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The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851

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Title: The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851

Author: Various


        
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Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE, VOLUME 2, NO. 2, JANUARY, 1851 ***




Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.
(This file was produced from images generously made
available by Cornell University Digital Collections).










THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE

Of Literature, Art, and Science.

Vol. II.      NEW YORK, JANUARY 1, 1851.       No. II.


Transcriber's note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes
moved to the end of the article.




[Illustration]

EDMUND BURKE.


Edmund Burke is the most illustrious name in the political history of
England. The exploits of Marlborough are forgotten, as Wellington's will
be, while the wisdom and genius of Burke live in the memory, and form a
portion of the virtue and intelligence of the British nation and the
British race. The reflection of this superior power and permanence of
moral grandeur over that which, at best, is but a vulgar renown,
justifies the most sanguine expectations of humanity.

It may be said of Burke, as it was said by him of another, that "his
mind was generous, open, sincere; his manners plain, simple, and noble;
rejecting all sorts of duplicity and disguise, as useless to his
designs, and odious to his nature. His understanding was comprehensive,
steady, and vigorous, made for the practical business of the state....
His knowledge, in all things which concerned his duty was profound....
He was not more respectable on the public scene, than amiable in private
life.... A husband and a father, the kindest, gentlest, most indulgent,
he was every thing in his family, except what he gave up to his
country.... An ornament and blessing to the age in which he lived, his
memory will continue to be beneficial to mankind, by holding forth an
example of pure and unaffected virtue, most worthy of imitation, to the
latest posterity."

In the last of a series of articles by Mrs. S. C. Hall, entitled
"Pilgrimages to English Shrines," and published in the London _Art
Journal_, we have an account of a visit to the residences and to the
grave of Burke, which we reproduce in the following pages, with its
interesting illustrations.


THE GRAVE OF EDMUND BURKE.

It has been said that we are inclined to over-value great men when their
graves have been long green, or their monuments gray above them, but we
believe it is only then we estimate them as they deserve. Prejudice and
falsehood have no enduring vitality, and posterity is generally anxious
to render justice to the mighty dead; we dwell upon their actions,--we
quote their sentiments and opinions,--we class them amongst our
household gods--and keep their memories green within the sanctuary of
our HOMES; we read to our children and friends the written treasures
bequeathed to us by the genius and independence of the great statesmen
and orators--the men of literature and science--who "_have been_." We
adorn our minds with the poetry of the past, and value it, as well we
may, as far superior to that of the present: we sometimes, by the aid of
imagination--one of the highest of God's gifts--bring great men before
us: we hear the deep-toned voices and see the flashing eyes of some,
who, it may be, taught kings their duty, or quelled the tumults of a
factious people: we listen to the lay of the minstrel, or the orator's
addresses to the assembly, and our pulses throb and our eyes moisten as
the eloquence flows--first, as a gentle river, until gaining strength in
its progress, it sweeps onwards like a torrent, overcoming all that
sought to impede its progress. What a happy power this is!--what a
glorious triumph over time!--recalling or creating at will!--peopling
our small chamber with the demigods of history; viewing them enshrined
in their perfections, untainted by the world; hearing their exalted
sentiments; knowing them as we know a noble statue or a beautiful
picture, without the taint of age or feebleness, or the mildew of decay.

If these sweet wakening dreams were more frequent, we should be happier;
yes, and better than we are; we should be shamed out of much
baseness--for nothing so purifies and exalts the soul as the actual or
imaginary companionship of the pure and exalted; no man who purposed to
create a noble picture would choose an imperfect model; no one who seeks
virtue and cherishes honor and honorable things, will endure the
degradation of ignoble persons or ignoble thoughts; no one ever achieved
a great purpose who did not plant his standard on high ground.

A little before the commencement of the present century, England was
rich in orators, and poets, and men of letters; the times were favorable
to such--events called them forth--and there was still a lingering
chivalric feeling in our island which the utilitarian principles or
tastes of the present period would now treat with neglect, if not
contempt.

The progress of the French Revolution agitated Europe; and men wondered
if the young Corsican would ever dare to wield the sceptre wrenched from
the grasp of a murdered king; people were continually on the watch for
fresh events; great stakes were played for all over Europe, and those
who desired change were full of hope. It was an age to create great men.

Let us then indulge in visions of those, who, in more recent times than
we have yet touched upon,--save in one or two PILGRIMAGES,--illumed the
later days of the last century; and, brightest and purest of the galaxy
was the orator, EDMUND BURKE. Ireland, which gave him birth, may well be
proud of the high-souled and high-gifted man, who united in himself all
the great qualities which command attention in the senate and the world,
and all the domestic virtues that sanctify home; grasping a knowledge of
all things, and yet having that sweet sympathy with the small things of
life, which at once bestows and secures happiness, and, in the end,
popularity.

EDMUND BURKE was born on Arran Quay, Dublin, January the 1st, 1730; his
father was an attorney: the name, we believe, was originally spelt
Bourke.

The great grandfather of Edmund inherited some property in that county
which has produced so many men of talent--the county of Cork; the family
resided in the neighborhood of Castletown Roche, four or five miles from
Doneraile, five or six miles from Mallow--now a railroad station--and
nearly the same distance from the ruins of Kilcolman Castle, whose every
mouldering stone is hallowed by the memory of the poet Spenser and his
dear friend, "the Shepherd of the Ocean," Sir Walter Raleigh. There can
be little doubt that Edmund--a portion of whose young life was passed in
this beautiful locality--imbibed much thought, as well as much poetry,
from the sacred memories which here accompanied him during his
wanderings.

Nothing so thoroughly awakens the sympathy of the young as the imaginary
presence of the good and great amid the scenes where their most glorious
works were accomplished; the associations connected with Kilcolman are
so mingled, that their contemplation produces a variety of
emotions--admiration for the poem which was created within its
walls--contemplation of the "glorious two" who there spent so much time
together in harmony and sweet companionship, despite the storms which
ravaged the country; then the awful catastrophe, the burning of the
castle, and the loss of Spenser's child in the flames, still talked of
in the neighborhood, were certain to make a deep impression on the
imagination of a boy whose delicate health prevented his rushing into
the amusements and society of children of his own age. There are plenty
of crones in every village, and one at least in every gentleman's house
to watch "the master's children" and pour legendary lore into their
willing ears, accompanied by snatches of song and fairy tale. All these
were certain to seize upon such an imagination as that of Burke, and lay
the foundation of much of that high-souled mental poetry--one of his
great characteristics; indeed, the circumstances of his youth were
highly favorable to his peculiar temperament--his delicate constitution
rendered him naturally susceptible of the beautiful; and the locality of
the Blackwater, and the time-honored ruins of Kilcolman, with its
history and traditions, nursed, as they were, by the holy quiet of a
country life, had ample time to sink into his soul and germinate the
fruitage which, in after years, attained such rich perfection.

An old schoolmaster, of the name of O'Halloran, was his first teacher;
he "played at learning" at the school, long since in ruins; and the
Dominie used to boast that "no matter how great Master Edmund (God bless
him) was, HE was the first who ever put a Latin grammar into his hands."

Edmund was one of a numerous family; his mother, who had been a Miss
Nagle,[1] having had fourteen or fifteen children, all of whom died
young, except four,--one sister and three brothers: the sister, Mrs.
French, was brought up in the faith of her mother, who was a rigid Roman
Catholic, while the sons were trained in the father's belief. This,
happily, created no unkindness between them, for not only were they an
affectionate and a united family, but perfectly charitable in their
opinions, each of the other's creed. As the future statesman grew older,
it was considered wise to remove him to Dublin for better instruction,
and he was placed at a school in Smithfield kept by a Mr. James
Fitzgerald; but, fortunately for his strength of body and mind, the
reputation of an academy in the lovely valley of Ballitore, founded in
the midst of a colony of Quakers, by a member of that most benevolent
and intelligent society--the well-known Abraham Shackleton--was
spreading far and wide; and there the three young Burkes were sent in
1741, Edmund being then twelve years old.

He was considered not so much brilliant, as of steady application. Here,
too, he was remarkable for quick comprehension, and great strength of
memory; indications which drew forth at first the commendation, and as
his powers unfolded, the warm regard of his master; under whose paternal
care the improvement of his health kept pace with that of his intellect,
and the grateful pupil never forgot his obligations: a truly noble mind
is prone to exaggerate kindnesses received, and never detracts from
their value; it is only the low and the narrow-minded who underrate the
benefits they have been blessed with at any period of their lives.

In 1743 he entered Trinity College, Dublin, as a pensioner. He gained
fair honors during his residence there, but, like Johnson, Swift,
Goldsmith, and other eminent men, he did not distinguish himself so as
to lead to any speculation as to his after greatness, although his
elders said he was more anxious to acquire knowledge than to display
it;--a valuable testimony. His domestic life was so pure, his
friendships were so firm, his habits so completely those of a well-bred,
well-born IRISH GENTLEMAN--mingling, as only Irish gentlemen can do, the
suavity of the French with the dignity of English manners--that there is
little to write about, or speculate upon, beyond his public words and
deeds.

Like most young men of his time, his first oratory was exercised at a
club, and his first efforts as a politician were made in 1749, previous
to his quitting the Dublin University, in some letters against Mr. Henry
Brooke, the author of "Gustavus Vasa." His determination was the bar,
and his entry at the Middle Temple bears date April 23, 1747. His
youthful impressions of England and its capital are recorded in graceful
language in his letters to those friends whom he never lost, but by
death; one passage is as applicable to the present as to the past. "I
don't find that genius, the 'rath primrose which forsaken dies,' is
patronized by any of the nobility, so that writers of the first talents
are left to the capricious patronage of the public."

It was the taste of his time to desire, if not solicit patronage. In our
opinion literature is degraded by _patronage_, while it is honored by
the friendship of the good and great. Nothing is so loathsome in the
history of letters as the debased dedications which men of mind some
years ago laid at the feet of the so-styled "patron!" Literature in our
days has only to assert its own dignity, to be true and faithful to the
right, to avoid ribaldry, and preserve a noble and brave independence;
and then its importance to the state, as the minister of good, must be
acknowledged. It is only when forgetful of great purposes and great
power, that literature is open to be forgotten or sneered at. Still the
indifference an Englishman feels towards genius, even while enjoying its
fruits, was likely enough to check and chill the enthusiasm of Burke,
and drive him to much mystery as to his early literary engagements. One
of his observations made during his first visit to Westminster Abbey,
while hopes and ambitions quickened his throbbing pulse, and he might
have been pardoned for wishing for a resting-place in the grand
mausoleum of England, is remarkable, as showing how little he changed,
and how completely the youth

    "Was father to the man."

"Yet after all, do you know that I would rather sleep in the southern
corner of a country church-yard than in the tomb of the Capulets? I
should like, however, that my dust should mingle with kindred dust; the
good old expression, 'family burying-grounds,' has something pleasant in
it, at least to me."

This was his last, as it seems to have been his first desire; and it has
found an echo in many a richly dowered heart.

"Lay me," said Allan Cunningham, "where the daisies can grow on my
grave;" and it is well known that Moore--

    "The poet of all circles,"--

and, as a poor Irishman once rendered it--

    "The _darlint_ of his own,"


has frequently expressed a desire to be buried at Sloperton beside his
children.

The future orator found the law, as a profession, alien to his habits
and feelings, for at the expiration of the usual term he was not even
called to the bar. Some say he desired the professorship of logic at the
University of Glasgow, and even stood the contest; but this has been
disputed, and if he was rejected, it is matter of congratulation, that
his talents and time were not confined to so narrow a sphere. At that
period his mind was occupied by his theories on the Sublime and
Beautiful, which were finally condensed and published in the shape of
that essay which roused the world to admiration.

Mr. Prior says, and with every show of reason, "that Mr. Burke's
ambition of being distinguished in literature, seems to have been one of
his earliest, as it was one of his latest, passions." His first avowed
work was "The Vindication of Natural Society;" but he wrote a great deal
anonymously; and the essay on "The Sublime and Beautiful," triumphant as
it was, must have caused him great anxiety; he began it before he was
nineteen, and kept it by him for seven years before it was published--a
valuable lesson to those who rush into print and mistake the desire for
celebrity, for the power which bestows immortality.

The literature which is pursued chiefly in solitude, is always the best
sort: society, which cheers and animates men in most employments, is an
impediment to an author if really warmed by true genius, and impelled by
a sacred love of truth not to fritter away his thoughts or be tempted to
insincerity.

The genius and noble mind of Burke constituted him a high priest of
literature; the lighter, and it might be the more pleasurable enjoyments
of existence, could not be tasted without interfering with his pursuits;
but he knew his duty to his God, to the world, and to himself, and the
responsibility alone was sufficiently weighty to bend a delicate frame,
even when there was no necessity for laboring to live--but where an
object is to be attained, principles put forth or combated, God or man
to be served, the necessity for exertion always exists, and the great
soul must go forth on its mission.

That sooner or later this strife, or love, or duty--pursued
bravely--must tell upon all who even covet and enjoy their labor, the
experience of the past has recorded; and Edmund Burke, even at that
early period of life, was ordered to try the effects of a visit to Bath
and Bristol, then the principal resort of the invalids of the United
Kingdom.

At Bath he exchanged one malady for another, for he became attached to
Miss Nugent, the daughter of his physician, and in a very little time
formed what, in a worldly point of view, would be considered an
imprudent marriage, but which secured the happiness of his future life;
she was a Roman Catholic; but, however unfortunate dissenting creeds are
in many instances, in this it never disturbed the harmony of their
affection.

She was a woman exactly calculated to create happiness; possessing
accomplishments, goodness of heart, sweetness of disposition and
manners, veneration for talent, a hopeful spirit to allay her husband's
anxieties, wisdom and love to meet his ruffled temper, and tenderness to
subdue it--qualities which made him frequently declare "that every care
vanished the moment he sheltered beneath his own roof."

Edmund Burke became a husband, and also continued a lover--and once
presented to his ladylove, on the anniversary of their marriage, his
idea of "a perfect wife."[2]

For a considerable time after his marriage Burke toiled as a literary
man, living at Battersea or in town, now writing, it is believed,
jointly with his brother Richard and his cousin William a work on the
"European Settlements in America," in two volumes, which, according to
tradition, brought him, or them, only fifty pounds! then planning and
commencing an abridgment of the "History of England."

Struggling, it may be with difficulties brought on by his generous
nature, and which his father's allowance of two hundred a year, and his
own industry and perseverance could hardly overcome, the birth of a son
was an additional stimulant to exertion, and, in conjunction with
Dodsley, he established the _Annual Register_. This work he never
acknowledged, but his best biographers have no doubt of his having
brought forth and nurtured this useful publication. A hundred pounds a
volume seems to have been the sum paid for this labor; and Burke's
receipts for the money were at one time in the possession of Mr. Upcott.

Long before he obtained a seat in Parliament he won the esteem of Doctor
Johnson, who bore noble testimony to his virtue and talent, and what he
especially admired, and called, his "affluence of conversation."

For a time he went to Ireland as private secretary to Mr. Hamilton,
distinguished from all others of his name as "single-speech Hamilton;"
but disagreeing with this person, he nobly threw up a pension of three
hundred a year, because of the unreasonable and derogatory claims made
upon his gratitude by Hamilton, who had procured it for him.

While in Dublin he made acquaintance with the genius of the painter
Barry, and though his own means were limited, he persuaded him to come
to England, and received him in his house in Queen Anne-street, where he
soon procured him employment; he already numbered Mr., afterwards Sir
Joshua, Reynolds amongst his friends; and his correspondence with Barry
might almost be considered a young painter's manual, so full is it of
the better parts of taste, wisdom, and knowledge.

Mr. Burke was then on the threshold of Parliament, Lord Verney arranging
for his _debut_ as member for Wendover, in Buckinghamshire, under the
Rockingham administration; another star was added to the galaxy of that
brilliant assembly, and if we had space it could not be devoted to a
better purpose than to trace his glorious career in the senate; but that
is before all who read the history of the period, and we prefer to
follow his footsteps in the under current of private life.

He was too successful to escape the poisoned arrows of envy, or the
misrepresentations of the disappointed. Certain persons exclaimed
against his want of consistency, and gave as a reason that at one
period he commanded the spirit of liberty with which the French
Revolution commenced, and after a time turned away in horror and disgust
from a people who made murder a pastime, and converted Paris into a
shambles for human flesh.

But nothing could permanently obscure the fame of the eloquent Irishman,
he continued to act with such worthiness, that, despite his schism with
Charles James Fox, "the people" did him the justice to believe, that in
his public conduct, he had no one view but the public good.

He outlived calumny, uniting unto genius diligence, and unto diligence
patience, and unto patience enthusiasm, and to these, deep-hearted
enthusiasm, with a knowledge, not only, it would seem, of all things,
but of such ready application, that in illustration or argument his
resources were boundless; the wisdom of the Ancients was as familiar to
him as the improved state of modern politics, science, and laws; the
metaphysics and logic of the Schools were to him as household words, and
his memory was gemmed with whatever was most valuable in poetry,
history, and the arts.

[Illustration: GREGORIES.]

After much toil, and the lapse of some time, he purchased a domain in
Buckinghamshire, called "Gregories;" there, whenever his public duties
gave him leisure, he enjoyed the repose so necessary to an overtaxed
brain; and from Gregories some of his most interesting letters are
dated.[3] Those addressed to the painter Barry, _whom his liberality
sent to and supported in Rome_, are, as we have said, replete with art
and wisdom; and the delicacy of both him and his excellent brother
Richard, while entreating the rough-hewn genius to prosecute his studies
and give them pleasure by his improvement, are additional proofs of the
beautiful union of the brothers, and of their _oneness_ of purpose and
determination that Barry should never be cramped by want of means.[4]

After the purchase of Gregories[5] Mr. Burke had no settled town-house,
merely occupying one for the season. In one of his letters to Barry, he
tells him to direct to Charles-street, St. James's Square; he writes
also from Fludyer-street, Westminster, and from Gerrard-street, Soho;
but traces of his "whereabouts" are next to impossible to find. Barry
was not the only artist who profited by Edmund Burke's liberality.
Barret, the landscape-painter, had fallen into difficulties, and the
fact coming to the orator's ears during his short tenure in power, he
bestowed upon him a place in Chelsea Hospital, which he enjoyed during
the remainder of his life.

Indeed, this great man's noble love of Art was part and parcel of
himself; it was no affectation, and it led to genuine sympathy with, not
only the artist's triumphs, but his difficulties. He found time, amid
all his occupations, to write letters to the irritable Barry, and if the
painter had followed their counsel, he would have secured his peace and
prosperity; but it was far otherwise: his conduct, both in Rome and
after his return to England, gave his friend just cause of offence;
though, like all others who offended the magnanimous Burke, he was soon
forgiven.

He never forgot his Irish friends, or the necessities of those who lived
on the family estate; the expansive generosity of his nature did not
prevent his attending to the minor comforts of his dependants, and his
letters "home" frequently breathe a most loving and careful spirit, that
the sorrows of the poor might be ameliorated, and their wants relieved.

We ought to have mentioned before that Mr. and Mrs. Burke's marriage was
only blessed by two sons; one died in childhood, the eldest grew up a
young man of the warmest affections, and blessed with a considerable
share of talent; to his parents he was every thing they could desire;
towards his mother he exhibited the tenderness and devotion of a
daughter, and his demeanor to his father was that of an obedient son,
and most faithful friend; at intervals he enjoyed with them the pleasure
they experienced in receiving guests of the highest consideration;
amongst them the eccentric Madame de Genlis, who put their politeness to
the test by the exercise of her peculiarities, and horrified the meek
and amiable Sir Joshua Reynolds by the assumption of talents she did not
possess.

The publication of his reflections on the French Revolution, which,
perhaps, never would have seen the light but for the rupture with Mr.
Sheridan, which caused his opinions to be misunderstood, brought down
the applause of Europe on a head then wearying of public life.

But, perhaps, a tribute Burke valued more than any, remembering the
adage--an adage which, unhappily, especially applies to Ireland--"no man
is a prophet in his own country," was, that on a motion of the provost
of Trinity College, Dublin, in 1790, the honorary degree of LL.D. was
conferred upon him in full convocation, and an address afterwards
presented in a gold box, to express the University's sense of his
services. When he replied to this distinguished compliment, his town
residence was in "Duke-street, St. James."

His term of life--over-tasked as it was--might have been extended to a
much longer period, but that his deeply affectionate nature, as time
passed on, experienced several of those shocks inseparable from even
moderate length of days; many of his friends died; among others, his
sister and his brother; but still the wife of his bosom and his son were
with him--that son whose talents he rated as superior to his own, whom
he had consulted for some years on almost every subject, whether of a
public or a private nature, that occurred, and very frequently preferred
his judgment to his own. This beloved son had attained the age of
thirty-four, when he was seized with rapid consumption. When the malady
was recognized and acknowledged, his father took him to Brompton, then,
as now, considered the best air for those affected with this cruel
malady. "Cromwell House," chosen as their temporary residence, is
standing still, though there is little doubt the rage for extending
London through this once sequestered and rural suburb, will soon raze it
to the ground, as it has done others of equal interest.

[Illustration: CROMWELL HOUSE.]

We have always regarded "Cromwell House," as it is called, with
veneration. In our earliest acquaintance with a neighborhood, in which
we lived so long and still love so well, this giant dwelling, staring
with its whited walls and balconied roof over the tangled gardens which
seemed to cut it off from all communication with the world, was
associated with our "Hero Worship" of Oliver Cromwell. We were told he
had lived there (what neighborhood has not its "Cromwell House?")--that
the ghastly old place had private staircases and subterranean
passages--some underground communication with Kensington--that there
were doors in the walls, and out of the walls; and, that if not careful
you might be precipitated through trap-doors into some unfathomable
abyss, and encounter the ghost of old Oliver himself. These tales
operated upon our imagination in the usual way; and many and many a
moonlight evening, while wandering in those green lanes--now obliterated
by Onslow and Thurloe Squares--and listening to the nightingales, have
we watched the huge shadows cast by that solitary and melancholy-looking
house, and, as we have said, associated it with the stern and grand
Protector of England. Upon closer investigation, how grieved we have
often been to discover the truth, for it destroyed not only our castles
in the air, but their inhabitants; we found that Oliver never resided
there, but that his son, Richard, had, and was a rate payer to the
parish of Kensington for some time. To this lonely sombre house Mr. and
Mrs. Burke and their son removed, in the hope that the soft mild air of
this salubrious neighborhood might restore his failing strength; the
consciousness of his being in danger was something too terrible for them
to think of. He had just received a new appointment--an appointment
suited to his tastes and expectations; he must take possession of it in
a little time. He was their child, their friend, their treasure, their
all! Surely God would spare him to close their eyes. How could death and
he meet together? They entreated him of God, by prayer, and
supplication, and tears that flowed until their eyes were dry and their
eyelids parched--but all in vain. The man, in his prime of manhood, was
stricken down; we transcribe, from an article in the _Quarterly Review_,
on "Fontenelle's Signs of Death," the brief account of his last moments:

"Burke's son, upon whom his father has conferred something of his own
celebrity, heard his parents sobbing in another room at the prospect of
an event they knew to be inevitable. He rose from his bed, joined his
illustrious father, and endeavored to engage him in a cheerful
conversation. Burke continued silent, choked with grief. His son again
made an effort to console him. 'I am under no terror,' he said; 'I feel
myself better and in spirits, and yet my heart flutters, I know not why.
Pray, talk to me, sir! talk of religion; talk of morality; talk, if you
will, of indifferent subjects.' Here a noise attracted his notice, and
he exclaimed, 'Does it rain?--No; it is the rustling of the wind through
the trees.' The whistling of the wind and the waving of the trees
brought Milton's majestic lines to his mind, and he repeated them with
uncommon grace and effect:

    'His praise, ye winds, that from four quarters blow,
    Breathe soft or loud; and wave your tops, ye pines,
    With every plant, in sign of worship wave!'

A second time he took up the sublime and melodious strain, and,
accompanying the action to the word, waved his own hand in token of
worship, and sank into the arms of his father--a corpse. Not a sensation
told him that in an instant he would stand in the presence of the
Creator to whom his body was bent in homage, and whose praises still
resounded from his lips."

The account which all the biographies of Burke give of the effect this
bereavement produced upon his parents is most fearful even to read; what
must it have been to witness? His mother seems to have regained her
self-possession sooner than his father. In one of his letters to the
late Baron Smith, he writes--"So heavy a calamity has fallen upon me as
to disable me from business, and disqualifies me for repose. The
existence I have--_I do not know that I can call life_. * * Good nights
to you--I never have any." And again--"The life which has been so
embittered cannot long endure. The grave will soon close over me, and my
dejections." To Lord Auckland he writes--"For myself, or for my family
(alas! I have none), I have nothing to hope or to fear in this world."
And again in another letter--"The storm has gone over me, and I lie like
one of those old oaks which the late hurricane has scattered about me. I
am stripped of all my honors, I lie prostrate on the earth; I am alone,
I have none to meet my enemies in the gate. I greatly deceive myself, if
in this hard season of life, I would give a peck of refuse wheat for all
that is called fame and honor in the world."

There is some thing in the "wail" and character of these laments that
recalls the mournful Psalms of David; like the Psalmist he endeavored to
be comforted, but it was by an effort. His political career was shrouded
for ever--the _motive_ to his great exertions was destroyed--but his
mind, wrecked as it had been, could not remain inactive. In 1795 his
_private_ reply to Mr. Smith's letter, requesting his opinion of the
expediency of and necessity for Catholic Emancipation, got into public
circulation; and in that singular document, though he did not enter into
the details of the question with as much minuteness as he would
previously have done, he pleaded for the removal of the whole of the
disabilities of the Roman Catholic body. From time to time he put forth
a small work on some popular question. He originated several plans for
benefiting the poor in his own neighborhood. He had a windmill in his
park for the purpose of supplying the poor with cheap bread, which bread
was served at his own table; and, as if clinging to the memory of the
youth of his son, he formed a plan for the establishment of an emigrant
school at Penn, where the children of those who had perished by the
guillotine or the sword amid the French convulsions, could be received,
supported, and educated. He made a generous appeal to government for the
benefit of these children, which was as generously responded to. The
house appropriated to this humane purpose had been inhabited by Burke's
old friend, General Haviland; and after his death several emigre French
priests sheltered within its walls. Until his last fatal illness Mr.
Burke watched over the establishment with the solicitude of a friend and
the tenderness of a father. The Lords of the Treasury allowed fifty
pounds per month for its sustenance: the Marquis of Buckingham made them
a present of a brass cannon and a stand of colors. When the Bourbons
were restored in 1814 they relieved the government from this charge, and
the institution was dissolved in 1820; in 1822 "Tyler's Green House," as
it was called, was sold in lots, pulled down, and carried away; thus,
Burke's own dwelling being destroyed by fire, and this building,
sanctified by his sympathy and goodness, razed to the ground, little
remains to mark the locality of places where all the distinguished men
of the age congregated around "the Burkes," and where Edmund, almost to
the last, extended hospitalities, coveted and appreciated by all who had
any pretensions to be considered as distinguished either by talent or
fortune.

It has frequently struck us as strange, the morbid avidity with which
the world seizes upon the slightest evidence of abstraction in great
men, to declare that their minds are fading, or impoverished: the public
gapes for every trifle calculated to prove that the palsied fingers can
no longer grasp the intellectual sceptre, and that the well-worn and
hard-earned bays are as a crown of thorns to the pulseless brow. It was,
in those days whispered in London that the great orator had become
imbecile immediately after the publication of his "_Letter to a Noble
Lord_;" and that he wandered about his park kissing his cows and horses.

A noble friend went immediately to Beaconsfield to ascertain the truth,
and was delighted to find Mr. Burke anxious to read him passages from "A
Regicide Peace," which he was then writing; after a little delicate
manoeuvring on his part, to ascertain the truth, Mr. Burke told him a
touching incident which proved the origin of this calumny on his
intellectual powers.

An old horse, a great favorite of his son's, and his constant companion,
when both were full of life and health, had been turned out at the death
of his master, to take his run of the park for the remainder of his
life, at ease, with strict injunctions to the servants that he should
neither be ridden, nor molested by any one. While musing one day,
loitering along, Mr. Burke perceived this worn-out old servant come
close up to him, and at length, after some moments spent in viewing his
person, followed by seeming recollection and confidence, he deliberately
rested his head upon his bosom. The singularity of the action itself,
the remembrance of his dead son, its late master, who occupied so much
of his thoughts at all times, and the apparent attachment, tenderness
and intelligence of the creature towards him--as if it could sympathize
with his inward sorrow--rushing at once into his mind, totally
overpowered his firmness, and throwing his arms over its neck, he wept
long and loudly.

But though his lucid and beautiful mind, however agonized, remained
unclouded to the last, and his affections glowed towards his old friends
as warmly as ever, his bodily health was failing fast; one of the last
letters he ever dictated was to Mary Leadbeater, the daughter of his old
friend and master, Shackleton; this lady was subsequently well known in
Ireland as the author of "Cottage Dialogues." The first literary
attempt, we believe, made towards the improvement of the lower order of
Irish, was by her faithful and earnest pen; to this letter,
congratulating her on the birth of a son, is a PS. where the invalid
says:--"I have been at Bath these four months to no purpose, and am
therefore to be removed to my own house at Beaconsfield to-morrow, _to
be nearer to a habitation more permanent, humbly_ and fearfully hoping
that my better part may find a better mansion!"

It would seem as if he anticipated the hour of his passing away. He sent
sweet messages of loving-kindness to all his friends, entreating and
exchanging pardons; recapitulated his motives of action on various
political emergencies; gave directions as to his funeral, and then
listened with attention to some serious papers of Addison on religious
subjects and on the immortality of the soul. His attendants after this
were in the act of removing him to his bed, when indistinctly invoking a
blessing on all around him, he sunk down and expired on the 9th of July,
1797, in the sixty-eighth year of his age.

"His end," said his friend Doctor Lawrence, "was suited to the simple
greatness of mind which he displayed through life; every way unaffected,
without levity, without ostentation, full of natural grace and dignity,
he appeared neither to wish nor to dread, but patiently and placidly to
await the appointed hour of his dissolution."

[Illustration: THE TOMB OF EDMUND BURKE.]

It was almost impossible to people, in fancy, the tattered and neglected
churchyard of Beaconsfield as it now is--with those who swelled the
funeral pomp of the greatest ornament of the British senate; to imagine
the titled pall-bearers, where the swine were tumbling over graves, and
rooting at headstones. Seldom, perhaps never, in England, had we seen a
churchyard so little cared for as that, where the tomb of Waller[6]
renders the surrounding disorder "in a sacred place" more conspicuous by
its lofty pretension, and where the church is regarded as the mausoleum
of Edmund Burke.[7] Surely the "decency of churchyards" ought to be
enforced, if those to whom they should be sacred trusts, neglect or
forget their duty. That the churchyard of Beaconsfield, which has long
been considered "a shrine," should be suffered to remain in the state in
which we saw it, is a disgrace not only to the town, but to England; it
was differently cared for during Burke's lifetime, and though, like that
of the revered Queen Dowager, his Will expressed a disinclination to
posthumous honors, and unnecessary expense, never were mourners more
sincere--never did there arise to the blue vault of heaven the incense
of greater, and more deep-felt sorrow, than from the multitude who
assembled in and around the church, while the mortal remains of Edmund
Burke were placed in the same vault with his son and brother.

The tablet to his memory, placed on the wall of the south aisle of the
church, records his last resting-place with the relatives just named; as
well as the fact of the same grave containing the body of his "entirely
beloved and incomparable wife," who died in 1812, at the age of 76.

Deeply do we deplore that the dwelling where he enjoyed so much that
renders life happy, and suffered what sanctifies and prepares us for a
better world, exists no longer; but his name is incorporated with our
history, and adds another to the list of the great men who have been
called into life and received their first and best impressions in
Ireland; and if Ireland had given nothing to her more prosperous sister
than the extraordinary men of the past and present century, she merits
her gratitude for the gifts which bestow so much honor and glory on the
United Kingdoms.

Mrs. Burke, previous to her death, sold the mansion to her neighbor, Mr.
John Du Pre, of Wilton Park. Mrs. Haviland, Mr. Burke's niece, lived
with her to the last, though she did not receive the portion of her
fortune to which she was considered entitled. Her son, Thomas Haviland
Burke, grand-nephew of Edmund, became the lineal representative of the
family; but the library, and all the tokens of respect and admiration
which he received from the good, and from the whole world, went with the
property to _Mrs. Burke's_ nephew, Mr. Nugent. Some of the sculpture
which ornamented the house now graces the British Museum.

The mansion was burnt on the 23d of April, 1813. The ground where it
stood is unequal; and some of the park wall remains, and fine old trees
still flourish, beneath whose shade we picture the meeting between the
mourning father and the favorite horse of his lost son.

There is a full-length portrait of Edmund Burke in the Examination Hall
of the Dublin University. All such portraits should be copied, and
preserved in our own Houses of Parliament, a meet honor to the dead, and
a stimulant to the living to "go and do likewise." It hardly realizes,
however, the _ideal_ of Burke; perhaps no portrait could. What Miss
Edgeworth called the "ground-plan of the face" is there; but we must
imagine the varying expression, the light of the bright quick eyes, the
eloquence of the unclosed lips, the storm which could gather
thunder-clouds on the well-formed brow; but we have far exceeded our
limits without exhausting our subject, and, with Dr. Parr, still would
speak of Burke:

"Of Burke, by whose sweetness Athens herself would have been soothed,
with whose amplitude and exuberance she would have been enraptured and
on whose lips that prolific mother of genius and science would have
adored, confessed--the Goddess of Persuasion."

Alas! we have lingered long at his shrine, and yet our praise is not
half spoken.

--[The notes and drawings for this paper were contributed by F. W.
Fairhold, of the Society of Antiquaries.]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Sylvanus Spenser, the eldest son of the Poet Spenser, married Ellen
Nagle, eldest daughter of David Nagle, Esq., ancestor of the lady, who
was mother to Edmund Burke.

[2] This as a picture is outlined with so delicate a pencil, and colored
with such mingled purity and richness of tone, that we transcribe a few
passages, as much in honor of the man who could write, as the woman who
could inspire such praise:--

"The character of ----

"She is handsome, but it is beauty not arising from features, from
complexion, or from shape. She has all three in a high degree, but it is
not by these she touches a heart; it is all that sweetness of temper,
benevolence, innocence, and sensibility, which a face can express, that
forms her beauty. She has a face that just raises your attention at
first sight; it grows on you every moment, and you wonder it did no more
than raise your attention at first.

"Her eyes have a mild light, but they awe when she pleases; they command
like a good man out of office, not by authority, but by virtue.

"Her stature is not tall, she is not made to be the admiration of every
body, but the happiness of one.

"She has all the firmness that does not exclude delicacy--she has all
the softness that does not imply weakness. * *

"Her voice is a soft, low, music, not formed to rule in public
assemblies, but to charm those who can distinguish a company from a
crowd: it has this advantage--_you must come close to her to hear it_.

"To describe her body, describes her mind; one is the transcript of the
other; her understanding is not shown in the variety of matters it
exerts itself on, but in the goodness of the choice she makes.

"She does not display it so much in saying or doing striking things, as
in avoiding such as she ought _not_ to say or do."

       *       *       *       *       *

"No persons of so few years can know the world better; no person was
ever less corrupted by the knowledge.

"Her politeness flows rather from a natural disposition to oblige, than
from any rules on that subject, and therefore never fails to strike
those who understand good breeding, and those who do not."

       *       *       *       *       *

"She has a steady and firm mind, _which takes no more from the solidity
of the female character, than the solidity of marble does from its
polish and lustre_. She has such virtues as make us value the truly
great of our own sex. She has all the winning graces that make us love
even the faults we see in the weak and beautiful in hers."

[3] Our cut exhibits all that now remains of Gregories--a few walls and
a portion of the old stables. Mrs. Burke, before her death, sold the
mansion to her neighbor, Mr. John Du Pre, of Wilton Park. It was
destroyed by fire soon afterwards.

[4] During Barry's five years' residence abroad he earned nothing for
himself, and received no supplies save from Edmund and Richard Burke.

[5] Mr. Prior says in his admirable Life of Burke--"How the money to
effect this purchase was procured has given rise to many surmises and
reports; a considerable portion was his own, the bequest of his father
and elder brother. The Marquis of Rockingham offered the loan of the
amount required to complete the purchase; the Marquis was under
obligations to him publicly, and privately for some attention paid to
the business of his large estates in Ireland. Less disinterested men
would have settled the matter otherwise--the one by quartering his
friend, the other, by being quartered, on the public purse. To the honor
of both, a different course was pursued."

[6] Waller was a resident in this vicinity, in which his landed property
chiefly lay. He lived in the family mansion named Well's Court, a
property still in the possession of his descendants. His tomb is a table
monument of white marble, upon which rises a pyramid, resting on skulls
with bat's wings; it is a peculiar but picturesque addition to the
churchyard, and, from its situation close to the walk, attracts much
attention.

[7] Our engraving exhibits his simple tablet, as seen from the central
aisle of the church, immediately in front of the pew in which Burke and
his family always sat.




POEMS BY S. G. GOODRICH[8]


For the last twenty years the name of Mr. Goodrich has been very
constantly associated with American literature. He commenced as a
publisher, in Boston, and was among the first to encourage by liberal
copyrights, and to make attractive by elegant editions, the works of
American authors. One of his earliest undertakings was a collection of
the novels of Charles Brockden Brown, with a memoir of that author, by
his widow, with whom he shared the profits. In 1828 he began "The
Token," an annual literary souvenir, which he edited and published
fourteen years. In this appeared the first fruits of the genius of
Cheney, who has long been acknowledged the master of American engravers;
and the first poems and prose writings of Longfellow, Willis, Mellen,
Mrs. Osgood, Mrs. Child, Mrs. Sigourney, and other eminent authors. In
"The Token" also were printed his own earlier lyrical pieces. The work
was of the first rank in its class, and in England as well as in this
country it was uniformly praised.

In 1831 an anonymous romance was published by Marsh & Capen, of Boston.
It was attributed by some to Willis, and by others to Mrs. Child, then
Miss Francis. It illustrated a fine and peculiar genius, but was soon
forgotten. Mr. Goodrich appreciated its merits, and applied to the
publishers for the name of the author, that he might engage him as a
contributor to "The Token." They declined to disclose his secret, but
offered to forward a letter to him. Mr. Goodrich wrote one, and received
an answer signed by NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, many of whose best productions,
as "Sights from a Steeple," "Sketches under an Umbrella," "The Prophetic
Pictures," "Canterbury Pilgrims," &c., appeared in this annual. In 1839,
Mr. Goodrich suggested to Mr. Hawthorne the publication of a collection
of his tales, surrendering his copyrights to several of them for this
purpose; but so little were the extraordinary qualities of this
admirable author then understood, that the publishers would not venture
upon such an experiment without an assurance against loss, which Mr.
Goodrich, as his friend, therefore gave. The public judgment will be
entitled to little respect, if the copyright of the works of Hawthorne
be not hereafter a most ample fortune.

Mr. Goodrich soon abandoned the business of publishing, and, though
still editing "The Token," devoted his attention chiefly to the writing
of that series of educational works, known as _Peter Parley's_, which
has spread his fame over the world. The whole number of these volumes is
about sixty. Among them are treatises upon a great variety of subjects,
and they are remarkable for simplicity of style and felicity of
illustration. Mr. Goodrich has accomplished a complete and important
revolution in juvenile reading, substituting truth and nature for
grotesque fiction in the materials and processes of instruction, and
his method has been largely imitated, at home and abroad. In England
many authors and publishers have disgraced the literary profession by
works under the name of "Parley," with which he has had nothing to do,
and which have none of his wise and genial spirit.

Besides his writings under this pseudonym, Mr. Goodrich has produced
several works of a more ambitious character, which have been eminently
popular. Among them is a series entitled "The Cabinet Library,"
embracing histories, biographies, and essays in science; "Universal
Geography," in an octavo volume of one thousand pages; and a "History of
all Nations," in two large octavos, in which he has displayed such
research, analysis, and generalization, as should insure for him an
honorable rank among historians. We cannot better illustrate his
popularity than by stating the fact, that more than four hundred
thousand volumes of his various productions are now annually sold in
this country and Europe. No living writer is, therefore, as much read,
and in the United States hardly a citizen now makes his first appearance
at the polls, or a bride at the altar, to whose education he has not in
a large degree contributed. For twenty years he has preserved the
confidence of parents and teachers of every variety of condition and
opinion, by the indefectible morality and strong practical sense, which
are universally understood and approved.

Like many other eminent persons, Mr. Goodrich lets sought occasional
relaxation from the main pursuits of his life in poetry, and the volume
before us contains some forty illustrations of his abilities, as a
worshipper of the muse whose temples are most thronged, but who is most
coy and most chary of her inspiration. They have for the most part been
previously printed in "The Token," or in literary journals, but a few
are now published the first time. In typographical and pictorial
elegance the book is unique. It is an exhibition of the success of the
first attempt to rival the London and Paris publishers in woodcut
embellishment and general beauty of execution.

That Mr. Goodrich possesses the poetical faculty in an eminent degree,
no one has doubted who has read his fine lines "To Lake Superior:"

[Illustration]

    Father of Lakes! thy waters bend,
      Beyond the eagle's utmost view,
    When, throned in heaven, he sees thee send
      Back to the sky its world of blue.

    Boundless and deep the forests weave
      Their twilight shade thy borders o'er,
    And threatening cliffs, like giants, heave
      Their rugged forms along thy shore.

    Nor can the light canoes, that glide
      Across thy breast like things of air,
    Chase from thy lone and level tide,
      The spell of stillness deepening there.

    Yet round this waste of wood and wave,
      Unheard, unseen, a spirit lives,
    That, breathing o'er each rock and cave,
      To all, a wild, strange aspect gives.

    The thunder-riven oak, that flings
      Its grisly arms athwart the sky,
    A sudden, startling image brings
      To the lone traveller's kindled eye.

    The gnarled and braided boughs that show
      Their dim forms in the forest shade,
    Like wrestling serpents seem, and throw
      Fantastic horrors through the glade.

    The very echoes round this shore,
      Have caught a strange and gibbering tone,
    For they have told the war-whoop o'er,
      Till the wild chorus is their own.

    Wave of the wilderness, adieu--
      Adieu, ye rocks, ye wilds, ye woods!
    Roll on, thou Element of blue,
      And fill these awful solitudes!

    Thou hast no tale to tell of man.
      God is thy theme. Ye sounding caves,
    Whisper of Him, whose mighty plan,
      Deems as a bubble all your waves!

The "Birth Night of the Humming Birds" has been declared by the London
_Athenaeum_ equal to Dr. Drake's "Culprit Fay," and it may be regarded as
in its way the best specimen of Mr. Goodrich's talents. It is too long
to be quoted in these paragraphs. In descriptions of nature he is
uniformly successful, presenting his picture with force and
distractness.

There are many examples of this in one of his longest poems, "The
Mississippi," in which the traditions that cluster around the Father of
Waters, and the advances of civility along his borders, are graphically
presented. The river is described as rising.

[Illustration]

    "Far in the west, where snow-capt mountain's rise,
      Like marble shafts beneath heaven's stooping dome,
    And sunset's charming curtain drapes the skies
      As if Enchantment there would build her home.

The bard laments that

            "though these scenes are fair
    As fabled Arcady, the sylph and fay,
      And all their gentle kindred, shun the air,
    Where car and steamer make their stormy way;"

Yet trusts that in a future time,

    "Perchance some Cooper's magic art may wake
      The sleeping legends of this mighty vale,
    And twine fond memories round the lawn and lake,
      Where Warrior fought or Lover told his tale.

In the volume are several allegorical pieces of much merit, of which the
most noticeable are the "Two Windmills," "The Bubble Chase," and "The
Rainbow Bridge." Several smaller poems are distinguished for a quaint
simplicity, reminding us of the old masters of English verse; and
others, for refined sentiment, as the "Old Oak," of which the key-note
is in the lines,

    Here is the grassy knoll I used to seek
      At summer noon, beneath the spreading shade,
    And watch the flowers that stooped, with glowing cheek,
      To meet the romping ripples as they played.

[Illustration]

The longest of Mr. Goodrich's poems is "The Outcast." It was first
published many years ago, and it appears now with the improvements
suggested by reflection and criticism. Its fault is, a certain
_intensity_, but it has noble passages, betraying a careful study and
profound appreciation of the subtler operations of the mind,
particularly, when, in its most excited action, it is influenced by the
observation of nature.

The volume will take its place in the cabinets of our choice literature,
and will be prized the more for the fact that by selecting American
themes for his most elaborate compositions, Mr. Goodrich has made
literature subservient to the purposes of patriotism.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] _Poems: by S. G. Goodrich._ New York, G. P. Putnam. [The
designs--about forty--are by Mr. Billings, the engravings by Bobbett &
Edmonds, Lossing & Barrett, Hartwell, and others, and the printing by
Mr. John F. Trow.]




[Illustration]

RICHARD B. KIMBALL.


The author of "_St. Leger_" was by that admirable work placed in the
leading rank of the new generation of American writers. The appearance
in the _Knickerbocker_ for the present month, of the commencement of a
sequel to "St. Leger," makes it a fit occasion for some notice of his
life and genius.

Mr. Kimball is by inheritance of the first class of New-England men,
numbering in his family a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a
President of the Continental Congress, and several other persons
honorably distinguished in affairs. He is a native of Lebanon, in New
Hampshire, where his father is still living--the centre of a circle
bound to him by their respect for every public and private virtue.
Though he had completed his preparatory studies before he was eleven
years of age, he did not enter college until he was nearly thirteen.
Four years after, in 1834, he graduated at Dartmouth, and upon devoting
one year to the study of the law, he went abroad; travelled in England,
Scotland, and Germany; and resided some time in Paris, where he attended
the lectures of Majendie, Broussais, and Louis, in medicine, and those
of the elder Dupin, and Coulanges, in law. Returning, he entered upon
the practice of the law, at Waterford, in this state, but soon removed
to New-York, where a year's devotion to his profession made him familiar
with its routine. In 1842 he went a second time to Europe, renewing the
associations of his travel and student-life in Great Britain and on the
continent. Since, for seven years, he has been an industrious and
successful lawyer in New-York.

Although but few works are known to be from the pen of Mr. Kimball, he
has been a voluminous author. The vigorous and polished style of his
avowed compositions, is never attained but by long practice. He has
been, we believe, a contributor to every volume of the _Knickerbocker_
published since 1842. He printed in that excellent magazine his
"Reminiscences of an Old Man," "The Young Englishman," and the
successive chapters of "St. Leger, or the Threads of Life." This last
work was published by Putnam, and by Bentley in London, about one year
ago, and it passed rapidly through two English and three American
editions. It was not raised into an ephemeral popularity, as so many
works of fiction easily are, for their lightness, by careless applauses;
it arrested the attention of the wisest critics; commanded their study,
and received their verdict of approval as a book of learning and
reflection in the anatomy of human life.

Mr. Kimball had been eminent in his class at college for a love of Greek
literature, and he studied the Roman also with reverent attention. It
was his distinction that he had thoroughly acquainted himself with the
philosophy of the ancients. At a later day he was attracted by the
speculation of the Germans, and a mastery of their language enabled him
to enter fully into the spirit of Spinosa, Kant, and Fichte, as he did
into that of the finer intelligences, Goeethe and Richter, and pervading
he found the passion to know Whence are we? What are we? Whither do we
go? In "St. Leger," a mind predisposed to superstition by some vague
prophecies respecting the destiny of his family--a mind inquisitive,
quick, and earnest, but subject to occasional melancholy, as the
inherited spell obtains a mastery of the reason--is exposed to the
influences of a various study, and startling experiences, all conceived
with a profound knowledge of human nature, and displayed with consummate
art; having a metaphysical if not a strictly dramatic unity; and
conducting by the subtlest processes, to the determination of these
questions, and the flowering of a high and genial character; as
Professor Tayler Lewis expresses it, "at rest, deriving substantial
enjoyment from the present, because satisfied with respect to the
ultimate, and perfect, and absolute."[9]

Aside from its qualities as a delineation of a deep inner experience,
"St. Leger" has very great merits as a specimen of popular romantic
fiction. The varied characters are admirably drawn, and are individual,
distinct, and effectively contrasted. The incidents are all shaped and
combined with remarkable skill; and, as the _Athenaeum_ observes, "Here,
there, everywhere, the author gives evidence of passionate and romantic
power." In some of the episodes, as in that of Wolfgang Hegewisch, for
example, in which are illustrated the tendency of a desperate philosophy
and hopeless skepticism, we have that sort of mastery of the feelings,
that chaining of the intensest interest, which distinguishes the most
wonderful compositions of Poe, or the German Hoffman, or Zschokke in his
"Walpurgis Night;" and every incident in the book tends with directest
certainty to the fulfilment of its main design.

The only other work of which Mr. Kimball is the acknowledged author, is
"Cuba and the Cubans;" a volume illustrative of the history, and social,
political, and economical condition of the island of Cuba, written
during the excitement occasioned by its invasion from the United States,
in 1849, and exhibiting a degree of research, and a judicial fairness of
statement and argument, which characterizes no other production upon
this subject. As it was generally admitted to be the most reliable,
complete, and altogether important work, upon points commanding the
attention of several nations, its circulation was very large; but it was
produced for a temporary purpose, and it will be recalled to popularity
only by a renewal of the inevitable controversies which await the
political relations of the Antilles.

"A Story of Calais," in the following pages, is an example of Mr.
Kimball's success as a tale writer. Though less remarkable than passages
in "St. Leger," it will vindicate his right to a place among the chief
creators of such literature among us.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] The Inner-Life, a Review of St. Leger, by Professor Tayler Lewis,
LL. D., &c.




THE BISHOP OF JAMAICA.


Among the distinguished strangers who visited the United States during
the last season, no one has left a more favorable impression upon
American society than the thoroughly accomplished scholar and highbred
gentleman, the Bishop of Jamaica. We propose a brief sketch of his
history:

AUBREY GEORGE SPENCER, D.D. and D.C.L., was born in London on the 12th
of February, 1795, and is the eldest son of the late Hon. William
Spencer, the poet, whose father, Lord Charles Spencer, was a son of
Charles the second Duke of Marlborough, and grandson of John Churchill,
the illustrious hero of Ramillies and Blenheim. His Christian names were
given by the Dukes of St. Albans and Marlborough, who were his great
uncles and godfathers. His mother was Susan Jennison, a countess of the
Holy Roman Empire, and a lady of singular beauty and accomplishments, to
whom Mr. William Spencer was married at the court of Hesse Darmstadt, in
1791. Aubrey Spencer and his younger brother George (subsequently Bishop
of Madras,) received the rudiments of learning at the Abbey School of
St. Albans, whence the former was soon removed to the seminary of the
celebrated Grecian, D. Burme, of Greenwich, and the latter to the
Charter house. For some time previous to his matriculation at Magdalen
Hall, Oxford, Mr. Aubrey Spencer was the private pupil of Mr. Mitchell,
the very learned translator of Aristophanes. At the house of his father
in Curzon street, at Melbourne House in Chiswick, Blenheim, and
Woolbeednig, Hallowell Hill, (the seat of the Countess Dowager Spencer,)
he was in frequent and familiar intercourse with many of the most
distinguished contemporary statesmen, philosophers, and other men of
letters; and in this society his own literary and conversational talents
obtained an early celebrity, and commended him to the regard and
friendship of Mr. Rogers, Mr. Campbell, Lord Byron, Mr. Hallam, Lord
Dudley, Mr. Coutts, Mr. Wordsworth, Mr. Francis, Mr. Homer, Thomas
Moore, Mr. Southey, Lady Caroline Lamb, Mr. Crabb, and many other
authors, with some of whom he still maintains a correspondence, while
some have fallen asleep.

With the society of the county of Oxford, and with that of the
University, he was equally popular. In the early part of the year 1818,
he took leave of his College, on being ordained deacon, and entered on a
charge of the parish of Great Oakering, in the diocese of London. From
this, which is a very unhealthy part of Essex, he removed at the end of
the year to Bannam, Norfolk, where he became the neighbor and frequent
guest of the Earl of Albemarle and the Bishop of Norwich. In March,
1819, he was admitted a priest, and soon after gave up the brilliant
society in which he had hitherto lived, and devoted himself to the
Church in the Colonies, where, for a quarter of a century, he has filled
a distinguished part as archdeacon and bishop.

His first visit to the Bermudas was undertaken for the recovery of his
health, to which a colder climate has always been hostile; and when, in
the year 1825, these islands were attached to the diocese of Nova
Scotia, he was, at the instance of the late Primate, appointed to them
as Archdeacon and Ecclesiastical Commissary to the Bishop of the see.
Here he may be said to have created the Ecclesiastical Establishment
which, under his conciliatory influence, has so rapidly and largely
increased; and with it he soon associated the revival of Bishop
Berkeley's Classical Academy, and a system of general instruction, of
which a chain of schoolhouses, from either extremity of the island, are
the abiding monuments.

From his connection with the Bishop of Nova Scotia, the visits of
Archdeacon Spencer to that colony were frequent, and many of the
inhabitants both of that province and of New Brunswick retain a lively
impression of his abilities, as they were illustrated in his preaching
and in the practice of the other duties of his profession and position.

In July, 1839, Dr. Spencer was consecrated by the venerable Archbishop
of Canterbury, on the nomination of the crown, to the new see of
Newfoundland, retaining still episcopal jurisdiction over the isles of
Bermuda, under the extension of the Colonial Episcopate, which relieved
the indefatigable Bishop of Nova Scotia of a large portion of his cares.
The new Bishop was enabled, by the aid of the Society for the Promotion
of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, to quadruple the number of his clergy
within four years, and to consecrate more than twenty additional
churches within the same period. A very grateful sense of the Bishop's
exertions, and of the prosperous results of his unceasing labor, was
manifested in the several addresses presented to his lordship on his
subsequent translation to the diocese of Jamaica, by the clergy and
laity of Newfoundland and Bermuda.

In a paper which only purports to be a biographical notice of one who is
still living, it is not desirable to do more than briefly advert to the
principal topics and dates of a history which may hereafter be
advantageously amplified and filled up. The real progress of the
established church in Newfoundland at this period, would be best
gathered from the Bishop's letters to the government and the religious
societies, and to the clergy under his jurisdiction, but to these
documents it is not likely that any biographer will have unreserved
access during the life of his lordship.

On the decease of Bishop Lipscombe, in April, 1843, Bishop Spencer was
translated, under circumstances peculiarly indicative of the high
opinion which was had of his ability by the Queen's ministers and the
heads of the English church, to the see of Jamaica, one of the most
important connected with the crown. He quitted his old diocese, as the
papers of the day amply testify, with the respect of all denominations
of Christians. A national ship, the Hermes, was appointed to convey him
and his family and suite to Jamaica, where he arrived in the first week
of November, having made the land on the auspicious festival of All
Saints.

The sermon delivered by him at his installation, in the cathedral at
Spanish Town, was published at the request of the Speaker of the House
of Assembly, while the Earl of Elgin, the Governor-General, in his
speech to the Legislature, "congratulated the inhabitants of Jamaica on
the appointment of a prelate of such approved talents and piety to that
see." At every point of the Bishop's visitation, which he commenced by a
convention of eighty clergymen, at Spanish Town, he was met by
congratulatory addresses from the vestries, and other corporate bodies,
declaratory of their confidence in his projected measures, and of their
desire to aid him in the extension of the church. In consonance with his
views the local Legislature passed an act increasing the number of
island curates, and providing higher salaries for their support, while
at the same time, they granted three thousand pounds as a first
instalment to the Church Society, which had been organized by him, and
to which the Governor-General contributed the annual sum of one hundred
pounds.

On his visit to England in 1845 and in the beginning of 1846, he was
continually employed in preaching in aid of various charities, and in
assisting at public meetings which had for their object the promotion of
Christianity by the servants of the church. At the weekly meetings of
the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, in London, he was a
constant attendant; and the increase of the funds of that association,
and the conciliation to it of many powerful supporters, are result of
measures which may be traced to his projection and tact. In his reply to
an address from the clergy, on his return from a recent visitation,
published at length in the last annual report of the parent Society for
the Propagation of the Gospel, will be found the clearest exposition of
the existing state and future prospects of the church in Jamaica; and a
charge addressed by his lordship to the clergy of the Bahamas, on the
subject of a difficult and embarrassing question, for the adjustment of
which the Bishop received the thanks of the Queen's government and of
the local Executive, is full of valuable information on the condition,
principles and progress of the colonial establishment. In closing the
last session of the Bahamas Legislature, Governor Gregory declared in
his speech, with reference to this matter, that he considered the
arrival of the Bishop in the island, at that juncture, as a convincing
proof of the interposition of a special Providence in the conduct of
human affairs.

In 1822, the Bishop was married to Eliza, the daughter of John Musson,
Esq., and the sister of a former friend at the University. He has had
one son, now deceased, and has three daughters.

As a man of letters, Bishop Spencer is entitled to a very honorable
position. As a scholar and as a critic, he has evinced such abilities
as, fitly devoted, would have secured fame; as a poet and essayist, he
has unusual grace and elegance; and a collection of the various
compositions with which he has relieved the monotony and arduous labors
of his professional and official career, would vindicate his title to be
classed with those prelates who have been most eminent in the literary
world.

The following poems, from autographs of Bishop Spencer, we believe are
first given to the public in the _International_.

"HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED SLEEP."

    I tread the church-yard's path alone,
    Unseen to shed the gushing tear:
    I read on many a mould'ring stone
    Fond records of the good and dear.
    My soul is well-nigh faint with fear,
    Where doubting many went to weep;
    And yet what sweet repose is here--
      "He giveth His beloved sleep!"

    The world has but a feverish rest,
    To weary pilgrims sometimes given,
    When pleasure's cup has lost its zest,
    And glory's hard-earned crown is riven.
    Here, softer than the dews of even
    Fall peaceful on the slumbering deep,
    Asleep to earth, awake to heaven--
      "He giveth His beloved sleep."

    Yes, on the grave's hard pillows rise
    No cankering cares, no dreams of woe;
    On earth we close our aching eyes,
    And heavenward all our visions grow.
    The airs of Eden round us flow,
    And in their balm our slumbers steep.
    God calls His chosen home, and so
      "He giveth His beloved sleep."

    Ah! vainly could the human voice,
    In this dull world of sin and folly,
    Tell how the sainted dead rejoice
    In those high realms where joy is holy--
    Where no dim shade of melancholy
    Beclouds the rest which angels keep,
    Where, peace and bliss united wholly
      "He giveth His beloved sleep."

    If on that brow so fair, so young,
    Affliction trace an early furrow,
    If Hope's too dear, delusive tongue
    Has broke its promise of to-morrow,
    Seek not the world again, to borrow
    The deathful print its votaries reap.
    Man gives his loved ones pain and sorrow,
      God "giveth His beloved sleep."

       *       *       *       *       *


LINES WRITTEN ON WITNESSING A CONFIRMATION, IN BERMUDA, IN 1826.

    Veil'd in robes of snowy whiteness,
      Filled with love and sacred fear,
    Forms of beauty, eyes of brightness,
      At the altar's foot appear.

    There with hearts oppressed with feeling
      What their dying Saviour felt;
    At His throne of mercy kneeling
      Where their pious parents knelt,

    Many a youth, and many a maiden
      Meekly and devoutly bow,
    And from worldly cares unladen
      Ratify a Christian's vow.

    Hark! what voice subdued and holy
      In that deep and tender tone,
    Prays upon those suppliants lonely
      Christ's eternal benison!

    God! who call'st them to inherit
      Joys no mortal tongue can speak,
    Guide them with thy gracious Spirit
      Through the storms that round them break.

    When thou seest these children straying
      From the way thy word imparts,
    Then, thine anger yet delaying,
      Renovate their faltering hearts.

    If provoked by strong temptation
      From thy paths again they swerve,
    If in prideful elevation
      They forget the God they serve,

    Then by timely, mild correction,
      Lead them, wheresoe'er they roam,
    Fan the embers of affection
      For their Father and their Home.

       *       *       *       *       *


MIDNIGHT.

    Midnight is on the earth:
      Flowers that in darkness bloom,
    Their odorous life pour forth
          Beneath the gloom.
    O'er palace and o'er stall
      Her sable curtain spread,
    Mantles within its pall
          The living dead!

    Midnight is on the sea:
      A soft and still repose
    Steals o'er the untroubled lea
          That darkly glows.
    Hushed in their ocean caves
      The winds their sleep prolong,
    Or mourn along the waves
          In dreamlike song.

    Midnight is in the Heaven:
      The planets of the air
    To her as vassals given,
      Wander and worship there.
    No sound comes from her throne,
      Piled in those lofty skies,
    Calmly she broods upon
      Her own deep mysteries.

    Yet in her silence deep,
      There breathes a language fraught
    With spell to wake and keep
      The energies of thought;
    And on her awful brow
      Strange characters appear,
    The portraitures to show
      Of the advancing year.

    Night is a fearful book,
      And in her darkling skies
    Did Seers and Magi look,
      Searching earth's destinies.
    But oh! had I the power
      To ancient science given,
    I would not use this hour
          To rifle Heaven.

    The night is Memory's sphere,
      In light and shadow cast;
    In her dim disk appear
          The last--the past.
    The lov'd ones of our youth
      Hasten'd to life's last bourne;
    Dear to the heart's deep truth,
          Will they return?

    Ask of the phantoms pale
      That haunt the hollow sky,
    Ask of the fitful gale
      That mourns and passes by,
    Invoke the spirits' home,
      Unsearchable, unseen--
    Where do the wanderers roam?
      Are they as they have been?

    Silence is on the land,
      No voice comes from the sea,
    No spell can reach thy strand,
      Thou dim Eternity!
    Fled like the cloudy rack
      With morning's early breath,
    What night shall bring them back?
      The night that brings us death!

       *       *       *       *       *


STETE SUPER VIAS ANTIGUAS.

    My heart lies buried with the past,
      'Mid scenes where fleeting memory strays
    And time its darkening shadows cast
      O'er all the marks of by-gone days;
    I look in vain for ancient ways--
      The olden paths are worn and gone;
    No friend that trod them here delays,
      I pass benighted and alone.
    Yet in this mist of life and mind,
      Which ever dark and darker grows,
    There is one living lamp enshrin'd,
      Whose ray in deathless lustre glows.
    That star-like light my God bestows
      To break the deep sepulchral gloom;
    Its beams Eternity disclose,
      And show the garden round the tomb.




ENCOURAGEMENT OF LITERATURE.


In the concluding volume of the Life of Southey, just published by the
Harpers, is a letter from the poet in answer to one by Lord Brougham, on
the subject of the encouragement of literature by government. "Your
first question," writes Southey, "is, whether Letters would gain by the
more avowed and active encouragement of the Government?

"There are literary works of national importance which can only be
performed by co-operative labor, and will never be undertaken by that
spirit of trade which at present preponderates in literature. The
formation of an English Etymological Dictionary is one of those works;
others might be mentioned; and in this way literature might gain much by
receiving national encouragement; _but Government would gain a great
deal more by bestowing it. Revolutionary governments understand this: I
should be glad if I could believe that our legitimate one would learn it
before it is too late. I am addressing one who is a statesman as well as
a man of letters, and who is well aware that the time is come in which
governments can no more stand without pens to support them than without
bayonets._ They must soon know, if they do not already know it, that the
volunteers as well as the mercenaries of both professions, who are not
already enlisted in this service, will enlist themselves against it; and
I am afraid they have a better hold upon the soldier than upon the
penman; because the former has, in the spirit of his profession and in
the sense of military honor, something which not unfrequently supplies
the want of any higher principle; and I know not that any substitute is
to be found among the gentlemen of the press.

"But neediness, my Lord, makes men dangerous members of society, quite
as often as affluence makes them worthless ones. I am of opinion that
many persons who become bad subjects because they are necessitous,
because 'the world is not their friend, nor the world's law,' might be
kept virtuous (or, at least, withheld from mischief) by being made
happy, by early encouragement, by holding out to them a reasonable hope
of obtaining, in good time, an honorable station and a competent income,
as the reward of literary pursuits, when followed with ability and
diligence, and recommended by good conduct.

"My Lord, you are now on the Conservative side. Minor differences of
opinion are infinitely insignificant at this time, when in truth there
are but two parties in this kingdom--the Revolutionists and the
Loyalists; those who would destroy the constitution, and those who would
defend it, I can have no predilections for the present administration;
they have raised the devil who is now raging through the land: but, in
their present position, it is their business to lay him if they can; and
so far as their measures may be directed to that end, I heartily say,
God speed them! _If schemes like yours for the encouragement of letters,
have never entered into their wishes, there can be no place for them at
present in their intentions._ Government can have no leisure now for
attending to any thing but its own and our preservation; and the time
seems not far distant when the cares of war and expenditure will come
upon it once more with their all-engrossing importance. But when better
times shall arrive (whoever may live to see them), it will be worthy the
consideration of any government whether the institution of an Academy,
with salaries for its members (in the nature of literary or lay
benefices), might not be the means of retaining in _its_ interests, as
connected with their own, a certain number of influential men of
letters, who should hold those benefices, and a much greater number of
aspirants who would look to them in their turn. A yearly grant of ten
thousand pounds would endow ten such appointments of five hundred pounds
each for the elder class, and twenty-five of two hundred pounds each for
younger men; the latter eligible, of course, and preferably, but not
necessarily, to be elected to the higher benefices, as those fell
vacant, and as they should have improved themselves.

"The good proposed by this, as a political measure, is not that of
retaining such persons to act as pamphleteers and journalists, but that
of preventing them from becoming such, in hostility to the established
order of things; and of giving men of letters, as a class, something to
look for beyond the precarious gains of literature; thereby inducing in
them a desire to support the existing institutions of their country, on
the stability of which their own welfare would depend.

"Your Lordship's second question,--in what way the encouragement of
Government could most safely and beneficially be given,--is, in the
main, answered by what has been said upon the first. I do not enter into
any details of the proposed institution, for that would be to think of
fitting up a castle in the air. Nor is it worth while to examine how far
such an institution might be perverted. Abuses there would be, as in the
disposal of all preferments, civil, military, or ecclesiastical; but
there would be a more obvious check upon them; and where they occurred
they would be less injurious in their consequences than they are in the
state, the army and navy, or the church.

"With regard to prizes, methinks they are better left to schools and
colleges. Honors are worth something to scientific men, because they are
conferred upon such men in other countries; at home there are precedents
for them in Newton and Davy, and the physicians and surgeons have them.
In my judgment, men of letters are better without them, unless they are
rich enough to bequeath to their family a good estate with the bloody
hand, and sufficiently men of the world to think such distinctions
appropriate. For myself, if we had a Guelphic order, I should choose to
remain a Ghibelline.

"I have written thus fully and frankly, not dreaming that your proposal
is likely to be matured and carried into effect, but in the spirit of
good will, and as addressing one by whom there is no danger that I can
be misunderstood. _One thing alone I ask from the legislature, and in
the name of justice,--that the injurious law of copyright should be
repealed, and that the family of an author should not be deprived of
their just and natural rights in his works when his permanent reputation
is established._ This I ask with the earnestness of a man who is
conscious that he has labored for posterity."

The publication of this letter, and of the correspondence between
Southey and Sir Robert Peel, in which the poet declines being knighted,
on account of his poverty--a correspondence eminently honorable to the
late Prime Minister, has occasioned an eloquent letter from Walter
Savage Landor to Lord Brougham on the same subject.




CLASSICAL NOVELS.


The _Edinburgh Review_ rebukes the daring of those uneducated
story-tellers who profane by their intrusion the holy lands, the sacred
names, and golden ages of art. We have acceptable specimens of the
"classical novel" by Dr. Croly, Lockhart, Bulwer, and Collins (the
author of "Antonini"), and in this country by Mrs. Child and William
Ware; but nineteen of every twenty who have attempted such compositions
have failed entirely. The Edinburgh Reviewer, after showing that the
writers whom he arraigns have merely parodied the exterior life of our
own time, proceeds--

"It is not uncommon to excuse such deviations from historical propriety
by saying, that if the mere accidents have been neglected, the essential
humanity has been only more fully realized: and those who quarrel with
the neglect are stigmatized as pedants having no eyes except for the
external. We think, however, that it will be found, in most cases where
the plea is set up, that the humanity for which the sacrifice has been
made is equally external with that which has been disregarded, and much
more commonplace and conventional; being in fact, only the outer life of
existing society. We are met, of course, by the triumphant answer that
Shakspeare wrote Roman plays with a very slender knowledge of the
classics. It would be sufficient to reply, that we are speaking of cases
where ignorance of antiquity is not counterbalanced by any very
exuberant or profound knowledge of human nature. Possibly posterity may
have to deal with another myriad-minded dramatist whose poverty is
better than other men's riches; but it must not be rashly presumed that
he is likely to appear at all; or, if at all, with the same deficiency
of learning which was not unnatural three hundred years back. Meanwhile,
it is a perverse and pernicious paradox to maintain that Shakspeare's
consummate genius was in any way connected with his 'little Latin and
less Greek,' or that he might not have portrayed the Romans yet more
successfully if he had known more about them. Believing this, we are not
presuming, as the same absurd reasoning would have it, to set up
ourselves against him. We do not say that any other man in his age or
our own, however great his command of learning, could possibly mend
those plays by touching them; but we say that Shakspeare himself, with
increased knowledge, might have made them yet more perfect. It is easy
to oppose inspiration to scholastic culture; to coin antitheses between
nature and art; and to say that Shakspeare's Romans are more ideally
true than Niebuhr's. There is some truth in all this; but it is not to
the purpose. A poet like Burns may have really known more of classical
life than a critic like Blair; nay, it may be that if Keats or Tennyson
had been a senior medallist at Cambridge, they would not have produced
any thing not only so beautiful but so purely Greek as _Endymion_ or
_Oenone_. In what we were just saying we were thinking of the very
highest minds. And, when we recollect how gracefully Milton could walk
under the weight of his immense learning, we need not fear that the
Alantean shoulders of Shakspeare would have been oppressed by a similar
load. The knowledge of antiquity may operate on the recipient so as to
produce mere bookishness and intellectual sophistication; but in itself
it is a real and legitimate part of all knowledge, a portion of that
truth with which poets are conversant, a lesson set in other schools
than those where man is teacher. We know not what were Shakspeare's
feelings with respect to his own deficiencies; but we cannot believe
that the same modesty which besought his friend to chide with Fortune,
'the guilty goddess of his harmful deeds,' would have shrunk from
confessing want of knowledge as an evil to be lamented, at the same time
that it was imputed to want of opportunity. If he was self-centred, it
was in his strength, not in his weakness. His eulogists may show the
greatness of their faith in him by doubting whether he could have
assimilated the learning which obstructs Ben Jonson's _Catiline_ and
_Sejanus_; but we have no proofs that he thought so meanly of himself or
of that which he happened not to possess. On the contrary, it may be
argued, from the diligent use which he has made of such information as
he had, that he would gladly have taken advantage of more. Arnold, in
his Roman History, has noted the poet's perception of historical truth
in a matter where it might well have been overlooked; and future critics
may perhaps spend their time more profitably in discovering other
indications of a like vigilant industry than in laboring to prove that
the absence of so servile a virtue has been conducive to his preeminence
as a creative artist."




SLIDING SCALE OF THE INCONSOLABLES.


The editor of _The Albion_ thus christens, while he translates, the
following lively narrative, culled from the varied columns of the
_Courrier des Etats Unis_. The malicious writer dates from Paris; but
for such experiences our own city would probably be quite as prolific a
hunting-field.

       *       *       *       *       *

How rapid is the progress of oblivion with respect to those who are no
more! How many a quadrille shall we see this winter, exclusively made up
from the ranks of inconsolable widows! Widows of this order exist only
in the literature of the tombstone. In the world, and after the lapse of
a certain period, there is but one sort of widows inconsolable--those
who refuse to be comforted, because they can't get married again!

One of our most distinguished sculptors was summoned, a short time
since, to the house of a young lady, connected by birth with a family of
the highest grade in the aristocracy of wealth, and united in marriage
to the heir of a title illustrious in the military annals of the empire.
The union, formed under the happiest auspices, had been, alas! of short
duration. Death, unpitying death, had ruptured it, by prematurely
carrying off the young husband. The sculptor was summoned by the widow.
He traversed the apartments, silent and deserted, until he was
introduced into a bedroom, and found himself in presence of a lady,
young and beautiful, but habited in the deepest mourning, and with a
face furrowed by tears. "You are aware," said she, with a painful
effort, and a voice half choked by sobs, "you are aware of the blow
which I have received?" The artist bowed, with an air of respectful
condolence. "Sir," continued the widow, "I am anxious to have a funeral
monument erected in honor of the husband whom I have lost." The artist
bowed again. "I wish that the monument should be superb, worthy of the
man whose loss I weep, proportioned to the unending grief into which his
loss has plunged me. I care not what it costs. I am rich, and I will
willingly sacrifice all my fortune to do honor to the memory of an
adored husband. I must have a temple--with columns--in marble--and in
the middle--on a pedestal--his statue."

"I will do my best to fulfil your wishes, madam," replied the artist;
"but I had not the honor of acquaintance with the deceased, and a
likeness of him is indispensable for the due execution of my work.
Without doubt, you have his portrait?"

The widow raised her arm and pointed despairingly to a splendid likeness
painted by Amaury Duval.

"A most admirable picture!" observed the artist, "and the painter's name
is a sufficient guarantee for its striking resemblance to the original."

"Those are his very features, sir; it is himself. It wants but life. Ah!
would that I could restore it to him at the cost of all my blood!"

"I will have this portrait carried to my studio, madam, and I promise
you that the marble shall reproduce it exactly."

The widow, at these words, sprung up, and at a single bound throwing
herself towards the picture, with arms stretched out as though to defend
it, exclaimed, "Take away this portrait! carry off my only consolation!
my sole remaining comfort! never! never!"

"But madam, you will only be deprived of it for a short time, and--"

"Not an hour! not a minute! could I exist without his beloved image!
Look you, sir, I have had it placed here, in my own room, that my eyes
might be fastened upon it, without ceasing, and through my tears. His
portrait shall never leave this spot one single instant, and in
contemplating _that_ will I pass the remainder of a miserable and
sorrowful existence."

"In that case, madam, you will be compelled to permit me to take a copy
of it. But do not be uneasy--I shall not have occasion to trouble your
solitude for any length of time: one sketch--one sitting will suffice."

The widow agreed to this arrangement; she only insisted that the artist
should come back the following day. She wanted him to set to work on the
instant, so great was her longing to see the mausoleum erected. The
sculptor, however, remarked that he had another work to finish first.
This difficulty she sought to overcome by means of money.

"Impossible!" replied the artist, "I have given my word; but do not
distress yourself; I will apply to it so diligently, that the monument
shall be finished in as short a time as any other sculptor would
require, who could apply himself to it forthwith."

"You see my distress," said the widow; "you can make allowance for my
impatience. Be speedy, then, and above all, be lavish of magnificence.
Spare no expense; only let me have a masterpiece."

Several letters echoed these injunctions, during the few days
immediately following the interview. At the expiration of three months
the artist called again. He found the widow still in weeds, but a little
less pallid, and a little more coquettishly dressed in her mourning
garb. "Madam," said he, "I am entirely at your service."

"Ah! at last; this is fortunate," replied the widow, with a gracious
smile.

"I have made my design, but I still want one sitting for the likeness.
Will you permit me to go into your bedroom?"

"Into my bedroom? For what?"

"To look at the portrait again."

"Oh! yes; have the goodness to walk into the drawing-room; you will find
it there, now."

"Ah!"

"Yes; it hangs better there; it is better lighted in the drawing-room
than in my own room."

"Would you like, madam, to look at the design for the monument?"

"With pleasure. Oh! what a size! What profusion of decorations! Why, it
is a palace, sir, this tomb!"

"Did you not tell me, madam, that nothing could be too magnificent? I
have not considered the expense; and, by the way, here is a memorandum
of what the monument will cost you."

"Oh, heavens!" exclaimed the widow, after having cast an eye over the
total adding up. "Why, this is enormous!"

"You begged me to spare no expense."

"Yes, no doubt, I desire to do things properly, but not exactly to make
a fool of myself."

"This, at present, you see, is only a design; and there is time yet to
cut it down."

"Well, then, suppose we were to leave out the temple, and the columns,
and all the architectural part, and content ourselves with the statue?
It seems to me that this would be very appropriate."

"Certainly it would."

"So let it be, then--just the statue, alone."

Shortly after this second visit, the sculptor fell desperately ill. He
was compelled to give up work; but, on returning from a tour in Italy,
prescribed by his physician, he presented himself once more before the
widow, who was then in the tenth month of her mourning. He found, this
time, a few roses among the cypress, and some smiling colors playing
over half-shaded grounds. He brought with him a little model of his
statue, done in plaster, and offering in miniature the idea of what his
work was to be. "What do you think of the likeness?" he inquired of the
widow.

"It seems to me a little flattered; my husband was all very well, no
doubt; but you are making him an Apollo!"

"Really? well, then, I can correct my work by the portrait."

"Don't take the trouble--a little more, or a little less like, what does
it matter?"

"Excuse me, but I am particular about likenesses."

"If you absolutely must--"

"It is in the drawing-room, yonder, is it not? I'll go in there."

"It is not there any longer," replied the widow, ringing the bell.

"Baptiste," said she to the servant who came in, "bring down the
portrait of your master."

"The portrait that you sent up to the garret last week, madam?"

"Yes."

At this moment the door opened, and a young man of distinguished air
entered; his manners were easy and familiar; he kissed the fair widow's
hand, and tenderly inquired after her health. "Who in the world is this
good man in plaster?" asked he, pointing with his finger to the
statuette, which the artist had placed upon the mantel-piece.

"It is the model of a statue for my husband's tomb."

"You are having a statue of him made? The devil! It's very majestic!"

"Do you think so?"

"It is only great men who are thus cut out of marble, and at full
length; it seems to me, too, that the deceased was a very ordinary
personage."

"In fact, his bust would be sufficient."

"Just as you please, madam," said the sculptor.

"Well, let it be a bust, then; that's determined!"

Two months later, the artist, carrying home the bust, encountered on the
stairs a merry party. The widow, giving her hand to the elegant dandy
who had caused the statue of the deceased to be cut down, was on her way
to the mayor's office, where she was about to take a second oath of
conjugal fidelity. If the bust had not been completed, it would
willingly have been dispensed with. When, some time later, the artist
called for his money, there was an outcry about the price; and it
required very little less than a threat of legal proceedings, before the
widow, consoled and remarried, concluded by resigning herself to pay for
this funeral homage, reduced as it was, to the memory of her departed
husband.




A NEW SERIES OF TALES BY MISS MARTINEAU.


There is scarcely in English literature a collection of tales by a
simple writer that are better adapted for the instruction of the masses,
than HARRIET MARTINEAU'S _Illustrations of Political Economy_. Without
believing her a very profound philosopher, we are inclined to think
these works could be remembered longer than any of her other writings.
The pleasure and instruction we derived from them were recalled by the
announcement in the London _Leader_ that she is to contribute a new
series of stories for the people, to that journal. We copy the first of
them.


THE OLD GOVERNESS.

The afternoon was come when the Morells must go on board. They were
going to Canada at last, after having talked about it for several years.
There were so many children, that it was with much difficulty they had
got on for some years past; and there was no prospect for the lads at
home. They had, with extreme difficulty, paid their way: and they had,
to a certain extent, educated the children. That, however, was Miss
Smith's doing.

"We shall always feel, every one of us," said Mrs. Morell, with tears,
to the elderly homely governess, "that we are under the deepest
obligations to you. But for you, the children would have grown up
without any education at all. And, for the greatest service you or any
one could possibly render us, we have never been able to give you your
due,--even as regards the mere money."

"I can only say again," replied the governess, "that you do not look at
the whole of the case. You have given me a home, when it is no easy
matter for such as I am to earn one, with my old-womanish ways and my
old-fashioned knowledge."

"I will not hear any disparagement of your ways and your knowledge,"
interrupted Mrs. Morell. "They have been every thing to my children: and
if you could have gone with us...."

This, however, they all knew to be out of the question. It was not only
that Miss Smith was between fifty and sixty, too old to go so far, with
little prospect of comfort at the end of the journey; but she was at
present disabled for much usefulness by the state of her right hand. It
had been hurt by an accident a long time before, and it did not get
well. The surgeon had always said it would be a long case; and she had
no use whatever of the hand in the mean time. Yet she would not part
with the baby till the last moment. She carried him on the left arm, and
stood on the wharf with him--the mother at her side--till all the rest
were on board, and Mr. Morell came for his wife. It was no grand steamer
they were going in, but a humble vessel belonging to the port, which
would carry them cheap.

"Now, my love," said the husband. "Now, Miss Smith," taking the child
from her. "Words cannot tell...."

And if words could have told, the tongue could not have uttered them. It
was little, too, that his wife could say.

"Write to us. Be sure you write. We shall write as soon as we arrive.
Write to us."

Miss Smith glanced at the hand. She said only one word, "Farewell!" but
she said it cheerfully.

The steam-tug was in a hurry, and down the river they went. She had one
more appointment to keep with them. She was to wave her handkerchief
from the rocks by the fort; and the children were to let her try whether
she could see their little handkerchiefs. So she walked quickly over the
common to the fort, and sat down on the beach at the top of the rocks.

It was very well that she had something to do. But the plan did not
altogether answer. By the time the vessel crossed the bar it was nearly
dark, and she was not quite sure, among three, which it was, and she did
not suppose the children could see her handkerchief. She waved it,
however, according to promise. How little they knew how wet it was!

Then there was the walk home. It was familiar, yet very strange. When
she was a child her parents used to bring her here, in the summer time,
for sea air and bathing. The haven and the old gray bathing houses, and
the fort, and the lighthouse, and the old priory ruins crowning the
rocks, were all familiar to her; but the port had so grown up that all
else was strange. And how strange now was life to her! Her parents gone,
many years back, and her two sisters since; and now, the Morells! She
had never had any money to lose, and the retired way in which the
Morells lived had prevented her knowing any body out of their house. She
had not a relation nor a friend, nor even an acquaintance, in England.
The Morells had not been uneasy about her. They left her a little money,
and had so high an opinion of her that they did not doubt her being
abundantly employed, whenever her hand should get well. They had lived
too much to themselves to know that her French, learned during the war,
when nobody in England could pronounce French, would not do in these
days, nor that her trilling, old-fashioned style of playing on the
piano, which they thought so beautiful, would be laughed at now in any
boarding school; and that her elegant needleworks were quite out of
fashion; and that there were new ways of teaching even reading,
spelling, and writing.

She knew these things, and cautioned herself against discontent with the
progress of society, because she happened to be left alone behind. She
suspected, too, that the hand would not get well. The thing that she was
most certain of was, that she must not rack her brain with fears and
speculations as to what was to become of her. Her business was to wait
till she could find something to do, or learn what she was to suffer.
She thought she had better wait here. There was no call to any other
place. This was more familiar and more pleasant to her than any
other--the Morells' cottage being far away, and out of the question--and
here she could live with the utmost possible cheapness. So here she
staid.

The hand got well, as far as the pain was concerned, sooner than she had
expected. But it was in a different way from what she had expected. It
was left wholly useless. And, though the time was not long, it had
wrought as time does. It had worn out her clothes; it had emptied her
little purse. It had carried away every thing she had in the world but
the very few clothes she had on. She had been verging towards the
resolution she now took for three or four weeks. She took it finally
while sitting on the bench near the fort. It was in the dusk; for her
gown, though she had done her best to mend it with her left hand, was in
no condition to show by daylight. She was alone in the dusk, rather
hungry and very cold. The sea was dashing surlily upon the rocks below,
and there was too much mist to let any stars shine upon her. It was all
dreary enough; yet she was not very miserable, for her mind was made up.
She had made up her mind to go into the work-Pouse the next day. While
she was thinking calmly about it a fife began to play a sort of jig in
the yard of the fort behind her. Her heart heaved to her throat and the
tears gushed from her eyes. In this same spot, fifty years before, she
had heard what seemed to her the same fife. Her father was then sitting
on the grass, and she was between his knees, helping to tassel the tail
of a little kite they were going to fly; and, when the merry fife had
struck up, her father had snatched up her gay Harlequin that lay within
reach, and made him shake his legs and arms to the music. She heard her
own laugh again now, through that long course of fifty years, and in the
midst of these tears.

All that night she pondered her purpose: and the more she considered,
the more sure she was that it was right. "I might," thought she, "get
maintained by charity, no doubt: I might call on any of the clergymen of
this place, and the rich people. Or I might walk into the shops and tell
my story, and I dare say the people would give me food and clothes. And,
if it was a temporary distress, I would do so. I should think it right
to ask for help, if I had any prospect of work or independence in any
way. But I have none: and this, I am convinced, points out my duty.
Hopeless cases like mine are those which public charity--legal
charity--is intended to meet. My father little dreamed of this, to be
sure; and the Morells little dream of it at this moment. But when do our
parents and friends, when do we ourselves, dream of what our lot is
really to turn out? Those old notions have nothing to do, if we could
but think so, with the event. Nor has my disgust any thing to do with my
duty. The plain fact is, that I am growing old--that I am nearly
helpless--that I am cold and hungry, and nearly naked--that I have no
friends within reach, and no prospect whatever. I am, therefore, an
object for public charity, and I will ask for what is my due. I am
afraid of what I may find in the workhouse;--the vicious people, the
dirty people, the diseased people,--and, I suppose, not one among them
who can give me any companionship whatever.

"It is dreadful; but it can't be helped. And the worse the case is about
my companions--my fellow-paupers--(for I must learn to bear the
word)--the greater are the chances of my finding something to do for
them;--something which may prevent my feeling myself utterly useless in
the world. This is not being wholly without prospect, after all. I
suppose nobody ever is. If it were not so cold now, I could sleep upon
mine."

It was too cold for sleep; and when, in the morning, she offered her old
shawl in payment for her bed, assuring the poor old woman who let it
that she should not want the shawl, because she was going to have other
clothes, the woman shook her head sorrowfully,--her lodger looked so wan
and chilled. She had no fear that there was any thought of suicide in
the case. No one could look in Miss Smith's sensible face, and hear her
steady, cheerful voice, and suppose that she would do any thing wild or
impatient.

"Who is that woman with a book in her hand?" inquired the visiting
Commissioner, some months afterwards, of the governor of the workhouse.
The governor could only say she was a single woman of the name of Smith,
who had no use of her right hand. As to who she was, he could tell no
more than this; but his wife had sometimes mentioned her as a different
sort of person from those they generally saw there. She could not only
read, but she read very well: and she read a great deal aloud to the old
people, and in the infirmary. She talked unlike the rest, too. She said
little; but her language was good, and always correct. She could not do
much on account of her infirmity: but she was always willing to do what
could be done with one hand; and she must have been very handy when she
had the use of both.

"I should have thought her eyes had been too weak for much reading,"
observed the Commissioner. "Has the medical officer attended to her?"

The governor called his wife: and the wife called a pauper woman who was
told the question. This woman said that it was not exactly a case for
the doctor. Nobody that shed so many tears could have good eyes. Ah! the
governor might be surprised; because Smith seemed so brisk in the
daytime, and cheered the old people so much. But she made up for it at
night. Many and many a time she cried the night through.

"How do you know?" asked the Commissioner.

"I sleep in the next bed, sir. I can't say she disturbs any body; for
she is very quiet. But if any thing keeps me awake I hear her sobbing.
And you need but feel her pillow in the morning. It is wet almost
through."

"And does that happen often?"

"Yes, sir. Many a time when she has turned her back,--gone into the
infirmary, or been reading to the old people,--I have got her pillow and
dried it. And I have seen her do it herself, with a smile on her face
all the time."

The Commissioner walked away. Before he left the place, the woman Smith
was beckoned out by the governor. She went with a beating heart, with
some wild idea in her head that the Morells had sent, that some friends
had turned up. While still in the passage, however, she said to herself
that she might as well look to see her parents risen from the dead.

The Commissioner had, indeed, nothing to tell. He wanted to ask. He did
ask, as much as his delicacy would allow. But he learned nothing;
except, indeed, what he ought to have considered the most important
thing, the state of her mind about being there. About that, she was
frank enough. She said over again to him what she had said to herself,
about this being the right place for one in her circumstances. She
considered that it would be an abuse of private charity for her to be
maintained in idleness at an expense which might set forward in life
some person in a less hopeless position.

"You speak cheerfully, as if you were in earnest," said the
Commissioner.

"Of course, I am in earnest," she replied.

And cheerful she remained throughout the conversation. Only once the
Commissioner saw her eyes filled and a quiver on her lips. He did not
know it; but he had unconsciously called her "Madam."

Would she prefer the children's department of the House? There was no
doubt that she could teach them much. Would she change her quarters? No.
She was too old now for that. She should not be a good companion now for
children; and they would be too much for her. Unless she was wanted--

By no means. She should be where she preferred to be.

She preferred to be where she was. The Commissioner's lady soon after
dropped in, and managed to engage Smith in conversation. But there was
no result; because Smith did not choose that there should be. Perhaps
she was more in the infirmary; and had oftener a warm seat by the fire,
and was spoken to with more deference. But this might be solely owing to
the way she made with the people by her own acts and manners. The
invalids and the infirm grew so fond of her that they poured out to her
all their complaints. She was favored with the knowledge of every
painful sensation as it passed, and every uneasy thought as it arose.

"I never thought to die in such a place as this," groaned old Johnny
Jacks.

"I wonder at that," said his old wife; "for you never took any care to
provide yourself a better--to say nothing of me." And she went on to
tell how Johnny had idled and drank his life away, and brought her here
at last. Much of Johnny's idling and drinking having been connected with
electioneering in an abominably venal city, he was a great talker on
politics, and the state was made responsible for all his troubles. He
said it was a shame that any body should die in a workhouse; he appealed
to his neighbor Smith, who was warming his broth, whether it was not so?

"Which is best?" she answered; "being here, or on a common, or the
sea-sands? Because," she added, "there was a time when old people like
us were left to die wherever they fell. There are countries now where
old people die so. I should not like that."

"You don't mean to say that you or any one likes being here?"

"Oh, no; I don't mean to say that. But things are better than they were
once: and they may be better again."

"I shall not live to see that," groaned Johnny.

"No; nor I. But it is something to think of."

"D---- it," said Johnny, "I am not the better for any good that does not
happen to me, nor to any body I know."

"Are not you?" said neighbor Smith. "Well, now, I am."

And so she was to the end. She died in that infirmary, and not very long
after. When the Morells' letter came, it was plain that they had enough
to do to take care of themselves. So she did not let them know,--in her
reply, written by the hands of the schoolmaster,--where she was. The
letter was so cheerful that they are probably far from suspecting, at
this moment, how she died and was buried. As "from the abundance of the
heart the mouth speaketh," there was so much in her letter as rather
surprised them about her hope and expectation that the time would come
when hearty work in the vigorous season of life should secure its easy
close; and when a greater variety of employment should be opened to
women. There was more of this kind of speculation and less news and
detail of facts than they would have liked. But it was a household event
to have a letter from Miss Smith; and the very little children,
forgetting the wide sea they had passed, began shouting for Miss Smith
to come to them just (as it happened) when her ear was closing to every
human voice.




ON THE ATTEMPTS TO DISCOVER THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE.


There are some peculiarities of style in the following performance,
which is by no means devoid of eloquence, and which derives a certain
interest from the efforts now being made to discover the fate of Sir
John Franklin. The author is GEORGE STOVIN VENABLES, LL. D., of Jesus
College, Cambridge.


THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE.

    "And now there came both mist and snow,
    And it grew wondrous cold;
    And ice, mast high, came floating by,
    As green as emerald.
    And through the drifts and snowy clifts
    Did send a dismal sheen:
    Nor shape of men, nor beasts we ken--
    The ice was all between--
    The ice was here, the ice was there--
    The ice was all around:
    It crack'd and growl'd, and roar'd and howl'd,
    Like noises in a swound."

        COLERIDGE. _Rime of the Ancient Mariner._

The secret wonders of the gloomy North bid proud defiance, in their
solitude, to man's triumphant daring. Who shall pierce the ancient
prison-house where Nature's might, in mightier chains of adamantine
frost, lies fettered, since Creation? Who shall live where promontories
huge, of piled ice, like monstrous fragments of primeval worlds tossed
on the surge of Chaos, over the waves rear their triumphant heads, and
laugh to scorn the undreaded kinghood of the lordly sea?

A fearful challenge! yet the charmed spell, which summons man to high
discovery, is ever vocal in the outward world, though they alone may
hear it, who have hearts responsive to its tone. The gale of spring,
breathing sweet balm over the western waters, called forth that gifted
old adventurer[10] to seek the perfumes of spice-laden winds, far in the
Indian Isles. Yea, there is power in Nature's solemn music. All have
heard the sighs of Winter in the middle air, and seen the skirts of his
cloud-woven robe lingering upon the misty mountain-top: but years
rolled on, ere man might understand the mystic invitation of that call
to seek the Monarch in his Arctic home.

At length that call is answered. Daringly yon gallant ship, towards the
Polar Star, walks the untrodden pathways of old Ocean, leaving the
haunts of man. Even now, the bounds are passed where silently the Boreal
Morn[11] folds and unfolds, in swiftest interchange, her silver robe of
alternating light over the midnight Heaven. There is a change in every
sight and sound. White glaciers clash on the tormented waves, in fierce
career waving eternally, and hoary whales, with musical din[12] booming
along the deep, breathe forth in giant chorus, wondrously, the welcome
of the Spirit of the North.

Joy to the brave! That old phantasmal veil which checked the view of dim
antiquity, shrinks from their eagle glance, while fabled hills and
regions of impenetrable ice fade in the blue expanse of mighty
bays[13]--now spread the bosom of the expectant sail unto the Eastern
breeze, and while the prow furrows the yielding waters, image forth high
dreams of lofty hope--the joyous bound of billows gushing between parted
shores, where Asia's rocky brow for ever frowns on the opposing
continent. And, borne on spirit-plumed wings, let fancy soar far from
that sunless clime, to the warm South, where soft skies slumber through
the cloudless noon, o'er the gold palaces of fair Cathay.

Why pause ye in mid ocean? Still the sail swells to the voiceful breeze;
the high mast bends with hideous creak, and every separate rib in the
huge fabric quivers. Yet the ship on the unmoved waters motionless
struggles, as one, who in a feverish dream nervelessly fleeing o'er a
haunted waste, strives horribly to shun some fiendish shape, with
straining sinews, and convulsive gasp, and faint limbs, magic-stricken.
There is rest, dismal and dreary, on the silent sea: most dismal quiet:
for the viewless might of the keen frost-wind[14] crisps the curling
waves, binding their motion with a clankless chain along the far
horizon. Fruitlessly the imprisoned vessel writhes, until the gale,
lulled in the embrace of evening, leaves its prey, to share the torpor
of the lifeless waste, till earth awaken from her half-year's sleep.

Yet, in those daring hearts, the cheerless voice of boding Fear or dull
Despondency can find no answering tone, whether the storm, round the
snow-rampart[15] howling, interweaves his solemn moans with the
rejoicing shouts of the glad theatre,[16] or simple strains of homely
music leave that warm recess--vibrating far into the tremulous air.
Here, even here are pleasures; those stray[17] forms of joy, which
Nature spreads throughout the world, that he who seeks may find them.
When the Sun, uprising from his long and gloomy trance, beams through
the clearer air, how beautiful, in some obscurest dell[18] of that lone
land, led by the music of an unseen river to see fair flowers, with
light-awakened buds, salute the spring tide. Happily, they smile in the
midst of nakedness, like sweet memories of laughing infancy, beaming
around the desolation of an aged heart.

Oh, that the might of Man's majestic will were self-sufficing! that the
meaner chains which bind him to this dark, material world, before the
lightning glance of Enterprise might fade, as those Philistian bonds,
that fell from him of Zorah. Back--in sorrow back--the ocean-wanderers
turn the unwilling prow; for Nature may not yield, and all is lost, save
gloomy thoughts of unrequited toil in the storm-beaten deep; and
phantasies of gorgeous dreams, for ever desolate; and hopes, which were,
and will not be again.

Yet if the race of Man, as some have deemed[19], form but one mighty
Being, who doth live, yea with intenser life, while kingly Death benumbs
each separate atom with the touch of his pale sceptre--one unchanging
ocean of everchanging waves--one deathless heaven of clouds, which to
their graves roll ceaselessly: if it be so, not vainly have long years
sent forth their heralds on the trackless deep, where high endeavors of
exalted will which in themselves find no accomplishment, shall build at
length perfection. Peacefully he[20] sleeps, who erst beheld the rifted
shores of Greenland "glister in the sun, like gold:" and that deserted
chief[21] whose angry moan once mingled wildly with the screaming winds
and the hoarse gurgle of ingulfing waves, is unremembered now. But high
Emprise died not with them. Have not our latter days beheld, with awe,
the ice-borne Muscovite[22] ride the fierce billows of the Polar Sea?
Has not the Northern hunter seen the flag of England, o'er her floating
palaces, unfurled in his dominions crystalline? And who shall mourn,
while, in the mystic race, from hand to hand still moves the unquenched
torch, that none have reached the goal? Not suddenly doth the sweet
warmth of universal life, from brumal caves advancing, interfuse the
vast abysmal air, or penetrate the deep heart of the frost-entranced
Earth. Gentle, and in its very gentleness invincible, it moves, though
ruthlessly stern Winter calls his rallied armies on, and snow-blasts
violate the joyous prime. So is it, with the silent victories of Man's
enduring spirit: we have seen Winter and Spring; and shall we not behold
the full rejoicing of the complete year?

The hour shall come, nor shall the longing heart in that dark interval
be all unblest with glance prophetic. Though no meteor shape glare from
the speaking sky, no sheeted ghost wander dim-moving in the weird
midnight, with such forshadowings true as ever wait on him who, with a
calm and reverend eye, hath viewed the mysteries of things, and dared to
image forth the future from the past--bind on the mystic robe, and from
the brow of Hope's enchanted hill look boldly forth upon the coming
ages. Saw ye not white fog-wreaths floating through the cold gray dawn
over ice-laden billows, as they roll through yon rock-cinctured chasm? A
dusky shape looms through the hazy atmosphere, and sails, as of some
struggling bark that wearily breasts the opposing strength of angry
waves,[23] float with a fitful motion to and fro. Still on and on--a
breath-suspending sight of pale Solicitude, and fearful hope--and hark!
the triple crash of Britain's joy, the magical music of her wild hurra,
peals with a sound of mighty exultation through the aerial depths. The
cloven mist unwraps its folded canopy, and lo! the blue Pacific,
boundlessly outspread, far glitters in the silvery light of morn.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] Columbus.

[11] The phenomenon which is commonly called Aurora Borealis, is in high
latitudes frequently seen to the south.

[12] On entering the Arctic Circle, the musical sounds of the white
whales is first heard.

[13] Modern discoverers have frequently found an open passage in
latitudes, where chains of hills were laid down in the old charts.

[14] The effect of the change of temperature at the beginning of winter
is almost instantaneous, as young ice at the thickness of half an inch
will stop a large vessel in full sail.

[15] Captain Parry found considerable advantage from raising a wall of
snow round the ship, in its winter station.

[16] The theatrical amusements, which were introduced during the stay of
the Fury and Hecla at Melvile Island, are well known.

[17] Alluding to the following lines of Mr. Wordsworth:--

    ----"Pleasure is spread throughout the earth,
    In stray gifts, to be claim'd by whoever shall find."


[18] The beautiful effect of these Arctic Oases is described in the
account of Captain Parry's second voyage.

[19] See the speech attributed by Socrates to Diotima in the Banquet of
Plato.

[20] Sir Martin Frobisher, who in 1577 anchored on the Western coast of
Greenland, reported that in that country "the stones be altogether
sparkled, and glister in the sun like gold."

[21] Hudson.

[22] Baron Wrangle.




RECOLLECTIONS OF PAGANINI.


The "Leaves from the Portfolio of a Manager," in the December _Dublin
University Magazine_, disclose a number of interesting facts connected
with Prynne's "Histriomastix," Milton's "Samson Agonistes," Hannah
More's "Tragedies," Ireland's "Shakspeare Forgeries," and not a few very
startling disclosures respecting the extraordinary emoluments of first
class performers, from Roscius down to Jenny Lind. From this portion of
our Manager's Portfolio we select the amusing recollections of Paganini
in Ireland, twenty years ago:

"Catalani, Pasta, Sontag, Malibran, Grisi, Taglioni, Rubini, Mario,
Tamburini, Lablache, _cum multis aliis_, have received their thousands,
and tens of thousands: but, until the Jenny Lind mania left every thing
else at an immeasurable distance, Paganini obtained larger sums than had
ever before been received in modern times. He came with a prodigious
flourish of trumpets, a vast continental reputation, and a few personal
legends of the most exciting character. It was said that he had killed
his wife in a fit of jealousy, and made fiddlestrings of her intestines;
and that the devil had composed a sonata for him in a dream, as he
formerly did for Tartini. When you looked at him, you thought all this,
and more, very likely to be true. His talent was almost supernatural,
while his 'get up,' and 'mise en scene,' were original and unearthly,
such as those who saw him will never forget, and those who did not can
with difficulty conceive. The individual and his performance were
equally unlike anything that had ever been exhibited before. No picture
or description can convey an adequate idea of his entrance and his exit.
To walk simply on and off the stage appears a commonplace operation
enough, but Paganini did this in a manner peculiar to himself, which
baffled all imitation. While I am writing of it, his first appearance in
Dublin, at the great Musical Festival of 1830, presents itself to 'my
mind's eye,' as an event of yesterday. When he placed himself in
position to commence, the crowded audience were hushed into a deathlike
silence. His black habiliments; his pale, attenuated visage, powerfully
expressive; his long, silky, raven tresses, and the flash of his dark
eye, as he shook them back over his shoulders; his thin, transparent
fingers, unusually long; the mode in which he grasped his bow, and the
tremendous length to which he drew it; and, climax of all, his sudden
manner of placing both bow and instrument under his arm, while he threw
his hands behind him, elevated his head, his features almost distorted
with a smile of ecstasy, and his very hair instinct with life, at the
conclusion of an unparalleled fantasia! And there he stood, immovable
and triumphant, while the theatre rang again with peals on peals of
applause, and shouts of the wildest enthusiasm! None who witnessed this
will ever forget it, nor are they likely again to see the same effect
produced by mere mortal agency.

"The _one_ string feat I always considered unworthy this great master of
his art. It has been done by fifty others, and is at best but an
imperfect exhibition on a perfect instrument; a mere piece of
charlatanerie, or theatrical 'gag,' to use a professional term,
sufficiently intelligible. There have been, and _are_, mighty musicians
on the violin. Spagnoletti, De Beriot, Ole Bull (who according to some
plays without any string at all), Sivori, Joachim, Ernst, Levey, &c.
&c., are all in the list of great players; but there never was more than
one Paganini; he is unique and unapproachable.

"In Dublin, in 1830, Paganini saved the Musical Festival, which would
have failed but for his individual attraction, although supported by an
army of talent in every department. All was done in first-rate style,
not to be surpassed. There were Braham, Madame Stockhausen, H. Phillips,
De Begnis, &c. &c., Sir G. Smart for conductor, Cramer, Mori, and T.
Cooke for leaders, Lindley, Nicholson, Anfossi, Lidel Hermann, Pigott,
and above ninety musicians in the orchestra, and more than one hundred
and twenty singers in the chorus. The festival was held in the
Theatre-Royal, then, as now, the only building in Dublin capable of
accommodating the vast number which alone could render such a
speculation remunerative. The theatre can hold two thousand six hundred
persons, all of whom may see and hear, whether in the boxes, pit, or
galleries. The arrangement was, to have oratorios kept distinct on
certain mornings, and miscellaneous concerts on the evenings of other
days. The concerts were crushers, but the first oratorio was decidedly a
break down. The committee became alarmed; the expenses were enormous,
and heavy liabilities stared them in the face. There was no time to be
lost, and at the second oratorio, duly announced, there stood Paganini,
in front of the orchestra, violin in hand, on an advanced platform,
overhanging the pit, not unlike orator Henley's tub, as immortalized by
the poet. Between the acts of the Messiah and the Creation, he fiddled
'the Witches at the Great Walnut Tree of Benevento,' with other equally
appropriate interpolations, to the ecstatic delight of applauding
thousands, who cared not a pin for Hadyn or Handel, but came to hear
Paganini alone; and to the no small scandal of the select few, who
thought the episode a little on the north side of consistency. But the
money was thereby forthcoming, every body was paid, the committee
escaped without damage, and a hazardous speculation, undertaken by a few
spirited individuals, was wound up with deserved success.

"When the festival was over, the town empty, and a cannon-ball might
have fired down Sackville-street, without doing much injury, Paganini
was engaged by himself for a series of five performances in the theatre.
For this he received L1,143. His dividend on the first night's receipts
amounted to L330 (_horresco referens_)! without a shilling of outlay
incurred on his part. He had the lion's share with a vengeance, as the
manager cleared with difficulty L200. The terms he demanded and obtained
were a clear two-thirds of each night's receipts, twenty-five guineas
per night for the services of two auxiliaries, worth about as many
shillings, the full value allowed for every free ticket, and an express
stipulation that if he required a rehearsal on a dark morning, when
extra light might be indispensable, the expense of candles should not
fall on him--a contingency which by no possible contrivance could
involve a responsibility exceeding five or six shillings."

FOOTNOTES:

[23] A current is supposed to flow constantly from the Pacific through
the North-West Passage into the Atlantic.




A PEASANT DUCHESS.


The _Stamford Mercury_ gives an interesting account of the life and
fortunes of a young woman of that neighborhood who rose to a high
station by means of her personal attractions, and, after a checkered
life, died in Italy a few weeks ago. She was the daughter of John Peele,
a small farmer at Corringham, near Gainsborough, who eked out a somewhat
declining livelihood by dealing in horses, &c., having previously been
in better circumstances. Being an only daughter, and aware that she
possessed no small share of rustic charms, she resolved to try her
fortune in a higher sphere. She became a dressmaker in Gainsborough, and
resided subsequently in Hull, and it is said as housemaid in a good
family in London, where her attractions obtained for her the attentions
of a person of rank, to whom she afterwards averred she was married; and
she from that time occupied a position where her fortunes led her into
contact with some of the highest classes. A few years afterwards she
astonished her former companions by appearing with her carriage and
livery servants in the character of _chere amie_ to Mr. Fauntleroy, then
a flourishing banker in London. The riches of the banker were of a
doubtful character, however; some time afterward she was convicted of
forgery, and paid the penalty with his life. Affected by the ruin, but
not participating in the crime of Fauntleroy, she struggled bravely with
fate, and generally maintained a fair appearance in society both in
London and Paris. She shortly reappeared in her native county as Duchess
of Palata. At this time the fortunes of her family had reduced them to
be the occupants of a small cottage at Morton, and age rendering her
father incapable of active exertion, he filled the humble office of
rural postman. To her honor it should be recorded that she enabled her
parents to pass the remainder of their days in comfort. Six or seven
years ago she again visited her native place, a widow, his grace the
Duke of Palata having paid the debt of nature. Her mother she left at
Morton, paid the last duties to her father (somewhat ostentatiously),
and volunteered her assistance to promote the advancement of her female
relatives. Again, however, "a change came o'er the spirit of her dream;"
and some three or four years ago the public journals announced her
marriage to the son of an Irish clergyman of good family. In this
character, accompanied by her niece as _femme de chambre_, but not by
her husband, she once more visited Gainsborough and the scenes of her
youth; after making her mother an allowance, she again departed for
Italy, in good health; but death, which spares neither rank nor
character, has closed the "last scene of all, in this strange eventful
history."

       *       *       *       *       *

The author of the "Nibelungenlied" is unknown, and, whether it be the
work of one poet, of two, or twenty, is still a matter of doubt, among
German critics. That the Nibelungenlied has been extensively
interpolated, is, I believe, agreed on all hands; we may conclude as
much, from having reason to believe that it was handed down for some
time (how long, nobody knows for certain), by oral tradition, and what
effect such a state of things may have on popular poetry, we may readily
collect from what Bishop Percy and Sir Walter Scott have told us of the
variations in the old ballads of England and Scotland. Lachmann
attributes it to the thirteenth century.




Original Correspondence.


    PARIS, DEC. 2, 1850.

FROM time immemorial, no one knows why (for the legends which recount
her history leave it doubtful whether she performed on any instrument),
St. Cecilia has been chosen by musicians as their patron saint; and the
musicians of Paris, on the approach of winter, always celebrate a mass,
in music, to her honor, and for the benefit of the distressed members of
their body. Not that they entertain any exaggerated idea of the
consoling powers of the musical art, or hope to relieve the positive
sufferings of poverty and destitution by any combination of sounds, no
matter how harmonious; but this festival being held in the church of St.
Eustache, the largest in Paris, and all lovers of music being so eager
to gain admission, that the immense aisles of this grand old pile (which
will contain five thousand persons), are always crowded to overflowing
on these occasions, every one paying a franc for his admission: the sum
thus gained, together with the collections taken up in the middle of the
service, by the committee of ladies chosen for that purpose (who go
round among the crowd, preceded by the beadle, and followed by two or
three attendant gentlemen, carrying a little embroidered bag of a
particular shape, used for that purpose, in which they receive the
contributions of the benevolent), constitute a fund, from which many an
unfortunate or superannuated brother of the tuneful craft obtains
relief.

This vast building, with its lofty arches, is admirably calculated for
the performance of grand religious compositions; the effect of the music
being enhanced by the aspect of the building, and the accessories of
sculpture, painting, and carving, which render this church one of the
richest in the capital.

To obtain places on any occasion of the kind, it is necessary to go an
hour or two in advance; and the gradual filling of the aisles is one of
the most curious scenes which a stranger can contemplate. As there are
no pews, each person, on entering, helps himself or herself to a chair,
which he holds aloft over the heads of his already seated neighbors, as
he slowly forces his way onward through their serried ranks, until he
espies some unappropriated gap into which he can insinuate his chair and
himself; the police and the beadles always taking care to keep a little
pathway, just large enough to squeeze through, open all through the
outer aisle that runs round the church. For the unfortunate people who
form the walls of this pathway, the process of filling is a severe
infliction; the uninterrupted stream of in-comers, forcing their way
along with a ruthless disregard of the shoulders of those between whom
they pass, is really, (especially when the in-comer happens to be a very
stout man, or a very fat lady, enveloped in an unusual quantity of
drapery,) almost overpowering. Every now and then the beadle comes
along, rapping his silver-headed cane on the pavement, and crying, "Way,
there! keep out of the path!" and escorting a party of privileged
individuals for whom seats have been reserved; and, as the beadle is
always tall and stout, and always forces his way through in defiance of
apparent impossibilities, a chorus of murmurs accompanies his progress.
The beadle is a very grand personage, and his appearance sufficiently
indicates this fact. He wears a cocked hat, covered with silver lace,
and decorated with nodding white plumes; a scarf of crimson velvet,
stiff with embroidery in silver thread, covers the upper part of his
person; black velvet smalls, fastened at the knee with silver buckles,
white silk stockings and gloves, and enormous buckles in his polished
shoes, complete his attire. He wears a massive silver chain round his
neck; and a sword hangs at his side to strike terror into the hearts of
all beholders. Besides the grand beadle, there are several minor ones,
dressed in black, but wearing heavy silver chains; _gens d'armes_ also
are always present, and often soldiers, who mount guard, musket in hand,
at all the doorways, and on the steps of the chancel.

When these sapient guardians of the peace perceive that as many have
been admitted as can possibly be squeezed into the building, they shut
the doors; and the process of distribution goes on until the mass is
equalized throughout the edifice; a task of no small difficulty, as the
portions of the building contiguous to the doors are always densely
packed at an early period, so that the greater number have to pass
through these crowded centres to gain the remoter parts of the church.
Meantime people chat, and look about them, amusing themselves as they
best can; and the sonorous edifice echoes with the footsteps of the
moving mass. But at length the noise subsides; the "organ utters its
voices," and a hush, intense, unbroken, falls on the vast assembly. The
glorious music peals through the vaulted aisles, and swells upward to
the arching roof, pervading every nook and corner of the fane; and so
perfect is the stillness that one would think the winged notes the only
living things within its precincts.

On Friday last this annual solemnity was celebrated as usual at St.
Eustache; the mass, composed by Adam, a very noble and beautiful
composition, was admirably executed by a choir of two hundred and fifty
singers, and a band of one hundred musicians, including the whole
orchestra of the _Opera Comique_, and the best performers from the
Italian opera. The solos were sung by Mesdames Grimm and Couraud, and by
Bassine and Chapuis, the latter being one of the best tenors in the
city. Some of the quartettes, with accompaniments of harps and wind
instruments, were indescribably beautiful.

The Archbishop of Paris made an elegant little address, in which he
spoke of art in Pagan and in Christian days, and of its mission in the
present; and winding up with an appeal to the liberality of his hearers
on behalf of the charitable idea which had prompted this performance.
The Archbishop is a man of mild and grave countenance, but his dress was
very inharmonious. He wore a surplice of very rich lace, a cape of
violet silk, and a scarf richly embroidered in gold, which was all very
pretty, but his arms and hands were encased in sleeves, finished with
gloves, of scarlet cloth, which showed through the lace sleeves of the
surplice, and gave the hands a very frightful appearance. He wore a
little round cap on the top of his head, a golden crucifix on his bosom,
and an enormous gold ring on his right hand. He spoke very slowly,
screaming rather than speaking, in order to make himself heard in the
distant parts of the building. The service lasted two hours, and yielded
several thousand francs.

The Duchess of Narbonne, famed for her benevolence, was so desirous to
aid on this occasion, that though unable, on account of her great age,
to go among the crowd _making the guest_, as it is termed, she held a
bag at one of the great doors, adding to the sum she thus received, a
thousand francs as her own contribution, and a hundred francs for her
chair, for which the ordinary price is two sous.

The musicians are not alone in their preparations for winter. The
shopkeepers are just beginning the periodic display which betokens the
coming on of the holidays: and conspicuous among the novelties whose
appearance thus indicate the approach of Christmas, is a new style of
porcelain, of English invention, which imitates with great success the
antique marble vases, pitchers, &c., of classic days. Many of these
objects are of great beauty; the creamy hue of the ware itself, slightly
translucent, the graceful simplicity of their forms, and the delicate
mouldings of classical designs in bass-relief with which they are
adorned, producing an admirable effect, highly creditable to English
taste.

While modern art is thus successfully emulating the symmetrical
achievements of ancient times, a relic of great interest, recalling the
romantic age of Spanish history, has just been unexpectedly brought to
light. Some workmen, employed in making repairs in the Guildhall of
Burgos, in Spain, have recently discovered the tomb of the Cid, so
renowned in ancient story; a tomb whose very existence was unknown. An
old chest, long considered as mere rubbish, and on which stood the
antique chair from which, in other days, the Counts of Castille gave
judgment, having been opened through the curiosity of these workmen, was
found to contain the remains of Don Rodrigo Campeador, and his wife
Chimena, immortalized in ancient legend, in the verses of Guilhen de
Castro, of Corneille, and in our own days, in the graceful writings of
Mrs. Hemans. The remains of the renowned hero and his beautiful spouse
are to be removed to the church of San Gadeo, where a suitable monument
will be erected to their memory.

The following incident, connected with the two prevailing manias of the
day, lapdogs and balloon-ascensions, is just now amusing the gay circles
of this gossiping capital.

It seems that Madame de N., the accomplished and beautiful wife of a
triple millionaire of the quartier St. Honore, equally renowned for the
charms of her wit, and for the intensity of her passion for the barking
pets so dear to Parisian hearts, had taken a violent fancy (shared by
half Paris) to a certain tiny gray spaniel, the property of one of the
most admired of the innumerable representatives of Albion at this time
here congregated, the beautiful and distinguished Lady R., whose
intimacy was assiduously cultivated by Madame de N., all for the love of
the little gray spaniel.

Sylphide, the spaniel in question, was in sooth well calculated to make
havoc in hearts susceptible to canine charms. Her glossy fur, combed,
bathed, and perfumed every day with the utmost care, was of the most
delicate mouse-color, and softer than silk; her lustrous eyes sparkled
like jewels, and her expressive face, with the delicate drooping ears
that adorned her graceful head, were the realization of the most ideal
dream of little-doggish beauty; her tail was perfection; her slender
legs, in their light electric movements, hardly touched the ground; and
the dainty way in which she raised her charming little paws from the
sidewalk, when, by some rare chance (attired in her newest paletot of
the finest merino, lined with wadded silk, and trimmed with a rich
braid, her neck encircled with a silver collar, whose burnished chain
was attached to her mistress's waist), she honored the sidewalk with
their pressure, was so irresistibly bewitching, that all the fair round
arms of Paris opened spontaneously at the sight, as though to offer a
nestling-place to the little beauty, and raise her from a contact
unworthy of so peerless a creature.

Any price, no matter how exorbitant, that could have been asked for this
little paragon, Madame de N. would very gladly have paid; but,
unhappily, Sylphide was not to be sold: Lady R. was very fond of her,
and never seemed to understand the various hints thrown out from time to
time, with the utmost tact and delicacy, but still quite intelligibly,
by Madame de N.; and all that the latter could do was to bring her
utmost power of petting to bear on the subject of her adoration,
trusting to some unlooked-for stroke of good fortune to aid her in the
accomplishment of her heart's desire.

Sylphide was excessively fond of sugar-plums (in which she was a great
connoisseur), and also of fresh _brioche_, crumbs of which she would
eat, in the most charming manner, from the snowy hand of her admiring
friend; and as the _bonbonniere_ of Madame de N. was always well
supplied with her favorite dainties, Sylphide, who, on her side, was not
ungrateful, soon contracted a lively affection for Madame de N. and her
bonbonniere.

Such was the position of affairs, when an incident occurred which
produced a total estrangement between the two ladies. M. de S., a
gentleman well known in the diplomatic circles, whom Madame de N. had
long numbered among her conquests, fascinated by the charms of the fair
islander, deserted his brilliant countrywoman, and ranged himself among
the satellites of her rival. And by a curious coincidence, at the very
time that M. de S. quitted thus abruptly the orbit of Madame de N., the
Prince of ----, who had hitherto been one of the brightest luminaries in
the train of Lady R., left her ladyship to lay his homage at the feet of
the charming Parisian. But the acquisition of the Prince seems to have
failed to console the latter for the loss of a knight who had so long
worn her colors; and the defection of M. de S. drew from her an
expression of resentment towards her rival, which the mutual friend to
whom these angry feelings had been confided, lost no time in repeating
to the object of her displeasure. But Lady R., so far from being
affected by the indignation of Madame de N., merely replied, with a
careless shrug of her handsome shoulders, "_Mais, ma chere_, she has
really nothing to complain of; all the world knows that '_exchange is no
robbery_!'"

At this time a magnificent bracelet, the latest achievement of the
wonder-working _ateliers_ of Froment & Meurice, had been the object of
Lady R.'s most violent desire; but her lord, who was subject to
occasional attacks of a malady not uncommon to the husbands of beautiful
and fashionable ladies, was just then suffering from an attack of
jealousy so acute, that, to the despair of Lady R., he utterly refused
to gratify her desire to become the possessor of this costly ornament;
and the lady, after having vainly called to her aid all the force of her
address, and all the charms of her eloquence, found herself obliged,
though with a heavy heart, to renounce the idea of its acquisition.

Lady R.'s desire for this bracelet, and its disappointment, were no
secret to Madame de N.; and on learning, from the gossiping confidant,
the response made by her rival to her complaint, a sudden thought darted
through her mind. "_Chere amie_," said she to the confidant, "I beg you
to say to her ladyship, that, since such is her opinion, I hold her to
the acceptance of the consequences of her maxim."

The confidant lost no time in delivering this message, to which Lady R.,
thinking only of her host of admirers, laughingly replied, that Madame
de N. was quite at liberty to make any practical application of the
principle that she pleased.

Within two hours from the reception of this challenge, the beautiful
bracelet, inclosed in an elegant case, on whose lid the initials of Lady
R., surrounded by her crest, were engraved in letters of gold, had
passed from the jeweller's show-rooms to the boudoir of Madame de N.,
who thenceforth, by means of an espionage that followed every movement
of her rival, kept her constantly in view. At length the tournament, to
be followed by the balloon-ascension (held a week or two ago in the
Champ de Mars), was announced to the great delight of the
spectacle-loving public; and having learned that the fair Englishwoman
was to be present in an open carriage, Madame de N. determined to avail
herself of this occasion to execute her scheme.

Accordingly on the appointed day, the bracelet, in its elegant case,
being placed in the carriage beside her, and the coachman duly
instructed in the part he was to play, Madame de N., holding in her hand
her _bonbonniere_, supplied with fresh crumbs of the most delicate
_brioche_, followed, at short distance, the carriage of her rival to the
Champ de Mars, and took her stand just in the rear of her ladyship's
phaeton.

Lady R. was in excellent spirits, receiving the homage of a crowd of
attendant cavaliers; Sylphide, to the unspeakable joy of Madame de N.,
being seated on the front seat nearest her carriage.

Madame de N. waited patiently through the various evolutions of the
gorgeous scene; and, at its close, when the great balloon of M. Poitevin
rose majestically from the field, surrounded by its graceful band of
nymphs that seemed to float, self-sustained, in the air, their silver
wands and wreaths of flowers shining in the light of the setting sun,
when all eyes followed the aeronauts, and deafening acclamations rent
the air, in less time than we take in recounting the movement, the
carriage of Madame de N. advanced to the side of Lady R.'s; Sylphide,
attracted by the well-known _bonbonniere_, leapt lightly into the
outstretched arms of her friend; and Madame de N. depositing the morocco
case on the very spot Sylphide had quitted, bowed gracefully to her
rival, and drove rapidly away, before Lady R. had had time to comprehend
what was passing.

Great was her ladyship's amazement, as may well be supposed; and great,
for the first few moments, was also her indignation; but the mystery was
soon explained; for, in opening the case, which occupied Sylphide's
vacant place, and which was unmistakably intended for her, she perceived
the rich bracelet she had so much wished for, and beside it, the card of
Madame de N., on which was written, in pencil, these words, which
contained the key of the enigma, "_Exchange is no robbery_."

A hearty laugh, which she tried in vain to repress, broke from the lips
of the fair lady; much to the astonishment of the gentlemen who had
witnessed the scene, and to whom, notwithstanding their eager inquiries,
Lady R. very naturally declined giving any explanation of the affair.

I shall observe your instructions, to keep you advised of whatever
occurs here in the middle of the world.

    STELLA.




_Authors and Books_.


The German book trade has, for some months, been fairly overwhelmed with
books upon Hungary. We notice among the latest, "Flowers from Hungarian
Battlefields," a collection of novelettes, with scenes drawn from real
life in the late war, by Sajo, one of the most popular writers of
Hungary. The stories are spirited and vivid. "Confessions of a
Civilian," and "Confessions of a Soldier," are two books, of which the
last named has been for some time before the public, and has excited
attention by the thoroughness of its absolutist tendencies. The Civilian
is the opposite of the Soldier, being a liberal of the first stamp. Both
these writers, however, oppose the present Austrian ministry. A German
translation of Horwath's "History of the Hungarians" is coming out at
Pesth in numbers, and is welcomed by the German critics. This is
regarded by the most competent judges as an excellent work. "Janos the
Hero," a Romance of Hungarian Peasant Life, by Alexander Petoefy, one of
the most popular Magyar writers, is spoken of as a most successful
delineation of national peculiarities. "The Revolution and the Jews in
Hungary," is an interesting chapter out of the history of the Hungarian
Jews, by J. Eichorn. The fidelity of the Hebrews to the cause
represented by Kossuth and his associates, and defended by the entire
nation, is as well known as the extortions with which the butcher Haynau
attempted to punish their patriotism. _Rerum Hungaricum Monumenta_ is
the last work of the lamented antiquarian Eudlicher, and is designed to
open to the literary world the authentic sources of early Hungarian
history. It is, in short, a most valuable collection of ancient
documents relating to the origin of the Magyars, their first settlement
in Hungary, and their history under the native princes of the race of
Arpad. One of the best results of this work will be the provocation of
other savans to similar investigations, which cannot fail to throw light
on many obscure historical questions.

       *       *       *       *       *

A very interesting work has just made its appearance at Leipsic, giving
an intimate though by no means flattering account of the condition of
the POLISH POPULATION IN GALLICIA. The peculiarities of this race of
people are described as wild barbarism combined with elegant politeness,
dreamy melancholy, and practical cunning. The author was in Gallicia
before the peasants' insurrection in 1846. He narrates a variety of the
most striking scenes, which though highly colored are apparently true in
the main. Among other things he gives an account of a dinner-party to
which he was invited, at the house of a nobleman. The house stood in the
midst of a scattered mass of outbuildings, none of which bore the
slightest appearance of neatness, order, or comfort. Every thing, in
fact, has the appearance of neglect and decay. Many of the walls are
supported by props to prevent them from tumbling. Around the doors the
slightest rain produces a disgusting morass, while the general aspect of
the whole reminds the beholder of Attila's wooden palace in Pannonia,
where he heaped up the booty of a world, and received the ambassadors of
Rome. When the writer reached the door, he found his host with some
other gentlemen waiting to receive him. The company was numerous, and
all, especially the ladies, expensively dressed, in the last Parisian
fashion, with abundant jewelry and ornaments. The saloon in which they
were received was large but low, the walls covered with dirty paper, the
floor of rough boards, the furniture of all sorts and sizes, and nowhere
a trace of art or refined taste. The conversation was carried on in
French, and the ladies exhibited a thorough acquaintance with Paris
matters, notabilities, and gossip generally. At the table the drinking
was almost incredible, and the topic of conversation, the emancipation
of Poland. Every word was aimed at the conversion of the German guest.
The hard treatment of the serfs was spoken of as necessary, as they must
be kept in complete subjection in order to be made useful in the great
work. The festivity grew more and more ardent, till at last one of the
gentlemen took a shoe off from a lady's foot, filled it with wine, and
after drinking from it himself, passed it to the others, so that all
could pledge the ladies from such a cup. The next morning the stranger
saw by chance a sight of another kind, as he was taking a walk. Behind a
wall a man lay on the earth; another held fast his head, and a third his
feet, while a fourth stood over him with a whip, laying on with all his
might. The lord stood by in his dressing-gown, smoking a long pipe, and
coolly directing the procedure. The guest turned away from the
spectacle, but was told by his servant that this was the tenth man who
had undergone the same punishment that morning. The offence was, that
they had not begun work at sunrise. Of course a peasantry so treated
could have no affection for their masters. All the work was done in the
worst manner, while the lord was plundered in every way by his servants.
Of the supplies for the family, more than half were regularly stolen,
there being no supervision in the household. The extravagance of the
masters was boundless, and when they got out of money they resorted to
the Jews, who had the whole commerce of the country in their hands,
besides having mortgages on most of the estates.

This is the merest outline of a small portion of the book. It renders
more intelligible the atrocities which took place in the insurrection of
1846, and which the Austrian Government permitted, if they did not
foment.

       *       *       *       *       *

One of the most remarkable philologists and travellers of the present
day is the Hungarian Professor REGULY, a man as yet little known out of
his own country and northern Europe. He has devoted himself a good deal
to the exposition of the affinities between the Magyar and the Finnish
languages, and his labors have impelled a number of learned Hungarians
to the same study. In the year 1839 he left his country, and passed ten
years in the north of Asia and Europe, mostly among the Finnish tribes
of the Moguls, Ostiacks, Tsheremisses, Nordwins, &c., making himself
familiar with their manners, customs, dialects, songs, and traditions,
in order to attain a thorough personal acquaintance therewith. He also
spent a long period in Kasan and St. Petersburgh, studying the other
languages of Central Asia. His adventures during this time were, as may
be supposed, remarkable. He suffered not only the privations and
exposures inseparable from such an undertaking, but was also poorly
supplied with money, and often in the greatest distress from that cause.
Nothing but scientific enthusiasm carried him through, till he became
acquainted with some Russian savans, and a Russian Councillor named
Balugyanszky, who were of great assistance to him. He left his home a
vigorous young man, and comes back broken down in strength and health.
His investigations have related not only to philology, but to geography
and ethnography. He has penetrated farther into the north of Asia than
any previous traveller. On his return, at St. Petersburgh, he prepared,
at the special request of the Geographical Society, a vast map of
Northern Asia along the Ural Mountains, between 58 and 70 deg. north
latitude, and 72 and 80 deg. east longitude, giving about five hundred
localities. This map is made on the largest scale, containing sixteen
large quarto sheets. The _St. Petersburgh Gazette_ says of it, that it
has proved Reguly to be the discoverer of a vast territory for Russia.
He is now at Pesth, engaged in preparing for publication the fruits of
his ten years' absence from home. He will treat of the languages of the
European and Asiatic Finnish tribes, their grammar and vocabularies,
with constant regard to the analogies of the Magyar tongue. By way of
introduction he will first publish a special work, containing his
philosophical views on the organism of language. After these
philological treatises he will print a series of ethnographic works on
the various races among which he has lived, with collections of their
songs and traditions, and finally a detailed narrative of his travels,
with a condensed account of their scientific results. The conclusion of
his philological studies is briefly, that the Central-Asiatic, or as it
might be called, the Ural-Altaic group of languages, is divided into six
branches or families, namely, the language of the Mandshu Tartars, the
Mongols, the Turkish-Tartar tribes, the Samoyedes, the Fins, and the
Magyars. These families have however no nearer relation to each other
than the individual tongues of the Indo-European group, as the Indian,
the Romanic, German, Celtic, Slavic, and Persian languages. Still he
regards the Magyar and Finnic languages as having greater mutual
affinities than the others, though not to such a degree that one of
these races of men can be supposed to be derived from the other. He
rather supposes all of the races whose languages form the
Central-Asiatic group to have sprung from an original race, which was
probably Scythian.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Austrian government has just set on foot an enterprise which
promises to be of use to both Literature and Science. The plan is, to
prepare and publish at the expense of the Imperial Treasury, a great
work on the ethnography of the Empire, and all savans, teachers,
artists, poets, of every race, are invited to furnish materials. It is
designed to give a complete account of the origin, history, manners,
language, character and condition of each of the many tribes and peoples
included under the Austrian sceptre. This will be combined of course
with descriptions of the country, scenery, climate, soil, minerals, and
natural and industrial productions of each region. It is supposed that
the whole will be completed in eight big volumes. It will be accompanied
by a vast ethnographic map, which is now being prepared with great
energy under the superintendence of the Minister of Commerce.

       *       *       *       *       *

KARL GUTZKOW is one of the most prolific and popular novel and
playwrights now living in Germany. As to his last work, _Die Ritter vom
Geiste_ (The Knights of the Spirit), of which only the first volume has
been published, the critics entertain the most contradictory opinions.
Some exclaim at its great length, which indeed is rather terrific: there
are to be nine books, and the first occupies the whole of the first
volume. Others are charmed with the skill with which the details of the
work are wrought up, and the great variety of persons who figure in the
story. The author has certainly laid out all his strength in this book,
which is designed to reproduce the present age in all the contradictions
of its doctrines and the complexity of its tendencies. But instead of
seizing these in some central and vital point, and setting them forth in
a work whose very simplicity would conceal its depth from most readers,
Gutzkow has adopted the easier and more clumsy method of multiplying his
characters and complicating the actions of his drama. Thus it is hardly
possible for it not to be tedious and a failure. But we can speak of it
more fairly when it is farther advanced.

       *       *       *       *       *

Dr. NEANDER'S Library is advertised for sale by auction at Berlin, but
our correspondent thinks it will be saved from the hammer by a private
subscription, which will secure it to the University.

       *       *       *       *       *

KARL SIMROCK has just brought out at Frankfort a new collection of
GERMAN POPULAR SONGS, not obsolete or artistic poems, but such as still
live among the people, and are familiar to every class. "Among
_Volkslieder_," he says in his preface, "I include only such as have
proceeded directly from the people, and still bear the tokens of their
origin, in their unsophisticated form, and simple, hearty language. The
pieces of cultivated poets which have found access and become loved with
the people, are reserved for a future collection of favorite German
songs. The distinction here hinted at between the people's songs and
popular songs is not generally understood. All previous collections have
confused the two, and some even have not a single production of the
people. For example, _Des Knaben Wunderhorn_, whose great merit must be
recognized, contains antique poems which by no means issued from among
the people." In another place he says: "The songs here collected and
arranged have been newly written down, literally from the mouths of the
people; and where they could not be procured in this way, have been
corrected by comparison of all earlier versions. So that as they here
stand, they are in a sort my own property." The work is spoken of by
competent critics as perfectly successful. We believe that Simrock, who
is perhaps better qualified for the undertaking than any other man in
Germany, intends in a future edition to publish the melodies of the
songs along with the words.

       *       *       *       *       *

Belgian Literature is a standing joke with the authors of Paris, and not
without reason, for the majority of the books printed by the publishers
of Belgium, are pirated from their French neighbors. There is, however,
such a thing as a Belgian literature, though it is not very extensive,
and one of its chief ornaments is Professor BORGNEL, of Liege, best
known as the author of a _Historie des Belges a la fin du dix-huilieme
Siecle_, published some six years since, to which he is about to bring
out an addition, carrying the history back to the beginning of the same
century. He has also been occupied for several years with the history of
the Flemish Provinces, under the domination of the Spaniards, and has a
work on that subject in preparation. The Introduction to it appeared not
long since among the Memoirs of the Brussels Academy, where it is
entitled: _Philippe I. et la Belgique_. In treating a subject which the
masterly pen of Schiller has already rendered familiar to the world,
Prof. Borgnel does not attempt to imitate the ardent and splendid
eloquence of that great poet and historian; Borgnel's merits are
distinctness in his outlines, remarkable clearness of arrangement,
perfect impartiality towards individuals and parties, and conscientious
use of materials. Of these he has had a greater variety, including many
manuscripts not before brought to light, than any previous writer.

       *       *       *       *       *

Among the new books announced in London is _Notes on North America,
Agricultural, Social, and Economical_, by J. F. W. Johnston, author of
"Lectures on Agricultural Chemistry." We may anticipate something of
value from a man of his studies and well earned reputation. Professor
Johnston passed the greater portion of his time, while in America, in
the British Provinces. He had been led to believe that they offered the
most interesting field for his professional observation. When he came
into New-England, New-York and Pennsylvania, he was continually
surprised at the perfection and the success of our agriculture. He
regretted only, that the mistake into which he had been led by British
travellers, had detained him from the United States until the period of
his absence from home was nearly expired. Professor Johnston's lectures
in New-York were given under singular disadvantages, but the too small
audiences who heard them were pleased and instructed. All who became
acquainted with him were impressed with a belief of his candor and his
talents. We hope to see immediately an edition of his book in this
country.

       *       *       *       *       *

In Geissen, Prof. LIEBIG, has published a Review of the Progress of
Chemistry, Mineralogy, and Geology, in the year 1849. He has been
assisted in its preparation by Professor Kopp and several other savans
connected with the University at Giessen. It is marked by his usual
completeness, breadth of scope, and exhaustive treatment of each
particular subject. Liebig is now engaged in preparing a new series of
Chemical Letters, which will be specially devoted to the growth of this
science, in connection with the history of mental progress in general.
Professor Knobel, of the same University, has also issued a work on the
Genealogies of the Book of Genesis, which excites remark by the
thoroughness of its historical investigations. Leopold Schmid's last
work is on the Spirit of Catholicism, and also highly spoken of by both
Catholic and Protestant writers. This author holds a high rank in the
Catholic literature of Germany, and has been chosen Bishop of Mayence.
Professor Hillebrand is occupied with a revision of his highly esteemed
History of German national literature since Lessing. There seems to be
no reason to fear that Giessen is doing less than its share toward
keeping the ocean of German books up at a high-water mark.

       *       *       *       *       *

BERANGER, the veteran _chansonier_, is now occupying himself in writing
biographies, anecdotes, criticisms, &c., of the public men with whom, in
the course of his long career, he has been in contact. It is five years
since he announced his intention of giving such a work to the public,
and he thinks it will possess great historical value, while of his
songs, which alone will convey his name to the last ages in which the
language of France is spoken, he thinks but "indifferently well."

       *       *       *       *       *

The house, at Paris, in which EUGENE SUE laid some of the most exciting
scenes of his "Wandering Jew," has lately been advertised for sale, and
has been visited by crowds of curious loungers. It is known as the Hotel
Serilly, and is situated at No. 5 Rue Neuve Saint Francois, in the
quarter called the Marais. At the time the "Wandering Jew" was
published, the street was often filled by groups of gazers at the
strange old edifice, which had been so exactly described by the
romancer, that no one could mistake it. Some even ventured to knock at
the door and seek further information. They were received by a
mysterious and taciturn old Hebrew, who looked as if he himself had
charge of the great Rennepeal treasure, and three-quarters of the
visitors went away convinced that they had seen the veritable Samuel
himself. Now that the whole house has been thrown open to the public,
there have been found under it vast sub-cellars extending under the
large garden in the rear, and in these cellars are seven wells,
partially filled up, but with walls of careful masonry, and other
indications that they were of great depth and great utility. The opinion
was at once set on foot by the explorers, that the millions of the
treasure had been concealed in one of these wells. The fact is, that the
house formerly belonged to a Protestant family which suffered extreme
persecution after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and which
doubtless found the subterranean passages extremely convenient. In the
year 1791, it was inhabited by the revolutionist Carnot.

       *       *       *       *       *

The COUNT DE TOCQUEVILLE, a relative of the author of "Democracy in
America," has just published a historical work on the Reign of Louis
XVI. The writer, an old man almost sinking into the grave, enjoys the
advantage of having himself witnessed and even shared in a part of the
events he describes. He was intimate with Malasherbes, and personally
devoted to the unfortunate Louis. Of his ability as a writer, a former
work on the Reign of Louis XV. furnished proofs which are repeated in
the present volume. Of course he does full justice to the amiable
personal qualities of Marie Antoinette and her husband, without doing
injustice to their faults. But he shows that after all what was charged
upon them as political crime, was but the consequence of long-standing
causes, over which they had no control, or even of measures of reform to
which with the best intentions, they had given their consent. In
speaking of the mission of Franklin at the French Court, M. de
Tocqueville gives some interesting details. "At Paris," he says, "the
zeal for the cause of the insurgents constantly increased. The women who
exercised a great influence in the reign of Louis XVI., became
passionate supporters of the Americans, and made aiding them a question
of honor. The simple manners of their envoys,--their hair without
powder, their citizens' dress, pleased by a sort of piquant novelty. All
who approached Franklin were charmed by his wit. In him people venerated
the founder of the liberty of a great nation, and even grew enthusiastic
in behalf of that liberty." M. de Tocqueville shows however that the
prime minister Maurepas only feared the Americans because he was
embarrassed in his position, and thought to relieve himself by making
war with England. But as there was no good reason for making such a war,
the honesty of the King revolted at it. M. de Vergennes also said in the
Council, that England would be much more weakened by a long war with her
colonies, than by their loss. "But how," repeated all the women, "can we
help embracing the cause of a people which sends us ambassadors without
powder, and with shoe-strings, instead of buckles?" So weighty a reason
turned the balance, and the war was declared. That war finished the ruin
of the French monarchy, not only by inspiring the officers and soldiers
sent to the United States with new ideas, but also by completing the
exhaustion of its finances. With regard to the Revolution in which Louis
XVI. lost his head, it is enough praise for our historian, that while he
inclines always to the monarchical side, he is not altogether unjust to
the popular virtues which shone with such rare brilliancy amid the gloom
of that epoch.

       *       *       *       *       *

The great work of J. G. AUDUBON and the Rev. Dr. BACHMAN, upon the
"Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America," is much praised by those
persons in Europe whose praise is of most value. The _Athenaeum_ remarks
that, hitherto, the mammalia of America have been known chiefly through
descriptions by zoologists, in the Transactions of European Societies,
and that no systematic attempt has been made to bring together into one
connected view the very varied forms of animal life presented by this
great continent, while these authors have not only used the materials
which were at hand in the works of others, but have themselves observed
with great diligence the habits of many of the creatures which they have
described. "Their work is creditable to the United States, where a large
number of subscribers have induced the authors to undertake it,--and a
most valuable addition to our general natural-history literature." The
geographical range within which the animals described in these pages are
found is not that of the government of the United States merely; it
comprehends Russian and British America, in fact, all the country which
lies north of the tropics in the New World.

       *       *       *       *       *

At the last MICHAELMAS BOOK FAIR at Leipsic, the Catalogue contained the
titles of 5,023 new works published in Germany since Easter. This is
from twelve to fifteen hundred more than at any fair since the
Revolution of 1848. A great number of these books are large and of
remarkable merit, being in some sort, the accumulation of the more
profound scientific labors of the past two years.

       *       *       *       *       *

The BARONESS VON BECK has just published in London two volumes of
"Personal Adventures" in the Hungarian war. She is herself a Hungarian,
and she saw her husband fall while cheering his men to defend a
barricade at Vienna. In this book Kossuth is her hero, her prophet, her
demigod; and she sacrifices all other celebrities without compunction at
the altar of his greatness. Dembinsky she treats with manifest
injustice; Georgey comes out on her pages as a very Mephistopheles.
Klapka himself does not escape without animadversion. But without
adopting her opinions, either of the man she blames or the subject she
discusses, it cannot be denied that she has great cleverness, and a
wonderful power of exciting and interesting the reader.

       *       *       *       *       *

A valuable scientific periodical is the _Geographisches Jahrbuch_ for
the Communication of all the more important New Investigations, edited
by the distinguished BERGHAUS, and published by Perthes of Gotha. The
last number has an article by the editor on the system of "Mountains and
Rivers of Africa," which differs altogether from what is laid down in
the present maps. The author lays down the river Nile as flowing from
the N'Yassi, and as connected with a great number of rivers in Dar Fur,
Waday, and Fertil, with relation to which only the vaguest views have
hitherto been entertained. The article shows, too, that the newly
discovered lake N'Gami, in Southern Africa, has been long known under
the name of Nampur. The same number of the _Jahrbuch_ also contains an
article from the pen of the late lamented ALBERT GALLATIN, on the
climate of North America. This article was written in English, and was
translated into German for the _Jahrbuch_.

       *       *       *       *       *

BERGHAUS has also lately issued a complete work of the highest interest,
especially now that so much attention is every where paid to
Ethnographic studies. Its title is _Grundlinien der Ethnographie_
(Outlines of Ethnography). It is in two parts, and contains a universal
tabular description of all the races of the globe, arranged
ethnographically and geographically, and according to languages and
dialects, with a comparative view of their manners, customs, and habits.
No person who undertakes to investigate the origin of the human family
and the mutual relations of its different members, can afford to be
without this work. Published in Stuttgart.

       *       *       *       *       *

BERTHOLD AUERBACH has just brought out a little volume of tales, which
we may well infer from his previous performances are charmingly replete
with grace, good humor, and a keen perception of whatever is peculiar to
his subject. The title of the book is _Deutsche Abende_ (German
Evenings). It contains three stories: "Nice People," "What is
Happiness?" and "The Son of the Forester." Published at Mannheim.

       *       *       *       *       *

BARON STERNBERG, a dilettante book-maker of Germany, who generally
resides at Berlin, has just added a new romance, or rather the beginning
of one, to his previous publications. It bears the promising, if not
pretentious title, of _The German Gil Blas_ (published at Bremen), and
claims to be comic, as a matter of course. As a whole, the book is a
failure. Though there are passages here and there which may be read with
satisfaction, there is not enough unity and connection between the
different parts, and the humor is generally but a thin potation. It must
be said, however, that the absence of continuous interest is the fault
of most comic novels, as well as poems. Even the matchless works of Jean
Paul grow tedious by the endeavor to read much of them at a time, a fact
which may be ascribed to the sentimentality and mere fantastics with
which the kernels of his wit are overburdened. It is certain that no
German humorous work can be compared with those great originals in that
kind, Gil Blas and Don Quixote, or even with the much inferior works of
Smollett and Dickens. Baron Sternberg's last effort forms no exception
to this remark, and there is little hope that the second and concluding
volume, whose appearance in Germany ought to be made by this time, will
prove superior to the first. His "Royalists," an anti-democratic novel,
which he had the courage to publish in the chaos of 1848, and which
excited much attention, and a great deal of severe criticism, was far
better.

       *       *       *       *       *

"THE NEW FAITH SOUGHT IN ART," is the title of an anonymous little book
lately issued at Paris, which, though not of great value, has more
poetic originality of thought than is often found in printed pages. The
author thinks that the time has gone by in which the subjects of art
could properly be sought in the lives of saints and legends of the
Church, and wishes to substitute for them the lives of artists and
celebrated inventors, who have sprung from the bosom of the people. With
this writer, every thing is democratic and popular. For him the people
is alone King, and worthy of all honor. "Nothing," he says in one place,
"is truer than the song of Beethoven. It is the song of life, the voice
of truth, an infallible voice, which will create a world, and cause the
old false world to crumble. Born of the people, the people sing in him,
although they know him not." In painting, the heroes of the author are
Ruysdael, Rembrandt, Claude-Lorraine, and Paul Potter.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Poet FREILIGRATH has received orders to leave the village of Bilk,
in the neighborhood of Dusseldorf; where he was residing, and to quit
the Prussian territories. He will probably go back to England, where he
passed some time in a counting-house or perhaps come to the United
States, where he has several friends, to whom he has written of such an
event as possible.

       *       *       *       *       *

In AFRICAN DISCOVERY greater advances have been made in the last two
years than before since the journeys of the brothers Lander. We
mentioned in the last _International_ that the American traveller, Dr.
W. Mathews, had been heard of at Vienna, and we now learn that he has
been very successful in the five years of his adventure in the northern
and central parts of the continent. Letters received in Berlin from Drs.
Barth and Overweg, contain information of their having accomplished the
journey across the Great Desert, or Sahara, and of their arrival near
the frontiers of the kingdom of Air or Asben, (Air is the modern
Tuarick, and Asben the ancient Sudan name), the most powerful in that
part of Africa after Bornou, and never explored by Europeans. On the
24th of August--the date of their last letter--they were at Taradshit, a
small place in about 20 deg. 30' N. latitude, and 9 deg. 20' longitude E. of
Greenwich. Among their discoveries are some of peculiar interest, one of
which is of several curious and very ancient sculptures, apparently of
Egyptian origin. The King of Prussia has, at the instance of the
Chevalier Bunsen and Baron Alexander von Humboldt, augmented the funds
of the two travellers by a grant of 1,000 thalers.

While Richardson, Barth and Overweg have penetrated the _terra
incognita_ of the north, Dr. Krapf and the Rev. Mr. Rebmann have
explored the region described on the common maps as the "Great Southern
Sahara," and found it to be fertile, healthy, abounding in mountains,
valleys and rivers, and inhabited by a race altogether superior to that
which occupies the Atlantic coast. Mr. Mansfield Parkyns is endeavoring
to cross the country southward from the Nile to the river Gambia; Mr.
Charles Johnson is travelling in Abysinnia; Baron von Mueller is
conducting an expedition up the White Nile; and the American
missionaries and colonists are gradually extending their knowledge over
the various settlements on the eastern coast of the continent.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE PRUSSIAN EXPEDITION TO EGYPT, _Denkmaeler aus AEgypten und AEthiopien
nach den Zeichnungen der von Sr. Majestat dem Koenige von Preussen
Friedrich Wilhelm IV. nach diesen Laendern gesendeten, und in den Jahren
1842-45, ausgefuhrten wissenschaftlichen Expedition: Herausgegeben von
Dr. R. Lepsius_; published at the expense and under the guarantee of the
Prussian Government, will be completed in eighty parts, or eight hundred
plates. Most of the plates are printed with tints, and many in the
colors of the originals. This work forms a necessary completion of the
celebrated work of the French Expedition under Napoleon. Parts I. to X.
are now advertised as ready for subscribers, in London, at three dollars
and a half each.

       *       *       *       *       *

A NEW WORK ON AFRICA, by H. C. Grund, is advertised at Berlin.

       *       *       *       *       *

Almanacs for popular use, offer a means much used in France for the
propagation of political, social and religious doctrines. Every sect and
party issues its Almanac, and some issue several, crammed to the brim
with the peculiar notions whose dissemination is wished for. One of the
most successful for the year 1851, is the _Almanach des Opprimes_ (The
Almanac of the Oppressed). In fact, it is aimed wholly at the Society of
Jesuits, whose history it exposes in the blackest colors. It begins with
the early life of Loyola, depicts his debaucheries, his ambition, the
religious mechanism invented by his enthusiastic and fanatical genius,
the flexibility of his morality, and goes on to give an account of the
intrigues and crimes of his successors in various countries and times,
with an analysis of their books, their missions and their miracles.
Another of these publications is called the _Almanach du Peuple_,
containing a very great variety of articles of substantial value. Among
the contributors are, F. Arago, Quinet, Charras, Carnot, Girardin,
George Sand, Pierre Leroux, Dumil Aeur, E. Lithe, Mazzini, and other
republicans distinguished in the political, literary and scientific
world. This Almanac had the honor last year of being seized by the
Government, but on trial before a jury it was acquitted of the charge
against it, of being dangerous to society, and provoking citizens to
hate the republic and despise the authorities.

       *       *       *       *       *

A critic in the _Allegemeine Zeitung_, in noticing "Ottomar, a Romance
from the Present Time," the last novel from the pen of Madame Von
Zoellner, takes occasion to give some hard hits at women's novels in
general. "It always must and always will be a failure," he says, "when a
woman attempts to form a just conception of masculine character, and to
put her conception into language. Female writers always comb out
smoothly the flaxen hair of their heroes, and dress them up in the
frockcoat of innocence. They go into raptures over a sort of green
enthusiasm, and a romantic fantasticality of virtue, such as we godless
fellows are not guilty of possessing; and in this way they turn out
automatons which resemble nothing in earth, heaven, or elsewhere." The
critic however admits that Madame Zoellner, who is undoubtedly one of the
best living German novel writers, possesses remarkable and peculiar
merits. No other woman occupies so high a place with the German public,
except it be Fanny Lewald. Madame Zoellner is praised for the pure moral
tone of her writings.

       *       *       *       *       *

One of the most accomplished writers in France--M. DE CORMENIN--and one
of the most _spirituel_ of that _spirituel_ nation, said at Frankfort,
"It is true that it is difficult to abolish war, but it is far more
difficult to abolish death; and yet if people would take the same pains
to avoid the one as they did to escape the other, they would certainly
accomplish their object."

       *       *       *       *       *

One of the most ardent and vigorous writers of Young France, Alphonse
Esquiros, has brought out at Paris a new book called "The History of the
Martyrs of Liberty." The author aims to follow the development of
liberty in humanity; to expose the tie which unites ancient and modern
society in historic solidarity; to determine the transformation of the
doctrines, which, for a century past, have invaded the religious world
under the name of philosophy, political economy, and socialism; to set
forth the fertile sufferings which have brought about that double
triumph of liberty in ideas and in facts, namely Christianity and the
French Revolution; to indicate the questions yet undecided; and to call
to their solution both the miseries of the laboring classes and the
lights of science.

       *       *       *       *       *

Whatever may be said of the more elaborate writings of GEORGE SAND, it
is impossible for the most scrupulous critic to deny or resist the charm
of her smaller works, such as the "Mosaic Workers," the "Devil's Love,"
and "Fadette." To these she has just added another, which is spoken of
with the utmost delight by all who have read it, as a work of remarkable
genius. It is intended for the use of children, and is called "The
History of the veritable Gribonille." The text is accompanied by richly
engraved illustrations, designed by Mr. Maurice Sand, the son, we
believe, of the author. Why will not some American publisher give us a
translation, with the original illustrations?

       *       *       *       *       *

To the already immense literature of the French Revolution, we now have
to signalize another addition, which is worth the attention of those who
are not weary of books relating to that momentous epoch. It is a
"Biography of Camille Desmoulins," by Ed. Fleury--an octavo volume,
lately issued at Paris. The author discusses the history of this famous
pamphleteer and revolutionary rhetorician, as an advocate defends a
client before a jury.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE HISTORY OF THE PRINCIPLES, INSTITUTIONS AND LAWS OF THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION, from 1789 to 1800, is an anti-revolutionary work of
elaborate character, and decided ability, published a few weeks since at
Paris, by an anonymous author, who thinks he can do something toward
getting the world right by rolling back some of its more recent
gyrations.

       *       *       *       *       *

A popular History of the French Revolution, from 1789 to 1799, written
by HIPPOLITE MAGEN, and lately published at Paris, in one volume, is
having a great success among the laboring classes of Paris and other
French cities. It is of course in favor of the Montangards.

       *       *       *       *       *

A valuable manual for students of French history is M. LOUIS TRIPIER'S
collection of French Constitutions, since 1789, with the decrees of the
Provisional Government of 1848. It has just been issued by Cotillon, at
Paris.

       *       *       *       *       *

MIRABEAU, the great revolutionist, is the subject of a new work just
published at Vienna, from the pen of Franz Ernst Pipitz, a native of
that city, but now a teacher at the University of Zurich. It is in great
part the result of original investigations, and in many particulars
departs from the received biographies, while in others it casts a new
light on facts previously known. The critics of Vienna speak in the
highest terms of it, as worthy to be named along with the most brilliant
French productions on the same subject. They are, however, bound to say
the best thing possible for a book by a Viennese author, since they have
but few to rejoice in.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE MEMOIRS OF MASSENA, which have for some time been in course of
publication at Paris, are at last completed, by the issue of the final
volume, which contains the history of the campaign of 1810-11, in
Portugal. No complete account of this campaign has ever before been
published. The book also casts a great deal of light not merely on the
history of the Marshal himself, but on the wars of Napoleon in general.
It is founded on documents left by Massena, which have not before been
published or consulted.

       *       *       *       *       *

M. COUSIN, who, after having exerted a more powerful influence in
philosophy than any of his contemporaries, (though this influence was,
in a large degree, secondary in its character), has recently been almost
forgotten. We see by a paragraph in the _Debats_ that he is collecting
and editing all his various writings upon the subject of education. They
will fill several volumes.

       *       *       *       *       *

Another tribute to the memory of LOUIS PHILIPPE, has just been offered
by M. R. PAIGNON, who has collected and published a volume of the
deceased King's thoughts and opinions on matters of State. This work
exhibits the mental and political history of its subject in the best
light, and has the merit of being arranged with care and fidelity.

       *       *       *       *       *

M. FELIX PIGNORY, of the Commission despatched by the French Government,
in search of the tomb of Godfrey of Bouillon, has returned from Asia,
and reports some curious discoveries relative to the object of the
mission.

       *       *       *       *       *

A new and enlarged edition of ZUINET'S _Genie des Religions_ has
appeared at Paris.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE POLITICAL MAXIMS AND THE PRIVATE THOUGHTS OF FREDERICK THE GREAT is
the title of a curious piece in the last number of _Frazer's Magazine_.
It is unique as a sample of kingcraft; and every line supplies a proof
of the candor, hypocrisy, unscrupulousness, sense of duty, courage,
sensuality, and intellect, of the great Prussian, to whom are partially
due the literary merits or demerits of the paper.

       *       *       *       *       *

The new edition of the POEMS OF ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, contains
besides many original pieces, her translation of the "Prometheus Bound,"
of AEschylus, never hitherto published, although, as she informs us, once
privately circulated in another and less complete form. It bears no mark
of a woman's hand: it is rugged, massive, and sublime, as befits the
grand old fate drama which the genius of the Greek moulded out of the
immortal agony of the beneficent Titan. From the new poems we select the
following exquisite love sonnets, from a series scarcely inferior to
those in which Shakspeare has given the history of his heart-life:

    "I lift my heavy heart up solemnly,
    As once Electra her sepulchral urn,
    And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn
    The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see
    What a great heap of grief lay hid in me,
    And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn
    Through the ashen grayness. If thy foot in scorn
    Could tread them out to darkness utterly,
    It might be well perhaps. But if instead
    Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow
    The gray dust up, ... those laurels on thine head,
    O my beloved, will not shield thee so,
    That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred
    The hair beneath. Stand further off, then! Go.

    "Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
    Henceforward in thy shadow. Never more
    Alone upon the threshold of my door
    Of individual life, I shall command
    The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
    Serenely in the sunshine as before,
    Without the sense of that which I forbore,
    Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land
    Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
    With pulses that beat double. What I do
    And what I dream include thee, as the wine
    Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue
    God for myself, He hears that name of thine,
    And sees within my eyes, the tears of two.

    "Beloved, my beloved, when I think
    That thou wast in the world a year ago,
    What time I sat alone here in the snow,
    And saw no foot-print, heard the silence sink
    No moment at they voice; ... but link by link
    Went courting all my chains, as if that so
    They never could fall off at any blow
    Struck by thy possible hand.... Why, thus I drink
    Of life's great cup of wonder. Wonderful,
    Never to feel thee thrill the day or night
    With personal act or speech,--nor ever call
    Some prescience of thee with the blossoms white
    Thou sawest growing! _Atheists are as dull,
    Who cannot guess God's presence out of sight._

    "First time he kissed me, he but only kissed
    The fingers of this hand wherewith I write,
    And ever since it grew more clear and white;
    How to world greetings ... quick with its 'Oh, list,'
    When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst
    I could not wear there plainer to my sight
    Than that first kiss. The second passed in height
    The first, and sought the forehead, and half-missed,
    Half falling on the hair. O, beyond meed!
    That was the chrism of love, which love's own crown,
    With sanctifying sweetness, did precede.
    The third, upon my lips was folded down,
    In perfect purple state! Since when, indeed,
    I have been proud, and said, 'My love, my own.'"

       *       *       *       *       *

The candidateship between Lord Palmerston and the historian Alison for
the office of Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, resulted in a
majority for the latter, on the gross poll, of 69. As, however, of the
"four nations" into which the students were distributed, each of the
candidates had two, the election should have been decided by the vote of
the present Rector, Mr. Macaulay; but he declines the duty, and would
not go to the university during the contest.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Official Gazette announces that "the Queen has been pleased to
appoint ALFRED TENNYSON, Esq., to be Poet Laureate in ordinary to her
Majesty, in the room of William Wordsworth, Esq., deceased." There have
been poorer poets than Tennyson among the laureates; but this
appointment does not and ought not to give much satisfaction. Mr.
Tennyson had already a pension from the government, and was in no need
of the salary of this office, as one or two others, and as we conceive,
greater poets, are; and it had been hoped that the queen would appoint
to the place the _greatest poet of her own sex_ who has lived in
England--Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

       *       *       *       *       *

The original MS. of "WAVERLEY,"--wholly in the handwriting of Sir Walter
Scott,--the same which was sold in 1831 with the other MSS. of the
series of novels and romances--has been presented to the Advocates'
Library at Edinburgh, by Mr. James Hall, brother of the late Capt. Basil
Hall. Several of the MSS. of Scott are in this country, having been sold
here by Dr. Lardner, soon after his arrival here with Mrs. Heavyside.

       *       *       *       *       *

MR. HORACE MAYHEW, author of the metropolitan "Labor and the Poor"
articles, has ceased to write for the London _Morning Chronicle_, the
conductors of that journal wishing him to suppress, in his reports on
the condition of the working classes, facts opposed to free trade. This
appears to be characteristic of the advocates of that side.

       *       *       *       *       *

D'ISRAELI has published an edition of his father's "Curiosities of
Literature," with a "View of the Character and Writings of the Author."
He is now engaged upon a Life of Lord William Bentinck, which he has
undertaken at the request of the Duke of Portland. We do not think the
author of the "Wondrous Tale of Alroy" will do very well in history.

       *       *       *       *       *

The EARL OF CARLISLE has recently given two lectures before the
Tradesmen's Benevolent Society of Leeds, and the Mechanics' Institute of
the same city, upon the Scenes, Institutions, and Characteristics of the
United States, which he visited when Lord Morpeth.

       *       *       *       *       *

LEIGH HUNT has probably done a foolish thing in again becoming an
editor. He is too old. We have, by the last steamer, "Leigh Hunt's
Journal: a Miscellany for the Cultivation of the Memorable, the
Progressive, and the Beautiful"--certainly a characteristic title.

       *       *       *       *       *

A Posthumous work of JOSEPH BALMAS

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