen braziers, were quarrelling among themselves,
and parading their importance and grievances before a public who cared nothing
for either; there were public fêtes, frequent clamors of rejoicing communities, and occasional
violent effervescence of popular transport. In short, to draw a long summary
to a close, we have come to the conclusion, that notwithstanding the gradual desuetude
of many old customs and observances, we have a great deal, at this much-boasted
epoch, in common with the vanished generation. But gone are their eternally repeated
sorrows and joys, the vain delusions, and transient struggles. Time has thrown his
all-concealing veil over them. The bigotted polemic has found that men may journey
heavenward by different roads, and that charity covereth many sins; ultra metaphysicians
have learned, that there are realities enough to be sought after in life, and that a
morbid yearning for the shadowy and intangible cannot come to good; and the actor, a
forked shade, stripped of his regalities, and ‘ferried over in a crazy Stygian wherry,’
has entered upon a new theatre of action, where, unlike the one he has left behind him,
the scenes and actors know no change. But let us turn over the ancient daily budgets
to which we have alluded, and from which we are keeping the reader, who we will suppose
looking over our shoulder, quite familiarly, and asking a great many questions.

[547]

‘What is that long ‘by authority’ article, on the first page?’ It is a congressional
enactment, ‘That a District of Territory, not exceeding ten miles square, to be located,
as hereafter directed, on the river Potomack, at some place between the mouths of the
Eastern branch and Conogocheque, be, and the same is hereby accepted for the Permanent
Seat of the Government of the United States.’ What a thriving town the ‘City
of Washington’ must have been at this period! Here is an important postscript. It
contains intelligence received at Boston from Philadelphia, in the short space of seven
days—(they travel the distance now in eighteen hours!)—that a French frigate had
arrived in the Delaware, supposed to have been despatched by the National Convention.
Close beside this paragraph, is a very reasonable complaint, that those Americans who,
despising to be copyists, call for ‘Yankee-Doodle’ at the play-house, can’t be accommodated
with their old favorite, because of the uproarious opposition of a tory faction.
”Most Horrid!’ What is that under your thumb?’ ‘A son of Mr. Cox, the celebrated
architect, in viewing a wild Panther, which a shew-man had in his possession, in
Medford, was suddenly seized by the voracious animal, and his head and face torn in so
shocking a manner, that his death would be a consolation to his desponding relatives.
The strength of the animal was so great, that five persons could hardly disengage its
teeth and claws from the unhappy victim of its rage. It is hoped the Legislature will
provide by law for the security of the lives of people, that if persons will endeavor to
obtain money, by the shew of wild beasts, that they be properly confined in cages.’
‘Shew!‘ This corruption is still extant in New-England. ‘He shew me a book he had
purchased,’ etc.

‘We find a great deal said about ‘Mr. Priestly‘ here. He has fled to the United
States ‘for freedom from the rod of lawless power, and the arm of violence.’ He is
every where received with marked honor, his whereabout regularly recorded, and eminent
individuals and public institutions are emulous to make their attentions acceptable
to him. In juxtaposition with this, is one of the bloody Robespierre‘s plausible reports,
just promulgated. We will not pause to read that. ‘Stay! Let us see what all this
theatrical display is about, before you turn the leaf.’ The manager is going to give a
‘Benefit’ for the suffering Americans in the prisons of Algiers. Good! ‘I wonder if
that Jefferson, who is to be one of the attractions, was the father of our Philadelphia
favorite, whylear?’ This interrogation lights up Memory, with the suddenness of a
‘loco-foco’ match. The image is evoked; and that prince of comedians is before us. A
very clever theatrical performance is now going on in the ‘Dome of Thought.’ Ah,
‘Old Jefferson!’ When shall we look upon his like again? For years, we could never
meet him, in ever so retired a lane of the city, without being presently seated in the play-house,
devouring, with lively gusto, his inimitable comicalities. We had spirited performance
going on, with nothing to pay. ‘Where he walked, sate, or stood still, there
was the theatre. He carried about with him pit, boxes, and galleries, and set up his
portable play-house at corners of streets, and in the market-places. Upon flintiest pavement,
he trod the boards still.’ ”Well, vot of it?’ Turn over.’

That long original poem is by Peter Pindar. He is ridiculing the monarchical notions
of the opposition, and the folly of paying court to mere outward form and show. His
illustration is homely, but forcible. ‘Who,’ says he,

In reading Pindar, as has been observed of some other obsolete author, you may find[548]
fault with the antique setting, but intellectual jewels of truth are there, which can never
grow out of date.

‘Melancholy Event!’ Skip that. A laugh is worth a hundred groans, in any state of
the market. Read the ‘Anecdote,’ if it be good, under the song, ‘God save great
Washington,’ at your right hand, third column: ‘Anecdote—Recent.—A certain
newly-created Justice of the Peace, rather too much elated with the dignity of his office,
riding out one day with his attendant, met a clergyman, finely mounted on a handsome
gelding, richly caparisoned. When he first saw him, he desired his attendant to take
notice how he would smoak the Parson. He accordingly rode up to him, and accosted
him as follows: ‘Sir your servant: I think, Sir, you are mounted on a very handsome
horse.’ ‘Yes, Sir, I thank you, tolerably fleshy.’ ‘But what is the reason,’ says the
Justice, ‘you do not follow the example of your worthy Master, who was humble
enough to ride to Jerusalem on an Ass?’ ‘Why, to tell you the truth,’ says the Clergyman,
‘Government have made so many Asses Justices, lately, that an honest Clergyman
can’t find one to ride on.’

‘Well said of the Dominie! There must have been more of Sterne than Sternhold
about him. He evidently loved a joke, as well as old Pater Abraham à Sancta Clara.’

”Blanchard’s Balloon.’ An ascension, I suppose.’ No; it is a political squib. Mr.
Blanchard has given out, that his gas, owing to an unfortunate accident, has also ‘given
out,’ and that on account of the great expense, he is compelled to forego a second
ascension. A wag advises him, as a cheap and expeditious method of obtaining an
ample supply of gas, to place his balloon over the chimney of a house in which the
‘Democratic Society’ are to meet, in the evening, the members of which are expected
to be highly inflated with a kind of light, combustible air, which will escape into his
vessel, and answer his purpose admirably!

In these days of ‘wars and rumors of wars’ between the whites and Florida Indians,
these twin poetical epistles will be apropos. The writer says, under date of Pittsburgh,
10th June,

Two days after, he adds the following, by way of postscript:

In Animal Magnetism parlance, we ‘will’ the reader from off our shoulder, and close
the book. It is matter-full, however, and peradventure we may open it yet again, anon.

[549]

Music—Mr. Russell.—Our theatrical reporters have left us but brief space wherein
to reply to a correspondent of the Philadelphia ‘National Gazette,’ who, in a long communication
bearing the signature of ‘Honestus,’ censures the tone of our remarks in
relation to Mr. Henry Russell, the popular vocalist, and the peculiar style of his performances.
Both the writer alluded to, and the editor who publishes and endorses his
strictures, ‘trust that the Knickerbocker will not maintain a dignified silence’ under
their remarks, since, originating in a work supposed to be influential in leading public
opinion, the observations complained of ‘have inflicted deep injury on the profession of
music, taking away incentive to honest professional toil, close study, and real science,’
by elevating a false standard of musical excellence. The writer denies, in so many
words, that Mr. Russell ever received the honors in Italy, to which he lays claim; doubts
his having been ‘a pupil for three years under Rossini,’ or that he studied under
Generali, Mayerbeer, and other masters; affirms that ‘The Brave Old Oak’ is transposed,
without acknowledgment, from Loder, save a few trifling alterations for the
worse; that ‘Some Love to Roam’ does not bear the real composer’s name; and that
five-sixths of the ‘Treatise on Singing,’ recently issued, with Mr. Russell‘s name as
author, are plagiarized from a work on singing by Rodolph, who has been dead these
thirty years.

We depart for once from our uniform practice of silence, in relation to newspaper
comments upon articles which appear in the Knickerbocker, to correct one or two
errors of the correspondent in question. In regard to the honors received, and the studies
pursued by Mr. Russell, ‘Honestus’ will perceive, by reference to the article in our last
number, that the entire paragraph touching his personal and musical history, is quoted
from an article in the ‘New-York Mirror,’ far more laudatory and elaborate than
the one which embodied it, as an extract. The onus, therefore, in so far as these statements
and the remarks which they elicited are concerned, rests not with this Magazine.
As to the remaining charges of ‘Honestus,’ if established, we shall be found not less
ready than himself to counsel one capable of such deception, to lose no time in bringing
down his pretensions to the level of his talents; and farther, commend him to a serious
reflex upon the folly of a course so unworthy of his reputation. In the mean time,
however, let it not be forgotten, that there are two sides to this matter, and that Mr.
Russell is extant, to reply for himself to these anonymous accusations.[17]

The opinions we expressed of Mr. Russell‘s singing, are entertained by the great
majority of those who have heard him; and our remarks in regard to the musical affectations
of the day were not lightly hazarded, nor did they fail, as we have good reason
to know, to strike an answering chord in the hearts of our readers. Italian effeminacy,
elaborate ornament, (often known in musical parlance by the term ‘difficult execution,’)
interpolated upon the simplest airs, demanded reprehension. It was ridiculous imitation,
pressed by Fashion into the service, and was lamentably infectious, from the prima
donna, down to the tawdry damsels who flirt at the tail of a chorus, and the piano-strumming
miss, redolent of bread-and-butter. It would have irked even Aristophanes,
the quintessential, to have heard, as we have heard, some such melody as ‘John Anderson
my Joe’ garnished with attenuated and circumfused skeletons or shades of notes,
in endless progression and recurrence, by your ‘difficult execution’-er, bent on wreaking
all the tones of his voice upon a single word. Bells jangled out of tune, and harsh,
or ‘the spheres touched by a raw angel,’ would have the advantage, in comparative execrability,
over such refined tinkerings of simple melody. It was this misplaced ornament,
(rendered for a period fashionable, by the affected ecstasies of ‘genteel’ young
men without brains, and small travelled amateurs, who voted it ‘the thing,’) that we
condemned, and not music, cultivated and improved by the great masters of the art.

[550]

Letters and Life of Charles Lamb.—There is at the ‘Merchants’ Exchange’ in
this city, the model of a machine for re-pressing cotton-bales. Would that some ingenious
person would invent a similar process, by which much of the matter of such a
work as Talfourd‘s ‘Letters of Charles Lamb, with a Sketch of his Life’—now
lying damp before us, in all the luxury of London typography—could be re-pressed
into these pages, for the gratification of our readers! In the absence, howbeit, of so
desirable a power, we may present such condensed portions as can be subdued ‘by
hand,’ withal. The letters in these volumes are connected by a ‘thread of narrative,’
which evinces a kindred spirit between Lamb and his biographer. The author of ‘Ion’
was an old and familiar friend of ‘Elia’s; hence he every where exhibits a thorough
knowledge of his character, not less than a perfect appreciation of his originality of
thought, the delicacy and refinement of his taste, and the fascination of his language.
These familiar epistles set before us the man, as he lived, moved, and acted. We have
here, too, the first germs of those delicate children of his brain, which have rarely been
equalled, and never surpassed. We see the sources whence sprang the dainty thought,
the charming image; and we may mark the daily creation and circumfusion of those
felicitous conceits with which the name of ‘Elia’ is inseparably associated. What a
reader was he; and how the ferreted beauties of the old worthies ‘slid into his soul!’
Upon the fertile suggestions of a creative, observant spirit, were inoculated and grafted
the rich treasures of the elder intellects. But as our associate, in ‘Brotherly Love,’ (in
a double sense,) has, since the above was penned, spoken elsewhere in this Magazine of
these distinctive endowments and graces, we forbear farther comment. ‘Revenons à
Mouton.‘ Return we to Lamb:

As the volumes will hereafter be issued from the press of the Brothers Harper, we
shall postpone a ‘prepared report’ upon them, until another number; contenting ourselves,
in the mean time, with a few selections, in the perusal of which we have had
especial delight. The annexed—to plunge at once, in medias res, into the work—was
addressed to a friend who was about to depart for the East, being haunted with
the idea of oriental adventure:

“My dear friend, think what a sad pity it would be to bury such parts in heathen countries,
among nasty, unconversable, horse-belching, Tartar people! Some say, they are Cannibals; and
then, conceive a Tartar-fellow eating my friend, and adding the cool malignity of mustard and
vinegar! * * * The Tartars, really, are a cold, insipid, smouchey set. You’ll be sadly moped
(if you are not eaten) among them. Pray try, and cure yourself. Take hellebore (the counsel is
Horace’s, ’twas none of my thought originally.) Shave yourself oftener. Eat no saffron, for saffron-eaters
contract a terrible Tartar-like yellow. Pray, to avoid the fiend. Eat nothing that gives
the heart-burn. Shave the upper lip. Go about like an European. Read no books of voyages
(they are nothing but lies,) only now and then a romance, to keep the fancy under. Above all, don’t
go to any sights of wild beasts. That has been your ruin. Accustom yourself to write familiar
letters, on common subjects, to your friends in England, such as are of a moderate understanding.
And think about common things more. I supped last night with Rickman, and met a merry natural
captain, who pleases himself vastly with once having made a pun at Otaheite in the O. language.
‘Tis the same man who said Shakspeare he liked, because he was so much of the gentleman. Rickman
is a man ‘absolute in all numbers.’ I think I may one day bring you acquainted, if you do not
go to Tartary first; for you’ll never come back. Have a care, my dear friend, of Anthropophagi!
their stomachs are always craving. ‘Tis terrible to be weighed out at five-pence a-pound. To sit
at table (the reverse of fishes in Holland,) not as a guest, but as a meat.”

The attractions which a New-York ‘May Day’ would have had for one whose horror
of ‘moving’ is thus naturally accounted for, may be readily conceived:

“What a dislocation of comfort is comprised in that word moving! Such a heap of little nasty
things, after you think all is got into the cart; old dredging-boxes, worn-out brushes, gallipots, vials,
things that it is impossible the most necessitous person can ever want, but which the women, who
preside on these occasions, will not leave behind, if it was to save your soul; they’d keep the cart
ten minutes to stow in dirty pipes and broken matches, to show their economy. Then you can find
nothing you want for many days after you get into your new lodgings. You must comb your hair
with your fingers, wash your hands without soap, go about in dirty gaiters. Was I Diogenes, I
would not move out of a kilderkin into a hogshead, though the first had nothing but small beer in it,
and the second reeked claret. Our place of final destination—I don’t mean the grave, but No. 4,
Inner Temple-lane—looks out upon a gloomy church yard-like court, called Hare-court, with
three trees and a pump in it. Do you know it? I was born near it, and used to drink at that pump
when I was a Rechabite of six years old.”

[551]

A clever artist might readily transfer the following picture to the canvass, though his
imagination were naught. It describes the misfortune of a ‘cisled’ fellow-clerk in the
East India House, akin to one whom he elsewhere mentions, as ‘pouring down goblet
after goblet, the second to see where the first is gone, the third to see no harm happens
to the second, a fourth to say there is another coming, and a fifth to say he is not sure
he is the last:’

“The E. I. H. has been thrown into a quandary by the strange phenomenon of poor —— —— whom
I have known man and madman twenty-seven years, he being elder here than myself by nine
years and more. He was always a pleasant, gossiping, half-headed, muzzy, dozing, dreaming,
walk-about, inoffensive chap; a little too fond of the creature; who isn’t at times? but —— had
not brains to work off an over-night’s surfeit by ten o’clock next morning, and, unfortunately, in he
wandered the other morning, drunk with last night, and with a superfœtation of drink taken in
since he set out from bed. He came staggering under his double burthen, like trees in Java, bearing
at once blossom, fruit, and falling fruit, as I have heard you or some other traveller tell, with
his face literally as blue as the bluest firmament; some wretched calico that he had moped his poor
oozy front with had rendered up its native dye, and the devil a bit would he consent to wash it,
but swore it was characteristic, for he was going to the sale of indigo, and set up a laugh which I
did not think the lungs of mortal man were competent to. It was like a thousand people laughing,
or the Goblin Page. He imagined afterward that the whole office had been laughing at him, so
strange did his own sounds strike upon his nonsensorium. But —— has laugh’d his last laugh, and
awoke the next day to find himself reduced from an abused income of £600 per annum to one-sixth
of the sum, after thirty-six years’ tolerably good service. The quality of mercy was not
strained in his behalf; the gentle dews dropped not on him from heaven.”

Lamb was a creature of ardent sympathies. His social affections were as fresh and
tender as those of childhood; and in the subjoined extract from a letter to Wordsworth,
these characteristics are admirably portrayed:

“Deaths overset one, and put one out long after the recent grief. Two or three have died within
this last two twelvemonths, and so many parts of me have been numbed. One sees a picture, reads
an anecdote, starts a casual fancy, and thinks to tell of it to this person in preference to every
other: the person is gone whom it would have peculiarly suited. It won’t do for another. Every
departure destroys a class of sympathies. There’s Capt. Burney gone! What fun has whist
now?—what matters it what you lead, if you can not fancy him looking over you? One never
hears any thing, but the image of the particular person occurs with whom alone almost you would
care to share the intelligence: thus one distributes oneself about—and now for so many parts of
me I have lost the market. Common natures do not suffice me. Good people, as they are called,
won’t serve. I want individuals. I am made up of queer points, and I want so many answering
needles. The going away of friend does not make the remainder more precious. It takes so
much from them as there was a common link. A. B. and C. make a party. A. dies. B. not only
loses A., but all A.’s part in C. C. loses A.’s part in B., and so the alphabet sickens by subtraction
of interchangeables.”

But gentle-spirited as he was, Lamb knew how to use the polished weapon of satire.
Witness his ‘Letter to Southey,’ and the following keen sonnet upon the editor of the
Quarterly Review. It is a revenge for the severely-expressed ‘distaste of a small though
acute mind, for an original power which it could not appreciate, and which disturbed
the conventional associations of which it was master.’ Gifford was originally a
shoe-maker. The sonnet is entitled, ‘Saint Crispin to Mr. Gifford,’ and dated ‘Saint
Crispin’s Eve’:

The annexed ludicrous account of a temporary indisposition, was addressed to Bernard
Barton, the well-known Quaker poet. It breathes the very spirit of ‘Elia:’

“Do you know what it is to succumb under an insurmountable day-mare—’a whoreson
lethargy,’ Falstaff call it—an indisposition to do any thing—a total deadness and
distaste—a suspension of vitality—an indifference to locality—a numb, soporifical, good-for-nothingness—an
ossification all over—an oyster-like insensibility to the passing events—a mind stupor—a[552]
brawny defiance to the needles of a thrusting-in conscience? Did you ever have a very bad
cold, with a total irresolution to submit to water-gruel processes? This has been for many weeks my
lot, and my excuse; my fingers drag heavily over this paper, and to my thinking it’s three-and-twenty
furlongs from hence to the end of this demi-sheet. I have not a thing to say; nothing is
of more importance than another; I am flatter than a denial or a pancake; emptier than Judge ——’s
wig when the head is in it; duller than a country stage when the actors are off it; a cipher,
an 0! I acknowledge life at all, only by an occasional convulsional cough, and a permanent phlegmatic
pain in the chest. I am weary of the world, and the world is weary of me. My day is gone
into twilight, and I don’t think it worth the expense of candles. My wick hath a thief in it, but I
can’t muster courage to snuff it. I inhale suffocation; I can’t distinguish veal from mutton; nothing
interests me. ‘Tis twelve o’clock, and Thurtell is just now coming out upon the New Drop,
Jack Ketch alertly tucking up his greasy sleeves to do the last office of mortality, yet cannot I elicit
a groan or a moral reflection. If you told me the world will be at an end to-morrow, I should just
say, ‘will it?’ I have not volition enough left to dot my i’s, much less to comb my eyebrows; my
eyes are set in my head; my brains are gone out to see a poor relation in Moorfields, and they did
not say when they’d come back again; my skull is a Grub-street attic to let—not so much as a
joint-stool left in it; my hand writes, not I; just as chickens run about a little, when their heads
are off. O for a vigorous fit of gout, of cholic, tooth-ache—an earwig in my auditory, a fly in my
visual organs; pain is life—the sharper, the more evidence of life; but this apathy, this death!
Did you ever have an obstinate cold—a six or seven weeks’ unintermitting chill, and suspension of
hope, fear, conscience, and every thing? Yet do I try all I can to cure it; I try wine, and spirits,
and smoking, and snuff in unsparing quantities, but they all only seem to make me worse instead
of better. I sleep in a damp room, but it does me no good; I come home late o’ nights, but do not
find any visible amendment!

“It is just fifteen minutes after twelve; Thurtell is by this time a good way on his journey, baiting
at Scorpion perhaps; Ketch is bargaining for his cast coat and waistcoat; the Jew demurs at first
at three half-crowns, but, on consideration that he may get somewhat by showing ’em in the town,
finally closes.”

In the same vein is the following, written under similar circumstances:

“I have had my head and ears stuffed up with the east winds. A continual ringing in my brain of
bells jangled, or the spheres touched by some raw angel. Is it not George the Third tuning the
Hundredth Psalm? I get my music for nothing. But the weather seems to be softening, and will
thaw my stunnings. Coleridge, writing to me a week or two since, began his note: ‘Summer has
set in with his usual severity.‘ A cold summer is all I know disagreeable in cold. I do not mind
the utmost rigour of real winter, but these smiling hypocritical Mays wither me to death. My head
has been ringing chaos, like the day the winds were made, before they submitted to the discipline of
a weather-cock, before the quarters were made. In the street, with the blended noises of life about
me, I hear, and my head is lightened; but in a room, the hubbub comes back, and I am deaf as a sinner.
Did I tell you of a pleasant sketch Hood has done, which he calls, ‘Very deaf indeed?‘ It
is of a good-natured, stupid-looking old gentleman, whom a foot-pad has stopped, but for his
extreme deafness cannot make him understand what he wants. The unconscious old gentleman is
extending his ear-trumpet very complacently, and the fellow is firing a pistol into it to make him
hear, but the ball will pierce his skull sooner than the report reach his sensorium. I choose a very
little bit of paper, for my ear hisses when I bend down to write. I can hardly read a book, for I
miss that small soft voice which the idea of articulated words raises (almost imperceptibly to you)
in a silent reader. I seem too deaf to see what I read. But with a touch of returning zephyr, my
head will melt.”

It is in a letter to the same staid correspondent, that we find the following reflections on
the fate of Fauntleroy, who was executed many years since in London. It is ‘a strange
mingling of humor and solemn truth:’

“And now, my dear Sir, trifling apart, the gloomy catastrophe of yesterday morning prompts a
sadder vein. The fate of the unfortunate Fauntleroy makes me, whether I will or no, to cast
reflecting eyes around on such of my friends as, by a parity of situation, are exposed to a similarity
of temptation. My very style seems to myself to become more impressive than usual, with
the charge of them. Who that standeth, knoweth but he may yet fall? Your hands as yet, I am
most willing to believe, have never deviated into other’s property. You think it impossible that
you could ever commit so heinous an offence; but so thought Fauntleroy once; so have thought
many beside him, who at last have expiated as he hath done. You are as yet upright; but you are
a banker, or at least the next thing to it. I feel the delicacy of the subject; but cash must pass
through your hands, sometimes to a great amount. If in an unguarded hour——but I will hope
better. Consider the scandal it will bring upon those of your persuasion. Thousands would go to
see a Quaker hanged, that would be indifferent to the fate of a Presbyterian or an Anabaptist.
Think of the effect it would have on the sale of your poems alone, not to mention higher considerations!
I tremble, I am sure, at myself, when I think that so many poor victims of the law, at one
time of their life, made as sure of never being hanged, as I, in my own presumption, am ready, too
ready, to do myself. What are we better than they? Do we come into the world with different
necks? Is there any distinctive mark under our left ears? Are we unstrangulable, I ask you?
Think on these things. I am shocked sometimes at the shape of my own fingers, not for their
resemblance to the ape tribe, (which is something,) but for the exquisite adaptation of them to the
purposes of picking, fingering, etc.”

Here is a capital programme for those losel scouts whose ‘tales of the crusades’
which are waged against the canine species, generally fill our newspapers in the dog-days.
We have no doubt that similar suggestions to those here thrown out, have been
acted upon by many a dog-hater, in the fervid summer solstice, what time a worse[553]
virus than the hydrophobic was raging in his brain. Lamb is inquiring after his
adopted dog, ‘Dash:’

“Goes he muzzled, or aperto ore? Are his intellects sound, or does he wander a little in his conversation?
You cannot be too careful to watch the first symptoms of incoherence. The first illogical
snarl he makes, to St. Luke’s with him. All the dogs here are going mad, if you believe the
overseers; but I protest they seem to me very rational and collected. But nothing is so deceitful
as mad people, to those who are not used to them. Try him with hot water: if he won’t lick it up,
it is a sign—he does not like it. Does his tail wag horizontally, or perpendicularly? That has
decided the fate of many dogs in Enfield. Is his general deportment cheerful? I mean when he
is pleased—for otherwise there is no judging. You can’t be too careful. Has he bit any of the
children yet? If he has, have them shot, and keep him for curiosity, to see if it was the hydrophobia.
They say all our army in India had it at one time; but that was in Hyder-Ally’s time. Do
you get paunch for him? Take care the sheep was sane. You might pull out his teeth, (if he would
let you,) and then you need not mind if he were as mad as a bedlamite.”

There is an adroit satire upon epitaphs—certificates of good character given to persons
on going to a new place, who oftentimes had none in the places they left—in
the annexed fragment from a letter enclosing an acrostic:

“I am afraid I shall sicken you of acrostics, but this last was written to order. I beg you to have
inserted in your country paper, something like this advertisement: ‘To the nobility, gentry, and
others about Bury:—C. Lamb respectfully informs his friends and the public in general, that he is
leaving off business in the acrostic line, as he is going into an entirely new line. Rebuses and charades
done as usual, and upon the old terms. Also, epitaphs to suit the memory of any person
deceased.'”

A few original anecdotes of Lamb must close our notice for the present. The first
dry specimen was doubtless suggested by the closing couplet of a London street-ballad,
wherein is set forth the ultra fickleness of a female ‘lovyer:’

“One day, at the exhibition of the Royal Academy, I was sitting on a form, looking at the catalogue,
and answering some young people about me who had none, or spared themselves the trouble
of consulting it. There was a large picture of Prospero and Miranda; and I had just said, ‘It is
by Shee;’ when a voice near me said, ‘Would it not be more grammatical to say by her?’ I
looked, it was Mr. Lamb.

“He went with a party down to my brother Charles’s ship, in which the officers gave a ball to
their friends. My brother hired a vessel to take us down to it, and some one of the company asked
its name. On hearing it was the Antelope, Mr. Lamb cried out, ‘Don’t name it; I have such a
respect for my aunt, I cannot bear to think of her doing such a foolish action!’

“A widow-friend of Lamb having opened a preparatory school for children at Camden Town,
said to him, ‘I live so far from town I must have a sign, I think you call it, to show that I teach children.’
‘Well,’ he replied, ‘you can have nothing better than ‘The Murder of the Innocents!’

“A constable in Salisbury Cathedral was telling him that eight people dined at the top of the
spire of that edifice; upon which he remarked, that they must be very ‘sharp set!’

“An old woman, on a cold, bleak day, begged of him for charity: ‘Ah! Sir,’ said she, ‘I have seen
better days.’ ‘So have I,’ said Lamb; meaning literally one not so rainy and overcast as the one
on which she begged.

“Mrs. H—— was sitting on a sofa one day, between Mr. Montague and Mr. Lamb. The latter
spoke to her, but all her attention was given to the other party. At last they ceased talking, and
turning round to Mr. Lamb, she asked what it was he had been saying? He replied, ‘Ask Mr.
Montague, for it went in at one ear and out at another.’

“Coleridge one day said to him: ‘Charles, did you ever hear me preach?’ ‘I never heard you
do any thing else,’ said Lamb.”

We shall discuss anew these teeming volumes, when the American edition (which it
is to be hoped will possess the portraits of the English) shall have appeared.

Bristol Academy, Taunton, (Mass.)—A catalogue of the officers, teachers, and
pupils of this institution, now before us, affords very favorable evidence of the prosperity
which it enjoys, under the supervision of its able preceptor, J. N. Bellows, Esq.
It already numbers nearly an hundred pupils, in the male and female departments, embracing
residents in various quarters of the country. The plan of instruction, set forth
in the appendix, is an excellent one; ‘uniting, as far as practicable, pleasure with study,
yet not to the neglect of strictness of discipline, and thoroughness in the business of
instruction,’ in which the art of teaching, as a profession, is included, in a separate department.

[554]

THE DRAMA.

Park Theatre—Mr. Forrest.—Two succeeding engagements of Mr. Forrest, have given us
an opportunity of witnessing his efforts in all of his old, and in some (to him) new characters.
Othello, Damon, Richard III., Metamora, Spartacus, Lear, Carwin, in the ‘Orphan of Geneva,’ and
even Hamlet, have in turn been presented, through the impersonations of Mr. Forrest. Among
these, there are some characters which long ago he made his own, and which have not since found
any other representative. Such are Metamora, Spartacus, and perhaps Damon; Othello and Lear,
too, had been previously attempted by Mr. Forrest, and found among his many friends enthusiastic
admirers. This last engagement, however, has presented this gentleman in two new characters,
Richard and Hamlet. Of the first of these, it shall be our province to speak in this paper.

Mr. Forrest has challenged criticism upon his conception of the character of the Duke of
Gloster, by his remarks contained in a published letter to a friend, written during his English visit.
In this letter he boldly affirms, that the ideas which Edmund Kean always held of the personage
which he represented as the Duke of Gloster, were erroneous, in one great particular, and that
therefore he should portray the crook-backed tyrant in a light quite different from that in which
Kean presented him. This error of Kean consisted, it seems, in supposing the royal cut-throat to
have been a too serious villain; in presenting the early part of his career in a shade too sombre.
According to Mr. Forrest, the wily duke was rather inclined to be jocose in his butcheries; and he
should therefore, in his personation of the character, make the jester a sort of basso-relievo to
the hard, black surface of his marble heart.

Now we admire originality, whether it be displayed on the stage, at the bar, in the pulpit, on
the canvass, or in books. Whether the original be a cobbler, or an architect, we hail his advent
with joy and gratulation. That clever artist, who first conceived the interesting metamorphosis
whereby a sliver of wood could be converted into a pumpkin-seed, deserves, indeed, more praise
for his singular ingenuity, than for any lasting blessing thereby conferred upon mankind. Nor can
we affirm, that the kindred hand which first transposed the same material into those cherished condiments
of eastern Ind, y’clept nutmegs, has claim to any higher reward; yet were both these
worthies original thinkers, and thereby entitled to the respect due to genius. To endeavor to trace
back some great original thought to the impulse which first opened the way to its creation; to
search for the early germ, no bigger perhaps than a grain of mustard-seed, out of which the towering
tree sprang up in all its original greatness, is a subject which must always engage the attention,
and employ the research, of the admirers of genius. We have therefore endeavored, by the
most patient and diligent study, both of Shakspeare and his commentators, to discover the ground
upon which Mr. Forrest formed his original reading of the Duke of Gloster, or the hint, if possible,
from which he snatched his conception of the murdering duke’s jocular disposition. The only peg
which we can possibly discover, whereon we suppose Mr. Forrest might hang his wonderful originality,
is comprised in that line wherein the crafty Gloster, gloating over that devilish hypocrisy
with which he is enabled to cloak his monstrous villanies, exclaims:

Mr. Forrest was no doubt struck with this passage. It seemed to him to contain the germ of a
mighty thought, and in his aspirations for immortality, he has given a liberal meaning to the passage,
and rendered it thus:

The spirit of originality seized upon his desires and his faculties at the same moment; and with a determination
to wither at a blast the laurels of Kean, Cook, John Kemble, Booth, and a host of less distinguished
worthies, he has, in the magnitude of his wisdom, declared them ‘sumphs’ in their ignorance
of Shakspeare, and himself the only true representative of the most powerful of the bard’s
creations!

We were truly inclined to give Mr. Forrest credit for too much good sense, to be tempted into
any such absurd extravagance as he has been guilty of, in attempting to foist his new reading of
Richard upon an intelligent public. He must have discarded all authority, and taken it upon himself
to settle this question with the world; and he has settled it, in a way most lamentable for his
judgment. The first three acts of Richard were really pitiable. There was a lack of every thing
which we had long supposed belonged to the character. His sarcasms—those biting sentences
which Kean made so withering—were turned to absolute jests—regular Joe Millers in blank verse![555]
Gloster murdered in joke, and all his villanies became, as Mr. Forrest presented them, no more
than the peccadilloes of Punch. The scene with Queen Anne had no propriety whatever. It was not
the wily Gloster, whose tongue could ‘wheedle with the devil,’ but the gay, slashing Corinthian, paying
his devoirs to a moonlight Cyprian. The Duke of Gloster was a gentleman, bloody-minded enough,
truly, but with the polish of a court about him, and an air of nobility as inseparable as his hump;
both of which Mr. Forrest discarded long before the Duke of Gloster gave up the ghost. The last
two acts, and especially the very last, were powerful, so far as physical effort could render them
powerful. The tent-scene was terrific in this respect; it was like the ‘tic doloureux,’ deafening
and dull. It was heavy physical force, with very little of genius to thrill or to startle; a sort of
artificial thunder, without the lightning. Strange that any can be found to uphold such extravagance;
but rant and fustian seem the order of the day; and he whose lungs are the stoutest, seems
the victor among modern tragedians.

Ellen Tree.—The finest comedies in the language, presented to us, in their principal characters,
through the acting of Miss Ellen Tree, have proved, during the last engagement of this
lady, that a true taste for the legitimate drama yet exists in full force in America, however it may
have degenerated on the other side of the water. ‘Rosalind,’ ‘Beatrice,’ ‘Lady Teazle,’ ‘Viola,’
as well as ‘Ion,’ ‘Jane Shore,’ ‘Clarisse,’ in the Barrack-Room, ‘Christine,’ and a multitude of
other characters, as varied in their kind as these, have offered a rich intellectual treat to all who
can appreciate the chaste, ungarnished beauties of the drama. It would be superfluous to speak of
Miss Tree’s merit in these characters. To us, at least, she has become identified with them all; and in
speaking of her performances, we must say that the task can only be a repetition of that even strain
of unadulterated praise, which, justly awarded, belongs only to perfection. We look in vain for
some fault, some discrepancy, some point which might be improved upon. All is so near the beau
ideal of her art, that we must, in omitting all censure, either confess ourselves wanting in judgment,
or at once acknowledge Miss Ellen Tree a being more perfect on the stage, than any we know
or can conceive of, off of it. Perhaps the greatest of her many merits is the remarkable purity of
her utterance, and the true sound and meaning with which she clothes the language of the author.
In the classic phrases of ‘Ion,’ this beauty is prominent; the choice words which form the finished
sentences of this gem of English literature, are sounded full in every letter. Vowels and consonants
receive their measured justice, and every line is meted out with its just cadence, imparting to
our much-abused English a quality as free from blemish as it is capable of sustaining. In common
or less classical compositions, the words are endued with a strength and beauty, which are borrowed
from her perfection of utterance. There is a roundness and a rich purity in her pronunciation,
which gives a finish and fullness to the sound, that is really musical. She is a worthy mistress of
the Queen’s English.

Madame Caradori Allan.—A new star in our musical world has shone upon us during the past
month; not the less dazzlingly, perhaps, from its foreign lustre. Mde. Allan possesses a soprano
voice, of a light quality. She sings with great apparent ease, and there is a finish to every note,
worthy of the highest praise. Her execution is graceful in the extreme. The most rapid notes
glide as distinctly through her voice as the most slow and measured. There is neither hesitation in
the one, nor hurry in the other. All are in exact time, and evince in their execution a degree of
study seldom effected, and a taste fully competent to seize upon and display the most exquisite
beauties of the art. Her manner is evidently that of one unaccustomed to the stage; that of a
sensitive and delicate gentlewoman, suddenly placed in a situation new to her, but embarrassing
only from its novelty. If, as has been asserted, Mde. Allan’s first appearance here was really her
début in an opera made up of English words, she certainly has great reason to congratulate herself
on the success which attended even her acting of the part of ‘Rosina.’ The execution of the opening
song, the ‘Unâ Voce,’ first in English, and then, in obedience to an encore, in Italian, was truly as
beautiful as we can fancy it in the power of her peculiar voice to make it. It was certainly sufficient
to merit one of the most rapturous bursts of applause that was ever listened to. The other
music of her part was equally well executed, if we except those pieces where low contralto notes
were to be sounded. Here, of course, the artiste could do nothing; and she showed her good sense
by attempting nothing. We particularly noticed this peculiarity in the concerted piece at the close
of the first act. Having no contralto notes in her voice, it was impossible for her to express the
music belonging to this scene. A repetition of ‘The Barber,’ on the next night, gave us an opportunity
of witnessing the same beauties, and the same slight defects. There was, as might have been[556]
expected, less embarrassment than on the previous evening; while the acting, and the stage-business
altogether, was more easy and natural. ‘Love in a Village’ displayed the high faculties of Mde.
Allan to still greater advantage, and certainly, with one glorious exception, we never heard the
melodies which belong to ‘Rosetta’ more exquisitely given. There were two simple ballads introduced,
which, in her way of expressing them, made perfect gems of the hacknied ‘Coming through
the Rye,’ and ‘I’m Over Young to Marry.’ It is the peculiar province of genius to hallow all it
breathes upon; and surely, in a musical way, this truth was never more clearly exemplified. We are
sorry to say, however, that with the exception of Mr. Placide, Mde. Allan has been most wretchedly
supported. Mr. Jones sang worse than ever, and acted no better. Mr. Richings is not equal to the
parts which we honestly believe he is obliged to sustain in opera. His exertions, however, as
‘Hawthorn,’ would, on this particular evening, have been entitled to less censure, if he had taken
the trouble to learn his part. The minor characters in opera are shamefully executed at this house.
They were bad enough when the Woods and Brough were to be supported, but infinitely worse
now. There are singers enough in the country to make up this deficiency. Why are they not
engaged? There is Mr. Brough for the ‘Basils,’ Mr. Latham for the ‘Figaros;’ there is Mr. Horn,
who can sing, if he cannot act the ‘Elvinos’; and surely an ‘Almaviva’ and a ‘Hawthorn’ might be
found, to fill the places of those who now disgrace these characters at the Park. With two or three
exceptions, (and among them, in justice, we must name Mr. Hayden,) the most exquisite music is
played by an admirable orchestra to no better purpose than to show the sad deficiency of the singers.
Of Mde. Caradori Allan’s performance of the ‘Somnambulist,’ we are not prepared to speak fully;
as, in consequence of the early hour at which this Magazine is put to press, we have, ‘at this present
writing,’ only seen her first appearance in the character; when, from over-exertion, perhaps, in
the second act, she was unable to go through with the third as satisfactorily as we may hope practice
will enable her to do hereafter.

The National Theatre, under its present management, is second to none in the United States
in the varied talent and efficiency of its acting company, in scenic effect, general good order, the
attraction and excellence of its entertainments, and the number and respectability of its audiences.
It has uncommon materials for either tragedy, comedy, or opera. ‘Macbeth’ and ‘Othello,’ for
example, the ‘School for Scandal,’ ‘Cure for the Heart-ache,’ etc., could not probably be produced
more effectively in any particular, even at Drury Lane. Othello, especially, with J. W. Wallack,
Vandenhoff, Browne, Abbott, Miss Wheatley, and Mrs. Sefton, in the principal characters,
is really a rare treat. It is so much like Shakspeare‘s Othello, that we think even the great bard
himself would recognise it; which is more than can be said of most portraitures of his splendid
creations. In ‘Macbeth,’ too, we opine that Mr. Vandenhoff is scarcely excelled, even by Macready—still
less by any other living tragedian; and at neither of the two great London theatres,
where we saw Macready in this character about a year since, was the play otherwise better done
than at the National. In his personations of Hamlet, Iago, and Cato, Mr. Vandenhoff is also preeminently
great, if not unequalled. He has strongly confirmed his reputation as an artist of the
first order in his profession, and he is, moreover, as we are assured by those who know him, a gentleman
of sterling acquirements, and unassuming worth. In person, he is of medium height, with
an intellectual and expressive face, and a voice at once pleasing and powerful. An emphasis sometimes
rather too drawling, is the only exception we can make to his usually chaste and judicious
elocution.

A review of the performances at the ‘Woodworth Benefit,’ some wholesome advice to Mr.
Gann, for over-action, a notice at large of ‘The English Gentleman,’ (a most sterling play,) together
with a report upon the laughable and admirably-acted piece, ‘Gulliver in Liliput,’ although in type,
are reluctantly, yet unavoidably, omitted.

The American Theatre, Bowery, has presented to large audiences, since our last notice, a melodramatic
piece called the ‘Bronze Horse,’ the scenery, machinery, dresses, and decorations of
which are said to have been unequalled by any thing hitherto seen at this establishment. Its great
and continued popularity must be taken as substantial evidence of its merit as a spectacle.

The Olympic continues, in an unpretending way, to increase its reputation as a quiet and well-conducted
theatre, where one may find the lighter attractions of the drama admirably presented,
by actors who understand their business, supervised by managers who know theirs, and attend to it.
It is a capital place wherein to pass a leisure hour agreeably.

[557]

Mr. Simmons’ Lectures on Elocution.—We have had the gratification, since our
last number, of attending a course of lectures upon elocution, given at the ‘Stuyvesant
Institute,’ by William H. Simmons, Esq., of Boston; and we are confident we speak
the unanimous opinion of his auditory, among whom were many of our most distinguished
citizens, when we say, that for sound reasoning, felicitous manner, and richness
of voice, Mr. Simmons’ equal has not been heard in this meridian for many a long year.
He expounded clearly and analytically the natural laws of vocal expression, according
to the method pursued by Dr. Rush, in his ‘Philosophy of the Human Voice;’ exemplifying,
at the same time, the practical effect and application of all the important tones,
inflexions, and modes of emphasis, by a variety of readings and recitations, which were
invariably received with the liveliest demonstrations of admiration, on the part of his
hearers. We sincerely hope that the capable and accomplished lecturer, and we must
add orator, also, may find sufficient inducement to deliver a second course; and as
there is abundant room for improvement, both in our public and colloquial elocution, we
trust, moreover, that the private lessons in his useful and delightful art will be liberally
attended. We are glad to learn that he is giving a course of lectures and lessons at
the Episcopal Theological Seminary; and that he is about to gratify a large body of
young men, engaged in professional studies and mercantile pursuits, by the repetition of
his course, at Clinton Hall. Mr. Simmons’ address is the Astor-House.

LITERARY RECORD.

Tokens of the Holidays.—We feel paternal yearnings, when we sit down, as now,
by our round-table, to draw around us our great family of readers, that they may admire
with us the various gems of art with which it is literally overloaded. Before us, gleaming
in gold, crimson, and purple, rich blue and velvet green, and affluent in the finest
engravings, are the English Annuals, for 1838, which, with their American brotherhood,
will very soon, we venture to predict, collect some of the superfluities of this
‘money-voiding town.’ Love-tokens are they, for the tasteful swain, and remembrancers
from the generous-hearted, to those who stand on the top-scale of their friendship’s
ladder. Annuals, both foreign and domestic, are every year improving. From
‘combinations of show and emptiness,’ they have come to be the medium of the highest
efforts of art; while green-sick sonnetteers and small tale-writers are succeeded
by minds more capable of entertaining the public. We can do little more than catalogue
the rich stores before us.

Finden’s Tableaux, in imperial quarto, may be placed first in the list, since it is
superb, beyond all former precedent. It is intended to represent the peculiar female
beauty of different countries, or provinces, with a characteristic back-ground of scenery,
and adjuncts in keeping. ‘England,’ ‘Andalusia,’ ‘Florence,’ ‘Egypt,’ ‘Ceylon,’
‘America,’ ‘Georgia,’ ‘Scotland,’ and ‘Castile,’ have each their representatives; and what
a galaxy of beauty would that court present, which should combine in one assembly
these ambassadors of loveliness! The letter-press illustrations, in prose and verse,
mainly by Miss Mitford, we need not say, are worthy the pictorial department, and
the reputation of the author of ‘Our Village.’ The ‘Flowers of Loveliness‘, edited
by Miss Landon, also in the imperial quarto form, is a very pretty volume, but less
beautiful, as it strikes us, than its predecessor. It is dedicated to the Queen, in a clever
acrostic upon her name, in four-line stanzas, each verse of which is introduced by an
ornamental letter, representing a flower; a pretty and feminine device. Female beauty
is made to represent the Clematis, Hyacinth, Water-Lily, Night-blooming Convolvulus,
Poppy, Canterbury Cathedral, Pansy, ‘Marvel of Peru,’ the Laurel, Iris, etc. Heath’s
Book of Beauty contains thirteen engravings, portraits of several women of nobility,
and fancy pictures. Its externals are gorgeous. The binding is of cerulean satin,
richly embroidered with thread of changeful golden tissue. It has a few stories, and[558]
some good poetry. Lady Blessington does the editorial honors. ‘Children of the
Nobility‘ is a work in the large quarto. The engravings are by Heath, from drawings
by Chalon. One or two of them are exquisite—the portrait of Lady Mary
Howard, for example. There are some pretty children, too, and ‘extraordinary ordinary’-looking
othersome, with legs like upright nine-pins, and shod hoofs. Edited by
Mrs. Fairlie. ‘Beauties of Costume‘—Heath again. This is a series of female
figures, in the dresses of ancient times—Egyptian, Scottish, Court of Louis XII.,
Bernese, Milanese, Russian, English Peasant, Swiss, Court of Charles VII., Persian,
Scottish Highland, etc. Descriptions by Leitch Ritchie. We can say little for the
English Annual. Old plates, which have been served up to the British public in the
‘Court Journal,’ if we do not mistake, are scarcely worthy of being ushered forth as
original embellishments. The ‘Oriental‘ has twenty-two spirited engravings of
‘Scenes in India,’ many of which are very superior. The name of Rev. Hobart
Caunter is a guarantee for the character of the letter-press portion of the work. The
London ‘Christian Keepsake‘ is worthy of all praise, both as to matter and embellishments.
A portrait of Mrs. Stewart, (wife of Rev. C. S. Stewart, of the American
Navy,) late missionary to the Sandwich Islands, from a painting by Ingraham,
of this city, is one of the gems of the volume. Heath‘s ‘Picturesque Annual‘ is
devoted to ‘Scenes in Ireland.’ They are well selected, and the engravings are exceedingly
soft and clear. The descriptive matter is from the pen of Leitch Ritchie.
Beside these, there are ‘Italy, France, and Switzerland,’ in two large quarto volumes,
the plates by Prout and Harding, and the illustrations by Thomas Roscoe; Fisher‘s
‘Drawing-Room Scrap-Book,’ with its usual quality and quantity of engravings, edited
by Miss Landon; ‘Midland Counties Tourist,’ illustrating hoary ruins, romantic
castles, and picturesque towns and landscapes, in the counties of Chester, Derby, Nottingham,
Leicester, Rutland, and Lincoln, with descriptions historical and topographical,
‘Illustrations of Scotland and the Waverly Novels, etc. Wiley and Putnam, Broadway.

Good out of Evil.—’Selections from the Court Reports, originally published in the
Boston Morning Post, from 1834 to 1837. Arranged and Revised by the Reporter of
the Post.’—The writer of this work is surely chief of the adepti in his art, for art it is.
He is a prëeminent ‘dab’ at his business; uniting grace of composition with a keen
sense of the humorous, and the reflections of a heart open to the influence of generous
emotions, and full of sympathy for the unfortunates, whose abandonment to temptation
he records. As contrasting examples of pathos and fun, we would instance the picture of
maternal affection, in the story of the three juvenile book-thieves, and the cool knavery
of the omnium-gatherum varlet, whose systematic pilferings were directed by a written
programme, as: ‘Visit Bailey’s Female High School—scrutinize;’ ‘Get books from
library—valuable;’ ‘Go to the theatre—once;’ ‘Go to the Museum, night and day;
criticise, and get every thing I can;’ ‘Visit Horticultural Rooms—and get things;’
‘Get some pocket-handkerchiefs—gratis,’ etc. These ‘Selections’ will amuse a dull
hour passing well. The reader will find the book fruitful of fun or instruction, open it
wheresoever he may. Boston: Otis, Broaders and Company.

‘The Arethusa.‘—Such is the title of a naval story, in two volumes, by Captain
Chamier, R. N., author of ‘Ben Brace,’ ‘Life of a Sailor,’ etc. In our judgment, it is
his best work. If not as a whole, certainly in particular scenes it has not been surpassed
by any previous effort of the author. The wreck of the Tribune, the naval
warfare, the pestilence at Jamaica, and many other detached scenes, which might
be mentioned, are most vividly portrayed. We would counsel Captain Chamier, however,
not to meddle with character of which he knows nothing more than may be conveyed
in the terms, ‘I reckon,’ ‘I guess,’ and ‘I calculate,’ in endless iteration. His
‘Corncob’ is an imaginary anomaly, and has no counterpart in America. Philadelphia;
E. L. Carey and A. Hart. New-York: Wiley and Putnam.

[559]

‘Reviewers Reviewed:‘—by the Author of ‘Pelayo.’—This is a little volume
of seventy-two pages—dedication, introduction, argument, text, notes, and appendix,
all counted—and is facetiously denominated by the young lady-author a ‘Satire.’ The
editors of the ‘Courier,’ ‘Gazette,’ ‘Commercial,’ and ‘Mirror’ journals, together with
the Knickerbocker, are the victims—because they could not admire ‘Pelayo.’ For our
own poor part, the force of the attack has stunned us. We know not what to say.
Also, we wist not what to do. ‘Where,’ (to adopt the kindred language of our fair
satirist’s illustrious archetype, ‘Rosa Matilda,’)

Missionary Enterprises.—Messrs. D. Appleton and Company have published a
handsome volume, of some five hundred pages, entitled ‘A Narrative of Missionary
Enterprises in the South Sea Islands; with Remarks upon the Natural History of the
Islands, Origin, Languages, Traditions, and Usages of the Inhabitants. By John Williams,
of the London Missionary Society.’ We regret that we are compelled to advert
so briefly to this excellent work, in gathering the materials for which, the author travelled
one hundred thousand miles, and expended upward of eighteen years. The book
is full upon all the heads mentioned in its title, and is illustrated by numerous engravings
on wood. The style is simple and flowing, and the details invariably interesting,
not less to the general than the Christian reader. We were struck with a fact recorded
toward the close of the volume, illustrative of that divine purpose in nature of
which a correspondent elsewhere speaks, in the present number. In many of the
coral islands of the South Sea, there are neither streams nor springs; and were it not
for the cocoa-nut, the inhabitants would perish. On a sultry day, when the very ground
burns with heat, the natives climb this fruit-tree, and in each unripe nut find a pint or
more of a grateful lemonade-like water, as refreshing as if taken from a spring.

‘Science Made Easy:‘—’Being a Familiar Introduction to the Principles of Chemistry,
Mechanics, Hydrostatics, and Pneumatics.’—We took up this corpulent dictionary-quarto,
under the impression that it was one of those scanty and superficial ‘made-easy‘
books, good-naturedly intended to instil dull truths into unwary understandings, by
alternate layers of utile and dulce, but capable in reality of very little good. Its perusal
has agreeably disappointed us. The author has not alone skirmished on the frontier of
a few of the sciences, but he has drawn a small array of them into close order, in such
wise that they may be surveyed with ease and expedition, and made to fructify without
a world of unnecessary trouble. The volume is illustrated by numerous wood-cuts.

Miss Leslie’s ‘Pencil Sketches.‘—This volume contains all of Miss Leslie‘s fugitive
pieces which have appeared since the publication of her second series of ‘Pencil
Sketches.’ Every article has been carefully revised by the author, and improved, as
she believes, by numerous alterations and additions. The following are the contents:
‘The Red Box, or Scenes at the General Wayne;’ ‘Constance Allerton, or the Mourning
Suits;’ ‘The Officers, a Story of the Last War;’ ‘The Serenades, and Dream of
Songs:’ ‘The Old Farm-House;’ ‘That Gentleman, or Pencillings on Ship-board;’
‘Charles Loring, a Tale of the Revolution;’ and ‘Alphonsine.’ Aside from the natural
ease and conversational ability, peculiar to all Miss Leslie‘s productions, the reader
may always rely upon a main object of intellectual or moral good.