The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852

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Title: The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852

Author: Various

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Language: English

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THE

INTERNATIONAL

MONTHLY

MAGAZINE

Of Literature, Science, and Art.

VOLUME V.

JANUARY TO APRIL, 1852.

NEW-YORK:

STRINGER & TOWNSEND, 222 BROADWAY.

FOR SALE BY ALL BOOKSELLERS.

BY THE NUMBER, 25 CTS; THE VOLUME $1; THE YEAR, $3.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The April number of the INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE completes the
fifth volume, and the series. The Publishers respectfully announce to
its readers and the public, that from the issue of the present Volume,
the Magazine will be blended with _Harpers' Monthly Magazine_, and,
therefore, suspended as a distinct publication.

To the numerous subscribers to THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE, the
Publishers beg to say, that each one will be served with HARPER'S
MAGAZINE to the end of his term; or, if preferred, furnished with any
other Magazine to the amount of his unexpired subscription.

The Publishers cannot take leave of the friends of the work, without
expressing in terms of thankfulness their sense of the extensive and
cordial support it has received during the period of its publication.
They are happy to know that its good qualities will be perpetuated in
the prosperous, admirable, and widely circulated periodical with which
it will hereafter be united.

NEW-YORK, _March 30_, 1852.

CONTENTS.

VOLUME V. JANUARY TO APRIL, 1852.

American War-Engines: Colt and Jennings. (Seven Engravings.) 33

Ariadne, the Story of.--_By Erastus W. Ellsworth_, 45

Annuaries: A Series of Poems.--_By Alice Carey_, 87

Autumn Leaves.--_By John R. Thompson_, 188

Aztecs, At the Society Library. (Engraving.) 289

Army Private, A Word About The. 315

Ashburner, Mr., in New-York.--_By Frank Manhattan, Jr._, 324

Author of the Fool of Quality, The. 460

Adventures of an Army Physician in New-York, 496

_Arts, The Fine._--Kaulbach's Last Works, 133.--The Publication of the
Works of Ingres, 133.--The Art-Unions, 277.--An Artist Sycophant in
Naples, 277.--Kugler's History of Art, 277.--Copies of Ancient Egyptian
Sculptures, 277.--Drawings by Schiller, 277.--Kaulbach, 277.--Greenough,
267.--Kaulbach's Cartoon of Homer, 424.--Gallaît's Last Moments of
Egmont, 424.--Monument to Metastasio, 424.--New England Art-Union,
Etching of Alston's "Witch of Endor," 425.--Drawing of the American
Art-Union, 425.--Philadelphia Art-Union, 425.

_Authors and Books._--Henry Heine turned Christian, 124.--Dr. Schmidt on
German Romanticism, 125.--German version of Firdusi, 125.--Bulau's
Secret History of Enigmatical Men, 125.--Historical Concert at Dresden,
125.--Leipzig Book Fair, 125.--History of Music, 125.--Works of Bach,
125.--Lachmann, the Philologist, 125.--German work on Jonathan Edwards,
125.--Dr. Andree's _Das Westland_, 126.--The Gotha Almanac, 126.--Fruits
of Humboldt's Kosmos, 126.--Auerbach's Village Stories, 126.--Religious
Novel by Storch, 126.--Schneider's House Chronicles, 126.--Mugge's new
Book, 126.--Wells's Middle Kingdom in German, 126.--Geograpica Italiæ,
126.--German History of the British Empire in India, 126.--Reverence In
Reviewing, 126.--Adolph Stahr, 126.--Countess Hahn-Hahn, 127.--Prince
Windischgratz's History of the Hungarian War, 127.--Menzel's new Novel,
127.--Miss Bremer on the World's Fair, 127.--Frederick the Great,
127.--Kohl's last Book of Travels, 127.--Shakspeare in Swedish,
127.--New History of German Literature, 127.--Listz's new Operas,
127.--Haddock's Somnolism and Psycheism, 127.--Gervinus on German
Poetry, 127.--Silvio Pellico, 127.--English Eclectic Magazine in
Tuscany, 127.--Gioberti on the Regeneration of Italy, 128.--The Israel
of the Alps, 128.--Christian Missions in China, 129.--New work on
Horticulture in Paris, 130.--Laurent's International Law,
130.--Alexander Dumas, 130.--Prudhon's last Absurdities, 130.--M.
Lefranc on the French Revolution, 131.--The Waverly Novels in France,
131.--The Photographic Album, 131.--Guizot's Moral Studies and
Meditations, 131.--F. Arago, 131.--M. Ott, on Socialism, 131.--M.
Reybaud, 131.--Lord Brougham, 131.--Hartzenbusch's Spanish Authors,
131.--The Grenville Papers and the new volumes of Lord Mabon's History
of England, 131.--Sir James Stephens's History of France, 132.--Mr.
Merrivale's History of the Romans, 132.--Memoirs of Dr. Chalmers,
132.--Alice Carey's Clovernook, Grace Greenwood's new volume of Tales
and Letters, and Miss Cheesebro's Dreamland by Daylight, 132.--Daniel
Webster, Mr. Bancroft, and Mr. Irving, on the Life of Washington,
132.--Baucher's Horsemanship, 132.--Heroes and Martyrs of the Missionary
Enterprise, 132.--Gutzkow's Ritter Vom Geiste, 268.--Henry Taylor
reviewed in the _Grenzboten_, 268.--Germany in the Revolutionary Period
of 1522, 268.--Reading Poems, 268.--German views of Carlyle's Life of
Sterling, 268.--Curious German work on Shakspeare, by Veshe, 269.--The
Gothic Runic Alphabet, 269.--Fac Simile of an Ancient copy of the
Gospels, 269.--German Historical Monuments, 269.--Hagberg's Swedish
version, of Shakspeare, 269.--German version of Dunlap's History of
Fiction, 269.--The Vagabonds, by Holtei, 269.--New German Poems,
269.--Richers on Nature and Spirit, 270.--German Domestic Legends,
270.--Fecknor's Zend Avista, 270.--Rappert's Negromancer Virgilius,
270.--German Temperance Tales, 270.--Nichl on Civil Society,
270.--Correspondence of Goethe and Knebel, 270.--New Collection of
Eastern MSS. at Berlin, 270.--German versions of Longfellow, Dr. Mayo,
and Bunyan, 270.--Recent German Historical Literature, 271.--German
Booksellers, 271.--Wholesale system of acquiring Languages, 271.--Adolf
Stahr's Prussian Revolution, 271.--Schleisenger's Wanderings through
London, 271.--Arabic MS. of Euclid, 271.--New work by Baron Eötvös,
271.--Wagner's Journey to Persia, 271.--Continuation of Humboldt's
Kosmos, 271.--German work on Kossuth, 271.--Cheever's Sandwich Islands,
in German, 271.--Silvio Pellico, 271.--Clemens Brentano, 271.--New Books
on Scandinavia, 272.--The Widow of Weber, 272.--Professor Nuytz,
272.--Maria Monk in Germany, 272.--Works of Kepler, 272.--Works
Prohibited in Russia, 272.--Liebeck, on Landscape Gardening,
272.--Cotta's new edition of Faust, 272.--Writings of Spalatin,
272.--Scientific Works from China, 272.--Biot's Translation of an
Ancient Chinese History, 273.--The Library of Cardinal Mezzofanti,
273.--Michelet, 273.--Nicolas and Ritter, 273.--Works of Paganini,
274.--Philarete Chasles on American Literature, 274.--Lafuente's History
of Spain, 274.--New Paris edition of Fenimore Cooper, 274.--Guizot on
Shakspeare, 274.--Paris by a Hungarian, 274.--Villegos, the Spanish
Historian, 274.--Tranion on Land Tenure, 274.--Lady Bulwer's New Novel,
274.--New Works on French History, 275.--Count Joseph de Maistro,
275.--Don Antonio Saco, on Cuba, 275.--New edition of Turner's Anglo
Saxons, 275.--John Howard Hinton on the Voluntary Principle in America,
275.--New Discussions as to Junius, 275.--Smith's Natural History of the
Human Species, 275.--Bonynge's Wealth of America, 276.--The Past and
it's Legacies, by J. D. Nourse, 276.--Head's Bundle of French Sticks,
276.--Legends of Alexander in the East, 414.--Hofner, on Dresses of
Christians, in the Middle Ages, 414.--German Version of Popular
Nomenclature of American Plants, 414.--German Works on History,
414.--Count Von Hugel on India, 414.--Von Rommer's Historical Pocket
Book, 415.--The Art Journal, 415.--Beeker's Roman Antiquities,
415.--Ennemoser's Inquiries Respecting the Human Soul, 415.--New
Edition of Brackhaus's Lexikon, 415.--Sources of Popular German Songs,
415.--Saupe's Schiller and his Paternal House, 416.--German Military
Books, 416.--Thirtieth Volume of the Library of Collected German
Literature, 416.--Biography of Karl Lachmann, 416.--History of German
Literature, 416.--Ludwig Kossuth, 416.--Behse's History of the Austrian
Court, 416.--Forty Questions addressed to Mahomet, by the Jews,
416.--Böckh's Political Economy of the Athenians, 416.--Hettner's
Æsthetic Inquiries into the Modern Drama, 416.--Lepsius on Egyptian
Theology, 417.--History of the Russian Empire, 417.--Bavarian
Traditions. 417.--S. Didung, 417.--Zahn's Pompeii, 417.--Miss Bremer's
American Homes, 417.--A German Wandering Jew, 417.--Mittermaier on
American Systems of Punishment, 417.--History of Costumes, 417.--Amyot
and the Old French Translators, 417.--Silvio Pellico's Works in France,
417.--History of the Bastile, 418.--Count Montalembert, 418.--Greek
Professorship of Edinburgh, 418.--Dr. Smith's Pilgrimage to Palestine,
418.--Turkish Grammar, 418.--Bulwer's Poems, 418.--Lady Bulwer's Letters
to the Morning Post, 418.--Memoir of Lord Jeffrey, 418.--New Candidate
for the authorship of Junius, 419.--Unpublished papers of Torquato
Tasso, 419.--Bancroft's History, 419.--Palfrey's Jewish Scriptures and
Antiquities, 420.--Howadji in Syria, 420.--The History of Classical
Literature by R. W. Browne, 420.--Thompson's Literature of the Southern
States, 420.--Poems of Winthrop Mackworth Praed, 420.--New Book by G. W.
Curtis, 420.--R. H. Stoddard, 420.--Schopenhauer's "Little Philosophical
Writings," 549.--Wachsmuth's History of Civilization, 550.--German
Theology, 550. Wagner's Journey to Persia, 550.--Roman Catholic
Missions, 551.--Professor Brandes on the Mormons, 551.--Constitutions of
the Country Towns in Saxony, 551.--Gottleib Fichte's Ethics,
551.--Memoirs Of the Margravine of Bayreuth, 552.--Fannbacher's
Recollections of Greece, &c., 552.--Remains of Klaproth, 552.--Daumer's
Poems, 552.--Gutzkow's Bitter vom Geiste, 552.--New Scandinavian
Literature, 553. Philology and Politics In Denmark, 553.--Poems of
Annete Von Droste, 553.--Jahn on Beethoven, 553. German Version of
Byron, 553.--Wagner on the Opera and Drama. 553.--Record of Books on
Goethe and Schiller, 553.--German Translations of English Ballads,
553.--New Additions to the Index Expurgatorius, 553.--Hettner's Modern
Drama, 553.--Layard In German, 553.--The Tubingen Theological Quarterly,
554.--George Stephens in Sweden, 554. Eugene Sue, 554.--Villefort,
554.--New Book by Houissaye, 554.--Louis Blanc's New Volume on the
French Revolution, 554.--Edmund Texier on Paris, 554.--The Catacombs of
Rome, 554.--The Shelley Forgeries, 555.--Discovery of a corrected Text
of Shakspeare, 555.--Sir James Stephen, 555.--Miss Vandenhoff's Play,
555.--Mr. Carlyle, 555.--Mrs. Robinson and William Hazlitt,
556.--Literary Men in the English Cabinet, 556.--Life in Bombay and the
Neighboring Nations, 556.--Philarete Chasles on American Literature,
556.--The Standard Speaker, by Epes Sargent, 557.--Memoirs of Margaret
Fulier, 558.--Bayard Taylor in Africa, 558.--Works by American Women In
Press, 558.--Dr. Dunglison's Medical Dictionary, 559.--Illustrated
Edition of General Morris's Poems, 559.--Books on Austria and Hungary,
by Mr. Brace, and Mr. Stiles, 559. Foreign Versions of Ticknor's Spanish
Literature, 559.--Arvine's Anecdotes, 559.--Dr. Gardner's Tractate on
Female Physicians, 559.--Mrs. Conant's Translation of Neander on James,
559.--New Volume of Poems by Boker, 559.--Professor Stuart's Last
Commentary, 559.

Bull Fight at Madrid.--_By the Author of "The Castilian"_, 222

Brooding-Places on the Falkland Islands.--_From the German_, 45

Bancroft's History of the American Revolution, 461

Colonial Churches in Virginia: St. John's Church, Hampton.--_By Rev.
John C. M'Cabe._ (Three Engravings, after original Drawings, by Rev.
Louis P. Clover.) 39

Cicero, A New Portrait of, 162

Columbus at the Gates of Genoa.--_By the Author of
"Nile Notes of a Howadji"_, 182

Camargo, Mademoiselle De, 282

Chatsworth, A Day At (Thirteen Engravings.) 291

Cats, A Chapter On, 372

Cagliostro, the Magician.--_By Charles Wyllis Elliott_, 452

Choice Secrets, 546

Dark Deed of Days Gone By, 110

Divination, Witchcraft, and Mesmerism, 198

_Deaths, Recent._--Dr. De Kay and Dr. Manley, 140.--Sovigny, the
Naturalist, 140.--The late King of Hanover, 141.--Chevalier Levy,
141.--Augusta Byron (Mrs. Leigh), 142.--General Merchant, 142.--Matthias
Attwood, 142.--Cardinal d'Astes, 142.--Emir Pasha, 142.--Alexis de Saint
Priest, 142.--Joel R. Ponisett, LL.D., 281.--Moses Stuart D.D.,
282.--William Grimshaw, 282.--Marshal Soult, 283.--Karl Frederich
Runinhagen, 283.--Michael Sallantian, 283.--Dr. Graeffe, 283.--General
Kiel, 283.--Wilhelm Meinhold, 283.--J. W. M. Turner, 284.--Basil
Montagu, 286.--Admiral Henry G. Morris, 286.--Mr. Sapio, 286.--General
Jatrako, 284.--Presnitz, 287.--Professor Dunbar, 287.--Henry Luttrell,
287.--R. C. Taylor, 287.--Professor Franz, 287.--William Jacob, F.R.S.,
287.--Paul Burras, 287.--Dr. A. Sidney Doane, 427.--R. A. Davenport,
428.--Giovanni Berchet, 428.--Miss Berry, 428.--Louis Bertin Parant,
428.--Benjamin Laroche, 428.--Eugene Levesque, 428.--Thomas Williams,
428.--Baron Kemenyi, 429.--Herbert Rodwell, 429.--Sir Frederick
Phillipse Robinson, 430.--Rev. John Taylor Jones, 430.--Eliot Warburton,
430.--Frederick Ricci, 430.--Baron D'Ohson, 430.--Mrs. Harlowe,
431.--Acheson Maxwell, 431.--William Ware, 560.--John Frazee, 561.--Dr.
John Park, 561.--William Thompson, 561.--Robert Reinick, 562.--William
Henry Oxberry, 562. Rev. Christopher Anderson, 562.--Madame Thiers,
562.--Thomas Moore, 563.--Samuel Prout. 565.--Archbishop Murray,
565.--Bishop McNicholas, 565. Mr. Holcroft, 565.--M. Benchot,
565.--Professor Kollar, 566.--The Widow of Kotzbue, 566.--Baron
Krudener, 566.--M. de Martigny, 566.--M. Smitz, 566.--Bishop Eylert,
566.--Victor Falck, 566.

Epitaphs.--_By F. Lawrence_, 213

Edward Everett and Daniel Webster, 307

Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Miss Mitford, 310

Enemy of Virginia, The.--_By Dr. Smith_, 312

Election Row in New-York.--_By C. Astor Bristed_, 341

Emille De Coigny.--_By Richard B. Kimball._ (Illustrated
by Darley.); 444

Franklin, Grave of Sir John: Richardson's Journey, 30

Falls of the Bounding Deer.--_By Alfred B. Street_, 49

Fielding, Henry: The man and his Works, 71

Fashionable Forger, 118

Faust of Wittenburgh and Faust of Mentz, 172

Feathertop: A Moralized Legend.--_By Nathaniel Hawthorne_, 182, 333

Freedom of Thought, and the Latest Miracles, 186

French Missionaries in Tartary and Thibet, 850

Fete Days at St. Petersburg.--_By Alex. Dumas_, 508

Greece, Present State of the Ancient Monuments of (Thirteen Engravings.), 4

Good Old Times in Paris: A Tale of Robbers, 216

Gambling, Chapter On, 337

Ghosts, New Discoveries In, 381

Gentlemen's and Ladies' Fashions, (With Engravings.), 143, 287, 431, 566

Guizot and Montalembert, in the Academy, 523

Homes of Cowley and Fox, at Chertsey. (Thirteen Engravings,) 146

Happiness of Oysters, 311

Hungarian Popular Songs.--_By Charles G. Leland_, 332

Heirs of Randolph Abbey, 375, 400, 477

Historical Review of the Month, 163, 288

Hooker, Herman, and his Works. (Portrait), 442

Jackson, Flint--_By a Police Officer_, 74

Jewish Heroine: A Story of Tangier, 345

Kossuth, Louis. (Portraits of Kossuth and of his Family.), 1

Leopards: Zoological Notes and Anecdotes, 54

Legend of the East Neuk of Fife, 63

Lee, Jesse, and the Lawyers, 84

Love Song.--_By R. S. Chilton_, 188

Legend of the Weeping Chamber, 219

Leonora to Tasso.--_By Mary E. Hewitt_, 331

Lady and the Flower.--_By G. P. R. James_, 226

Lamb, The White.--_By R. H. Stoddard_, 411

Legend from the Spanish, A.--_By Mary E. Hewitt_, 451

Life in Canada.--_By Mrs. Moodie_, 470

My Novel--_By Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton_. (Continued.) 89, 239, 395, 530

Mahon's, Lord, History of the American Revolution, with Sketches of
Washington, Patrick Henry, Franklin, La Fayette, Horne Tooke, Wilkes,
Lord Thurlow, Burke, &c., 164

Men and Women of the Eighteenth Century, 300

Model Traveller: Frederick Gerstacker, 305

Mysterious History, Touching Apparitions, 306

Murder of La Tour, The.--_By W. H. Stiles_, 457

New-York Society, by the Last English Traveller, 443

Niebuhr, Barthold George, The Historian, 517

_Noctes Amicitiæ._--Ambitious Christenings, 134.--The Passport System,
134.--A Mayor's Proclamation, 134.--Ingenious way of Hiding a Secret,
134.--Last Days of Alexander Lee, 134.--Anecdotes of Elephants,
134.--Madame Kossuth on Woman's Rights, 135.--Story of an English Lord
in Paris, 135.--The Spectator on the sacrilege of Dramatists,
135.--Tipsey Drollery, 266.--Anthony Benezet and his Rats,
266.--Descartes and the Ladies, 266.--An American "Characteristic,"
266.--Broussais and Water Cure, 267.--Story of Tom Cooke, 267.--Odd
Statistics from Portugal, 267.--First Duel in New England, 267.--Ariosto
and Humbugs, 667.--Ole Bull, 267.

Opera, The.--_By Thomas Carlyle_, 29

Owen, John, at Oxford: A Biography, 80

Old Maid's First Love, 228

Pulszky, Francis, 122

Poems, Some Small.--_By R. H. Stoddard_, 174, 459

Punishment of Gina Montani, 189

Picture Advertising, in South America, 530

Reminiscences of Printers, Booksellers, Authors,
&c., in New-York--_By Dr. John W. Francis, LL.D._, 258

Reclaiming of the Angel--_By Alice Carey_, 311

Red Feather: An Indian Story.--_By I. McLellen_, 319

Robinson, John, The Pastor of the Pilgrims, 367

Rainbow Making: The Ribbon Factories, 511

Story of Dr. Lindhorst.--_By Richard B. Kimball_, 109

Soult, The late Marshal, Duke of Dalmatia. (Portrait.), 145

Story, Mr. Justice, With Reminiscent Reflections. _By A. Oakey Hall_, 175

Smiles and Tears.--_By Richard Coe_, 186

Song Queen, The.--_Written in a Concert Room, by James T, Fields_, 188

Story of Gasper Mendez.--_By Catherine Crowe_, 362

Simms, William Gilmore, LL.D. (With a Portrait.), 433

Sunset: A Sonnet.--_By R. S. Chilton_, 443

Some Small Poems.--_By R. H. Stoddard_, 459

Squier, Mr., in Nicaragua, 474

Sequel to the Jewish Heroine, 491

String of Proverbs, A. 502

_Scientific Discoveries and Proceedings of Learned Societies._--Papers
in the Paris Academy of Sciences, 139.--African Expeditions,
139.--Perpetual Motion, 139.--Grants of Parliament for Scientific
Purposes, 139.--Balloons in Ancient Nineveh, 139.--Invention for
Determining Distances, 140.--Interesting Experiments by Professor
Gorini, 140.--Count Castelnau's Paper on Men with Tails, 140.--Hatching
Turtles by Artificial Heat, 140.--Process for Contracting Fibres of
Calico, 280.--Memoir on the Production of Wool, 281.--European
Experiments in Electro-Magnetism, 281.--Curious Astronomical Fact
respecting Lalande, 281.--Mr. Squier's Address before the London Royal
Society of Literature on Mexican Hieroglyphics, 425.--Experiments in
Photography, 425.--French experiments in Electro-Magnetism applied to
Locomotives, 425.--Lord Brougham's Optical and Mathematical Inquiries,
425.--Mr. Lea's work on the Genus Unio, &c., 426.--Catlin's plan for a
Museum of Mankind, 426.--French Academy on Yellow Fever,
426.--Dissolution of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands,
426.--Society of Antiquaries at Copenhagen, 426.

Taylor and Stoddard, Poems of. (Portrait of R. H. Stoddard.), 13

Trangott Bromme's Views of America and Americans, 157

To Sundry Critics,--_By R. H. Stoddard_, 319

Threnodia,--_By Mrs. R. B. Kimball_, 323

The Palaces of Trade, (Six Engravings.), 435

Treatment of Gold and Gems, The. 524

Underground Territories of the United States. (Seven Engravings.), 17

Visit to the Fire Worshippers' Temple at Baku, 160

Vision of Charles the Twelfth, 196

Winter.--_By Alice Carey_, 28

Wits About the Throne of Louis the Fourteenth, 32

Wolf Gathering, 391

Warburton, Eliot, The Late, 459

THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE

Of Literature, Art and Science.

Vol. V. NEW-YORK, JANUARY 1, 1852. No. 1.

[Illustration]

KOSSUTH.

On the preceding page is the best portrait we have seen of the
illustrious Hungarian, whose presence in America is destined to mark one
of the brightest pages in the history of Liberty. Of his personal
appearance we transcribe the description in the _Tribune_. He is taller
than had generally been supposed, and his face has an expression of
penetrating intellect which is not indicated in any portrait. It is
long, the forehead broad, but not excessively high, though a slight
baldness makes it seem so, and the chin narrow, but square in its form.
His hair is thin in front and of a dark brown, as is his beard, which is
quite long, but not very thick, and arranged with neatness and taste.
His moustache is heavy and rather long. His eyes are very large, and of
a light blue; his complexion is pale like that of a man who is not in
perfect health, and his appearance yesterday was that of the spirit
bearing up against the exhaustion of the body; he was sea-sick during
the passage, and had not slept for two or three nights. His manner in
speaking is at once incomparably dignified and graceful. Gestures more
admirable and effective, and a play of countenance more expressive and
magnetic, we remember in no other public speaker. He stands quite erect,
and does not bend forward like some orators, to give emphasis to a
sentence. His posture and appearance in repose are imposing, not only
from their essential grace and dignity, but from a sense of power they
impress upon the beholder. This sense of unused power, this certainty
that he is not making an effort and doing his utmost, but that behind
all this strength of fascination there are other treasures of strength,
other stores of ability not brought into use, possibly never brought
into use, is perhaps what constitutes the supreme charm of his oratory.
He speaks as if with little preparation, and with that peculiar
freshness which belongs to extemporaneous speaking; there is no effort
about it, and the wonderful compactness and art of his argument are not
felt until you reflect upon it afterward. His every movement is
perfectly easy, and he gesticulates much, equally well with either arm.
Nothing could be more beautiful in its way than the sweep of his right
hand, as it was raised to Heaven, when he spoke of the Deity--nothing
sweeter than the smile which at times mantles his face. His voice is not
very loud, but it was heard distinctly through the large pavilion. On
the whole our previous impression was perfectly confirmed by hearing
him. In speaking, Kossuth occasionally referred to notes which lay on
the stand before him. He was dressed after the Hungarian fashion, in a
black velvet tunic, single breasted, with standing collar and
transparent black buttons. He also wore an overcoat or sack of black
velvet with broad fur and loose sleeves. He wore light kid gloves.
Generally his English is fluent and distinct, with a marked foreign
accent, though at times this is not at all apparent. He speaks rather
slowly than otherwise, and occasionally hesitates for a word. His
command of the language, astonishing as it is in a foreigner, seems
rather the result of an utter abandonment to his thought, and a reliance
on that to express itself, than of an absolute command of the niceties
of the grammar and dictionary. He evidently has no fear of speaking
wrong, and so, as by inspiration, expresses himself often better even
than one to whom the language is native and familiar. Though he often
uses words with a foreign meaning, or a meaning different from that we
usually give them, he does not stop to correct himself, but goes on as
if there were no doubt that he would be perfectly apprehended.

The character of Kossuth has been very amply discussed in all the
journals both before and since his triumphal entry into New-York. The
judgment of the London _Examiner_ is the common judgment of at least the
Saxon race, that, while the extraordinary events of 1848 and 1849,
afforded the fairest opportunities for the advent of a great man, the
people who were ready for battle against oppression, were all stricken
down on account of the incapacity of their leaders--except in one
instance. The exception was in the case of Kossuth. And he was no new
man, but had been steadily building a great fame from his youth; had
labored in the humblest as well as highest offices of patriotism; and as
a thinker, a speaker, and a writer, had been before the public eye of
all Europe for years. He was born in 1806, at Monok, in Hungary, of
parents not rich, yet possessing land, and calling themselves noble. His
native district was a Protestant one, and in the pastor of that district
he found his first teacher. On their death, while he was still young,
more devoted to books than to farming, he was sent to the provincial
college, where he remained until eighteen years of age, and earned the
reputation of being the most able and promising youth of the district.
In 1826, he removed to the University of Pesth, where he came in contact
with the political influences and ideas of the time; and these, blending
with his own historic studies and youthful hopes, soon produced the
ardent, practical patriot, which the world has since seen in him.

According to the Constitution of Hungary, the _Comitats_ or electoral
body treated those elected to sit in the Diet more as delegates than as
deputies. They gave them precise instructions, and expected the members
not only to conform to them, but to send regular accounts of their
conduct to their constituents for due sanction, and with a view to fresh
instructions. This kind of communication was rather onerous for the
Hungarian country gentleman, and hence many of the deputies employed
such young men as Kossuth to transact their political business, and
conduct their correspondence. Acting in this capacity for many members
of the Diet, Kossuth came into intimate relations with the _comitats_,
and acquired skill in public affairs.

He was soon himself made a member, and from the first was distinguished
in the Diet as a speaker. Here he felt, and soon pointed out to his
colleagues, how idle and powerless were their debates unless these were
known to the public in some more efficient manner than by the private
correspondence of the deputies. Influenced by his representations, the
chief members of the Diet resolved to establish a journal for the
publication of their discussions; and Kossuth was selected as one of
those who were to preside over it; but the Archduke Palatine objected,
of course, because the object was to curtail the reports and garble
them. Kossuth, however, was enabled by the more liberal of his
colleagues to publish the reports on his own account. He then extended
the journal by the insertion of leading articles; and his counsels and
criticisms on the instructions of the _comitats_ to the deputies, so
stirred the bile and counteracted the views of the Austrian authorities,
that they interfered and suspended his newspaper by seizing his presses.
But, even this did not stop his pen, nor those of his many amanuenses;
until, at last, Metternich, exasperated by his obstinacy, caused him to
be seized and condemned to three years' imprisonment in the citadel of
Ofen. He was liberated in 1837; and during the years that elapsed
between that epoch and 1848 the history of Hungary was that of Kossuth,
who, amidst the many men of noble birth, wealth, high character, and
singular talents, who surrounded him, still held his ground, and shone
pre-eminent. In 1847 he was the acknowledged leader of the
constitutional party, and member for the Hungarian capital. It is
unnecessary to pursue this narrative. The events of 1848 and 1849 have
passed too recently and vividly before us to need relation. The part
that Kossuth played in those years was but the logical consequence of
his previous life. The struggle was for the rights of Hungary, in all
circumstances and against all foes. For these he fought along with the
Hungarian aristocracy, as long as they had the courage to resist
Austria; and when they wavered, he went on without them, appealing to
the _comitats_ and to the smaller landed proprietors in the absence of
the greater, and to the squires instead of the nobles.

[Illustration: THE WIFE AND CHILDREN OF KOSSUTH--FROM A RECENT
DAGUERREOTYPE.]

The result thus far we all know. The final result perhaps we in America
are to decide.

THE ANCIENT MONUMENTS OF GREECE.

[Illustration: THE ACROPOLIS.]

Every one can understand the regret with which we behold the remains of
ancient grandeur, and the capitals of buried empires. This feeling, so
profound in Jerusalem and Rome, is even more so in Athens,--

"the eye of Greece, mother of arts
And eloquence, native to famous wits,
Or hospitable--"

a city never so large as New-York, but whose inhabitants produced within
the short space of two centuries, reckoning from the battle of Marathon,
as Landor says, a larger number of exquisite models, in war, philosophy,
patriotism, oratory and poetry--in the semi-mechanical arts which
accompany or follow them, sculpture and painting--and in the first of
the mechanical, _architecture_, than the remainder of Europe in six
thousand years.

The monuments of antiquity which still exist in Athens have been
described by Chandler, Clarke, Gell, Stuart, Dodwell, Leake, and other
travellers, the most recent and competent of whom perhaps is Mr. Henry
Cook, of London, author of _Illustrations of a Tour in the Ionian
Islands, Greece, and Constantinople_, who has just made, or rather is
now making for the _Art-Journal_ a series of drawings of those which are
most important, representing them in their present condition. These
drawings by Mr. Cook, so far as they have appeared, we reproduce in the
_International_, making liberal use at the same time of his
descriptions.

Until the sacrilegious hand of the late Lord Elgin despoiled Athens of
"what Goth, and Turk, and Time had spared," the world could still see
enough to render possible a just impression of her old and chaste
magnificence. It is painful to reflect within how comparatively short a
period the chief injuries have been inflicted on such buildings as the
Parthenon, and the temple of Jupiter Olympus, and to remember how recent
is the greater part of the rubbish by which these edifices have been
choked up, mutilated, and concealed. Probably until within a very few
centuries, time had been, simply and alone, the "beautifier of the
dead," "adorner of the ruin," and, but for the vandalism of a few
barbarians, we might have gazed on the remains of former greatness
without an emotion except of admiration for the genius by which they
were created. The salient feature (probably the only one) in the present
rule at Athens is one which affords the highest satisfaction to those
interested in this subject. Slowly, indeed, and with an absence of all
energy, is going on the restoration of some, the disinterment of others,
and the conservation of all the existing monuments; and time will
probably ere long give us back, so far as is possible, all that the
vandalism or recklessness of modern ages has obscured or destroyed. On
the Acropolis the results of these efforts at restoration are chiefly
visible; day by day the debris of ruined fortifications, of Turkish
batteries, mosques, and magazines, are disappearing; every thing which
is not Pentelic marble finds its way over the steep sides of the
fortress, and in due time nothing will be left but the scattered
fragments which really belonged to the ancient temples. "The above
sketch," says Mr. Cook, "represents faithfully the present condition of
this most sublime creation. The details of the partial destruction of
this old fortress--founded 1556 years before the advent of the
Saviour--under the fire of the Venetians, commanded by Morosini, are so
well known, that I have thought it unnecessary to repeat them; but it
is impossible to recall them without a shudder, as the reflection is
forced on one, of what must have been their fate whose wickedness caused
an explosion which could scatter, as a horse's hoof may the sands of the
sea-shore, the giant masses which for ever bear witness to the power of
that mighty agent we have evoked from the earth for our mutual
destruction." At the west end of the Acropolis, by which alone it was
accessible, stood the Propylæa, its gate as well as its defence. Through
this gate the periodical processions of the Panathenaic jubilee were
wont to move, and the marks of chariot wheels are still visible on the
stone floor of its entrance. It was of the Doric order, and its right
wing was supported by six fluted columns, each five feet in diameter,
twenty-nine in height, and seven in their intercolumniation. Of the
Propylæa itself Mr. Cook gives no individual drawing, the only sketch he
had opportunity of making, being in its relation to the Acropolis
generally; "it will, however," he says, "serve in some degree to show
what has been done. Here perhaps the chief work has been accomplished;
all the now detached columns were built up with solid brickwork,
batteries were erected on the spot occupied by the Temple of 'Victory
without wings,' and on the square which answered to it on the opposite
side of the flight of marble steps; the whole of which were deeply
buried (not until they had severely suffered), beneath the ruins of the
fortification which crumbled away under the Venetian guns. These walls
have been removed, the batteries destroyed, and the material of which
they were composed taken away; the steps exhumed, and the five grand
entrances, by which the fortress was originally entered, opened,
although not yet rendered passable. It would be, I imagine, impossible
to conceive an approach more magnificent than this must have been. The
whole is on such a superb scale, the design, in its union of simplicity
and grandeur is so perfect, the material so exquisite, and the view
which one has from it of the Parthenon and the Erechtheum so beautiful,
that no interest less intense than that which belongs to these temples
would be sufficient to entice the stranger from its contemplation."

[Illustration: THE PARTHENON.]

On the right wing of the Propylæa stood the temple of Victory, and on
the left was a building decorated with paintings by the pencil of
Polygnotus, of which Pausanias has left us an account. In a part of the
wall still remaining there are fragments of excellent designs in
basso-relievo, representing the combat of the Athenians with the
Amazons; besides six columns, white as snow, and of the finest
architecture. Near the Propylæa stood the celebrated colossal statue of
Minerva, executed by Phidias after the battle of Marathon, the height of
which, including the pedestal, was sixty feet.

The chief glory of the Acropolis was the Parthenon, or temple of
Minerva. It was a peripteral octostyle, of the Doric order, with
seventeen columns on the sides, each six feet two inches in diameter at
the base, and thirty-four feet in height, elevated on three steps. Its
height, from the base of the pediments, was sixty-five feet, and the
dimensions of the area two hundred and thirty-three feet, by one hundred
and two. The eastern pediment was adorned with two groups of statues,
one of which represented the birth of Minerva, the other the contest of
Minerva with Neptune for the government of Athens. On the metopes was
sculptured the battle of the Centaurs with the Lapithæ; and the frieze
contained a representation of the Panathenaic festivals. Ictinus,
Callicrates, and Carpion, were the architects of this temple; Phidias
was the artist; and its entire cost has been estimated at seven million
and a half of dollars. Of this building, eight columns of the eastern
front and several of the lateral colonnades are still standing. Of the
frontispiece, which represented the contest of Neptune and Minerva,
nothing remains but the head of a sea-horse and the figures of two
women without heads. The combat of the Centaurs and Lapithæ is in better
preservation; but of the numerous statues with which this temple was
enriched, that of Adrian alone remains. The Parthenon, however,
dilapidated as it is, still retains an air of inexpressible grandeur and
sublimity; and it forms at once the highest point in Athens, and the
centre of the Acropolis.

[Illustration: THE ERECHTHEUM.]

To stand at the eastern wall of the Acropolis, and gaze on the
Parthenon, robed in the rich colors by which time has added an almost
voluptuous beauty to its perfect proportions--to behold between its
columns the blue mountains of the Morea, and the bluer seas of Egina and
Salamis, with acanthus-covered or icy-wedded fragments of majestic
friezes, and mighty capitals at your feet--the sky of Greece, flooded by
the gorgeous hues of sunset, above your head--Mr. Cook describes as one
of the highest enjoyments the world can offer to a man of taste. He is
opposed to the projects of its restoration, and says that, "to real
lovers of the picturesque, the Parthenon as it now stands--a ruin in
every sense of the term, its walls destroyed, its columns shivered, its
friezes scattered, its capitals half-buried by their own weight, but
clear of all else--is, if not a grander, assuredly a more impressive
object than when, in the palmiest days of Athenian glory, its marble,
pure as the unfallen snow, first met the rays of the morning sun, and
excited the reverential admiration of the assembled multitudes."

On the northeast side of the Parthenon stood the Erechtheum, a temple
dedicated to the joint worship of Neptune and Minerva. There are
considerable remains of this building, particularly those beautiful
female figures called Caryatides, which support, instead of columns,
three of the porticoes; besides three of the columns in the north
hexastyle with the roof over these last columns, the rest of the roof of
this graceful portico fell during the siege of Athens, in 1827. Lately,
much has been done in the way of excavation; the buried base of this
tripartite temple has been cleared; the walls, which had been built to
make it habitable, have been removed; the abducted Caryatid replaced by
a modern copy, the gift of Lord Guildford, and the whole prepared for a
projected restoration.

The Temple of Victory without wings, already mentioned is, with the
exception of the pavement, entirely a restoration; for nearly two
centuries all trace of it was lost, all mention omitted. In removing one
of the Turkish batteries, in order to clear the entrance to the
Propylæa, some fragments were found which led to a more minute
investigation; and, after a short time, the foundation, the pavement,
and even the bases of some of the columns were disinterred, making its
reconstruction not only very easy, but extremely satisfactory. It is
small, but of exquisite proportions, and now perfect, with the exception
of a portion of the frieze, which is in the British Museum. A
peculiarity of this temple is, that it stands at an angle slightly
differing from that of the Propylæa itself,--a fact for which, as it
clearly formed one of the chief ornaments to, and was certainly built
after, this noble portico, it is difficult to assign any very good
reason.

Such is an outline of the chief buildings of the Acropolis, which, in
its best days, had four distinct characters: being at once the fortress,
the sacred inclosure, the treasury, and the museum of art, of the
Athenian nation. It was an entire offering to the deity, unrivalled in
richness and splendor; it was the peerless gem of Greece, the glory and
the pride of genius, the wonder and envy of the world.

Beneath the southern wall of the Acropolis, near its extremity, was
situated the Athenian or Dionysiac theatre. Its seats, rising one above
another, were cut of the sloping rock. Of these, only the two highest
rows are now visible, the rest being concealed by an accumulation of
soil, the removal of which would probably bring to light the whole shell
of the theatre. Plato affirms it was capable of containing thirty
thousand persons. It contained statues of all the great tragic and comic
poets, the most conspicuous of which were naturally those of Æschylus,
Sophocles, and Euripides, among the former, and those of Aristophanes
and Menander among the latter. On the southwest side of the Acropolis is
the site of the Odeum, or musical theatre of Herodes Atticus, named by
him the theatre of Regilla, in honor of his wife. On the northeast side
of the Acropolis stood the Prytaneum, where citizens who had rendered
services to the state were maintained at the public expense. Extending
southwards from the site of the Prytaneum, ran the street to which
Pausanias gave the name of Tripods, from its containing a number of
small temples or edifices crowned with tripods, to commemorate the
triumphs gained by the Choragi in the theatre of Bacchus. Opposite to
the west end of the Acropolis is the Areopagus, or hill of Mars, on the
eastern extremity of which was situated the celebrated court of the
Areopagus. This point is reached by means of sixteen stone steps cut in
the rock, immediately above which is a bench of stone, forming three
sides of a quadrangle, like a triclinium, generally supposed to have
been the tribunal. The ruins of a small chapel consecrated to St.
Dionysius the Areopagite, and commemorating his conversion by St. Paul,
are here visible. About a quarter of a mile southwest from the centre of
the Areopagus stands Pnyx, the place provided for the public assemblies
at Athens in its palmy days. The steps by which the speaker mounted the
rostrum, and a tier of three seats hewn in the solid rock for the
audience, are still visible. This is perhaps the most interesting spot
in Athens to the lovers of Grecian genius, being associated with the
renown of Demosthenes, and the other famed Athenian orators,

"whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democratie,
Shook the arsenal and fulmined over Greece,
To Macedon, and Artaxerxes' throne."

[Illustration: THE ARCH OF HADRIAN.]

Descending the Acropolis, the eye is at once arrested by the magnificent
remains of the temple of Jupiter Olympus, and by the Arch of Hadrian.
Whether from its proximity to the gorgeous monument first named, or that
it is intrinsically deficient in that species of merit which appeals
directly to the senses, the Arch of Hadrian attracts comparatively
little notice. It is, however, a highly interesting monument, bearing
unmistakable marks of the decline of art; yet distinguished for much of
that quality of beauty which gives so peculiar a character to the
architecture of the Greeks. The inscriptions on the sides of the
entablature have given rise to much learned discussion, and have led to
a far more lucid arrangement of the city and its chief ornaments, than
would in all probability have been accomplished, had not inquiry and
investigation been spurred on by the difficulty of comprehending their
exact meaning. [Illustration: TEMPLE OF JUPITER OLYMPUS.]

[Illustration: ANOTHER VIEW OF THE TEMPLE OF JUPITER OLYMPUS.]

Of two views of the temple of Jupiter Olympus, Mr. Cook chose that in
which the Acropolis is seen in the distance. The three lofty Corinthian
columns in the other engraving are diminished to the scale of the arch,
while the Acropolis, from its greater complexity of parts, adds,
perhaps, something of a quality in which the subject is rather wanting.
"I am not sure," says Mr. Cook, "that the remains of the temple of
Jupiter Olympus are not the most impressive which Athens offers to the
eye and heart of the traveller, partly from their abstract grandeur--a
grandeur derived from every element which could contribute to such an
end--and partly from a position than which it would be impossible to
conceive any thing more magnificent. The gigantic columns struck me with
a sense of awe and bewilderment, almost oppressive; they consist, as may
be seen by the engraving, of sixteen, the sole representatives of the
one hundred and twenty which once formed this mightiest of Athenian
temples. The least thoughtful person could scarcely avoid the question
of where and how the remaining one hundred and four of these enormous
masses can have vanished; and assisted by the fullest information which
is to be acquired on the subject, it remains a matter of wonder to all.
That time itself has had but little to answer for, the almost perfect
preservation of portions is sufficient to prove; in some cases the
flutings are as sharp and clean as when the hand of the sculptor left
them, while, more generally, they bear disgraceful evidence of ill-usage
of every kind, from that of the cannon ball to the petty mischief of
wanton idleness. The proportion of these columns is quite perfect, and
the mind is lost in charmed wonder, as wandering from part to part of
the vast platform, it is presented at every step with combinations
perpetually changing, yet always beautiful. So difficult do I find it to
determine from what point of view these ruins are seen to the greatest
advantage, that I have appended two engravings, from which the reader
may select that which best conveys to him the magnificence of the
structure which has been thus slightly described." The temple of Jupiter
Olympus was one of the first conceived, and the last executed of the
sacred monuments of Athens. It was begun by Pisistratus, but not
finished till the time of the Roman emperor Adrian, seven hundred years
afterwards.

[Illustration: MONUMENT OF LYSICRATES.]

A proof of the varied character of the Athenian architectural genius may
be found in the exquisite model, the lantern of Demosthenes, or, as it
is more properly called, the Choragic monument of Lysierates. It is, in
common with the greater number of the remains of which we speak, of
Pentelic marble. By whomever conceived, designed, or executed, this must
have been a labor of love, and the result is such as might be
anticipated from the consequent development of the highest powers of one
to whom a people like the Athenians would entrust the task of doing
honor to those who had paid to their native land a similar tribute. It
is small, and formed of a few immense masses: the roof is one entire
block; the temple or monument itself is circular, and is formed of six
slabs of pure white marble, the joints of which are concealed by an
equal number of beautiful Corinthian columns, partly imbedded into, and
partly projecting from them. These have been fitted with such exactness,
that before the "fretting hand of time and change" had done its work,
the whole must have appeared as if cut from one solid mass. We have this
single example of a class of buildings once so numerous that they formed
an entire street; but however grateful one may feel to the hospice,
which, being built over, protected it from the ruin of its companions,
we can scarcely regret its disappearance, through which alone this
exquisite result of intellect and refined taste may be seen as
represented in the engraving.

[Illustration: TEMPLE OF THE WINDS.]

The Temple or Tower of the Winds, has been very justly termed "the most
curious existing monument of the practical gnomonics of antiquity." In
architecture no very elevated rank can be assigned to this edifice, nor
is there, even in its ornamental portions, any very remarkable evidence
of the higher order of Grecian art; the execution, indeed, can in nowise
be considered equal to the conception, which, if somewhat fancifully
elaborated, is at least highly to be esteemed, as uniting in a more
than ordinary degree the practically useful with the poetical ideal.
Near the new Agora, and consequently in the heart of the more densely
populated division of the city, this indicator of the wind and hour must
have been a valuable contribution to the Athenians, and must have given
to its founder, Andronicus Cyrrestes, a proud position among the _bene
merenti_ of the moment. Its form is octagonal, the roof being of marble,
so cut as to represent tiles; upon the upper portion of each face is
sculptured the figure of one of the eight Winds; these floating in an
almost horizontal position convey, either by their dress, the emblems
which they bear, or the expression of their features, the character of
the wind they are respectively intended to personify. Within a very
recent period this building, which was more than half buried, has been
exhumed, and many important facts have been discovered during the
process of excavation. The interior has been cleared, and in the
pavement may be seen the channels by which the water was conveyed to the
machinery by whose agency the hour was indicated, when the absence of
the sun rendered the dials described upon the marble faces of the tower
of no avail. These dials have been tested and pronounced perfectly
correct, by a no less celebrated authority than Delambre. The two arches
on the left of the illustration are the only remaining portions of the
aqueduct by which the necessary supply was conveyed, according to
Stuart, from the spring in the grotto of Pan; it is a matter of
gratulation alike to the antiquarian and the lover of the picturesque,
that these have been spared. From the amount of excavation necessary to
arrive at its basement, it is clear that this portion of the town must
have been raised, by ruins and atmospheric deposits, at least eight or
nine feet above its original level.

The temple of Theseus, apart from the present town, and in a
comparatively elevated and isolated position, built by Cimon, shortly
after the battle of Salarnis, is one of the most noble remains of the
ancient magnificence of Athens, and the most perfect, if not the most
beautiful, existing specimen of Grecian architecture. It is built of
Pentelic marble; the roof, friezes, and cornices still remain; and so
gently has the hand of time pressed upon this venerable edifice, that
the first impression of the mind in beholding it, is doubt of its
antiquity. It was raised thirty years before the Parthenon, unlike which
it appears to have been but sparingly supplied with sculptural
decoration; but that which was so dedicated was of the highest merit,
and remaining in an almost perfect condition, is most deeply interesting
to the artist and the historian: supplying to the one models of beauty,
and to the other the most undeniable data, upon which to establish the
identity of this with the temple raised by the Athenians to the
Hero-God.

[Illustration: TEMPLE OF THESEUS.]

After having been successively denominated the remains of the Palace of
Pericles, of the temple of Jupiter Olympus (an unaccountable blunder),
the Painted Portico, the Forum of the inner Ceremeicus, the magnificent
wreck of which the following engraving may convey a general idea, has
been finally decided to have formed a portion of the Pantheon of
Hadrian. For some time after this opinion had been started by Mr.
Wilkins, and sanctioned by Sir William Gell, great doubts, despite the
remarkable verification afforded by the language of Pausanias, remained
as to its truth; but the Earl of Guildford has at length placed the
matter beyond question. Some extensive excavations made under his
personal direction resulted in the discovery of the Phrygian stone so
minutely described by the enthusiastic traveller.

[Illustration: PANTHEON OF HADRIAN.]

The portico forming the next illustration was a long time considered the
only remaining portion of a temple dedicated to the Emperor Augustus,
but it is now clearly established as having been one of the entrances to
a market-place. This idea, suggested to the mind of Stuart, by certain
minute yet well marked variations in the proportion of the columns from
those devoted to sacred purposes, has been sustained by research, and
finally demonstrated to be correct by the discovery of an inscription
which has put the question at rest for ever. In one of these the names
of two prefects of the market are preserved; and another, still perfect,
is an edict of Hadrian respecting the duties to be levied on certain
articles of consumption, and regulating the sale of oils, &c. Nothing
can be more picturesque than the present condition of this portico, the
latest specimen of the pure Greek Art. Its coloring is rich and varied,
while its state of ruin is precisely that in which the eye of the
painter delights, sufficient to destroy all hardness or angularity, yet
not so great as to rob it of one element of grandeur.

[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE MARKET-PLACE: FORMERLY SUPPOSED TO BE
PART OF A TEMPLE DEDICATED TO AUGUSTUS.]

The building called the Monument of Philopappus, despite its somewhat
fantastic elaboration of detail, is very remarkable and interesting; it
was created either during the lifetime, or as a memorial immediately
after his death, to Caius Julius Antiochus Philopappus, a descendant of
the royalty of Syria, and an adopted citizen of Athens. It consists of a
basement supporting a pilastrade of semi-circular form, and presenting
upon its concave surface three niches, containing sitting statues, and
three recesses richly ornamented with the representation in strong
relief of a Roman triumph. Upon the basement also were various
sculptures in honor of the Emperor Trajan. These, and, indeed, all the
decorative sculpture, &c., profusely lavished upon this building have
suffered greatly. The two remaining statues are much dilapidated. From
this point a magnificent view of the Acropolis is obtained, and few are
the sights presented to the traveller, which surpass in historic
interest or actual beauty that meeting his eye, to whichever point of
the compass he may turn when standing at the foot of this remarkably
picturesque monument.

[Illustration: MONUMENT OF PHILOPAPPUS.]

The ages which produced these marvellous works in architecture had other
and different glories. Painting and sculpture reached the highest
perfection; and poetry exhibited all the grace and vigor of the Athenian
imagination. And though time has effaced all traces of the pencil of
Parrhasius, Zeuxis, and Apelles, posterity has assigned them a place in
the temple of fame beside Phidias and Praxiteles, whose works are, even
at the present day, unrivalled for classical purity of design and
perfection of execution. And after the city had passed her noon in art,
and in political greatness, she became the mother of that philosophy at
once subtile and sublime, which, even at the present hour, exerts a
powerful influence over the human mind. This era in her history has been
alluded to by Milton:

"See there the olive grove of Academe,
Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird
Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long;
There flowery hill Hymettus with the sound
Of bees' industrious murmur oft invites
To studious musing; there Ilyssus rolls
His whispering stream; within the walls then view
The schools of ancient sages; who bred
Great Alexander to subdue the world,
Lyceum there and painted Stoa next; ...
To sage philosophy next lend thine ear.
From Heaven descended to the low roof'd house
Of Socrates; see there his tenement,
Whom, well inspired, the oracle pronounced
Wisest of men; from whose mouth issued forth
Mellifluous streams that water'd all the schools
Of Academics old and new, with those
Surnamed Peripatetics, and the sect
Epicurean, and the Stoic severe."

[Illustration]

Such is an outline of the remains of the chief Athenian edifices, which
link ancient times with the present, and which, as long as there is
taste to appreciate or genius to imitate, must arrest the attention and
command the admiration of all the generations of mankind.

TAYLOR AND STODDARD[A]

We have placed these names together, not on account of any fancied
resemblance between the two poets, but for the very opposite reason. We
wish to trace the contrasts which may be exhibited by writers living in
the same age, the same country, and under the same system of social
relations. Mr. Stoddard's volume is dedicated with evident warmth of
feeling to Bayard Taylor, and the natural conclusion is that the poets
are personal friends; yet so far from the intellectual nature of the one
having influenced that of the other, they are as strikingly opposed in
thought, feeling, and manner of expression, as two men well can be.

The time has gone by when a volume from the pen of Mr. Taylor can be
dismissed with a careless line or two. Few writers of our day have made
more rapid advances into popular favor, and no one is more justly
entitled to the place which he holds. If we are to trust contemporary
criticism, a goodly army of what are called "promising young poets"
might be raised from any state in the Union. But what becomes of them?
It is one thing to promise, and another to perform, and we fear that
this suggestion contains a hint at the whole mystery. It seems to be
comparatively easy for educated men, blinded to their incapacity by an
unwholesome passion for notoriety which is never the inspiring motive of
a real poet, to reach a certain degree of excellence which may be
denominated "promising." Many a feather has been shed, and many a wing
broken, in attempting to soar beyond it. We shall not describe Mr.
Taylor with the epithet. We see nothing to justify it in his volume, on
every page of which there is actual performance. Maturity may indeed add
to his powers, and further increase his poetical insight; but there is
no necessity for waiting, lest we commit ourselves by a favorable
opinion, and no fear that such an opinion will be falsified by
succeeding efforts.

Richard Henry Stoddard doubtless has been styled a promising young poet
by half the newspaper press; therefore if we venture to say that Mr.
Stoddard has performed, and that the promising season is over with him,
it is not because we do not think that his future poems will exhibit new
and greater excellencies, but because we recognize merits in his present
collection which eminently entitle him to respectful consideration.

The evident source of Mr. Stoddard's inspiration is a love for ideal
beauty, in whatever form it may be manifested. Like all admirers of
ideal beauty, he has a strong sensual element in his composition. He is
not satisfied with the mere dreams of his imagination, but he must also
attempt to realize them through the medium of imitative art. Among the
various modes for expressing the same feelings and ideas, painting,
poetry, sculpture and music, he has chosen poetry as the one best
adapted to his purpose. We would not be understood to assert that an
artist may, at will, express his emotions in any of the arts; for a man
may be insensible to an idea expressed in sculpture or music, which is
perfectly clear to him in poetry or painting; but we assert that all the
arts are but different languages to convey the same ideas. True art
addresses itself to the moral, the intellectual, or the sensual man; and
by the predominance of one of these qualities in the artist, or by
various combinations of the three, all the radical differences between
men of genius can be accounted for, and all the seeming mysteries
explained. This truth is the groundwork of genuine criticism; and the
critic who busies himself about the accidental circumstances, which have
influenced an artist, is only prying into his history, without sounding
the depth of his nature. At least let criticism start here: it may
afterward indulge in microscopic comparisons of style, and in worn-out
accusations of imitation: but it is a sorry thing to see persons
assuming the dignified office of the critic magnifying molehills into
mountains, and similarities into thefts. All men are gifted with various
faculties, but it is not in the superiority of any or all of them that
we can account for the existence of the poet, who has something of the
divine nature in him, having a creative energy that is not a result of
the degree in which he possesses one or more of the ordinary faculties,
but is a special distinction with which he is clothed by the deity.

We will proceed to examine our two poets by the principles before
stated, not forgetting to compare or contrast them, as there may be
opportunity. In Mr. Taylor there is a just equipoise of the moral and
intellectual natures, while the sensual nature, if not so strong as the
former two, is at least calmed and subdued by their united power. With
fine animal spirits, he has but little taste for gross animal
enjoyments; and the mischief which his unlicensed spirits might commit,
is foreseen by a sensitive conscience, and checked by a mind that sees
the end in the act, and provides to-day against the future. Mr. Taylor's
inclinations are for scenes of grandeur. Sublime human actions, nature
in her awful revolutionary states, the wild desolation of a mountain
peak or a limitless desert, the storm, the earthquake, the cataract, the
moaning forest--these are the chief inspirations of his powers. Whatever
is suggestive of high emotions, that act upon his moral nature, and in
turn are acted upon by it, forms an unconquerable incentive to his
poetical exertions. Mere word-painting he has no affection for. A scene
of nature, however beautiful, would be poetically valueless to him,
unless it moved his feelings past the point of silent contemplation. The
first poem in his volume affords a striking illustration of his
apprehension of intellectual bravery. Through fasting that approaches
starvation, unanswered prayers, and repeated discomfitures, the soul of
the hero burns undimmed, and his eyes remain steadily fixed on his
purpose. Physical suffering only strengthens his resolution, and defeat
only nerves him to renewed efforts. Round these ideas the poet lingers
with a triumphant emotion, that proves his sympathies to be centred less
in the outward action of the poem, than in the power of human will--a
power which he conceives to be capable of overcoming all things, even
the gods themselves. We have before stated that nature, unless
suggestive of some intellectual emotion, is nothing to Mr. Taylor. To
arouse himself to song, he must vitalize the world, must make it live,
breathe and feel, must find books in the running brooks, and sermons in
stones, or brooks and stones are to him as if they had not been. In the
"Metempsychosis of the Pine," this characteristic is finely displayed.
The poet imagines himself to have been a pine, and retraces his
experiences while in that state of being. The pine becomes a conscious
creature, revelling in the joys of its own existence, feeling the sap
stir in its veins, and pour through a heart as susceptible as man's.
Many poets have recalled the memories which linger around a particular
tree, or, apostrophising it, have bid it relate certain histories; but
in Mr. Taylor's poem the tree speaks from within its own nature--not
with the feelings of a man, not with what we might suppose would be the
feelings of a common tree, but as a pine of many centuries--and no one
can mistake its voice. A nobler use of the dramatic faculty, in lyrical
poetry, is not within our recollection.

As may be supposed, Mr. Taylor's poetry is written under the excitement
of passion, and does not proceed from that laborious process of
constructing effects, to which a large number of poets owe their
success. The consequence is that his language is vividly metaphorical,
only dealing in similes when in a comparative repose, and never going
out of the way to hunt up one of those eternal _likes_, which have
emasculated our poetic style, and are fast becoming a leading
characteristic in American verse, to the utter destruction of every
thing like real passion. Mr. Taylor is an instructive study in this
respect. He uses ten metaphors to one simile. His ideas come forth
clothed in their figurative language, and do not bring it along neatly
tied up in a separate bundle. From this cause there is a sturdy strength
and genuine feeling about his poems, that more than compensate for the
ingenious trinkets which he despises, and leaves for the adornment of
those who need them. In him imagination predominates over fancy, and the
latter is always sacrificed to the former. We do not intend to say that
Mr. Taylor is without fancy. Far from it--he has fancy, but it never
leads him to be fanciful. His versification is polished, correct and
various, but more harmonious than melodious; that is to say, the whole
rhythmical flow of his verse is more striking than the sweetness of
particular lines. We have not mentioned all the phases of Mr. Taylor's
genius. Some of the smaller poems in his volume border on the sensuous;
and in "Hylas" he has paid a tribute to ancient fable worthy of its
refined inventors; but scenes of moral and natural sublimity are those
in which he succeeds best, and by them he should be characterized.

[Illustration: RICHARD H. STODDARD.]

Mr. Stoddard is the precise opposite to his friend. In him the sensual
vastly outranks the moral or the intellectual quality. Let it not be
supposed that we wish to hold the two latter elements as superior to the
former for poetical purposes; nor do we by asserting the greater
preponderance of any one, deny the possession of the other two. To the
sensuous in man we are indebted for the great body of Grecian poetry,
and Keats wholly, and Tennyson in part, are modern instances of what may
be achieved by imbibing the spirit of the ancient classics. Shallow
critics have professed to discover a resemblance between these English
poets and Mr. Stoddard, and Mr. Taylor has also fallen under the same
accusation, for no better reason, that we can conceive, than that all
four have drunk at the same fountain, and enjoyed its inspirations.

Mr. Stoddard's sympathies are almost entirely given up to ancient
Grecian art. He can scarcely realize that the dream has passed forever.
He sees something vital in its very ruins. For him the Phidian friezes
yet crown the unplundered Parthenon; the gigantic Athena yet gleams
through sacerdotal incense, in all her ivory whiteness, smiling upon
reeking altars and sacrificing priests; Delphos has yet an oracular
voice; Bacchus and Pan and his Satyrs yet lead their riotous train
through a forest whose every tree is alive with its dryad, and whose
every fountain is haunted by its potamid; there are yet patriot veins to
glow at the Iliad; Æschylus can yet fill a theatre; Pericles yet
thunders at Cimon from the Cema, or woos Aspasia, or tempers the
headlong Alcibiades, or prepares his darling Athens for the
Peloponnesian war. These things Mr. Stoddard feels while the locomotive
shrieks in his ears, while the omnibus, speeding to the steamship,
rattles the glass of his window, while the newsboy cries his monotonous
advertisement, or his servant hands to him a telegraphic dispatch; and
he is right. The body in which Grecian art existed, is indeed dead, but
the spirit which animated it is indestructible. There will be poets to
worship and reproduce it, there will be scholars to admire and preserve
it, when every man's field is bounded by a railway, when every housetop
is surmounted by a telegraph wire, and when the golden calf is again set
up amid the people, to be worshipped as the living God.

From the force of his sympathies, Mr. Stoddard can lean but in that
direction. Throughout his volume there is scarcely a poem which is not
the offshoot of these feelings. Some of them are confessedly upon
Grecian subjects, and all of them are animated by a corresponding
spirit. Even his few domestic poems are not treated after that modern
manner, which moralizes in the last stanza, simply to let the reader
understand how well the poet knows his own meaning. Whatever is
beautiful in Mr. Stoddard's themes is distinctly brought forward, while
the darker side of his subject is scarcely touched upon. Take, for
example, a poem of great simplicity and tenderness, filled with a sorrow
so beautiful as almost to make one in love with grief, and contrast it
with a poem, on a similar subject, by Bayard Taylor:

"Along the grassy slope I sit,
And dream of other years;
My heart is full of soft regrets,
My eyes of tender tears!

The wild bees hummed about the spot,
The sheep-bells tinkled far,
Last year when Alice sat with me
Beneath the evening star!

The same sweet star is o'er me now,
Around, the same soft hours,
But Alice moulders in the dust
With all the last year's flowers!

I sit alone, and only hear
The wild bees on the steep,
And distant bells that seem to float
From out the folds of sleep!"

_Stoddard_, _page_ 116.

This is very fine and delicate feeling, softened down to the mildest
point of passion; but it does not at all resemble the frenzy of grief
which follows:

"Moan, ye wild winds! around the pane,
And fall, thou drear December rain!
Fill with your gusts the sullen day,
Tear the last clinging leaves away!
Reckless as yonder naked tree,
No blast of yours can trouble me.

Give me your chill and wild embrace,
And pour your baptism on my face;
Sound in mine ears the airy moan
That sweeps in desperate monotone,
Where on the unsheltered hill-top beat
The marches of your homeless feet!

Moan on, ye winds! and pour, thou rain!
Your stormy sobs and tears are vain,
If shed for her whose fading eyes
Will open soon on Paradise;
The eye of Heaven shall blinded be,
Or ere ye cease, if shed for me."

_Taylor_, _page_ 92.

What a desolation of wo! how the whole man is carried away in one
overwhelming passion! A contrast of the opening poems of these two
volumes, would be a pleasant employment, but their length forbids it.
Mr. Taylor's "Romance of the Maize" we have mentioned already; Mr.
Stoddard's "Castle in the Air" is its complete antithesis. The latter
poem is a magnificent day-dream, abounding in luscious imagery, and
unrivalled for its minute descriptions of ideal scenery and its
voluptuous music of versification, by any similar creation since
Spenser's "Bower of Bliss."

To sum up Mr. Stoddard's poetical character, he has more fancy than
imagination, he is rather exquisitely sensitive than profoundly
passionate, and oftener works up his feelings to the act of composition,
than seeks it as an outlet for uncontrollable emotion. He thoroughly,
and at every point, an artist. His genius is never allowed to run riot,
but is always subjected to the laws of a delicate, but most severe
taste. His poems are probably planned with views to their artistic
effects, and are then constructed from his exhaustless wealth of
poetical material, by a nice adaptation of each part to the perfect
whole of his design. If he has less imagination than Mr. Taylor, he has
a richer and more glowing fancy; if his figures are less apt and
striking, they are more elegant and symmetrical; if the harmonious
dignity of his versification is less, its melodious sweetness is more;
if he has less passion, he has more sensibility; if moral and physical
grandeur are not so attractive to him, ideal and natural beauty are the
only elements in which his life is endurable. We might pursue these
contrasts to the end of our magazine; but if we have called the reader's
attention to them, we have done enough.

From "Love and Solitude," by Mr. Taylor, we extract the following
picture, in order to contrast it with the handling of the same subject
by Mr. Stoddard in "The South:"

"Some island, on the purple plain
Of Polynesian main,
Where never yet adventurer's prore
Lay rocking near its coral shore:
A tropic mystery, which the enamored deep
Folds, as a beauty in a charméd sleep.
There lofty palms, of some imperial line,
That never bled their nimble wine,
Crowd all the hills, and out the headlands go
To watch on distant reefs the lazy brine
Turning its fringe of snow.
There, when the sun stands high
Upon the burning summit of the sky,
All shadows wither: Light alone
Is in the world: and pregnant grown
With teeming life, the trembling island earth
And panting sea forebode sweet pains of birth
Which never come;--their love brings never forth
The human Soul they lack alone."

_Taylor_, _page_ 16.

Half-way between the frozen zones,
Where Winter reigns in sullen mirth,
The Summer binds a golden belt
About the middle of the Earth,
The sky is soft, and blue, and bright,
With purple dyes at morn and night:
And bright and blue the seas which lie
In perfect rest, and glass the sky;
And sunny bays with inland curves
Round all along the quiet shore;
And stately palms, in pillared ranks
Grow down the borders of the banks,
And juts of land where billows roar;
The spicy woods are full of birds,
And golden fruits, and crimson flowers;
With wreathéd vines on every bough,
That shed their grapes in purple showers;
The emerald meadows roll their waves,
And bask in soft and mellow light;
The vales are full of silver mist,
And all the folded hills are bright;
But far along the welkin's rim
The purple crags and peaks are dim;
And dim the gulfs, and gorges blue,
With all the wooded passes deep;
All steeped in haze, and washed in dew,
And bathed in atmospheres of Sleep!

_Stoddard_, _page_ 14.

Passages like these say more for their authors than could any
commendation from the critic. Observe how soon mere description is
abandoned by Mr. Taylor, and he begins to put life and feeling into his
scene. The deep is "enamored," the island is "in a charméd sleep," the
palms are "imperial," and "crowd the hills," and "out the headlands go
to watch the lazy brine," &c. All nature is alive. On the other hand,
Mr. Stoddard loves nature for its beauty alone, without desiring in it
any imaginable animation. The man who can read Mr. Taylor's "Kubla,"
without feeling the blood dance in his veins, should never confess it,
for he is hardening into something beyond the reach of sympathy. In "The
Soldier and the Pard," a poem of curious originality, Mr. Taylor pushes
his belief in the all-pervading existence of moral nature to its last
extreme. It closes with the following emphatic lines:

"And if a man
Deny this truth she [_the Pard_] taught me, to his face
I say he lies: a beast may have a soul!"

Without drawing too much on the tables of contents, we could not
enumerate the many note-worthy pieces in these volumes; and it would
much exceed our limits to give them even a passing word of comment.
Among Mr. Stoddard's unmentioned poems, the "Hymn to Flora," an "Ode" of
delicious melancholy, full of exquisite taste and finely-wrought
fancies, "Spring," "Autumn," a "Hymn to the Beautiful," "The Broken
Goblet," and "Triumphant Music," give the reader a clear insight into
his peculiar characteristics, and open a vision of ideal beauty that no
poet has exhibited in such Grecian perfection since the death of Keats.
A poem, on page 115, is one that awakens peculiar emotions; it describes
a state of half consciousness, when the senses are morbidly alive, and
the perceptive faculties are fettered with dreams, or inspired by a
strange memory that bears within it things not of this world, and hints
at a previous and different existence.

"The yellow moon looks slantly down,
Through seaward mists, upon the town;
And like a mist the moonshine falls
Between the dim and shadowy walls.

I see a crowd in every street,
But cannot hear their falling feet;
They float like clouds through shade and light,
And seem a portion of the night.

The ships have lain, for ages fled,
Along the waters, dark and dead;
The dying waters wash no more
The long black line of spectral shore.

There is no life on land or sea,
Save in the quiet moon and me;
Nor ours is true, but only seems,
Within some dead old world of dreams!"

_Stoddard_, _page_ 115.

With this shadowy poem we close, begging our readers not to be terrified
at the boldness with which we claim so high a place for the subjects of
our review. They have that within them which will prove our
commendations just, and establish them in the rank assigned by us, with
a firmness that will need no critic's aid, and can be shaken by no
critic's assault. We but add, let them remember that the fear of the
world is the beginning of mischief. GEORGE H. BOKER.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] _A Book of Romances, Lyrics and Songs._ By BAYARD TAYLOR. Boston,
Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 16mo. _Poems._ By RICHARD HENRY STODDARD Same publishers. 16mo.

THE UNDERGROUND TERRITORIES OF THE UNITED STATES.

[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE MAMMOTH CAVE.]

The extraordinary caverns which underlie various parts of this country
are of a description suitable in extent and magnificence to the general
scale of nature here, in lakes, rivers, cataracts, valleys in which
empires are cradled, prairies of scarcely conceivable vastness, and
mountains whose bases are amid perpetual flowers and where frozen seas
have never intermission of their crashing thunders. In Virginia,
New-York, and other states, the caves of Weyer, Schoharie, and many that
are less famous but not inferior in beauty or grandeur, are well known
to travellers; but the MAMMOTH CAVE, under Kentucky, is world renowned,
and such felon states as Naples might hide in it from the scorn of
mankind. Considering the common curiosity respecting that strange
subterranean country, and the fact of its being resorted to in winter by
valetudinarians, on account of its admirable climate--so that our
article is altogether seasonable--we give, chiefly from a letter by Mrs.
Child, a very full description of this eighth wonder of the
world--illustrated by engravings from recent drawings made under the
direction of the Rev. Horace Martin, who proposes soon to furnish for
tourists an ample volume on the subject.

The Mammoth Cave is in the southwest part of Kentucky, about a hundred
miles from Louisville, and sixty from Harrodsburg Springs. The word
_cave_ is ill calculated to impress the imagination with an idea of its
surpassing grandeur. It is in fact a subterranean world; containing
within itself territories extensive enough for half a score of German
principalities. It should be named Titans' Palace, or Cyclops' Grotto.
It lies among the Knobs, a range of hills, which border an extent of
country, like highland prairies, called the Barrens. The surrounding
scenery is lovely. Fine woods of oak, hickory, and chestnut, clear of
underbrush, with smooth, verdant openings, like the parks of English
noblemen.

[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE CAVE.--VIEW TAKEN FROM THE INSIDE.]

The cave was purchased by Dr. John Croghan, for ten thousand dollars. To
prevent a disputed title, in case any new and distant opening should be
discovered, he has likewise bought a wide circuit of adjoining land. His
enthusiasm concerning it is unbounded. It is in fact his world; and
every newly-discovered chamber fills him with pride and joy, like that
felt by Columbus, when he first kissed his hand to the fair Queen of the
Antilles. He has built a commodious hotel[B] near the entrance, in a
style well suited to the place. It is made of logs, filled in with lime;
with a fine large porch, in front of which is a beautiful verdant lawn.
Near by, is a funnel-shaped hollow of three hundred acres; probably a
cave fallen in. It is called Deer Park, because when those animals run
into it, they cannot escape. There are troops of wild deer in the
immediate vicinity of the hotel; bear-hunts are frequent, and game of
all kinds abounds.

Walking along the verge of this hollow, you come to a ravine, leading to
Green River, whence you command a view of what is supposed to be the
main entrance to the cave. It is a huge cavernous arch, filled in with
immense stones, as if giants had piled them there, to imprison a
conquered demon. No opening has ever been effected here, nor is it easy
to imagine that it could be done by the strength of man. In rear of the
hotel is a deep ravine densely wooded, and covered with a luxuriant
vegetable growth. It leads to Green River, and was probably once a water
course. A narrow ravine, diverging from this, leads, by a winding path,
to the entrance of the cave. It is a high arch of rocks, rudely piled,
and richly covered with ivy and tangled vines. At the top, is a
perennial fountain of sweet and cool water, which trickles down
continually from the centre of the arch, through the pendent foliage,
and is caught in a vessel below. The entrance of this wide arch is
somewhat obstructed by a large mound of saltpetre, thrown up by workmen
engaged in its manufacture, during the last war. In the course of their
excavations, they dug up the bones of a gigantic man; but,
unfortunately, they buried them again, without any memorial to mark the
spot. They have been sought for by the curious and scientific, but are
not yet found.

As you come opposite the entrance of the cave, in summer, the
temperature changes instantaneously, from about 85° to below 60°, and
you feel chilled as if by the presence of an iceberg. In winter, the
effect is reversed. The scientific have indulged in various speculations
concerning the air of this cave. It is supposed to get completely filled
with cold winds during the long blasts of winter, and as there is no
outlet, they remain pent up till the atmosphere without becomes warmer
than that within; when there is, of course, a continual effort toward
equilibrium. Why the air within the cave should be so fresh, pure, and
equable, all the year round, even in its deepest recesses, is not so
easily explained. Some have suggested that it is continually modified by
the presence of chemical agents. Whatever may be the cause, its
agreeable salubrity is observed by every visitor, and it is said to have
great healing power in diseases of the lungs. The amount of exertion
which can be performed here without fatigue, is astonishing. The
superabundance of oxygen in the atmosphere operates like moderate doses
of exhilarating gas. The traveller feels a buoyant sensation, which
tempts him to run and jump, and leap from crag to crag, and bound over
the stones in his path. The mind, moreover, sustains the body, being
kept in a state of delightful activity, by continual new discoveries and
startling revelations.

The wide entrance to the cavern soon contracts, so that but two can pass
abreast. At this place, called the Narrows, the air from dark depths
beyond blows out fiercely, as if the spirits of the cave had mustered
there, to drive intruders back to the realms of day. This path continues
about fourteen or fifteen rods, and emerges into a wider avenue, floored
with saltpetre earth, from which the stones have been removed. This
leads directly into the Rotunda, a vast hall, comprising a surface of
eight acres, arched with a dome a hundred feet high, without a single
pillar to support it. It rests on irregular ribs of dark gray rock, in
massive oval rings, smaller and smaller, one seen within another, till
they terminate at the top. Perhaps this apartment impresses the
traveller as much as any portion of the cave; because from it he
receives his first idea of its gigantic proportions. The vastness, the
gloom, the impossibility of taking in the boundaries by the light of
lamps--all these produce a deep sensation of awe and wonder.

From the Rotunda, you pass into Audubon's Avenue, from eighty to a
hundred feet high, with galleries of rock on each side, jutting out
farther and father, till they nearly meet at top. This avenue branches
out into a vast half-oval hall, called the Church. This contains several
projecting galleries, one of them resembling a cathedral choir. There is
a gap in the gallery, and at the point of interruption, immediately
above, is a rostrum, or pulpit, the rocky canopy of which juts over. The
guide leads up from the adjoining galleries, and places a lamp each side
of the pulpit, on flat rocks, which seem made for the purpose. There has
been preaching from this pulpit; but unless it was superior to most
theological teaching, it must have been pitifully discordant with the
sublimity of the place. Five thousand people could stand in this
subterranean temple with ease.

So far, all is irregular, jagged rocks, thrown together in fantastic
masses, without any particular style; but now begins a series of
imitations, which grow more and more perfect, in gradual progression,
till you arrive at the end. From the Church you pass into what is called
the Gothic Gallery, from its obvious resemblance to that style of
architecture. Here is Mummy Hall; so called because several mummies have
been found seated in recesses of the rock. Without any process of
embalming, they were in as perfect a state of preservation, as the
mummies of Egypt; for the air of the cave is so dry and unchangeable,
and so strongly impregnated with nitre, that decomposition cannot take
place. A mummy found here in 1813, was the body of a woman five feet ten
inches high, wrapped in half-dressed deer skins, on which were rudely
drawn white veins and leaves. At the feet, lay a pair of moccasons, and
a handsome knapsack, made of bark: containing strings of small shining
seeds; necklaces of bears' teeth, eagles' claws, and fawns' red hoofs;
whistles made of cane; two rattlesnakes' skins, one having on it
fourteen rattles; coronets for the head, made of erect feathers of rooks
and eagles; smooth needles of horn and bone, some of them crooked like
sail-needles; deers' sinews, for sewing, and a parcel of three-corded
thread, resembling twine. I believe one of these mummies is now in the
British Museum. From Mummy Hall you pass into Gothic Avenue, where the
resemblance to Gothic architecture very perceptibly increases. The wall
juts out in pointed arches, and pillars, on the sides of which are
various grotesque combinations of rock. One is an elephant's head. The
tusks and sleepy eyes are quite perfect; the trunk, at first very
distinct, gradually recedes, and is lost in the rock. On another pillar
is a lion's head; on another, a human head with a wig, called Lord
Lyndhurst, from its resemblance to that dignitary.

From this gallery you can step into a side cave, in which is an immense
pit, called the Lover's Leap. A huge rock, fourteen or fifteen feet
long, like an elongated sugar-loaf running to a sharp point, projects
half way over this abyss. It makes one shudder to see the guide walk
almost to the end of this projectile bridge, over such an awful chasm.
As you pass along, the Gothic Avenue narrows, until you come to a porch
composed of the first separate columns in the cave. The stalactite and
stalagmite formations unite in these irregular masses of brownish
yellow, which, when the light shines through them, look like transparent
amber. They are sonorous as a clear-toned bell. A pendent mass, called
the Bell, has been unfortunately broken, by being struck too powerfully.

[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE GOTHIC GATE.]

The porch of columns leads to the Gothic Chapel, which has the circular
form appropriate to a true church. A number of pure stalactite columns
fill the nave with arches, which in many places form a perfect Gothic
roof. The stalactites fall in rich festoons, strikingly similar to the
highly ornamented chapel of Henry VII. Four columns in the centre form a
separate arch by themselves, like trees twisted into a grotto, in all
irregular and grotesque shapes. Under this arch stands Wilkins'
arm-chair, a stalactite formation, well adapted to the human figure. The
Chapel is the most beautiful specimen of the Gothic in the cave. Two or
three of the columns have richly foliated capitals, like the Corinthian.

If you turn back to the main avenue, and strike off in another
direction, you enter a vast room, with several projecting galleries,
called the Ball Room. In close vicinity, as if arranged by the severer
school of theologians, is a large amphitheatre, called Satan's Council
Chamber. From the centre rises a mountain of big stones, rudely piled
one above another, in a gradual slope, nearly one hundred feet high. On
the top rests a huge rock, big as a house, called Satan's Throne. The
vastness, the gloom, partially illuminated by the glare of lamps,
forcibly remind one of Lucifer on his throne, as represented by Martin
in his illustrations of Milton. It requires little imagination to
transform the uncouth rocks all around the throne, into attendant
demons. Indeed, throughout the cave, Martin's pictures are continually
brought to mind, by the unearthly effect of intense gleams of light on
black masses of shadow. In this Council Chamber, the rocks, with
singular appropriateness, change from an imitation of Gothic
architecture, to that of the Egyptian. The dark, massive walls resemble
a series of Egyptian tombs, in dull and heavy outline. In this place is
an angle, which forms the meeting point of several caves, and is
therefore considered one of the finest points of view. Here parties
usually stop and make arrangements to kindle the Bengal Lights, which
travellers always carry with them. It has a strange and picturesque
effect to see groups of people dotted about, at different points of
view, their lamps hidden behind stones, and the light streaming into the
thick darkness, through chinks in the rocks. When the lights begin to
burn, their intense radiance casts a strong glare on Satan's Throne; the
whole of the vast amphitheatre is revealed to view, and you can peer
into the deep recesses of two other caves beyond. For a few moments,
gigantic proportions and uncouth forms stand out in the clear, strong
gush of brilliant light! and then--all is darkness. The effect is so
like magic, that one almost expects to see towering genii striding down
the deep declivities, or startled by the brilliant flare, shake off
their long sleep among the dense black shadows.

[Illustration: THE GOTHIC CHAPEL.]

If you enter one of the caves revealed in the distance, you find
yourself in a deep ravine, with huge piles of gray rock jutting out more
and more, till they nearly meet at top. Looking upward, through this
narrow aperture, you see, high, high above you, a vaulted roof of
_black_ rock, studded with brilliant spar, like constellations in the
sky, seen at midnight, from the deep clefts of a mountain. This is
called the Star Chamber. It makes one think of Schiller's grand
description of William Tell sternly waiting for Gessler, among the
shadows of the Alps, and of Wordsworth's picture of

"Yorkshire dales
Among the rocks and winding scars,
Where deep and low the hamlets lie,
Beneath their little patch of sky,
And little lot of stars."

[Illustration: THE STAR CHAMBER.]

In this neighborhood is a vast, dreary chamber, which Stephen, the
guide, called Bandit's Hall, the first moment his eye rested on it; and
the name is singularly expressive of its character. Its ragged roughness
and sullen gloom are indescribable. The floor is a mountainous heap of
loose stones, and not an inch of even surface could be found on roof or
walls. Imagine two or three travellers, with their lamps, passing
through this place of evil aspect. The deep, suspicions-looking recesses
and frightful crags are but partially revealed in the feeble light. All
at once, a Bengal Light blazes up, and every black rock and frowning
cliff stands out in the brilliant glare. The contrast is sublime beyond
imagination. It is as if a man had seen the hills and trees of this
earth only in the dim outline of a moonless night, and they should, for
the first time, be revealed to him in the gushing glory of the morning
sun. But the greatest wonder in this region of the cave, is Mammoth
Dome--a giant among giants. It is so immensely high and vast, that three
of the most powerful Bengal Lights illuminate it very imperfectly. That
portion of the ceiling which becomes visible, is three hundred feet
above your head, and remarkably resembles the aisles of Westminster
Abbey. It is supposed that the top of this dome is near the surface of
the ground. Another route from the Devil's Council Chamber conducts you
to a smooth, level path, called Pensacola Avenue. Here are numerous
formations of crystallized gypsum, but not as beautiful or as various as
are found farther on. From various slopes and openings, caves above and
below are visible. The Mecca's shrine of this pilgrimage is Angelica's
Grotto, completely lined and covered with the largest and richest dog's
tooth spar. A person who visited the place, a few years since, laid his
sacrilegious hands upon it, while the guide's back was turned towards
whim. He coolly demolished a magnificent mass of spar, sparkling most
conspicuously on the very centre of the arch, and wrote his own
insignificant name in its place. This was _his_ fashion of securing
immortality! It is well that fairies and giants are powerless in the
nineteenth century, else had the indignant genii of the cave crushed his
bones to impalpable powder.

[Illustration: THE BOTTOMLESS PIT.]

If you pass behind Satan's Throne, by a narrow ascending path, you come
into a vast hall where there is nothing but naked rock. This empty
dreary place is appropriately called the Deserted Chamber. Walking along
the verge, you arrive at another avenue, inclosing sulphur springs. Here
the guide warns you of the vicinity of a pit, one hundred and twenty
feet deep, in the shape of a saddle. Stooping over it, and looking
upward, you see an abyss of precisely the same shape over head; a fact
which indicates that it began in the upper region, and was merely
interrupted by this chamber.

From this, you may enter a narrow and very tortuous path, called the
Labyrinth, which leads to an immense split, or chasm, in the rocks. Here
is placed a ladder, down which you descend twenty-five or thirty feet,
and enter a narrow cave below, which brings you to a combination of rock
called the Gothic Window. You stand in this recess, while the guided
ascends huge cliffs overhead, and kindles Bengal Lights, by the help of
which you see, two hundred feet above you, a Gothic dome of one solid
rock, perfectly overawing in its vastness and height. Below, is an abyss
of darkness, which no eye but the Eternal can fathom. If, instead of
descending the ladder, you pass straight alongside the chasm, you arrive
at the Bottomless Pit, beyond which no one ever ventured to proceed till
1838. To this fact we probably owe the meagre account given by Lieber,
in the Encyclopædia Americana. He says, "This cave is more remarkable
for extent, than the variety or beauty of its productions; having none
of the beautiful stalactites found in many other caves." For a long
period this pit was considered bottomless, because, when stones were
thrown into it, they reverberated and reverberated along the sides, till
lost to the ear, but seemed to find no resting place. It has since been
sounded, and found to be one hundred and forty feet deep, with a soft
muddy bottom, which returns no noise when a stone strikes upon it. In
1838, the adventurous Stephen threw a ladder across the chasm, and
passed over. There is now a narrow bridge of two planks, with a little
railing on each side; but as it is impossible to sustain it by piers,
travellers must pass over in the centre, one by one, and not touch the
railing, lest they disturb the balance, and overturn the bridge.

This walk brings you into Pensico Avenue. Hitherto, the path has been
rugged, wild, and rough, interrupted by steep acclivities, rocks, and
big stones; but this avenue has a smooth and level floor, as if the sand
had been spread out by gently flowing waters. Through this, descending
more and more, you come to a deep arch, by which you enter the Winding
Way; a strangely irregular and zig-zag path, so narrow that a very stout
man could not squeeze through. In some places, the rocks at the sides
are on a line with your shoulders, then piled high over your head; and
then again you rise above, and overlook them all, and see them heaped
behind you, like the mighty waves of the Red Sea, parted for the
Israelites to pass through. This toilsome path was evidently made by a
rushing, winding torrent. Toward the close, the water not having force
enough to make a smooth bed, has bored a tunnel. This is so low and
narrow, that the traveller is obliged to stoop and squeeze himself
through. Suddenly he passes into a vast hall, called the Great Relief;
and this leads into the River Hall, at the side of which you have a
glimpse of a small cave, called the Smoke House, because it is hung with
rocks perfectly in the shape of hams. The River Hall descends like the
slope of a mountain. The ceiling stretches away--away--before you, vast
and grand as the firmament at midnight. No one, who has never seen this
cave, can imagine the excitement, and awe, with which the traveller
keeps his eye fixed on the rocky ceiling, which, gradually revealed in
the passing light, continually exhibits some new and unexpected feature
of sublimity or beauty.

One of the most picturesque sights in the world, is to see a file of men
and women passing along these wild and craggy paths--slowly,
slowly--that their lamps may have time to illuminate the sky-like
ceiling, and gigantic walls; disappearing behind the high cliffs,
sinking into ravines, their lights shining upward through fissures in
the rocks; then suddenly emerging from some abrupt angle, standing in
the bright gleam of their lamps, relieved against the towering black
masses around them. He who could paint the infinite variety of creation,
can alone give an adequate description of this marvellous region. At one
side of River Hall is a steep precipice, over which you can look down,
by aid of blazing missiles, upon a broad, black sheet of water, eighty
feet below, called the Dead Sea. This is an awfully impressive place,
the sights and sounds of which do not easily pass from memory. He who
has seen it will have it vividly brought before him by Alfieri's
description of Filippo: "Only a transient word or act gives us a short
and dubious glimmer, that reveals to us the abysses of his being; dark,
lurid, and terrific, as the throat of the infernal pool." As you pass
along, you hear the roar of invisible waterfalls, and at the foot of the
slope, the River Styx lies before you, deep and black, overarched with
rock. The first glimpse of it brings to mind the descent of Ulysses into
hell.

"Where the dark rock o'erhangs the infernal lake,
And mingling screams eternal murmurs make."

Across these unearthly waters, the guide can convey but two passengers
at once; and these sit motionless in the canoe, with feet turned apart,
so as not to disturb the balance. Three lamps are fastened to the prow,
the images of which are reflected in the dismal pool.

If you are impatient of delay, or eager for new adventures, you can
leave your companions lingering about the shore, and cross the Styx by a
dangerous bridge of precipices overhead. In order to do this, you must
ascend a steep cliff and enter a cave above, from an egress of which you
find yourself on the bank of the river, eighty feet above its surface,
commanding a view of those passing in the boat, and those waiting on the
shore. Seen from this height, the lamps in the canoe glare like fiery
eyeballs; and the passengers sitting there, so hushed and motionless,
look like shadows. The scene is so strangely funereal and spectral, that
it seems as if the Greeks must have witnessed it, before they imagined
Charon conveying ghosts to the dim regions of Pluto. Your companions,
thus seen, do indeed--

"Skim along the dusky glades,
Thin airy shoals, and visionary shades."

[Illustration: THE RIVER STYX.]

If you turn your eye from the canoe, to the parties of men and women,
whom you left waiting on the shore, you will see them, by the gleam of
their lamps, scattered in picturesque groups, looming out in bold relief
from the dense darkness around them.

When you have passed the Styx, you soon meet another stream,
appropriately called Lethe. The echoes here are absolutely stunning. A
single voice sounds like a powerful choir; and could an organ be played,
it would deprive the hearer of his senses. When you have crossed, you
enter a high level hall, named the Great Walk, half a mile of which
brings you to another river, called the Jordan. In crossing this, the
rocks, in one place, descend so low, as to leave only eighteen inches
for the boat to pass through. Passengers are obliged to double up, and
lie on each other's shoulders till this gap is passed. This
uncomfortable position is, however, of short duration, and you suddenly
emerge to where the vault of the cave is more than a hundred feet high.
In the fall of the year, this river often rises, almost instantaneously,
over fifty feet above low-water mark; a phenomenon supposed to be caused
by heavy rains from the upper earth. On this account, autumn is an
unfavorable season for those who wish to explore the cave throughout. If
parties happen to be caught on the other side of Jordan, when the sudden
rise takes place, a boat conveys them, on the swollen waters, to the
level of an upper cave, so low that they are obliged to enter on hands
and knees, and crawl through. This place is called Purgatory. People on
the other side, aware of their danger, have a boat in readiness to
receive them. The guide usually sings while crossing the Jordan, and his
voice is reverberated by a choir of sweet echoes. The only animals ever
found in the cave are fish, with which this stream abounds. They are
perfectly white, and without eyes; at least, they have been subjected to
a careful scientific examination, and no organ similar to an eye can be
discovered. It would indeed be a useless appendage to creatures that
dwell for ever in Cimmerian darkness. But, as usual, the acuteness of
one sense is increased by the absence of another. These fish are
undisturbed by the most powerful glare of light, but they are alarmed at
the slightest agitation of the water; and it is therefore exceedingly
difficult to catch them.

The rivers of Mammoth Cave were never crossed till 1840. Great efforts
have been made to discover whence they come, and whither they go. But
though the courageous Stephen has floated for hours up to his chin, and
forced his way through the narrowest apertures under the dark waves, so
as to leave merely his head a breathing space, yet they still remain as
much a mystery as ever--without beginning or end, like eternity. They
disappear under arches, which, even at the lowest stage of the water,
are under the surface of it. From an unknown cause, it sometimes happens
in the neighborhood of these streams, that the figure of a distant
companion will apparently loom up, to the height of ten or twelve feet,
as he approaches you. This occasional phenomenon is somewhat frightful,
even to the most rational observer, occurring as it does in a region so
naturally associated with giants and genii.

From the Jordan, through Silliman's Avenue, you enter a high, narrow
defile, or pass, in a portion of which, called the Hanging Rocks, huge
masses of stone hang suspended over your head. At the side of this
defile, is a recess, called the Devil's Blacksmith's Shop. It contains a
rock shaped like an anvil, with a small inky current running near it,
and quantities of coarse stalagmite scattered about, precisely like
blacksmith's cinders, called slag. In another place, you pass a square
rock, covered with beautiful dog's tooth spar, called the Mile Stone.

This pass brings you into Wellington's Gallery, which tapers off to a
narrow point, apparently the end of the cave in this direction. But a
ladder is placed on one side by which you ascend to a small cleft in the
rock, through which you are at once ushered into a vast apartment,
discovered about two years ago. This is the commencement of Cleveland's
Avenue, the crowning wonder and glory of this subterranean world. At the
head of the ladder, you find yourself surrounded by overhanging
stalactites, in the form of rich clusters of grapes, transparent to the
light, hard as marble, and round and polished, as if done by a
sculptor's hand. This is called Mary's Vineyard; and from it, an
entrance to the right brings you into a perfectly naked cave, whence you
suddenly pass into a large hall, with magnificent columns, and rich
festoons of stalactite, in various forms of beautiful combination. In
the centre of this chamber, between columns of stalactite, stands a mass
of stalagmite, shaped like a sarcophagus, in which is an opening like a
grave. A Roman Catholic priest first discovered this, about a year ago,
and with fervent enthusiasm exclaimed, "The Holy Sepulchre!" a name
which it has since borne.

To the left of Mary's Vineyard, is an inclosure like an arbor, the
ceiling and sides of which are studded with snow-white crystallized
gypsum, in the form of all sorts of flowers. It is impossible to convey
an idea of the exquisite beauty and infinite variety of these delicate
formations. In some places, roses and lilies seem cut on the rock, in
bas-relief; in others, a graceful bell rises on a long stalk, so slender
that it bends at a breath. One is an admirable imitation of Indian corn
in tassel, the silky fibres as fine and flexile as can be imagined;
another is a group of ostrich plumes, so downy that a zephyr waves it.
In some nooks were little parks of trees, in others, gracefully curled
leaves like the Acanthus, rose from the very bosom of the rock. Near
this room is the Snow Chamber, the roof and sides of which are covered
with particles of brilliant white gypsum, as if snowballs had been
dashed all over the walls. In another apartment the crystals are all in
the form of rosettes. In another, called Rebecca's Garland, the flowers
have all arranged themselves into wreaths. Each seems to have a style of
formations peculiar to itself, though of infinite variety. Days might be
spent in these superb grottoes, without becoming familiar with half
their hidden glories. One could imagine that some antediluvian giant had
here imprisoned some fair daughter of earth, and then in pity for her
loneliness, had employed fairies to deck her bowers with all the
splendor of earth and ocean. Like poor Amy Robsart, in the solitary
halls of Cumnor. Bengal Lights, kindled in these beautiful retreats,
produce an effect more gorgeous than any theatrical representation of
fairyland; but they smoke the pure white incrustations, and the guide
is therefore very properly reluctant to have them used. The reflection
from the shining walls is so strong, that lamplight is quite sufficient.
Moreover, these wonderful formations need to be examined slowly and in
detail. The universal glitter of the Lights is worthless in comparison.
From Rebecca's Garland you come into a vast hall, of great height,
covered with shining drops of gypsum, like oozing water petrified. In
the centre is a large rock, four feet high, and level at top, round
which several hundred people can sit conveniently. This is called
Cornelia's Table, and is frequently used for parties to dine upon. In
this hall, and in Wellington's Gallery, are deposits of fibrous gypsum,
snow-white, dry, and resembling asbestos. Geologists, who sometimes take
up their abode in the cave for weeks, and other travellers who choose to
remain over night, find this a very pleasant and comfortable bed.

Cornelia's Table is a safe centre, from which individuals may diverge on
little exploring expeditions; for the paths here are not labyrinthine,
and the hall is conspicuous from various neighboring points of view. In
most regions of the cave, it is hazardous to lose sight of the guide. If
you think to walk straight ahead, even for a few rods, and then turn
short round and return to him, you will find it next to impossible to do
so. So many paths come in at acute angles; they look so much alike; and
the light of a lamp reveals them so imperfectly, that none but the
practised eye of a guide can disentangle their windings. A gentleman who
retraced a few steps, near the entrance of the cave, to find his hat,
lost his way so completely, that he was not found for forty-eight hours,
though twenty or thirty people were in search of him. Parties are
occasionally mustered and counted, to see that none are missing. Should
such an accident happen, there is no danger, if the wanderer will remain
stationary; for he will soon be missed, and a guide sent after him. From
the hall of congealed drops, you may branch off into a succession of
small caves, called Cecilia's Grottoes. Here nearly all the beautiful
formations of the surrounding caves, such as grapes, flowers, stars,
leaves, coral, &c., may be found so low, that you can conveniently
examine their minutest features. One of these little recesses, covered
with sparkling spar, set in silvery gypsum, is called Diamond Grotto.
Alma's Bower closes this series of wonderful formations. As a whole,
they are called Cleveland's Cabinet, in honor of Professor Cleveland, of
Bowdoin College. Silliman calls this admirable series, the Alabaster
Caves. He says: "I was at first at a loss to account for such beautiful
formations, and especially for the elegance of the curves exhibited. It
is however evident that the substances have grown from the rocks, by
increments or additions to the base; the solid parts already formed
being continually pushed forward. If the growth be a little more rapid
on one side than on the other, a well-proportioned curve will be the
result; should the increased action on one side diminish or increase,
then all the beauties of the conic and mixed curves would be produced.
The masses are often evenly and longitudinally striated by a kind of
columnar structure, exhibiting a fascicle of small prisms; and some of
these prisms ending sooner than others, give a broken termination of
great beauty, similar to our form of the emblem of 'the order of the
star.' The rosettes formed by a mammillary disk surrounded by a circle
of leaves, rolled elegantly outward, are from four inches to a foot in
diameter. Tortuous vines, throwing off curled leaves at every flexure,
like the branches of a chandelier, running more than a foot in length,
and not thicker than the finger, are among the varied frost-work of
these grottoes; common stalactites of carbonate of lime, although
beautiful objects, lose by contrast with these ornaments, and dwindle
into mere clumsy, awkward icicles. Besides these, there are tufts of
'hair salt,' native sulphate of magnesia, depending like adhering
snowballs from the roof, and periodically detaching themselves by their
own increasing weight. Indeed, the more solid alabaster ornaments become
at last overgrown, and fall upon the floor of the grotto, which was
found covered with numbers quite entire, besides fragments of others
broken by the fall."

A distinguished geologist has said that he believed Cleveland's Avenue,
two miles in length, contained a petrified form of every vegetable
production on earth. If this be too large a statement, it is at least
safe to say that its variety is almost infinite. Amongst its other
productions, are large piles of Epsom salts, beautifully crystallized.
Travellers have shown such wanton destructiveness in this great temple
of Nature--mutilating beautiful columns, knocking off spar, and crushing
delicate flowers--that the rules are now very strict. It is allowable to
touch nothing, except the ornaments which have loosened and dropped by
their own weight. These are often hard enough to bear transportation.

After you leave Alma's Bower, the cave again becomes very rugged.
Beautiful combinations of gypsum and spar may still be seen occasionally
overhead: but all round you rocks and stones are piled up in the wildest
manner. Through such scraggy scenery, you come to the Rocky Mountains,
an irregular pile of massive rocks, from 100 to 150 feet high. From
these you can look down into Dismal Hollow--deep below deep--the most
frightful looking place in the whole cave. On the top of the mountain is
a beautiful rotunda, called Croghan Hall, in honor of the proprietor.
Stalactites surround this in the richest fringe of icicles, and lie
scattered about the walls in all shapes, as if arranged for a museum. On
one side is a stalagmite formation like a pine-tree, about five feet
high, with regular leaves and branches; another is in a pyramidal form,
like a cypress.

If you wind down the mountains on the side opposite from that which you
ascended, you will come to Serena's Arbor, which is thirteen miles from
the entrance of the cave, and the end of this avenue. A most beautiful
termination it is! In a semicircle of stalactite columns is a fountain
of pure water spouting up from a rock. This fluid is as transparent as
air; all the earthy particles it ever held in suspension, having been
long since precipitated. The stalactite formations in this arbor are
remarkably beautiful.

One hundred and sixty-five avenues have been discovered in Mammoth Cave,
the walk through which is estimated at about three hundred miles. In
some places, you descend more than a mile into the bowels of the earth.
The poetic-minded traveller, after he has traced all the labyrinths,
departs with lingering reluctance. As he approaches the entrance,
daylight greets him with new and startling beauty. If the sun shines on
the verdant sloping hill, and the waving trees, seen through the arch,
they seem like fluid gold; if mere daylight rests upon them, they
resemble molten silver. This remarkable richness of appearance is
doubtless owing to the contrast with the thick darkness, to which the
eye has been so long accustomed.

As you come out of the cave, the temperature of the air rises thirty
degrees instantly (if the season is summer), and you feel as if plunged
in a hot vapor bath; but the effects of this are salutary and not
unpleasant. Nature never seems so miraculous as it does when you emerge
from this hidden realm of marvellous imitations. The "dear goddess" is
so serene in her resplendent and more harmonious beauty! The gorgeous
amphitheatre of trees, the hills, the sky, and the air, all seem to wear
a veil of transfigured glory. The traveller feels that he was never
before conscious how beautiful a phenomenon is the sunlight, how
magnificent the blue arch of heaven!

There are three guides at the service of travellers, all well versed in
the intricate paths of this nether world. Stephen, the presiding genius
of Mammoth Cave, is a mulatto, and a slave. He has lived in this strange
region from boyhood, and a large proportion of the discoveries are the
result of his courage, intelligence, and untiring zeal. His vocation has
brought him into contact with many intellectual and scientific men, and
a prodigious memory, he has profited much by intercourse with superior
minds. He can recollect every body that ever visited the cave, and all
the terms of geology and mineralogy are at his tongue's end. He is
extremely attentive, and peculiarly polite to ladies. Like most of his
race, he is fond of grandiloquent language, and his rapturous
expressions, as he lights up some fine point of view, are at times fine
specimens of glorification. His knowledge of the place is ample and
accurate, and he is altogether an extremely useful and agreeable guide.

FOOTNOTES:

[B] See engraving of this hotel in the _International_ for August, 1851.

THE POEM OF THE MONTH.

The finest new poem that has fallen under our notice is the following,
from _Graham's Magazine_ for the present month. We think few who have
read Miss Carey's recent poems entitled _Lyra_, _Jessie Carol_,
_October_, and _The Winds_, with her prose volume just published by
Redfield, will be disposed to question, that in the brief period in
which she has been before the public she has entitled herself to the
highest rank among the living literary women of the United States.

WINTER, BY ALICE CAREY.

Now sits the twilight palaced in the snow,
Hugging away beneath a fleece of gold
Her statue beauties, dumb and icy cold,
And fixing her blue steadfast eyes below,
Where in a bed of chilly waves afar,
With dismal shadows o'er her sweet face blown,
Tended to death by eve's delicious star,
Lies the lost day alone.

Where late, with red mists bound about his brows,
Went the swart Autumn, wading to the knees
Through drifts of dead leaves shaken from the boughs
Of the old forest trees,
The gusts upon their baleful errands run
O'er the bright ruin, fading from our eyes,
And over all, like clouds about the sun,
A shadow lies.

For, fallen asleep upon a dreary world,
Slant to the light, one late October morn,
From some rough cavern blew a tempest cold,
And tearing off his garland of ripe corn,
Twisted with blue grapes, sweet with delicious wine,
And Ceres' drowsy flowers, so dully red,
Deep in his cavern leafy and divine,
Buried him with his dead.

Then, with big black beard glistening in the frost,
Under the icy arches of the north,
And o'er the still graves of the seasons lost,
Blustered the Winter forth--
Spring, with your crown of roses budding new,
Thought-nursing and most melancholy Fall,
Summer, with bloomy meadows wet with dew,
Blighting your beauties all.

Oh heart, your spring-time dream will idle prove,
Your summer but forerun the autumn's death,
The flowery arches in the home of love
Fall crumbling, at a breath;
And, sick at last with that great sorrow's shock,
As some poor prisoner, pressing to the bars
His forehead, calls on Mercy to unlock
The chambers of the stars--
You, turning off from life's first mocking glow
Leaning it may be, still on broken faith,
Will down the vale of Autumn gladly go
To the chill winter, Death.

Hark! from the empty bosom of the grove
I hear a sob, as one forlorn might pine--
The white-limbed beauty of a god is thine,
King of the seasons! and the night that hoods
Thy brow majestic, brightest stars enweave--
Thou surely canst not grieve;

But only far away
Makest stormy prophecies; well, lift them higher,
Till morning on the forehead of the day
Presses a seal of fire
Dearer to me the scene
Of nature shrinking from thy rough embrace,
Than Summer, with her rustling robe of green,
Cool blowing in my face.

The moon is up--how still the yellow beams
That slantwise lie upon the stirless air,
Sprinkled with frost, like pearl-entangled hair,
O'er beauty's cheeks that streams,
How the red light of Mars their pallor mocks.
And the wild legend from the old time wins,
Of sweet waves kissing all the drowning locks
Of Ilia's lovely twins.

Come, Poesy, and with thy shadowy hands
Cover me softly, singing all the night--
In thy dear presence find I best delight;
Even the saint that stands
Tending the gate of heaven, involved in beams
Of rarest glory, to my mortal eyes
Pales from the blest insanity of dreams
That round thee lies.

Unto the dusky borders of the grove
Where gray-haired Saturn, silent as a stone,
Sat in his grief alone,
Or where young Venus, searching for her love,
Walked through the clouds, I pray,
Bear me to-night away.

Or wade with me through snows
Drifted in loose fantastic curves aside,
From humble doors where Love and Faith abide,
And no rough winter blows,
Chilling the beauty of affections fair,
Cabined securely there.

Where round their fingers winding the white slips
That crown his forehead, on the grandsire's knees,
Sit merry children, teasing about ships
Lost in the perilous seas;
Or listening with a troublous joy, yet deep,
To stories about battles, or of storms,
Till weary grown, and drowsing into sleep,
Slide they from out his arms.

Where, by the log-heap fire,
As the pane rattles and the cricket sings,
I with the gray-haired sire
May talk of vanished summer-times and springs,
And harmlessly and cheerfully beguile
The long, long hours--
The happier for the snows that drift the while
About the flowers.

Winter, wilt keep the love I offer thee?
No mesh of flowers is bound about my brow;
From life's fair summer I am hastening now,
And as I sink my knee,
Dimpling the beauty of thy bed of snow--
Dowerless, I can but say--
O, cast me not away!

CARLYLE ON THE OPERA.

The London _Keepsake_, for 1852, contains an article by Carlyle. He has
not sent something that was at hand, or thrown off any thing on the spur
of the moment, but set himself to write down to his company, and do his
best in that way. The paper is written in the character of a travelling
and philosophical American, who pours forth his thoughts on the opera;
the topics being the deterioration of music as an art, the small
beneficial result that follows so much outlay and such a combination of
artistical skill, the amount of training bestowed on the singers and
dancers, greater than that which produces great men, and the company
before the curtain, together with reflections thereanent. It is a piece
of forcible description, and of thoughtful though perhaps rather
one-sided reflection. As we heard it remarked a few days ago by a shrewd
critic, Carlyle is never so much himself as when he appears in the
character of another--for examples, in that of the strolling lecturer,
who left with his unpaid lodging-house keeper a denunciation of modern
philanthropists, or in that of the correspondent whose letters he quotes
in the Life of Sterling. In the disguise of a Yankee philosopher he thus
breaks out, after some serious and highly-wrought prefatory phrases on
the glories of true music, while yet true music partook of the divine:

"Of the account of the Haymarket Opera my account, in fine, is
this: Lustres, candelabras, painting, gilding at discretion: a
hall as of the Caliph Alraschid, or him that commanded the
slaves of the Lamp; a hall as if fitted up by the genies,
regardless of expense. Upholstery and the outlay of human
capital, could do no more. Artists, too, as they are called,
have been got together from the ends of the world, regardless
likewise of expense, to do dancing and singing, some of them
even geniuses in their craft. One singer in particular, called
Coletti, or some such name, seemed to me, by the cast of his
face, by the tones of his voice, by his general bearing, so far
as I could read it, to be a man of deep and ardent
sensibilities, of delicate intuitions, just sympathies;
originally an almost poetic soul, or man of _genius_, as we
term it; stamped by Nature as capable of far other work than
squalling here, like a blind Samson to make the Philistines
sport! Nay, all of them had aptitudes, perhaps of a
distinguished kind; and must, by their own and other people's
labor, have got a training equal or superior in toilsomeness,
earnest assiduity, and patient travail, to what breeds men to
the most arduous trades. I speak not of kings' grandees, or the
like show-figures; but few soldiers, judges, men of letters,
can have had such pains taken with them. The very ballet girls,
with their muslin saucers round them, were perhaps little short
of miraculous; whirling and spinning there in strange mad
vortexes, and then suddenly fixing themselves motionless, each
upon her left or right great-toe, with the other leg stretched
out at an angle of ninety degrees;--as if you had suddenly
pricked into the floor, by one of their points, a pair, or
rather a multitudinous cohort, of mad restlessly jumping and
clipping scissors, and so bidden them rest, with opened blades,
and stand still, in the Devil's name! A truly notable motion;
marvellous, almost miraculous, were not the people there so
used to it. Motion peculiar to the Opera; perhaps the ugliest,
and surely one of the most difficult, ever taught a female
creature in this world. Nature abhors it; but Art does at least
admit it to border on the impossible. One little Cerito, or
Taglioni the Second, that night when I was there, went bounding
from the floor as if she had been made of Indian-rubber, or
filled with hydrogen gas, and inclined by positive levity to
bolt through the ceiling; perhaps neither Semiramis nor
Catherine the Second had bred herself so carefully. Such
talent, and such martyrdom of training, gathered from the four
winds, was now here, to do its feat, and be paid for it.
Regardless of expense, indeed! The purse of Fortunatus seemed
to have opened itself, and the divine art of Musical Sound and
Rhythmic Motion was welcomed with an explosion of all the
magnificences which the other arts, fine and coarse, could
achieve. For you are to think of some Rossini or Bellini in the
rear of it, too; to say nothing of the Stanfields, and hosts of
scene-painters, machinists, engineers, enterprisers--fit to
have taken Gibraltar, written the History of England, or
reduced Ireland into Industrial Regiments, had they so set
their minds to it!

"Alas, and of all these notable or noticeable human talents,
and excellent perseverances and energies, backed by mountains
of wealth, and led by the divine art of Music and Rhythm
vouchsafed by Heaven to them and us, what was to be the issue
here this evening? An hour's amusement, not amusing either,
but wearisome and dreary, to a high-dizened select populace of
male and female persons, who seemed to me not worth much
amusing! Could any one have pealed into their hearts once, one
true thought, and glimse of Self-vision: 'High-dizened most
expensive persons, Aristocracy so called, or _Best_ of the
World, beware, beware what proofs you give of betterness and
bestness!' and then the salutary pang of conscience in reply:
'A select Populace, with money in its purse, and drilled a
little by the posture-maker: good Heavens! if that were what,
here and every where in God's Creation, I _am_? And a world all
dying because I am, and show myself to be, and to have long
been, even that? John, the carriage, the carriage; swift! Let
me go home in silence, to reflection, perhaps to sackcloth and
ashes!' This, and not amusement, would have profited those
high-dizened persons.

"Amusement, at any rate, they did not get from Euterpe and
Melpomene. These two Muses, sent for, regardless of expense, I
could see, were but the vehicle of a kind of service which I
judged to be Paphian rather. Young beauties of both sexes used
their opera-glasses, you could notice, not entirely for looking
at the stage. And it must be owned the light, in this explosion
of all the upholsteries, and the human fine arts and coarse,
was magical; and made your fair one an Armida,--if you liked
her better so. Nay, certain old Improper-Females (of quality),
in their rouge and jewels, even these looked some
_reminiscence_ of enchantment; and I saw this and the other
lean domestic Dandy, with icy smile on his old worn face; this
and the other Marquis Singedelomme, Prince Mahogany, or the
like foreign Dignitary, tripping into the boxes of said
females, grinning there awhile with dyed moustachios and
macassar-oil graciosity, and then tripping out again;--and, in
fact, I perceived that Colletti and Cerito and the Rhythmic
Arts were a mere accompaniment here.

"Wonderful to see; and sad, if you had eyes! Do but think of
it. Cleopatra threw pearls into her drink, in mere waste; which
was reckoned foolish of her. But here had the Modern
Aristocracy of men brought the divinest of its Arts, heavenly
Music itself; and, piling all the upholsteries and ingenuities
that other human art could do, had lighted them into a bonfire
to illuminate an hour's flirtation of Singedelomme, Mahogany,
and these improper persons! Never in Nature had I seen such
waste before. O Colletti, you whose inborn melody, once of
kindred as I judged to 'the Melodies eternal,' might have
valiantly weeded out this and the other false thing from the
ways of men, and made a bit of God's creation more
melodious,--they have purchased you away from that; chained you
to the wheel of Prince Mahogany's chariot, and here you make
sport for a macassar Singedelomme and his improper-females past
the prime of life! Wretched spiritual Nigger, oh, if you _had_
some genius, and were not a born Nigger with mere appetite for
pumpkin, should you have endured such a lot? I lament for _you_
beyond all other expenses. Other expenses are light; you are
the Cleopatra's pearl that should not have been flung into
Mahogany's claret-cup. And Rossini, too, and Mozart and
Bellini--Oh, Heavens, when I think that Music too is condemned
to be mad and to burn herself, to this end, on such a funeral
pile,--your celestial Opera-house grows dark and infernal to
me! Behind its glitter stalks the shadow of Eternal Death;
through it too I look not 'up into the divine eye,' as Richter
has it, 'but down into the bottomless eyesocket'--not up
towards God, Heaven, and the Throne of Truth, but too truly
down towards Falsity, Vacuity, and the Dwelling-place of
Everlasting Despair."

THE GRAVE OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.

Sir John Richardson has just published, in London, a very valuable work,
embracing the results of his recent travels and adventures in the polar
regions, in search of the brave navigator who is probably buried under
their eternal snows. As a narrative it is not particularly interesting;
it is rich rather in scientific facts and observations. It has northern
landscapes, painted by an observer who combines scientific knowledge
with the taste of a lover of nature; exhibitions of zeal and endurance
under hardships; and incidents interesting from their rarity or their
circumstances; but nothing different from other expeditions undertaken
to explore the same region. A large part of the scientific matter is
presented by itself. A curious account of the Indian races whose
territories were travelled over forms a succession of separate chapters,
and a series of elaborate papers on the physical geography of northern
America occupies an appendix, which fills nearly two-thirds of the
second volume. The nature of the country explored gives a freshness to
every thing connected with it, and interest even to casual observation.

This is a curious fact connected with the feeling of heat:

"The power of the sun this day in a cloudless sky was so great,
that Mr. Rae and I were glad to take shelter in the water while
the crews were engaged on the portages. The irritability of the
human frame is either greater in these Northern latitudes, or
the sun, notwithstanding its obliquity, acts more powerfully
upon it than near the Equator; for I have never felt its direct
rays so oppressive within the Tropics as I have experienced
them to be on some occasions in the high latitudes. The luxury
of bathing at such times is not without alloy; for, if you
choose the mid-day, you are assailed in the water by the
_tabani_, who draw blood in an instant with their formidable
lancets; and if you select the morning or evening, then clouds
of thirsty moschetoes, hovering around, fasten on the first
part that emerges. Leeches also infest the still waters, and
are prompt in their aggressions."

The following relate to cold and mid-winter:

"The rapid evaporation of both snow and ice in the winter and
spring, long before the action of the sun has produced the
slightest thaw or appearance of moisture, is made evident to
residents in the high latitudes by many facts of daily
occurrence; and I may mention that the drying of linen
furnishes a familiar one. When a shirt, after being washed, is
exposed in the open air to a temperature of 40° or 50° below
zero, it is instantly rigidly frozen, and may be broken if
violently bent. If agitated when in this condition by a strong
wind, it makes a rustling noise like theatrical thunder. In an
hour or two, however, or nearly as quickly as it would do if
exposed to the sun in the moist climate of England, it dries
and becomes limber....

"In consequence of the extreme dryness of the atmosphere in
winter, most articles of English manufacture made of wood,
horn, or ivory, brought to Rupert's Land, are shrivelled, bent,
and broken. The handles of razors and knives, combs, ivory
scales, and various other things kept in the warm rooms, are
damaged in this way. The human body also becomes visibly
electric from the dryness of the skin. One cold night I rose
from my bed, and having lighted a lantern, was going out to
observe the thermometer, with no other clothing than my flannel
night-dress, when, on approaching my hand to the iron latch of
the door, a distinct spark was elicited. Friction of the skin
at almost all times in winter produced the electric odor....

"Even at mid-winter we had three hours and a half of daylight.
On the 20th of December I required a candle to write at the
window at ten in the morning. On the 29th, the sun, after ten
days' absence, rose at the fishery, where the horizon was open;
and on the 8th of January, both limbs of that luminary were
seen from a gentle eminence behind the fort, rising above the
centre of Fishery Island. For several days previously, however,
its place in the heavens at noon had been denoted by rays of
light shooting into the sky above the woods. The lowest
temperature in January was 50° F. On the 1st of February the
sun rose to us at nine o'clock and set at three, and the days
lengthened rapidly. On the 23d I could write in my room without
artificial light from ten A.M. to half-past two P.M., making
four hours and a half of bright daylight. The moon in the long
nights was a most beautiful object; that satellite being
constantly above the horizon for nearly a fortnight together in
the middle of the lunar month. Venus also shone with a
brilliancy which is never witnessed in a sky loaded with
vapors; and, unless in snowy weather, our nights were always
enlivened by the beams of the Aurora."

Few if any readers will ever be in a situation to use the knowledge of
how to build a snow-house. The Arctic architecture, from a chapter on
the Esquimaux, is worth reading, should it never turn out to be worth
knowing:

"As the days lengthen, the villages are emptied of their
inhabitants, who move seaward on the ice to the seal-hunt. Then
comes into use a marvellous system of architecture, unknown
among the rest of the American nations. The fine pure snow has
by that time acquired, under the action of strong winds and
hard frosts, sufficient coherence to form an admirable light
building material, with which the Eskimo master-mason erects
most comfortable dome-shaped houses. A circle is first traced
on the smooth surface of the snow; and the slabs for raising
the walls are cut from within, so as to clear a space down to
the ice, which is to form the floor of the dwelling, and whose
evenness was previously ascertained by probing. The slabs
requisite to complete the dome, after the interior of the
circle is exhausted, are cut from some neighboring spot. Each
slab is neatly fitted to its place by running a flenching-knife
along the joint, when it instantly freezes to the wall, the
cold atmosphere forming a most excellent cement. Crevices are
plugged up, and seams accurately closed by throwing a few
shovelfuls of loose snow over the fabric. Two men generally
work together in raising a house, and the one who is stationed
within cuts a low door, and creeps out when his task is over.
The walls being only three or four inches thick, are
sufficiently translucent to admit a very agreeable light, which
serves for ordinary domestic purposes; but if more be required
a window is cut, and the aperture fitted with a piece of
transparent ice. The proper thickness of the walls is of some
importance. A few inches excludes the wind, yet keeps down the
temperature so as to prevent dripping from the interior. The
furniture--such as seats, tables, and sleeping-places--is also
formed of snow, and a covering of folded reindeer-skin or
seal-skin renders them comfortable to the inmates. By means of
ante-chambers and porches, in form of long, low galleries, with
their openings turned to leeward, warmth is insured in the
interior; and social intercourse is promoted by building the
houses contiguously, and cutting doors of communication between
them, or by erecting covered passages. Storehouses, kitchens
and other accessory buildings, may be constructed in the same
manner, and a degree of convenience gained which would be
attempted in vain with a less plastic material. These houses
are durable, the wind has little effect on them, and they
resist the thaw until the sun acquires very considerable
power."

The following account of the formation of dry land is from an earlier
portion of the journey, and refers to a region between the 50th and 55th
degrees of latitude:

"The eastern coast-line of Lake Winipeg is in general swampy,
with granite knolls rising through the soil, but not to such a
height as to render the scenery hilly. The pine forest skirts
the shore at the distance of two or three miles, covering
gently-rising lands; and the breadth of continuous lake-surface
seems to be in process of diminution, in the following way. A
bank of sand is first drifted up, in the line of a chain of
rocks which may happen to lie across the mouth of an inlet or
deep bay. Carices, balsam-poplars, and willows, speedily take
root therein; and the basin which lies behind, cut off from the
parent lake, is gradually converted into a marsh by the
luxuriant growth of aquatic plants. The sweet gale next appears
on its borders, and drift-wood, much of it rotten and
comminuted, is thrown up on the exterior bank, together with
some roots and stems of larger trees. The first spring storm
covers these with sand, and in a few weeks the vigorous
vegetation of a short but active summer binds the whole
together by a network of the roots of bents and willows.
Quantities of drift-sand pass before the high winds into the
swamp behind, and, weighing down the flags and willow branches,
prepare a fit soil for succeeding crops. During the winter of
this climate, all remains fixed as the summer left it; and as
the next season is far advanced before the bank thaws, little
of it washes back into the water, but on the contrary, every
gale blowing from the lake brings a fresh supply of sand from
the shoals which are continually forming along the shore. The
floods raised by melting snows cut narrow channels through the
frozen beach, by which the ponds behind are drained of their
superfluous waters. As the soil gradually acquires depth, the
balsam-poplars and aspens overpower the willows; which,
however, continue to form a line of demarcation between the
lake and the encroaching forest. Considerable sheets of water,
are also cut off on the northwest side of the lake, where the
bird's-eye limestone forms the whole of the coast. Very
recently this corner was deeply indented by narrow branching
bays, whose outer points were limestone cliffs. Under the
action of frost, the thin horizontal beds of this stone split
up, crevices are formed perpendicularly, large blocks are
detached, and the cliff is rapidly overthrown, soon becoming
masked by its own ruins. In a season or two the slabs break
into small fragments, which are tossed up by the waves across
the neck of the bay into the form of narrow ridgelike beaches,
from twenty to thirty feet high. Mud and vegetable matter
gradually fill up the pieces of water thus secluded; a willow
swamp is formed; and when the ground is somewhat consolidated,
the willows are replaced by aspens."

The volumes have all the value of an official survey, and they are the
most important contributions to our knowledge of the _Terra Incognita_
of the Lower Mackenzie, that have been published. The occupants of this
region are the Loucheux Indians. Fine grown men of considerable stature,
and well-knit frames, they have evidently followed the course of the
Mackenzie River, from south to north. These are the Indians of whom from
the scantiness of our previous data, information is most valuable. They
are reasonably considered to belong to the same family as the Dog-rib,
Beaver, Hare, Copper, Carrier, and other Indians, a family which some
call Chepewyan, others Athabascan, but which the present work designates
as _Tinnè_. The Esquimo and Crees, though as fully described, are better
known. The chapters, illustrative of the other branches of the natural
history of North America, are equally valuable.

WITS ABOUT THE THRONE OF LOUIS THE FOURTEENTH.

We copy the following paragraphs from Sir James Stephens's Lectures on
the History of France. The illustrious men referred to are of course
well known by educated men, but to the masses their names are familiar
chiefly from their appearance in the brilliant romances of Dumas.

"The constellation of genius, wit, and learning, in the midst
of which Louis shone thus pre-eminently, was too brilliant to
be obscured by any clouds of royal disfavor; nor would any man
have shrunken with greater abhorrence than himself, from any
attempt to extinguish or to eclipse their splendor. He wisely
felt, and frankly acknowledged, that, their glory was essential
to his own; and he invited to a seat at his table, Moliere the
roturier, to whom the lowest of his nobles would have appointed
a place among his menial servants. As Francis, and Charles, and
Leo, and Julius, and Lorenzo had assigned science, and poetry,
and painting, and architecture, and sculpture, as their
appropriate provinces, to those great master spirits of Italy,
to whom they forbade the culture of political philosophy, so
Louis, when he interdicted to the gigantic intellects of his
times and country all intervention in the affairs of the
commonwealth, summoned them to the conquest of all the other
realms of thought in which they might acquire renown, either
for him, for France, or themselves. The theatres, the
academies, the pulpits, and the monasteries of his kingdom
rivalled each other in their zealous obedience to that royal
command, and obeyed it with a success from which no competent
and equitable judge can withhold his highest admiration. At
this day, when all the illusions of the name of Louis are
exhausted, and in this country, where his Augustan age has
seldom been regarded with much enthusiasm, who can seriously
address himself to the perusal of his great tragedians,
Corneille and Racine--or of his great comedians, Moliere and
Regnard--or if his great poets, Boileau and La Fontaine--or of
his great wits, La Rochfaucauld and La Bruyere--or of his great
philosophers, Des Cartes and Pascal--or of his great divines,
Bossuet and Arnauld--or of his great scholars, Mabillon and
Montfaucon--or if his great preachers, Bourdaloue and
Masillon--and not confess that no other monarch was ever
surrounded by an assemblage of men of genius so admirable for
the extent, the variety and the perfection of their powers.

"And yet the fact that such an assemblage were clustered into a
group, of which so great a king was the centre, implies that
there must have been some characteristic quality uniting them
all to each other and to him, and distinguishing them all from
the nobles of every other literary commonwealth which has
existed among men. What, then, was that quality, and what its
influence upon them?

"Louis lived with his courtiers, not as a despot among his
slaves, but as the most accomplished of gentlemen among his
associates. The social equality was, however, always guarded
from abuse by the most punctilious observance, on their side,
of the reverence due to his pre-eminent rank. In that enchanted
circle men appeared at least to obey, not from a hard
necessity, but from a willing heart. The bondage in which they
really lived was ennobled by that conventional code of honor
which dictated and enforced it. They prostrated themselves
before their fellow-man with no sense of self-abasement, and
the chivalrous homage with which they gratified him, was
considered as imparting dignity to themselves.

"Louis acknowledged and repaid this tribute of courtesy, by a
condescension still more refined, and by attentions yet more
delicate than their own. The harshness of power was so
ingeniously veiled, every shade of approbation was so nicely
marked, and every gradation of favor so finely discriminated,
that the tact of good society--that acquired sense, which
reveals to us the impression we make on those with whom we
associate--became the indispensable condition of existence at
Versailles and Marly. The inmates of those palaces lived under
a law peculiar to themselves; a law most effective for its
purposes, though the recompense it awarded to those who pleased
their common master was but his smile, and though the penalty
it imposed on those who displeased him was but his frown."

AMERICAN WAR-ENGINES.

The probabilities of a general war in Europe invest the subject of the
following paper with an unusual interest. It is worthy of notice that
America has furnished so large a proportion of the improvements in
war-engines of every description. Fulton's schemes are well known; we
all remember something of the guns invented by Perkins; there is a
gentleman now in daily conference with Mazzini and the revolutionary
committees, in London, who proposes the noiseless discharge of twenty
thousand missiles in a minute, by means of a machine invented in Ohio;
and we find in the _Times_ an abstract of a paper read at the
Institution of Civil Engineers, on the 25th of November, by our famous
countryman Colonel Colt, "On the Application of Machinery to the
Manufacture of Rotating Chambered-Breech Fire-Arms, and the
Peculiarities of those Arms." The communication commenced with a
historical account of such rotating chamber fire-arms as had been
discovered by the author, in his researches after specimens of the early
efforts of armorers for the construction of repeating weapons, the
necessity for which appears to have been long ago admitted; and with the
attention of such an intelligent class devoted to the subject, it is
certainly remarkable that during so long a period so little was really
effected towards the production of serviceable weapons of this sort. The
collections in the Tower of London, the United Service Museum, the
Rotunda at Woolwich, Warwick Castle, the Musée d'Artillerie, and the
Hotel Cluny, at Paris, as well as some ancient Eastern arms brought from
India by Lord William Bentinck, demonstrated the early efforts that had
been made to produce arms capable of rapidly firing several times
consecutively, without the delay of loading after each discharge.
Drawings of these specimens were exhibited, comprising the match-lock,
the pyrites wheel-lock, the flint-lock, down to the percussion-lock, as
adapted by the author. Among the match-lock guns, some had as many as
eight chambers, rotating by hand. Some of the pyrites wheel-lock guns
had also as many as eight chambers, and rotated by hand; one of them,
made in the seventeenth century, had the peculiarity of igniting the
charge close behind the bullet, burning backwards towards the breech--an
arrangement identical in principle with that of the modern Prussian
"needle gun," for which great merit has been claimed. The flint-locks
induced more determined efforts, but all were abortive, as the magazines
for priming and the pan covers were continually blown off on the
explosion of the charge. Indeed, from the earliest match-lock down to
the present time, the premature explosion of several chambers, owing to
the simultaneous ignition of the charges, from the spreading of the fire
at their mouths, had been the great source of difficulty. In some of the
most ancient specimens, orifices were provided in the butt of the barrel
for the escape of the bullets in case of explosion, whilst others had
evidently been destroyed by this action. In a brass model of a pistol of
the time of Charles II., from the United Service Museum, there was an
ingenious attempt to cause the chamber to rotate, by mechanical action,
in some degree similar, but more complicated than the arms constructed
by the author. The "Coolidge" and the "Collier" guns, both flint guns of
comparatively modern manufacture, exhibited the same radical defects of
liability to premature explosion.

The invention of Nock's patent breech, and the Rev. Mr. Forsyth's
introduction of the detonating or percussion guns, which latter
principle, with the necessary mechanical arrangements for the caps, was
essential to the safe construction of repeating fire-arms, constituted a
new era in these weapons.

Colonel Colt gave a detailed and interesting account of his experiments,
which resulted in the invention of his celebrated revolvers. His
communication, the first that had been brought before the institution,
by an American, was received with acclamations; and in the discussion
which ensued, in which our Minister, the Hon. Abbott Lawrence, Captain
Sir Thomas Hastings, R.N., Captain Sir Edward Belcher, R.N., Captain
Riddell, R.N., Mr. Miles, and the members of the council took part, the
most flattering testimony was given of the efficiency of the revolvers
in active service, and the strongest opinions as to the necessity of
their use in all frontier warfare; and that without this arm it was
almost impossible, except with an overwhelming force of troops, to cope
with savage tribes. The discussion was resumed at a meeting of the
Institution, held on the second of December.

A new, and, we understand, a very important invention, in this line, is
also described in the following interesting article by a contributor to
the _International_:

SKETCH OF THE PROGRESS OF INVENTION IN OFFENSIVE ARMS: JENNING'S RIFLE.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE,

BY W. M. FERRIS.

It may be justly considered that mechanical invention has been the most
prominent characteristic of history for the last four centuries. The
application of science to the useful arts has been pushed to an extent
of which preceding ages never dreamed. In poetry, in painting, in
sculpture, the great masters of ancient times are still the teachers of
mankind. But in all those arts which administer to the necessities,
increase the comforts, or multiply the enjoyments of men, the present is
marvellously in advance of every former age. Prominent among those arts
which have shared in this advancement, is that of war. At first sight it
may appear improper to distinguish as useful, improvements in the method
of taking life. But, experience and philosophy unite in teaching that
every improvement in military skill tends to render war less frequent,
and the nearer its operations approach to those of an exact science, the
more reluctant is each nation to engage in it, and the more careful not
to commit those offences which render a resort to it on the part of
other nations unavoidable.

We purpose to trace a brief sketch of the progress of invention in
offensive weapons, and more particularly in that class of fire-arms used
either in hunting or war, by a single individual, and generally
denominated small-arms, in contradistinction to artillery. Such a sketch
will be interesting, not only in its subject-matter, but also as a
chapter in the general history of human progress.

The learned reader who is curious in such matters, will find in the
Natural History of Pliny (vol. vii. cap. 56, 67), a statement of the
source whence originated most of the mechanical implements, the manners
and customs, and the political and religious institutions known in the
author's time. It is to be presumed that Pliny did not intend to vouch
for the truth of all he has there stated. He probably meant merely to
give a synopsis of the traditions most generally received, and which
assigned to a divine energy almost every thing that contributed to the
happiness of men. He tells us here that "the first combats were made by
the Africans against the Egyptians with a kind of stick, which they
called _phalanges_." The evident Greek origin of this word renders the
story absurd enough, and doubtless most of our readers will continue to
acquiesce in the account given in Holy Writ, that the origin of war was
but little subsequent to the origin of the race, and that fraternal
blood first stained the breast of our mother earth. But this statement
of Pliny contains a grain of truth. The stick, or club, was undoubtedly
the first weapon made use of by men in their combats with each other,
though the spear and the sword followed at a period long anterior to any
known in historical records.

But from the earliest ages men have sought to avoid hand-to-hand
conflicts, and to make skill supply the place of strength. In contests
with wild beasts this was indispensable. Nature had provided man with no
weapon with which he could contend against the boar's tusks, the lion's
teeth, or the tiger's paw. Hence, the substitution of missiles for
manual weapons, has been the end towards which ingenuity has been
constantly directed.

The conversion of the spear into the javelin, as it was the most
obvious, so probably it was the earliest step in advance. Close upon
this followed the sling, and last the arrow and the bow. The invention
of the latter weapon is ascribed by Pliny, in the chapter above cited,
to a son of Jupiter. In the days of Homer it was the weapon of the gods;
and thousands of years after, it was the pride and glory of the English
yeoman. The classical scholar will remember the description in the
fourth book of the Iliad, of the bow with which Pandaros shot at
Menelaus an arrow which would have sent to Hades the hero dear to Mars,
had not the daughter of Jove brushed it aside with her hand, as a mother
doth a fly from her sleeping child. The bow does not appear to have been
extensively used in later times in either the Greek or Roman armies. The
ferocious Spartan preferred the close combat with manual weapons, the
Athenian won his glory upon the sea, and it was with the pike that
Alexander overcame the hosts of Persia. The Cretans, who were the most
celebrated archers in Europe, sometimes formed a separate division in
the Grecian and afterward in the Roman armies. The Romans, however,
generally preferred heavy-armed troops. But it was a peculiarity of
Roman policy always to adopt every improvement in the art of war with
which they became acquainted, whether it originated with friend or foe.
Rome never let slip any opportunity to add to the efficiency of her
legions, and they repaid her care by carrying her eagles in triumph from
the Thames to the Euphrates, and from the Danube to the Nile.

It was in the west of Europe, and from about the eleventh to the
fifteenth century, that archery flourished in the greatest perfection.
The early chronicles are filled with the exploits of the English
archers, and old and young still read with delight those ballads which
tell of the wondrous achievements of "Robin Hood and his merry men."
Indeed, with the name of that famous outlaw are connected all our ideas
of perfect skill in the use of the bow, and in the directions which in
his dying hour, he gave to his faithful man, "Little John," we seem to
hear the dirge of archery itself:

"Give me my bent bow in my hand,
And a broad arrow I'll let flee,
And where that arrow is taken up,
There shall my grave digg'd be.

"And lay me a green sod under my head,
And another at my feet,
And lay my bent bow by my side,
Which was my music sweet."

We shall not stop to dwell on the defects of the bow. The great and
insuperable one was its want of power. The strength of a man was the
limit of its capacity, and something more was necessary to pierce the
ironclad breast of the knight. But, until the invention of gunpowder, it
stood at the head of missile engines.

When and where gunpowder was invented it is impossible now to ascertain.
It seems to be described in the pages of Roger Bacon, while many are of
opinion that the returning Crusaders brought it from the east. Certain
it is that it had been known in China for many centuries, and applied to
the blasting of rocks and other useful purposes, though never to the art
of war. But the latter application of it was made by the Europeans
almost contemporaneously with their knowledge of its properties, and for
war it has been chiefly employed until the present time. The invention
of cannon preceded by a century that of small-arms, and it was by a
gradual reduction in the size of the former that the latter were
produced. Barbour, in his metrical Life of Robert Bruce, says, that
cannon were used by Edward III. in his first campaign against the Scots,
in 1327. He calls them "Crakys of war." They are also supposed to have
been employed by the French in the siege of Puy Guillaume, in 1338. But
the first use of them which rests on unimpeachable evidence, and which
seems to have been productive of much effect, was at the battle of
Cressy, in 1346. It is from this epoch that it is most usual to date the
employment of artillery. That day which witnessed the first efficient
use of a weapon destined to revolutionize the art of war, also witnessed
the most splendid achievements of the archers of England. The bowstrings
of the French had become useless by the dampness of the weather, while
those of the English, either on account of greater care or the different
material of which they were made, were uninjured. The cloth-yard arrows
of the English bowmen, directed with unerring skill, made terrible havoc
in the ranks of their enemies, while four pieces of artillery stationed
on a little hill contributed to their victory. The French troops had
none of them ever seen, and most of them never heard of such a weapon,
and the terror inspired by the noise and the smoke did more than the
balls to hasten their defeat.

The first cannons were rude in the extreme. They were made of bars of
iron hooped together like the staves of a barrel, and were larger at the
muzzle than at the breech. The size was very soon decreased, so that two
men could carry one, and fire it from a rest. The 400 cannon with which
Froissart said that the English besieged St. Malo, in 1378, were
probably of this kind. Nearly a century elapsed before small-arms were
invented. Sir S. Meyrick, to whom subsequent writers have been indebted
for most of their knowledge upon this subject, has given, upon the
authority of an eye-witness, the time and place of their invention. "It
was in 1430," says Bilius, "that they were contrived by the Lucquese,
when they were besieged by the Florentines." A French translation of
Quintus Curtius made by Vasqua de Lucene, a Portuguese, in 1468,
preserved among the Burney MSS. of the British Museum, exhibits in one
of its illuminations the earliest representation of hand fire-arms which
has yet been discovered. The following engraving is from a copy of this
illumination, contained in the Penny Cyclopædia.

[Illustration: _B.d.E.K_.]

It will be observed that this gun much resembles one of those small lead
cannons with which patriotic boys, upon each return of our national
anniversary, manifest their appreciation of the blessings of liberty. It
was fastened to a stick, and fired by a match held in the hand. We
proceed to sketch the progress of improvement from this the first gun
until we reach the repeating rifle.

If we analyze the manipulation of fire-arms, it will be found to consist
of three principal operations--namely, to charge the piece, to direct it
toward the object of attack, and to discharge it by in some manner
igniting the powder; or more concisely, to load, take aim, and fire.
That gun with which these operations can be performed most safely,
accurately, and rapidly, is the best.

The process of loading has continued to be essentially the same from the
invention of the gun to the present time. The charge is put in at the
muzzle, and rammed down to the lower end of the barrel. At a very early
period, efforts were made to construct guns which would load at the
breech; but hitherto no such gun has been able to supplant those which
load at the muzzle. The great complication of their parts, their
liability to get out of repair, their insecurity, and the long practice
required to learn their use, have been among the reasons which have
prevented any of these inventions from being adopted. Hence it is that
the muskets with which our soldiers are armed at the present day,
possess no advantage in this respect over the rude little cannon
fastened to the end of a stick, used by the soldiers of Europe four
centuries ago. But in other respects the progress of invention has been
steady and secure.

With the gun represented in the above engraving it was impossible to
take aim. Being perfectly straight, it could not be brought in the
range of the eye. The most that could be expected was, that by pointing
it in the direction of the enemy, it might chance to hit some one, in a
crowd.

The inconveniences attending the discharge of the piece were almost as
great. A puff of wind, or the slightest motion of the soldier himself,
would throw the priming from the touch-hole, and it is almost
unnecessary to add, that in rainy or even very damp weather, such a gun
was utterly useless. The first step in improvement was to place the
touch-hole on the right side of the barrel instead of upon the top, and
to attach a small pan which held the priming. By this means the priming
was kept from being blown away by the wind, though scarce any other
advantage was attained.

About the year 1475 a great advance was made by the invention of the
_arquebus_ or _bow-gun_. A spring let loose by a trigger threw the
match, which was fastened to it, forward, into the pan which contained
the priming. It was from this spring that the gun took its name.

The arquebus is mentioned by Philip de Comines, in his account of the
battle of Morat, in 1476. It appears to have been used in England in
1480.

But as yet no improvement had been made by which the soldier was enabled
to take aim. The butt of the arquebus was perfectly straight, and placed
against the breast when the gun was fired. The danger of being knocked
over by the recoil of the piece was great, that of hurting the enemy
very small. The Germans first conceived the idea of bending the butt
downward, and thus elevating the barrel so as to bring it in the range
of the eye. They also sloped it so as to fit the shoulder instead of
being held against the breast. The arquebus constructed in this manner
was used in England in the time of Henry VIII., and was variously called
haquebut, hakebut, hagbut, and hagbus, names all derived from the hooked
shape of the butt. A small sized arquebus, with a nearly semi-circular
butt, and called a demihaque, was probably the origin of the modern
pistol.

[Illustration: JENNINGS'S RIFLE.]

The musket, invented in Spain, was introduced into France in the reign
of Charles IX., by De Strozzi, Colonel-General of the King's infantry,
and thence into England. At first it was so heavy that each musketeer
was accompanied by a boy to assist him in carrying it. It was, however,
soon decreased in weight sufficiently to enable the musketeer to carry
it himself, though it was still so heavy that he could only fire it from
a rest. This rest, which each musketeer carried with him, consisted of a
stick the height of his shoulder, pointed at the lower end, and having
at the upper an iron fork in which the musket barrel was laid. In a
flask the musketeer carried his coarse powder for loading. His fine
powder for priming was in a touch-box. His bullets were in a leathern
bag, shaped much like a lady's work-bag, the strings of which he was
obliged to draw in order to get at them. In his hand were his burning
match and musket rest, and after discharging his piece he was obliged to
defend himself with his sword. The match was fixed to the cock by a kind
of tongs. Over the priming-pan was a sliding cover, which had to be
drawn back with the hand before pulling the trigger. It was necessary to
blow the ashes from the match, and take the greatest care that the
sparks did not fall upon the priming. After each discharge the match had
to be taken out of the cock and held in the hand until the piece was
reloaded; then, in order that it might come down exactly upon the
priming, the greatest care and nicety were required in fitting it again
to the cock. Other inconveniences attended the use of the match-lock
musket. The light of the burning match betrayed the position of the
soldier, and hence it could not be used by sentinels or on secret
expeditions. Various contrivances were resorted to in order to obviate
these difficulties. Walhuysen, a captain of the town of Danzig, in a
treatise entitled _L'Art Militaire pour l'Infantrie_, printed in 1615,
says: "It is necessary that every musketeer should know how to carry his
match dry in moist or rainy weather, that is, in his pocket or in his
hat, by putting the lighted match between his head and hat, or by some
other means to guard it from the weather. The musketeer should also have
a little tin tube, about a foot long, big enough to admit a match, and
pierced full of little holes, that he may not be discovered by his match
when he stands sentinel or is gone on any expedition."

The learned captain does not state whether the hair of those soldiers
who carried their lighted matches between their heads and hats, was
insured. These inconveniences were so great that many able military men
regarded fire-arms as a failure, and recommended a return to the
long-bow, which had been so terrible a weapon in the hands of the
English archers. But the art of war, like every other, never goes
backward, and men were not disposed to abandon the use of so mighty an
agent as gunpowder, merely for the want of some weapon adapted to its
use.

The fire-lock, named from its producing fire by friction, was the first
improvement upon the match-lock. Its earliest form was that known as the
wheel-lock, which is mentioned in a treatise on artillery by Luigi
Collado, printed at Venice in 1586. He says that it had been lately
invented in Germany. This lock consisted of a solid steel wheel, with an
axle, to which was fastened a chain. The axle was turned by a small
lever, and thus winding around it the chain, drew up a very strong
spring. By pulling the trigger the spring was let go, and the wheel
whirled around with great velocity. The cock was so constructed as to
bring a piece of sulphuret of iron down upon the edge of the wheel,
which was notched, and touched the priming in the pan. The friction
produced the sparks. It was from this use that the sulphuret of iron
derived the name of pyrites, or fire-stone. Afterwards a flint or any
common hard pebble was used. The complicated nature of this lock, and
its uncertainty, prevented its general adoption. The next improvement
was due to the Dutch. About the year 1600 there was in Holland a band of
marauders known as _snaphausen_, or _poultry-stealers_. However free
they were in using the property of others, they were yet unable to incur
the expense of the wheel-lock, and the match-lock, by its burning light,
exposed them on their nightly expeditions. The wit which had been
sharpened by laying "plots" and "inductions dangerous" against
unoffending hens and chickens, was turned to the invention of a gun-lock
better adapted to their purposes. The result of their cogitations was
the lock which, after its inventors, was called the snaphause. It
consisted of a flat piece of steel, furrowed like the edge of the wheel
in the wheel-lock, which was screwed on the barrel beyond the
priming-pan in such a manner as to be movable. By bringing it over the
pan, and pulling the trigger, the flint in the cock struck against the
steel, and the spark was produced. The simplicity and cheapness of this
lock soon rendered it common, and the transition from it to the ordinary
flint-lock followed almost as a matter of course. The last improvement
which we shall notice was the percussion-lock. This is due to the Rev.
Mr. Forsyth, of Belhelvie, in Scotland, though the original form of the
lock has been entirely changed by the introduction of the copper cap.

[Illustration: INTERIOR OF JENNINGS'S BREECH.]

Whilst these improvements were being made in locks, the other parts of
the gun were gradually approaching in lightness, strength, and accuracy
of finish, to the modern standard. The most valuable improvement was the
invention of the rifle barrel. It is mentioned by Pere Daniel, who wrote
in 1693, as being then well known; but the time and place of its origin
has never been ascertained. It was first employed as a military weapon
by the Americans, in the Revolutionary war, and it is in their hands
that it acquired its world-wide reputation.

It would be impossible, in an article like the present, to detail all
the various attempts which have been made, during the last half century,
to increase the efficiency of the rifle. The efforts of scientific men
and mechanics have been constantly directed towards the invention of a
gun which should fire, with the greatest possible rapidity, a number of
times without reloading, and which should possess the indispensable
requisites of safety, durability, and simplicity, both in construction
and in use. Hitherto no invention has combined these advantages in a
sufficient degree to supplant the common rifle.

In our opinion, these ends are all most simply and beautifully attained
by the invention of Mr. Jennings. But of this our readers will be able
to judge for themselves, by the above engravings and the directions for
its use.

[Illustration: CARTRIDGES AND MACHINERY OF JENNINGS'S RIFLES.]

Fill the magazine, on the top of the breech, with percussion pills or
primings, and the tube, under the barrel, with the hollow cartridges
containing gunpowder. Of these cartridges the tube will hold
twenty-four. Place the forefinger in the ring which forms the end of the
lever, _e_, and the thumb on the hammer, elevating the muzzle
sufficiently to let the cartridge nearest the breech slip, by its
gravity, into the carrier _d_; swing the lever forward, and raise the
hammer which moves the breech-pin back, and the carrier up, placing the
cartridge level with the barrel; pull the lever back, and thus force the
breech-pin forward, and shove the cartridge into the barrel, by which
motion a percussion priming is taken from the magazine by means of the
priming-rack _c_, revolving the pinion which forms the bottom of the
magazine, and it also throws up the toggle _a_, behind the breech-pin,
thus placing the piece in the condition to be discharged by a simply
upward pressure of the finger in the ring. After the discharge release
the pressure and repeat the process.

In conclusion, the reader is invited to look at the engraving we have
given of the first gun, and to compare it with the offspring of American
ingenuity we have just described.

Fire-arms are the great pioneers which have opened a way for the
progress of civilized man, and given him victory over the savage beasts
and still more savage men who have opposed his course. Civilization has
in its turn reacted upon fire-arms, and brought them to their present
state of wonderful efficiency.

The heavy match-lock of three centuries ago was almost as dangerous to
him who used it as to the enemy against whom it was directed. It would
be almost impossible for a person to injure himself by the repeating
rifle except by deliberate intention. Skilful military men advised the
abandonment of the match-lock for the bow. A good marksman with the
repeating rifle would kill a score of bowmen, before they could approach
near enough to reach him with their arrows. The practised musketeer, in
the reign of Elizabeth, could hardly fire his piece once in twenty
minutes; the merest novice can fire the repeating rifle twenty times in
one minute.

CLOVER'S COLONIAL CHURCHES IN VIRGINIA.

ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, HAMPTON.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE,

BY REV. JOHN C. M'CABE,

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM ORIGINAL DRAWINGS BY REV. LEWIS P. CLOVER

"Regarded as a building what is there to engage our attention!
What is it which in this building inspires the veneration and
affection it commands? We have mused upon it when its gray
walls dully reflected the glory of the noontide sun. We have
looked upon it from a neighboring hill when bathed in the pure
light of a summer's moon, its lowly walls and tiny towers
seemed to stand only as the shell of a larger and wider
monument, amidst the memorials of the dead. Look upon it when
and where we will, we find our affections yearn towards it; and
we contemplate the little parish church with a delight and
reverence, that palaces cannot command. Whence then arises
this? It arises not from the beauties and ornaments of the
building, but _from the thoughts and recollections associated
with it_."--Molesworth.

[Illustration: ST. JOHN'S CHURCH.]

The region of country in lower Virginia, bordering, or near the James
River, from the head of tide water to the sea-board, is rich in the
possession of memorials of gone-by days, now turned up from the
bosom of the earth, in the shape of arrow-heads, and broken
war-hatchets--monuments, fragmentary monuments, of a race of forest-born
monarchs: now appealing to the antiquary in the mouldering records of
the County Court offices, and now, silently but eloquently, looking out
imploringly in the ruins of churches and tombs, which meet the eye of
the traveller, as he muses upon the faith and fortunes of generations
long departed.

Rapid as is the progress of steam upon those waters, which, in giving up
their Indian patronymies, gave up the bold hunter and his lithe canoe to
the progress of "manifest destiny," few are those who pass the venerable
site of the first colony in Virginia, Jamestown, without paying a
tribute of a sigh, and perchance a tear, to that solitary tower which is
still standing a mute watcher amid the few almost illegible tombs,--all
that are left of a busy population long departed;--the germ, however, of
a great nation, whose name is even now "a watchword to the earth."

The rank grass waves above those mouldering stones--the green corn of
summer rustles in the breeze, which seems, it its "hollow, solemn
memnonian, but saintly swell," to have "swept the field of mortality for
a hundred centuries,"[C] and that lone, ruined, vine-crested tower,
stands, the only memorial of the house, and the Temple of God. Gone are
the altars where knelt the adventurer and the exile--high-born chivalry
and manly beauty--gentle blood and noble pedigree,--and where rose
"humble voices," and beat "pure hearts," approaching the throne of the
heavenly grace! Jamestown is a city of the dead, and precious is the
dust of its pathless cemetery!

When we turn "from the wreck of the past that has perished," and stand
beside those monuments which have withstood the "corroding tooth of
time," and still stand invested with the sacred and solemn beauty of
antiquity, we approach in the venerating spirit of worshippers, and
render our thank-offerings at their base. Such is likely to be the
feeling with the pilgrim antiquary, as he stands for the first time
beneath the shadows of that venerable cruciform pile, St. John's Church,
Hampton, which has braved "the battle and the breeze" of nearly two
centuries; and then, when he crosses its worn threshold, and treads its
echoing aisles, the wish must arise, involuntarily, to know something
of the history of a spot "so sad, so fair."

With the exception of Jamestown, there is no portion of Virginia
possessing as much historic interest as Hampton, and its vicinity.
Hampton is the county seat of Elizabeth City County, which is one of the
eight original shires in which Virginia was divided. The town is
doubtless the oldest Indian settlement in Virginia, and it is a matter
of historical verity that it was the _first place_ visited by Captain
John Smith after he had cast anchor in these waters. We learn from
Burke, the historian, that while Smith and his company were "engaged in
seeking a fit place for the first settlement, they met five of the
natives, who invited them to their town, _Kecoughtan_, or _Kichotan_,
where Hampton now stands. Here they were feasted with cakes made of
Indian corn, and regaled with tobacco and a dance. In return, they
presented the natives beads and other trinkets."

We have no occasion to go specially into the history of this expedition,
as it is well known to the student, that it was the result of a
successful application on the part of a company, succeeding that of the
ill-fated Sir Walter Raleigh, and for which a charter was obtained from
James the First, in the year 1606, for the settling of Virginia. "The
design," says Stith, the historian of Virginia, "included the
establishment of a northern and southern colony, and among the articles,
instructions, and orders," of the charter, provision was made for the
due carrying out of that which is the highest end of every Christian
colony, for it is expressly ordered, that "the said president, council,
and ministers, should provide that the true word and service of God be
preached, planted, and used, according to the rites and doctrines of the
Church of England; not only in the said colonies, but also as much as
might be amongst the savages bordering upon them, and that all persons
should kindly treat the savages, and heathen people, in those parts, and
use all proper means to draw them to the true service and knowledge of
God."[D] This expedition left the shores of England, December 19, 1606,
and, after a protracted voyage, occasioned by unpropitious winds, which
kept them in sight of home for more than "six weeks," reached the capes
of Virginia. The southern cape was christened "Henry," and the northern,
"Charles," after the King's sons. This was on the 26th day of April,
1607. Accompanying this expedition was Rev. Robert Hunt, of the English
Church, as the first chaplain of that colony, which, though few as the
grains of mustard seed scattered by the morning wind, was the first
planting of that tree which was destined, in coming time, to strike its
roots deep down into the centre of empire, and to shelter beneath its
strong branches, and wide-spread shadows, the exile and the oppressed,
and to furnish home and altar for the pilgrim of civil and religious
freedom.

When we look around now and behold our country, "the observed of all
observers," exalting her "towering head," and "lifting her eyes," the
mind instinctively turns to the colony of Jamestown; and we cannot but
exclaim, in the words of the Psalmist, "Thou hast brought a vine out of
Egypt; Thou hast cast out the heathen and planted it. Thou preparedst
room before it, and didst cause it to take deep root; and it filled the
land. The hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs
thereof were like the goodly cedars. She sent out her boughs unto the
sea, and her branches unto the river." But a sad memory for the days of
toil, and struggle, and blood in that little colony, will remind us that
this tree was not "transplanted from Paradise with all its branches in
full fruitage." Neither was it "sowed in sunshine," nor was it "in
vernal breezes and gentle rains that it fixed its roots, and grew and
strengthened." Oh, no! oh, no! In the mournfully beautiful words of
Coleridge, "With blood was it planted; it was rocked in tempests; the
goat, the ass, and the stag gnawed it, the wild boar whetted its tusk
upon its bark; the deep scars are still extant on its trunk, and the
path of the lightning may be traced among its higher branches!" The
first communion of the body and blood of our Lord was administered by
the pious Hunt, May 4, 1607, the day after the debarkation of the
colonists: and, "here," says the Bishop of Oxford, "on a peninsula, upon
the northern shore of James River, was sown the first seed of
Englishmen, who, in after years, were to grow and to multiply into the
great and numerous American people." It was an offering, this first
sacrament, of the "appointed sacrifice of prayer and thanksgiving;" and
we have an evidence of the pervading spirit of Hunt in that little band,
when we remember that among their very first acts after rearing their
straw-thatched houses for protection from the weather, was to erect the
church of the colony. Hunt was succeeded, after his death, in 1610, by
Master Bucke (the chaplain of Lord de la Ware), whose services were
called forth the very day of his arrival at Jamestown. According to
Purchas, "He (that is Lord Delaware) cast anchor before Jamestown, where
we landed, and our much grieved Governor, first visiting the church,
caused the bell to be rung; at which all such as were able to come forth
of their house, repayered to church, which was neatly trimmed with the
wild flowers of the country, where our minister, Master Bucke, made a
zealous and sorrowful prayer, finding all things so contrary to our
expectations, and full of misery and misgovernment." This state of
things had been brought about by the treacherous conduct of their
neighbors, the savages, domestic feuds, fluctuations in the quantity and
quality of their food, bad water, and severe climatic diseases. While
"Master Bucke" was toiling with the little band at Jamestown, Whitaker
(son of Master Whitaker of St. John's College, Cambridge) was in
Henrico, whose deeds of love and patience in his noble work we would
gladly record, but for the desire of approaching, as speedily as
possible, the beginning and planting of the church in Elizabeth City
County. The first legislature of Virginia was convened under the
administration of Governor Sir George Yeardley, in the year 1626; but
before this we find, during the _first_ administration of Governor
Wyatt, nay, before that, during that of Sir Thomas Yeardley, in 1619, _a
starting point_ for our inquiries and investigations in regard to the
Hampton Church. By reference to the histories of the period, we find
that the pay of their clergy was fixed at £200 worth of corn and
tobacco. One hundred acres were marked off for glebes in every borough,
for each of which the company at home provided six tenants at the public
cost. They applied to the Bishop of London to find them a body of
"pious, learned, and painful ministers,"--"a charitable work," says
Wilberforce, "in which he readily engaged." Two years subsequent to this
occurred the massacre at Jamestown, and two years after that, we find,
amongst thirty-five provisions, the following, for the promotion of
religious knowledge and worship: That there shall be _erected_ a _house
of worship_, and there shall be a _burial ground on every plantation_;
that the colonists, under penalty, shall attend public worship, and that
there shall be uniformity in faith and worship, with the English
Church--prescribing also the observance of the feasts of the Church, and
a fast upon the anniversary of the Jamestown massacre; not forgetting,
by the way, to enjoin "respectful treatment, and the payment of a
settled stipend to the colonial clergy." In the instructions given to
Sir William Berkeley, Governor-General of Virginia, after the return of
the royal exile, Charles the Second, to the throne of his murdered
sire,--passing over, as we do, for the sake of brevity, much that might
interest the reader during the closing period of the reign of James,
that of Charles the First, and also that of the psalm-singing
blood-hunter Cromwell,--we find the recommendation of the duties of
religion, the use of "the booke of Common Prayer, the decent repairs of
Churches, and a competent provision for conforming ministers."[E] These
suggestions, we learn, were at once acted upon by the colonial
legislature, and provision was made for the building and due furniture
of churches, &c., &c. This was in 1660. The oldest records in the County
Court office date as far back as 1635. In 1644, I find the
_churchwardens_ presenting two females for offences, to the Court; and
in 1646, I find that Nicholas Brown, and William Armistead,
_churchwardens_, present one of their body to the Court, requesting that
Thomas Eaton be compelled to collect the _parish levy_, and make his
returns. This fixes the fact, then, that this was a _parish_, and that
there was _a church_ somewhere in this region in 1644, for, from the
English laws respecting the clergy, the object of the creation of
_churchwardens_ is "to protect _the edifice of the Church_, to
superintend the ceremonies of public worship, to promote the observance
of religious duties, &c., &c.[F]" I find, in 1644, the following on
record--"To paid Mr. Mallory for preaching 2 funeral sermons, 800 pounds
of tobacco." The next year I find the Rev. Mr. Justinian Aylmere, who
continued to officiate until the early part of 1667. We now find, in
those same records, the _first mention of the church_ immediately under
consideration, and it is as follows, being an extract from a will, and
bearing date December 21, 1667:

"I, Nicholas Baker, being very sicke in body, but of perfect
memory, doe make, constitute, and ordaine this my last will and
testament, revoking and disclayming all other wills by me made.
Imprimis, I give my soule unto God my redeemer, and my body to
bee decently buried in _ye new church of Kighotan_. Item, I
give and bequeathe unto Mr. Jeremy Taylor, minister,[G] my
cloath cloak, to bee delivered to him after my corpse carrying
out of ye house."

From these extracts I learn these two facts, that there was a _new
church_, already built, and that Mr. Jeremy Taylor was the minister, and
the inference is a legitimate one, taking into consideration the
instructions given to Governor Berkeley, and acted upon by him, to which
reference is made above, that the _old church now standing in Hampton_,
built in the form of a cross, and of brick, a drawing of which,
accompanies this communication, was erected at some period about 1660,
or between that and 1667. That it was not built _before_ 1660, we have
strong reasons to presume; and that it was built between that and 1667,
we hope to show hereafter. In the time intervening between the murder of
Charles the First and the restoration, there would have been no churches
built, we presume, in the _form of the cross_--this the minions of
Cromwell would not have allowed; nor for the worship and ritual of the
Church of England, for the same reasons; and, moreover, the will above
referred to, speaks of the church as being "ye _new_ church of
Kighotan."

The tower was an after thought, as we find from the vestry-book, now in
the possession of the writer. The following bears date 2d day of March,
1761:

"Charles Cooper came into vestry, and agreed to do the brick
work of the steeple, with good and well burnt bricks and mortar
of lime, at least fifteen bushels of lime to every thousand
bricks so laid. The said Cooper to find all materials
necessary for building the said steeple, and all expenses what
kind soever at his own proper cost. The said Cooper to give
bond for the performance, agreeable to a resolve of the said
vestry on the 6 day of February last."

And, on the 16th day of June, 1761, the record below is made in the
vestry-book:

"Agreed that the steeple as before to be built, shall be joined
to the west end of the church wall, and that an half brick be
added to the thickness of the foundation of the said steeple up
to the water table."

And, on the 14th day of July, 1762, the following record on the
vestry-book will show its completion:

"Agreed, that Mr. William Westwood, and Mr. Charles Cooper,
compute the number of bricks laid in the steeple wall, and if
they two disagree, that they chuse a third person; and that
this vestry hath _this day received the said work_, so as not
to affect the counting or computing the number of bricks laid
in the said steeple."

The occasion of building the tower is found in the extract following,
made from the same source, and bearing date February 6, 1761:

"Whereas the late Mr. Andrew Kennedy, did by his last will and
testament, devise to the parish of Elizabeth City, forty pounds
sterling, to purchase a bell for the church of the said parish,
provided the vestry, and churchwardens of the said parish,
shall undertake to build a belfry for the same in twelve months
after the said Alexander Kennedy's death; and this vestry,
willing to embrace the said gift, have accordingly resolved,"
&c.

Now arises a question of some interest. The will of Nicholas Baker, made
December 21, 1667, makes mention of "ye _new_ church of Kighotan." Was
there an _old_ church of Kighotan? One older than this? We answer, yes!
And now for the writer's reasons for arriving at this conclusion. From
the old record of wills, deeds, &c., in the County Court office, and to
which I have had access freely, through the politeness and kindness of
Samuel Howard, Esq., the gentlemanly clerk of the court, I copy the
following:

"In the name of God, Amen. I, Robert Brough, clerke of
Kigquotan, in the county of Elizabeth Citty, being sicke and
weake in body, but in perfect sense and memory, praised bee God
for itt, this seven and twentyeth day of Aprill, in the yeare
of our Lord God 1667, for the quieting of my conscience, desire
to settle that estate it has pleased God to lend mee, in manner
and forme following;--And first of all, I commend my soul into
the hands of ye Almighty God my Maker, and my Saviour and
Redeemer Christ Jesus, being confident through his meritts and
blood shedd for mee, to be an inheritor with Him, His saints
and angells of everlasting life. And my body unto ye earthe
from whence it came, there to receive decent burial in _the old
parish church of Kigquotan_ aforesaid," &c.

"The _old_ parish church of Kigquotan," and "ye _new_ church of
Kighotan," cannot be one and the same. We are then led to inquire,
_where_ was the old parish church of Kigquotan, and _when_ was it
probably built? The last branch of this question, we prefer answering
first. By reference to the administration of Sir Thomas Yeardley (not
Sir George Yeardley), we find that, in 1621, among several other
Colonial enactments, provision is made for the _erection_ of a "_house
of worship, and the separation of a burial ground on every plantation_."
We presume, therefore, that it was about this time (1621-2) that the
first church of Kigquotan was erected, and we have not forgotten
the _churchwardens_ of 1644. And now, in answer to the other
question--_where_ was this church built?--we have only to turn our
footsteps to the "_Pembroke Farm_" (the property of John Jones, Esq.),
about one mile from the town of Hampton, and, as we there take our stand
among the few remaining tombs, shout "Eureka, Eureka!" Whether the old
parish church of Kigquotan was of wood, or of brick, we cannot at this
day determine. "Like the baseless fabric of a vision" it has
disappeared; but we opine it was wooden, from the fact, that the first
church (and probably the second also) in Jamestown (both of which were
destroyed by fire) was a wooden one; and the presumption is, the first
brick church erected would be at the _capital_ of the colony. However
this may be, the burial ground at Pembroke could not have been simply a
piece of ground, "bought with the field of Ephron the Hittite, for a
possession of a burying place" for a family; but that it was a _public_
cemetery, even that of the old parish church of Kigquotan, is evident
from the _character_ of the tombs which are still to be seen _above the
surface of the earth_. That there are many covered over with the
deposits of years, I have not the slightest doubt. Those tombs, we now
see, give the best evidence, in their inscriptions, that those whose
remains moulder beneath the moss-grown marbles, were not private
individuals--not members of the family owning the estate--but men in
public service, and who would not have been laid in an obscure private
burial ground, when the church-yard of the new church of Kigquotan was
but a mile distant from the spot. Moreover, it will be perceived by the
inscriptions which we shall presently give, that one of the sleepers at
Pembroke was "_minister of this parish_." Now, is it probable, that the
minister of the parish would have been buried _there_, if it had not
been a _church_-yard, when there was the new church of Kigquotan to
receive his remains, as it was fifty-two years before, to receive those
of Mr. Nicholas Baker? I have no doubt that veneration for the old
cemetery, the site of the first church of the parish, caused many to
bury their dead there, long after the present church-yard was opened.
The oldest tomb we can find in the church-yard at Hampton, and standing
in the northeast angle of the Cross, is to the memory of Captain Willis
Wilson, who departed this life the 19th day of November, 1701. The
latest date upon the stones at Pembroke is 1719. "The lapse of years,
and the ruthless hand of time," have levelled those graves in "ye old
parish church of Kigquotan;" but enough is left to the "tomb searcher,"
even in the inscriptions following, as he reads them by the slanting
rays of the setting sun, and hears the low winds dirging in the pines,
and the moaning a

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