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ENG f B WJOSW StR TATX 
 
COMPENDIUM 
 
 OP 
 
 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 
 
 CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED; 
 
 WITH 
 
 BIOGEAPHICAL SKETCHES OF THE AUTHOKS, 
 
 AND 
 
 jidettas torn tpir W&mfa. 
 
 ON THE PLAN OF THE AUTHOR'S 
 
 "COMPENDIUM OF ENGLISH LITERATURE," AND "ENGLISH LITERATURE OF 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY." 
 
 BY 
 
 CHABLES D. CLEVELAND. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED EDITION. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 PARRY & M°M I LL AN. 
 
 NEW YORK: SCRIBNER & CO BOSTON: TICKNOR & FIELDS. 
 
 1859. 
 
Entered accordiug to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by 
 
 CHARLES D. CLEVELAND, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 Printed ey HENRY 15. ASHMEAD, 
 
 GEORGE ST. ADOVK ELEVENTH. 
 
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 Soon after the publication of my " English Literature of the 
 Nineteenth Century/' — seven years ago, — the publishers announced 
 the present work ; and in about a year after, nearly half of it was 
 done. But I found that, with the arduous duties of my school, I 
 was working too hard, and I therefore suspended my labors upon 
 the book, and for four or five years (residing for a greater part 
 of the time in the country) I wrote not a line for it. But as, in 
 consequence of its early announcement, it was continually inquired 
 for, I determined, a year ago, to complete the work as soon as I 
 could, and as best I might be able. The result is now before the 
 public. I have deemed it but simple justice to myself, as well as 
 to my publishers, to state these facts, lest it might be supposed 
 that I had been laboring upon my book for the whole seven years, 
 thus raising expectations, as to the completeness and finish, which 
 I fear the volume itself will not justify. Moreover, one who has 
 an onerous scholastic charge might be supposed to have enough to 
 employ his time, without engaging in such outside literary labors 
 as seem more befitting the professed author. I say these things, 
 not to deprecate criticism upon my work, — on the contrary, I cor- 
 dially invite it, — but as a partial apology for its deficiencies. 
 
 In the preparation of all works of this character, there are 
 difficulties which those only who have been engaged in such labors 
 can appreciate. But in this work the difficulties are peculiar : 
 First, from the two questions that must, at the very outset, be 
 answered : — What is American Literature ? and, When does it 
 begin ? Second, from the vast amount of material to select from, 
 at times absolutely overwhelming. And, third, from the impossi- 
 bility of giving entire satisfaction either to living authors, or to 
 the friends and kindred of those who are deceased. 
 
 Respecting the question, what is American Literature, I would 
 remark that, in my view, it would be absurd to apply this term to 
 the occasional and transient literary effusions which appeared on 
 this side of the Atlantic for a century after the settlement of the 
 country. Colonies of Great Britain, speaking the same language, 
 governed by the same laws, manufacturing but little for ourselves, 
 but dependent on the mother country for a large portion of our 
 
4 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 material comforts, it was natural for us to look to her also for our 
 intellectual aliment. And we did so. Scarcely forty years ago, 
 the " Edinburgh Review" thus wrote : l — " Literature, the Ameri- 
 cans have none; no native literature, we mean. * * * But why 
 should the Americans write books, when a six weeks' passage 
 brings them, in their own tongue, our sense, science, and genius, 
 in bales and hogsheads ?" At this very plain language, which had a 
 good deal of truth in it, we were much and very foolishly offended. 
 We might have answered the reviewer, amply, thus : — " True, we 
 have had as yet but little literature of our own. We have had 
 a greater, a higher, a nobler work to do than to write books. We 
 have had to found a great nation. A vast continent was before us 
 to be subdued. The ' means whereby to live' were first to be pro- 
 vided. Dwellings were to be built; school-houses and church 
 edifices were to be erected ; literary, scientific, and religious edu- 
 cational institutions were to be founded ; and then, in the natural 
 course of things, would come forth and be embodied the creations 
 of the intellect, the fancy, and the imagination. In short, instead 
 of writing any great work, we were acting a still greater one. We 
 were creating those very subjects upon which the future historian, 
 traveller, essayist, poet, might employ his pen for the delight 
 and instruction of other generations." Such might have been 
 our answer; and who would not have acknowledged its conclu- 
 siveness ? 
 
 But as soon as our " gristle was hardened into the bone of man- 
 hood," we began to think of setting up for ourselves ; and then, 
 indeed, we began to think for ourselves. And here we have an 
 answer, as correct as I can give, to the question, what is American 
 Literature ; namely, that it is the product of those minds that 
 have been nurtured, trained, developed, matured, on our own soil, 
 by the manners, habits, scenery, circumstances, and institutions 
 peculiar to ourselves. This answer, too, determines, with consi- 
 derable precision, the date of American Literature, — that its 
 native growth and development commenced with our Revolu- 
 tionary period. Our first thoughts were, of course, directed to 
 our own condition, to our relations to the mother country, to our 
 forms of government, and to the great principles of political 
 government, of public economy, and of civil liberty ; and then 
 came forth, Minerva-like, a literature of a political character, to 
 which, for strength, clearness, and comprehensiveness of thought, 
 for just and sound reasoning, and for effective and lofty elo- 
 quence, the world had never seen the parallel ; showing that the 
 high encomium passed by Edmund Burke upon our first colonial 
 Congress was no less just than beautiful. This literature is era- 
 
 1 Vol. xxxi. p. 144, December, IS IS. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 5 
 
 bodied in the speeches and letters of James Otis, the elder Adams, 
 Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Jay, Madison, and other patriots 
 of the Revolution. Thenceforward, by degrees, as our strength in- 
 creased, as our views expanded, as our facilities for learning were 
 multiplied, as our scholarship assumed a higher and a higher 
 grade, we entered, successively, the various fields of literature, 
 and reaped rich and still richer harvests from them all, so that 
 our dear, good old mother is now proud to acknowledge us as her 
 own, and to confess that in some of the walks of science we have, 
 in our onward march, left even her behind. 1 In History, she 
 acknowledges that Irving, Prescott, Bancroft, Hildreth, and Mot- 
 ley, are equal to any on her side of the Atlantic. In Theology 
 and Biblical Literature, Dwight and Barnes have, probably, as 
 many readers in England as here; while no review in that depart- 
 ment in Great Britain is superior, for varied and profound learn- 
 ing, to " The Bibliotheca Sacra. " As a novelist, the English 
 Reviews themselves being judges, Mrs. Stowe is without a rival 
 in either hemisphere. As many copies, probably, of Bryant and 
 Longfellow have been sold in England, as of Coleridge, or Words- 
 worth, or Tennyson ; while many annotated and elucidated edi- 
 tions of classic authors by our own scholars are extensively studied 
 in English schools. So that now " The Edinburgh Review" might 
 ask with truth the reverse question — " Who does not read an 
 American book ?" 
 
 Having fixed the date of the origin of our native literature at 
 the latter half of the last century, the question arose with what 
 author I should begin. Here there seemed little difficulty in 
 deciding. The great light of the last century was, undoubtedly, 
 Jonathan Edwards, distinguished not more for his learning and 
 piety, than for his originality of genius, and a mind unmistakably 
 American in its habits of thought and action. But after him, the 
 number that might, with some show of reason, put in their claim 
 to come within the scope of such a work, increased more and more, 
 until it has, within the past thirty years, become so great as to be 
 really embarrassing. And here, doubtless, will be found the chief 
 failing of my humble volume ; here is a field ample enough for the 
 most vituperative critic to exercise his skill in. Many will see that 
 some favorite piece — or, it may be, some favorite author — has been 
 left out ; and may hastily ask why it is so. It is enough to reply that 
 I could not put in every thing, — no, not a hundredth part of what 
 
 1 " The London Quarterly Review," for December, 1841, (only twenty-three 
 years after the extract from " The Edinburgh Review" just quoted was written,) 
 in reviewing Dr. Robinson's Palestine, thus wri:es : — "We are not altogether 
 pleased that for the best and most copious work on the geography and antiquities 
 of the Holy Land, though written in English, we should be indebted to an Ame- 
 rican divine." 
 
6 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 has been written. Even the titles of all the books written by Ame- 
 _ rican authors would fill a volume half as large as this. But, if it 
 will be any gratification to these querists, I will candidly acknow- 
 ledge that I myself see, after my book is now made up, many 
 ways in which it might be improved, and that many authors are 
 not noticed in it who should be. It will be a pleasure, however, to 
 make amends for whatever sins of omission or of commission may 
 be pointed out to me, should my book reach another edition and 
 be put in the stereotyped, permanent form. In the mean time, I 
 earnestly hope that any friend — or foe, if I have one — will candidly 
 and freely communicate to me his views. Each one will look at 
 the subject from a different stand-point; and I will sincerely 
 thank all to do what they can to place me in their own position, 
 that I may, as far as possible, see with their eyes. 
 
 But, whatever want of judgment may be laid to my charge, 
 either in deciding upon the authors to be admitted into my book, 
 or of taste in selecting from their works, I trust that no one will 
 be able with justice to impugn my honesty. I have at least en- 
 deavored, uninfluenced by fear or favor, to represent my authors 
 fairly, and to let them speak out whatever sentiments were dearest 
 to their hearts. To have done otherwise, would have been as dis- 
 honorable as unjust. One, for instance, has made Freedom the 
 chief burden of his writings ; another has been most interested 
 in the cause of Temperance, — both subjects peculiarly American ; 
 and the warmest feelings of my heart, and my own lifelong prin- 
 ciples, have here fully harmonized with my sense of justice, to 
 represent the humanity and philanthropy, as well as the cultivated 
 intellect, of my accomplished countrymen. 
 
 In conclusion, I would only remark that I can desire no greater 
 favor to be shown by the public to this, than has been extended 
 to my two former volumes. My publishers — and no author could 
 in this respect be more highly favored — have done their part, as 
 before, in a style of great beauty; so that no series of books, I 
 ✓ believe, have ever been offered to the public at so moderate a 
 price, considering their amount of reading matter and their 
 mechanical execution. 
 
 And now, having prepared this book, as my others, neither to 
 please any clique or sect, nor to favor any particular latitude or 
 special market, nor to defer to any false sentiments, but to pro- 
 mote the cause of sound learning and education, in harmony with 
 pure Christian morals, the best interests of humanity, and the 
 cause of universal truth, I submit it to the judgment of an in- 
 telligent public. 
 
 CHARLES D. CLEVELAND. 
 
 Philadelphia, April 6, 1858. 
 
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 
 
 The hearty praise bestowed by the public upon the first edition 
 of this book, the rapid sale which it met with, together with the 
 numerous kind and commendatory letters that I received from 
 authors and others, were, of course, very grateful to my feelings j 
 and it was to me no less a duty than a pleasure to show myself 
 not unmindful of such kindness, by doing all I could — and, I 
 would hope, not without success — to make the second edition 
 every way more deserving. No one could see or feel the de- 
 ficiencies of my book so much as myself ; but I had this conso- 
 lation, that the most competent to decide upon its merits would 
 be those best able to appreciate the difficulties in preparing it, 
 and therefore most ready to make every allowance for its defects. 
 And so it proved. 
 
 My book was, however, the subject of some ungracious stric- 
 tures on two grounds, — sins of omission and sins of commission. 
 In proof of the first, one critic set forth a list of thirty-one names 
 not to be found in the work. To this accusation I could only 
 plead guilty, and that, too, to an extent much greater than the 
 charge ; for in the preface to the first edition (written, of course, 
 after the rest of the book was printed) I candidly acknowledged 
 that I found I had omitted many names that deserved a place in 
 the volume quite as much, at least, as some who were in it, and 
 I declared my purpose to do my best to remedy the defect in the 
 second edition. This I did, to as great an extent as was consistent 
 with my plan, by introducing sixty additional authors, with ex- 
 tracts from their works. But even now I am aware that there are 
 some writers, of much merit in their way, who will not be found 
 in these pages, and that I may still be censured for omissions. 
 So let it be. I well knew, when I began my work, that I had 
 undertaken a task very difficult of accomplishment, and that, what- 
 ever might be my success, I should be exposed to the displeasure 
 
 7 
 
8 
 
 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 
 
 of those who would feel themselves aggrieved, either because suffi- 
 cient prominence had not been given to their favorite pieces and 
 authors, or because they themselves were not noticed. 1 
 
 But, besides the difficulties and embarrassments in deciding 
 upon the authors to be admitted and the selections to be made, I 
 felt, — depressingly felt, — from first to last, how little the general 
 character and style of many authors could be appreciated by the 
 few extracts I could take from their writings; and more than 
 once I thought that I might not inaptly be compared to the 
 simpleton in Hierocles, who, when he had a house for sale, carried 
 about a brick in his pocket as a specimen. But the idea also occurred 
 to me that the Grecian was not so far wrong, after all ; for if the 
 brick gave no idea of the size or architecture of the building, it 
 showed, at least, of what material it was composed. So I com- 
 forted myself with the reflection that very many who, in this age 
 of business activity, would have no time to read the entire works 
 of an author, and therefore could not have a full appreciation of 
 his genius, would still get from my book some notion of his cha- 
 racter, his turn of thought, his style, and his power, — and that 
 this would be far better than to know nothing of him at all. 
 
 But my sins of commission were still more grievous, — the anti- 
 slavery extracts introduced into my book. For these I have not 
 one word of apology to offer. Every sentiment of my mind and 
 every pulsation of my heart is, and always has been, on the side 
 of liberty and the right of every human being to its fullest enjoy- 
 ment, believing, with Cowper, that 
 
 " 'Tis Liberty alone that gives the flower 
 Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume ; 
 And we are weeds without it." 
 
 I candidly acknowledge that I am so simple-minded as really 
 to believe (not " make-believe") in the declaration of the Scrip- 
 tures that " God hath made of one blood all nations of men and 
 in the Declaration of Independence, that " every man has an in- 
 
 1 A writer in the " North American Review," some years ago, pleasantly 
 remarked, "We have among us little companies of people, each of which 
 'keeps its poet,' and, not content with that, proclaims from its small cor- 
 ner, with a most conceited air, that its poet is the man of the age." 
 
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 
 
 9 
 
 alienable right to Liberty and the pursuit of happiness." I there- 
 fore believe it to be a great crime to deprive any innocent human 
 being of an u inalienable right;" and a sin against God of no ordi- 
 nary magnitude to turn the ". temple of the Holy Ghost" 1 into an 
 article of merchandise, or, in the nervous language of Whittier, 
 
 " To herd with lower natures the awful form of God." 
 
 I also acknowledge that, in these days, when a cowardly, short- 
 sighted, unprincipled expediency too often usurps the place of truth 
 and duty, I wished all, especially the youth of my country, to see that 
 the founders of our Republic — Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, 
 and others — were always and earnestly on the side of Freedom 
 as opposed to Slavery ■ and that most of our wisest and best men 
 and ablest writers — poets, essayists, historians, divines — down to 
 the present day, have taken the same high Christian ground. I 
 acknowledge, too, that I love, as I humbly hope, truth and honesty, 
 and hate all shams, whether in politics, morals, or religion ; and 
 that, in the preparation of my book, I felt it to be my duty to re- 
 present my authors fairly j to set forth what has chiefly charac- 
 terized their writings ; to let them speak out the deep feelings of 
 their heart. To do this in many cases, I could not, simply as an 
 honest man, but bring into view their anti-slavery opinions and 
 principles as shown in their writings and actions. I say this not 
 apologetically j for I trust that I shall never be given over to do 
 a deed or say a word to conciliate the favor of the slaveholder, 
 or of his more guilty Northern apologist. I know very well that 
 there are some books that pretend to give a full and fair view 
 of American authors, but from which are very scrupulously ex- 
 cluded every anti-slavery sentiment from the writings of those 
 most known as anti-slavery men. But could I be so dishonest as 
 well as mean as to act thus, — to keep out of view the most warmly- 
 cherished sentiments of my authors as well as my own, in the 
 hope of greater pecuniary gain, or to secure favor and commenda- 
 tion from the friends and champions, lay or clerical, of our " pecu- 
 liar institution," — no one could despise me half so much as I 
 should despise myself. 
 
 1 1 Cor. vi, 19. 
 
10 
 
 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 
 
 I was also blamed by some for not introducing more Southern 
 authors into my book. But, in the preparation of the work, I never 
 thought or cared what was the latitude of the writer's birth, but 
 only what were his merits. In my second edition, having sixty 
 new names, I introduced a few more Southern writers, numeri- 
 cally, but not more in proportion ; for if seven-eighths of our 
 most eminent poets, historians, essayists, and theologians would 
 be born in the free States, I see not how I could help it; and, 
 having had nothing to do with the arrangement, I do not see 
 exactly how I am to be blamed for it. 1 
 
 In this third edition no additional matter, of course, has been 
 introduced, as the work is stereotyped; but a few typographical 
 errors have been corrected, and the Index has been carefully and 
 thoroughly revised and reset. 
 
 In conclusion, I would make my most grateful acknowledgments 
 to those — and they are many — who made various friendly sug- 
 gestions for the improvement of my humble volume. They will 
 see that in most cases their views were partially if not wholly 
 adopted ; and if I did not avail myself of their hints in all cases, 
 it was simply because I could not do so consistently with my own 
 taste and judgment. But I do not the less appreciate their true 
 kindness, and the interest they manifested in my book; and I am 
 sure that, knowing the many difficulties that beset one, on every 
 side, engaged in such a work, — the diversities of taste, the dif- 
 ferences of judgment, the mass of material to be selected from, 
 the various considerations to be taken into account in admitting 
 or rejecting both writers and selections, — they will look upon the 
 result of my labor now completed, with kindliness, if not with 
 commendation. 
 
 CHARLES D. CLEVELAND. 
 
 Philadelphia, August 18, 1859. 
 
 1 Of the one hundred and sixty-eight authors in my book, forty-eight 
 were born in Massachusetts ; twenty-five in New York ; twenty-three in 
 Connecticut ; seventeen in Pennsylvania ; eleven in Maine ; six in New 
 Hampshire ; six in Virginia ; five in Maryland ; four in New Jersey ; four 
 in South Carolina; three in Vermont ; three in Rhode Island; three in 
 Scotland ; two in Ohio ; one in Delaware ; one in Louisiana ; one in 
 Michigan ; one in Africa ; one in Bermuda ; one in Ireland ; one in South 
 America ; and one in the AVest Indies. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 JONATHAN EDWARDS: Page 
 
 Biographical Sketch 25 
 
 His Religious Feelings 25 
 
 His Resolutions 26 
 
 The Freedom of the Will 31 
 
 The Permission not tho Production of 
 
 Evil 32 
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: 
 
 William B. Tappan's Lines on 33 
 
 Biographical Sketch 33 
 
 First Entrance into Philadelphia 33 
 
 On the Return of Peace 38 
 
 The Way to Wealth 38 
 
 The Whistle , 41 
 
 A Parable against Persecution 42 
 
 Turning the Grindstone 43 
 
 Memorial to Congress on Slavery 44 
 
 JOHN WITHERSPOON: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 45 
 
 The Pernicious Example of the Stage.. 46 
 
 Character of Theatrical Representations 47 
 
 Character of Actors 47 
 
 Principles Regulating Money 48 
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 49 
 
 "Valedictory Counsels of Washington.... 50 
 
 The Brotherhood of Man 52 
 
 Providence ruling the Affairs of Na- 
 tions 52 
 
 Pleasures of Private Life 53 
 
 Slavery 53 
 
 Virtue and Happiness 54 
 
 Agriculture 54 
 
 War 55 
 
 JOHN ADAMS: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 55 
 
 Mrs. Adams's Letter to her Husband 
 
 (note) 56 
 
 Meditates the Choice of Hercules 57 
 
 The Fourth of July 58 
 
 FRANCIS HOPKINSON: Pagb 
 
 Biographical Sketch 59 
 
 Specimen of a Collegiate Examination.. 60 
 
 On White-Washing 63 
 
 Mistake versus Blunder 65 
 
 The Battle of the Kegs 66 
 
 JAMES WILSON: 
 
 £ Biographical Sketch 68 
 
 The Excellence of our Constitution 69 
 
 The People the Source of all Power 69 
 
 The Anti-Slavery Character of the Con- 
 stitution 71 
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 72 
 
 The Rights of Man 74 
 
 Passage of the Potomac through the 
 
 Blue Ridge 75 
 
 Influence of Slavery 76 
 
 A Decalogue of Canons for Practical 
 
 Life 77 
 
 His Dying Council 77 
 
 BENJAMIN RUSH: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 78 
 
 Female Education 79 
 
 The Use of Tobacco 81 
 
 The Bible as a School-Book 82 
 
 LINDLEY MURRAY: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 84 
 
 Moderation in One's Desires 85 
 
 Employment Essential to Health 86 
 
 The Blessings of Affliction 86 
 
 DAVID RAMSEY: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 87 
 
 Washington resigning his Commission 88 
 
 JOHN TRUMBULL: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 89 
 
 The Fop's Decline 90 
 
 The Belle 91 
 
 11 
 
12 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 JOHN TRUMBULL: Page 
 
 Character of McFingal 92 
 
 McFingal's Vision of American Great- 
 ness 93 
 
 JOHN LEDYAPD: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 94 
 
 The Tartars and Russians 95 
 
 Physiognomy of the Tartars 9G 
 
 Woman 97 
 
 Blessiugs of Liberty 97 
 
 JAMES MADISON: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 98 
 
 Our Country's Responsibility to the 
 
 World 99 
 
 An Appeal for the Union 100 
 
 ST. GEORGE TUCKER: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 101 
 
 Days of my Youth 101 
 
 TIMOTHY DWIGHT: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 102 
 
 Duelling 103 
 
 The Notch of the White Mountains 104 
 
 The Goodness of God as manifested in 
 
 Creation 105 
 
 Goffe, the Regicide 10G 
 
 Evening after a Battle 107 
 
 I Love thy Kingdom, Lord 107 
 
 PHILIP FRENEAU: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 108 
 
 The Dying Indian 109 
 
 The Wild Honeysuckle Ill 
 
 The Prospect of Peace Ill 
 
 May to April 112 
 
 PHILLIS WHEATLEY PETERS: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 113 
 
 Lines on the Death of Dr. Sewall 114 
 
 On the Death of an Infant 115 
 
 A Farewell to America 115 
 
 JOEL BARLOW: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 117 
 
 The Hasty Pudding 118 
 
 To Freedom 119 
 
 JOHN MARSHALL: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 120 
 
 Character of Washington 121 
 
 ALEXANDER HAMILTON: 
 Biographical Sketch 123 
 
 ALEXANDER HAMILTON: Pxob 
 
 The Necessity of a National Bank 125 
 
 The Excellency of our Constitu- 
 tion 126 
 
 Character of Major Andre 127 
 
 Character of General Greene 128 
 
 FISHER AMES: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 130 
 
 The Obligations of National Faith 132 
 
 Patriotism 134 
 
 Washington as a Civilian 134 
 
 Character of the Newspaper Press 135 
 
 Character of Hamilton 136 
 
 Greece 138 
 
 Political Factions 138 
 
 NOAII WEBSTER: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 139 
 
 The Hartford Convention 141 
 
 Origin of Language 142 
 
 ALEXANDER WILSON: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 144 
 
 Pleasures in contemplating Nature 145 
 
 The Bald Eagle 146 
 
 The Mocking-Bird 148 
 
 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 149 
 
 The Gospel a Gospel of Liberty and 
 
 Peace 152 
 
 The Value of the Bible 155 
 
 The Hour-Glass 156 
 
 JOSEPH DENNIE: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 157 
 
 Account of the " Portfolio" (note) 157 
 
 Night 158 
 
 Jack and Gill: a Criticism 160 
 
 JOHN M. MASON : 
 
 Biographical Sketch 164 
 
 Hamilton's Death 165 
 
 Politics and Religion 167 
 
 Cluu-acter of Hamilton 168 
 
 Gospel for the Poor 169 
 
 JOSEPH HOPKINSON: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 170 
 
 Hail, Columbia 170 
 
 CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 172 
 
 The Pestilence of 1798 172 
 
 Perilous Encounter with a Panther 175 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 13 
 
 SAMUEL J. SMITH: Page 
 
 Biographical Sketch 178 
 
 "Peace, be Still" 179 
 
 A Morning Hymn 180 
 
 For an Album 180 
 
 JOSIAII QUINCY: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 181 
 
 The Limits to Laws 182 
 
 An Embargo Liberty 181 
 
 New England 184 
 
 John Quincy Adams 185 
 
 ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER : 
 
 Biographical Sketch 186 
 
 The Right Use of Reason in Religion... 187 
 
 The Bible 189 
 
 The Consolations of the Gospel 189 
 
 WILLIAM WIRT: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 191 
 
 John 1\ Kennedy and his Works (note) 191 
 
 The Blind Preacher 193 
 
 The Power of Kindness 196 
 
 Common Sense 196 
 
 Burr and Blaunerhasset 197 
 
 Every One the Architect of his Own 
 Fortune 19J 
 
 ROBERT TREAT PAINE: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 201 
 
 Adams and Liberty 202 
 
 WILLIAM SULLIVAN: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 203 
 
 The "Federalists" 201 
 
 The Washington Administration......... 206 
 
 LYMAN BEECHER: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 206 
 
 The Sin of Trafficking in Ardent Spirits 207 
 
 Appeal to Young Men 208 
 
 The Duellist Unfit for Office 209 
 
 The East and the West One 210 
 
 JAMES K. PAULDING: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 211 
 
 Murderer's Creek 212 
 
 Quarrel of Squire Bull and his Son 215 
 
 WILLIAM TUDOR: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 217 
 
 Account of the " Monthly Anthology" 
 
 (note) 217 
 
 Account of the " North American Re- 
 view" (note) 218 
 
 WILLIAM TUDOR: Pag . 
 
 Influence of Females on Society 219 
 
 Character of James Otis 220 
 
 Cause of the American Revolution 221 
 
 FRANCIS S. KEY: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 222 
 
 The Star-Spangled Banner 222 
 
 Life 224 
 
 Hymn 224 
 
 JOSEPH T. BUCKINGHAM: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 225 
 
 National Feeling — Lafayette 226 
 
 The Evils of Lotteries 227 
 
 WASHINGTON ALLSTON: 
 
 H. T. Tuckerman's Lines on 228 
 
 Biographical Sketch 228 
 
 The Address of the Sylph of Spring 230 
 
 America to Great Britain 231 
 
 Benevolence 232 
 
 Truth 233 
 
 Humility 233 
 
 BENJAMIN SILLIMAN: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 233 
 
 Nature of Geological Evidence 234 
 
 Application of the Evidence — Fossil 
 Fishes of Mount Bolca 236 
 
 TIMOTHY FLINT: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 236 
 
 Indian Mounds 237 
 
 Fashion and Ruin versus Industry and 
 
 Independence 238 
 
 The Shores of the Ohio 239 
 
 The Indian Belle and Beau 240 
 
 WILLIAM ELLERY CIIANNING: 
 
 James Russell Lowell's Lines on 241 
 
 Biographical Sketch 241 
 
 The Purifying Influence of Poetry 243 
 
 Books 245 
 
 The Moral Dignity of the Educational 
 
 Profession 245 
 
 Milton and Johnson 246 
 
 Christianity the Great Emancipa- 
 tor 247 
 
 Character of the Negro Race 248 
 
 Every Man Great 249 
 
 ULIAN C. YERPLANCK : 
 
 Biographical Sketch 250 
 
 John Jay 251 
 
 The Schoolmaster 252 
 
14 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 JOHN JAMES AUDUBON: Page 
 
 Biographical Sketch 254 
 
 The Humming Bird 255 
 
 The Mocking-Bird 256 
 
 The Wood-Thrush 257 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 25S 
 
 Our Country in 1920 262 
 
 Address to the Surviving Soldiers of the 
 
 Revolution 263 
 
 England 264 
 
 The Morning 264 
 
 The Love of Home 264 
 
 The Nature of True Eloquence 265 
 
 Justice 266 
 
 Death the Great Leveller 266 
 
 Purpose of Bunker Hill Monument 266 
 
 Crime Revealed by Conscience 267 
 
 Massachusetts 268 
 
 Liberty and Union 269 
 
 JOSEPH STORY: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 270 
 
 The Importance of Classical Learning.. 271 
 
 Free Schools 272 
 
 The Dangers that threaten our Re- 
 public 272 
 
 WASHINGTON IRVING: 
 
 James Russell Lowell's Lines on 274 
 
 Biographical Sketch 274 
 
 Columbus first discovers Land in the 
 
 New World 276 
 
 Filial Affection 277 
 
 The Alhambra by Moonlight 279 
 
 The Grave 280 
 
 Portrait of a Dutchman , 281 
 
 JOSEPH S. BUCKMINSTER: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 282 
 
 Uses of Sickness 284 
 
 Temptations of the Young 284 
 
 Active and Inactive Learning 285 
 
 LEVI FRISBIE: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 287 
 
 The Reciprocal Influence of Morals and 
 
 Literature 287 
 
 Tacitus— Livy 289 
 
 Moral Taste 290 
 
 A Dream 291 
 
 JOHN PIERPONT: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 292 
 
 Classical and Sacred Themes for Music 293 
 
 JOHN PIERPONT: p A r,, 
 
 Song of the Shepherds 293 
 
 License-Laws 294 
 
 Hymn 295 
 
 My Child 296 
 
 Not on the Battle-Field 297 
 
 SAMUEL WOOD WORTH: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 299 
 
 The Old Oaken Bucket 299 
 
 ANDREWS NORTON: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 300 
 
 Posthumous Influence of the Wise and 
 
 Good 301 
 
 Reformers 302 
 
 Scene after a Summer Shower 302 
 
 Fortitude 303 
 
 RICHARD II. DANA: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 304 
 
 The Scene of Death 305 
 
 The Husband and Wife's Grave 306 
 
 The Death of Sin, and the Life of Holi- 
 ness 308 
 
 The Mother and Son 309 
 
 RICHARD HENRY WILDE: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 312 
 
 John Randolph and Daniel Webster..... 313 
 
 My Life is like the Summer Rose 314 
 
 To the Mocking-Bird 314 
 
 JAMES FENIMORE COOPER: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 315 
 
 The Capture of a Whale 316 
 
 The Wreck of the Ariel 319 
 
 JAMES A. IIILLHOUSE : 
 
 Fitz-Greene Halleck's Lines on 323 
 
 Biographical Sketch 323 
 
 Scene from Hadad 324 
 
 Hadad"s Description of the City of 
 
 David 326 
 
 How Paternal Wealth should be Em- 
 ployed 327 
 
 WILLIAM JAY: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 328 
 
 Patriotism 329 
 
 John Quiney Adams 329 
 
 The Higher Law 331 
 
 JARED SPARKS: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 332 
 
 Anecdote of John Ledyard 333 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 15 
 
 JARED SPARKS: Page 
 The American Revolution 335 
 
 LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 336 
 
 Widow at her Daughters Bridal 338 
 
 Niagara 33S 
 
 A Butterfly on a Child's Grave 339 
 
 Death of an Infant 340 
 
 Alpine Flowers : 340 
 
 Contentment 340 
 
 The Coral Insect 341 
 
 The Gain of Adversity 342 
 
 The Privileges of Age 342 
 
 ALEXANDER H. EVERETT: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 344 
 
 England 345 
 
 Claims of Literature upon America 346 
 
 The Young American 347 
 
 GEORGE TICKNOR: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 348 
 
 Don Quixote 349 
 
 CHARLES SPRAGUE: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 352 
 
 Shakspeare Ode 353 
 
 The Brothers 356 
 
 The Family Meeting 357 
 
 The Winged Worshippers 358 
 
 I See Thee Still 359 
 
 JOHN HOWARD PAYNE: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 360 
 
 Home, Sweet Home 360 
 
 SEBA SMITH: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 361 
 
 The Mother in the Snow-Storm 361 
 
 HENRY WARE, Jr.: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 362 
 
 Science and Poetry 362 
 
 Choosing a Profession 362 
 
 Seasons of Prayer 364 
 
 HENRY C. CAREY: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 365 
 
 Man the Subject of Social Science 366 
 
 Commerce and Trade 367 
 
 The Warrior-Chief and the Trader 367 
 
 SAMUEL G. GOODRICH: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 369 
 
 Timothy Dwight 369 
 
 SA.MUEL G. GOODRICH: p AGK 
 The Rural Districts our Country's 
 
 Strength 371 
 
 Boston in 1824 372 
 
 Philadelphia Publishers and Book- 
 sellers (note) 373 
 
 CARLOS WILCOX: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 374 
 
 September 374 
 
 Freedom 375 
 
 Doing Good, True Happiness 376 
 
 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 377 
 
 Thanatopsis 379 
 
 To a Waterfowl 380 
 
 The Conqueror's Grave 381 
 
 The Past 382 
 
 The Evening Wind 384 
 
 The Battle-Field 385 
 
 The Antiquity of Freedom 386 
 
 JOHN NEAL: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 387 
 
 Children,— What are They 388 
 
 EDWARD ROBINSON: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 390 
 
 Plain before Sinai 391 
 
 The Top of Sinai, (Sufsafeh) 392 
 
 The Cedars of Lebanon 393 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 394 
 
 The Pilgrims of the Mayflower 395 
 
 Pampering the Body and Starving the 
 
 Soul 396 
 
 The Eternal Clockwork of the Skies.... 397 
 
 The Heavens before and after Dawn 398 
 
 The Universal Bounties of Providence.. 399 
 
 JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE: 
 
 Fitz-Greene Halleck's Lines on 400 
 
 Biographical Sketch 400 
 
 The Culprit Fay 401 
 
 The American Flag 404 
 
 WILLIAM B. TAPPAN : 
 
 Biographical Sketch 405 
 
 There is an Hour of Peaceful Rest 406 
 
 Gethsemane 406 
 
 Why should we Sigh 407 
 
 FITZ-GREENE HALLECK: 
 Biographical Sketch 407 
 
16 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 FLTZ-GREENE IIALLECK: p AGE 
 
 Marco Bozzaris 408 
 
 Burns 410 
 
 The World is Bright before Thee 413 
 
 JAMES GATES PERCIVAL: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 413 
 
 Ode,— Liberty to Athens 414 
 
 Consumption 416 
 
 Night 417 
 
 Love of Study 418 
 
 Extract from Prometheus 419 
 
 MARIA BROOKS: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 420 
 
 Morning 421 
 
 Confiding Love 421 
 
 Marriage 422 
 
 Song 422 
 
 WILLIAM B. SPRAGUE : 
 
 Biographical Sketch 423 
 
 Voltaire and Wilberforce 424 
 
 Virtue Crowned with Usefulness 425 
 
 8ARAII JOSEPHA HALE: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 427 
 
 The Light of Home 427 
 
 It Snows 428 
 
 FRANCIS WAYLAND: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 429 
 
 The Object of Missions 430 
 
 The Iliad and the Bible 431 
 
 The Guilt of Punishing the Inno- 
 cent 432 
 
 The True Gospel Ministry 433 
 
 WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 435 
 
 Return of Columbus 437 
 
 Queen Isabella 438 
 
 The Character and Eate of Monte- 
 zuma 440 
 
 CATHARINE MARIA SEDGWICK: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 441 
 
 A Sabbath in New England 442 
 
 Uncle Phil and his Invalid Daugh- 
 ter 444 
 
 JOHN GORHAM PALFREY: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 447 
 
 The Elegant Culture and Learning of 
 
 the Puritans 448 
 
 Roger Williams 450 
 
 JOHN GORHAM PALFREY: p AGB 
 A Good Daughter 451 
 
 WILLIAM WARE: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 452 
 
 Palmyra in its Glory 452 
 
 Palmyra after its Capture and Destruc- 
 tion 453 
 
 JOHN G. C. BRAINARD : 
 
 Lines on, by J. G. Whittier 455 
 
 Biographical Sketch 455 
 
 The Falls of Niagara 456 
 
 Epithalamium 456 
 
 On a Late Loss 457 
 
 Leather Stocking 457 
 
 The Sea-Bird's Song 458 
 
 ALBERT BARNES: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 459 
 
 A Mother's Love— Home 461 
 
 The Traffic in Ardent Spirits 462 
 
 The Bible versus Slavery— The Duty of 
 
 the Church 463 
 
 War 464 
 
 The Gentle Charities of Life 404 
 
 The Value of Industry 465 
 
 ROBERT C. SANDS: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 466 
 
 From the Proem to Yamoydon 467 
 
 Ode to Evening 468 
 
 Monody on Samuel Patch 468 
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON DOANE: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 471 
 
 On an Old Wedding Ring 471 
 
 That Silent Moon 472 
 
 GRENVILLE MELLEN: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 473 
 
 The Martyr 474 
 
 The Eagle 475 
 
 Conscience 475 
 
 WILLIAM B. O. PEABODY: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 476 
 
 Hymn of Nature 477 
 
 LYDIA MARIA CHILD: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 478 
 
 Marius 479 
 
 A Street Scene 480 
 
 Unselfishness 481 
 
 Politeness 481 
 
 Flowers 482 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 17 
 
 LYDTA MARIA CHILD: Page 
 Where is the Enemy 482 
 
 GEORGE BANCROFT: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 483 
 
 Character of Roger Williams 484 
 
 Destruction of the Tea in Boston Har- 
 
 hor 485 
 
 Chivalry and Puritanism 487 
 
 The Position of the Puritans 487 
 
 JAMES G. BROOKS: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 488 
 
 Greece, 1832 488 
 
 MARY E. BROOKS: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 490 
 
 Weep not for the Dead 490 
 
 MARK HOPKINS: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 491 
 
 Christianity not Originated by Man 491 
 
 Faith— The Race for the Young 492 
 
 True Worship 493 
 
 Attractiveness of Irregular Action 495 
 
 ALBERT G. GREENE : 
 
 Biographical Sketch 49G 
 
 Old Grimes 496 
 
 LEONARD BACON: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 498 
 
 John Davenport's Influence upon New 
 
 Haven 499 
 
 The Present Age.... 500 
 
 Christianity in History 501 
 
 EDWARD C. PINKNEY: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 502 
 
 Italy 503 
 
 A Health 504 
 
 A Serenade 504 
 
 GEORGE P. MORRIS: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 505 
 
 Life in the West 506 
 
 When Other Friends are Round 
 
 Thee 50C 
 
 Up with the Signal 507 
 
 Woodman, Spare that Tree 507 
 
 My Mother's Bible 508 
 
 GEORGE DENISON PRENTICE: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 508 
 
 Sabbath Evening 509 
 
 I Thiuk of Thee 510 
 
 2 
 
 RUFUS DAWES: p A6B 
 
 Biographical Sketch 510 
 
 Spirit of Beauty 511 
 
 Sunrise,— From Mount Washington 511 
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 513 
 
 The Compensations of Calamity 513 
 
 Travelling 514 
 
 Self-Reliance 515 
 
 Good-Bye, Proud World 515 
 
 JACOB ABBOTT: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 516 
 
 Intellectual Improvement 516 
 
 The Thing Essential to Happiness 518 
 
 HORACE BUSHNELL: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 519 
 
 Work and Play 520 
 
 Light 522 
 
 GEORGE W. BETHUNE: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 523 
 
 Our Country 524 
 
 Victory over Death 526 
 
 Cling to thy Mother 527 
 
 Live to do Good 528 
 
 Early Lost, Early Saved 528 
 
 ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 529 
 
 The Drowned Mariner 530 
 
 The Wife 531 
 
 CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 532 
 
 The Authority in a Household 533 
 
 Borrowing " Out West" 534 
 
 Hospitality 535 
 
 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE : 
 
 Biographical Sketch 536 
 
 A Rill from the Town Pump 537 
 
 Sights from a Steeple 540 
 
 Vanity Fair 541 
 
 CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 543 
 
 A Morning Hymn 544 
 
 Indian Summer, 1828 544 
 
 We Parted in Sadness .. 545 
 
 Sparkling and Bright 545 
 
 WILLIAM GTLMORE SIMMS: 
 Biographical Sketch « . .. 546 
 
is 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS: Page 
 
 The Maiden and the Rattlesnake 547 
 
 Song of the Zephyr Spirit 551 
 
 Heart Essential to Genius 552 
 
 ISAAC McLELLAN: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 552 
 
 New England's Dead 553 
 
 Lines, suggested by a Picture by 
 Washington Allston 554 
 
 NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 555 
 
 Hagar in the "Wilderness 556 
 
 Saturday Afternoon 559 
 
 The Annoyer 559 
 
 Reverie at Glenmary 500 
 
 HENRY "WADS WORTH LONGFEL- 
 LOW: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 561 
 
 A Psalm of Life 562 
 
 The Reaper and the Flowers 563 
 
 Footsteps of Angels 563 
 
 The Arsenal at Springfield 564 
 
 Maidenhood 565 
 
 The Warning 567 
 
 Excelsior 567 
 
 Literary Fame 568 
 
 GEORGE BARRELL CHEEVER: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 569 
 
 The Benefit of Greek Culture 571 
 
 Bunyan in his Cell 572 
 
 Retributive Providences 573 
 
 Step to the Captain's Office and Settle... 574 
 
 The English Language 575 
 
 A Slave-Holding Christianity 576 
 
 RICHARD HILDRETII: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 577 
 
 The Murder of the Soul 578 
 
 The Continental Congress 579 
 
 Hamilton, Washington, and Jay 580 
 
 James Madison 580 
 
 Past and Present Politics 581 
 
 JONATHAN LAWRENCE : 
 
 Biographical Sketch 582 
 
 Look Aloft 582 
 
 ELIZABETH MARGARET CHAND- 
 LER: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 582 
 
 The Slave's Appeal 583 
 
 The Parting 584 
 
 MARY S. B. DANA: Pag e 
 
 Biographical Sketch 586 
 
 Passing under the Rod 586 
 
 HENRY REED: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 588 
 
 Best Method of Reading 589 
 
 Poetical and Prose Reading 590 
 
 Tragic Poetry 591 
 
 WILLIAM D. GALLAGHER: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 592 
 
 Truth and Freedom 592 
 
 The Laborer 593 
 
 GEORGE STILLMAN HILLARD: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 594 
 
 Excursion to Sorrento 595 
 
 Spain 598 
 
 Books 598 
 
 LUCRETIA MARIA DAYIDSON: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 600 
 
 Song at Twilight 601 
 
 The Prophecy 601 
 
 To my Mother C02 
 
 HANNAH FLAGG GOULD : 
 
 Biographical Sketch 603 
 
 A Name in the Sand 603 
 
 The Pebble and the Acorn 604 
 
 The Frost 605 
 
 JOHN GREENLEAF WIIITTIER: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 606 
 
 Palestine 607 
 
 Clerical Oppressors 608 
 
 Ichabod 609 
 
 Maud Muller 610 
 
 The Wish of To-Day 612 
 
 Yirtue alone Beautiful 613 
 
 EMMA C. EMBURY: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 614 
 
 The Widow's Wooer 615 
 
 Oh! Tell me not of Lofty Fate 615 
 
 The Maiden Sat at her Busy Wheel 616 
 
 PARK BENJAMIN: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 617 
 
 The Departed 617 
 
 How Cheery are the Mariners 618 
 
 Sport 619 
 
 Press On 619 
 
 The Sexton 620 
 
 A Life of Lettered Ease 621 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 19 
 
 ROBERT T. CONRAD: Page 
 
 Biographical Sket< h 621 
 
 The Pride of Worth 622 
 
 Sonnet, — Thy Kingdom Come! 622 
 
 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 623 
 
 My Aunt 623 
 
 The Height of the Ridiculous 624 
 
 The Chambered Nautilus 625 
 
 The Two Armies 626 
 
 The Front and Side Doors 627 
 
 Old Age and the Professor 628 
 
 The Brain 62S 
 
 The Sea-Shore and the Mountains 629 
 
 My Last Walk with the Schoolmistress 630 
 
 ALBERT PIKE: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 631 
 
 To the Mocking-Bird 631 
 
 ANNA PEYRE DINNIES : 
 
 Biographical Sketch 632 
 
 The Wife 632 
 
 To my Husband"s First Gray Hair 633 
 
 WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 634 
 
 Memory 635 
 
 The Invitation 636 
 
 Death of the First-Born 637 
 
 EDGAR ALLEN POE : 
 
 Biographical Sketch 638 
 
 The Raven 639 
 
 The Burial of Lady Madeline 641 
 
 CHARLES SUMNER: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 644 
 
 Expenses of War and Education Com- 
 pared 646 
 
 True Glory 647 
 
 Progress and Reform 648 
 
 Judicial Tribunals 649 
 
 ANDREW P. PEABODY: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 650 
 
 The Miracles and Work of Jesus 650 
 
 Cuvier 651 
 
 The Higher Law 652 
 
 ALFRED B. STREET: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 653 
 
 The Lost Hunter 654 
 
 FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD: 
 Biographical Sketch..... 657 
 
 FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD: Pagb 
 
 New England's Mountain Child 657 
 
 A Mother's Prayer in Illuess 658 
 
 Laborare est Orare 659 
 
 WILLIAM H. BURLEIGH : 
 
 Biographical Sketch 660 
 
 The Times 661 
 
 The Pilgrim Fathers 661 
 
 June 661 
 
 HARRIET BEECIIER STOWE: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 663 
 
 Eva s Death 664 
 
 How to make Friends of "the Mam- 
 mon of Unrighteousness*' 668 
 
 J. G. Whittier's Lines on the Death of 
 
 Eva 66S 
 
 '• Only a Year" 671 
 
 THOMAS MACKELLAR: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 672 
 
 Life's Evening 673 
 
 September Rain 673 
 
 Patient Continuance in Weil-Doing 674 
 
 HENRY T. TUCKERMAN: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 675 
 
 Leisure to be Properly Appreciated 675 
 
 Enthusiasm — Sympathy 676 
 
 The Poet Campbell 677 
 
 Mary 678 
 
 HENRY WARD BEECIIER: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 679 
 
 The True Object of Preaching 680 
 
 Religion 681 
 
 God's Forgiveness 682 
 
 Parental Indulgence 682 
 
 Children 683 
 
 The Twenty-Third Psalm 683 
 
 A Christian Man's Life : 684 
 
 Help the Slave 684 
 
 Everyday Christianity 684 
 
 The Holy Catholic Church 684 
 
 A Man's a Man 685 
 
 Cerberus in America 685 
 
 Religion and Business 685 
 
 A Christian Life 685 
 
 Hypocrites 686 
 
 Giving versus Keeping 686 
 
 The Elect 686 
 
 Blindness 686 
 
 JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY: 
 Biographical Sketch 68" 
 
26 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY: Page 
 The Siege of Leyden 6SS 
 
 RUFUS WILMOT GRISWOLD : 
 
 Biographical Sketch 090 
 
 American Literature 691 
 
 Eloquence of Jonathan Edwards 693 
 
 PHILIP PENDLETON COOKE: 
 
 Biographical Sketch..., G93 
 
 Florence Vane 694 
 
 LUCY HOOPER: 
 
 Lines on, by Henry T. Tuckerman 695 
 
 Biographical Sketch 695 
 
 Osceola 696 
 
 Evening Thoughts 697 
 
 JOHN GODFREY SAXE : 
 
 Biographical Sketch 698 
 
 Rhyme of the Rail 699 
 
 I'm Growing Old 700 
 
 ELIZABETH HOWELL: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 701 
 
 Milton's Prayer of Patience 701 
 
 HORACE BINNEY WALLACE: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 702 
 
 The Alps 703 
 
 The Interior of St. Peter's 703 
 
 The Crater of Vesuvius 704 
 
 Washington— Hamilton 705 
 
 A. CLEVELAND COXE: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 707 
 
 Aaron Cleveland, Life and Works, 
 
 (note) 707 
 
 The Heart's Song 708 
 
 The Chimes of England 709 
 
 Oh, Walk with God 710 
 
 Oxford Boat-Race 711 
 
 TAMES RUSSELL LOWELL: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 712 
 
 The Heritage 713 
 
 Above and Below 715 
 
 Act for Truth 716 
 
 On the Capture of certain Fugitive 
 
 Slaves near Washington 717 
 
 To J. R. Giddings 718 
 
 J. R. Giddings, Life aud Works (note).. 718 
 Freedom 719 
 
 MARIA LOWELL: 
 Biographical Sketch 719 
 
 MARIA LOWELL: p A gk 
 The Alpine Sheep 720 
 
 EDWIN P. WHIPPLE : 
 
 Biographical Sketch 721 
 
 The Power of Words 721 
 
 Wit and Humor 723 
 
 The Literature of Mirth 724 
 
 JOSIAII GILBERT HOLLAND: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 726 
 
 The True Track 727 
 
 Usefulness — Health — Happiness 728 
 
 ALICE CARY: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 730 
 
 Light and Love 731 
 
 Harvest- Time 731 
 
 The Broken Household 732 
 
 What is Life? 732 
 
 PIKEBE CARY: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 733 
 
 The Christian Woman 733 
 
 JAMES ALDRICH: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 733 
 
 A Death-Bed 733 
 
 AMELIA B. WELBY: 
 
 Frances Sargent Osgood's Lines on 734 
 
 Biographical Sketch 734 
 
 The Rainbow 735 
 
 The Old Maid 736 
 
 On seeing an Infant Sleeping on its 
 Mother's Bosom 737 
 
 THOMAS BUCHANAN READ: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 738 
 
 The Closing Scene 739 
 
 The Deserted Road 740 
 
 The Emigrants 741 
 
 Arthur's Song 742 
 
 MARGARET MILLER DAVIDSON: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 742 
 
 Lake Champlain 742 
 
 Yearnings for Home 744 
 
 To Her Mother 744 
 
 GEORGE II. BOKER: 
 
 R. II. Stoddard's Lines on 745 
 
 Biographical Sketch 745 
 
 Ode to a Mountain Oak 746 
 
 To England 748 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 21 
 
 JAMES T. FIELDS: Page 
 
 Biographical Sketch 746 
 
 Ballad of the Tempest 746 
 
 SARA JANE LIPPINCOTT: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 750 
 
 The Horseback Bide 750 
 
 The Army of Reform 751 
 
 The Poet of To-Day 753 
 
 EDITH MAY: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 754 
 
 Summer 754 
 
 The Coloring of Happiness 755 
 
 A Poet's Love 756 
 
 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS: 
 Biographical Sketch 757 
 
 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS: Pagb 
 
 Jerusalem or Rome 758 
 
 The Duty of the American Scholar 700 
 
 RICHARD HENRY STODDARD: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 762 
 
 Hymn to the Beautiful 762 
 
 The Two Brides 704 
 
 Birds 765 
 
 The Sky 705 
 
 The Sea 705 
 
 BAYARD TAYLOR: 
 
 Biographical Sketch 765 
 
 The Bison Track 766 
 
 Life on the Nile 767 
 
 Yisit to the Shillook Negroes 769 
 
 The Midnight Sun 771 
 
 Index to Subjects and to Names incidentally mentioned in the volume 773 
 
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF AUTHORS. 
 
 Abbott, Jacob 516 
 
 Adams, John 55 
 
 Adams, John Quincy 149 
 
 Aldrich, James 738 
 
 Alexander, Archibald ......... 186 
 
 Allston, Washington 228 
 
 Ames, Fisher 130 
 
 Audubon, John James 254 
 
 Bacon, Leonard 498 
 
 Bancroft, George 483 
 
 Barlow, Joel 117 
 
 Barnes, Albert 459 
 
 Beeciier, Henry Ward 679 
 
 Beeciier, Lyman 206 
 
 Benjamin, Park 617 
 
 Bethune, George W 523 
 
 Boker, George H 745 
 
 Brainard, John G. C 455 
 
 Brooks, James G 488 
 
 Brooks, Maria 420 
 
 Brooks, Mary E 490 
 
 Brown, Charles Brockden.... 172 
 
 Bryant, William C 377 
 
 Buckingham, Joseph T 225 
 
 BUCKMINSTER, JOSEPH S 282 
 
 Burleigh, William II 660 
 
 Bushnell, Horace 519 
 
 Carey, Henry C 365 
 
 22 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Cary, Alice 730 
 
 Cary, Pikebe 733 
 
 Chandler, Elizabeth M 582 
 
 Ciianning, William Ellery.... 241 
 
 Cheever, George B 569 
 
 Child, Lydia M 478 
 
 Clark, Willis G 634 
 
 Conrad, Robert T 621 
 
 Cooke, Philip P .... 693 
 
 Cooper, James F 315 
 
 Coxe, A. Cleveland 707 
 
 Curtis, George William 757 
 
 Dana, Mary S. B 586 
 
 Dana, Richard H 304 
 
 Davidson, Lucretia M 600 
 
 Davidson, Margaret M 742 
 
 Dawes, Rufus 510 
 
 Dennie, Joseph ,.. 157 
 
 Dinnies, Anna P 632 
 
 Doane, George W 471 
 
 Drake, Joseph R 400 
 
 Dwight, Timothy 102 
 
 Edwards, Jonathan 25 
 
 Embury, Emma C 614 
 
 Emerson, Ralph W 513 
 
 Everett, Alexander II 344 
 
 Everett, Edward 394 
 
 Fields, James T 746 
 
ALPHABETICAL LIST OP AUTHORS. 
 
 23 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Flint, Timothy 236 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin 33 
 
 Frenau, Philip 108 
 
 Frisbie, Levi 287 
 
 Gallagher, William D 592 
 
 Goodrich, Samuel G 369 
 
 Gould, Hannah F 603 
 
 Greene, Albert G 496 
 
 Griswold, Rufus W 690 
 
 Hale, Sarah J 427 
 
 Halleck, Fitz-Greene 407 
 
 Hamilton, Alexander 123 
 
 Hawthorne, Nathaniel 536 
 
 Hildreth, Richard 577 
 
 Hillard, George S 594 
 
 Hillhouse, James A 323 
 
 Hoffman, Charles F 543 
 
 Holland, Josiaii G 726 
 
 Holmes, Oliver W 623 
 
 Hooper, Lucy 695 
 
 Hopkins, Mark 491 
 
 Hopkinson, Francis 59 
 
 Hopkinson, Joseph 170 
 
 Howell, Elizabeth 701 
 
 Irving, Washington 274 
 
 Jay, William 328 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas 72 
 
 Key, Francis S 222 
 
 Kirkland, Caroline M 532 
 
 Lawrence, Jonathan 582 
 
 Ledyard, John 94 
 
 Lippincott, Sara Jane 750 
 
 Longfellow, Henry W 561 
 
 Lowell, James R 713 
 
 Lowell, Maria 719 
 
 Mackellar, Thomas 672 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Madison, James 98 
 
 Marshall, John 120 
 
 Mason, John M 164 
 
 May, Edith 754 
 
 McLellan, Isaac 552 
 
 Mellen, Grenville 473 
 
 Morris, George P 505 
 
 Motley, John L 687 
 
 Murray, Lindley 84 
 
 Neal, John 387 
 
 Norton, Andrews 300 
 
 Osgood, Frances S 657 
 
 Paine, Robert Treat 202 
 
 Palfrey, John G 447 
 
 Paulding, James K 211 
 
 Payne, John Howard 360 
 
 Peabody, Andrew P 650 
 
 Peabody, William B. 476 
 
 Percival, James Gates 413 
 
 Peters, Phillis Wheatly 113 
 
 Pierpont, John 292 
 
 Pike, Albert 631 
 
 Pinkney, Edward C 502 
 
 Poe, Edgar A 638 
 
 Prentice, George D 508 
 
 Prescott, William H 435 
 
 Quincy, Josiah 181 
 
 Ramsey, David 87 
 
 Read, Thomas B 738 
 
 Reed, Henry 588 
 
 Robinson, Edward 390 
 
 Rush, Benjamin 78 
 
 Sands, Robert C 466 
 
 Saxe, John G 698 
 
 Sedgwick, Catharine M 441 
 
 Sigourney, Lydia H 336 
 
L>4 
 
 ALPHABETICAL LIST OF AUTHORS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Silliman, Benjamin 233 
 
 Simms, William G 546 
 
 Smith, Elizabeth 529 
 
 Smith, Samuel J 178 
 
 Smith, Seba 361 
 
 Sparks, Jared 332 
 
 Sprague, Charles 352 
 
 Sprague, William B 423 
 
 Stoddard, Richard Henry.... 762 
 
 Story, Joseph 270 
 
 Stowe, Harriet B 663 
 
 Street, Alfred B 653 
 
 Sullivan, William 203 
 
 Sumner, Charles 644 
 
 Tappan, William B 405 
 
 Taylor, Bayard 765 
 
 Ticknor, George 348 
 
 Trumbull, John 89 
 
 Tucker, St. George 101 
 
 Tuckerman, Henry T 675 
 
 Tudor, William 217 
 
 Verplanck, Gulian C 250 
 
 Wallace, Horace B 702 
 
 Ware, Henry, Jr 362 
 
 Ware, William 452 
 
 Washington, George 49 
 
 Wayland, Francis 429 
 
 Webster, Daniel 258 
 
 Webster, Noah 139 
 
 Welby, Amelia B 734 
 
 Whipple, Edwin P 721 
 
 Whittier, John G 606 
 
 Wilcox, Carlos..... 374 
 
 Wilde, Richard H 312 
 
 Willis, Nathaniel P 555 
 
 Wilson, Alexander 144 
 
 Wilson, James 68 
 
 Wirt, William 191 
 
 Witherspoon, John 45 
 
 Woodworth, Samuel ?99 
 
COMPENDIUM 
 
 OF 
 
 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 
 
 JONATHAN EDWARDS, 1703—1758. 
 
 On no foundation more enduring could the structure of a work upon American 
 Literature be reared, than on the illustrious name of Jonathan Edwards, — an orna- 
 ment and glory not to his country only, but to his race. Of a piety as deep, as pure, 
 as fervent, and as constant as it has ever been allowed to mortals to possess ; of a 
 singleness of purpose, which never forsook him, to make the very best of life that 
 life is capable of ; and of an intellect which, by the rare union of clearness, acute- 
 ness, and strength, has never been surpassed if ever equalled, the elder Edwards 
 has attained a renown in both hemispheres which can never die. 
 
 He was born at East Windsor, Connecticut, on the 5th of October, 1703. His 
 parents were the Rev. Timothy Edwards, for sixty-four years the pastor of the 
 Congregational Church at East Windsor, and Esther Stoddard, daughter of the 
 Rev. Solomon Stoddard, who was for more than half a century pastor of the 
 church of Northampton, Massachusetts. He commenced the study of Latin under 
 his father's instruction at six years of age, and entered Yale College a few days 
 before he was thirteen. As a signal proof of his early strength of mind, it may 
 be mentioned that in his sophomore year he read Locke's Essay on the Human 
 Understanding with such interest and delight as to declare that in the perusal 
 of it he enjoyed a far higher pleasure " than the most greedy miser finds when 
 gathering up handfuls of silver and gold from some newly-discovered treasure." 
 That such a youth should acquit himself most honorably in his college course was 
 to be expected, not in his studies only, but in his whole deportment and bearing. 
 During his last year in college, very deep religious impressions took possession 
 of his whole being. His own account of the event is in the following language, 
 expressive of 
 
 HIS RELIGIOUS FEELINGS. 
 
 Not long after I first began to experience new apprehensions 
 and ideas of Christ, and the work of redemption, and the glorious 
 way of salvation by him, I gave an account to my father of some 
 things that had passed in my mind. I was pretty much affected 
 by the discourse which we had together ; and, when the discourse 
 was ended, I walked abroad alone in a solitary place in my father's 
 
 3 25 
 
20 
 
 JONATHAN EDWARDS. 
 
 pasture, for contemplation. And as I was walking there, and 
 looking upon the sky and clouds, there came into my mind so 
 sweet a sense of the glorious maj esty and grace of God, as I knew 
 not how to express. I seemed to see them both in a sweet con- 
 junction; majesty and meekness joined together. It was a sweet, 
 and gentle, and holy majesty; and also a majestic meekness; an 
 awful sweetness ; a high, and great, and holy gentleness. 
 
 After this, my sense of divine things gradually increased, and 
 became more and more lively, and had more of that inward sweet- 
 ness. The appearance of every thing was altered. There seemed 
 to be, as it were, a calm, sweet cast, or appearance of divine glory 
 in almost every thing. God's excellency, his wisdom, his purity 
 and love, seemed to appear in every thing ; in the sun, moon, and 
 stars ; in the clouds and sky ; in the grass, flowers, and trees ; in 
 the water and all nature ; which used greatly to fix my mind. I 
 often used to sit and view the moon for a long time ; and, in the 
 clay, spent much time in viewing the clouds and sky, to behold the 
 sweet glory of God in these things ; in the mean time, singing 
 forth, with a low voice, my contemplations of the Creator and 
 Redeemer. And scarce any thing, among all the works of nature, 
 was so sweet to me as thunder and lightning ; although formerly 
 nothing had been so terrible to me. Before, I used to be uncom- 
 monly terrified with thunder, and to be struck with terror when I 
 saw a thunder-storm rising; but now, on the contrary, it rejoiced 
 me. I felt God, if I may so speak, at the first appearance of a 
 thunder-storm, and used to take the opportunity, at such times, to 
 fix myself in order to view the clouds, and see the lightnings play, 
 and hear the majestic and awful voice of God's thunder, which 
 oftentimes was exceedingly entertaining, leading me to sweet con- 
 templations of my great and glorious God. 
 
 Such were the decisive religious views and elevated affections with which he was 
 blessed before he was seventeen years of age ; and before he was nineteen he was 
 licensed to preach the gospel, and was invited to supply, for a short time, the 
 pulpit of a small Congregational church in New York. In the spring of 1723, he 
 returned to East Windsor. Before this time he had formed for the government 
 of his own heart and life his celebrated " Resolutions," seventy in number, which 
 evince a firmness of religious principle, a depth of piety, a decision of character, 
 an acquaintance with the human heart, and a comprehensiveness of views in 
 regard to Christian duty, rare even in the most mature minds. The following are 
 a few of these : — 
 
 HIS RESOLUTIONS. 
 
 1. Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to 
 the glory of God and my own good, profit, and pleasure, in the 
 whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, 
 whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. 
 
JONATHAN EDWARDS. 
 
 27 
 
 2. Resolved, To do whatever I think to be my duty, and most 
 for the good of mankind in general. 
 
 3. Resolved, Never to lose one moment of time, but to improve 
 it in the most profitable way I possibly can. 
 
 4. Resolved, To live with all my might while I do live. 
 
 5. Resolved, Never to do any thing which I should be afraid 
 to do if it were the last hour of my life. 
 
 6. Resolved, To be endeavoring to find out fit objects of 
 charity and liberality. 
 
 7. Resolved, Never to do any thing out of revenge. 
 
 8. Resolved, Never to suffer the least motions of anger towards 
 irrational beings. 
 
 9. Resolved, Never to speak evil of any one so that it shall 
 tend to his dishonor, more or less, upon no account, except for 
 some real good. 
 
 10. Resolved, That I will live so as I shall wish I had done 
 when I come to die. 
 
 11. Resolved, To live so at all times as I think it best, in my 
 most devout frames, and when I have the clearest notion of the 
 things of the gospel and another world. 
 
 12. Resolved, To maintain the strictest temperance in eating 
 and drinking. 
 
 13. Resolved, Never to do any thing which, if I should see in 
 another, I should account a just occasion to despise him for, or to 
 think any way the more meanly of him. 
 
 14. Resolved, To study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly, 
 and frequently, as that I may find and plainly perceive myself to 
 grow in the knowledge of the same. 
 
 15. Resolved, Never to count that a prayer, nor to let that 
 pass as a prayer, nor that as a petition of a prayer, which is so 
 made that I cannot hope that God will answer it ; nor that as a 
 confession, which I cannot hope God will accept. 
 
 16. Resolved, Never to say any thing at all against anybody, 
 but when it is perfectly agreeable to the highest degree of Chris- 
 tian honor, and of love to mankind; agreeable to the lowest 
 humility and sense of my own faults and failings ; and agreeable 
 to the Golden Kule ; often when I have said any thing against any 
 one, to bring it to, and try it strictly by, the test of this resolution. 
 
 17. Resolved, In narrations, never to speak any thing but the 
 pure and simple verity. 
 
 18. Resolved, Never to speak evil of any, except I have some 
 particular good call to it. 
 
 19. Resolved, To inquire every night, as I am going to bed, 
 wherein I have been negligent ; what sin I have committed ; and 
 wherein I have denied myself. Also at the end of every week, 
 month, and year. 
 
28 
 
 JONATHAN EDWARDS. 
 
 20. Resolved, Never to do any thing of which I so much 
 question the lawfulness, as that I intend at the same time to con- 
 sider and examine afterwards whether it be lawful or not, unless I 
 as much question the lawfulness of the omission. 
 
 21. Resolved, To inquire every night, before I go to bed, whe- 
 ther I have acted in the best way I possibly could with respect to 
 eating and drinking;. 
 
 22. Resolved, Never to allow the least measure of fretting or 
 uneasiness at my father or mother. Resolved, to suffer no effects 
 of it, so much as in the least alteration of speech, or motion of my 
 eye ; and to be especially careful of it with respect to any of our 
 family. 
 
 23. On the supposition that there never was to be but one 
 individual in the world at any one time who was properly a com- 
 plete Christian, in all respects of a right stamp, having Chris- 
 tianity always shining in its true lustre, and appearing excellent 
 and lovely, from whatever part, and under whatever character 
 viewed; — Resolved, to act just as I would do if I strove with all 
 my might to be that one, who should live in my time. 
 
 In June, 1724, Mr. Edwards was elected tutor in Yale College, in which office 
 he continued two years. He then accepted a call to settle in Northampton as a 
 colleague to his grandfather, Rev. Solomon Stoddard. It is said that, when in 
 ordinary health, he would spend thirteen hours every day in his study. This 
 was too much for his constitution, which was naturally delicate, and doubtless 
 shortened his life many years. In 1727 he was married to Miss Sarah Pierrepont, 
 daughter of Rev. James Pierrepont, pastor of a church in New Haven. The 
 union proved a most happy one in every respect. By her wisdom, energy, and 
 economy she relieved her husband from the interruptions of domestic care, and 
 thus he was left at liberty to pursue his studies without remission. 
 
 Soon after his ordination, Mr. Edwards was permitted to witness some gratify- 
 ing fruit of his labors in the conversion of a number of his people. In 1729, the 
 vsnerable Mr. Stoddard dying, the whole care of the congregation devolved on 
 the youthful pastor; and so faithful and laborious were his ministrations that, in 
 1734 and 1735, the town was favored with a "revival so extensive and powerful 
 as to constitute a memorable era in the history of that church." In the year 1739 
 he commenced a series of discourses in his own pulpit, which afterwards formed 
 the basis of his celebrated work, The Jlistonj of the Work of fiedemjrtion, which 
 was not, however, published till after his decease. In the spring of 1740 a second 
 extensive and powerful revival of religion commenced in Northampton, which 
 was aided by the labors of the celebrated Rev. George Whitefield, and an account 
 of which Mr. Edwards published in 1742, under the title of Thoughts concerning 
 the Present Revival in New England. It was immediately republished in Scotland, 
 and brought the author into correspondence with some of the most distinguished 
 divines of that country. 
 
 In 1743 Mr. Edwards finished a series of sermons upon the distinguishing 
 marks and evidences of true religion, which were published in 174C, under the 
 
JONATHAN EDWARDS. 
 
 20 
 
 title of A Treatise concerning Religions Affections, and which called forth the 
 warmest praises and thanks from the friends of true piety on both sides of the 
 Atlantic. In the latter part of the year 1747, David Brainerd, the celebrated mis- 
 sionary, who had been laboring for many years among the Indians in different 
 settlements in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, amidst many dis- 
 couragements and with enfeebled health, with a zeal, diligence, self-denial, and 
 perseverance which have seldom had any parallel in the history of missions, 
 came, on invitation, to Mr. Edwards's honse, and, gradually sinking under the 
 power of a consumptive disease, closed his life in the bosom of his friend's family 
 on the 9th of October of that year. In 174.9 Mi". Edwards prepared and published 
 a memoir of this remai'kable man, entitled An Account of the Life of the late Jiev. 
 David Brainerd, Missionary to the Indians, and Pastor of a Church of Christian 
 Indians in New Jersey. 
 
 Thus far, the life of this eminently great and pious man had not been attended 
 by any marked or painful trials. But his path, henceforth, was to be any thing 
 but a smooth one. He was to experience the fickleness of popular applause, and, 
 what was still more trying, persecutions from his own Christian brethren. It 
 having been credibly reported that a number of the younger members of his 
 church had in their possession immoral and licentious books, he preached upon 
 the subject; whereupon the church resolved unanimously that a committee should 
 be appointed to investigate the matter. But they had not proceeded far in their 
 duty before it was ascertained that nearly every leading family in town had some 
 member implicated in the guilt. This disclosure produced an immediate reaction, 
 and a majority of the church determined not to proceed in the incpiiiry ; so true is 
 it, as his learned biographer remarks, that " nothing is more apt to revolt and 
 alienate, and even to produce intense hostility in the minds of parents, than any 
 thing Avhich threatens the character or the comfort of their children." The result 
 was that great disaffection ensued, the discipline of the church was openly set at 
 defiance, and great declension in zeal and morals naturally followed. 
 
 But there was a cause of still deeper disaffection. Mr. Stoddard, the prede- 
 cessor of Edwards, had been accustomed to receive into the church such as applied 
 for admission, whether they gave any evidence of a change of heart or not; and 
 Mr. Edwards continued the same practice after his ordination. At length doubts 
 as to its rightfulness began to arise in his mind, and continued to increase with 
 such strength that, in 1749, he disclosed to his church his change of opinion, and 
 publicly vindicated it by his Humble Inquiry -into the Rules of the Word of God 
 concerning the Qualif cations Requisite to a Comjjlcte Standing and Full Communion 
 in the Visible Christian Church, which was published in August of that year. This 
 treatise at once produced great excitement in the congregation, and he became the 
 object of bitter opposition, which continued so long that he concluded to accept a 
 call from the church at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, whither he removed in the 
 spring of 1751. Here he enjoyed great quiet and happiness, and was enabled to 
 complete what for many years he had been engaged in, his immortal treatise, — 
 that on which bis fame chiefly rests, — The Freedom of the Will and Moral Agency, 
 which was published in the spring of 1754. 
 
 The fundamental doctrines which Edwards undertakes to establish in the Free- 
 dom of the Will are, that the only rational idea of human freedom is, the power 
 of doing what we please ; and that the acts of the will are rendered certain by 
 
30 
 
 JONATHAN EDWARDS. 
 
 some other cause than the mere power of willing ; or, in other words, that they 
 are the result of the strongest motive presented, and not brought about by the 
 mere "self-determining power of tbe will;" and he has sustained his position with 
 a degree of novelty, acuteness, depth, precision, and force of reasoning which no 
 one ever before had reached. 
 
 In 1755 he wrote two other treatises : one A Dissertation on God's Last End in 
 the Creation of the World; and the other A Dissertation on the Nature and End of 
 Virtue. But these, together with his treatise on Original Sin, were not published 
 till after his death. 
 
 On the death of the Rev. Aaron Burr, President of Princeton College, the trus- 
 tees invited Mr. Edwards to succeed to that most responsible post, — the presidency 
 of the college, — and he removed thither fh the month of January, 1758. All the 
 friends of the college, as well as the students, were highly elated at the thought 
 of having such a man at its head, and the manner in which he entered upon his 
 duties more than answered their highest expectations. But, alas, how vain arc 
 all human calculations ! In five weeks after his introduction into office, he was cut 
 off by the smallpox, ou the 22d of March, 1758, in the fifty-fifth year of his age. 
 
 Language can hardly express the sense of loss which all good men felt that 
 religion and learning had sustained in the death of this great man, in whose praise 
 the most distinguished scholars on both sides of the Atlantic have been emulous 
 to speak and write. "On the arena of metaphysics," writes Dr. Chalmers, "he 
 stood the highest of all his contemporaries, and we know not what most to admire 
 in him, whether the deep philosophy that issued from his pen, or the humble and 
 childlike piety that issued from his pulpit." The veuerable and learned Dr. 
 Erskine, of Scotland, thus wrote a friend : — " The loss sustained by his death, not 
 only by the College of New Jersey, but by the church in general, is irreparable. 
 I do not think our age has produced a divine of equal genius or judgment." Sir 
 James Mackintosh, in his Progress of Ethical Philosophy, says of him, "In 
 the power of subtle argument he was, perhaps, unmatched, certainly unsurpassed, 
 among men." Dugald Stewart — and no one can speak on such a subject with 
 more authority than he — remarks, "America may boast of one metaphysician, 
 who, in logical acuteness and subtlety, doos not yield to any disputant bred in the 
 universities of Europe. I need not say that I allude to Jonathan Edwards." And 
 Hazlitt, in his Principles of Human Actions, thus writes: — "Having produced 
 him, the Americans need not despair of their metaphysicians. We do not scruple 
 to say that he is one of the acutest, most powerful, and of all reasoners the most 
 conscientious and sincere. His closeness and his candor are alike admirable." 
 
 In summing up his general character, his biographer, Dr. Miller, says, " Other 
 men, no doubt, have excelled him in particular qualities or accomplishments. 
 There have been far more learned men : far more eloquent men ; far more active 
 and enterprising men in the out-door work of the sacred office. But in the assem- 
 blage and happy union of those high qualities, intellectual and moral, which con- 
 stitute finished excellence, — as a Man, a Christian, a Divine, and a Philosopher, — 
 he was, undoubtedly, one of the greatest and best men that have adorned this or 
 any other country since the apostolic age." 1 
 
 1 Read Biography by Rev. Samuel Miller, D.D., in the 8th volume of Sparks'a 
 American Biography. 
 
JONATHAN EDWARDS. 
 
 31 
 
 THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 
 
 If the Will, which we find governs the members of the body, 
 and determines their motions, does not govern itself, and determine 
 its own actions, it doubtless determines them the same way, even 
 by antecedent volitions. The Will determines which way the 
 hands and feet shall move, by an act of choice : and there is no 
 other way of the Will's determining, directing or commanding 
 any thing at all. Whatsoever the Will commands, it commands by 
 an act of the Will. And if it has itself under its command, and 
 determines itself in its own actions, it doubtless does it in the same 
 way that it determines other things which are under its command. 
 80 that if the freedom of the Will consists in this, that it has 
 itself and its own actions under its command and direction, and its 
 own volitions are determined by itself, it will follow, that every 
 free volition arises from another antecedent volition, directing and 
 commanding that : and if that directing volition be also free, in 
 that also the Will is determined : that is to say, that directing voli- 
 tion is determined by another going before that; and so on, till we 
 come to the first volition in the whole series ; and if that first voli- 
 tion be free, and the Will self-determined in it, then that is deter- 
 mined by another volition preceding that. Which is a contradic- 
 tion ; because by the supposition it can have none before it, to 
 direct or determine it, being the first in the train. But if that 
 first volition is not determined by any preceding act of the Will, 
 then that act is not determined by the Will, and so is not free in 
 the Arminian notion of freedom, which consists in the Will's self- 
 determination. And if that first act of the Will which determines 
 and fixes the subsequent acts be not free, none of the following 
 acts, which are determined by it, can be free. If we suppose there 
 are five acts in the train, the fifth and last determined by the 
 fourth, and the fourth by the third, the third by the second, and 
 the second by the first ; if the first is not determined by the Will, 
 and so not free, then none of them are truly determined by the 
 Will : that is, that each of them are as they are, and not other- 
 wise, is not first owing to the Will, but to the determination of the 
 first in the series, which is not dependent on the Will, and is that 
 which the Will has no hand in determining. And this being that 
 which decides what the rest shall be, and determines their exist- 
 ence; therefore the first determination of their existence is not 
 from the Will. The case is just the same if, instead of a chain 
 of five acts of the Will, we should suppose a succession of ten, or 
 an hundred, or ten thousand. If the first act be not free, being 
 determined by something out of the Will, and this determines the 
 next to be agreeable to itself, and that the next, and so on • none 
 of them are free, but all originally depend on, and are determined 
 
32 
 
 JONATHAN EDWARDS. 
 
 by, some cause out of the Will : and so all freedom in the ease is 
 excluded, and no act of the Will can be free, according to this 
 notion of freedom. Thus, this Arminian notion of Liberty of the 
 Will, consisting in the Will's Self-determination, is repugnant to 
 itself, and shuts itself wholly out of the world. 
 
 THE PERMISSION NOT THE PRODUCTION OF EVIL. 
 
 There is a great difference between God being concerned thus, 
 by his permission, in an event and act which, in the inherent sub- 
 ject and agent of it, is sin, (though the event will certainly follow 
 on his permission,) and his being concerned in it by producing it 
 and exerting the act of sin j or between his being the orderer of 
 its certain existence by not hindering it, under certain circum- 
 stances, and his being the proper actor or author of it, by a positive 
 agency or efficiency. As there is a vast difference between the sun 
 being the cause of the lightsomeness and warmth of the atmo- 
 sphere, and the brightness of gold and diamonds, by its presence 
 and positive influence ; and its being the occasion of darkness and 
 frost, in the night, by its motion whereby it descends below the 
 horizon. The motion of the sun is the occasion of the latter kind 
 of events ; but it is not the proper cause efficient or producer of 
 them; though they are necessarily consequent on that motion, 
 under such circumstances : no more is any action of the Divine 
 Being the cause of the evil of men's wills. If the sun were the 
 proper cause of cold and darkness, it would be the fountain of 
 these things, as it is the fountain of light and heat : and then 
 something might be argued from the nature of cold and darkness, 
 to a likeness of nature in the sun ; and it might be justly inferred 
 that the sun itself is dark and cold, and that his beams are black 
 and frosty. But from its being the cause no otherwise than by its 
 departure, no such thing can be inferred, but the contrary ; it may 
 justly be argued that the sun is a bright and hot body, if cold and 
 darkness are found to be the consequence of its withdrawment ; 
 and the more constantly and necessarily these effects are connected 
 with, and confined to, its absence, the more strongly does it argue 
 the sun to be the fountain of light and heat. So, inasmuch as sin 
 is not the fruit of any positive agency or influence of the Most 
 High, but, on the contrary, arises from the withholding of his 
 action and energy, and, under certain circumstances, necessarily 
 follows on the want of his influence ; this is no argument that he 
 is sinful, or his operation evil, or has any thing of the nature of 
 evil ; but, on the contrary, that he and his agency are altogether 
 good and holy, and that he is the fountain of all holiness. It 
 would be strange arguing, indeed, because men never commit sin, 
 but only when God leaves them to themselves, and necessarily sin 
 
 t 
 
If milKTIKaiEMo 
 
 iT.Olt THE ORIGINAL PICTURE BY DUT1ESSIS. 
 IN THE POSSESSION OF MS? HARNETT OE PAEIS. 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 33 
 
 when lie does so, and therefore their sin is not from themselves, 
 but from Grod ; and so, that Grod must be a sinful being : as strange 
 as it would be to argue, because it is always dark when the sun is 
 gone, and never dark when the sun is present, that therefore all 
 darkness is from the sun, and that his disk and beams must needs 
 be black. 
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, 1706— 179C. 
 
 "^lis mind a maxim, plain, yet keenly shrewd, 
 A heart with large benevolence endued ; 
 Now scanning cause with philosophic aim, 
 And now arresting the ethereal flame ; 
 Great as a statesman, as a patriot true, 
 Courteous in manners, yet exalted too ; 
 A stern republican, — by kings caress'd, 
 
 Modest,— by nations is his memory bless'd." — William B. Tappan. 
 
 This distinguished philosopher and statesman was born in Boston, on the 17th 
 of January, 1706. His father, who was a tallow-chandler, was too poor to give 
 him the advantages of a collegiate education, and at ten years of age he was 
 taken from the grammar school to aid in cutting wicks for the candles, filling the 
 moulds, and attending the shop. When he was twelve, having a strong passion 
 for reading, and thinking that a printer's business would give him the best oppor- 
 tunity to indulge it, he was bound to his brother, who had recently returned from 
 England with a press and type. He soon made himself master of the business, 
 while he employed all his leisure time and his evenings to the improvement of his 
 English style, by reading the best books he could find, among which, happily, was 
 Addison's Spectator, to which he labored to make his own style conform. In 
 1721 his brother started a weekly newspaper, called The Neio England Courant, 
 for which Benjamin, though so young, wrote with great acceptance. Soon, how- 
 ever, from jealousy or other cause, the elder brother quarrelled with the younger, 
 who thereupon, at the age of seventeen, started alone for Philadelphia. The fol- 
 lowing is his own account of his 
 
 FIRST ENTRANCE INTO PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 I have entered into the particulars of my voyage, and shall, in 
 like manner, describe my first entrance into this city, that you 
 may be able to compare beginnings so little auspicious with the 
 figure I have since made. 
 
 On my arrival at Philadelphia, I was in my working dress, my 
 best clothes being to come by sea. I was covered with dirt ; my 
 pockets were filled with shirts and stockings ; I was unacquainted 
 with a single soul in the place, and knew not where to seek a 
 lodging. Fatigued with walking, rowing, and having passed the 
 night without sleep, I was extremely hungry, and all my money 
 consisted of a Dutch dollar, and about a shilling's worth of cop- 
 
34 
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 pers, which I gave to the boatmen for my passage. As I had 
 assisted them in rowing, they refused it at first j but I insisted on 
 their taking it. A man is sometimes more generous when he has 
 little than when he has much money; probably because, in the 
 first case, he is desirous of concealing his poverty. 
 
 I walked towards the top of the street, looking eagerly on both 
 sides, till I came to Market Street, where I met with a child with 
 a loaf of bread. Often had I made my dinner on dry bread. I 
 inquired where he had bought it, and went straight to the baker's 
 shop which he pointed out to me. I asked for some biscuits, 
 expecting to find such as we had at Boston j but they made, it 
 seems, none of that sort at Philadelphia. I then asked for a three- 
 penny loaf. They made no loaves of that price. Finding myself 
 ignorant of the prices, as well as of the different kinds of bread, 
 I desired him to let me have threepenny- worth of bread of some 
 kind or other. He gave me three large rolls. I was surprised at 
 receiving so much : I took them, however, and, having no room 
 in my pockets, I walked on with a roll under each arm, eating a 
 third. In this manner I went through Market Street to Fourth 
 Street, and passed the house of Mr. Read, the father of my future 
 wife. She was standing at the door, observed me, and thought, 
 with reason, that I made a very singular and grotesque appear- 
 ance. 
 
 I then turned the corner, and went through Chestnut Street, 
 eating my roll all the way ) and, having made this round, I found 
 myself again on Market Street wharf, near the boat in which I 
 arrived. I stepped into it to take a draught of the river water ; 
 and, finding myself satisfied with my first roll, I gave the other two 
 to a woman and her child, who had come down with us in the boat, 
 and was waiting to continue her journey. Thus refreshed, I re- 
 gained the street, which was now full of well-dressed people, all 
 going the same way. I joined them, and was thus led to a large 
 Quakers' meeting-house near the market-place. I sat down with 
 the rest, and, after looking round me for some time, hearing 
 nothing said, and being drowsy from my last night's labor and 
 want of rest, I fell into a sound sleep. In this state I continued 
 till the assembly dispersed, when one of the congregation had the 
 goodness to wake me. This was consequently the first house I 
 entered, or in which I slept, at Philadelphia. 1 
 
 1 " It is Franklin's history as a boy of the middle class, successfully but labo- 
 riously working his way upward, that has made it at once the most attractive and 
 most useful biography of modern times. All over Christendom it has met with 
 the sympathy of the working classes, and it has done more than any volume 
 within my knowledge to give courage and heart to the sons of labor, as it has 
 shown that the paths of ambition are open to them as to others, provided they be 
 followed with Franklin's virtues, — honesty, frugality, perseverance, and patriot- 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 85 
 
 In a day or two he engaged to work with a printer by the name of Keiiner, and 
 soon by his industry and frugality accumulated a little money. A letter which 
 Franklin had written to a friend having fallen under the notice of Sir William 
 Keith, the Governor of the Province, he invited the young printer to his house, 
 and finally persuaded him to go to London to better his fortunes, promising to 
 give him letters of recommendation. Franklin set sail from Philadelphia, the 
 governor promising to send the letters to him when the ship should reach New- 
 castle ; but he was faithless to his promise, and Franklin landed in London a per- 
 fect stranger. But a gentleman, a fellow-passenger by the name of Denham, was 
 interested in him, and very soon he obtained a situation in a printing-house in 
 Bartholomew Close, where he worked a year. He soon gained a high character 
 for temperance and industry among his fellow-workmen, and began to be favor- 
 ably noticed, when he was persuaded by his friend Denham, who was about to 
 return home with a large quantity of goods which he had purchased, to accompany 
 him and aid him in their sale. He landed at Philadelphia on the 11th of October; 
 but soon after the shop had been opened, with every prospect of success, Denham 
 died, and Franklin was left once more to the wide world. He therefore returned 
 to his old business, and was soon so successful in it that, in conjunction with a 
 Mr. Hugh Meredith, he bought out the Pennsylvania Gazette, which had but 
 recently been established, 1 and which in a few years proved vei*y profitable to 
 him. In connection with the paper, he soon opened a stationer's shop, and so 
 prospered that, in September, 1730, he married Miss Bead, with whom he had 
 become acquainted before he went to London. 
 
 Feeling the want of good books, he started the plan of a subscription library, — 
 obtained fifty subscribers, "mostly young tradesmen," who paid forty shillings 
 each, — imported the books, and thus laid the foundation of the present " Library 
 Company of Philadelphia," now one of the largest in the United States. 
 
 At this time, when about twenty-six years of age, he drew up a series of reso- 
 lutions by which he might regulate his conduct, govern his temper, and improve 
 his whole moral man ; and it is but justice to say that in the main he conformed 
 to them ; that the result was a character which, for evenness of temper, solidity of 
 judgment, honesty of purpose, and prudence in the regulation of all temporal 
 affairs, has rarely been equalled. In 1732 he first published his celebrated 
 Almanac, (commonly known as Poor Richard's Almanac,) under the assumed 
 name of "Richard Saunders." Besides the usual tables and calendar, it contained 
 a fund of useful information, and "proverbial sentences, chiefly such as inculcated 
 industry and frugality." It had great success, and was continued for about 
 twenty-five years. In 1736 he was chosen clerk of the General Assembly, and the 
 next year post-master at Philadelphia. He now interested himself in all public 
 matters, founded the American Philosophical Society and the University of Penn- 
 
 ism. What a contrast between the influence of such a biography as this, and that 
 of a man whose life is only remarkable for success in bloodshed, or even in the 
 more vulgar paths of vice, knavery, or crime ! What a debt of gratitude does the 
 world owe to Franklin !" — Goodrich's Recollections. 
 
 1 Franklin and Meredith began the paper with No. 40, September 25, 1729; but 
 in a year the partnership was dissolved, and Franklin had the sole management 
 of it. 
 
36 
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 sylvania, and was foremost in all enterprises calculated to promote good morals, 
 sound learning, and the public weal. 
 
 At the age of forty-three he was elected a member of the Assembly, and the 
 next year was appointed a commissioner for making a treaty with the Indians. 
 About this time he began to be interested in those philosophical experiments 
 which have made his name so celebrated throughout the scientific world. But he 
 was soon diverted from them by the demands made upon his time by the public, 
 who seemed to think that no project for the public good deserved to be supported 
 unless Franklin was interested in it. Accordingly, he felt it his duty to aid, by 
 his influence, the plan of founding an hospital, which had been started by his 
 friend Dr. Thomas Bond, and he soon had the satisfaction of seeing the subscrip- 
 tions completed, and a grant of £2000 made by the Assembly for the establish- 
 ment of the same. 
 
 In 1757 he was appointed postmaster-general for America, and the same year 
 received from Harvard and Yale Colleges the honorary degree of Master of Arts. 
 Previous to this, in 1755, at the breaking out of the French War, he had been of 
 great service in procuring supplies for Braddock's army, and had warned him 
 against the enemy he had to contend with; and, after his disastrous defeat, he 
 had labored successfully in putting Pennsylvania in a good state of defence. 
 About this time he published his letters on electricity, of which, says Priestley, 
 "nothing was ever written on the subject more justly applauded : all the world was 
 full of admiration." The Royal Society of London elected him a " Fellow," and 
 when he was in that city the most distinguished men in the metropolis, and from 
 the continent, hastened to pay their respects to him. 
 
 After his return from England, he travelled, in 1763, throughout the northern 
 colonies, to inspect and regulate the post-offices, performing a tour of about sixteen 
 hundred miles. But the controversy between the " Proprietors" and the people 
 of Pennsylvania was not yet ended, and, it being deemed necessary to take at 
 once from the foreign landholders the chief appointing power, Franklin, in 1764, 
 was sent a second time to England, with a petition for a change in the charter. 
 But now all local differences were to be forgotten in the general contest that was 
 approaching. The famous " Stamp Act" had been passed by the British ministry, 
 and loud remonstrances from the colonies were at once echoed back to the father- 
 land. In order to obtain fuller and more accurate information respecting America, 
 the party in opposition to the ministry proposed that Franklin should be interro- 
 gated publicly before the House of Commons. Accordingly, on the 3d of February, 
 1766, he was summoned to the bar of the House for that purpose, and he cheerfully 
 obeyed the call. Independent of the weight of his pre-established reputation, he 
 possessed, in a very eminent degree, all those natural endowments and attainments 
 which would make his examination most honorable to himself and serviceable to 
 his country. The dignity of his personal appearance, and the calmness of his 
 demeanor, equally unmoved by the illusions, and undismayed by the insolence of 
 power, added not a little to make the whole scene highly imposing, and indeed 
 morally sublime ; — to see a solitary representative from the then infant colonies, 
 standing alone amid the concentred pomp and pageantry, the nobility and the 
 learning, of the mightiest kingdom of the earth, with the eyes of all gazing upon 
 nim, and acquitting himself so nobly as to call down the plaudits even of his 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 37 
 
 enemies. The result might have been anticipated ; for such was the impression 
 he made upon Parliament, that the Stamp Act was repealed. 
 
 Immediately after his return, he was elected a member of Congress, then sitting 
 in Philadelphia, and was one of its most efficient members. After signing the 
 Declaration of Independence, he was appointed minister plenipotentiary to France, 
 and he sailed for Paris near the close of the year 1776, where he was received most 
 cordially by all classes. As we had not been successful in the campaign of 
 1776-77, the French were loath to enter into an alliance with us; but when they 
 heard of the surrender of Burgoyne's army in October, 1777, and other successes 
 on our part, seeing that we could "help ourselves," they concluded to help us, 
 and entered into an alliance, offensive and defensive, with us. They rendered 
 us some assistance ; but, happily, the great work of independence was mainly 
 our own. 
 
 In 17S5 Franklin returned to Philadelphia, and his arrival was signalized by 
 every demonstration of public joy. He was soon made Governor of Pennsylvania, 
 and then elected delegate to the Federal Convention of 1787, for framing the Con- 
 stitution of the United States ; and in the discussions upon it he bore a distin- 
 guished part. After the dissolution of the convention, he did but little, as the in- 
 firmities incident to his age, and the disorder with which he had long been 
 afflicted, seldom allowed him freedom from acute bodily pain. He drew up, however, 
 and published, A Plan for Improving the Condition of the Free Blacks ; and his last, 
 public act was to sign, as President of the society, a "Memorial from the Abolition 
 Society of Pennsylvania to Congress ;" while the last paper that he wrote was on 
 the same subject, — thus beautifully closing a long life of distinguished usefulness, 
 as a citizen, a philosopher, and a statesman, in the cause of philanthropy. 
 Although his malady and his sufferings continued, yet no material change in his 
 health was observed till the first part of April, 1790, when he was attacked with a 
 fever and a pain in the breast. The organs of respiration became gradually 
 oppressed; a calm lethargic state succeeded; and on the 17th, (April, 1790,) at 
 eleven at night, he quietly expired. 
 
 The strong and distinguishing features of Dr. Franklin's mind were, sagacity, 
 quickness of perception, and soundness of judgment. His imagination was lively, 
 without being extravagant. He possessed a perfect mastery over the faculties of 
 his understanding and over his passions. Having this power always at command, 
 and never being turned aside either by vanity or selfishness, he was enabled to 
 pursue his objects with a directness and constancy that rarely failed to insure suc- 
 cess. It seemed to be his single aim to promote the happiness of his fellow-men, 
 by enlarging their knowledge, improving their condition, teaching them practical 
 lessons of wisdom and prudence, and inculcating the principles of rectitude and 
 the habits of a virtuous life. 1 
 
 l " Franklin was the greatest diplomatist of the eighteenth century. He never 
 spoke a word too soon ; he never spoke a word too late ; he never spoke a word 
 too much ; he never failed to speak the right word in the right place." — Ban- 
 croft. 
 
 Bead Life and "Works, by Sparks, 10 vols.; Life in Biography of the Signers 
 of the Declaration of Independence ; North Am. Rev., vii. 289; xvi. 346; xxxvii. 
 249; lix. 446; and lxxxiii. 402; Edinburgh Review, viii. 327; and xxviii. 275. 
 
 4 
 
38 
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 The following is Dr. Franklin's admirable letter to Sir Joseph Banks, dated 
 July, 1783 :— 
 
 ON THE RETURN OF PEACE. 
 
 Dear Sir : — I join with you most cordially in rejoicing at the 
 return of Peace. I hope it will be lasting, and that mankind will 
 at length, as they call themselves reasonable creatures / have reason 
 and sense enough to settle their differences without cutting 
 throats; for, in my opinion, there never was a good war, or a bad 
 peace. What vast additions to the conveniences and comforts of 
 living might mankind have acquired, if the money spent in wars 
 had been employed in works of public utility ! What an exten- 
 sion of agriculture, even to the tops of our mountains; what 
 rivers rendered navigable, or joined by canals; what bridges, 
 aqueducts, new roads, and other public works, edifices, and im- 
 provements, rendering England a complete paradise, might have 
 been obtained by spending those millions in doing good, which in 
 the last war have been spent in doing mischief ; in bringing 
 misery into thousands of families, and destroying the lives of so 
 many thousands of working people, who might have performed 
 the useful labor ! 
 
 THE WAY TO WEALTH. 
 
 Courteous reader, I have heard that nothing gives an author so 
 great pleasure as to find his works respectfully quoted by others. 
 Judge, then, how much I must have been gratified by an incident 
 I am going to relate to you. I stopped my horse lately, where a 
 great number of people were collected at an auction of merchants' 
 goods. The hour of the sale not being come, they were conversing 
 on the badness of the times ; and one of the company called to a 
 plain, clean old man, with white locks ; — " Pray, Father Abraham, 
 what think you of the times ? Will not these heavy taxes quite 
 ruin the country ? How shall we ever be able to pay them ? What 
 would you advise us to ?" Father Abraham stood up and replied, 
 " If you would have my advice, I will give it you in short ; for 
 A word to the wise is enough, as Poor Richard says." They 
 joined in desiring him to speak his mind, and, gathering round 
 him, he proceeded as follows : — 
 
 " Friends/' said he, " the taxes are indeed very heavy, and, if 
 those laid on by the government were the only ones we had to pay, 
 we might more easily discharge them ; but we have many others, 
 and much more grievous to some of us. We are taxed twice as 
 much by our idleness, three times as much by our pride, and four 
 times as much by our folly ; and from these taxes the commis- 
 sioners cannot ease or deliver us, by allowing an abatement. 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 39 
 
 However, let us hearken to good advice, and something may be 
 done for us ; God helps them that help themselves, as Poor Richard 
 says. 
 
 " It would be thought a hard government that should tax its 
 people one-tenth part of their time, to be employed in its service ; 
 but idleness taxes many of us much more j sloth, by bringing on 
 diseases, absolutely shortens life. Sloth, like rust, consumes faster 
 than labor wears; while the used hey is always bright, as Poor 
 Richard says. But dost thou love life, then do not squander time, 
 for that is the stuff life is made of as Poor Richard says. How 
 much more than is necessary do we spend in sleep, forgetting that 
 The sleeping fox catches no poultry, and that There will be sleep- 
 ing enough in the grave, as Poor Richard says. 
 
 "If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must 
 be, as Poor Richard says, the greatest prodigality ; since, as he 
 elsewhere tells us, Lost time is never found again ; and what we 
 call time enough, always proves little enough. Let us then up and 
 be doing, and doing to the purpose ; so by diligence shall we do 
 more with less perplexity. 
 
 " But with our industry we must likewise be steady, settled, and 
 careful, and oversee our own affairs, with our own eyes, and not 
 trust too much to others; for, Three removes areas bad as a fire; 
 and again, Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee ; and again, 
 If you would have your business done, go; if not, send. 
 
 " So much for industry, my friends, and attention to one's own 
 business ; but to these we must add frugality, if we would make 
 our industry more certainly successful. A man may, if he knows 
 not how to save as he gets, keep his nose all his life to the grind- 
 stone, and die not worth a groat at last. A fat kitchen makes a 
 lean will. 
 
 " Away, then, with your expensive follies, and you will not then 
 have so much cause to complain of hard times, heavy taxes, and 
 chargeable families. 
 
 "And further, What maintains one vice would bring up two 
 children. You may think, perhaps, that a little tea, or a little 
 punch now and then, diet a little more costly, clothes a little finer, 
 and a little entertainment now and then, can be no great matter ; 
 but remember, Many a little makes a mickle. Beware of little 
 expenses : A small leak will sink a great ship, as Poor Richard 
 says; and again, Who dainties love, shall beggars prove ; and 
 moreover, Fools make feasts, and ivise men eat them. 
 
 " Here you are all got together at this sale of fineries and knick- 
 knacks. You call them goods ; but, if you do not take care, they 
 will prove evils to some of you. You expect they will be sold 
 cheap, and perhaps they may for less than they cost ; but, if you 
 have no occasion for them, they must be dear to you. Remember 
 
40 
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 "what Poor Richard says : Buy what thou hast no need of, and ere 
 long thou shalt sell thy necessaries. And again, At a great penny - 
 worth pause awhile. He means, that perhaps the cheapness is 
 apparent only, and not real • or the bargain, by straitening thee in 
 thy business, may do thee more harm than good. For in another 
 place he says, Many have been ruined by buying good penny- 
 worths. Again, It is foolish to lay out money in a purchase of 
 repentance ; and yet this folly is practised every day at auctions, 
 for want of minding the Almanac. Many a one, for the sake of 
 finery on the back, have gone with a hungry belly and half-starved 
 their families. Silks and satins, scarlet and velvets, put out the 
 kitchen fire, as Poor Richard says. 
 
 " But what madness must it be to run in debt for these super- 
 fluities ! We are offered, by the terms of this sale, six months' 
 credit; and that, perhaps, has induced some of us to attend it, 
 because we cannot spare the ready money, and hope now to be fine 
 without it. But, ah ! think what you do when you run in debt ; 
 you give to another power over your liberty. If you cannot pay 
 at the time, you wili be ashamed to see your creditor ; you will be 
 in fear when you speak to him ; you will make poor, pitiful, sneak- 
 ing excuses ; and, by degrees, come to lose your veracity, and sink 
 into base, downright lying ; for The second vice is lying, the first 
 is running in debt, as Poor Richard says ; and again, to the same 
 purpose, Lying rides upon Debt's back ; whereas a free-born Eng- 
 lishman ought not to be ashamed nor afraid to see or speak to 
 any man living. But poverty often deprives a man of all spirit and 
 virtue. It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright. 
 
 " What would you think of that prince, or of that government, 
 who should issue an edict forbidding you to dress like a gentleman 
 or gentlewoman, on pain of imprisonment or servitude ? Would 
 you not say that you were free, have a right to dress as you please, 
 and that such an edict would be a breach of your privileges, and 
 such a government tyrannical ? And yet you are about to put 
 yourself under such tyranny, when you run in debt for such dress ! 
 Your creditor has authority, at his pleasure, to deprive you of your 
 liberty, by confining you in jail till you shall be able to pay him. 
 When you have got your bargain, you may, perhaps, think little 
 of payment; but, as Poor Richard says, Creditors have better 
 memories than debtors; creditors are a, superstitious sect, great 
 observers of set days and times. The day comes round before you 
 are aware, and the demand is made before you are prepared to 
 satisfy it ; or, if you bear your debt in mind, the term, which at 
 first seemed so long, will, as it lessens, appear extremely short. 
 Time will seem to have added wings to his heels as well as his 
 shoulders. Those have a short Lent, who owe money to be paid at 
 Easter. At present, perhaps, you may think yourselves in thrivi 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 41 
 
 circumstances, and that you can bear a little extravagance without 
 injury; but, 
 
 For age and want save while you may ; 
 No morning sun lasts a whole day. 
 
 Gain may be temporary and uncertain, but ever, while you live, 
 expense is constant and certain; and It is easier to build two 
 chimneys, than to keep one in fuel, as Poor Richard says; so, 
 Rather go to bed supperless, than rise in debt. 
 
 " This doctrine, my friends, is reason and wisdom ; but, after 
 all, do not depend too much upon your own industry, and fru- 
 gality, and prudence, though excellent things ; for they may all 
 be blasted, without the blessing of Heaven ; and, therefore, ask 
 that blessing humbly, and be not uncharitable to those that at pre- 
 sent seem to want it, but comfort and help them. Remember, Job 
 suffered, and was afterwards prosperous/' 
 
 Thus the old gentleman ended his harangue. I resolved to be 
 the better for it; and though I had at first determined to buy 
 stuff for a new coat, I went away resolved to wear my old one a 
 little longer. Reader, if thou wilt do the same, thy profit will be 
 as great as mine. I am, as ever, thine to. serve thee, 
 
 Richard Saunders. 
 
 the whistle. 
 
 When I was a child, at seven years old, my friends, on a holi- 
 day, filled my little pocket with coppers. I went directly to a 
 shop, where they sold toys for children ; and, being charmed with 
 the sound of a whistle, that I met by the way in the hands of 
 another boy, I voluntarily offered him all my money for one. I 
 then came home, and went whistling all over the house, much 
 pleased with my whistle, but disturbing all the family. My 
 brothers, and sisters, and cousins, understanding the bargain I had 
 made, told me I had given four times as much for it as it was 
 worth. This put me in mind what good things I might have 
 bought with the rest of my money ; and they laughed at me so 
 much for my folly, that I cried with vexation : and the reflection 
 gave me more chagrin than the ivhistle gave me pleasure. 
 
 This, however, was afterwards of use to me, the impression 
 continuing on my mind ; so that often, when I was tempted to buy 
 some unnecessary thing, I said to myself, don't give too much for 
 the whistle ; and so I saved my money. 
 
 As I grew up, came into the world, and observed the actions of 
 men, I thought I met with many, veiy many, who gave too much 
 for the whistle. 
 
 When T saw any one too ambitious of court favor, — sacrificing 
 his time in attendance at levees, his repose, his liberty, his virtue, 
 
 4* 
 
42 
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 and perhaps his friends, to attain it, — I have said to myself, this 
 man gives too much for his v)histle. 
 
 When I saw another fond of popularity, constantly employing 
 himself in political bustles, neglecting his own affairs, and ruin- 
 ing them by that neglect, he pays, indeed, says I, too much for his 
 whistle. 
 
 If I knew a miser who gave up every kind of comfortable 
 living, — all the pleasure of doing good to others, — all the esteem 
 of his fellow-citizens, — and the joys of benevolent friendship, for 
 the sake of accumulating wealth ; poor man, says I, you do, in- 
 deed, pay too much for your whistle. 
 
 When I meet a man of pleasure, sacrificing every laudable im- 
 provement of the mind or of his fortune to mere corporeal sensa- 
 tions, — Mistaken man, says I, you are providing pain for yourself 
 instead of pleasure, — you give too much for your whistle. 
 
 If I see one fond of fine clothes, fine furniture, fine equipages, 
 all above his fortune, for which he contracts debts, and ends his 
 career in prison, — Alas, says I, he has paid dear, very dear, for 
 his whistle. 
 
 When I see a beautiful, sweet-tempered girl, married to an ill- 
 natured brute of a husband, — What a pity it is, says I, that she 
 has pa id so much for. a whistle. 
 
 In short, I conceived that a great part of the miseries of man- 
 kind were brought upon them by the false estimates they had 
 made of the value of things, and by their giving too much for their 
 ichistles. 
 
 A PARABLE AGAINST PERSECUTION. 1 
 
 1. And it came to pass after these things, that Abraham sat in 
 the door of his tent about the going down of the sun. 
 
 2. And behold, a man, bowed with age, came from the way of 
 the wilderness, leaning on a staff. 
 
 3. And Abraham arose and met him, and said unto him, "Turn 
 in, I pray thee, and wash thy feet, and tarry all night, and thou 
 shalt arise early on the morrow, and go on thy way." 
 
 4. But the man said, " Nay, for I will abide under this tree." 
 
 5. And Abraham pressed him greatly ; so he turned, and they 
 went into the tent, and Abraham baked unleavened bread, and 
 they did eat. 
 
 1 The substance of this beautiful Parable was not original with Franklin, for 
 Jeremy Taylor gives it as taken from the "Jew's Book;" and it is traced back 
 centuries further. The true author is not known ; but it never attracted general 
 attention until in the hands of Franklin it assumed the scriptural style. Franklin 
 was in the habit of amusing himself by reading it to divines and others well versed 
 in the Scriptures, and obtaining their opinions upon it, which were sometimes very 
 diverting. 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 4:5 
 
 6. And when Abraham saw that the man blessed not God, he 
 said unto him, " Wherefore dost thou not worship the most high 
 God, Creator of heaven and earth ?" 
 
 7. And the man answered and said, " I do not worship the God 
 thou speakest of, neither do I call upon his name; for I have 
 made to myself a god, which abideth alway in mine house, and 
 provideth me with all things." 
 
 8. And Abraham's zeal was kindled against the man, and he 
 arose and fell upon him, and drove him forth with blows into the 
 wilderness. 
 
 9. And at midnight God called unto Abraham, saying, " Abra- 
 ham, where is the stranger ?" 
 
 10. And Abraham answered and said, "Lord, he would not 
 worship thee, neither would he call upon thy name; therefore 
 have I driven him out from before my face into the wilderness." 
 
 11. And God said, " Have I borne with him these hundred 
 ninety and eight years, and nourished him, and clothed him, not- 
 withstanding his rebellion against me ; and couldst not thou, that 
 art thyself a sinner, bear with him one night V 
 
 12. And Abraham said, " Let not the anger of the Lord wax 
 hot against his servant ; lo, I have sinned j lo, I have sinned ; for- 
 give me, I pray thee." 
 
 13. And Abraham arose, and went forth into the wilderness, 
 and sought diligently for the man, and found him, and returned 
 with him to the tent ; and when he had entreated him kindly, he 
 sent him away on the morrow with gifts. 
 
 14. And God spake again unto Abraham, saying, " For this thy 
 sin shall thy seed be afflicted four hundred years in a strange 
 land ; 
 
 15. " But for thy repentance will I deliver them ; and they 
 shall come forth with power, and with gladness of heart, and with 
 much substance." 
 
 TURNING THE GRINDSTONE. 
 
 When I was a little boy, I remember, one cold winter's morn- 
 ing, I was accosted by a smiling man with an axe on his shoulder. 
 " My pretty boy," said he, " has your father a grindstone ?" 
 " Yes, sir," said I. " You are a fine little fellow," said he j " will 
 you let me grind my axe on it V Pleased with the compliment 
 of " fine little fellow," " Oh yes, sir," I answered : " it is down in 
 the shop." " And will you, my man," said he, patting me on the 
 head, " get me a little hot water V How could I refuse ? I ran, 
 and soon brought a kettleful. " How old are you ? and what's 
 your name ?" continued he, without waiting for a reply : " I am 
 sure you are one of the finest lads that ever I have seen : will 
 you just turn a few minutes for me V 
 
44 
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 Tickled with the flattery, like a little fool, I went to work, and 
 bitterly did I rue the day. It was a new axe, and I toiled and 
 tugged till I was almost tired to death. The school-bell' rang, 
 and I could not get away • my hands were blistered, and the axe 
 was not half ground. At length, however, it was sharpened ; and 
 the man turned to me with, " Now, you little rascal, you've played 
 truant : scud to the school, or you'll buy it I" " Alas !" thought 
 I, " it is hard enough to turn a grindstone this cold day ; but now 
 to be called a little rascal is too much." 
 
 It sank deep in my mind ; and often have I thought of it 
 since. When I see a merchant over polite to his customers, — 
 begging them to take a little brandy, and throwing his goods on 
 the counter, — thinks I, That man has an axe to grind. When I 
 see a man flattering the people, making great professions of attach- 
 ment to liberty, who is in private life a tyrant, methinks, Look 
 out, good people ! that fellow would set you turning grindstones. 
 When I see a man hoisted into office by party spirit, without a 
 single qualification to render him either respectable or useful, — 
 alas ! methinks, deluded people, you are doomed for a season to 
 turn the grindstone for a booby. 
 
 MEMORIAL TO CONGRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: 
 
 From a persuasion that equal liberty was originally the portion 
 and is still the birthright of all men, and influenced by the strong 
 ties of humanity and the principles of their institution, your memo- 
 rialists conceive themselves bound to use all justifiable endeavors 
 to loosen the bands of slavery, and promote a general enjoyment 
 of the blessings of freedom. Under these impressions, they ear- 
 nestly entreat your serious attention to the subject of slavery; that 
 you will be pleased to countenance the restoration of liberty to 
 those unhappy men who alone in this land of freedom are degraded 
 into perpetual bondage, and who, amidst the general joy of sur- 
 rounding freemen, are groaning in servile subjection ; that you will 
 devise means for removing this inconsistency from the character 
 of the American people; that you will promote mercy and justice 
 toward this distressed race ; and that you will step to the very 
 verge of the power vested in you for discouraging every species 
 of traffic in the persons of our fellow-men. 1 
 
 1 This maybe found in the "Federal Gazette," February, 1790, only two months 
 before the death of the illustrious sage. 
 
JOHN WITHERSPOON. 
 
 45 
 
 JOHN WITHERSPOON, 1722—1794. 
 
 Of the statesmen and scholars of our Revolutionary period, few did more good, 
 or exerted a wider influence in their generation, than John Witherspoon. 1 lie 
 was born in the parish of Yester, near Edinburgh, Scotland, on the 5th of Feb- 
 ruary, 1722. His father was a clergyman of the Church of Scotland, much 
 respected for his piety and learning ; and the son, after going through the usual 
 courses of study in the University of Edinburgh in literature, science, and theo- 
 logy, was licensed to preach at the age of twenty-one. He was first settled in the 
 parish of Beith, in the west of Scotland, whence, in a few years, he removed to 
 the flourishing manufacturing town of Paisley. Here he continued till the year 
 1768, when he was elected by the trustees of Princeton College the president of 
 that institution. The fame of his talents and learning had preceded him, and 
 consequently he brought to the college a large accession of students, and was the 
 means of greatly increasing its funds, and placing it on a foundation of perma- 
 nent usefulness. Indeed, few men could combine more important qualifications 
 for the presidency of a literary institution, — talents, extensive attainments, com- 
 manding personal appearance, and an admirable faculty for governing young 
 men, and exciting in them a noble emulation to excel in their studies. 
 
 But he was soon to enter upon a new sphere of duty. Becoming an American 
 the moment he landed upon our shores, he was selected by the citizens of New 
 Jersey, in 1776, as a delegate to the immortal Congress that promulgated the 
 Declaration of Independence, to which instrument he affixed his name. He con- 
 tinued to represent the State of New Jersey in the general Congress, from 1776 to 
 1782, and in practical business-talent and devotion to public affairs he was second 
 to none in that body. It would be impossible, in this brief sketch, to specify the 
 numerous services which he rendered to his country in the dark hours of her 
 Revolutionary history ; but one thing cannot be omitted, — the ability which he 
 displayed as a member of the committee to consider the state of the currency and 
 the finances of the country. Little did men dream that a theologian, bred in 
 academic halls, could prepare such papers on money and finance as were pre- 
 sented by Dr. Witherspoon ; for it is doubtful whether that most difficult subject 
 was ever treated in a more masterly manner. 
 
 When he retired from the national councils in 1791, he married his second wife, 
 which excited some attention, as he was in his seventieth year, and the lady, dis- 
 tinguished for her beauty and accomplishments, but twenty-three. He then went 
 to his country-place, about one mile from Princeton, having two years before par- 
 tially given up his duties as president of the college to the vice-president, his son- 
 in-law, Dr. Samuel Smith. At length bodily infirmities began to fall heavily 
 upon him; still he would not desist from the duties of his ministry, nor from 
 attending at the college, as far as his health and strength would permit. But his 
 
 1 " No man thinks of Witherspoon as a Briton, but as an American of the Ame- 
 ricans : as the counsellor of Morris, the correspondent of Washington, the rival 
 of Franklin in his sagacity, and of Reed in his resolution ; one of the boldest in 
 that Declaration of Independence, and one of the most revered in the debates of 
 the Congress." — Rev. J. W. Alexander's Princeton Address, 
 
40 
 
 JOHN WITHERSPOON. 
 
 useful life was now drawing to a close, and on the 15th of November, 1794, in the 
 seventy-third year of his age, he entered into his rest. 
 
 Dr. Witherspoon's works were published after his death, in four volumes, with 
 a memoir by the Rev. Dr. John Rodgers. They consist of Sermons; an Inquiry 
 into the Nature and Effects of the Stage; Lectures on Moral Philosophy ; Lectures 
 on Eloquence; Lectures on Divinity ; Letters on Education ; Letters on Marriage ; 
 An Essay on Money as a Medium of Commerce ; his Speeches in Congress ; and a 
 variety of essays on moral and political subjects. All these give abundant evi- 
 dence of the learning, piety, sound judgment, and eloquence of their author. But 
 none of them show one of the most prominent traits in his character, — a remark- 
 ably ready and keen wit. 1 Indeed, his fund of refined humor and delicate satire 
 seemed inexhaustible, and it burst out on almost all occasions. 2 This made him 
 a most pleasing and entertaining companion in private life, and the charm of 
 every social circle. 
 
 THE PERNICIOUS EXAMPLE OF THE STAGE. 
 
 It is a known truth, established by the experience of all ages, 
 that bad example has a powerful and unhappy influence upon 
 human characters. Sin is of a contagious and spreading nature, 
 and the human heart is but too susceptible of the infection. This 
 may be ascribed to several causes, and to one in particular which 
 is applicable to the present case, — that the seeing of sin frequently 
 committed must gradually abate that horror which we ought to 
 have of it upon our minds, and which serves to keep us from 
 yielding to its solicitations. Frequently seeing the most terrible 
 objects renders them familiar to our view, and makes us behold 
 them with less emotion. And from seeing sin without reluctance, 
 the transition is easy to a compliance with its repeated impor- 
 tunity, especially as there are latent remaining dispositions to sin- 
 ning in every heart that is but imperfectly sanctified. It will be 
 difficult to assign any other reason why wickedness is always car- 
 ried to a far greater height in large and populous cities than in 
 
 1 In this he was excelled by none of his contemporaries, except the learned 
 Charles Nisbet, D.D., the first President of Dickinson College; and many a keen 
 encounter is said to have taken place between the two rival wits and divines. 
 One particularly occurs to me. At a casual meeting in the streets of Phila- 
 delphia, Dr. Nisbet replied to the question put by his companion about his health, 
 that he did not feel very well, — that he had a kind of "ringing in his head." 
 "Well, and don't you know what that's the sign of?" said Dr. Witherspoon. 
 "No, sir: what is it?" " It's a sign that it's hollow." "Why, sir, does yours 
 never ring?" said Dr. Nisbet. "No, never," replied his friend. "And don't you 
 know what that's the sign of?" "No: what is it?" "It's a sign that it's 
 cracked." 
 
 2 For instance ; when Burgoyne's army was captured, General Gates despatched 
 one of his aids to Congress to carry the intelligence. But he suffered himself to 
 be delayed on the way, so that when he reached Philadelphia he found the news 
 had got there some days before. When, therefore, Congress was about to vote the 
 messenger a sword, Dr. Witherspoon rose and begged leave to move that instead 
 of a sword they should present him with a ])air of golden spurs. 
 
JOHN WITHERSPOON. 
 
 47 
 
 the country. Do not multitudes, in places of great resort, come to 
 perpetrate, calmly and sedately, without any remorse, such crimes 
 as would surprise a less knowing sinner so much as to hear of? 
 Can it then be safe to be present at the exhibition of so many 
 vicious characters as always must appear upon the stage ? Must 
 it not, like other examples, have a strong though insensible influ- 
 ence, and indeed the more strong because unperceived ? 
 
 CHARACTER OF THEATRICAL REPRESENTATIONS. 
 
 Where can the plays be found, at least comedies, that are free 
 from impurity, either directly or by allusion and double-meaning ? 
 It is amazing to think that women who pretend to decency and 
 reputation, whose brightest ornament ought to be modesty, should 
 continue to abet, by their presence, so much unchastity as is to be 
 found in the theatre. How few plays are acted which a modest 
 woman can see consistently with decency in every part ! And 
 even when the plays are more reserved themselves, they are sure 
 to be seasoned with something of this kind in the prologue or epi- 
 logue, the music between the acts, or in some scandalous farce 
 with which the diversion is concluded. The power of custom and 
 fashion is very great in making people blind to the most manifest 
 qualities and tendencies of things. There are ladies who fre- 
 quently attend the stage, who, if they were but once entertained 
 with the same images in a private family with which they are 
 often presented there, would rise with indignation, and reckon 
 their reputation ruined if ever they should return. With what 
 consistency they gravely return to the same schools of lewdness, 
 they themselves best know. 
 
 CHARACTER OF ACTORS. 
 
 The life of players is not only idle and vain, and therefore in- 
 consistent with the character of a Christian, but it is still more 
 directly and grossly criminal. Not only from the taste of the 
 audience must the prevailing tendency of all successful plays be 
 bad, but, in the very nature of the thing, the greatest part of the 
 characters represented must be vicious. What, then, is the life 
 of a player ? It is wholly spent in endeavoring to express the 
 language, and exhibit a perfect picture, of the passions of vicious 
 men. For this purpose they must strive to enter into the spirit 
 and feel the sentiments proper to such characters. 
 
 Thus, their character has been infamous in all ages, — just a 
 living copy of that vanity, obscenity, and impiety which is to be 
 found in the pieces which they represent. As the world has been 
 polluted by the stage, so they have always been more eminently 
 
48 
 
 JOHN WITHERSPOON. 
 
 so, as it is natural to suppose, being the very cisterns in which 
 this pollution is collected and from which it is distributed to 
 others. 
 
 Can it be lawful, then, in any one to contribute in the least de- 
 gree to support men in this unhallowed employment ? Is not the 
 theatre truly and essentially what it has been often called rhetoric- 
 ally, — the school of impiety, where it is their very business to 
 learn wickedness ? And will a Christian, upon any pretended 
 advantage to himself, join in this confederacy against God, and 
 assist in endowing and upholding the dreadful seminary ? 
 
 PRINCIPLES REGULATING MONEY. 1 
 
 I will now sum up, in single propositions, the substance of what 
 has been asserted, and I hope sufficiently proved, in the preceding- 
 discourse. 
 
 1. It ought not to be imputed to accident or caprice that gold, 
 silver, and copper formerly were, and the two first continue to be, 
 the medium of commerce ; but to their inherent value, joined with 
 other properties, that fit them for circulation. Therefore, all the 
 speculations formed upon a contrary supposition are inconclusive 
 and absurd. 
 
 2. Gold and silver are far from being in too small quantity at 
 present for the purpose of a circulating medium in the commercial 
 nations. The last of them — silver — seems rather to be in too great 
 quantity, so as to become inconvenient for transportation. 
 
 3. The people of every nation will get the quantity of these pre- 
 cious metals that they are entitled to by their industry, and no 
 more. If by any accident, as plunder in war, or borrowing from 
 other nations, or even finding it in mines, they get more, they will 
 not be able to keep it. It will in a short time find its level. 
 Laws against exporting the coin will not prevent this. Laws of 
 this kind, though they are still in force in some nations supposed 
 to be wise, yet are in themselves ridiculous. If you import more 
 than you export, you must pay the balance, or give up the trade. 
 
 4. The quantity of gold and silver at any time in a nation is no 
 evidence of national wealth, unless you take into consideration the 
 way in which it came there, and the probability of its continuing. 
 
 5. No paper of any kind is, properly speaking, money. It ought 
 never to be made a legal tender. It ought not to be forced upon 
 anybody, because it cannot be forced upon everybody. 
 
 6. Gold and silver, fairly acquired and likely to continue, are 
 
 1 This is at the close of his very able and learned "Essay on Money as a Me- 
 dium of Commerce ; with Remarks on the Advantages and Disadvantages of 
 Paper admitted into General Circulation." 
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 40 
 
 real national as well as personal wealth. If twice as much paper 
 circulates with them, though in full credit, particular persons may 
 be rich by possessing it, but the nation in general is not. 
 
 7. The cry of the scarcity of money is generally putting the 
 effect for the cause. No business can be done, say some, because 
 money is scarce. It may be said with more truth, money is scarce 
 because little business is done. Yet their influence, like that of 
 many other causes and effects, is reciprocal. 
 
 8. The quantity of current money, of whatever kind, will have 
 an effect in raising the price of industry and bringing goods dearer 
 to market ; therefore the increase of the currency in any nation 
 by paper which will not pass among other nations, makes the first 
 cost of every thing they do greater, and, of consequence, the 
 profit less. 
 
 9. It is, however, possible that paper obligations may so far 
 facilitate commerce and extend credit, as, by the additional' in- 
 dustry that they excite, to overbalance the injury which they do 
 in other respects. Yet even the good itself may be overdone. 
 Too much money may be emitted even upon loan ; but to emit 
 money any other way than upon loan is to do all evil and no good. 
 
 10. Those who refuse doubtful paper, and thereby disgrace it, 
 or prevent its circulation, are not enemies, but friends to their 
 country. 
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON, 1732—1799. 
 
 George Washington, the fourth son of Augustine Washington, and the first 
 President of the United States, was born at Bridge's Creek, in the county of 
 Westmoreland, Virginia, on the 22d of February, 1732, and died at Mount Ver- 
 non on the 14th of December, 1799. The following are the chief incidents of his 
 public life — 
 
 TEARS. HIS AGE. EVENTS. 
 
 1732 ... Feb. 22. His birth, in Westmoreland county, Virginia. 
 
 17-43 11 Apr. 12. Death of his father, at the age of forty-nine years. 
 
 1746 14 His brother Lawrence obtained for him a midshipman's war- 
 
 rant in the British Navy. 
 
 1748 16 Mar. ... Surveyor of Lord Fairfax's lauds on the Potomac River. 
 
 1751 19 Military Inspector, with the rank of Major, to protect the 
 
 frontiers of Virginia against the French and Indians. 
 
 1 I give not an extended biography of General Washington, because to do any 
 justice to the subject it would occupy more room than I could spare; while the 
 lives of him are so numerous as to be accessible to any one. Read lives by Mar- 
 shall, Ramsey, Weems, Edmunds, Guizot, (translated by Reeve,) Headley, Irving, 
 Bancroft, Sparks ; also an admirable book entitled " Maxims of Washington, 
 Political, Moral, Social, and Religious ; collected and arranged by J. F. Schroeder, 
 D.D.," 1 vol. 12mo. Consult also " North American Review," li. 69, xlvii. 318, 
 xxxix. 467; "American Quarterly," xv. 275, xvii. 74; "Methodist Quarterly," 
 ii. 38; also read Eulogies by Hamilton, Jay, Ames, Mason, &c. 
 
 5 
 
50 
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 TEARS. 
 
 HIS AGE. 
 
 
 EVENTS. 
 
 1751 
 
 19 
 
 Sept. 
 
 He sailed for Barbadoes with his brother Lawrence. 
 
 1752 
 
 20 
 
 Adjutaut-General. 
 
 1753 
 
 21 
 
 Oct. 31. 
 
 Commissioner to the French on the Ohio. 
 
 1754 
 
 22 
 
 
 Lieutenant-Colonel for the defence of the colony of Virginia. 
 
 1755 
 
 23 
 
 July 9. 
 
 Aid-de camp to General Braddock at the battle of Monon- 
 gahela. 
 
 1755 
 
 24 
 
 Aug. 14. 
 
 Commaucler-in-chief of the Virginian forces. 
 
 1758 
 
 26 
 
 Dec. ... 
 
 He resigned his commission. 
 
 1759 
 
 26 
 
 Jan. 6. 
 
 His marriage. Member of the Virginia House of Burgesses. 
 
 1765 
 
 33 
 
 
 Commissioner for settling the military accounts of the colony. 
 
 1770 
 
 38 
 
 
 His tour to the Ohio and Great Kenawa Bivers. 
 
 1774 
 
 42 
 
 
 Member of the Virginia Conventions on the points at issuo 
 between Great Britain and the Colonies. 
 
 1774 
 
 42 
 
 Sept. ... 
 
 Member of the first Continental Congress. 
 
 1775 
 
 43 
 
 May 10. 
 
 Member of the second Continental Congress. 
 
 1775 
 
 43 
 
 June 15. 
 
 Commander-in-chief. 
 
 1775 
 
 43 
 
 July 3. 
 
 Commander of the army at Cambridge. 
 
 1776 
 
 44 
 
 Mar. 17. 
 
 Boston evacuated by the British army. 
 
 1776 
 
 44 
 
 July 4. 
 
 Declaration of American Independence. 
 
 1776 
 
 44 
 
 Aug. 27. 
 
 Battle of Long Island. 
 
 1776 
 
 44 
 
 Dec. 26. 
 
 Battle of Trenton. 
 
 1776 
 
 44 
 
 Dec. 27. 
 
 Congress invested him with dictatorial powers. 
 
 1777 
 
 44 
 
 Jan. 3. 
 
 Battle of Princeton. 
 
 1777 
 
 45 
 
 Sept. 11. 
 
 Battle of the Brandywine. 
 
 1777 
 
 45 
 
 Oct. 4. 
 
 Battle of Germantown. 
 
 1778 
 
 46 
 
 June 28. 
 
 Battle of Monmouth. 
 
 1779 
 
 47 
 
 July 16. 
 
 Stony Point taken. 
 
 1780 
 
 48 
 
 Arnold's treason. 
 
 1781 
 
 4S 
 
 Jan. 1. 
 
 Mutiny of the Pennsylvania troops. 
 
 1781 
 
 49 
 
 Oct. 19. 
 
 Surrender of Yorktown and Gloucester. 
 
 1783 
 
 51 
 
 Apr. 19. 
 
 Peace proclaimed to the army. 
 
 1783 
 
 51 
 
 Nov. 2. 
 
 His farewell to the army. 
 
 1783 
 
 51 
 
 Nov. 25. 
 
 New York evacuated by the British army. 
 
 1783 
 
 51 
 
 Dec. 23. 
 
 He resigned his commission. 
 
 1784 
 
 52 
 
 
 His tour to the Western country. 
 
 1787 
 
 55 
 
 May 14. 
 
 Delegate to the General Convention at Philadelphia to form a 
 Constitution. President of the Convention. 
 
 1789 
 
 57 
 
 Mar. 4. 
 
 President of the United States. 
 
 1789 
 
 
 Apr. 30. 
 
 His inauguration at New York. 
 
 1789 
 
 57 
 
 Aug. 25. 
 
 Death of his mother at the age of eighty-two years. 
 
 
 
 His tour through the Eastern States. 
 
 1791 
 
 59 
 
 
 His tour through the Southern States. 
 
 1793 
 
 61 
 
 Mar. 4." 
 
 President for a second term. 
 
 1793 
 
 61 
 
 
 M. Genet, Minister from France to the United States. 
 
 1796 
 
 64 
 
 Sept. 15. 
 
 His Farewell Address to the People of the United States. 
 
 1797 
 
 65 
 
 He retired to private life. Difficulties with France. Pre- 
 parations for war. 
 
 1798 
 
 66 
 
 July 3. 
 
 Commander-in-chief of the Armies of tho United States. 
 
 1799 
 
 67 
 
 Dec. 14. 
 
 His death at Mount Vernon. 
 
 VALEDICTORY COUNSELS OF WASHINGTON. 
 
 There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful 
 checks upon the administration of the government and serve to 
 keep alive the spirit of liberty. This, within certain limits, is 
 probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, pa- 
 triotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the 
 spirit of party; but in those of the popular character, in govern- 
 ments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From 
 their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough 
 of that spirit for every salutary purpose ; and there being constant 
 danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, 
 to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands 
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 51 
 
 a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, 
 instead of warming, it should consume. 
 
 Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political pros- 
 perity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain 
 would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor 
 to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest 
 props of the destinies of men and citizens. The mere politician, 
 equally with the pious man, ought to respect and cherish them. 
 A volume could not trace all their connections with private and 
 public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for 
 property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obliga- 
 tion desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in 
 courts of justice ? And let us with caution indulge the supposi- 
 tion that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever 
 may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds 
 of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to ex- 
 pect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious 
 principles. 
 
 It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary 
 spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with 
 more or less force to every species of free government. Who, that 
 is a sincere friend to it, can look with .indifference upon attempts 
 to shake the foundation of the fabric ? 
 
 Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions 
 for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the 
 structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essen- 
 tial that public opinion should be enlightened. 
 
 Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate 
 peace and harmony with all : religion and morality enjoin this con- 
 duct; and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it'/ 
 It would be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant 
 period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and 
 too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice 
 and benevolence. Who can doubt that, in the course of time and 
 things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary 
 advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it ? Can 
 it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of 
 a nation with its virtue ? The experiment at least is recommended 
 by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas ! is it 
 rendered impossible by its vices ? * * * 
 
 In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than 
 that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, 
 and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded, and 
 that, in place of them, just and amiable feelings towards all, should 
 be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another an 
 habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. 
 
52 
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is 
 sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy 
 in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer 
 insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to 
 be haughty and intractable when accidental or trifling occasions 
 of dispute occur. * * * 
 
 Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am 
 unconscious of intentional error, I am, nevertheless, too sensible 
 of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed 
 many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the 
 Almighty to avert and mitigate the evils to which they may tend. 
 I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never 
 cease to view them with indulgence; and that, after forty-five 
 years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the 
 faults of incompetent abilities will' be consigned to oblivion, as 
 myself must soon be to the mansions of rest. 
 
 THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN. 
 
 As the member of an infant empire, as a philanthropist by cha- 
 racter, and, if I may be allowed the expression, as a citizen of the 
 Great Republic of Humanity at large, I cannot help turning my 
 attention sometimes to this subject, — how mankind may be 
 
 CONNECTED, LIKE ONE GREAT FAMILY, IN FRATERNAL TIES. I 
 
 indulge a fond, perhaps an enthusiastic idea, that as the world is 
 evidently much less barbarous than it has been, its melioration 
 must still be progressive ) that nations are becoming more human- 
 ized in their policy; that the subjects of ambition and causes for 
 hostility are daily diminishing ; and, in fine, that the period is not 
 very remote when the benefits of a liberal and free commerce will 
 pretty generally succeed to the devastations and horrors of war. 
 
 PROVIDENCE RULING THE AFFAIRS OF NATIONS. 
 
 It would be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first 1 official act, 
 my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over 
 the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose 
 providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benedic- 
 tion may consecrate, to the liberties and happiness of the people 
 of the United States, a government instituted by themselves for 
 these essential purposes, and may enable every instrument em- 
 ployed in the administration to execute with success the functions 
 allotted to its charge. In tendering this homage to the Great 
 Author of every public and private good, I assure myself that it 
 
 1 Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789. 
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 expresses your sentiments not less than my own, nor those of my 
 fellow-citizens at large less than either. No people can be bound 
 to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand which conducts the 
 affairs of men more than the people of the United States. Every 
 step by which they have advanced to the character of an inde- 
 pendent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of 
 Providential agency; and in the important revolution just accom- 
 plished in the system of their united government, the tranquil de- 
 liberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities 
 from which the event has resulted, cannot be compared with the 
 means by which most governments have been established, without 
 some return of pious gratitude, along with an humble anticipation 
 of the future blessings which the past seem to presage. 
 
 PLEASURES OF PRIVATE LIFE. 
 
 Under the shadow of my own vine and my own fig-tree, free 
 from the bustle of a camp, and the busy scenes of public life, I 
 am solacing myself with those tranquil enjoyments, of which the 
 Soldier, who is ever in pursuit of fame, the Statesman, whose 
 watchful days and sleepless nights are spent in devising schemes 
 to promote the welfare of his own, perhaps the ruin of other 
 countries, as if the globe was insufficient for us all, — and the 
 Courtier, who is always watching the countenance of his Prince, 
 in hopes of catching a gracious smile, — can have very little con- 
 ception. I have not only retired from all public employments, but 
 I am retiring within myself, and shall be able to view the solitary 
 walk, and tread the paths of private life, with a heartfelt satisfac- 
 tion. Envious of none, I am determined to be pleased with all ; 
 and, this being the order of my march, I will move gently down 
 the stream of life until I sleep with my fathers. 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 The scheme which you 1 propose, as a precedent to encourage 
 the emancipation of the black people in this country from the 
 state of bondage in which they are held, is a striking evidence of 
 the benevolence of your heart, and I shall be happy to join you 
 in so laudable a work. 
 
 Your 2 purchase of an estate in the colony of Cayenne, with a 
 view of emancipating the slaves on it, is a generous and noble 
 proof of your humanity. Would to God a like spirit might dif- 
 fuse itself generally into the minds of the people of this country ! 
 But I despair of seeing it. 
 
 1 Lafayette. 
 
 2 Lafayette. 
 
 5* 
 
54 
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do 
 to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it. But there is only one 
 proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and 
 that is, by legislative authority ; and this, as far as my suffrage 
 will go, shall never be wanting. 
 
 I never mean, unless some particular circumstances should com- 
 pel me to it, to possess another slave by purchase, it being among 
 my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery, in this 
 country, may be abolished by law. 
 
 VIRTUE AND HAPPINESS. 
 
 There is no truth more thoroughly established than that there 
 exists, in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union 
 between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, be- 
 tween the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy 
 and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity. 
 
 The consideration that human happiness and moral duty are 
 inseparably connected will always continue to prompt me to pro- 
 mote the progress of the former by inculcating the practice of the. 
 latter. 
 
 Without virtue, and without integrity, the finest talents and the 
 most brilliant accomplishments can never gain the respect, and 
 conciliate the esteem, of the truly valuable part of mankind. 
 
 I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to 
 maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the cha- 
 racter of an " honest man." 
 
 The private virtues of economy, prudence, and industry are not 
 less amiable, in civil life, than the more splendid qualities of valor, 
 perseverance, and enterprise, in public life. 
 
 AGRICULTURE. 
 
 It will not be doubted that, with reference either to individual 
 or national welfare, agriculture is of primary importance. In 
 proportion as nations advance in population and other circum- 
 stances of maturity, this truth becomes more apparent, and renders 
 the cultivation of the soil more and more an object of public 
 patronage. 
 
 The life of the husbandman, of all others, is the most delightful. 
 It is honorable, it is amusing, and, with judicious management, it 
 is profitable. 
 
 An extensive speculation, a spirit of gambling, or the introduc- 
 tion of any thing which will divert our attention from agriculture, 
 must be extremely prejudicial, if not ruinous, to us. 
 
JOHN ADAMS. 
 
 55 
 
 WAR. 
 
 My first wish is, to see this plague of mankind banished from 
 the earth, and the sons and daughters of this world employed in 
 more pleasing and innocent amusements than in preparing imple- 
 ments, and exercising them, for the destruction of mankind. 
 
 For the sake of humanity, it is devoutly to be wished that the 
 manly employment of agriculture, and the humanizing benefit of 
 commerce, would supersede the waste of war and the rage of con- 
 quest; that the swords might be turned into ploughshares, the 
 spears into pruning-hooks, and, as the Scriptures express it, " the 
 nations learn war no more/' 
 
 JOHN ADAMS, 1735—1826. 
 
 John Adams, the second President of the United States, was born in Braintree, 
 Massachusetts, October 19, 1735. After the usual preparatory studies, he entered 
 Harvard College, and was distinguished in his class for diligence in his studies 
 and for originality and boldness of thought, — qualities which shone most conspi- 
 cuously in his after-life. He graduated in 1755, and began the study of law with 
 James Putnam, at Worcester. In 1764, he married Abigail Smith, daughter of 
 Rev. William Smith, of Weymouth, — a lady of an excellent education and of un- 
 common natural endowments. In 1765, he removed to Boston : his legal practice 
 soon became extensive ; and it was soon seen that he was one to whom his fellow- 
 citizens might confidently look as a champion of their rights against the encroach- 
 ments and assumptions of the Crown. In 1769, he was chairman of the committee 
 appointed by the town of Boston to draw up instructions to their representatives 
 to resist the British encroachments. The next year ho was chosen a member of 
 the Legislature from Boston. 
 
 In June, 1774, Mr. Adams was elected by the Assembly, together with Thomas 
 dishing, James Bowdoin, Samuel Adams, and Robert T. Paine, to the first Con- 
 tinental Congress. To his friend Sewall, who endeavored to dissuade him from 
 accepting the appointment, he replied, in his characteristic energy of language, 
 "The die is cast: I have passed the Rubicon: sink or swim, live or die, survive 
 or perish with my country, is my unalterable determination." He took his seat 
 in Congress, September 5, 1774, and was on the committee which drew up the 
 statement of the rights of the Colonies, and on that which prepared the address to 
 the king. He also attended the next Congress in 1775, and was among the fore- 
 most of those who were in favor of independence. On May 6, 1776, he moved to 
 recommend to the Colonies " to adopt such a government as would, in the opinion 
 of the representatives of the people, best conduce to the happiness and safety of 
 their constituents and of America." This passed, after an earnest debate, on the 
 15th. On the 7th of June, Richard Henry Lee made the motion, which was 
 seconded by Mr. Adams, " that these United Colonics are, and of right ought to 
 
56 
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 
 
 be, free and independent States." The debate continued to the 10th, and wag 
 then postponed to the 1st of July. A committee of five, consisting of Jefferson, 
 Adams, Franklin, Sherman, and Livingston, was appointed to draw up a declara- 
 tion of independence. At the request of Mr. Adams, the instrument was written 
 by Jefferson, and was adopted, as is known, on the 4th, but not without some 
 strong opposition. The opposing arguments were met by Mr. Adams, in a speech 
 of unrivalled power. Of him Mr. Jefferson said, " The great pillar of support to 
 the declaration of independence, and its ablest advocate and champion on the 
 floor of the House, was John Adams. He was the colossus of that Congress : not 
 graceful, not eloquent, not always fluent in his public addresses, he yet came out 
 with a power, both of thought and expression, which moved his hearers from 
 their seats." 
 
 In 1779, he was appointed minister-plenipotentiary to negotiate a peace with 
 Great Britain, and had authority to form a commercial treaty with that nation. 
 He was associated with Franklin, Jay, and Laurens, and the mission was success- 
 ful in forming a definite treaty of peace, which was ratified January 14, 1784. 
 He returned to Boston in 178S, after an absence of nine years. Congress had be- 
 fore passed a resolution of thanks for his able and faithful discharge of various 
 important commissions. He was elected the first Vice-President of the United 
 States in 1789, and was re-elected the second term ; consequently, he was Pre- 
 sident of the Senate during the whole of the administration of Washington, whose 
 confidence he enjoyed in the highest degree. Having been elected President to 
 succeed Washington, he entered upon his duties March 4, 1797 ;' and in 1S01 he 
 was succeeded by Mr. Jefferson. 
 
 After March, 1801, Mr. Adams lived in retirement at Quine} 7 , occupied in agri- 
 cultural pursuits, though occasionally addressing various communications to the 
 public. In 1820, at the age of 85, he was chosen president of the convention for 
 revising the constitution of Massachusetts, though he did not serve in that capa- 
 city. In 1825, he enjoyed the singular happiness of seeing his son, John Quincy 
 Adams, elevated to the office of President of the United States. 
 
 1 The following admirable letter was addressed by Mrs. Adams to her husband 
 on his being elected President of the United States : — 
 
 QtTINCY, February 8, 1797. 
 "The sun is dressed in brightest beams, 
 To give thy honors to the day." 
 
 And may it prove an auspicious prelude to each ensuing season ! You have this 
 day to declare yourself head of a nation. "And now, Lord, my God, thou hast 
 made thy servant ruler over the people. Give unto him an understanding heart, 
 that he may know how to go out and come in before this great people; that he 
 -.nay discern between good and bad ; for who is able to judge this thy so great a 
 people?" were the words of a royal sovereign; and not less applicable to him who 
 is invested with the chief magistracy of a nation, though he wear not a crown 
 nor the robes of royalty. 
 
 My thoughts and my meditations are with you, though personally absent; and 
 my petitions to Heaven are that "the things which make for peace may not be 
 hidden from your eyes." My feelings are not those of pride or ostentation upon 
 the occasion. They are solemnized by a sense of the obligations, the important 
 trusts and numerous duties, connected with it. That you may be enabled to dis- 
 charge them with honor to yourself, with justice and impartiality to your country, 
 and with satisfaction to this great people, shall be the daily prayer of your 
 
 A. A. 
 
JOHN ADAMS. 
 
 57 
 
 But he was now drawing near his end. On the morning of the 4th of July, 
 1826, he was roused by the ringing of bells and the firing of cannon; and when 
 asked if he knew what day it was, he replied, " Oh, yes ! it is the glorious Fourth, 
 — God bless it ! God bless you all !" In the course of the day he said, "It is a 
 great and glorious day and, just before he expired, exclaimed, " Jefferson sur- 
 vives !" — showing that his thoughts were dwelling on the scenes of 1776. But 
 Jefferson was then dead, having expired at one o'clock ; while Mr. Adams lin- 
 gered till twenty minutes past six p.m. 
 
 For purity of character, dauntless courage, and true patriotism, Mr. Adams had 
 no superior among his contemporaries ; and his name will be held in veneration 
 by all coming generations. 1 
 
 MEDITATES THE CHOICE OF HERCULES. 2 
 
 The other night the choice of Hercules came into my mind, and 
 left impressions there which I hope will never be effaced, nor long 
 unheeded. I thought of writing a fable on the same plan, but 
 accommodated, by omitting some circumstances and inserting 
 others, to my own case. 
 
 Let Virtue address me : " Which, dear youth, will you prefer, a 
 life of effeminacy, indolence, and obscurity, or a life of industry, 
 temperance, and honor? Take my advice; rise and mount your 
 horse by the morning's dawn, and shake away, amidst the great and 
 beautiful scenes of nature that appear at that time of the day, all 
 the crudities that are left in your stomach, and all the obstructions 
 that are left in your brains. Then return to your studies, and 
 bend your whole soul to the institutes of the law and the reports 
 of cases that have been adjudged by the rules in the institutes ; let 
 no trifling diversion, or amusement, or company, decoy you from 
 your book; that is, let no girl, no gun, no cards, no flutes, no 
 violins, no dress, no tobacco, no laziness, decoy you from your 
 books. But keep your law book or some point of law in your 
 mind at least six hours in a day. Labor to get distinct ideas of 
 law, right, wrong, justice, equity; search for them in your own 
 mind, in Roman, Grecian, French, English treatises of natural, 
 civil, common, statute law ; aim at an exact knowledge of the 
 nature, end, and means of government; compare the different 
 forms of it with each other, and each of them with their effects 
 on public and private happiness. Study Seneca, Cicero, and all 
 other good moral writers ; study Montesquieu, Bolingbroke, Vin- 
 nius, &c, and all other good civil writers." 
 
 Here are two nights and one day and a half spent in softening, 
 enervating, dissipating series of hustling, prattling, poetry, love, 
 
 1 Read "The Works of John Adams; with a Life of the Author; Notes and 
 Illustrations by his Grandson, Charles Francis Adams," 10 volumes. 
 
 2 From his Diary, dated Braintree, January 3, 1759. 
 
58 
 
 JOHN ADAMS. 
 
 courtship, marriage ; during all this time I was seduced into the 
 course of unmanly pleasures that Vice describes to Hercules, for- 
 getful of the glorious promises of fame, immortality, and a good 
 conscience, which Virtue makes to the same hero as rewards of a 
 hardy, toilsome, watchful life in the service of mankind. I could 
 reflect with more satisfaction on an equal space of time spent in a 
 painful research of the principles of law, or a resolute attempt of 
 the powers of eloquence. But where is my attention ? Is it fixed 
 from sunrise to midnight on Grecian, Koman, Gallic, British law, 
 history, virtue, eloquence? I don't see clearly the objects that I 
 am after j they are often out of sight ; motes, atoms, feathers, are 
 blown into my eyes and blind me. Who can see distinctly the 
 course he is to take and the objects that he pursues, when in the 
 midst of a whirlwind of dust, straws, atoms, and feathers ? 
 
 THE FOURTH OF JULY. 
 
 FROM A LETTER DATED THE THIRD OF JULY. 
 
 Yesterday 1 the greatest question was decided which ever was 
 debated in America, and a greater, perhaps, never was nor will be 
 decided among men. A resolution was passed, without one dis- 
 senting colony, " that these United Colonies are, and of right ought 
 to be, free and independent States, and as such they have, and of 
 right ought to have, full power to make war, conclude peace, esta- 
 blish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which other 
 States may rightfully do." You will see, in a few days, a Decla- 
 ration setting forth the causes which have impelled us to this 
 mighty revolution, and the reasons which will justify it in the 
 sight of God and man. A plan of confederation will be taken up 
 in a few days. 
 
 When I look back to the year 1761, and recollect the argument 
 concerning writs of assistance in the superior court, which I have 
 hitherto considered as the commencement of this controversy be- 
 tween Great Britain and America, and run through the whole 
 period, from that time to this, and recollect the series of political 
 events, the chain of causes and effects, I am surprised at the sud- 
 denness as well as greatness of this revolution. Britain has been 
 filled with folly, and America with wisdom ; at least, this is my 
 judgment. Time must determine. It is the will of Heaven that 
 the two countries should be sundered forever. It may be the will 
 of Heaven that America should suffer calamities still more wasting, 
 
 1 The practice has been to celebrate the 4th of July, the day upon which the 
 form of the Declaration of Independence was agreed to, rather than the 2d, the 
 day upon which the resolution, making that declaration, was determined upon by 
 the Congress. 
 
FRANCIS HOPKINSON. 
 
 and distresses yet more dreadful. If this is to be the case, it will 
 have this good effect at least. It will inspire us with many virtues 
 which we have not, and correct many errors, follies, and vices 
 which threaten to disturb, dishonor, and destroy us. The furnace 
 of affliction produces refinement in states as well as individuals. And 
 the new governments we are assuming in every part will require 
 a purification from our vices, and an augmentation of our virtues, 
 or they will be no blessings. The people will have unbounded 
 power, and the people are extremely addicted to corruption and 
 venality, as well as the great. But I must submit all my hopes 
 and fears to an overruling Providence, in which, unfashionable 
 as the faith may be, I firmly believe. 
 
 FROM ANOTHER LETTER OP THE SAME DATE. 
 
 But the day is past. The second day of July, 1776, will be the 
 most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to 
 believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the 
 great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as 
 the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. 
 It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, 
 games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end 
 of the continent to the other, from this time forward for ever- 
 more. 
 
 You will think me transported with enthusiasm ; but I am not. 
 I am well aware of the toil, and blood, and treasure that it will 
 cost us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these 
 States. Yet, through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravish- 
 ing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth 
 all the means ; and that posterity will triumph in that day's trans- 
 action, even although we should rue it, which I trust in God we 
 shall not. 
 
 FRANCIS HOPKIXSOX, 1737—1791. 
 
 Francis Hopkinson, the son of Thomas Hopkinson, an English gentleman 
 who emigrated to the colonies in the early part of the eighteenth century, was 
 born in Philadelphia in 1737. His father dying when he was quite young, his 
 education devolved upon his mother, who is said to have been a woman of more 
 than common powers of mind, and who took every pains to foster the genius and 
 to cultivate the talents which she saw her son possessed, as well as to instruct him 
 in the pure principles of Christian morals. From school he was sent to the Col- 
 lege of Philadelphia, afterwards the "University of Pennsylvania," and then com- 
 menced the study of law, and, after the usual period, entered upon its practice. 
 In 1766, he went to England, where he remained two years. On his return he 
 
60 
 
 FRANCIS HOPKINSON. 
 
 married Miss Arm Borden, of Bordentown, N. J., in which place he established 
 himself in his profession. His legal attainments, general knowledge, and ardent 
 patriotism soon acquired for him a high reputation, and in 1776 he was chosen 
 by the State of New Jersey as one of her representatives in Congress, and in this 
 capacity he signed the Declaration of Independence. In 1779, he succeeded 
 George Boss as Judge of the Admiralty of the State of Pennsylvania, and held 
 the position for ten years, until the organization of the Federal Government, when 
 he received from General Washington a commission as Judge of the United 
 States. In this office he continued till his death, which took place on the 9th of 
 May, 1791. 
 
 Great as Judge Hopkinson's reputation was as an advocate while at the bar, 
 and distinguished as he was for learning, judgment, and integrity when upon 
 the bench, he was, perhaps, more celebrated as a man of letters, of general know- 
 ledge, of fine taste, but, above all, for his then unrivalled powers of wit and satire. 
 Dr. Rush, after speaking of his varied attainments, says : — " But his forte was 
 humor and satire, in both of which he was not surpassed by Lucian, Swift, or 
 Babelais. These extraordinary powers were consecrated to the advancement of 
 the interests of patriotism, virtue, and science." This praise maybe too strong; and 
 yet we hardly know where to find papers of more exquisite humor than among the 
 writings of Francis Hopkinson. His paper on the Ambiguity of the English Lan- 
 guage, to show the ridiculous mistakes that often occur from words of similar 
 sounds, used the one for the other; on White- Washing; on A Typographical 
 Method of Conducting a Quarrel, which made friends of two fierce newspaper com- 
 batants ; The New Roof, an allegory in favor of the Federal Constitution ; the 
 Specimen of a Collegiate Examination, to turn certain branches, and the modes of 
 studying them, into ridicule ; and The Battle of the Kegs, are all pieces which, 
 while they are fully equal to any of Swift's writings for wit, have nothing at all 
 in them of Swift's vulgarity. 
 
 SPECIMEN OF A COLLEGIATE EXAMINATION. 
 
 METAPHYSICS. 
 
 Professor. What is a salt-box ? 
 Student. It is a box made to contain salt. 
 Prof. How is it divided ? 
 Stu. Into a salt-box and a box of salt. 
 Prof. Very well ! show the distinction. 
 
 Stu. A salt-box maybe where there is no salt; but salt is abso- 
 lutely necessary to the existence of a box of salt. 
 
 Prof. Are not salt-boxes otherwise divided ? 
 
 Stu. Yes j by a partition. 
 
 Prof. What is the use of this partition ? 
 
 Stu. To separate the coarse salt from the fine. 
 
 Prof. How ? think a little. 
 
 Stu. To separate the fine salt from the coarse. 
 
 Prof. To be sure j it is to separate the fine from the coarse ; 
 but are not salt-boxes yet otherwise distinguished ? 
 
FRANCIS HOPKINSON. 
 
 61 
 
 Stu. Tes ; into possible, probable, and positive. 
 Prof. Define these several kinds of salt-boxes. 
 Stu. A possible salt-box is a salt-box yet unsold in the hands 
 of the joiner. 
 Prof. Why so ? 
 
 Stu. Because it hath never yet become a salt-box in fact, 
 having never had any salt in it ; and it may possibly be applied to 
 some other use. 
 
 Prof. Very true; for a salt-box which never had, hath not 
 now, and perhaps never may have, any salt in it, can only be 
 termed a possible salt-box. What is a probable salt-box? 
 
 Stu. It is a salt-box in the hand of one going to a shop to buy 
 salt, and who hath sixpence in his pocket to pay the grocer j and 
 a positive salt-box is one which hath actually and bona fide got 
 salt in it. 
 
 Prof. Very good : — but is there no instance of a positive salt- 
 box, which hath no salt in it ? 
 Stu. I know of none. 
 
 Prof. Yes : there is one mentioned by some authors : it is 
 where a box hath by long use been so impregnated with salt, that, 
 although all the salt hath been long since emptied out, it may yet 
 be called a salt-box, with the same propriety that we say a salt- 
 herring, salt beef, &c. And in this sense, any box that may have 
 accidentally, or otherwise, been long steeped in brine, may be 
 termed positively a salt-box, although never designed for the pur- 
 pose of keeping salt. But tell me, what other division of salt- 
 boxes do you recollect ? 
 
 Stu. They are further divided into substantive and pendant : 
 a substantive salt-box is that which stands by itself on the table or 
 dresser ; and a pendant is that which hangs upon a nail against 
 the wall. 
 
 Prof. What is the idea of a salt-box ? 
 
 Stu. It is that image which the mind conceives of a salt-box 
 when no salt-box is present. 
 
 Prof. What is the abstract idea of a salt-box ? 
 
 Stu. It is the idea of a salt-box abstracted from the idea of a 
 box, or of salt, or of a salt-box, or of a box of salt. 
 
 Prof. Very right ; and by these means you acquire a most per- 
 fect knowledge of a salt-box ; but tell me, is the idea of a salt-box 
 a salt idea ? 
 
 Stu. Not unless the ideal box hath ideal salt in it. 
 
 Prof. True; and therefore an abstract idea cannot be either 
 salt or fresh, round or square, long or short ; for a true abstract 
 idea must be entirely free of all adjuncts. And this shows the 
 difference between a salt idea and an idea of salt. Is an aptitude 
 to hold salt an essential or an accidental property of a salt-box ? 
 
 6 
 
02 
 
 FRANCIS HOPKINSON. 
 
 Stu. It is essential; but if there should be a crack in the bot- 
 tom of the box, the aptitude to spill salt would be termed an acci- 
 dental property of that salt-box. 
 
 Prof. Very well ! very well indeed ! — What is the salt called 
 with respect to the box ? 
 
 Stu. It is called its contents. 
 
 Prof. And why so ? 
 
 Stu. Because the cook is content quo ad hoc to find plenty of 
 salt in the box. 
 
 Prof. You are very right — I see you have not misspent your 
 time : but let us now proceed to 
 
 LOGIC. 
 
 Prof. How many parts are there in a salt-box ? 
 Stu. Three. Bottom, top, and sides. 
 Prof. How many modes are there in salt-boxes ? 
 Stu. Four. The formal, the substantial, the accidental, and 
 the topsy-turvy. 
 
 Prof. Define these several modes. 
 
 Stu. The formal respects the figure or shape of the box, such 
 as round, square, oblong, and so forth ; the substantial respects the 
 work of the joiner; and the accidental depends upon the string 
 by which the box is hung against the wall. 
 
 Prof. Very well ; and what are the consequences of the acci- 
 dental mode ? 
 
 Stu. If the string should break the box would fall, the salt be 
 spilt, the salt-box broken, and the cook in a bitter passion ; and 
 this is the accidental mode with its consequences. 
 
 Prof. How do you distinguish between the top and bottom of 
 a salt-box ? 
 
 Stu. The top of a box is that part which is uppermost, and the 
 bottom that part which is lowest in all positions. 
 
 Prof. You should rather say the lowest part is the bottom and 
 the uppermost part is the top. How is it, then, if the bottom 
 should be the uppermost ? 
 
 Stu. The top would then be the lowermost ; and so the bottom 
 would become the top, and the top would become the bottom ; and 
 this is called the topsy-turvy mode, which is nearly allied to the 
 accidental, and frequently arises from it. 
 
 Prof. Very good ; but are not salt-boxes sometimes single, and 
 sometimes double ? 
 
 Stu. Yes. 
 
 Prof. Well, then, mention the several combinations of salt- 
 boxes with respect to their having salt or not. 
 
 Stu. They are divided into single salt-boxes having salt ; single 
 salt-boxes having no salt ; double salt-boxes having salt ; double 
 
FRANCIS HOPKINSON. 63 
 
 salt-boxes having no salt; and single double salt-boxes having 
 salt and no salt. 
 
 Prof. Hold ! hold ! you are going too far. 
 
 ON WHITE-WASHING. 1 
 
 Dear Sir : — The peculiar customs of every country appear to 
 strangers awkward and absurd j but the inhabitants consider them as 
 very proper and even necessary. Long habit imposes on the under- 
 standing, and reconciles it to any thing that is not manifestly per- 
 nicious or immediately destructive. 
 
 I have read somewhere of a nation (in Africa, I think,) which 
 is governed by twelve counsellors. When these counsellors are to 
 meet on public business, twelve large earthen jars are set in two 
 rows, and filled with water. The counsellors enter the apartment 
 one after another, stark naked, and each leaps into a jar, where he 
 sits up to the chin in water. When the jars are all filled with 
 counsellors, they proceed to deliberate on the great concerns of the 
 nation. This, to be sure, forms a very grotesque scene j but the 
 object is to transact the public business : they have been accus- 
 tomed to do it in this way, and therefore it appears to them the 
 most rational and convenient way. Indeed, if we consider it im- 
 partially, there seems to be no reason why a counsellor may not be 
 as wise in an earthen jar as in an elbow-chair; or why the good of 
 the people may not be as maturely considered in the one as in the 
 other. 
 
 The established manners of every country are the standards of 
 propriety with the people who have adopted them; and every 
 nation assumes the right of considering all deviations therefrom as 
 barbarisms and absurdities. 
 
 I have discovered but few national singularities amongst the 
 people of these new States. Their customs and manners are 
 nearly the same with those of England, which they have long 
 been used to copy. I have, however, observed one custom which, 
 for aught I know, is peculiar to this country. An account of it 
 will serve to fill up the remainder of this sheet, and may afford 
 you some amusement. 
 
 When a young couple are about to enter on the matrimonial 
 state, a never-failing article in the marriage treaty is, that the 
 lady shall have and enjoy the free and unmolested exercise of the 
 rights of white-washing, with all its ceremonials, privileges, 
 and appurtenances. You will wonder what this privilege of white- 
 washing is. I will endeavor to give you an idea of the ceremony 
 as I have seen it performed. 
 
 1 A letter from a gentleman in America to his friend in Europe. 
 
FRANCIS HOPKINSON. 
 
 There is no season of the year in which the lady may not, if she 
 pleases, claim her privilege ; but the latter end of May is gene- 
 rally fixed upon for the purpose. The attentive husband may 
 judge, by certain prognostics, when the storm is nigh at hand. 
 If the lady grows uncommonly fretful, finds fault with the ser- 
 vants, is discontented with the children, and complains much 
 of the nastiness of every thing about her ; these are symptoms 
 which ought not to be neglected, yet they sometimes go off with- 
 out any further effect. But if, when the husband rises in the 
 morning, he should observe in the yard a wheelbarrow with a 
 quantity of lime in it, or should see certain buckets filled with a 
 solution of lime in water, there is no time for hesitation. He im- 
 mediately locks up the apartment or closet where his papers and 
 private property are kept, and, putting the key in his pocket, 
 betakes himself to flight. A husband, however beloved, becomes a 
 perfect nuisance during this season of female rage. His authority 
 is superseded, his commission suspended, and the very scullion 
 who cleans the brasses in the kitchen becomes of more importance 
 than he. He has nothing for it but to abdicate for a time, and 
 run from an evil which he can neither prevent nor mollify. 
 
 The husband gone, the ceremony begins. The walls are stripped 
 of their furniture; paintings, prints, and looking-glasses lie in 
 huddled heaps about the floors ; the curtains are torn from their 
 testers, the beds crammed into windows ; chairs and tables, bed- 
 steads and cradles crowd the yard • and the garden-fence bends 
 beneath the weight of carpets, blankets, cloth cloaks, old coats, 
 under-petticoats, and ragged breeches. Here may be seen the 
 lumber of the kitchen, forming a dark and confused mass for the 
 foreground of the picture ; gridirons and frying-pans, rusty shovels 
 and broken tongs, joint-stools, and the fractured remains of rush- 
 bottomed chairs. There, a closet has disgorged its bowels, — 
 riveted plates and dishes, halves of china bowls, cracked tumblers, 
 broken wineglasses, phials of forgotten physic, papers of unknown 
 powders, seeds and dried herbs, tops of teapots, and stoppers of 
 departed decanters; from the rag-hole in the garret to the rat- 
 hole in the cellar, no place escapes unrummaged. It would seem 
 as if the day of general doom was come, and the utensils of the 
 house were dragged forth to judgment. 
 
 This ceremony completed, and the house thoroughly evacuated, 
 the next operation is to smear the walls and ceilings with brushes, 
 dipped in a solution of lime, called white-wash ; to pour buckets 
 of water over every floor, and scratch all the partitions and wain- 
 scots with hard brushes, charged with soft soap and stone-cutter's 
 sand. 
 
 The windows by no means escape the general deluge. A ser- 
 vant scrambles out upon the pent-house ; at the risk of her neck, 
 
FRANCIS HOPKINSON. 
 
 65 
 
 and, with a mug in her hand and a bucket within reach, dashes 
 innumerable gallons of water against the glass panes, to the great 
 annoyance of passengers in the street. 
 
 I have been told that an action at law was once brought against 
 one of these water-nymphs by a person who had a new suit of 
 clothes spoiled by this operation : but, after long argument, it was 
 determined that no damages could be awarded, inasmuch as the 
 defendant was in the exercise of a legal right, and not answerable 
 for the consequences. And so the poor gentleman was doubly 
 non-suited ; for he lost both his suit of clothes and his suit at law. 
 
 I know a gentleman here who is fond of accounting for every 
 thing in a philosophical way. He considers this, which I call 
 a custom, as a real, periodical disease, peculiar to the climate. 
 His train of reasoning is whimsical and ingenious but I am not 
 at leisure to give you the detail. The result was, that he found 
 the distemper to be incurable ; but, after much study, he thought 
 he had discovered a method to divert the evil he could not sub- 
 due. For this purpose, he caused a small building, about twelve 
 feet square, to be erected in his garden, and furnished with some 
 ordinary chairs and tables, and a few prints of the cheapest sort. 
 His hope was that, when the white-washing frenzy seized the 
 females of his family, they might repair to this apartment, and 
 scrub, and scour, and smear to their hearts' content, and so spend 
 the violence of the disease in this outpost, whilst he enjoyed him- 
 self in quiet at head-quarters. But the experiment did not answer 
 his expectation. It was impossible it should, since a principal 
 part of the gratification consists in the lady's having an uncon- 
 trolled right to torment her husband, at least once in every year ; 
 to turn him out of doors, and take the reins of government into 
 her own hands. 
 
 MISTAKE VERSUS BLUNDER. 1 
 
 This was an action on the statute of Patrick 4, chap. 16, called 
 The Statute of Nails, which prohibits all subjects within the 
 realm from cutting or paring their nails on a Friday, under the 
 penalty of twenty shillings for every offence, to be recovered by 
 the overseers of the poor, for the use of the poor of the county in 
 which the offence should be committed. Mistake and others were 
 overseers of the poor for the county of Antrim, and brought their 
 action under the statute against the defendant. And it was in 
 proof that the defendant had pared his thumb-nails and his great 
 
 toe-nails on Friday, to wit, on Friday, the day of , 
 
 at twelve o'clock in the night of the same day. 
 
 1 This is a case cited in the most humorous paper, entitled "Specimen of a 
 Modern Lawsuit." 
 
 6* 
 
66 
 
 FRANCIS HOPKINSON. 
 
 Counsel for the defendant demurred to the facts, observing that, 
 as this was a penal law, it ought to be strictly construed. And 
 thereupon took three points of defence, viz. : First, it was urged 
 that night is not day, and the statute expressly says Fri-day, and 
 not Fri-night ; and the proof is that the cutting was at night, 
 Secondly, it was contended that twelve o'clock on Friday night is. 
 in fact, the beginning of Saturday morning, and therefore not 
 within the statute. And, thirdly, that the words of the statute 
 are ungues digitorum — Anglice — the nails of the fingers, and 
 the testimony only respects thumbs and great toes. 
 
 The jury gave in a special verdict; whereupon, after long ad- 
 visement, the judges were unanimously of opinion, on the first 
 point, that, in construction of law, day is night and night is day; 
 because a day consists of twenty-four hours, and the law will not 
 allow of fractions of a day; dc minimis non curat lex; in Eng- 
 lish, the law don't stand upon trifles. On the second point, that 
 twelve o'clock at night, being the precise line of division between 
 Friday night and Saturday morning, is a portion or point of time 
 which may be considered as belonging to both, or to either, or to 
 neither, at the discretion of the court. And, thirdly, that, in 
 construction of law, fingers are thumbs and thumbs are fingers, 
 and thumbs and fingers are great toes and little toes, and great 
 toes and little toes are thumbs and fingers; and so judgment for 
 the plaintiff. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE KEGS. 1 
 
 Gallants, attend and hear a friend 
 
 Trill forth harmonious ditty ; 
 Strange things I'll tell which late befell 
 
 In Philadelphia city. 
 
 'Twas early day, as poets say, 
 
 Just when the sun was rising, 
 A soldier stood on a«log of wood, 
 
 And saw a thing surprising. 
 
 As in amaze he stood to gaze, 
 
 The truth can't be denied, sir, 
 He spied a score of kegs or more 
 
 Come floating down the tide, sir. 
 
 A sailor too, in jerkin blue, 
 
 This strange appearance viewing, 
 First rubb'd his eyes, in great surprise, 
 
 Then said some mischief 's brewing. 
 
 1 This ballad was occasioned by a real incident. Certain machines, in the form 
 of kegs, charged with gunpowder, were sent down the river to annoy the British 
 shipping then at Philadelphia. The danger of these machines being discovered, 
 the British manned the wharves and shipping, and discharged their small arms 
 and cannons at every thing they saw floating in the river during the ebb tide. 
 
FRANCIS HOPKINSON. 
 
 These kegs, I'm told, the rebels hold 
 Pack'd up like pickled herring ; 
 
 And they're come down t' attack the town, 
 In this new way of ferrying. 
 
 The soldier flew, the sailor too, 
 And scar'd almost to death, sir, 
 
 Wore out their shoes, to spread the news, 
 And ran till out of breath, sir. 
 
 Now up and down throughout the town 
 Most frantic scenes were acted ; 
 
 And some ran here, and others there, 
 Like men almost distracted. 
 
 Some fire cried, which some denied, 
 But said the earth had quaked ; 
 
 And girls and boys, with hideous noise, 
 Ran through the streets half naked. 
 
 From sleep Sir William starts upright, 
 
 Awak'd by such a clatter ; 
 He rubs both eyes, and boldly cries, 
 
 For God's sake, what's the matter ? 
 
 At his bedside he then espied 
 
 Sir Erskine at command, sir ; 
 Upon one foot he had one boot, 
 
 And th' other in his hand, sir. 
 
 "Arise, arise," Sir Erskine cries, 
 " The rebels — more's the pity — 
 
 Without a boat are all afloat, 
 And rang'd before the city. 
 
 " The motley crew, in vessels new, 
 With Satan for their guide, sir, 
 
 Pack'd up in bags, or wooden kegs, 
 Come driving down the tide, sir. 
 
 " Therefore prepare for bloody war, 
 These kegs must all be routed, 
 
 Or surely we despised shall be, 
 And British courage doubted." 
 
 The royal band now ready stand, 
 All rang'd in dread array, sir, 
 
 With stomach stout to see it out, 
 And make a bloody day, sir. 
 
 The cannons roar from shore to shore, 
 The small arms make a rattle ; 
 
 Since wars began I'm sure no man 
 E'er saw so strange a battle. 
 
 The rebel dales, the rebel vales, 
 
 With rebel trees surrounded ; 
 The distant wood, the hills and floods, 
 
 With rebel echoes sounded. 
 
68 
 
 JAMES WILSON. 
 
 The fish below swam to and fro, 
 
 Attack'd from ev'ry quarter ; 
 Why sure, thought they, the devil's to pay 
 
 'Mongst folks above the water. 
 
 The kegs, 'tis said, tho' strongly made 
 Of rebel staves and hoops, sir, 
 
 Could not oppose their powerful foes, 
 The conq'ring British troops, sir. 
 
 From morn to night these men of might 
 
 Display'd amazing courage ; 
 And when the sun was fairly down, 
 
 Retir'd to sup their porridge. 
 
 An hundred men with each a pen, 
 
 Or more, upon my word, sir, 
 It is most true would be too few 
 
 Their valor to record, sir. 
 
 Such feats did they perform that day 
 Against these wicked kegs, sir, 
 
 That years to come, if they get home, 
 They'll make their boast and brags, sir. 
 
 JAMES WILSON, 1742—1798. 
 
 James Wilson was born in the lowlands of Scotland about the year 1742. 
 After leaving the grammar-school, he studied at the Universities of Glasgow and 
 Edinburgh, and, without determining upon any profession, he resolved to emi- 
 grate to this country. In the beginning of 1766, he reached Philadelphia. Soon 
 after, he entered, as a student of law, the office of John Dickinson, and in two 
 years was admitted to the bar. He first settled in Beading, but soon removed to 
 Carlisle, where he became quite eminent as a counsellor, and had much practice 
 previous to the Revolutionary struggle. In 1775, by the unanimous voice of tho 
 General Assembly, he was elected, with Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Willing, 
 to the second Continental Congress, and was re-elected in the next year, when be 
 affixed his name to the Declaration of Independence. In 1778, he removed to 
 Philadelphia, where he continued to reside for the remainder of bis life. 
 
 From his distinguished talents and unremitting industry, Mr. Wilson rose 
 higher every year in public estimation, and was soon considered at the head of 
 his profession. In 1782, he was again elected to Congress, and in 1787 was one 
 of the delegates to the convention that met in Philadelphia to form our present 
 Constitution. He took an active part in the debates, and by some was considered 
 the ablest member of that distinguished body. In the latter part of the same 
 year, he was elected to the State Convention of Pennsylvania that met to ratify 
 the Constitution. As he was the only member of the State Convention who had a 
 seat in the General Convention, he was, of course, the most prominent member in 
 it, and with consummate ability defended the Constitution from the attacks of its 
 enemies. 
 
JAMES WILSON. 
 
 6fj 
 
 On the 4th of July, 1788, Mr. Wilson was selected to deliver the oration on the 
 occasion of the famous procession formed at Philadelphia to celebrate the adop- 
 tion of the Constitution of the United States j and in October of the next year was 
 appointed by Washington one of the Judges of the Supreme Court as first organized 
 under the present Constitution; 1 in which office he continued till his death. In 
 1790, the Law professorship of the College of Philadelphia was established, and 
 Mr. Wilson was appointed the first professor. The course of lectures which he 
 delivered in this and the two succeeding years may be found in his works, pub- 
 lished in 1804 in three octavo volumes. He was now the acknowledged head of 
 the Philadelphia bar, — learned as a man, profound as a lawyer, and distinguished 
 for his attainments in political science. In private life he was warmly esteemed 
 for his social and domestic virtues, as well as for his incorruptible integrity. He 
 continued to exercise the duties of his office till the year of his death, which took 
 place on the 28th of August, 1798, at Edenton, North Carolina, while on a circuit 
 in his judicial character. 
 
 THE EXCELLENCE OF OUR CONSTITUTION. 
 
 I confess that I am not a blind admirer of this plan of govern- 
 ment, and that there are some parts of it which, if my wish had 
 prevailed, would certainly have been altered. But, when I reflect 
 how widely men differ in their opinions, and that every man (and 
 the observation applies likewise to every State) has an equal pre- 
 tension to assert his own, I am satisfied that any thing nearer to 
 perfection could not have been accomplished. If there are errors, 
 it should be remembered that the seeds of reformation are sown in 
 the work itself, and the concurrence of two-thirds of the Congress 
 may, at any time, introduce alterations and amendments. Regard- 
 ing it, then, in every point of view, with a candid and disinterested 
 mind, I am bold to assert that it is the best form of govern- 
 ment WHICH HAS EVER BEEN OFFERED TO THE WORLD. 
 
 THE PEOPLE THE SOURCE OF ALL POWER. 
 
 Oft have I viewed, with silent pleasure and admiration, with 
 what force and prevalence, through the United States, the supreme 
 power resides in the people ; and that they never part with it. It 
 may be called the Panacea in politics. There can be no disorder 
 
 1 Washington, in his letter on the occasion, thus wrote: — "Regarding the due 
 administration of justice as the strongest cement of good government, I have con- 
 sidered the first organization of the judicial department as essential to the happi- 
 ness of the people and to the stability of the political system. Under this im- 
 pression, it has been with me an invariable object of anxious solicitude to select 
 the fittest characters to expound the laws and to dispense justice." At the head 
 of this department, deemed by himself so important, he placed that learned jurist, 
 incorruptible patriot, and Christian statesman, John Jay, of N.Y., and nominated 
 as his associates James Wilson, of Penn., John Rdtledge, of S. C, William 
 Cusiiing, of Mass., Robert Harrison, of Md., and John Blair, of Va. 
 
70 
 
 JAMES WILSON. 
 
 in the community but may here receive a radical cure. If the 
 error be in the legislature, it may be corrected by the constitution ; 
 if in the constitution, it may be corrected by the people. There is 
 a remedy, therefore, for every distemper in government, if the 
 people are not wanting to themselves; but for a people wanting to 
 themselves, there is no remedy. From their power, as we have 
 seen, there is no appeal • to their error, there is no superior prin- 
 ciple of correction. 
 
 There are three simple species of government : Monarchy, where 
 the supreme power is in a single person : Aristocracy, where the 
 supreme power is in a select assembly, the members of which either 
 fill up, by election, the vacancies in their own body, or succeed to 
 their places in it by inheritance, property, or in respect of some 
 personal right or qualification : a Republic or Democracy, where 
 the people at large retain the supreme power, and act either col- 
 lectively or by representation. 
 
 Each of these species of government has its advantages and dis- 
 advantages. 
 
 The advantages of a Monarchy are strength, dispatch, secrecy, 
 unity of counsel. Its disadvantages are tyranny, expense, igno- 
 rance of the situation and wants of the people, insecurity, unne- 
 cessary wars, evils attending elections or successions. 
 
 The advantages of Aristocracy are wisdom, arising from expe- 
 rience and education. Its disadvantages are dissensions among 
 themselves, oppression to the lower orders. 
 
 The advantages of Democracy are liberty ) equal, cautious, and 
 salutary laws, public spirit, frugality, peace, opportunities of ex- 
 citing and producing the abilities of the best citizens. Its disad- 
 vantages are dissensions, the delay and disclosure of public coun- 
 sels, the imbecility of public measures, retarded by the necessity 
 of a numerous consent. 
 
 A government may be composed of two or more of the simple 
 forms above mentioned. Such is the British government. It 
 would be an improper government for the United States, because 
 it is inadequate to such an extent of territory, and because it is 
 suited to an establishment of diiferent orders of men. 
 
 What is the nature and kind of that government which has 
 been proposed for the United States by the late convention ? 
 In its principle it is purely democratical ; but that principle 
 is applied in different forms, in order to obtain the advantages, 
 and exclude the inconveniences, of the simple modes of govern- 
 ment. 
 
 If we take an extended and accurate view of it, we shall find 
 the streams of power running in different directions, in different 
 dimensions, and at different heights ; watering, adorning, and fer- 
 tilizing the fields and meadows through which their courses are 
 
JAMES WILSON. 
 
 71 
 
 led j but if we trace them, we shall discover that they all originally 
 flow from one abundant fountain. 
 
 In this CONSTITUTION all authority is derived from the PEOPLjK. 
 
 THE ANTI-SLAVERY CHARACTER OF THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 Yv ith respect to the clause 1 restricting Congress from prohibit- 
 ing the migration or importation of such persons as any of the 
 States now existing shall think proper to admit, prior to the year 
 1808, the honorable gentleman says, that this clause is not only 
 dark, but intended to grant to Congress, for that time, the power 
 to admit the importation of slaves. No such thing was intended ; 
 but I will tell you what was done, and it gives me high pleasure 
 that so much was done. Under the present confederation, the States 
 may admit the importation of slaves as long as they please ; but by 
 this article, after the year 1808 the Congress will have power to 
 prohibit such importation, notwithstanding the disposition of any 
 State to the contrary. I consider this as laying the foundation 
 for banishing slavery out of this country ; and though the period 
 is more distant than I could wish, yet it will produce the same 
 kind, gradual change, which was pursued in Pennsylvania. It is 
 with much satisfaction I view this power in the general govern- 
 ment whereby they may lay an interdiction on this reproachful 
 trade : but an immediate advantage is also obtained ; for a tax or 
 duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dol- 
 lars for each person ; and this, sir, operates as a partial prohibition : 
 it was all that could be obtained. I am sorry it was no more ; but 
 from this I think there is reason to hope that yet a few years, and 
 it will be prohibited altogether ; and, in the mean time, the new 
 States which arc to be formed, luill be under the control of Con- 
 gress in this particular, and slaves will never be introduced 
 amongst them . 
 
 So far, therefore, as this clause operates, it presents us with the 
 pleasing prospect that the rights of mankind will be acknowledged 
 and established throughout the Union. 
 
 If there was no other lovely feature in the constitution but this 
 one, it would diffuse a beauty over its whole countenance. Yet 
 the lapse of a few years, and Congress will have power to extermi- 
 nate slavery from within our borders. 
 
 1 Article I., Section IX. The migration or importation of such persons as any 
 of the States uow existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by 
 the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight; but a tax 
 or duty may be imposed on such importation not exceeding ten dollars for each 
 person. 
 
72 
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON, 1743—1826. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson, descended from a family which had heen long settled in 
 his native State, was born at Shadwell, Albemarle county, Virginia, on the 2d of 
 April, 1743. After finishing his collegiate course of education at William's and 
 Mary's College, he commenced the study of the law with the celebrated George 
 \\ r ythe, afterwards Chancellor of the State. He was called to the bar in 1766; 
 and in 1769 was a member of the Legislature of Virginia. On the 12th cf March, 
 1773, he was appointed a member of the first committee of correspondence esta- 
 blished by the Colonial Legislatures ; and the next year he wrote and published 
 his Summary View of the Rights of British America. It was a bold and manly 
 document, ably setting forth our own rights, and pointing out clearly the various 
 ways in which they had been violated by the British Government. On the 27th 
 of March, 1775, he was elected one of the members to represent Virginia in the 
 General Congress of the Confederated Colonies, already assembled at Philadelphia, 
 and took his seat in this assembly on the 21st of June. So early did he become 
 known for his ability, that, in a few days after his arrival, he was made a member 
 of a committee appointed to draw up a declaration setting forth the causes and 
 necessity of resorting to arms. 
 
 With the year 1776, the affairs of the colonies began to assume an aspect of 
 more energy, with aims more definite. When, therefore, the subject of our inde- 
 pendence was brought before Congress in June, it met with a hearty response in 
 that body, and a committee was appointed to prepare a declaration " that these 
 United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States; that 
 they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political 
 connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, 
 totally dissolved." This committee consisted of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, 
 Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and R. R. Livingston; and to Mr. Jeffer- 
 son, the chairman, was assigned the important duty of preparing the draft of the 
 document. On the 28th of June, the Declaration of Independence (the report of 
 the committee) was presented to Congress and read; on the first, second, and 
 third of July, it was fully discussed in committee of the whole ; and on the fourth 
 it was adopted in its present form, many alterations having been made in tho 
 draft as it was first presented by the committee. 
 
 During the summer of this year, (1776,) Mr. Jefferson took an active part in 
 the deliberations and business of Congress ; but in the fall, owing to his ill health, 
 the situation of his family, and the embarrassed condition of things in Virginia, 
 he felt it his duty to return to his own State, and devote himself to her service. 
 Though his public duties were arduous, he found time to write, in 1781, his Notes 
 onVirginia, — the work by which, next to the Declaration of Independence, he is 
 most favorably known. In June, 1783, Mr. Jefferson was again elected a dele- 
 gate to Congress from Virginia, and of course took a prominent part in the delibe- 
 rations of that body. An opportunity soon offered itself of expressing again, as 
 he had already so frequently done, his detestation of slavery, and his earnest de- 
 sire for the entire abolition of it in the United States. Being appointed, in April, 
 1784, chairman of a committee to which was assigned the task of forming a plan 
 for the temporary government of the Western Territory, he introduced into it the 
 
THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 ' (lowing clause: — "That, after the year 1800, there shall be neither slavery 
 r -ir involuntary servitude in any of the said States, otherwise than in punish- 
 ment of crimes whereof the party shall have been convicted to have been per- 
 sonally guilty." When the report of the committee was presented to Congress, 
 these words were stricken out. 1 
 
 Having been chosen by Congress commissioner to negotiate treaties with the 
 states of Europe, in conjunction with John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, he 
 sailed in July, 1784, and joined his colleagues at Paris. They were not, however, 
 very successful, treaties having been formed with but two governments, Morocco 
 and Prussia. On the 10th of March, 1785, Mr. Jefferson was unanimously ap- 
 pointed by Congress to succeed Dr. Franklin as minister-plenipotentiary at the 
 court of Versailles. He remained in France until the latter part of 1789, when he 
 returned, and was, upon the foi'mation of the new government, nominated by Pre- 
 sident Washington as Secretary of State. Finding, however, the views of Wash- 
 ington and the greater portion of his cabinet essentially different from his o*wn, 
 he resigned this position, and retired into private life, devoting himself to the 
 education of his family, the cultivation of his estate, and the pursuit of his philo- 
 sophical studies. In September, 1796, when General Washington announced his 
 determination to renounce public life, the two parties into which the nation was 
 divided — the Federalists and Democrats, 2 or " Republicans," as then called — 
 brought forward their favorite candidates. John Adams was supported by the 
 former, and Thomas Jefferson by the latter. Mr. Adams was elected, and 
 entered upon the duties of his office the 4th of March, 1797. Such, however, were 
 the changes in public sentiment, that, after four years, Mr. Jefferson was elected 
 President. 
 
 The leading events of Mr. Jefferson's administration were the purchase of 
 Louisiana 3 from France ; the expedition of Lewis and Clarke, west of the Rocky 
 
 1 I may say that it is a good thing that this clause was stricken out; because 
 three years after, when the subject of the government of the Territories was under 
 discussion, and when Mr. Jefferson was in France, the celebrated "Ordinance of 
 1787" was presented by Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts, in which a similar pro- 
 viso was introduced and carried, to take effect immediately, and not to be 
 put off to the year 1800. AVhile, therefore, great credit is due to Mr. Jeffer- 
 son for being the first to assert the noble principle of freedom, it is an undoubted 
 historical fact that Nathan Dane has the honor of being the author of the " Ordi- 
 nance of 1787," and that to Rufus King, of New York, and indirectly to Timothy 
 Pickering, of Massachusetts, belongs the suggestion of the provisos contained in 
 that " Ordinance" against slavery, and for aids to religion and knowledge. For a 
 full account of this interesting subject, read " Life and Correspondence of Rufus 
 King, by his Son, Charles King, LL.D." 
 
 2 Of the Democratic party Jefferson was the efficient promoter at the beginning, 
 and may be considered its founder. Washington, as the head of the Federalists, 
 became the object of hatred to the Democrats, and upon him all the vials of their 
 wrath were poured. Jefferson, as is now known, gave too much encouragement 
 to some of these defamers, the most prominent of whom were Genet, the impudent 
 French minister, Freneau, the poet and editor, and Thomas Paine, whose name is 
 synonymous with infamy. 
 
 3 From this territory, bought for fifteen millions of dollars, tbree new slave 
 States have been formed. Had the principles of the Ordinance of 1787 been ap- 
 plied to this region, what untold blessings would have accrued to our country ! 
 The further extension of slavery would have been arrested, and that anomaly in 
 our system would probably have died out before the death of Jefferson. 
 
74 
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 Mountains, to the mouth of Columbia River; and the "Embargo" But comment 
 upon these measures would here be out of place. At the close of his second term, 
 1S09, Mr. Jefferson withdrew from public affairs, and resided at Monticello, his 
 country-seat in Virginia. He did not, however, lead an idle life ; he took a deep 
 interest in the cause of education in his native State, and was the means of esta- 
 blishing its celebrated university. It is painful to add that, in the latter years of 
 his life, he suffered from pecuniary embarrassments. In 1815 he sold his library, 
 of about 7000 volumes, to Congress, for twenty thousand dollars. His last 
 days were passed in rural enjoyments, and with powers unimpaired for the 
 enjoyment of mental pleasures ; and he passed away calmly on the 4th of July, 
 1826, just fifty yeai's from the date of his signing the Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence. 
 
 In person Mr. Jefferson was six feet two inches high, erect and well formed, 
 though thin ; his eyes were light, and full of intelligence ; his complexion fair, 
 and his countenance remarkably expressive. In conversation, he was cheerful 
 and enthusiastic, and his language was remarkable for vivacity and correctness. 
 His manners were simple and unaffected, combined, however, with much native 
 but unobtrusive dignity. 
 
 The chief glory of Mr. Jefferson's character was his ardent love of liberty for 
 all men, irrespective of color. This is clearly evinced in the preamble of the De- 
 claration of Independence, which he wrote ; in the principles of the Ordinance of 
 1787, which he originated ; and in several passages in his Notes on Virginia, 
 wherein he pictures, in his own nervous language, the demoralizing influences of 
 slavery. 1 
 
 THE RIGHTS OF MAN. 2 
 
 We hold these truths to be self-evident : that all men are 
 created equal j that they are endowed by their Creator with cer- 
 tain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and 
 the pursuit of happiness ; that, to secure these rights, govern- 
 ments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from 
 the consent of the governed ; that, whenever any form of govern- 
 ment becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the 
 people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, 
 
 1 Read articles on Jefferson in N. Am. Rev., xxx. 511, xxxix. 238, xl. 170 ; 
 Am. Quarterly, vi. 494, vii. 123 : also Biographies by Lee, Tucker, and Ran- 
 dolph. A new life, by Henry S. Randall, in three volumes, has lately been 
 published; but it is of a character so thoroughly partisan, that it never can bo 
 regarded by unprejudiced minds as of authority. It quietly assumes that the 
 " Democratic" party of modern times is identical with the old " Republican" 
 party led by Jefferson; than which nothing could be more erroneous. For what- 
 ever may have been the errors of Jefferson, and some other leaders of the " Repub- 
 lican" party of that day, they were thoroughly and avowedly anti-slavery. The 
 young men of our country who desire to have a full view of Mr. Jefferson's cha- 
 racter should read what is said of him in such works as Fisher Ames's Life and 
 Letters; Goodrich's Recollections; Griswold's Republican Court; Hildreth's United 
 States; Sullivan's Works, &c. &c. 
 
 2 From the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence. 
 
THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 7--) 
 
 laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers 
 in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their 
 safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that govern- 
 ments long established should not be changed for light and tran- 
 sient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that 
 mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, 
 than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they 
 are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpa- 
 tions, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to re- 
 duce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their 
 duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards 
 for their future security. 
 
 PASSAGE OF THE POTOMAC THROUGH THE BLUE RIDGE. 
 
 The passage of the Potomac through the Blue Ridge is perhaps 
 one of the most stupendous scenes in nature. You stand on a 
 very high point of land. On your right comes up the Shenan- 
 doah, having ranged along the foot of the mountain a hundred 
 miles to seek a vent. On your left approaches the Potomac, seek- 
 ing a passage also. In the moment of their junction, they rush 
 together against the mountain, rend it asunder, and pass off to the 
 sea. The first glance at this scene hurries our senses into the 
 opinion that this earth has been created in time; that the moun- 
 tains were formed first ; that the rivers began to flow afterwards ; 
 that, in this place particularly, they have been dammed up by the 
 Blue Ridge of mountains, and have formed an ocean which filled 
 the whole valley; that, continuing to rise, they have at length 
 broken over at this spot, and have torn the mountain down from 
 its summit to its base. The piles of rock on each hand, but par- 
 ticularly on the Shenandoah, the evident marks of their disrup- 
 ture and avulsion from their beds by the most powerful agents of 
 nature, corroborate the impression. But the distant finishing 
 which Nature has given to the picture is of a very different cha- 
 racter. It is a true contrast to the foreground. It is as placid 
 and delightful as that is wild and tremendous. For, the mountain 
 being cloven asunder, she presents to your eye, through the cleft, 
 a small catch of smooth blue horizon, at an infinite distance in the 
 plain country, inviting you, as it were, from the riot and tumult 
 roaring around, to pass through the breach, and participate of the 
 calm below. Here the eye ultimately composes itself; and that 
 way, too, the road happens actually to lead. You cross the Poto- 
 mac above its junction, pass along its side through the base of the 
 mountain for three miles, its terrible precipices hanging in frag- 
 ments over you, and within about twenty miles reach Frederick- 
 town, and the fine country round that. This scene is worth a 
 
76 
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 voyage across the Atlantic. Yet here, as in the neighborhood 
 of the Natural Bridge, are people who have passed their lives 
 within half a dozen miles, and have never been to survey these 
 monuments of a war between rivers and mountains, which must 
 have shaken the earth itself to its centre. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF SLAVERY. 
 
 The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual 
 exercise of the most boisterous passions; the most unremitting 
 despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the 
 other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it ; for man is 
 an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in 
 him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he 
 sees others do. If a parent could find no motive, either in his philan- 
 thropy or his self-love, for restraining the intemperance of passion 
 towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his 
 child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. The parent 
 storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts 
 on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives loose to his 
 worst passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in 
 tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. 
 The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and 
 morals undepraved by such circumstances. And with what exe- 
 cration should the statesman be loaded, who, permitting one-half 
 the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms 
 those into despots, and these into enemies, destroys the morals of 
 the one part, and the amor patriae, of the other ! For if the slave 
 can have a country in this world, it must be any other in prefer- 
 ence to that in which he is born to live and labor for another; in 
 which he must lock up the faculties of his nature, contribute as far 
 as depends on his individual endeavors to the evanishment of the 
 human race, or entail his own miserable condition on the endless 
 generations proceeding from him. With the morals of the people, 
 their industry also is destroyed. For in a warm climate no man 
 will labor for himself who can make another labor for him. This 
 is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion 
 indeed are ever seen to labor. And can the liberties of a nation 
 be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, — 
 a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the 
 gift of God ? — that they are not to be violated but with his wrath ? 
 Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just ; 
 that his justice cannot sleep forever; that, considering numbers, 
 nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of for- 
 tune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events; that 
 it may become probable by supernatural interference ! The 
 
THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 77 
 
 Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a 
 contest. 
 
 What an incomprehensible machine is man, who can endure 
 toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment, and death itself, in vindication 
 of his own liberty, and the next moment be deaf to all those mo- 
 tives whose power supported him through his trial, and inflict 
 upon his fellow-men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with 
 more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose ! 
 But we must wait with patience the workings of an overruling 
 Providence, and hope that that is preparing the deliverance of 
 these our suffering brethren. When the measure of their tears 
 shall be full, doubtless a God of justice will awaken to their dis- 
 tress, and by diffusing a light and liberality among their oppressors, 
 or at length by his exterminating thunder, manifest his attention 
 to things of this world, and that they are not left to the guidance 
 of blind fatality. 
 
 Notes on Virginia. 
 A DECALOGUE OF CANONS FOR PRACTICAL LIFE. 
 
 1. Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day. 
 
 2. Never trouble another for what you can do yourself. 
 
 3. Never spend your money before you have it. 
 
 4. Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap : it will 
 
 be dear to you. 
 
 5. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold. 
 
 6. We never repent of having eaten too little. 
 
 7. Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly. 
 
 8. How much pain have cost us the evils that have never hap- 
 
 pened. 
 
 9. Take things always by their smooth handle. 
 
 10. When angry, count ten before you speak ; if very angry, an 
 hundred. 
 
 HIS DYING COUNCIL. 1 
 
 This letter will, to you, be as one from the dead. The writer 
 will be in the grave before you can weigh its counsels. Your 
 affectionate and excellent father has requested that I would ad- 
 dress to you something which might possibly have a favorable 
 influence on the course of life you have to run ; and I too, as a 
 namesake, feel an interest in that course. Few words will be 
 necessary, with good dispositions on your part. Adore God. 
 Reverence and cherish your parents. Love your neighbor as 
 yourself, and your country more than yourself. Be just. Be 
 
 Letter to Thomas Jefferson Smith. 
 7«- 
 
7* 
 
 BENJAMIN RUSH. 
 
 true. Murmur not at the ways of Providence. So shall the life 
 into which you have entered be the portal to one of eternal and 
 inenable bliss. And, if to the dead it is permitted to care for 
 the things of this world, every action of your life will be under 
 my regard. Farewell. 
 
 Monticello, February 21, 1826. 
 
 BENJAMIN BUSH, 1745—1813. 
 
 Bexjamix Bush, M.D., one of the most eminent physicians of our country, was 
 born at Byberry, near Philadelphia, on the 24th of December, 1745. He was 
 early destined by his parents for professional life, and he graduated at Princeton 
 College in 1760. After spending six years in Philadelphia in the study of medi- 
 cine, he went to Edinburgh for the further prosecution of his studies, and re- 
 mained there till the spring of 1768, and then went to France. In the fall of that 
 year he returned to Philadelphia, and the next year was elected Professor of Che- 
 mistry in the college of that city. In 1791, the college was merged in a univer- 
 sity, and Dr. Bush was appointed " Professor of the Institutes and Practice of 
 Medicine and of Clinical Practice" in the University of Pennsylvania. 
 
 During the prevalence of the yellow fever in Philadelphia, in 1793, the labors 
 of Dr. Bush were as unremitting as they were successful in endeavoring to miti- 
 gate the horrors of this scourge. But these labors both of mind and body, by 
 night and day, nearly cost him his life. At the close of the season, he himself was 
 attacked by the disease, and for some days he lingered between life and death. 
 Happily his valuable life was saved, to be devoted yet many more years to the 
 cause of science and philanthropy. 
 
 It is astonishing how, with such a large private practice, Dr. Bush was enabled 
 to do so much outside of his profession. He was a member of the Congress 
 which, in 1776, published the Declaration of Independence, and of course affixed 
 his name to that memorable instrument. In 1777, he was appointed Physician- 
 General for the Middle Department of the Military Hospitals, and in 1787 was a 
 member of the Convention of Pennsylvania for ratifying the Federal Constitution, 
 which he advocated with great ability. After the establishment of the federal 
 government, he withdrew himself altogether from public life, and devoted his time 
 to his profession, and to the claims of humanity. The only office he accepted as 
 a reward for his many services, and which he held for fourteen years, was that of 
 Treasurer of the United States Mint. 
 
 But it is as a philanthropist, and as the friend of every thing that tends to the 
 improvement of man, that his memory will ever be most warmly cherished. He 
 was President of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery, and as 
 early as 1774 wrote two essays upon the guilt and danger of our national sin, to 
 which he remained inflexibly opposed until the day of his death. He was also 
 Vice-President and one of the founders of the Philadelphia Bible Society, and one 
 of the Vice-Presidents of the American Philosophical Society. He took a warm 
 interest in the establishment of the Philadelphia Dispensary, in 1786, and served 
 
BENJAMIN RUSH. 
 
 79 
 
 for many years as one of its physicians. He was the principal agent in founding 
 Dickinson College, at Carlisle, and in bringing from Scotland that eminent scholar 
 and divine, the Rev. Charles Nisbet, D.D., to preside over that institution. He 
 was one of the first to advocate the establishment of free schools, and wrote seve- 
 ral able essays to show their importance. He also took early ground against the 
 multiplicity of capital punishments, and lived to see the effect of his labors when, 
 in 1794, the Legislature of Pennsylvania abolished death as a punishment for all 
 crimes except for that of murder in the first degree. 
 
 Dr. Rush was also one of the earliest friends of the temperance reform. His 
 Inquiry into the Effects of Ardent Spirits upon the Body and Hind was published in 
 pamphlet form, had an extensive circulation, and was productive of great good. 
 He also published an essay against tobacco, and exhibited a frightful catalogue 
 of ills to health and morals arising from the use of that filthy and disgusting 
 weed. His last work, published a year before his death, entitled Medical Inquiries 
 and Observations iqyon the Diseases of the J/tW, has been pronounced, by very respect- 
 able authority, " at once a metaphysical treatise on the human understanding ; a 
 physiological theory of organic and thinking life ; a code of pure morals and 
 religion ; a book of the best maxims to promote wisdom and happiness ; in fine, a 
 collection of classical, polite, poetical, and sound literature." 
 
 Dr. Rush terminated his long and useful life, after a few days' illness of typhus 
 fever, on the 19th of April, 1813, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. As a gen- 
 tleman, distinguished for ease and affability of manners ; as a scholar, versed in 
 ancient and modern learning; as a physician, adorning by his character and 
 genius the profession to which he gave the best energies of his life ; as a philan- 
 thropist, interested in all that tends to elevate and bless man ; and as a Christian, 
 "doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly before God," the name of Dr. 
 Rush will ever be cherished as one of the brightest and best in our country's his- 
 tory. 
 
 The following extracts will give some idea of Dr. Rush's style and manner, and 
 of the subjects in which he was particularly interested : — 
 
 FEMALE EDUCATION. 
 
 It is agreeable to observe how differently modern writers, and 
 the inspired author of the Proverbs, describe a fine woman. The 
 former confine their praises chiefly to personal charms and orna- 
 mental accomplishments, while the latter celebrates only the vir- 
 tues of a valuable mistress of a family and a useful member of 
 society. The one is perfectly acquainted with all the fashionable 
 languages of Europe ; the other " opens her mouth with wisdom/' 
 and is perfectly acquainted with all the uses of the needle, the 
 distaff, and the loom. The business of the one is pleasure ; the 
 pleasure of the other is business. The one is admired abroad ; 
 the other is honored and beloved at home. " Her children arise 
 up and call her blessed, her husband also, and he praiseth her." 
 There is no fame in the world equal to this j nor is there a note 
 iD music half so delightful as the respectful language with which 
 
so 
 
 BENJAMIN RUSH. 
 
 a grateful son or daughter perpetuates the memory of a sensible 
 and affectionate mother. 
 
 A philosopher once said : " Let me make all the ballads of a 
 country, and I care not who makes its laws." He might with 
 more propriety have said, Let the ladies of a country be educated 
 properly, and they will not only make and administer its laws, 
 but form its manners and character. It would require a lively 
 imagination to describe, or even to comprehend, the happiness of 
 a country where knowledge and virtue were generally diffused 
 among the female sex. Our young men would then be restrained 
 from vice by the terror of being banished from their company. 
 The loud laugh and the malignant smile, at the expense of inno- 
 cence or of personal infirmities, — the feats of successful mimicry, 
 — and the low-priced wit which is borrowed from a misapplication 
 of Scripture phrases, would no more be considered as recommend- 
 ations to the society of the ladies. A double entendre, in their 
 presence, would then exclude a gentleman forever from the com- 
 pany of both sexes, and probably oblige him to seek an asylum 
 from contempt in a foreign country. The influence of female 
 education would be still more extensive and useful in domestic 
 life. The obligations of gentlemen to qualify themselves by 
 knowledge and industry to discharge the duties of benevolence 
 would be increased by marriage ; and the patriot, the hero, and 
 the legislator would find the sweetest reward of their toils in the 
 approbation and applause of their wives. Children would discover 
 the marks of maternal prudence and wisdom in every station of 
 life ; for it has been remarked that there have been few great or 
 good men who have not been blessed with wise and prudent 
 mothers. Cyrus was taught to revere the gods by his mother, 
 Mandane ; Samuel was devoted to his prophetic office, before he 
 was born, by his mother, Hannah ; Constantine was rescued from 
 paganism by his mother, Constantia ; and Edward the Sixth in- 
 herited those great and excellent qualities which made him the 
 delight of the age in which he lived from his mother, Lady Jane 
 Seymour. Many other instances might be mentioned, if neces- 
 sary, from ancient and modern history, to establish the truth of 
 this proposition. 
 
 I am not enthusiastical upon the subject of education. In the 
 ordinary course of human affairs, we shall probably too soon follow 
 the footsteps of the nations of Europe, in manners and vices. The 
 first marks we shall perceive of our declension will appear among 
 our women. Their idleness, ignorance, and profligacy will be the 
 harbingers of our ruin. Then will the character and performance 
 of a buffoon on the theatre be the subject of more conversation 
 and praise than the patriot or the minister of the gospel ; then 
 will our language and pronunciation be enfeebled and corrupted 
 
BENJAMIN RUSH. 
 
 81 
 
 by a flood of French and Italian words ; then will the history of 
 romantic amours be preferred to the immortal writings of Addison, 
 Hawkesworth, and Johnson ; then will our churches be neglected, 
 and the name of the Supreme Being never be called upon but in pro- 
 fane exclamations ; then will our Sundays be appropriated only to 
 feasts and concerts ; and then will begin all that train of domestic 
 and political calamities. But I forbear. The prospect is so pain- 
 ful that I cannot help silently imploring the great Arbiter of 
 human affairs to interpose his almighty goodness, and to deliver 
 us from these evils, that at least one spot of the earth may be re- 
 served as a monument of the effects of good education, in order to 
 show in some degree what our species was before the fall, and 
 what it shall be after its restoration. 
 
 THE USE OF TOBACCO. 
 
 Were it possible for a being who had resided upon our globe to 
 visit the inhabitants of a planet where reason governed, and to 
 tell them that a vile weed was in general use among the in- 
 habitants of the globe it had left, which afforded no nourishment; 
 that this weed was cultivated with immense care ; that it was an 
 important article of commerce ; that the want of it produced real 
 misery ; that its taste was extremely nauseous ; that it was un- 
 friendly to health and morals ; and that its use was attended with 
 a considerable loss of time and property; the account would be 
 thought incredible, and the author of it would probably be ex- 
 cluded from society for relating a story of so improbable a nature. 
 In no one view is it possible to contemplate the creature man in 
 a more absurd and ridiculous light than in his attachment to 
 
 TOBACCO. 
 
 The progress of habit in the use of Tobacco is exactly the same 
 as in the use of spirituous liquors. The slaves of it begin by 
 using it only after dinner; then, during the whole afternoon and 
 evening; afterwards before dinner, then before breakfast, and 
 finally, during the whole night. I knew a lady who had passed 
 through all these stages, who used to wake regularly two or three 
 times every night to compose her system with fresh doses of snuff. 
 
 The appetite for Tobacco is wholly artificial. No person was 
 ever born with a relish for it ; even in those persons who are 
 much attached to it, nature frequently recovers her disrelish to it. 
 It ceases to be agreeable in every febrile indisposition. This is 
 so invariably true, that a disrelish to it is often a sign of an ap- 
 proaching, and a return of the appetite for it, a sign of a depart- 
 ing fever. I proceed now to mention some of the influences of 
 the habitual use of Tobacco upon morals. 
 
 1. One of the usual effects of smoking and chewing, is thirst. 
 
S2 
 
 BENJAMIN RUSH. 
 
 This thirst cannot be allayed by water ; for no sedative or even 
 insipid liquor will be relished after the mouth and throat have 
 been exposed to the stimulus of the smoke or juice of Tobacco. 
 A desire, of course, is excited for strong drinks, and these, when 
 taken between meals, soon lead to intemperance and drunkenness. 
 
 2. The use of Tobacco, more especially in smoking, disposes to 
 idleness, and idleness has been considered as the root of all evil. 
 "An idle man's brain/' says the celebrated and original Mr. 
 Bunyan, " is the devil's workshop." 
 
 3. The use of Tobacco is necessarily connected with the neglect 
 of cleanliness. 
 
 4. Tobacco, more especially when used in smoking, is gene- 
 rally offensive to those people who do not use it.. To smoke in 
 company, under such circumstances, is a breach of good manners ; 
 now, manners have an influence upon morals. They may be con- 
 sidered as the outposts of virtue. A habit of offending the senses 
 of friends or strangers by the use of Tobacco cannot therefore be 
 indulged with innocence. It produces a want of respect for our 
 fellow-creatures, and this always disposes to unkind and unjust 
 behavior towards them. Who ever knew a rude man completely 
 or uniformly moral ? * * * 
 
 I shall conclude these observations by relating an anecdote of 
 the late Dr. Franklin. A few months before his death, he declared 
 to one of his friends that he had never used Tobacco in any way 
 in the course of his long life, and that he was disposed to believe 
 there was not much advantage to be derived from it, for that he 
 had never met with a man who used it who advised him to follow 
 his example. 
 
 THE BIBLE AS A SCHOOL-BOOK. 
 
 Before I state my arguments in favor of teaching children to 
 read by means of the Bible, I shall assume the five following 
 propositions : — 
 
 I. That Christianity is the only true and perfect religion, and 
 that in proportion as mankind adopt its principles and obey its 
 precepts, they will be wise and happy. 
 
 II. That a better knowledge of this religion is to be acquired 
 by reading the Bible than in any other way. 
 
 III. That the Bible contains more knowledge necessary to man 
 in his present state than any other book in the world. 
 
 IY. That knowledge is most durable, and religious instruction 
 most useful, when imparted in early life. 
 
 V. That the Bible, when not read in schools, is seldom read in 
 any subsequent period of life. 
 
 My arguments in favor of the use of the Bible as a school-book 
 are founded, first, in the constitution of the human mind. The 
 
BENJAMIN RUSH. 
 
 8:] 
 
 memory is the first faculty which opens in the minds of children. 
 Of how much consequence, then, must it be, to impress it with 
 the great truths of Christianity before it is preoccupied with less 
 interesting subjects ! There is also a peculiar aptitude in the 
 minds of children for religious knowledge. I have constantly 
 found them, in the first six or seven years of their lives, more in- 
 quisitive upon religious subjects than upon any others ; and an 
 ingenious instructor of youth has informed me that he has found 
 young children more capable of receiving just ideas upon the 
 most difficult tenets of religion than upon the most simple 
 branches of human knowledge. 
 
 There is a wonderful property in the memory which enables it, 
 in old age, to recover the knowledge it had acquired in early life, 
 after it had been apparently forgotten for forty or fifty years. Of 
 how much consequence, then, must it be, to fill the mind with 
 that species of knowledge, in childhood and youth, which, when 
 recalled in the decline of life, will support the soul under the in- 
 firmities of age, and smooth the avenues of approaching death ! 
 The Bible is the only book which is capable of affording this sup- 
 port to old age ; and it is for this reason that we find it resorted 
 to with so much diligence and pleasure by such old people as have 
 read it in early life. I can recollect many instances of this kind, 
 in persons who discovered no attachment to the Bible in the meri- 
 dian of their lives, who have, notwithstanding, spent the evening 
 of them in reading no other book. 
 
 My second argument in favor of the use of the Bible in schools, 
 is founded upon an implied command of Grod, and upon the prac- 
 tice of several of the wisest nations of the world. In the sixth 
 chapter of Deuteronomy, we find the following words, which are 
 directly to my purpose : — " And thou shalt love the Lord thy 
 God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy 
 might. And these words which I command thee this day, shall 
 be in thine heart. And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy 
 children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, 
 and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, 
 and when thou risest up." * * * 
 
 I have heard it proposed that a portion of the Bible should be 
 read every day by the master, as a means of instructing children 
 in it. But this is a poor substitute for obliging children to read 
 it as a school-book; for, by this means, we insensibly engrave, as 
 it were, its contents upon their minds • and it has been remarked 
 that children, instructed in this way in the Scriptures, seldom 
 forget any part of them. They have the same advantage over 
 those persons who have only heard the Scriptures read by a mas- 
 ter, that a man who has worked with the tools of a mechanical 
 employment for several years, has over the man who has only 
 
84 
 
 LINDLEY MURRAY. 
 
 stood a few hours in the workshop, and seen the same business 
 carried on by other people. 
 
 I think I am not too sanguine in believing that education, con- 
 ducted in this manner, would, in the course of two generations, 
 eradicate infidelity from among us, and render civil government 
 scarcely necessary in our country. 
 
 In contemplating the political institutions of the United States, 
 I lament that we waste so much time and money in punishing 
 crimes, and take so little pains to prevent them. We profess to 
 be republicans, and yet we neglect the only means of establishing 
 and perpetuating our republican forms of government, — that is, 
 the universal education of our youth in the principles of Chris- 
 tianity by means of the Bible ; for this divine Book, above all 
 others, favors that equality among mankind, that respect for just 
 laws, and all those sober and frugal virtues which constitute the 
 soul of republicanism. 
 
 LINDLEY MURRAY, 1745—1826. 
 
 No work which treats of American literature should fail to notice him whoso . 
 works on English philology have been the standard educational books on both 
 sides of the Atlantic for half a century. Lindley Murray was born at Swatara, 
 near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1745. He was quite young when his father, an 
 enterprising trader and miller, removed to New York, and there established him- 
 self as a merchant. Lindley had, very early, a great ardor in the pursuit of 
 knowledge; and, after being a few years in his father's counting-room, he deter- 
 mined to enter the legal pi-ofession, for which he had long felt an inclination ; and 
 his father gave him permission to prepare himself for it. He entered the office 
 of his father's counsellor, Benjamin Kissam, Esq., and was for some time a fellow- 
 student of the illustrious John Jay. 
 
 After remaining four years in Mr. Kissam's office, Mr. Murray was admitted to 
 the bar, and entered upon the practice of his profession ; and the next year 
 he formed a happy matrimonial connection; but soon his father, whose health 
 was feeble, went to England on business, and in a year sent for his son to join 
 him. He did so, and the united families remained some time in that country. 
 In 1771, however, our author returned to New York, and resumed the profession 
 of law, which he practised on the principles of the strictest Christian benevolence, 
 always urging a peaceable settlement of difficulties in every case where it was at 
 all practicable. At the commencement of the Revolutionary struggle, being in 
 poor health, he removed to Long Island ; and, after residing there four years, 
 having much improved, he returned to New York, and entered into mercantile 
 pursuits. He was very successful, and had acquired sufficient to make him inde- 
 pendent of business, when he was attacked by a disease that completely debili- 
 tated his whole muscular system. His physicians believed that the climate of 
 England would be more favorable to his health, and accordingly he and his wife 
 
LINDLEY MURRAY. 
 
 S5 
 
 embarked for that country in 1784. He selected as his residence the village of 
 Holdgate, within a mile of York. His health seemed to improve for a short time, 
 and he was enabled to walk a little in his garden ; but finally he had to give that 
 up and take exercise in his carriage. At length he was compelled to relinquish 
 this also, and from 1809 till his decease — sixteen years — he was wholly confined 
 to the house. But his bodily sufferings were the means of chastening his spirit 
 and strengthening those feelings of piety and devotion which he had long 
 cherished. An American 1 who visited him in 1819 remarks, "Though so weuk 
 as scarcely able to bear his own weight, he has been enabled, by the power of a 
 strong and well-balanced mind, and by the exercise of the Christian virtues, to 
 gain a complete ascendency over himself, and to exhibit an instance of meekness, 
 patience, and humility which affords, I may truly say, one of the most edifying 
 examples I have ever beheld." On the 16th of February, 1826, this eminently 
 good man closed his earthly career. 
 
 Few authors have so wide-spread a fame as Lindley Murray, and few have had 
 so many readers. His first publication Avas The Power of Religion on the Mind, — 
 a treatise of great excellence, which was very favorably received, and passed 
 through numerous editions. His next work was his English Grammar, which was 
 soon followed by his English Reader; and it is doubtless the fact that no other 
 school-books have ever enjoyed so wide a circulation. He afterwards published 
 au Introduction and a Sequel to the Reader, an octavo edition of his Grammar, 
 and several other minor works on the English language. 
 
 The following prose extracts are from a series of letters of an autobiographical 
 character. 
 
 MODERATION IX ONE'S DESIRES. 
 
 My views and wishes, with regard to property, were, in every 
 period of life, contained within a very moderate compass. I was 
 early persuaded that, though " a competence is vital to content," I 
 ought not to annex to that term the idea of much property. And 
 I determined that when I should acquire enough to enable me to 
 maintain and provide for my family, in a respectable and mode- 
 rate manner, and this according to real and rational, not imaginary 
 and fantastic wants, and a little to spare for the necessities of 
 others, I would decline the pursuits of property, and devote a 
 great part of my time, in some way or other, to the benefit of my 
 fellow-creatures, within the sphere of my abilities to serve them. 
 I perceived that the desire of great possessions generally expands 
 with the gradual acquisition and the full attainment of them ; and 
 I imagined that charity and a generous application do not suffi- 
 ciently correspond with the increase of property. I thought, too, 
 that procuring great wealth has a tendency to produce an elated 
 independence of mind, little connected with that humility which 
 is the ground of all our virtues ; that a busy and anxious pursuit 
 of it often excludes views and reflections of infinite importance, 
 
 1 Prof. Griscom. 
 
 8 
 
86 
 
 LINDLEY MURRAY. 
 
 and leaves but little time to acquire that treasure which would 
 make us rich indeed. I was inclined to think that a wish for 
 personal distinction a desire of providing too abundantly for their 
 children, and a powerful habit of accumulation, are the motives 
 which commonly actuate men in the acquisition of great wealth. 
 The strenuous endeavors of many persons to vindicate this pur- 
 suit, on the ground that the idea of a competency is indefinite, and 
 that the more we gain, the more good we may do with it, did not 
 make much impression upon me. I fancied that, in general, ex- 
 perience did not correspond with this plausible reasoning; and I 
 was persuaded that a truly sincere mind could be at no loss to dis- 
 cern the just limits between a safe and competent portion and a 
 dangerous profusion of the good things of life. These views of 
 the subject I reduced to practice; and terminated my mercantile 
 concerns when I had acquired a moderate competency. 
 
 EMPLOYMENT ESSENTIAL TO HEALTH. 
 
 In the course of my literary labors, I found that the mental 
 exercise which accompanied them was not a little beneficial to my 
 health. The motives which excited me to write, and the objects 
 which I hoped to accomplish, were of a nature calculated to cheer 
 the mind, and to give the animal spirits a salutary impulse. I am 
 persuaded that, if I had suffered my time to pass away, with little 
 or no employment, my health would have been still more im- 
 paired, my spirits depressed, and, perhaps, my life considerably 
 shortened. I have, therefore, reason to deem it a happiness, and 
 a source of gratitude to Divine Providence, that I was enabled, 
 under my bodily weakness and confinement, to turn my attention 
 to the subjects which have for so many years afforded me abun- 
 dant occupation. I think it is incumbent upon us, whatever may 
 be our privations, to cast our eyes around, and endeavor to dis- 
 cover whether there are not some means yet left us of doing good 
 to ourselves and to others ; that our lights may, in some degree, 
 shine in every situation, and, if possible, be extinguished only 
 with our lives. The quantum of good which, under such circum- 
 stances, we do, ought not to disturb or affect us. If we perform 
 what we are able to perform, how little soever it may be, it is 
 enough ; it will be acceptable in the sight of Him who knows how 
 to estimate exactly all our actions, by comparing them with our 
 disposition and ability. 
 
 THE BLESSINGS OF AFFLICTION. 
 
 I consider myself as under deep obligations to God for the 
 trials and afflictions with which he has been pleased to visit me, 
 
DAVID RAMSEY. 
 
 87 
 
 as well as for the prosperous events of my life. They have been 
 the corrections and restraints of a wise and merciful Father; and 
 may justly be ranked among the number of my choicest blessings. 
 I am firmly persuaded that cross occurrences and adverse situa- 
 tions may be improved by us to the happiest purposes. The spirit 
 of resignation to the will of Heaven, which they inculcate, and 
 the virtuous exertions to which they prompt us, in order to make 
 the best of our condition, not only often greatly amend it, but 
 confer on the mind a strength and elevation which dispose it to 
 survey with less attachment the transient things of time, and to 
 desire more earnestly the eternal happiness of another world. 
 
 DAVID RAMSEY, 1749—1815. 
 
 David Ramsey, the historian of the Revolution, was horn in Lancaster County, 
 Pennsylvania, on the 2d of April, 1749. His father, James Ramsey, was a re- 
 spectable farmer, who had emigrated from Ireland, and by the diligent culti- 
 vation of his farm was enabled to educate a numerous family. A Protestant 
 Christian, he early sowed the seeds of religion in the minds of his children, and 
 lived to see the happy fruits of his care and labor. Our author when a youth 
 showed great quickness of intellect, and, after going through the usual pre- 
 paratory studies, entered Princeton College, where he graduated in 1765, being 
 only sixteen years of age. After teaching for two years, he commenced the study 
 of medicine in Philadelphia, under Dr. Rush, and in 1772 entered upon its 
 practice in Maryland. The next year he removed to Charleston, S. C, and 
 rose rapidly to eminence in his profession and in the respect of the community. 1 
 His talents, business habits, and industry eminently qualified him for an active 
 part in public affairs, and from the time of the Declaration of Independence to 
 the close of the war he was a member of the Legislature of South Carolina. In 
 February, 1782, he was elected a member of the Continental Congress, and again 
 in 1785. The next year he returned to Charleston, and again entered the walks 
 of private life. 
 
 From the beginning to the close of the war, Dr. Ramsey had been carefully 
 collecting materials for its history, and in 1785 published his History of the Revo- 
 lution in South Carolina. Five years after, in 1790, when he had studied the sub- 
 ject more thoroughly, and had gained much valuable information from many dis- 
 tinguished actors in its scenes, he published his History of the American Revolu- 
 tion, which was received with universal approbation. In 1801, he published his 
 
 1 On his going to Charleston, Dr. Rush wrote a commendatory letter, to aid him 
 in his profession, in which he says, "It is saying but little of him to tell you that he 
 is far superior to any person we ever graduated at our college ; his abilities are not 
 only good, but great ; his talents and knowledge universal. * * * Joined to all 
 these, he is sound in his principles, strict, nay more, severe in his morals. He 
 writes, talks, and — what is more — lives well." 
 
88 
 
 DAVID RAMSEY. 
 
 Life of Washington, which still maintains a high reputation. In 1808, he gave t<* 
 the world a History of South Carolina, in two volumes octavo. Besides these 
 historical works, he published a number of essays connected with his profession; 
 a Biographical Chart, to facilitate the study of history; and a Eulogium on .Dr. 
 Rush. He had made preparations for publishing a larger historical work upon 
 our country, when he was suddenly deprived of life, being shot by a lunatic, in the 
 streets of Charleston, on the 8th of May, 1815. 
 
 WASHINGTON RESIGNING HIS COMMISSION. 
 
 The hour now approached in which it became necessary for the 
 American chief to take leave of his officers, who had been endeared 
 to him by a long series of common sufferings and dangers. This 
 was done in a solemn manner. The officers having previously 
 assembled for the purpose, General Washington joined them, and, 
 calling for a glass of wine, thus addressed them : — "With a heart 
 full of love and gratitude, I now take leave of you. I most de- 
 voutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy 
 as your former ones have been glorious and honorable/' Having 
 drank, he added, " I cannot come to each of you to take my leave, 
 but shall be obliged to you if each of you will come and take me 
 by the hand." General Knox, being next, turned to him. In- 
 capable of utterance, Washington grasped his hand, and embraced 
 him. The officers came up successively, and he took an affection- 
 ate leave of each of them. Not a word was articulated on either 
 side. A majestic silence prevailed. The tear of sensibility glis- 
 tened in every eye. The tenderness of the scene exceeded all 
 description. When the last of the officers had taken his leave, 
 Washington left the room, and passed through the corps of light 
 infantry to the place of embarkation. The officers followed in a 
 solemn, mute procession, with dejected countenances. On his 
 entering the barge to cross the North Kiver, he turned towards 
 the companions of his glory, and, by waving his hat, bid them a 
 silent adieu. Some of them answered this last signal of respect 
 and affection with tears ; and all of them gazed upon the barge 
 which conveyed him from their sight till they could no longer 
 distinguish in it the person of their beloved commander-in-chief. 
 
 The army being disbanded, Washington proceeded to Annapolis, 
 then the seat of Congress, to resign his commission. On his way 
 thither, he, of his own accord, delivered to the comptroller of 
 accounts in Philadelphia an account of the expenditure of all the 
 public money he had ever received. This was in his own hand- 
 writing, and every entry was made in a very particular manner. 
 Vouchers were produced for every item, except for secret intelli- 
 gence and services, which amounted to no more than 1982 pounds, 
 10 shillings sterling. The whole which, in the course of eight 
 
JOHN TRUMBULL. 
 
 89 
 
 years of war, had passed through his hands, amounted only to 
 14,479 pounds, 18 shillings, 9 pence sterling. Nothing was 
 charged or retained for personal services; and actual disburse- 
 ments had been managed with such economy and fidelity, that 
 they were all covered by the above moderate sum. 
 
 After accounting for all his expenditures of public money, 
 (secret-service money, for obvious reasons, excepted,) with all the 
 exactness which established forms required from the inferior 
 officers of his army, he hastened to resign into the hands of the 
 fathers of his country the powers with which they had invested 
 him. This was done in a public audience. Congress received 
 him as the founder and guardian of the republic. While he ap- 
 peared before them, they silently retraced the scenes of danger 
 and distress through which they had passed together. They re- 
 called to mind the blessings of freedom and peace purchased by 
 his arm. They gazed with wonder on their fellow-citizen, who 
 appeared more great and worthy of esteem in resigning his power 
 than he had done in gloriously using it. Every heart was big 
 with emotion. Tears of admiration and gratitude burst from 
 every eye. The general sympathy was felt by the resigning hero, 
 and wet his cheek with a nianly tear. * * * 
 
 His own sensations, after retiring from public business, are thus 
 expressed in his letters : — " I am just beginning to experience the 
 ease and freedom from public cares, which, however desirable, it 
 takes some time to realize j for, strange as it may seem, it is 
 nevertheless true, that it was not until lately I could get the 
 better of my usual custom of ruminating, as soon as I awoke in 
 the morning, on the business of the ensuing day; and of my sur- 
 prise on rinding, after revolving many things in my mind, that I 
 was no longer a public man, or had any thing to do with public 
 transactions. I feel as I conceive a wearied traveller must do, who, 
 after treading many a painful step with a heavy burden on his 
 shoulders, is eased of the latter, having reached the haven to 
 which all the former were directed, and, from his housetop, is 
 looking back, and tracing with an eager eye the meanders by 
 which he escaped the quicksands and mires which lay in his way, 
 and into which none but the all-powerful Guide and Dispenser of 
 human events could have prevented his falling." 
 
 JOHN" TRUMBULL, 1750—1831. 
 
 John Trumbull, the author of the celebrated poem McFingal, was born in 
 Waterbury, Connecticut, on the 21th of April, 1750. His father was a Congrega- 
 tional clergyman, of a family distinguished in the literary and political annals of 
 
 8* 
 
90 JOHN TRUMBULL. 
 
 Connecticut, and fitted his son for Yale College, where he graduated in 1767, the 
 first in his class for genius and attainments, though but seventeen years of age. 
 He then remained three years at college as a resident graduate, devoting himself 
 principally to the study of polite letters, and forming many valuable acquaint- 
 ances, among whom was Timothy Dwight, afterwards President of the college. 
 In 1771, Trumbull and Dwight were elected tutors of the college, and exerted all 
 their energies to introduce an improved system of study and discipline in the 
 institution. 
 
 In 1772, Trumbull published the first part of The Progress of Dulness, — a 
 satirical poem in Hudibrastic verse, exposing to ridicule the absurd methods of 
 education that then prevailed. Tom Brainless, a dunce, is sent to college, and, 
 with a little smattering of Latin and Greek, is transferred to a country minister to 
 study theology, and in due time is " ground out" a preacher. In the second part 
 a blow is aimed at the coxcombry of fashionable life in the person of Dick Hair- 
 brain, a conceited and idle fop. The third part describes the life and fortunes of 
 Miss Harriet Simper, who in ignorance and folly, if not in hooped rotundity, is 
 the counterpart of the said Hairbrain, by whose charms she is captivated. But, 
 failing in her efforts, she consoles herself in later years with the love of the pro- 
 ound Brainless, and their marriage concludes the poem. 
 
 THE FOP'S DECLINE. 
 
 How pale the palsied fop appears, 
 
 Low shivering in the vale of years ; 
 
 The ghost of all his former days, 
 
 "When folly lent the ear of praise, 
 
 And beaux with pleased attention hung 
 
 On accents of his chatt'ring tongue. 
 
 Now all those days of pleasure o'er, 
 
 That chatt'ring tongue must prate no more. 
 
 From every place that bless'd his hopes, 
 
 He's elbow'd out by younger fops. 
 
 Each pleasing thought unknown, that cheers 
 
 The sadness of declining years, 
 
 In lonely age he sinks forlorn, 
 
 Of all, and even himself, the scorn. 
 
 The coxcomb's course were gay and clever, 
 Would health and money last forever, 
 Did conscience never break the charm, 
 Nor fear of future worlds alarm. 
 But oh, since youth and years decay, 
 And life's vain follies fleet away, 
 Since age has no respect for beaux, 
 And death the gaudy scene must close, — 
 Happy the man, whose early bloom 
 Provides for endless years to come ; 
 That learning seeks, whose useful gain 
 Kepays the course of studious pain ; 
 Whose fame the thankful age shall raise, 
 And future times repeat its praise ; 
 Attains that heartfelt peace of mind, 
 To all the will of Heaven resign'd, 
 
JOHN TRUMBULL. 
 
 91 
 
 Which calms in youth, the blast of rage, 
 Adds sweetest hope to sinking age, 
 AVith valued use prolongs the breath, 
 And gives a placid smile to death. 
 
 THE BELLE. 
 
 Thus Harriet, rising on the stage, 
 Learns all the arts that please the age ; 
 And studies well, as fits her station, 
 The trade of politics and fashion : 
 A judge of modes in silks and satins, 
 From tassels down to clogs and pattens ; 
 A genius, that can calculate 
 When modes of dress are out of date ; 
 Cast the nativity with ease 
 Of gowns, and sacks, and negligees ; 
 And tell, exact to half a minute, 
 What's out of fashion and what's in it. 
 
 On Sunday, see the haughty maid 
 In all the glare of dress array'd, 
 Deck'd in her most fantastic gown, 
 Because a stranger's come to town 
 Heedless at church she spends the day, 
 For homelier folks may serve to pray, 
 And for devotion those may go, 
 Who can have nothing else to do. 
 Beauties at church may spend their care in 
 Far other work than pious hearing ; 
 They've beaux to conquer, belles to rival ; 
 To make them serious were uncivil. 
 For, like the preacher, they each Sunday 
 Must do their whole week's work in one day. 
 
 As though they meant to take by blows 
 Th' opposing galleries of beaux, 1 
 To church the female squadron move, 
 All arm'd with weapons used in love. 
 Like color'd ensigns gay and fair, 
 High caps rise floating in the air ; 
 Bright silk, its varied radiance flings, 
 And streamers wave in kissing-strings ; 
 Each bears th' artill'ry of her charms, 
 Like training bands at viewing arms. 
 
 While acting as tutor, Trumbull gave all his leisure time to the study of law, 
 and in 1773 was admitted to the bar of Connecticut; and soon his professional 
 prospects were very flattering. But his heart was always more in literature than 
 in law. In 1775, he published the first part of McFingal, and when he removed 
 with his family 2 to Hartford, in 1781, he completed it. This poem, in four cantos, 
 
 1 Young people of different sexes used then to sit in the opposite galleries. 
 
 2 In 1776, he was married to Miss Sarah Hubbard, daughter of Leverett 
 Hubbard. 
 
02 
 
 JOHN TRUMBULL. 
 
 which had such great celebrity in its day, is in the Hudibrastic vein, and an ad- 
 mirable imitation of the great satire of Butler. Its hero is a Scottish justice of 
 the peace, a high Tory, residing near Boston ; and the first two cantos are chiefly 
 occupied with a discussion at a "Town Meeting" between him and one Honorious, 
 a stanch Whig, who takes the American side in politics. The meeting ends in a 
 riot. In the third canto, McFingal is seized by the mob, tried at the foot of the 
 " Liberty Pole," convicted of Toryism, and sentenced to " tar and feathers." In 
 the fourth and last canto, McFingal assembles his Tory friends in a cellar, ha- 
 rangues them upon their disastrous prospects, and, by virtue of his second-sight, 
 foretells the calamities that would befall the British arms, and the sure success of 
 the cause of freedom. His speech is suddenly interrupted by an invasion of his 
 old enemies, the company is dispersed, the hero escapes to Boston, and the poem 
 closes. 
 
 CHARACTER OF M C FINGAL. 
 
 When Yankees, 1 skill' d in martial rule 
 First put the British troops to school, 
 Instructed them in warlike trade, 
 And new manoeuvres of parade, 
 The true war-dance of Yankee reels, 
 And manual exercise of heels ; 
 Made them give u]), like saints complete, 
 The arm of flesh, and trust the feet, 
 And work, like Christians undissembling, 
 Salvation out, by fear and trembling ; 
 Taught Percy fashionable races, 
 And modern modes of Chevy-Chases : 2 
 From Boston, in his best array, 
 Great Squire McFingal took his way, 
 And graced with ensigns of renown, 
 Steer'd homeward to his native toAvn. 
 
 His high descent our heralds trace 
 From Ossian's 3 famed Fingalian race : 
 For though their name some part may lack, 
 Old Fingal spelt it with a Mac ; 
 Which great McPherson, with submission, 
 We hope will add the next edition. 
 
 His fathers flourish'd in the Highlands 
 Of Scotia's fog-benighted islands ; 
 Whence gain'd our 'squire two gifts by right, 
 Rebellion, and the second-sight. 
 Of these, the first, in ancient days, 
 Had gain'd the noblest palm of praise, 
 
 1 Yankees, — a term formerly of derision, but now merely of distinction, given to 
 the people of the four Eastern States. — Lon. Edit. 
 
 2 Lord Percy commanded the party that was first opposed to the Americans at 
 Lexington. This allusion to the family renown of Chevy-Chase arose from the 
 precipitate manner of his lordship's quitting the field of battle and returning to 
 Boston. — Lon. Edit. 
 
 3 See Fingal, an ancient epic poem, published as the work of Ossian, a Cale- 
 donian bard of the third century, by James McPherson. The complete name of 
 Ossian, according to the Scottish nomenclature, will be Ossian McFingal. 
 
JOHN TRUMBULL. 
 
 93 
 
 'Gainst kings stood forth, and many a crown'd head 
 With terror of its might confounded. * * * 
 
 Nor less avail'd his optic sleight, 
 And Scottish gift of second-sight. 1 
 No ancient sibyl, famed in rhyme, 
 Saw deeper in the womb of time ; 
 No block in old Dodona's grove 
 Could ever more orac'lar prove. 
 Nor only saw he all that could be, 
 But much that never was, nor would be ; 
 Whereby all prophets far outwent he, 
 Though former days produced a plenty : 
 For any man with half an eye 
 What stands before him can espy ; 
 But optics sharp it needs, I ween, 
 To see what is not to be seen. 
 
 M c FINGAL's VISION OF AMERICAN GREATNESS. 
 
 And see, (sight hateful and tormenting!) 
 This rebel Empire, proud and vaunting, 
 From anarchy shall change her crasis, 
 And fix her power on firmer basis ; 
 To glory, wealth, and fame ascend, 
 Her commerce wake, her realms extend ; 
 Where now the panther guards his den, 
 Her desert forests swarm with men ; 
 Gay cities, towers, and columns rise, 
 And dazzling temples meet the skies : 
 Her pines, descending to the main, 
 2 In triumph spread the wat'ry plain, 
 Ride inland seas with fav'ring gales, 
 And crowd her port with whitening sails: 
 Till to the skirts of western day, 
 The peopled regions own her sway. 
 
 These specimens will give the reader some idea of the merits of two poems that, 
 in their day, had a wide celebrity, hut which are now very little read. 
 
 After filling many honorable offices, in 1801 Trumbull was appointed a Judge 
 of the Superior Court. In 1820, a collection of his poems was made, in two 
 volumes octavo, to which he prefixed a memoir. In 1825, he removed to Detroit, 
 to reside with his daughter, the wife of Hon. William Woodbridge, with whom he 
 remained till the time of his death, which took place in May, 1831. 
 
 Judge Trumbull maintained through life an honorable and upright character, 
 ilsa scholar, a wit, a gentleman, he was greatly admired by all who knew him, 
 and he has left a name which must always sustain a conspicuous place in the 
 early history of American letters. 2 
 
 1 They who wish to understand the nature and modus operandi of the Highland 
 vision by second-sight, may consult the profound Johnson, in his " Tour to the 
 Hebrides," Lon. Edit. 
 
 2 President Dwight thus writes of Trumbull's poem : — " It may be observed, 
 without any partiality, that McFingal is not inferior in wit and humor to Hudi- 
 
94 
 
 JOHN LEDYARD. 
 
 JOHN LEDYARD, 1751—1788. 
 
 John Ledyard, the celebrated traveller, was born at Groton, Connecticut, in 
 tbe year 1751. His father died when he was quite young, leaving his mother with 
 four children, in very straitened circumstances. She is described as a woman of 
 many excellencies of mind and character, well informed, resolute, generous, 
 amiable, and, above all, eminent for piety. Such a mother is a priceless treasure; 
 and Ledyard preserved to the end of his life a warm and most devoted affection 
 for her. After a few years, he was taken to Hartford by his grandfather, and 
 placed in a grammar-school. At the age of twenty-one, he went to Dartmouth 
 College, with a view of qualifying himself to become a missionary among the 
 Indians. But this project was soon abandoned, and Ledyard, after remaining at 
 college about a year, returned to his father's house, sailing down the Connecticut 
 to Hartford in a canoe which he made from the trunk of a tree. So early did his 
 roving spirit manifest itself. 
 
 Soon after this adventure, he resolved to go to sea, and accordingly entered, 
 as a common sailor, a vessel at New London, bound for Gibraltar. He returned 
 home again after a year, but, having no means of support, concluded to go to 
 England in search of some rich relations of his own name in London. He sailed 
 from New York for Plymouth, and thence, without a penny in his pocket, walked 
 to London, begging enough for subsistence on the road. When he arrived at the 
 metropolis, he found one of the persons of whom he was in quest ; but so coldly 
 and distrustfully was he received, that the spirit of Ledyard would not allow 
 him to sue for any favors. 
 
 Just at this time, Captain Cook was making preparations for his third and last 
 voyage around the world. Ledyard offered his services to the renowned navigator, 
 who was so much pleased with his manner and appearance, and with his enthu- 
 siasm for travel, that he immediately took him into his service, and appointed him 
 corporal of marines. The expedition left England on the 12th of July, 1776, and 
 returned after an absence of four years and three months. Ledyard kept a jour- 
 nal of the voyage ; and his account of the scene at the Sandwich Islands, which 
 resulted in the death of Captain Cook, is particularly valuable, as he was near his 
 person at the time of the skirmish with the natives. For two years after his return 
 to England he continued in the British navy, though in what capacity it is not 
 known; and in December, 1782, he came home to visit his mother and friends. 
 His restless spirit, however, could not long be tranquil, and he projected a voyage 
 to the Northwest coast for furs ; but, after trying in vain a whole year to persuade 
 some merchants in New York and Boston to embark in the enterprise, he sailed 
 
 bras, and in every other respect is superior. It has a regular plan, in which all 
 the parts are well proportioned and connected. The subject is fairly proposed, 
 and the story conducted correctly through a series of advancements and retarda- 
 tions to a catastrophe which is natural and complete. The versification is far 
 better, the poetry is in several instances in a good degree elegant, and in some 
 even sublime." 
 
 " Trumbull was undoubtedly the most conspicuous literary character of his day 
 in this country. His society was much sought, and he was the nucleus of a band 
 of brilliant geniuses, including Dwight, Hopkins, Alsop, Humphreys, &c." — 
 Goodrich's Recollections. 
 
JOHN LEDYARD. 
 
 95 
 
 for France. There he met with such continued disappointments as would have 
 broken down any one who had not his persevering, adventurous spirit; but we 
 find him the next year projecting a journey across Russia and Siberia to Okhotsk, 
 which was warmly approved of by Sir Joseph Banks and other gentlemen of 
 science in London. 
 
 In December, 1786, Ledyard left London for Hamburg, to set out on his hyper- 
 borean tour. He arrived in Copenhagen in January, thence sailed to Stock- 
 holm, and reached St. Petersburg by the 20th of March. Here he suffered many 
 vexatious delays before he could get his passport from the Empress to travel 
 through her dominions. He at length left the imperial city on the 1st of June, in 
 company with Mr. William Brown, a Scotch physician, who was going to the pro- 
 vince of Kolyvan, in the employment of the Empress. In six days the party 
 arrived at Moscow, where they stayed but one day. They hired a person to go 
 with them to Kazan, a distance of 550 miles, and drive their kibitka with three 
 horses. "Kibitka travelling," says Ledyard, in his journal, "is the remains of 
 caravan travelling ; it is your only home ; it is like a ship at sea." They stayed 
 a week at Kazan, and then commenced their journey to Tobolsk, where they 
 arrived on the 11th of July. They remained here but three days, and then con- 
 tinued their journey to Barnaul, the capital of the province of Kolyvan. 
 
 At this place Ledyard was to leave Dr. Brown and proceed alone. He, there- 
 fore, was prevailed upon to remain here a week, and enjoy the hospitalities of the 
 society. In his journal he writes thus of 
 
 THE TARTARS AND RUSSIANS. 
 
 The nice gradation by which I pass from civilization to incivi- 
 lization appears in every thing, — in manners, dress, language; 
 and particularly in that remarkable and important circumstance, 
 color, which, I am now fully convinced, originates from natural 
 causes, and is the effect of external and local circumstances. I 
 think the same of feature. I see here among the Tartars the 
 large mouth, the thick lip, the broad, flat nose, as well as in 
 Africa. I see also in the same village as great a difference of 
 complexion, from the fair hair, fair skin, and white eyes, to the 
 olive, the black jetty hair and eyes; and these all of the same 
 language, same dress, and, I suppose, same tribe. I have fre- 
 quently observed in Russian villages, obscure and dirty, mean and 
 poor, that the women of the peasantry paint their faces, both red 
 and white. I have had occasion, from this and other circum- 
 stances, to suppose that the Russians are a people who have been 
 early attached to luxury. The contour of their manners is 
 Asiatic, and not European. The Tartars are universally neater 
 than the Russians, particularly in their houses. The Tartar, how- 
 ever situated, is a voluptuary ; and it is an original and striking 
 trait in their character, from the Grand Seignior, to him who 
 pitches his tent on the wild frontiers of Russia and China, that 
 
96 
 
 JOHN LEDYARD. 
 
 the}' are more addicted to real sensual pleasure than any other 
 people. 
 
 After spending a week very agreeably at Barnaul, Lc<Jyard made preparations 
 for resuming his journey, and reached Yakutsk, on the Lena, on the 18th of 
 September. Here he was told by the authorities that the journey to Okhotsk at 
 that season was impracticable, — a mild manner of telling him that he must not go. 
 He therefore resolved to make the best use of his time, and lost no opportunity 
 of gaining all the knowledge he could of the country and the people. The fol- 
 lowing are two extracts from his journal at this place : — 
 
 PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 The Tartar face, in the first impression it gives, approaches 
 nearer to the African than the European ; and this impression is 
 strengthened on a more deliberate examination of the individual 
 features and whole compages of the countenance ; yet it is very 
 different from an African face. The nose forms a strong feature 
 in the human face. I have seen instances among the Kalmuks 
 where the nose, between the eyes, has been much flatter and 
 broader than I have ever witnessed in Negroes, and some few in- 
 stances where it has been as broad over the nostrils quite to the 
 end; but the nostrils in any case are much smaller than in 
 Negroes. Where I have seen those noses, they were accompanied 
 with a large mouth and thick lips; and these people were genuine 
 Kalmuk Tartars. The nose protuberates but little from the face, 
 and is shorter than that of the European. The eyes universally 
 are at a great distance from each other, and very small ; at each 
 corner of the eye the skin projects over the ball; the part appears 
 swelled ; the eyelids go in nearly a straight line from corner to 
 corner. When open, the eye appears as in a square frame. The 
 mouth generally, however, is of a middling size, and the lips thin. 
 The next remarkable features are the cheek bones. These, like 
 the eyes, are very remote from each other, high, broad, and withal 
 project a little forward. The face is flat. When I look at a 
 Tartar en profile, I can hardly see the nose between the eyes, and 
 if he blow a coal of fire, I cannot see the nose at all. The face is 
 then like an inflated bladder. The forehead is narrow and low. 
 The face has a fresh color, and on the cheek bones there is com- 
 monly a good ruddy hue. 
 
 The Tartars, from time immemorial, (I mean the Asiatic Tar- 
 tars,) have been a people of a wandering disposition. Their con- 
 verse has been more among the beasts of the forest than among 
 men ; and when among men, it has only been those of their own 
 nation. They have ever been savages, averse to civilization, and 
 have never, until very lately, mingled with other nations, and now 
 
JOHN LEDYARD. 
 
 97 
 
 rarely. Whatever cause may have originated their peculiarities 
 of features, the reason why they still continue, is their secluded 
 way of life, which has preserved them from mixing with other 
 people. I am ignorant how far a constant society with beasts may 
 operate in changing the features ; but I am persuaded that this 
 circumstance, together with an uncultivated state of mind, — if we 
 consider a long and uninterrupted succession of ages, — must 
 account, in some degree, for this remarkable singularity. 
 
 WOMAN. 
 
 I have observed among all nations that the women ornament 
 themselves more than tbe men; that, wherever found, they are 
 the same kind, civil, obliging, humane, tender beings ; that they 
 are ever inclined to be gay and cheerful, timorous and modest. 
 They do not hesitate, like man, to perform a hospitable or gene- 
 rous action ; not haughty, nor arrogant, nor supercilious, but full 
 of courtesy and fond of society ; industrious, economical, ingenu- 
 ous ; more liable in general to err than man, but in general also 
 more virtuous, and performing more good actions than he. I never 
 addressed myself in the language of decency and friendship to a 
 woman, whether civilized or savage, without receiving a decent 
 and friendly answer. With man it has often been otherwise. 
 In wandering over the barren plains of inhospitable Denmark, 
 through honest Sweden, frozen Lapland, rude and churlish Fin- 
 land, unprincipled Russia, and the wide-spread regions of the 
 wandering Tartar, — if hungry, dry, cold, wet, or sick, woman has 
 ever been friendly to me, and uniformly so ; and to add to this 
 virtue, so worthy of the appellation of benevolence, these actions 
 have been performed in so free and so kind a manner, that, if I 
 was dry, I drank the sweet draught, and, if hungry, ate the coarse 
 morsel, with a double relish. 
 
 On the 29th of December Ledyard left Yakutsk to return to Irkutsk, which he 
 reached in seventeen days. Here, by an order from the Empress, he was arrested, 
 under the pretence of his being a spy, and was conducted by two guai-ds, with all 
 the speed with which horses and sledges could convey him, to Moscow, exposed 
 to the extreme rigors of a Siberian winter, and thence to Poland. Here he was 
 set at liberty, and told that if he ever entered Russia again it would be at the cost 
 of his life. While on the journey, he thus writes on the 
 
 BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY. 
 
 Though born in the freest of the civilized countries, yet, in 
 the present state of privation, I have a more exquisite sense of the 
 amiable, the immortal nature of liberty than I ever had before. 
 
 9 
 
98 
 
 JAMES MADISON. 
 
 It would be excellently qualifying if every man who is called to 
 preside over the liberties of a people should once — it would be 
 enough — actually be deprived of his liberty unjustly. He would 
 be avaricious of it more than of any other earthly possession. I 
 could love a country and its inhabitants if it were a country of 
 freedom. There are two kinds of people I could anathematize 
 with a better weapon than St. Peter's, — those who dare deprive 
 others of their liberty, and those who suffer others to do it. 
 
 From Poland he went to London, where he was received with great cordiality 
 hy that munificent patron of letters and science, Sir Joseph Banks. He had not 
 been in London a day, before a plan was proposed to him to explore Central 
 Africa; and being asked when he would be ready to set out, "To-morrow morn- 
 ing," was the prompt answer; and, the preparations for his journey having been 
 made, he left London on the 30th of June, under the patronage of the "African 
 Association." He went first to Paris, thence to Marseilles, thence sailed to Alex- 
 andria, and arrived at Cairo on the 19th of August. Here, after having spent 
 three months in making every inquiry and preparation for his hazardous journey, 
 just as he was about starting, he was attacked by a bilious fever. The best medi- 
 cal skill of Cairo was called to his aid, but without effect, and in November, 1788, 
 in the thirty-eighth year of his age, he closed his life of vicissitude and toil at the 
 moment when he imagined his severest cares were over, and when the prospects 
 before him were more flattering than they had been at any former period. 
 
 Such was the end of one of the most remarkable of men, in whom the spirit 
 of romantic adventure was ever conspicuous. That he accomplished little com- 
 pared with the magnitude of his designs seems to have been his misfortune, not 
 his fault. The acts of his life demand notice less on account of their results than 
 of the spirit with which they were performed, and the uncommon traits of character 
 which prompted to their execution. Such instances of decision, energy, perse- 
 verance, fortitude, and enterprise have rarely been witnessed in the same indi- 
 vidual ; and, in the exercise of these high attributes of mind, his example cannot 
 be too much admired or imitated. 1 
 
 JAMES MADISON, 1751—1836. 
 
 James Madison, the fourth President of the United States, was born in Orange 
 County, Virginia, on the 5th of March, (0. S.,) 1751. After the usual preparatory 
 studies, he entered Princeton College in 1767, and graduated in 1771. While at 
 college, he studied so intensely as to impair his health, which it took some years 
 to recover after his return home; during which he devoted a portion of his time to 
 reading law and miscellaneous literature. In 1776, he was elected a member of 
 the General Assembly of his native State. The next year he was appointed by the 
 
 1 Read Sparks's Life of Ledyard; Quarterly Review, xxxviii. 85; North Amer. 
 Rev., xxvii. 360 ; Amer. Quar., iii. 88. 
 
JAMES MADISON. 
 
 99 
 
 Assembly a member of the Council of State, which position he held till 1779, when 
 he was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress, of which he continued a 
 member till 1784. In 1787, he was elected a member of Congress, and in the 
 same year a delegate to the Convention at Philadelphia which formed the present 
 Constitution of the United States. Of the debates of this remarkable body, he is 
 the only one who preserved the records, which were published after his death, and 
 are among the most valuable materials of our country's history. 1 In the interval 
 between the close of the Convention and the meeting of the State Conventions to 
 sanction the Federal Constitution, Mr. Madison, in conjunction with Alexander 
 Hamilton and John Jay, wrote a series of articles in the public prints in favor of 
 the Constitution, which were afterwards collected in a volume, entitled The 
 Federalist, 2 and which, for half a century, was a text-book in our best colleges. 
 On the adoption of the Constitution, he was elected a representative to Congress, 
 and continued a member till 1797, the end of Washington's administration. 
 
 On the accession of Mr. Jefferson to the Presidency, in 1801, Mr. Madison was 
 appointed Secretary of State, which office he held during the eight years of Mr. 
 Jefferson's administration; and in 1809 he succeeded his friend and coadjutor as 
 President of the United States. After having filled the office for two terms, he re- 
 tired to his seat, Montpelier, where he passed his remaining j-ears, chiefly as a private 
 citizen, declining political office, except that he acted as visitor and rector of the 
 University of Virginia, and as a member of the State Convention to amend the 
 Constitution of Virginia. He died on the 28th of June, 1S36, distinguished for 
 his talents and acquirements, for the important offices which he had filled, and for 
 his virtues in private life. 
 
 OUR COUNTRY'S RESPONSIBILITIES TO THE WORLD. 
 
 Let it be remembered, that it lias ever been the pride and boast 
 of America that the rights for which she contended were the rights 
 of human nature. By the blessing of the Author of these rights 
 on the means exerted for their defence, they have prevailed over 
 all opposition. * * * No instance has heretofore occurred, nor 
 can any instance be expected hereafter to occur, in which the un- 
 adulterated forms of republican government can pretend to so fair 
 an opportunity of justifying themselves by their fruits. In this 
 view, the citizens of the United States are responsible for the 
 greatest trust ever confided to a political society. If justice, 
 good faith, honor, gratitude, and all the other qualities which 
 ennoble the character of a nation and fulfil the ends of govern- 
 
 1 Many of the views advocated by Mr. Madison in the Convention for framing 
 the Constitution will ever be an honor to his character. He thought the clause 
 allowing the "importation of such persons as any State might think proper," till 
 1808, ''dishonorable to the American character." And again, "Mr. Madison 
 thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property 
 in men." 
 
 2 Of the eighty-five numbers of the " Federalist," five were written by Jay, four- 
 teen by Madison, two by Hamilton and Madison, and sixty-four by Hamilton. 
 See the Life of Hamilton for a more particular account. 
 
100 
 
 JAMES MADISON. 
 
 nient, be the fruits of our establishments, the cause of liberty will 
 acquire a dignity and lustre which it has never yet enjoyed; and 
 an example will be set which cannot but have the most favorable 
 influence on the rights of mankind. If, on the other side, our 
 governments should be unfortunately blotted with the reverse of 
 these cardinal and essential virtues, the great cause which we 
 have engaged to vindicate will be dishonored and betrayed ; the 
 last and fairest experiment in favor of the rights of human nature 
 will be turned against them ; and their patrons and friends ex- 
 posed to be insulted and silenced by the votaries of tyranny and 
 usurpation. 
 
 AN APPEAL FOR THE UNION. 
 
 I submit to you, my fellow-citizens, these considerations, in full 
 confidence that the good sense which has so often marked your 
 decisions will allow them their due weight and effect; and that 
 you will never suffer difficulties, however formidable in appear- 
 ance, or however fashionable the error on which they may be 
 founded, to drive you into the gloomy and perilous scenes into 
 which the advocates for disunion would conduct you. Hearken 
 not to the unnatural voice which tells you that the people of 
 America, knit together as they are by so many cords of affection, 
 can no longer live together as members of the same family ; can no 
 longer continue the mutual guardians of their mutual happiness ; can 
 no longer be fellow-citizens of one great, respectable, and flourish- 
 ing empire. Hearken not to the voice which petulantly tells you 
 that the form of government recommended for your adoption is a 
 novelty in the political world ; that it has never yet had a place in 
 the theories of the wildest projectors; that it rashly attempts what 
 it is impossible to accomplish. No, my countrymen, shut your 
 ears against this unhallowed language. Shut your hearts against 
 the poison which it conveys ; the kindred blood which flows in 
 the veins of American citizens, the mingled blood which they 
 have shed in defence of their sacred rights, consecrate their 
 union, and excite horror at the idea of their becoming aliens, 
 rivals, enemies. And if novelties are to be shunned, believe me, 
 the most alarming of all novelties, the most wild of all projects, 
 the most rash of all attempts, is that of rending us in pieces in 
 order to preserve our liberties and promote our happiness. But 
 why is the experiment of an extended republic to be rejected, 
 merely because it may comprise what is new ? Is it not the glory 
 of the people of America that, whilst they have paid a decent re- 
 gard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have 
 not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for 
 names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the 
 knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own 
 
ST. GEORGE TUCKER. 
 
 101 
 
 experience ? To this manly spirit posterity will be indebted for 
 the possession, and the world for the example, of the numerous 
 innovations displayed on the American theatre in favor of private 
 rights and public happiness. Had no important step been taken 
 by the leaders of the Revolution, for which a precedent could not 
 be discovered ; had no government been established, of which an 
 exact model did not present itself, the people of the United States 
 might, at this moment, have been numbered among the melan- 
 choly victims of misguided counsels; must at best have been 
 laboring under the weight of some of those forms which have 
 crushed the liberties of the rest of mankind. Happily for Ame- 
 rica, happily, we trust, for the whole human race, they pursued a 
 new and more noble course. They accomplished a revolution 
 which has no parallel in the annals of human society. They 
 reared fabrics of government which have no model on the face of 
 the globe. They formed the design of a great confederacy, which 
 it is incumbent on their successors to improve and perpetuate. 
 If their works betray imperfections, we wonder at the fewness of 
 them. If they erred most in the structure of the Union, this was 
 the work most difficult to be executed \ this is the work which has 
 been new-modelled by the act of your Convention, and it is that 
 act on which you are now to deliberate and decide. 
 
 ST. GEORGE TUCKER, 1752—1827. 
 
 St. George Tucker was a native of Bermuda; but, emigrating to Virginia in 
 his youth, he completed his education at William and Mary College. He entered 
 the judiciary of the State as a Judge of the General Court, and was afterwards 
 promoted to the Court of Appeals, of which he became President. Resigning this 
 post in 1811, he was soon after brought into the Federal Judiciary as a judge 
 of the United States District Court in Eastern Virginia, which appointment he held 
 till his death, which occurred in November, 1827, in the seventy-sixth year of his 
 age. 
 
 He was distinguished for his scholastic acquirements, his taste and wit, and was 
 greatly endeared to the society of his friends by a warm-hearted, impulsive nature, 
 which gave a peculiar strength to his attachments. Of his numerous minor 
 poetical pieces, all distinguished by ease and grace, the most pleasing is that 
 entitled 
 
 DAYS OF MY YOUTH. 
 
 Days of my youth, ye have glided away : 
 Hairs of my youth, ye are frosted and gray : 
 Eyes of my youth, your keen sight is no more : 
 Cheeks of my youth, ye are furrow'd all o'er : 
 Strength of my youth, all your vigor is gone : 
 Thoughts of my youth, your gay visions are flown. 
 9* 
 
102 
 
 TIMOTHY DWIGHT. 
 
 Days of my youth, I wish not your recall : 
 Hairs of my youth, I'm content ye should fall : 
 Eyes of my youth, you much evil have seen : 
 Cheeks of my youth, bathed in tears you have Ibeen : 
 Thoughts of my youth, you have led me astray : 
 Strength of my youth, why lament your decay ? 
 
 Days of my age, ye will shortly be past : 
 Pains of my age, yet a while you can last : 
 Joys of my age, in true wisdom delight: 
 Eyes of my age, be religion your light : 
 Thoughts of my age, dread ye not the cold sod: 
 Hopes of my age, be ye fix'd on your God. 
 
 TIMOTHY DWIGHT, 1752—1817. 
 
 Timothy Dwight, the son of Timothy and Mary Dwight, was horn at North- 
 ampton, Massachusetts, on the 1 1th of May, 1752. His father was a man of sound 
 and vigorous intellect; and his mother, the daughter of the celebrated Jonathan 
 Edwards, inherited no small share of her father's intellectual powers. At a very 
 early age he showed uncommon powers of mind, being able to read in the Bible 
 fluently at the age of four, and at six commencing the study of Latin. In 1765, 
 he entered Yale College, being familiar not only with the requirements for entering, 
 — though these were low then compared with what they now are, — but with most 
 of the classical authors that were read during the first half of his collegiate course. 
 He was not, therefore, very studious for the first two years j but for this com- 
 parative indolence he atoned in his junior and senior years, studying with an 
 intensity that left no time unemployed. In consequence of his excessive appli- 
 cation, his eyes became seriously affected, and a permanent weakness of sight 
 was induced, so that to the close of life he could read but little, and that only 
 occasionally. 
 
 After leaving college, he taught a grammar-school in New Haven, and in 1771 
 was chosen tutor in Yale College, in which office he continued with high reputa- 
 tion for six years. While here, in 1774, he finished his poem, The Conquest of 
 Canaan, though it was not published till eleven years after. In March, 1777, he 
 married the daughter of Benjamin Woolsey, of Long Island. By her he had eight 
 sons, six of whom survived him. In June he was licensed as a preacher, and in 
 September was appointed chaplain to a brigade in General Putnam's division, in 
 which capacity he continued about a year. In 1778, his father dying, he removed 
 to Northampton, to console his mother and provide for her numerous family, to 
 whose support he contributed for five years, from a scanty income obtained by 
 preaching and teaching, and occasionally laboring on a farm. In 1783, he was 
 ordained over a parish in Greenfield, where he continued for twelve years. In 
 1785, he published his Conquest of Canaan, and, in 1794, his poem called Green- 
 field Hill, in seven parts. After the death of Dr. Stiles, he was chosen President 
 of Yale College, and was inaugurated in September, 1795, which office, together 
 with the professorship of theology, he continued to fill for the remainder of his 
 
TIMOTHY D WIGHT. 
 
 103 
 
 life. While discharging the duties of these offices, he prepared his sermons od 
 systematic theology, on which his fame chiefly rests, entitled Theology Explained 
 and Defended in a Series of Sermons, in five volumes. This admirable and com- 
 prehensive system of divinity has passed through many editions in England, as 
 well as in our own country. In his college vacations, he was in the habit of jour- 
 neying; and to this we owe his Travels in New England and Xew York, published 
 after his death, in four volumes. 1 He died January 11th, 1817, aged sixty-four, 
 having been President of the College twenty-one years. 
 
 Pleasing as Dr. Dwight is as a poet, and learned and eloquent as he was as a 
 divine, it is as President of Yale College that he was most valued, and honored, and 
 loved while living, and as such is embalmed in the hearts of the large number of 
 scholars, divines, and statesmen still living, who were instructed by him in their 
 collegiate course. He had the remarkable faculty of winning the affections and 
 commanding the most profound respect of the young men who came under his 
 influence, while he poured forth his instructions in a most impressive eloquence, 
 from a mind stored with the treasures of ancient and modern learning. And 
 knowing, as we do, that for the last twenty years of his life he could scarcely 
 use his eyes at all, our wonder increases that he accomplished so much. But 
 what cannot singleness of aim, determined purpose, and unremitting industry 
 effect ? 2 
 
 DUELLING. 
 
 Life, to man, is his all. On it every thing is suspended which 
 man can call his own, — his enjoyments, his hopes, his usefulness, 
 and his salvation. Our own life is to us, therefore, invaluable. 
 As we are most reasonably required to love our neighbor as our- 
 selves, his life ought, in our estimation, to possess the same value. 
 In conformity to these views, mankind have universally regarded 
 those who have violently deprived others of life with supreme 
 
 1 Another of Dr. Dwight's writings should be noticed, — his Remarks on the Review 
 of Tnehiquin's Letters published in the Quarterly Review. The facts that gave rise 
 to this work are these. In 1800 appeared a work called Ittchiquin's Letters, pur- 
 porting to be letters sent from Washington by Inchiquin, a Jesuit, to his friends in 
 Europe, giving an account of the state of things in this country, partly serious, 
 partly ludicrous, and partly satirical. The " Quarterly Review" for January, 
 1811, reviewed these letters, and was very severe on our manners, habits, and in- 
 stitutions, bringing forward every thing that would make us appear in an unfavor- 
 able light. To this Dr. Dwight replied the same year, in his "Remarks," a book 
 of one hundred and seventy-six pages. It was very severe upon England, con- 
 trasting every defect urged against America with a corresponding failing in our 
 fatherland, and exonerating us from many of the charges, as utterly unfounded. 
 
 Of Dr. Dwight's other works, the chief are The Triumph of Infidelity, a Poem ; 
 The History, Eloquence, and Poetry of the Bible ; America, a Poem in the style of 
 Pope's Windsor Forest ; A Discourse on Duelling ; another on Some Events of the 
 Last Century ; and another on The Character of Washington. 
 
 2 " In person ho was about six feet high, and of a full, round, manly form. He 
 had a noble aspect, — a full forehead, and piercing black eyes. His presence was 
 singularly commanding, enforced by a manner somewhat authoritative and em- 
 phatic. His voice was one of the finest I ever heard from the pulpit, — clear, 
 hearty, sympathetic, and entering into the soul like the middle notes of an organ." 
 — Goodrich's Recollections. 
 
104 
 
 TIMOTHY DWIGHT. 
 
 abhorrence, and branded their names with singular infamy. Mur- 
 derers have been punished, in every age and country, with the 
 most awful expressions of detestation, with the most formidable 
 array of terror, and with the most excruciating means of agony. 
 On the heads of murderers, at the same time, mankind have 
 heaped curses without bounds. The City of Refuge, nay, the 
 Altar itself, a strong tower of defence to every other criminal, has 
 lost its hallowed character at the approach of a murderer, and 
 emptied him out of its sacred recesses into the hands of the 
 Avenger of blood. God hath said, A man that doeth violence to 
 the blood of any person, he shall fee to the pit: let no man stay 
 him. In solemn response, the world has cried, Amen. 
 
 But all these sentiments, all these rights, all the obligations of 
 this law, the Duellist has violated. Nay, he has violated them in 
 cold blood ; with the deliberation of system ; in the season of 
 serenity; in the tranquillity of the closet. This violation he has 
 made a part of his creed, and settled purpose of his life; a 
 governing rule of his conduct. All this he has done amid the 
 various advantages of birth and education ; under the light of 
 Science, with the Bible in his hand ; and before the altar of his 
 God. He has done it all, also, in the face of arguments which 
 have commanded the conviction of all mankind, except himself ; 
 and which would have convinced him, hud his mind been honestly 
 open to the force of argument. His opinions have been a thou- 
 sand times exposed : his arguments have been a thousand times 
 refuted. Against him have been arrayed, in every Christian 
 country, the common sense of mankind, the feelings of humanity, 
 the solemn voice of Law, and the infinitely awful command of the 
 Eternal God. With a moral hardihood, not often exampled even 
 in this world, he encounters them all, overcomes them all, and 
 goes coolly onward to the work of destruction. 
 
 THE NOTCH OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 The Notch of the White Mountains is a phrase appropriated to 
 a very narrow defile, extending two miles in length between two 
 huge cliffs apparently rent asunder by some vast convulsion of 
 nature. This convulsion was, in my own view, that of the deluge. 
 There are here, and throughout New England, no eminent proofs 
 of volcanic violence, nor any strong exhibitions of the power of 
 earthquakes. Nor has history recorded any earthquake or volcano 
 in other countries of sufficient efficacy to produce the phenomena 
 of this place. The objects rent asunder are too great, the ruin is 
 too vast and too complete, to have been accomplished by these 
 agents. The change appears to have been effected when the 
 surface of the earth extensively subsided; when countries and 
 
TIMOTHY DWIGHT. 
 
 105 
 
 continents assumed a new face j and a general commotion of the 
 elements produced a disruption of some mountains, and merged 
 others beneath the common level of desolation. Nothing less 
 than this will account for the sundering of a long range of great 
 rocks, or rather of vast mountains j or for the existing evidences 
 of the immense force by which the rupture was effected. 
 
 The entrance of the chasm is formed by two rocks, standing 
 perpendicularly, at the distance of twenty-two fVjt from each 
 other • one about twenty feet in height, the other about twelve. 
 Half of the space is occupied by the brook mentioned as the head- 
 stream of the Saco ; the other half by the road. The stream is 
 lost and invisible beneath a mass of fragments, partly blown out 
 of the road, and partly thrown down by some great convulsion. 
 
 When we entered the Notch, we were struck with the wild and 
 solemn appearance of every thing before us. The scale on which 
 all the objects in view were formed was the scale of grandeur 
 only. The rocks, rude and ragged in a manner rarely paralleled, 
 were fashioned and piled by a hand operating only in the boldest 
 and most irregular manner. As we advanced, these appearances 
 increased rapidly. Huge masses of granite, of every abrupt form, 
 and hoary with a moss which seemed the product of ages, recall- 
 ing to the mind the saxum vetustum of Virgil, speedily rose to a 
 mountainous height. Before us the view widened fast to the 
 southeast. Behind us it closed almost instantaneously, and pre- 
 sented nothing to the eye but an impassable barrier of mountains. 
 
 About half a mile from the entrance of the chasm, we saw, in 
 full view, the most beautiful cascade, perhaps, in the world. It 
 issued from a mountain on the right, about eight hundred feet 
 above the subjacent valley, and at the distance from us of about 
 two miles. The stream ran over a series of rocks almost perpen- 
 dicular, with a course so little broken as to preserve the appear- 
 ance of a uniform current ; and yet so far disturbed as to be per- 
 fectly white. The sun shone with the clearest splendor, from a 
 station in the heavens the most advantageous to our prospect; 
 and the cascade glittered down the vast steep like a stream of 
 burnished silver. 
 
 THE GOODNESS OF GOD AS MANIFESTED IN CREATION. 
 
 Were all the interesting diversities of color and form to dis- 
 appear, how unsightly, dull, and wearisome would be the aspect 
 of the world ! The pleasures conveyed to us by the endless 
 varieties with which these sources of beauty are presented to the 
 eye, are so much things of course, and exist so much without inter- 
 mission, that we scarcely think either of their nature, their num- 
 ber, or the great proportion which they constitute in the whole 
 
106 
 
 TIMOTHY D WIGHT. 
 
 mass of our enjoyment. But, were an inhabitant of this country 
 to be removed from its delightful scenery to the midst of an 
 Arabian desert, a boundless expanse of sand, a waste, spread with 
 uniform desolation, enlivened by the murmur of no stream, and 
 cheered by the beauty of no verdure j although he might live in 
 a palace and riot in splendor and luxury, he would, I think, find 
 life a dull, wearisome, melancholy round of existence ; and, amid 
 all his gratifications, would sigh for the hills and valleys of his 
 native land, the brooks and rivers, the living lustre of the spring, 
 and the rich glories of the autumn. The ever-varying brilliancy 
 and grandeur of the landscape, and the magnificence of the sky, 
 sun, moon, and stars, enter more extensively into the enjoyment 
 of mankind than we, perhaps, even think or can possibly appre- 
 hend, without frequent and extensive investigation. This beauty 
 and splendor of the objects around us, it is ever to be remem- 
 bered, is not necessary to their existence, nor to what we com- 
 monly intend by their usefulness. It is, therefore, to be regarded 
 as a source of pleasure gratuitously superinduced upon the general 
 nature of the objects themselves, and, in this light, as a testimony 
 of the divine goodness, peculiarly affecting. 
 
 GOFFE, THE REGICIDE. 
 
 In the course of Philip's war, which involved almost all the 
 Indian tribes in New England, and among others those in the 
 neighborhood of Hadley, the inhabitants thought it proper to ob- 
 serve the 1st of September, 1675, as a day of lasting and prayer. 
 While they were in the church, and employed in their worship, 
 they were surprised by a band of savages. The people instantly 
 betook themselves to their arms, — which, according to the custom 
 of the times, they had carried with them to the church, — and, 
 rushing out of the house, attacked their invaders. The panic 
 under which they began the conflict was, however, so great, and 
 their number was so disproportioned to that of their enemies, that 
 they fought doubtfully at first, and in a short time began evi- 
 dently to give way. At this moment an ancient man, with hoary 
 locks, of a most venerable and dignified aspect, and in a dress 
 widely differing from that of the inhabitants, appeared suddenly 
 at their head, and with a firm voice and an example of undaunted 
 resolution, reanimated their spirits, led them again to the conflict, 
 and totally routed the savages. When the battle was ended, the 
 stranger disappeared j and no person knew whence he had come, 
 or whither he had gone. The relief was so timely, so sudden, so 
 unexpected, and so providential ; the appearance and the retreat 
 of him who furnished it were so unaccountable ; his person was 
 so dignified and commanding, his resolution so superior, and his 
 
TIMOTHY D WIGHT. 
 
 107 
 
 interference so decisive, that the inhabitants, without any uncom- 
 mon exercise of credulity, readily believed him to be an angel 
 sent by Heaven for their preservation. Nor was this opinion 
 seriously controverted until it was discovered, several years after- 
 ward, that Goffe and Whalley had been lodged in the house of 
 Mr. Russell. Then it was known that their deliverer was Goffe, 
 Whalley having become superannuated some time before the event 
 took place. 
 
 Of the following specimens of Dr. Dwight's poetry, the first is from the Conquest 
 of Canaan : the other is one of the sweetest of his sacred lyrics, and is embalmed 
 in the affections of the Christian church : — 
 
 EVENING AFTER A BATTLE. 
 
 Above tall western hills, the light of day 
 Shot far the splendors of his golden ray ; 
 Bright from the storm, with tenfold grace he smiled, 
 The tumult soften'd, and the world grew mild. 
 With pomp transcendent, robed in heavenly dyes, 
 Arch'd the clear rainbow round the orient skies ; 
 Its changeless form, its hues of beam divine — 
 Fair type of truth and beauty — endless shine 
 Around the expanse, with thousand splendors rare ; 
 Gay clouds sail wanton through the kindling air; 
 From shade to shade unnumber'd tinctures blend, 
 Unnumber'd forms of wondrous light extend ; 
 In pride stupendous, glittering walls aspire, 
 Graced with bright domes, and crown'd with towers of fire ; 
 On cliffs cliffs burn ; o'er mountains mountains roll : 
 A burst of glory spreads from pole to pole : 
 Rapt with the splendor, every songster sings, 
 Tops the high bough, and claps his glistening wings ; 
 With new-born green reviving nature blooms, 
 And sweeter fragrance freshening air perfumes. 
 
 Far south the storm withdrew its troubled reign, 
 Descending twilight dimm'd the dusky plain ; 
 Black night arose, her curtains hid the ground : 
 Less roar'd, and less, the thunder's solemn sound ; 
 The bended lightning shot a brighter stream, 
 Or wrapp'd all heaven in one wide, mantling flame ; 
 By turns, o'er plains, and woods, and mountains spread 
 Faint, yellow glimmerings, and a deeper shade. 
 From parting clouds, the moon outbreaking shone, 
 And sate, sole empress, on her silver throne ; 
 In clear, full beauty, round all nature smiled, 
 And claim'd, o'er heaven and earth, dominion mild ; 
 With humbler glory, stars her court attend, 
 And bless'd, and union'd, silent lustre blend. 
 
 I LOVE THY KINGDOM, LORD. 
 I love thy kingdom, Lord, 
 The house of thine abode, 
 The church our blest Redeemer saved 
 With his own precious blood. 
 
108 
 
 PHILIP FRENEAU. 
 
 I love thy church, God ! 
 Her walls before thee stand, 
 Dear as the apple of thine eye, 
 And graven on thy hand. 
 
 If e'er to bless thy sons, 
 My voice, or hands, deny, 
 These hands let useful skill forsake, 
 This voice in silence die. 
 
 If e'er my heart forget 
 Her welfare or her woe, 
 Let every joy this heart forsake, 
 And every grief o'erflow. 
 
 For her my tears shall fall ; 
 For her my prayers ascend ; 
 To her my cares and toils be given, 
 Till toils and cares shall end. 
 
 Beyond my highest joy 
 I prize her heavenly ways, 
 Her sweet communion, solemn vows, 
 Her hymns of love and praise. 
 
 Jesus, thou Friend divine, 
 Our Saviour and our King, 
 Thy hand from every snare and foe, 
 Shall great deliverance bring. 
 
 Sure as thy truth shall last, 
 To Zion shall be given 
 The brightest glories earth can yield, 
 And brighter bliss of heaven. 
 
 PHILIP FRENEAU, 1752—1832. 
 
 Philip Freneau was a celebrated poet in the period of the American Revolu- 
 tion, most of his pieces having been written between the years 1768 and 1793. He 
 was of French extraction, his grandfather having come to this country soon after 
 the Revocation of the Edict of Nantz, 1598. He was born in New York, January 2, 
 1752, and after the usual preparatory studies, in which he distinguished himself, 
 he entered Princeton College, New Jersey, and graduated there in 1771, at the 
 age of nineteen. After leaving college, he went to Philadelphia, with an intention 
 of studying the law ; but he soon abandoned this, and led an aimless life for two 
 or three years. In 1774 and 1775, we find him in New York, where he began to 
 publish those pieces of political satire and burlesque which made his name at that 
 time familiar and popular throughout the country. After this, for two or three 
 years he was travelling in the West Indies. In April, 1781, appeared in Phila- 
 delphia the first number of the Freeman's Journal, which he edited for three or 
 four years. The first edition of his poems was published in Philadelphia in 1786, 
 entitled The Poems of Philip Freneau, written chiefly during the Late War. In 
 
THILIP FRENEAU. 
 
 109 
 
 1788, appeared The Miscellaneous Works of Philip Freneau, containing his Essays 
 and Additional Poems, in two volumes, published by Francis Bailey. 
 
 In the fall of 1790, the Government was removed to Philadelphia, and on the 
 31st of October of the next year appeared the first number of the National Gazette, 
 edited by Freneau, which was continued to October 26, 1793, and in which were 
 given the first examples of that partisan abuse which has ever since been the 
 shame of American politics. 1 After tho suspension of the Gazette, he published, 
 in 1795, The Jersey Chronicle, at Mount Pleasant, which continued but a year. 
 He then was engaged for many years in various voyages to Savannah, the West 
 Indies, Madeira, &c, and in 1809 again settled in Philadelphia. During the 
 second war with Great Britain he wrote numerous songs and ballads, and in 
 1815 published A Collection of Poems on American Affairs and a Variety of 
 other Subjects, chiefly Moral and Political, written between 1795 and 1815. In his 
 old age he resided in New Jersey, and died near Freehold, on the 18th of Decem- 
 ber, 1832. 
 
 Freneau was undoubtedly a man of genius, and a very ready and versatile 
 writer ; and some of his early pieces of poetry, written when he was ambitious of 
 literary distinction, are richly worthy of preservation. But most that he wrote 
 was of an ephemeral character, strongly tinctured with partisan prejudices and 
 vituperation, and has met with its deserved reward, — oblivion. 
 
 THE DYING INDIAN. 2 
 
 ' ' On yonder lake I spread the sail no more ! 
 Vigor, and youth, and active clays are past ; 
 Relentless demons urge me to that shore 
 On whose black forests all the dead are cast ; 
 Ye solemn train, prepare the funeral song, 
 For I must go to shades below, 
 Where all is strange, and all is new ; 
 Companion to the airy throng ! 
 
 What solitary streams, 
 
 In dull and dreary dreams, 
 All melancholy, must I rove along ! 
 
 1 " In it Mr. Jefferson was continually referred to with expressions of fulsome 
 adulation, and the public and private characters of Washington, Hamilton, Adams, 
 Knox, and their associates, were vilified with unfaltering industry and malignity. 
 Tho Rev. Dr. Dwight thus wrote at that time to Oliver Wolcott, then in Congress 
 at Philadelphia: — 'The late impertinent attacks on the Chief Magistrate are 
 viewed with a general and marked indignation. Freneau, your printer, linguist, 
 and so forth, is regarded here as a mere incendiary, or rather as a despicable tool 
 of bigger incendiaries, and his paper as a public nuisance.' That the 'National 
 Gazette' was entirely under Mr. Jefferson's control appears never to have been 
 doubted. Freneau said, years after, to Dr. Francis, (of New York,) who became 
 his physician, that it was among his greatest griefs that he had seemed to be an 
 enemy to Washington, but that Mr. Jefferson had written or dictated whatever in 
 the ' Gazette' was reproachful or calumnious of that exalted character." — Gris- 
 wold's Republican Court, p. 288. But in this case the Latin adage is especially 
 applicable, — Quid facit per alium, facit per se. 
 
 2 Tomo-Chequi. 
 
 10 
 
PHILIP FRENEAU. 
 
 To what strange lands must Chequi take his way ! 
 Groves of the dead departed mortals trace ; 
 No deer along those gloomy forests stray, 
 No huntsmen there take pleasure in the chase, 
 But all are empty, unsubstantial shades, 
 That ramble through those visionary glades ; 
 No spongy fruits from verdant trees depend, 
 
 But sickly orchards there 
 
 Do fruits as sickly bear, 
 And apples a consumptive visage show, 
 And wither'd hangs the hurtleberry blue. 
 
 Ah me ! what mischiefs on the dead attend ! 
 Wandering a stranger to the shores below, 
 Where shall I brook or real fountain find ? 
 Lazy and sad deluding waters flow : 
 Such is the picture in my boding mind ! 
 
 Fine tales, indeed, they tell 
 
 Of shades and purling rills, 
 
 Where our dead fathers dwell 
 
 Beyond the western hills ; 
 But when did ghost return his state to show, 
 Or who can promise half the tale is true ? 
 
 I, too, must be a fleeting ghost ! no more ; 
 None, none but shadows to those mansions go ; 
 I leave my woods, I leave the Huron shore, 
 For emptier groves below ! 
 Ye charming solitudes, 
 Ye tall ascending woods, 
 Ye glassy lakes and prattling streams, 
 Whose aspect still was sweet, 
 Whether the sun did greet, 
 Or the pale moon embraced you with her beams — 
 Adieu to all ! 
 To all that charm'd me where I stray'd, 
 The winding stream, the dark sequester'd shade : 
 Adieu all triumphs here ! 
 Adieu, the mountain's lofty swell, 
 Adieu, thou little verdant hill, 
 And seas, and stars, and skies, — farewell, 
 For some remoter sphere ! 
 
 Perplex'd with doubts, and tortured with despair, 
 Why so dejected at this hopeless sleep ? 
 Nature at last these ruins may repair, 
 When fate's long dream is o'er, and she forgets to weep 
 Some real world once more may be assign'd, 
 Some new-born mansion for the immortal mind ! 
 Farewell, sweet lake ! farewell, surrounding woods ! 
 To other groves, through midnight glooms, I stray, 
 Beyond the mountains, and beyond the floods, 
 
 Beyond the Huron Bay ! 
 Prepare the hollow tomb, and place me low, 
 My trusty bow and arrows by my side, 
 
PHILIP PRENEAU. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The cheerful bottle and the venison store ; 
 For long the journey is that I must go, 
 Without a partner, and without a guide." 
 He spoke, and bid the attending mourners weep, 
 Then closed his eyes, and sunk to endless sleep ! 
 
 THE WILD HONEYSUCKLE. 
 
 Fair flower, that dost so comely grow, 
 
 Hid in this silent, dull retreat, 
 Untouch'd thy honey'd blossoms blow, 
 Unseen thy little branches greet : 
 No roving foot shall crush thee here, 
 No busy hand provoke a tear. 
 
 By Nature's self in white array 'd, 
 
 She bade thee shun the vulgar eye, 
 And planted here the guardian shade, 
 And sent soft waters murmuring by ; 
 Thus quietly thy summer goes, 
 Thy days declining to repose. 
 
 Smit with those charms, that must decay, 
 
 I grieve to see your future doom ; 
 They died, — nor were those flowers more gay, 
 The flowers that did in Eden bloom ; 
 Unpitying frosts and Autumn's power 
 Shall leave no vestige of this flower. 
 
 From morning suns and evening dews 
 
 At first thy little being came : 
 If nothing once, you nothing lose, 
 For when you die you are the same ; 
 The space between is but an hour, 
 The frail duration of a flower. 
 
 THE PROSPECT OF PEACE. 
 
 Though clad in winter's gloomy dress 1 
 
 All Nature's works appear, 
 Yet other prospects rise to bless 
 
 The new returning year : 
 The active sail again is seen, 
 
 To greet our western shore ; 
 Gay plenty smiles, with brow serene, 
 
 And wars distract no more. 
 
 No more the vales, no more the plains, 
 
 An iron harvest yield ; 
 Peace guards our doors, impels our swains 
 
 To till the grateful field : 
 
 . i The winter of 1814-15. 
 
112 
 
 PHILIP FRENEAU. 
 
 From distant climes, no longer foes, 
 
 (Their years of misery past,) 
 Nations arrive, to find repose 
 
 In these domains at last. 
 
 And, if a more delightful scene 
 
 Attracts the mortal eye, 
 Where clouds nor darkness intervene, 
 
 Behold, aspiring high, 
 On freedom's soil those fabrics plann'd, 
 
 On virtue's basis laid, 
 That make secure our native land, 
 
 And prove our toils repaid. 
 
 Ambitious aims and pride severe, 
 
 Would you at distance keep, 
 What wanderer would not tarry here, 
 
 Here charm his cares to sleep ? 
 Oh, still may health her balmy wings 
 
 O'er these fair fields expand, 
 While commerce from all climates brings 
 
 The products of each land. 
 
 Through toiling care and lengthen'd views, 
 
 That share alike our span, 
 Gay, smiling hope her heaven pursues, 
 
 The eternal friend of man : 
 The darkness of the clays to come 
 
 She brightens with her ray, 
 And smiles o'er Nature's gaping tomb, 
 
 When sickening to decay ! 
 
 MAY TO APRIL. 
 
 I. 
 
 Without your showers 
 
 I breed no flowers ; 
 Each field a barren waste appears ; 
 
 If you don't weep, 
 
 My blossoms sleep, 
 They take such pleasure in your tears. 
 
 ii. 
 
 As your decay 
 
 Made room for May, 
 So I must part with all that's mine ; 
 
 My balmy breeze, 
 
 My blooming trees, 
 To torrid zones their sweets resign. 
 
 in. 
 
 For April dead 
 
 My shades I spread, 
 To her I owe my dress so gay; 
 
 Of daughters three 
 
 It falls on me 
 To close our triumphs in one day. 
 
PHILLIS WIIEATLEY PETERS. 
 
 113 
 
 IV. 
 
 Thus to repose 
 
 All Nature goes ; 
 Month after mouth must find its doom; 
 
 Time on the wing, 
 
 May ends the Spring, 
 And Summer frolics o'er her tomb. 
 
 PHILLIS WHEATLEY PETERS, 1754—1784. 
 
 In the year 1761 there was brought to Boston, in a vessel from Africa, a young 
 girl of about seven years of age, slenderly formed, in feeble health from the 
 change of climate and the miseries of the voyage, and not able to speak a word 
 of English. Mr. John Wheatley, a wealthy merchant, saw her, and, touched by 
 her interesting face and modest demeanor, took her to his own house, and his wife, 
 with a true woman's heart, devoted herself to the wants of the little stranger. In 
 a short time, the effects of comfortable clothing, wholesome food, and kind treat- 
 ment were clearly visible, and Mrs. Wheatley's daughter undertook to teach her 
 to read and write. So astonishing was her progress, that in sixteen months from 
 the time of her arrival in this humane family she had so mastered the English 
 language as to read with ease any portion of the Bible ; and to this attainment 
 she soon added that of writing, which she acquired solely by her own unassisted 
 efforts. 
 
 So rapid was her progress in learning, that she became an object of general 
 attention, and corresponded with several persons of great distinction. 1 She 
 attracted the notice of the literary characters of Boston, who supplied her with 
 books and encouraged her intellectual efforts. Mrs. "Wheatley, too, did all she 
 could to promote her happiness, and to aid her in the acquisition of knowledge, 
 treating her as a child, and introducing her into the best society of Boston. But, 
 notwithstanding all the attentions she received, she still retained her original and 
 native modesty of deportment, and never presumed upon the kindness of her 
 friends and admirers. She studied Latin, and, at the age of fourteen, made her 
 first attempts at poetry, in translations from Ovid's Fables. So creditable were 
 these to her scholarship, taste, and poetic talent, that she was encouraged to write 
 
 1 Some years after this, she addressed a poem to General Washington, while he 
 was at his head-quarters at Cambridge. Mass., February, 1776 ; who thus kindly 
 replied : — " I thank you most sincerely for your polite notice of me in the 
 elegant lines you enclosed; and, however undeserving I maybe of such encomium 
 and panegyric, the style and manner exhibit a striking proof of your poetical 
 talents, in honor of which, and as a tribute justly due to you, I would have pub- 
 lished the poem, had I not been apprehensive that, while I only meant to give the 
 world this new instance of your genius. I might have incurred the imputation of 
 vanity. This, and nothing else, determined me not to give it place in the public 
 prints. 
 
 '• If you should ever come to Cambridge, or near head-quarters, I shall be happy 
 to see a person so favored by the Muses, and to whom Nature has been so liberal 
 and beneficent in her dispensations." 
 
 10* 
 
114 PHILLIS WHEATLEY PETERS. 
 
 more ; and before she was nineteen a volume of her poems was published in Lon- 
 don, in 1772. 
 
 In 1773, 1 her health had so far declined, from her close attention to her studies, 
 that her physicians recommeuded a sea-voyage, and accordingly she sailed for 
 England. Her fame had gone before her, and she was received with marked respect 
 by many distinguished individuals. But in the midst of the attentions of the court 
 she heard that her foi-mer mistress was sick, and her heart prompted her to return 
 home at once. She did so in time to minister to Mrs. Wheatley, whose sickness 
 terminated in death the next year; and the year after, Mr. Wheatley followed her 
 to the grave. Thus deprived of her best friends, poor and desolate, she accepted 
 an offer of marriage from a colored man by the name of Peters, of polished man- 
 ners and a good education. He had studied law ; and tradition says that he actu- 
 ally plead many cases at the bar. But soon after their marriage he became a 
 bankrupt, and they were reduced to utter want. After living with him three 
 years in great poverty, and becoming the mother of three children, her health 
 rapidly declined, and she died on the 5th of December, 1784. 
 
 With any of our poets prior to the year 1800, Phillis Wheatley will bear a favor- 
 able comparison, whether we consider the ease and correctness of her versifica- 
 tion, her elevated moral and religious sentiments, or her pure fancy. Indeed, 
 when we take into view the times in which she lived, the little attention then 
 paid to female education, her youthful years, and the difficulties of race and lan- 
 guage which she surmounted, her poems are very remarkable. 2 
 
 LINES ON THE DEATH OF DR. SEWALL. 
 
 Lo, here a man, redeem' d by Jesus' blood, 
 A sinner once, but now a saint with God ; 
 Behold, ye rich, ye poor, ye fools, ye wise, 
 Nor let his monument your hearts surprise. 
 He sought the paths of piety and truth, 
 By these made happy from his early youth ! 
 In blooming years that grace divine he felt 
 Which rescues sinners from the chains of guilt. 
 Mourn him, ye indigent, whom he has fed, 
 And henceforth seek, like him, for living bread, — 
 E'en Christ, the bread descending from above, 
 And ask an interest in his saving love. 
 Mourn him, ye youth, to whom he oft has told 
 God's gracious wonders from the times of old. 
 
 1 From a Boston newspaper of May 10, 1773 : — " Saturday last, Captain Calef 
 sailed for London, with whom went passengers Mr. Wheatley, merchant; also 
 Phillis, the extraordinary negro poet." 
 
 2 Read "Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley," Boston, 1834; "Christian 
 Examiner," xvi. 169. "A Tribute for the Negro," p. 332. 
 
 The writer of the article in the "Christian Examiner" thus remarks: — "Such 
 was the fate of Phillis Wheatley, a heroine, though a black one. Perhaps her 
 genius, her unquestionable virtues, the vicissitudes of her life, and her melancholy 
 end, ought to excite as much interest as the fate of Lady Jane Grey, or Mary 
 Queen of Scots, or any other heroine, ancient or modern ; but such, Ave fear, will 
 not be the case." — Christian Examiner, May, 1834. 
 
PHILLIS WHEATLEY PETERS. 
 
 I, too, have cause this mighty loss to mourn, 
 For he, my monitor, will not return. 
 Oh, when shall we to his blest state arrive ? 
 When the same graces in our bosoms thrive. 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF AN INFANT. 
 
 Through airy fields he wings his instant flight, 
 
 To purer regions of celestial light ; 
 
 Enlarged he sees unnumber'd systems roll, 
 
 Beneath him sees the universal whole ; 
 
 Planets on planets run their destined round, 
 
 And circling wonders fill the vast profound. 
 
 Th' ethereal now, now the empyreal skies, 
 
 With glowing splendors strike his wondering eyes : 
 
 The angels view him with delight unknown, 
 
 Press his soft hand, and seat him on his throne ; 
 
 Then smiling thus : "To this divine abode, 
 
 The seat of saints, of seraphs, and of God, 
 
 Thrice welcome thou." The raptured babe replies : 
 
 " Thanks to my God, who snatch'd me to the skies 
 
 Ere vice triumphant had possess'd my heart, 
 
 Ere yet the tempter had beguiled my heart, 
 
 Ere yet on sin's base actions I was bent, 
 
 Ere yet I knew temptation's dire intent ; 
 
 Ere yet the lash for wicked actions felt, 
 
 Ere vanity had led my way to guilt ; 
 
 Early arrived at my celestial goal, 
 
 Full glories rush on my expanding soul." 
 
 Joyful he spoke ; exulting cherubs round 
 
 Clapp'd their glad wings : the heavenly vaults resound. 
 
 Say, parents, why this unavailing moan ? 
 
 Why heave your pensive bosoms with the groan ? 
 
 Say, would you tear him from the realms above 
 
 By thoughtless wishes and mistaken love ? 
 
 Doth his felicity increase your pain ? 
 
 Or could you welcome to this world again 
 
 The heir of bliss ? With a superior air ~\ 
 
 Methinks he answers with a smile severe ; L 
 
 " Thrones and dominions cannot tempt me there." J 
 
 * 1 * * * * 
 
 To yon bright regions let your faith ascend, "| 
 Prepare to join your dearest infant friend I 
 In pleasures without measure, without end. J 
 
 A FAREWELL TO AMERICA. 
 
 To 3frs. Susannah Wright. 
 
 Adieu, New England's smiling meads, 
 
 Adieu, the flowery plain ; 
 I leave thine opening charms, Spring ! 
 
 And tempt the roaring main. 
 
116 
 
 nilLLIS WHEATLEY PETERS. 
 
 In vain for me the flow'rets rise, 
 And boast their gaudy pride, 
 
 While here beneath the northern skies 
 I mourn for health denied. 
 
 Celestial maid of rosy hue, 
 
 Oh, let me feel thy reign ! 
 I languish till thy face I view, 
 
 Thy vanish'd joys regain. 
 
 Susannah mourns, nor can I bear 
 
 To see the crystal shower, 
 Or mark the tender falling tear, 
 
 At sad departure's hour ; 
 
 Nor unregarding can I see 
 Her soul with grief opprest ; 
 
 But let no sighs, no groans for me, 
 Steal from its pensive breast. 
 
 In vain the feather' d warblers sing, 
 
 In vain the garden blooms, 
 And on the bosom of the spring 
 
 Breathes out her sweet perfumes. 
 
 While for Britannia's distant shore 
 
 We sweep the liquid plain, 
 And with astonish'd eyes explore 
 
 The wide extended main. 
 
 Lo ! Health appears, celestial dame, 
 
 Complacent and serene, 
 With Hebe's mantle o'er her frame, 
 
 AVith soul-delighting mien, 
 
 To mark the vale where London lies, 
 
 With misty vapors crown'd, 
 Which cloud Aurora's thousand dyes, 
 
 And veil her charms around. 
 
 Why, Phoebus, moves thy car so slow ? 
 
 So slow thy rising ray ? 
 Give us the famous town to view, 
 
 Thou glorious king of day ! 
 
 For thee, Britannia, I resign 
 New England's smiling fields ; 
 
 To view again her charms divine, 
 What joy the prospect yields ! 
 
 But thou, Temptation, hence away, 
 
 With all thy fatal train, 
 Nor once seduce my soul away 
 
 By thine enchanting strain. 
 
 Thrice happy they whose heavenly shield 
 Secures their soul from harms, 
 
 And fell Temptation on the field 
 Of all its power disarms. 
 
JOEL BARLOW. 
 
 117 
 
 JOEL BARLOW, 1755—1812. 
 
 Joel Barlow, the author of The Columbiad, was bora in Reading, Fairfield 
 County, Connecticut, in 1755. He entered Dartmouth College in 1774, but soon 
 left that institution and went to Yale, where he received the degree of Bachelor 
 of Arts in 1778. He then entered upon the study of law, which he soon exchanged 
 for theology, and received a license as chaplain to the army, in which he remained 
 till the close of the war. While in this situation, he composed, with his friends, 
 Rev. Timothy Dwight and Colonel Humphreys, various patriotic songs and ad- 
 dresses, which exerted no little influence upon the minds of the soldiery. He 
 commenced, also, at this time, The Vision of Columbus, which afterwards formed 
 the basis of his larger work, The Columbiad. 
 
 After the peace in 1783, Barlow went back from the gospel to the law, for which 
 he was much better suited ; and settled in Hartford. To add to his income, he 
 established a weekly gazette, called The American Mercury, which gained for him 
 considerable reputation by its able editorial management. About this time, he 
 revised and published the Psalms and Hymns of Dr. Isaac Watts ; and two years 
 after, in 1787, appeared his first large poem, on which he had been laboring for 
 many years, The Vision of Columbus. To increase the sale of these, he gave up 
 his newspaper and opened a book-store. But his books not doing so well as he 
 expected, the next year he went to England as agent of a fraudulent land-com- 
 pany, of the nature of which he was at first ignorant : he gave up his agency, 
 however, as soon as the character of the company became known to him. He 
 was absent seventeen years, most of which time he spent in France, where he 
 published a number of political pamphlets, and also his best and most celebrated 
 poem, Hasty Pudding. In 1795, Washington appointed him consul at Algiers, with 
 power to negotiate a treaty of peace with the Dey, and to ransom all Americans 
 held in slavery on the coast of Barbary. He accepted the appointment, concluded 
 the treaty favorably, and made similar ones with the Governments of Tripoli and 
 Tunis. He was thus the happy means of freeing large numbers of Americans 
 from Algerine slavery. 1 In 1797, be returned to France, entered into commercial 
 pursuits, and amassed a large fortune. In 1805, he sold all his property in 
 France, returned home, and took up his residence at Georgetown, District of 
 Columbia. In 1808, his Columbiad was published in quarto, in splendid style. The 
 mechanical execution of this work entitles it to admiration ; but this is about all 
 that can be said in its praise. It is the history of Columbus in rhyme; and in 
 poetical merit is about equal to Addison's Campaign. In 1811, he was appointed 
 minister-plenipotentiary to France, to obtain indemnification for injuries sus- 
 tained by American commerce. The next year he was invited to meet Napoleon 
 at Wilna, in Poland, for a personal conference; but the great severity of the 
 climate, fatigue, and exposure, brought on an inflammation of the lungs, and 
 he died in an obscure village near Cracow, in Poland, on the 22d of December, 
 1812. 
 
 1 For much valuable information on this subject, read a Lecture before the 
 Boston Mercantile Library Association, entitled " White Slavery in Algiers," by 
 Charles Sumner. 
 
JOEL BARLOW. 
 
 THE HASTY PUDDING. 
 
 CANTO I. 
 
 Ye Alps audacious, through the heavens that rise 
 To cramp the day and hide me from the skies ; 
 Ye Gallic flags, that o'er their heights unf'url'd, 
 Bear death to kings and freedom to the world, 
 I sing not you. A softer theme I choose, 
 A virgin theme, unconscious of the muse, 
 But fruitful, rich, well suited to inspire 
 The purest frenzy of poetic fire. 
 
 Despise it not. ye bards to terror steel'd, 
 Who hurl your thunders round the epic field ; 
 Nor ye who strain your midnight throats to sing 
 Joys that the vineyard and the stillhouse bring ; 
 Or on some distant fair your notes employ, 
 And speak of raptures that you ne'er enjoy. 
 I sing the sweets I know, the charms I feel, 
 My morning incense, and my evening meal, 
 The sweets of Hasty Pudding Come, dear bowl, 
 Glide o'er my palate and inspire my soul. 
 The milk beside thee, smoking from the kine, 
 Its substance mingled, married in with thine, 
 Shall cool and temper thy superior heat, 
 And save the pains of blowing Avhile I cat. 
 
 Oh ! could the smooth, the emblematic song, 
 Flow like thy genial juices o'er my tongue, 
 Could those mild morsels in my numbers chime, 
 And, as they roll in substance, roll in rhyme, 
 No more thy awkward, unpoetic name 
 Should shun the muse or prejudice thy fame ; 
 But, rising grateful to the accustom'd ear, 
 All bards should catch it, and all realms revere. 
 
 Assist me first with pious toil to trace, 
 Through wrecks of time, thy lineage and thy race ; 
 Declare what lovely squaw, in days of yore, 
 (Ere great Columbus sought thy native shore,) 
 First gave thee to the world ; her works of fame 
 Have lived indeed, but lived without a name. 
 Some tawny Ceres, goddess of her days, 
 First learn'd with stones to crack the well-dried maize, 
 Through the rough sieve to shake the golden shower, 
 In boiling water stir the yellow flour ; 
 The yellow flour, bestrew'd and stirr'd with haste, 
 Swells in the flood and thickens to a paste, 
 Then puffs and wallops, rises to the brim, 
 Drinks the dry knobs that on the surface swim ; 
 The knobs at last the busy ladle breaks, 
 And the whole mass its true consistence takes. 
 
 CANTO II. 
 
 To mix the food by vicious rules of art, 
 To kill the stomach and to sink the heart, 
 To make mankind to social virtue sour, 
 Cram o'er each dish, and be what they devour ; 
 
JOEL BARLOW. 
 
 For this the kitchen muse first framed her book, 
 Commanding sweat to stream from every cook; 
 Children no more their antic gambols tried, 
 And friends to physic wonder' d why they died. 
 
 Not so the Yankee ; his abundant feast 
 With simples furnish'd and with plainness dress' d, 
 A numerous offspring gathers round the board, 
 And cheers alike the servant and the lord, 
 Whose well-bought hunger prompts the joyous taste, 
 And health attends them from the short repast. 
 While the full pail rewards the milkmaid's toil, 
 The mother sees the morning caldron boil : 
 To stir the pudding next demands their care, 
 To spread the table and the bowls prepare ; 
 To feed the children as their portions cool, 
 And comb their heads and send them off to school. 
 *#'*#*.# 
 
 Some with molasses line the luscious treat, 
 And mix, like bards, the useful with the sweet. 
 A wholesome dish and well deserving praise, 
 A great resource in those bleak wintry days 
 When the chill'd earth lies buried deep in snow, 
 And raging Boreas drives the shivering cow. 
 
 Bless'd cow ! thy praise shall still my notes employ, 
 Great source of health, the only source of joy ; 
 How oft thy teats these precious hands have press'd ! 
 How oft thy bounties proved my only feast ! 
 How oft I've fed thee with my favorite grain ! 
 And roar'd, like thee, to find thy children slain ! 
 
 Ye swains, who know her various worth to prize, 
 Ah ! house her well from winter's angry skies. 
 Potatoes, pumpkins, should her sadness cheer, 
 Corn from your crib, and mashes from your beer ; 
 When spring returns she'll well acquit the loan, 
 And nurse at once your infants and her own. 
 
 Milk then with pudding I would always choose ; 
 To this in future I confine my muse, 
 Till she in haste some further hints unfold, 
 Well for the young, nor useless to the old. 
 First in your bowl the milk abundant take, 
 Then drop with care along the silver lake 
 Your flakes of pudding ; these at first will hide 
 Their little bulk beneath the swelling tide ; 
 But when their growing mass no more can sink, 
 When the soft island looms above the brink, 
 Then check your hand ; you've got the portion due ; 
 So taught our sires, and what they taught is true. 
 
 TO FREEDOM. 
 
 Sun of the moral world ! effulgent source 
 Of man's best wisdom and his steadiest force, 
 Soul-searching Freedom ! here assume thy stand, 
 And radiate hence to every distant land ; 
 
120 
 
 JOHN MARSHALL. 
 
 Point out and prove how all the scenes of strife, 
 
 The shock of states, the impassioned broils of lif?, 
 
 Spring from unequal sway ; and how they fly . 
 
 Before the splendor of thy peaceful eye ; 
 
 Unfold at last the genuine social plan, 
 
 The mind's full scope, the dignity of man, 
 
 Bold nature bursting through her long disguise, 
 
 And nations daring to be just and wise. 
 
 Yes ! righteous Freedom, heaven and earth and sea 
 
 Yield or withhold their various gifts for thee ; 
 
 Protected Industry beneath thy reign 
 
 Leads all the virtues in her filial train ; 
 
 Courageous Probity, with brow serene ; 
 
 And Temperance calm presents her placid mien ; 
 
 Contentment, Moderation, Labor, Art, 
 
 Mould the new man and humanize his heart ; 
 
 To public plenty private ease dilates, 
 
 Domestic peace to harmony of states. 
 
 Protected Industry, careering far, 
 
 Detects the cause and cures the rage of war, 
 
 And sweeps, with forceful arm, to their last graves, 
 
 Kings from the earth and pirates from the waves. 
 
 Columbiad. 
 
 JOHN MARSHALL, 1755—1835. 
 
 Jonx Marshall, the son of Thomas Marshall, of Fauquier County, Virginia, 
 was born on the 24th of September, 1755. He had some classical instruction in 
 his youth, but never had the benefit of a regular collegiate education. At the 
 commencement of the Revolutionary War, he engaged with ardor in the American 
 cause, and was promoted in 1777 to the rank of captain. In 1781, finding that 
 there was a redundancy of officers in the Virginia line, he resigned his commis- 
 sion, and, having been admitted to the bar the year before, he devoted himself 
 to the practice of the law, and soon rose to great distinction. He was a member 
 of the Virginia Convention that was called to ratify the Constitution; and in 
 this body he greatly distinguished himself by his powerful reasoning and elo- 
 quence. After this he accepted two or three high offices of trust and honor; and, 
 on the resignation of Chief-Justice Ellsworth, he became, by the nomination of 
 President Adams and the confirmation of the Senate, on the 31st of January, 
 1801, Chief- Justice of the United States, which office he continued to fill with be- 
 coming dignity, increasing reputation, and unsullied purity till his death, which 
 took place in Philadelphia on the 6th of July, 1835. 1 
 
 1 He had been for some months in feeble health, and went from Richmond, the 
 place of his residence, to Philadelphia, in order to obtain medical aid. He died 
 surrounded by three of his children, and "to the last moment retained the facul- 
 ties of his mind, and met his fate with the fortitude of a philosopher and the 
 resignation of a Christian." Read A Discourse upon his Life, Character, and Ser- 
 vices, by Joseph Story, LL.D., and A Eulogy on his Life and Character, by 
 
JOHN MARSHALL. 
 
 121 
 
 It is impossible to speak in too high terms of tlie public and private worth of 
 Chief-Justice Marshall. No man ever bore public honors more meekly; but while, 
 from the simplicity of his manners and his kindness of heart, he endeared him- 
 self to every social circle, from his extraordinary talents, his great legal attain- 
 ments, and his unsuspected integrity, he was the object of respect and confidence 
 throughout the nation, all acknowledging, in the language of Judge Story, that 
 " the highest judicial honors could not have fallen on any one who could have 
 sustained them with more solid advantage to the glory or interests of the 
 country." 
 
 Judge Marshall's published works are A Life of Washington, five volumes 8vo; 
 The History of the American Colonies, one volume ; and a work upon The Federal 
 Constitution. His judicial decisions will ever remain a glorious monument of 
 his learning and his wisdom. 
 
 CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON. 
 
 General Washington was rather above the common size : his 
 frame was robust, and his constitution vigorous — capable of 
 enduring great fatigue, and requiring a considerable degree of 
 exercise for the preservation of his health. His exterior created 
 in the beholder the idea of strength, united with manly graceful- 
 ness. 
 
 His manners were rather reserved than free, though they par- 
 took nothing of that dryness and sternness which accompany re- 
 serve when carried to an extreme ; and on all proper occasions he 
 could relax sufficiently to show how highly he was gratified by 
 the charms of conversation, and the pleasures of society. His 
 person and whole deportment exhibited an unaffected and inde- 
 scribable dignity, unmingled with haughtiness, of which all who 
 approached him were sensible ; and the attachment of those who 
 possessed his friendship, and enjoyed his intimacy, was ardent, 
 but always respectful. 
 
 His temper was humane, benevolent, and conciliatory; but 
 there was a quickness in his sensibility to any thing apparently 
 offensive, which experience had taught him to watch, and to cor- 
 rect. 
 
 In the management of his private affairs he exhibited an exact 
 yet liberal economy. His funds were not prodigally wasted on 
 capricious and ill-examined schemes, nor refused to beneficial 
 
 Horace Binney. Esq.; also, a well-written life in Flanders's Lives of the Chief- 
 Justices of the United States. In the 26th vol. of the N. Am. Review is an article 
 upon Marshall's Public Life and Services, by Judge Story ; and in the 42d vol. a 
 finished article upon his Life, Character, and Services, by G. S. Hillard, in a 
 review of Story's admirable " Discourse." In the first volume of Kennedy's Life 
 of William Wirt are some fine remarks upon the character of Judge Marshall, by 
 Mr. Wirt himself. 
 
 11 
 
122 
 
 JOHN MARSHALL. 
 
 though costly improvements. They remained, therefore, compe- 
 tent to that expensive establishment which his reputation, added 
 to a hospitable temper, had in some measure imposed upon him ; 
 and to those donations which real distress has a right to claim 
 from opulence. 
 
 He made no pretensions to that vivacity which fascinates, or to 
 that wit which dazzles, and frequently imposes on the understand- 
 ing. More solid than brilliant, judgment, rather than genius, con- 
 stituted the most prominent feature of his character. 
 
 Without making ostentatious professions of religion, he was a 
 sincere believer in the Christian faith, and a truly devout man. 
 
 As a military man, he was brave, enterprising, and cautious. 
 That malignity which sought to strip him of all the higher 
 qualities of a General, has conceded to him personal courage, 
 and a firmness of resolution which neither dangers nor diffi- 
 culties could shake. But candor will allow him other great and 
 valuable endowments. If his military course does not abound 
 with splendid achievements, it exhibits a series of judicious 
 measures adapted to circumstances, which probably saved his 
 country. 
 
 In his civil administration, as in his military career, ample and 
 repeated proofs were exhibited of that practical good sense, of 
 that sound judgment, which is perhaps the most rare, and is cer- 
 tainly the most valuable quality of the human mind. 
 
 No man has ever appeared upon the theatre of public action 
 whose integrity was more incorruptible, or whose principles were 
 more perfectly free from the contamination of those selfish and 
 unworthy passions which find their nourishment in the conflicts 
 of party. Having no views which required concealment, his real 
 and avowed motives were the same ; and his whole correspond- 
 ence does not furnish a single case from which even an enemy 
 would infer that he was capable, under any circumstances, of 
 stooping to the employment of duplicity. No truth can be uttered 
 with more confidence than that his ends were always upright, and 
 his means always pure. He exhibits the rare example of a poli- 
 tician to whom wiles were absolutely unknown, and whose profes- 
 sions to foreign governments, and to his own countrymen, were 
 always sincere. In him was fully exemplified the real distinction, 
 which forever exists, between wisdom and cunning, and the im- 
 portance as well as truth of the maxim that " honesty is the best 
 policy." 
 
 It is impossible to contemplate the great events which have 
 occurred in the United States, under the auspices of Washington, 
 without ascribing them, in some measure, to him. If we ask the 
 causes of the prosperous issue of a war against the successful ter- 
 mination of which there were so many probabilities j of the good 
 
ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 123 
 
 which was produced, and the ill which was avoided, during an 
 administration fated to contend with the strongest prejudices that 
 a combination of circumstances, and of passions, could produce; 
 of the constant favor of the great mass of his fellow-citizens, and 
 of the confidence which, to the last moment of his life, they re- 
 posed in him • the answer, so far as these causes may be found in 
 his character, will furnish a lesson well meriting the attention of 
 those who are candidates for political fame. 
 
 Endowed by nature with a sound judgment, and an accurate 
 discriminating mind, he feared not that laborious attention which 
 made him perfectly master of those subjects, in all their rela- 
 tions, on which he was to decide j and this essential quality was 
 guided by an unvarying sense of moral right, which would tole- 
 rate the employment, only, of those means that would bear the 
 most rigid examination ; by a fairness of intention which neither 
 sought nor required disguise : and by a purity of virtue which 
 was not only untainted, but unsuspected. 
 
 ALEXANDER HAMILTON, 1757—1804. 
 
 This distinguished statesman, jurist, soldier, and financier, was born in Nevis, 
 one of the West India Islands, on the 11th of January, 1757. At the age of 
 sixteen he came to New York, and soon after entered Columbia College. He re- 
 mained here, however, but a short time, for the stirring ante-Revolutionary events 
 warmly excited him, and called him from those academic shades into the duties 
 and dangers of military life. He was little more than eighteen when he joined 
 the army as a captain of artillery, and at twenty had so attracted the attention of 
 Washington, by his writings and eloquence in the cause of independence, that he 
 selected him as one of his aids, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He remained 
 in the army during the war, attached to the staff of the commander-in-chief, pos- 
 sessing his warm affection and entire confidence, and being consulted by him con- 
 stantly on all important occasions. In 1780, he was married to the second 
 daughter of General Schuyler. 1 In 1782, he withdrew from public life, and de- 
 voted himself to the study of law in New York. He rose rapidly to the very front 
 rank of the profession, and was again called into public life, by being elected by 
 the legislature of New York to the Congress of Confederation in 1782. At the 
 end of the session, he resumed the active duties of his profession. 
 
 But a man of such consummate abilities, eloquence, and political wisdom could 
 not long remain in private when great national interests were at stake; and 
 accordingly, in 1787, he was elected one of the three delegates from New York 
 to the Convention for the formation of the Federal Constitution. His influence 
 
 1 She survived her husband for half a century, dying in the autumn of 1854, at 
 the advanced age of ninety-five. 
 
124 
 
 ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 in this body is well and justly expressed by Guizot, who says : — " There is not 
 one element of order, strength, or durability in the Constitution which he did not 
 powerfully contribute to introduce, and cause to be adopted." After the adjourn- 
 ment of the Convention, and when the Constitution was before the legislatures 
 of the several States for its adoption, he, in conjunction with Madison and Jay, 
 wrote a series of papers explaining and defending the various provisions of that 
 admirable instrument. These essays were afterwards collected and published in 
 a volume under the name of The Federalist, 1 and constitute one of the most pro- 
 found and lucid treatises on politics that have ever been written. The introduc- 
 tion and conclusion are from the pen of Hamilton, who also assumed the main 
 discussion of the important points in respect to taxation and revenue, the army 
 and militia, the power of the Executive, and the Judiciary. 
 
 Upon the organization of the Government, Washington showed his estimation 
 of Hamilton by appointing him to fill what was then the most important post, — 
 overwhelmed as we were by debt, — the office of Secretary of the Treasury. His 
 various reports, while he filled this office, of plans for the restoration of public 
 credit, on the protection and encouragement of manufactures, on the necessity 
 and constitutionality of a national bank, and on the establishment of a mint, 
 have given him the reputation of one of the first statesmen the world has ever 
 seen. 2 
 
 While Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury, — the French Revolution being 
 then at its height, — numerous demagogues were active in their efforts to embroil 
 us in a foreign war. But this pure and lofty statesman not only advised the pro- 
 clamation of neutrality and the mission of John Jay to England to conclude a 
 permanent treaty with that people, but also wrote for the public prints a series of 
 admirable papers, signed " Pacificus" and " Camillus," which had a controlling 
 influence on the public mind, and which are still regarded as among the most 
 profound commentaries which have appeared on the principles of international 
 law and policy to which they had relation. 
 
 When, during the Presidency of John Adams, Washington was invited, in the 
 event of a war with France, to the command of the national forces, he accepted 
 on the condition that Hamilton should be second in command. What higher 
 compliment could have been paid him ? 
 
 We now come, with sadness, to the closing period of Hamilton's life. In June, 
 1804, that gifted but thoroughly unprincipled man, Aaron Burr, then Vice-Pre- 
 sident of the United States, 3 who saw that Hamilton stood in the way of his ambi- 
 tious views, and who for some time had thirsted for his life, addressed to him a 
 letter demanding bis acknowledgment or denial of certain expressions derogatory 
 
 1 Of the eighty-five numbers of The Federalist, Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 54, were written 
 by John Jay ; Nos. 10, 14, and 37 to 48 inclusive — fourteen in all — by James 
 Madison ; Nos. 19 and 20 by Hamilton and Madison ; and all the rest, sixty- 
 four in number, by Hamilton. 
 
 2 It was in allusion to these masterly state papers that Daniel Webster, at a 
 public dinner in New York in 1831, said, "He smote the rock of the national re- 
 sources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth; he touched the dead 
 corpse of the public credit, and it sprung upon its feet." 
 
 3 Burr was subsequently tried for treason in attempting to form a new republic, 
 but was acquitted for the want of sufficient legal evidence to convict. His ambi- 
 tion seemed to be that of Satan : — " Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven." 
 
ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 125 
 
 to his character which he had heard that Hamilton had used. Compliance with 
 this demand Hamilton and all his friends deemed inadmissible, and Burr sent 
 him a challenge. Though opposed on principle to duelling, he felt that his 
 position as a public man, and his high rank in the army of the United States, 
 demanded its acceptance. His words, as found in a paper written the day before 
 he went to the fatal field, are : — " The ability to be in future useful, whether in 
 resisting mischief or effecting good in those crises in our public affairs which 
 seem likely to happen, would probably be inseparable from a conformity with 
 public prejudice in this particular." On the 11th of July, the parties met at 
 Hoboken, and Hamilton fell, mortally wounded. He was taken home, and died 
 the next day ; living long enough, however, to disavow all intention of taking 
 the life of Burr, and to declare his abhorrence of the whole transaction. Almost 
 his last words were, a I have a tender reliance on the mercy of the Almighty 
 through the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ." 1 
 
 Next to "Washington, no man in this country was ever so universally mourned. 
 The pulpit, the bar, and the press teemed with discourses commemorative of his 
 exalted talents and services and virtues, and every one felt that America had lost 
 her greatest man. Said the great and pious Fisher Ames, "My soul stiffens 
 with despair when I think what Hamilton would have been !" 2 
 
 THE NECESSITY OF A NATIONAL BANK. 3 
 
 I am aware of all the objections that have been made to public 
 banks, and that they are not without enlightened and respectable 
 opponents. But all that has been said against them only tends 
 to prove that, like all other good things, they are subject to abuse, 
 
 1 In a letter to a friend, soon after Hamilton's death, the Rev. Dr. Mason thus 
 wrote : — " The greatest statesman in the Western World — perhaps the greatest 
 man of the age — has been cut off in the forty-eighth year of his life by the mur- 
 derous arm of Vice-President Burr. The death of Hamilton has created a waste 
 in the sphere of intellect and probity which a century will hardly fill up. He has 
 left none like him,— no second, no third, — nobody to put us in mind of him. You 
 can have no conception of such a man unless you knew him. One burst of grief 
 and indignation assails the murderer from every corner of the continent. Political 
 enemies vie with friends in heapiug honors upon his memory." 
 
 2 Read Life and "Works by his son, J. C. Hamilton, 7 vols. ; Eulogy by Rev. 
 John M. Mason, D.D. ; Sketch of, by Fisher Ames; "North American Review," 
 liii. 70: "American Quarterly," xv. 311. William Coleman, the editor of the 
 '•New York Evening Post," published a memorial of the occasion in "A Collec- 
 tion of Facts and Documents relative to the Death of General Alexander Hamil- 
 ton, with Orations, Sermons, and Eulogies." A work of great interest and value 
 has recently been published, entitled " History of the Republic of the United 
 States of America, as traced in the Writings of Alexander Hamilton and his Con- 
 temporaries, by John C. Hamilton." 
 
 3 From a letter to Robert Morris, dated April 30, 1781, when the financial state 
 of our country was in a most depressed condition. The letter is long, and one of 
 consummate ability ; going into details how the bank should be managed, and 
 what checks and safeguards should be adopted to place it on an enduring founda- 
 tion. This « splendid plan," as it has been called, shows Hamilton's vast reach 
 of mind united to great skill in practical details, as much, perhaps, as any single 
 paper that ever came from his pen. 
 
126 
 
 ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 and when abused become pernicious. The precious metals, by 
 similar arguments, may be proved to be injurious. It is certain 
 that the moneys of South America have had great influence in 
 banishing industry from Spain, and sinking it in real wealth and 
 importance. Great power, commerce, and riches — or, in other 
 words, great national prosperity — may, in like manner, be deno- 
 minated evils ) for they lead to insolence, an inordinate ambition, 
 a vicious luxury, licentiousness of morals, and all those vices 
 which corrupt a government, enslave the state, and precipitate the 
 ruin of a nation. But no wise statesman will reject the good from 
 an apprehension of the ill. The truth is, in human affairs there 
 is no good pure and unmixed. Every advantage has two sides ; 
 and wisdom consists in availing ourselves of the good, and guard- 
 ing as much as possible against the bad. 
 
 The tendency of a national bank is to increase public and private 
 credit. The former gives power to the state for the protection of 
 its rights and interests, and the latter facilitates and extends the 
 operations of commerce among individuals. Industry is increased, 
 commodities are multiplied, agriculture and manufactures flourish ; 
 and herein consists the true wealth and prosperity of a state. Most 
 commercial nations have found it necessary to institute banks ; 
 and they have proved to be the happiest engines that ever were 
 invented for advancing trade. Venice, Genoa, Hamburg, Hol- 
 land, and England, are examples of their utility. They owe their 
 riches, commerce, and the figure they have made at different 
 periods, in a great degree to this source. Great Britain is in- 
 debted for the immense efforts she has been able to make in so 
 many illustrious and successful wars, essentially to that vast fabric 
 of credit raised on this foundation. 
 
 THE EXCELLENCY OF OUR CONSTITUTION. 1 
 
 After all our doubts, our suspicions and speculations, Mr. 
 Chairman, on the subject of government, we must return at last 
 to this important truth, that when we have formed a constitution 
 upon free principles, when we have given a proper balance to the 
 different branches of administration, and fixed representation upon 
 pure and equal principles, we may with safety furnish it with all 
 the powers necessary to answer, in the most ample manner, the 
 purposes of government. The great objects to be desired are a 
 free representation and mutual checks. When these are obtained, 
 all our apprehensions of the extent of powers are unjust and ima- 
 ginary. What, then, is the structure of this constitution ? One 
 
 1 From a speech delivered in the New York Convention, 1788. 
 
ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 127 
 
 branch of the legislature is to be elected by the people, — by the 
 same people who choose your State representatives. Its members 
 are to hold their office two years, and then return to their consti- 
 tuents. Here, sir, the people govern ; here they act by their im- 
 mediate representatives. You have also a senate, constituted by 
 your State legislatures, by men in whom you place the highest 
 confidence, and forming another representative branch. Then, 
 again, you have an executive magistrate, the president, created by 
 a form of election which merits universal admiration. In the 
 form of this government, and in the mode of legislation, you find 
 all the checks which the greatest politicians and the best writers 
 have ever conceived. What more can reasonable men desire ? 
 Is there any one branch in which the whole legislative and exe- 
 cutive powers are lodged ? No. The legislative authority is 
 lodged in three distinct branches, properly balanced; the exe- 
 cutive authority is divided between two branches j and the judicial 
 is still reserved for an independent body, who hold their offices 
 during good behavior. This organization is so complex, so skil- 
 fully contrived, that it is next to impossible that an impolitic or 
 wicked measure should pass the great scrutiny with success. 
 Now, what do gentlemen mean by coming forward and declaiming 
 against this government ? Why do they say we ought to limit 
 its powers, to disable it, and to destroy its capacity of blessing the 
 people ? Has philosophy suggested, has experience taught, that 
 such a government ought not to be trusted with every thing- 
 necessary for the good of society ? Sir, when you have divided 
 and nicely balanced the departments of government ; when you 
 have strongly connected the virtue of your rulers with their inte- 
 rest ; when, in short, you have rendered your system as perfect as 
 human forms can be, — you must place confidence, you must 
 
 GIVE POWER. 
 
 CHARACTER OF MAJOR ANDRE. 
 
 There was something singularly interesting in the character 
 and fortunes of Andre. To an excellent understanding, well im- 
 proved by education and travel, he united a peculiar elegance of 
 mind and manners, and the advantage of a pleasing person. 'Tis 
 said he possessed a pretty taste for the fine arts, and had himself 
 attained some proficiency in poetry, music, and painting. His 
 knowledge appeared without ostentation, and embellished by a 
 diffidence that rarely accompanies so many talents and accom- 
 plishments, which left you to suppose more than appeared. His 
 sentiments were elevated, and inspired esteem ; they had a soft- 
 ness that conciliated affection. His elocution was handsome; his 
 address easy, polite, and insinuating. By his merit, he had 
 
128 
 
 ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 acquired the unlimited confidence of his general, and was making 
 a rapid progress in military rank and reputation. But in the 
 height of his career, flushed with new hopes from the execution 
 of a project the most beneficial to his party that could be devised, 
 he was at once precipitated from the summit of prosperity, and 
 saw all the expectations of his ambition blasted, and himself 
 ruined. 
 
 The character I have given of him is drawn partly from what 
 I saw of him myself, and partly from information. I am aware 
 that a man of real merit is never seen in so favorable a light as 
 through the medium of adversity ; the clouds that surround him 
 are shades that set off his good qualities. Misfortune cuts down 
 the little vanities that, in prosperous times, serve as so many 
 spots in his virtues, and gives a tone of humility that makes his 
 worth more amiable. His spectators, who enjoy a happier lot, are 
 less prone to detract from it through envy, and are more disposed, 
 by compassion, to give him the credit he deserves, and perhaps 
 even to magnify it. 
 
 I speak not of Andre's conduct in this affair as a philosopher, 
 but as a man of the world. The authorized maxims and practices 
 of war are the satires of human nature. They countenance almost 
 every species of seduction as well as violence ; and the general 
 who can make most traitors in the army of his adversary is fre- 
 quently most applauded. On this scale we acquit Andre, while 
 we could not but condemn him if we were to examine his con- 
 duct by the sober rules of philosophy and moral rectitude. It is, 
 however, a blemish on his fame that he once intended to prosti- 
 tute a flag ; about this, a man of nice honor ought to have had a 
 scruple ; but the temptation was great ; let his misfortunes cast a 
 veil over his error. 
 
 CHARACTER OF GENERAL GREENE. 1 
 
 As a man, the virtues of Nathaniel Greene are admitted ; as a 
 patriot, he holds a place in the foremost rank ; as a statesman, he 
 is praised ■ as a soldier, he is admired. But in the two last cha- 
 racters, especially in the last but one, his reputation falls far below 
 his desert. It required a longer life, and still greater oppor- 
 tunities, to have enabled him to exhibit, in full day, the vast — I 
 had almost said the enormous — powers of his mind. 
 
 1 Nathaniel Greene, a major-general in the Revolutionary array, was horn in 
 Warwick, R. I., in 1742, and died in 1785. In the tenth volume of the second 
 series of " Sparks's American Biography" will be found a well-written life, by his 
 grandson, George Washington Greene, who is engaged in preparing a much fuller 
 biography, to be completed in six volumes. 
 
ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 129 
 
 The termination of the American war — not too soon for his 
 wishes, nor for the welfare of his country, but too soon for his 
 glory — put an end to his military career. The sudden termina- 
 tion of his life cut him off from those scenes which the progress 
 of a new, immense, and unsettled empire could not fail to open to 
 the complete exertion of that universal and pervading genius 
 which qualified him not less for the senate than for the field. * * 
 
 General Greene, descended from reputable parents, but not 
 placed by birth in that elevated rank which, under a monarchy, 
 is the only sure road to those employments that give activity and 
 scope to abilities, must, in all probability, have contented himself 
 with the humble lot of a private citizen, or, at most, with the 
 contracted sphere of an elective ofiice in a colonial and dependent 
 government, scarcely conscious of the resources of his own mind, 
 had not the violated rights of his country called him to act a part 
 on a more splendid and more ample theatre. 
 
 Happily for America, he hesitated not to obey the call. The 
 vigor of his genius, corresponding with the importance of the 
 prize to be contended for, overcame the natural moderation of his 
 temper ; and though not hurried on by enthusiasm, but animated 
 by an enlightened sense of the value of free government, he cheer- 
 fully resolved to stake his fortune, his hopes, his life, and his 
 honor, upon an enterprise of the danger of which he knew the 
 whole magnitude, — in a cause which was worthy of the toils and 
 of the blood of heroes. 
 
 The sword having been appealed to at Lexington as the arbiter 
 of the controversy between Great Britain and America, Greene 
 shortly after marched, at the head of a regiment, to join the 
 American forces at Cambridge, determined to abide the awful de- 
 cision. 
 
 He was not long there before the discerning eye of the Ameri- 
 can Fabius marked him out as the object of his confidence. 
 
 His abilities entitled him to a pre-eminent share in the councils 
 of his Chief. He gained it, .and he preserved it, amidst all the 
 chequered varieties of military vicissitude, and in defiance of all 
 the intrigues of jealous and aspiring rivals. 
 
 As long as the measures which conducted us safely through the 
 first most critical stages of the war shall be remembered with 
 approbation ; as long as the enterprises of Trenton and Princeton 
 shall be regarded as the dawnings of that bright day which after- 
 wards broke forth with such resplendent lustre ) as long as the 
 almost magic operations of the remainder of that memorable win- 
 ter, distinguished not more by these events than by the extraor- 
 dinary spectacle of a powerful army straitened within narrow 
 limits by the phantom of a military force, and never permitted to 
 transgress those limits with impunity, in which skill supplied the 
 
130 FISHER AMES. 
 
 place of means, and disposition was the substitute for an army • 
 as long, I say, as these operations shall continue to he the. objects 
 of curiosity and wonder, so long ought the name of Greene to be 
 revered by a grateful country. 
 
 FISHER AMES, 1758—1808. 
 
 Few statesmen of this or any other country have passed through the perilous 
 arena of politics with a dhai-acter and reputation so unsullied as Fisher Ames. 
 He was the youngest son of Dr. Nathaniel Ames, of Dedham, Massachusetts, and 
 was born in that ancient town, April 9, 1758. He was hut six years old when he 
 lost his father; hut his mother, as if " 'anticipating the future lustre of the jewel 
 committed to her care," struggled bravely with her narrow circumstances in order 
 to give him a literary education. She lived to be a witness of his eminence, to 
 receive the expressions of his filial piety, and to weep over his grave. 
 
 At the completion of his twelfth year, he was admitted to Harvard College } 
 where he distinguished himself, young as he was, by his studious habits and his 
 classical attainments; and he passed through that ordeal, so trying for young 
 men, with a character unstained by any vice. After leaving college, he engaged 
 in the business of instruction, and for three or four years employed his rime partly 
 in teaching others, and partly in reviewing his studies and adding new stores to 
 his stock of knowledge. At length he entered the office of William Tudor, Esq., 
 of Boston, and in the autumn of 1781 commenced practice at Dedham. 
 
 Mr. Ames entered upon his professional duties at a very eventful period of our 
 history. From the outset of his career he was ever the warm, consistent, and 
 able friend of constitutional liberty; and when resistance to law, in Massachu- 
 setts, broke out into open rebellion, he wrote a series of essays in the "Independent 
 Chronicle," published in Boston, under the signatures of " Lucius Junius Brutus" 
 and " Camillus," to animate the Government to decision and energy. These 
 pieces were pronounced to be the production of no common mind; and when 
 traced to Mr. Ames, the eyes of leading men in the State were turned to him as 
 one destined to render the most important services to his country. 
 
 In 17S8 he was chosen a member of the Massachusetts Convention for ratify- 
 ing the Federal Constitution. In this body he displayed so much talent and 
 sound political wisdom that he was selected by the friends of the then new 
 Government to assist in its organization, and he was accordingly chosen the first 
 representative to Congress from the district of Suffolk, which included the capital 
 of the State. During the whole of Washington's administration, he continued a 
 member of the House of Representatives; and though his health was feeble, he 
 took an active and responsible part in every important question, giving all his 
 time and all his powers to public business ; and such were his abilities and such his 
 enlarged views, united to sound moral and Christian principles, that no member 
 of the House exerted a greater influence. The greatest speech that he delivered 
 in that body — and, indeed, the speech of that session of the fourth Congress — was 
 that on the appropriation for the British treaty, — more generally known as "Jay's 
 
FISHER AMES. 
 
 131 
 
 treaty." 1 For many months he had been sinking under bodily infirmity ; and 
 though he had attended the long and interesting debate on a question involving 
 the principles of the Constitution and the peace of the United States, it was feared 
 he would be unable to speak. He himself had no design of speaking, feeling 
 utterly unequal to the effort. But when the time came for taking a vote so big 
 with consequences, his emotions would not suffer him to be silent ; and, pale, weak, 
 and emaciated as he was, he rose and delivered that speech, which, for chaste dic- 
 tion, argumentative reasoning, high-toned morality, and impassioned eloquence, 
 has not its superior in our legislative histoiy. 2 
 
 At the close of the session, in the spring of 1796, Mr. Ames travelled for his 
 health, which he regained so far as to enable him to attend the next session of 
 Congress; after which ho declined another election, and retired to his favorite 
 residence, "to enjoy repose in the bosom of his famity, and to unite, with his 
 practice as a laAvyer, those rural occupations in which he delighted." His interest 
 in public affairs, however, did not cease; and his pen was almost constantly 
 employed in writing political essays for the papers of the day, in defence and sup- 
 port of the principles of the Federal party, of which he was one of the most dis- 
 tinguished members; 3 and when Washington, the illustrious head of that party, 
 died, Mr. Ames pronounced his eulogy before the Legislature of Massachusetts. 
 
 In 1804, Mr. Ames was chosen President of Harvard College, but his feeble 
 health would not allow him to accept the high honor. At length his disease began 
 to make more rapid strides. With great calmness and Christian resignation he 
 saw his end approaching. He was fully prepared to die, as he had lived the life of a 
 Christian, and his faith grew stronger as his body grew weaker; and on the morn- 
 ing of the 4th of July, 1808, the birthday of the independence of that country 
 
 1 It was delivered April 28, 1796, in support of the following motion : — 
 "Resolved, That it is expedient to pass the laws necessary to carry into effect 
 
 the treaty lately concluded between the United States and the King of Great 
 Britain." 
 
 2 Dr. Charles Caldwell, in his autobiography, thus speaks of Ames's eloquence: 
 — " He was decidedly one of the most splendid rhetoricians of the age. Two of 
 his speeches, in a special manner, — that on Jay's treaty, and that usually called 
 his 'tomahawk speech,' (because it included some resplendent passages on Indian 
 massacres,) — were the most brilliant and fascinating specimens of eloquence I 
 have ever heard : yet have I listened to some of the most celebrated speakers in 
 the British Parliament ; among others, to Wilberforce and Mackintosh, Plunket, 
 Brougham, and Canning. Dr. Priestley, who was familiar with the oratory of 
 Pitt the father and Pitt the son, and also with that of Burke and Fox, made to 
 myself the acknowledgment that, to use his own words, 'the speech of Ames on 
 the British treaty was the most bewitching piece of parliamentary oratory he had 
 ever listened to.' " 
 
 3 In a letter to Thomas Dwight, dated October 26, 1803, he thus writes : — " Our 
 country is too big for union, too sordid for patriotism, too democratic for liberty. 
 What is to become of it He who made it best knows. Its vice will govern it by 
 practising upon its folly. This is ordained for democracies. The men who have 
 the best principles, and those who act from the worst, will talk alike, except only 
 that the latter will exceed the former in fervor. But the language of deceit, 
 though stale and exposed to detection, will deceive as long as the multitude love 
 flattery better than restraint." 
 
 His Essay on the Bangers of American Liberty is replete with sout.d political 
 wisdom ; and well would it be for our nation if it would heed its counsels and its 
 warnings. 
 
132 
 
 FISHER AMES. 
 
 which he so ardently loved, and for whose best interests he had so faithfully 
 labored, he resigned his spirit into the hands of Him who gave it. 
 
 Fisher Ames was a truly great man. None of our statesmen have united, to 
 talents and attainments of so high an order, a private character of greater purity, 
 or a deeper sense of moral and religious obligation. He was a close student 
 of the Bible, an admirer of our translation for the purity of its English, and 
 deeply lamented the growing disuse of it in our schools. He thought that chil- 
 dren should be made acquainted with its important truths, and said, " I will 
 hazard the assertion that no man ever did or ever will become truly eloquent 
 without being a constant reader of the Bible, and an admirer of the beauty and 
 sublimity of its language." " It is happy for mankind," says his biographer, 
 " when those who engage admiration deserve esteem ; for vice and folly derive a 
 pernicious influence from an alliance with qualities that naturally command ap- 
 plause. In the character of Mr. Ames, the circle of the virtues seems to be com- 
 plete, and each virtue in its proper place." 1 
 
 THE OBLIGATIONS OF NATIONAL FAITH. 
 
 Mr. Chairman : — The question before us seems at last to re- 
 solve itself to this : Shall we break the treaty ? 2 The treaty 
 is bad, fatally bad, is the cry. It sacrifices the interest, the 
 honor, the independence of the United States, and the faith of 
 our engagements to France. If we listen to the clamor of party 
 intemperance, the evils are of a number not to be counted, and of 
 a nature not to be borne, even in idea. The language of passion 
 and exaggeration may silence that of sober reason in other places ; 
 it has not done it here. The question here is, whether the 
 treaty be really so very fatal as to oblige the nation to break its 
 faith. 
 
 I lay down two rules, which ought to guide us in this case. 
 
 1 Read the Life of Mr. Ames, prefixed to his works, by the ReA r . Dr. Kirkland, 
 President of Harvard University, one of the best-written pieces of biography in 
 our language. Also, "Works of Fisher Ames, with a Selection from his Speeches 
 and Correspondence ; edited by his Son, Seth Ames a beautiful edition, pub- 
 lished by Little, Brown & Co., Boston. 
 
 2 The debate in the House of Representatives upon Jay's celebrated treaty is 
 perhaps the most memorable that ever occurred in that body, and, we may add, 
 one of the most important ; for the great question was then discussed whether a 
 treaty would be valid without the approbation of the House. Those who were in 
 the affirmative of this question argued, from the Constitution, that the treaty was 
 already made, and could not be broken without breaking the faith of the nation; 
 for the Constitution vests the power of making treaties in the President, by and 
 with the advice and consent of the Senate. Those in the negative argued that, if 
 the President and Senate could make treaties without the assistance of the House, 
 they might absorb all legislative power. The treaty itself, too, was made a sub- 
 ject of bitter animadversion by one part}'. For a comprehensive account of the 
 whole debate, see " Pitkin's Political and Civil History of the United States," vol. 
 ii. page 442. It is now seen that the treaty obtained as much for us as, from all 
 circumstances, we could have looked for, while it has proved, in its application, 
 eminently beneficial to us. 
 
FISHER AMES. 
 
 133 
 
 The treaty must appear to be bad, not merely in the petty details, 
 but in its character, principle, and mass ; and, in the next place, 
 this ought to be ascertained by the decided and general concur- 
 rence of the enlightened public. I confess there seems to me 
 something very like ridicule thrown over the debate, by the dis- 
 cussion of the articles in detail. 
 
 The undecided point is, shall we break our faith ? and while our 
 country and enlightened Europe await the issue, with more than 
 curiosity, we are employed to gather piece-meal, and article by 
 article, from the instrument, a justification for the deed, by trivial 
 calculations of commercial profit and loss. This is little worthy 
 of the subject, of this body, or of the nation. If the treaty is 
 bad, it will appear to be so in its mass. Evil, to a fatal extreme, 
 if that be its tendency, requires no proof ; it brings it. Extremes 
 speak for themselves, and make their own law. Few men of any 
 reputation for sense, among those who say the treaty is bad, will 
 put that reputation so much at hazard as to pretend that it is so 
 extremely bad as to warrant and require a violation of the public 
 faith. 
 
 In the next place, will the state of public opinion justify the 
 deed ? No government, not even a despotism, will break its faith 
 without some pretext ; and it must be jjlausible, — it must be such 
 as will carry the public opinion along with it. Reasons of policy, 
 if not of morality, dissuade even Turkey and Algiers from breaches 
 of treaty in mere wantonness of perfidy, in open contempt of the 
 reproaches of their subjects. Surely a popular government will 
 not proceed more arbitrarily, as it is more free; nor with less 
 shame or scruple in proportion as it has better morals. It will 
 not proceed against the faith of treaties at all, unless the strong 
 and decided sense of the nation shall pronounce, not simply that 
 the treaty is not advantageous, but that it ought to be broken and 
 annulled. 
 
 Why, Mr. Chairman, do the opposers of this treaty complain 
 that the West Indies are not laid open I Why do they lament 
 that any restriction is stipulated on the commerce of the East 
 Indies ? Why do they pretend that if they reject this and insist 
 upon more, more will be accomplished ? Let us be explicit : 
 more would not satisfy. If all was granted, would not a treaty 
 of amity with Great Britain still be obnoxious ? Have we not 
 this instant heard it urged against our envoy that he was not 
 ardent enough in his hatred of Great Britain ? A treaty of amity 
 is condemned because it was not made by a foe, and in the spirit 
 of one. The same gentleman, at the same instant, repeats a very 
 prevailing objection, that no treaty should be made with the 
 enemy of France. No treaty, exclaim others, should be made 
 with a monarch or a despot ; there will be no naval security while 
 
134 
 
 FISHER AMES. 
 
 those sea-robbers domineer on the ocean : their clen must be de 
 stroyed ; that nation must be extirpated. 
 
 I like this, sir, because it is sincerity. With feelings such as 
 these, we do not pant for treaties. Such passions seek nothing, 
 and will be content with nothing, but the destruction of theii 
 object. If a treaty left King George his island, it would not 
 answer, — no, not if he stipulated to pay rent for it. It has even 
 been said, the world ought to rejoice if Britain was sunk in the 
 sea; if, where there are now men, and wealth, and laws, and 
 liberty, there was no more than a sandbank for the sea-monsters 
 to fatten on, a space for the storms of the ocean to mingle in 
 conflict. 
 
 PATRIOTISM. 
 
 What is patriotism ? Is it a narrow affection for the spot where 
 a man was born ? Are the very clods where we tread entitled to 
 this ardent preference because they are greener ? No, sir : this 
 is not the character of the virtue, and it soars higher for its object. 
 It is an extended self-love, mingling with all the enjoyments of 
 life, and twisting itself with the minutest filaments of the heart. 
 It is thus we obey the laws of society, because they are the laws 
 of virtue. In their authority we see, not the array of force and 
 terror, but the venerable image of our country's honor. Every 
 good citizen makes that honor his own, and cherishes it not only 
 as precious, but as sacred. He is willing to risk his life in its 
 defence, and is conscious that he gains protection while he gives 
 it ; for what rights of a citizen will be deemed inviolable when a 
 State renounces the principles that constitute their security ? Or, 
 if his life should not be invaded, what would its enjoyments be in 
 a country odious in the eyes of strangers and dishonored in his 
 own ? Could he look with affection and veneration to such a 
 country as his parent ? The sense of having one would die within 
 him ; he would blush for his patriotism, if he retained any ; and 
 justly, for it would be a vice. He would be a banished man in 
 his native land. 
 
 WASHINGTON AS A CIVILIAN. 
 
 However his military fame may excite the wonder of mankind, 
 it is chiefly by his civil magistracy that Washington's example 
 will instruct them. Great generals have arisen in all ages of the 
 world, and perhaps most in those of despotism and darkness. In 
 times of violence and convulsion, they rise, by the force of the 
 whirlwind, high enough to ride in it and direct the storm. Like 
 meteors, they glare on the black clouds with a splendor that, while 
 it dazzles and terrifies, makes nothing visible but the darkness. 
 
FISHER AMES. 
 
 135 
 
 The fame of heroes is indeed growing vulgar : they multiply in 
 every long war j they stand in history, and thicken in their ranks 
 almost as undistinguished as their own soldiers. 
 
 But such a chief magistrate as Washington appears like the 
 pole-star in a clear sky, to direct the skilful statesman. His pre- 
 sidency will form an epoch, and be distinguished as the age of 
 Washington. Already it assumes its high place in the political 
 region. Like the milky way, it whitens along its allotted portion 
 of the hemisphere. The latest generations of men will survey, 
 through the telescope of history, the space where so many virtues 
 blend their rays, and delight to separate them into groups and 
 distinct virtues. As the best illustration of them, the living 
 monument to which the first of patriots would have chosen to 
 consign his feme, it is my earnest prayer to heaven that our 
 country may subsist, even to that late day, in the plenitude of its 
 liberty and happiness, and mingle its mild glory with "Washington's. 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE NEWSPAPER PRESS. 
 
 It seems as if newspaper wares were made to suit a market as 
 much as any other. The starers, and wonderers, and gapers 
 engross a very large share of the attention of all the sons of the 
 type. Extraordinary events multiply upon us surprisingly. 
 Gazettes, it is seriously to be feared, will not long allow room to 
 any thing that is not loathsome or shocking. A newspaper is 
 pronounced to be very lean and destitute of matter if it contains 
 no account of murders, suicides, prodigies, or monstrous births. 
 
 Some of these tales excite horror, and others disgust ; yet the 
 fashion reigns, like a tyrant, to relish wonders, and almost to 
 relish nothing else. Is this a reasonable taste ? or is it monstrous 
 and worthy of ridicule ? Is the history of Newgate the only one 
 worth reading ? Are oddities only to be hunted ? Pray, tell us, 
 men of ink, if our free presses are to diffuse information, and we, 
 the poor, ignorant people, can get it no other way than by news- 
 papers, what knowledge we are to glean from the blundering lies, 
 or the tiresome truths about thunder-storms, that, strange to tell 
 kill oxen or burn barns. 
 
 Surely extraordinary events have not the best title to our stu- 
 dious attention. To study nature or man, we ought to know 
 things that are in the ordinary course, not the unaccountable 
 things that happen out of it. * * * 
 
 Some of the shocking articles in the papers raise simple, and 
 very simple, wonder ; some, terror ; and some, horror and disgust. 
 Now, what instruction is there in these endless wonders ? Who 
 is the wiser or happier for reading the accounts of them? On 
 the contrary, do they not shock tender minds and addle shallow 
 
136 
 
 FISHER AMES. 
 
 brains ? They make a thousand old maids, and eight or ten thou- 
 sand booby boys, afraid to go to bed alone. Worse than this 
 happens j for some eccentric minds are turned to mischief by such 
 accounts as they receive of troops of incendiaries burning our 
 cities : the spirit of imitation is contagious, and boys are found 
 unaccountably bent to do as men do. When the man flew from 
 the steeple of the North Church, fifty years ago, every unlucky 
 boy thought of nothing but flying from a sign-post. 
 
 Every horrid story in a newspaper produces a shock j but, after 
 some time, this shock lessens. At length, such stories are so far 
 from giving pain that they rather raise curiosity, and we desire 
 nothing so much as the particulars of terrible tragedies. To 
 wonder is as easy as to stare, and the most vacant mind is the 
 most in need of such resources as cost no trouble of scrutiny or 
 reflection ) it is a sort of food for idle curiosity that is readily 
 chewed and digested. 
 
 Now, Messrs. Printers, I pray the whole honorable craft to 
 banish as many murders, and horrid accidents, and monstrous 
 births, and prodigies, from their gazettes, as their readers will 
 permit them ; and, by degrees, to coax them back to contemplate 
 life and manners, to consider common events with some common 
 sense, and to study nature where she can be known, rather than 
 in those of her ways where she really is, or is represented to be, 
 inexplicable. 
 
 Boston Palladium, October, 1801. 
 CHARACTER OF HAMILTON. 
 
 In all the different stations in which a life of active usefulness 
 placed Hamilton, we find him not more remarkably distinguished 
 by the extent, than by the variety and versatility, of his talents. 
 In every place he made it apparent that no other man could have 
 filled it so well j and in times of critical importance, in which 
 alone he desired employment, his services were justly deemed ab- 
 solutely indispensable. As Secretary of the Treasury, his was 
 the powerful spirit that presided over the chaos. 
 
 "Confusion heard his voice, and wild Uproar 
 Stood ruled." 
 
 Indeed, in organizing the Federal Government, in 1789, every 
 man of either sense or candor will allow, the difficulties seemed 
 greater than the first-rate abilities could surmount. The event has 
 shown that his abilities were greater than those difficulties. He 
 surmounted them; and Washington's administration was the most 
 wise and beneficent, the most prosperous, and ought to be the 
 most popular, that ever was intrusted with the affairs of a nation. 
 
FISHER AMES. 
 
 137 
 
 Great as was Washington's merit, much of it in plan, much in 
 execution, will of course devolve upon his minister. 
 
 As a lawyer, his comprehensive genius reached the principles 
 of his profession j he compassed its extent, he fathomed its pro- 
 found, perhaps, even more familiarly and easily than the ordinary 
 rules of its practice. With most men law is a trade ; with him 
 it was a science. 
 
 As a statesman, he was not more distinguished by the great 
 extent of his views than by the caution with which he provided 
 against impediments, and the watchfulness of his care over the 
 right and liberty of the subject. In none of the many revenue 
 bills which he framed, though committees reported them, is there 
 to be found a single clause that savors of despotic power j not one 
 that the sagest champions of law and liberty would, on that ground, 
 hesitate to approve and adopt. 
 
 It is rare that a man who owes so much to nature descends to 
 seek more from industry; but he seemed to depend on industry as 
 if nature had done nothing for him. His habits of investigation 
 were very remarkable; his mind seemed to cling to his subject till 
 he had exhausted it. Hence the uncommon superiority of his 
 reasoning powers, — a superiority that seemed to be augmented 
 from every source and to be fortified by every auxiliary, — learn- 
 ing, taste, wit, imagination, and eloquence. These were embel- 
 lished and enforced by his temper and manners, by his fame and 
 his virtues. It is difficult, in the midst of such various excel- 
 lence, to say in what particular the effect of his greatness was 
 most manifest. No man more promptly discerned truth ; no man 
 more clearly displayed it : it was not merely made visible, — it 
 seemed to come bright with illumination from his lips. But, 
 prompt and clear as he was, — fervid as Demosthenes, like Cicero 
 full of resource, — he was not less remarkable for the copiousness 
 and completeness of his argument, that left little for cavil, and 
 nothing for doubt. Some men take their strongest argument as a 
 weapon, and use no other ; but he left nothing to be inquired for 
 more, nothing to be answered. He not only disarmed his adver- 
 saries of their pretexts and objections, but he stripped them of all 
 excuse for having urged them; he confounded and subdued as 
 well as convinced. He indemnified them, however, by making his 
 discussion a complete map of his subject; so that his opponents 
 might, indeed, feel ashamed of their mistakes, but they could not 
 repeat them. In fact, it was no common effort that could pre- 
 serve a really able antagonist from becoming his convert ; for the 
 truth which his researches so distinctly presented to the under- 
 standing of others was rendered almost irresistibly commanding 
 and impressive, by the love and reverence which, it was ever 
 apparent, he profoundly cherished for it in his own. While 
 
 12* 
 
138 
 
 FISHER AMES. 
 
 patriotism glowed in his heart, wisdom blended in his speech her 
 authority with her charms. * * * 
 
 The most substantial glory of a country is in its virtuous great 
 men ; its prosperity will depend on its docility to learn from their 
 example. The name of Hamilton would have honored Greece in 
 the age of Aristides. May Heaven, the guardian of our liberty, 
 grant that our country may be fruitful of Hamiltons, and faithful 
 to their glory ! 
 
 GREECE. 
 
 In affairs that concern morals, we consider the approbation of a 
 man's own conscience as more precious than all human rewards. 
 But in the province of the imagination, the applause of others is 
 of all excitements the strongest. This excitement is the cause, 
 excellence the effect. When every thing concurs — and in Greece 
 every thing did concur — to augment its power, a nation wakes at 
 once from the sleep of ages. It would seem as if some Minerva, 
 some present divinity, inhabited her own temple in Athens, and, 
 by flashing light and working miracles, had conferred on a single 
 people, and almost on a single age of that people, powers that are 
 denied to other men and other times. The admiration of posterity 
 is excited and overstrained by an effulgence of glory as much be- 
 yond our comprehension as our emulation. The Greeks seem to 
 us a race of giants, — Titans, — the rivals yet the favorites of their 
 gods. We think their apprehension was quicker, their native 
 taste more refined, their prose poetry, their poetry music, their 
 music enchantment. We imagine they had more expression in 
 their faces, more grace in their movements, more sweetness in 
 the tones of conversation, than the moderns. Their fabulous 
 deities are supposed to have left their heaven to breathe the fra- 
 grance of their groves and to enjoy the beauty of their landscapes. 
 The monuments of heroes must have excited to heroism, and the 
 fountains which the muses had chosen for their purity, imparted 
 inspiration. It is indeed almost impossible to contemplate the 
 bright ages of Greece without indulging the propensity to enthu- 
 siasm. 
 
 POLITICAL FACTIONS. 
 
 In democratic states there will be factions. The sovereign 
 power, being nominally in the hands of all, will be effectually 
 within the grasp of a few ; and therefore, by the very laws of our 
 nature, a few will combine, intrigue, lie, and fight to engross it to 
 themselves. All history bears testimony that this attempt has 
 never yet been disappointed. 
 
 Who will be the associates ? Certainly not the virtuous, who 
 do not wish to control the society, but quietly to enjoy its protec- 
 
NOAH WEBSTER. 
 
 189 
 
 tion. The enterprising merchant, the thriving tradesman, the 
 careful farmer, will be engrossed by the toils of their business, 
 and will have little time or inclination for the unprofitable and 
 disquieting pursuits of politics. 1 It is not the industrious, sober 
 husbandman who will plough that barren field : it is the lazy and 
 dissolute bankrupt, who has no other to plough. The idle, the 
 ambitious, and the needy will band together to break the hold that 
 law has upon them, and then to get hold of law. Faction is a 
 Hercules, whose first labor is to strangle this lion, and then to 
 make armour of his skin. In every democratic state, the ruling 
 faction will have law to keep down its enemies, but it will arro- 
 gate to itself an undisputed power over law. 
 
 NOAH WEBSTER, 1758—1843. 
 
 Noah Webster was born in West Hartford, Connecticut, on the 16th of October, 
 1758, and graduated with much reputation at Yale College in 1778. He then en- 
 gaged in the instruction of a school at Hartford, studying law at the same time, 
 and was admitted to the bar in 1781. Not being encouraged to enter immediately 
 on the practice of his profession, in consequence of the impoverished state of the 
 country, he took charge of a grammar-school at Goshen, in the State of New 
 York. Here he compiled his celebrated Spelling-Booh, which he published on his 
 return to Hartford in 1783 ; and soon after appeared his English Grammar, and a 
 compilation for reading. All these works, particularly the Spelling-Book, have had 
 
 1 It is a sad truth that many of our best citizens in all parts of the country live 
 in the constant neglect of their political duties. They are eloquent upon the evils 
 of misgovernment, and yet forget that they are accountable for a large share of 
 the mischiefs by which they suffer in common with the whole country. There is 
 no reason why, in a republican country, political contact should be repulsive, ex- 
 cept in the very fact that those whose character would give respectability to our 
 elections choose to stay away, and thus create the very difficulty of which they are 
 so sensitive. Men may talk of ignoring politics, but in reality they cannot do it. 
 The happiness and prosperity of the nation depend in a great degree upon the 
 manner in which its government is administered, the laws which its corporations 
 or legislatures enact, and the manner in which those laws are enforced. No 
 man has any right to complain of bad rulers, municipal, state, or national, if he 
 has done nothing to put better ones in their place. The refusal of men to take 
 a few hours in the year from their daily business and give them to public interests, 
 by attending the primary meetings where candidates are nominated for office, and 
 then by going to the polls and voting for good men, is probably what Mr. Ames 
 refers to when he says that our countrymen " are too sordid for patriotism." 
 (See Note 3, p. 131.) Of all countries in the world, ours, where every thing de- 
 pends on the popular will, is the least adapted to men who are indifferent to poli- 
 tics; for if the wise and the good neglect their political duties, the country will 
 be ruled by the ignorant and the base. 
 
140 
 
 NOAH WEBSTER. 
 
 a very wide circulation, and have done much to promote uniformity of language 
 and pronunciation in our country. 
 
 About this time he became a political writer, and his Sketches of American 
 Policy, published in 1784 ; his writings in favor of the adoption of the Federal 
 Constitution; in defence of "Washington's proclamation of neutrality, and of " Jay's 
 Treaty,'" 1 had great influence on public opinion, and were highly appreciated. In 
 1793, he established a daily paper in New York, devoted to the support of General 
 Washington's administration, — a paper still published under the title of the Com- 
 mercial Advertiser. In 1789, he was married to a daughter of William Greenleaf, 
 Esq., of Boston. 
 
 Mr. Webster removed to New Haven in 1798, and in 1807 entered upon the 
 great business of his life, — the compilation of The American Dictionary of the 
 English Language. This work, which he was twenty years in completing, amidst 
 various difficulties and discouragements, contains twelve thousand words, and 
 between thirty and forty thousand definitions, are not contained in any preceding 
 work. In the beauty, conciseness, and accuracy of its definitions, and in the de- 
 partment of etymology, it is superior to all other English dictionaries. The 
 learning and ability with which he prosecuted the abstruse and difficult etymo- 
 logical investigations were generally acknowledged, both at home and abroad, and 
 have laid the foundation of a wide-spread and enduring reputation. 
 
 The last forty years of his life Mr. Webster devoted to literary pursuits, with 
 an ardor rarely seen in any country, and especially in this. His study was his 
 home, his books and pen his constant companions, and his knowledge, to the 
 last, was constantly on the increase. After a short illness, with his faculties un- 
 impaired, in the cheerful retrospect of a life of happy and useful employment, and 
 with the fullest consolations of religion, he expired at Xew Haven on the 28th of 
 May, 1843, in the eighty-fifth year of his age. 2 
 
 "It may be said that the name of Noah Webster, from the wide circulation 
 of some of his works, is known familiarly to a greater number of the inhabitants 
 of the United States than the name, probably, of any other individual except the 
 Father of his Country. Whatever influence he thus acquired was used at all 
 times to promote the best interests of his fellow-men. His books, though read by 
 millions, have made no man worse. To multitudes they have been of lasting 
 benefit, not only by the course of early training they have furnished, but by those 
 precepts of wisdom and virtue with which almost every page is stored." 3 
 
 1 His series of papers in support of Jay's Treaty were signed Curtius. 
 
 2 Mr. Webster's other publications were, — Effects of Slavery on Morals and In- 
 dustry, 1793: a collection of Papers on Political, Literary, and Moral Subjects, 
 1790, republished 1843 : A Manual of Useful Studies, 1832; a work on Pestilential 
 Diseases, 1790 ; A Treatise on the Rights of Neutral Nations in War, 1802. 
 
 " It has been said, and with much truth, that he has held communion with more 
 minds than any other author of modern times. His learning, his assiduity, his 
 piety, his patriotism, were the groundwork of these successful and beneficent 
 labors." — Goodrich's Recollections. 
 
 3 From the " Memoir" prefixed to his quarto Dictionary, by Rev. Chauncey 
 A. Goodrich, D.D. It is at length announced that the great and long-promised 
 Dictionary of that learned and veteran lexicographer, J. E. Worcester, LL.D., 
 will be ready in October, 1859. It will be embellished with pictorial illustra- 
 tions, and, as a whole, will, in fulness, in consistent orthography, and in correct 
 orthoepy, be in advance, doubtless, of any thing of the kind we now have. 
 
NOAH WEBSTER. 
 
 141 
 
 THE HARTFORD CONVENTION. 
 
 Few transactions of the federalists, during the early periods of 
 our government, excited so much the angry passions of their 
 opposers as the Hartford Convention — so called — during the presi- 
 dency of Mr. Madison. As I was present at the first meeting of 
 the gentlemen who suggested such a convention ; as I was a mem- 
 ber of the House of liepresentatives in Massachusetts when the 
 resolve was passed for appointing the delegates, and advocated 
 that resolve ; and further, as I have copies of the documents, 
 which no other person may have preserved, it seems to be in- 
 cumbent on me to present to the public the real facts in regard 
 to the origin of the measure, which have been vilely falsified and 
 misrepresented. 
 
 After the War of 1812 had continued two years, our public 
 affairs were reduced to a deplorable condition. The troops of the 
 United States, intended for defending the seacoast, had been with- 
 drawn to carry on the war in Canada j a British squadron was sta- 
 tioned in the Sound to prevent the escape of a frigate from the 
 harbor of New London, and to intercept our coasting trade; one 
 town in Maine was in possession of the British forces; the 
 banks south of Xew England had all suspended the payment of 
 specie; our shipping lay in our harbors, embargoed, dismantled, 
 and perishing ; the treasury of the United States was exhausted to 
 the last cent; and a general gloom was spread over the country. 
 
 In this condition of affairs, a number of gentlemen in North- 
 ampton, in Massachusetts, after consultation, determined to invite 
 some of the principal inhabitants of the three counties on the river, 
 formerly composing the old county of Hampshire, to meet and 
 consider whether any measure could be taken to arrest the con- 
 tinuance of the war, and provide for the public safety. 
 
 Many town meetings were held, and with great unanimity 
 addresses and memorials were transmitted to the General Court 
 then in session ; but, as commissioners had been sent to Europe 
 for the purpose of negotiating a treaty of peace, it was judged 
 advisable not to have any action upon them till the result of the 
 negotiation should be known. But during the following summer 
 no news of peace arrived ; and, the distresses of the country in- 
 creasing, and the seacoast remaining defenceless, Governor Strong 
 summoned a special meeting of the legislature in October, in 
 which the petitions of the towns were taken into consideration, 
 and a resolve was passed appointing delegates to a convention to 
 be held in Hartford. The subsequent history of that convention 
 is known by their report. 
 
 The measure of resorting to a convention for the purpose of 
 arresting the evils of a bad administration, roused the jealousy of 
 
142 
 
 NOAH WEBSTER. 
 
 the advocates of the war, and called forth the bitterest invectives. 
 The convention was represented as a treasonable combination, 
 originating in Boston, for the purpose of dissolving the Union. 
 But citizens of Boston had no concern in originating the proposal 
 for a convention; it was wholly the project of the people in old 
 Hampshire county, — as respectable and patriotic republicans as 
 ever trod the soil of a free country. The citizens who first assem- 
 bled in Northampton, convened under the authority of the Bill of 
 Rights, which declares that the people have a right to meet in a 
 peaceable manner and consult for the public safety. The citizens 
 had the same right then to meet in convention as they have now ; 
 the distresses of the country demanded extraordinary measures for 
 redress j the thought of dissolving the Union never entered into 
 the head of any of the projectors, or of the members of the Con- 
 vention ; the gentlemen who composed it, for talents and patriot- 
 ism, have never been surpassed by any assembly in the United 
 States ; and beyond a question the appointment of the Hartford 
 Convention had a very favorable effect in hastening the conclusion 
 of a treaty of peace. 
 
 All the reports which have been circulated respecting the evil 
 designs of that Convention I know to be the foulest misrepresenta- 
 tions. Indeed, respecting the views of the disciples of Washing- 
 ton and the supporters of his policy, many, and probably most, of 
 the people of the United States in this generation, are made to 
 believe far more falsehood than truth. I speak of facts within 
 my own personal knowledge. We may well say, with the prophet, 
 " Truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter." Party 
 spirit produces an unwholesome zeal to depreciate one class of men 
 for the purpose of exalting another. It becomes rampant in pro- 
 pagating slander, which engenders contempt for personal worth 
 and superior excellence; it blunts the sensibility of men to injured 
 reputation ; impairs a sense of honor ; banishes the charities of 
 life ; debases the moral sense of the community ; weakens the 
 motives that prompt men to aim at high attainments and patriotic 
 achievements ; degrades national character, and exposes it to the 
 scorn of the civilized world. 
 
 ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 We read in the Scriptures, that God, when he had created man, 
 " blessed them; and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, 
 and replenish the earth, and subdue it : and have dominion over 
 the fish of the sea," &c. God afterward planted a garden, and 
 placed in it the man he had made, with a command to keep it, and 
 to dress it ; and he gave him a rule of moral conduct, in permit- 
 ting him to eat the fruit of every tree in the garden, except one, 
 
NOAH WEBSTER. 
 
 143 
 
 the eating of which was prohibited. We further read, that God 
 brought to Adam the fowls and beasts he had made, and that 
 Adam gave them names ; and that when his female companion 
 was made, he gave her a name. After the eating of the forbidden 
 fruit, it is stated that God addressed Adam and Eve, reproving 
 them for their disobedience, and pronouncing the penalties which 
 they had incurred. In the account of these transactions, it is fur- 
 ther related that Adam and Eve both replied to their Maker, and 
 excused their disobedience. 
 
 If we admit, what is the literal and obvious interpretation of this 
 narrative, that vocal sounds or words were used in these communi- 
 cations between God and the progenitors of the human race, it 
 results that Adam was not only endowed with intellect for under- 
 standing his Maker, or the signification of words, but was fur- 
 nished both with the faculty of speech and with speech itself, or 
 the knowledge and use of words as signs of ideas, and this before 
 the formation of the woman. Hence we may infer that language 
 was bestowed on Adam, in the same manner as all his other facul- 
 ties and knowledge, by supernatural power ; or, in other words, 
 was of divine origin : for supposing Adam to have had all the in- 
 tellectual powers of any adult individual of the species who has 
 since lived, we cannot admit as probable, or even possible, that 
 he should have invented and constructed even a barren language, 
 as soon as he was created, without supernatural aid. It may in- 
 deed be doubted whether, without such aid, men would ever have 
 learned the use of the organs of speech, so far as to form a lan- 
 guage. At any rate, the invention of words and the construction 
 of a language must have been by a slow process, and must have 
 required a much longer time than that which passed between the 
 creation of Adam and of Eve. It is therefore probable 1 that lan- 
 guage, as well as the faculty of speech, was the immediate gift of 
 God. We are not, however, to suppose the language of our first 
 parents in paradise to have been copious, like most modern lan- 
 guages, or the identical language they used to be now in existence. 
 Many of the primitive radical words may, and probably do, exist 
 in various languages; but observation teaches that languages must 
 improve and undergo great changes as knowledge increases, and be 
 subject to continual alterations, from other causes incident to men 
 in society. 
 
 Preface to Dictionary . 
 
 1 Not only " probably," but, to my apprehension, undoubtedly true ; for to sup- 
 pose that man without language taught himself to speak, seems to me as absurd 
 as it would be to suppose that without legs he could teach himself to walk. 
 Language, therefore, must have been the immediate gift of God. 
 
144 
 
 ALEXANDER WILSON. 
 
 ALEXANDER WILSON, 1766— 1813. 
 
 If one's nationality is to be determined by the country where he was chiefly 
 educated, by the soil which proved kindred to his genius, by the scenes which 
 called forth his powers, and by the field where he won his fame, then is Alexander 
 Wilson, though of foreign origin, truly an American. 
 
 He was born in Paisley, Scotland, on the 6th of July, 1766, of humble parents, 
 and at the age of thirteen he was apprenticed to a weaver, with whom he worked 
 till he was eighteen. He early evinced a taste for literature, spending all his 
 leisure time in reading and study, and, from his youth to the day of his death, 
 presents an eminent instance of the successful pursuit of knowledge under diffi- 
 culties. The genius of Burns, who was but six years older, had just burst upon 
 his countrymen, and the spirit of emulation so fired the breast of Wilson, that he 
 soon put forth a volume entitled Poems, Humorous, Satirical, and Serious. But it 
 was not received with much favor, and certainly "put no money in his purse;" so 
 that he returned to his trade as a surer means of gaining a livelihood. In a 
 few years he became disgusted with it, and resolved to try to better his fortune in 
 the United States. Taking passage in a vessel from Belfast, he arrived at New 
 Castle, Delaware, on the 14th of July, 1794, without a shilling in his pocket. 
 Shouldering his fowling-piece, he set forward on foot towards Philadelphia, and 
 on his way shot a woodpecker. This little incident was doubtless the germ of his 
 future fame, for the peculiar habits and rich plumage of this native of our forests 
 made a deep impression upon his mind, and led him by degrees to that train of 
 thought and those plans of action which resulted in placing him at the head of 
 American ornithologists. 
 
 At Philadelphia, he at first worked at his old trade ; but as soon as he had made 
 a little money, he resolved to devote himself to the pursuits of literature. To this 
 end he taught a school at Milcstown, about six miles from Philadelphia, where ho 
 remained several years, studying diligently, and adding a little to the income 
 from his school by surveying land for the farmers in the neighborhood. He then 
 travelled into the Genesee country, New York, to visit some friends, and on his 
 return accepted an invitation to become the head teacher of Union School, in the 
 township of Kingsessing, a short distance from Gray's Ferry, on the Schuylkill, 
 on the banks of which river Audubon likewise caught his inspiration. Here he 
 contracted an affectionate intimacy with the venerable naturalist, William Bar- 
 tram, whose extensive botanic garden was in the vicinity of the school-house. 
 
 Prom this time (about 1S03) must be dated the beginning of his history as an 
 ornithologist. Seeing the imperfections of books on the subject of the birds of our 
 country, how imperfectly and often falsely they were represented in drawings, he 
 determined to devote his life to Ornithology. He therefore applied himself to the 
 study of drawing and engraving, and soon made very commendable progress in 
 those arts. In October, 1804, he set out on foot for the Falls of Niagara, making 
 every thing on his journey subsidiary to his favorite pursuit. On bis return, he 
 published an account of his journey in the Portfolio, in a poem called " The 
 Foresters," and continued in his vocation as a teacher, giving all his spare time, 
 as before, to his favorite science. By the spring of 1805 he had completed the 
 drawings of twenty-eight birds, mostly inhabitants of Pennsylvania, and at the close 
 
ALEXANDER WILSON. 
 
 145 
 
 of the next year entered into an engagement with Mr. Samuel F. Bradford, a pub- 
 lisher in Philadelphia, to publish his American Ornithology, the first volume of which 
 wits given to the world in September, 1808. Immediately he set off on a tour to the 
 Eastern States to exhibit his work, procure subscribers, and at the same time add 
 to his stock of ornithological science. But the price of the work completed (one 
 hundred and twenty dollars) was so far beyond any thing the public had been 
 accustomed to, that he did not meet with the encouragement he had hoped. Still, 
 he was not disheartened. He returned home, and then made an extensive tour 
 through the Southern States, of which he gives us a very amusing though in some 
 respects a somewhat sad picture. Again returning the next year, he published, 
 in January, 1810, the second volume of the Ornithology. lie then set out on a 
 Western tour, going to Pittsburg, and thence down the Ohio, and through Ken- 
 tucky, Tennessee, &c, to New Orleans, whence he embarked for New York, 
 arriving at Philadelphia on the 2d of August, 1811. He afterwards took another 
 tour through the Northern and Eastern States, and on his return made unceas- 
 ing efforts to complete his great work. As soon as the seventh volume had 
 left the press, he went to Great Egg Harbor, to collect materials for the eighth. 
 He took cold, from exposure ; dysenteiy ensued, and he died on the 23d of August, 
 1813. 
 
 In his personal appearance, Wilson was tall and handsome; rather slender than 
 athletic in form. His countenance Avas expressive and thoughtful, his eye power- 
 ful and intelligent, and his conversation remarkable for quickness and originality. 
 He was warm-hearted and generous in his affections, and through life displayed a 
 constant attachment to his friends, even after many years of separation. 
 
 Few examples can be found in literary history equal to that of Wilson. Though 
 fully aware of the difficulty of the enterprise in which he engaged, his heart never 
 for a moment failed him. His success was complete, for his work has secured 
 him immortal honor. 1 
 
 PLEASURES IN CONTEMPLATING NATURE. 2 
 
 That lovely season is now approaching when the garden, woods, 
 and fields will again display their foliage and flowers. Every day 
 we may expect strangers, flocking from the South, to fill our 
 woods with harmony. The pencil of nature is now at work, and 
 outlines, tints, and gradations of lights and shades that baffle all 
 description will soon be spread before us by that great Master, 
 our most benevolent Friend and Father. Let us cheerfully par- 
 take of the feast he is preparing for all our senses. Let us sur- 
 vey those millions of green strangers just peeping into day, as so 
 many happy messengers come to proclaim the power and the 
 munificence of the Creator. I confess that I was always an enthu- 
 
 1 Read Sketch of his Life, by George Ord ; Life, by Wm. B. 0. Peabody, in 
 Sparks's " American Biography;" and an article in the 8th vol. of the " American 
 Quarterly Review." 
 
 2 Letter to a friend, written 1804. 
 
 13 
 
146 
 
 ALEXANDER WILSON. 
 
 siast in my admiration of the rural scenery of nature ; but, since 
 your example and encouragement have set me to attempt to imi- 
 tate her productions, I see new beauties in every bird, plant, and 
 flower I contemplate • and find my ideas of the incomprehensible 
 First Cause still more exalted the more minutely I examine His 
 works. I sometimes smile to think that, while others are im- 
 mersed in deep schemes of speculation and aggrandizement, in 
 building towns and purchasing plantations, I am entranced in con- 
 templation over the plumage of a lark, or gazing, like a despairing 
 lover, on the lineaments of an owl. While others are hoarding 
 up their bags of money, without the power of enjoying it, I am 
 collecting, without injuring my conscience, or wounding my peace 
 of mind, those beautiful specimens of nature's works that are for- 
 ever pleasing. I have had live crows, hawks, and owls, opossums, 
 squirrels, snakesj lizards, &c, so that my room has sometimes re- 
 minded me of Noah's ark ; but Noah had a wife in one corner of 
 it, and in this particular it does not altogether tally. I receive 
 every subject of natural history that is brought to me, and 
 although they do not march into my ark from all quarters, as they 
 did into that of our great ancestor, yet I find means, by the distri- 
 bution of a few five-penny-bits, to make them find the way fast 
 enough. A boy, not long ago, brought me a large basket full of 
 crows. I expect his next load will be bull-frogs, if I don't soon 
 issue orders to the contrary. One of my boys caught a mouse in 
 school a few days ago, and directly marched up to me with his 
 prisoner. I set about drawing it that same evening, and all the 
 while the pantings of its little heart showed it to be in the most 
 extreme agonies of fear. I had intended to kill it, in order to fix 
 it in the claws of a stuffed owl; but happening to spill a few 
 drops of water near where it was tied, it lapped it up with such 
 eagerness, and looked in my face with such an eye of supplicating 
 terror, as perfectly overcame me. I immediately untied it, and 
 restored it to life and liberty. The agonies of a prisoner at the 
 stake, while the fire and instruments of torment are preparing, 
 could not be more severe than the sufferings of that poor mouse ; 
 and, insignificant as the object was, I felt at that moment the 
 sweet sensations that mercy leaves on the mind when she tri- 
 umphs over cruelty. 
 
 THE BALD EAGLE. 
 
 This distinguished bird, as he is the most beautiful of his tribe 
 in this part of the world, and the adopted emblem of our country, 
 is entitled to particular notice. He has been long known to natu- 
 ralists, being common to both continents, and occasionally met 
 with from a very high northern latitude to the borders of the 
 
ALEXANDER WILSON. 
 
 147 
 
 torrid zone, but chiefly in the vicinity of the sea and along the 
 shores and cliffs of our lakes and large rivers. Formed by nature 
 for braving the severest cold j feeding equally on the produce of 
 the sea and of the land j possessing powers of flight capable of out- 
 stripping even the tempests themselves ; unawed by any thing but 
 man ; and, from the ethereal heights to which he soars, looking 
 abroad, at one glance, on an immeasurable expanse of forests, 
 fields, lakes, and ocean, deep below him, he appears indifferent to 
 local changes of season, as, in a few minutes, he can pass from 
 summer to winter, from the lower to the higher regions of the 
 atmosphere, the abode of eternal cold, and thence descend at will 
 to the torrid or the arctic regions of the earth. He is therefore 
 found at all seasons in the countries which he inhabits, but pre- 
 fers such places as have been mentioned above, from the great 
 partiality he has for fish. 
 
 In procuring these, he displays, in a very singular manner, the 
 genius and energy of his character, which is fierce, contemplative, 
 daring, and tyrannical, — attributes not exerted but on particular 
 occasions, but, when put forth, overwhelming all opposition. 
 Elevated upon a high, dead limb of some gigantic tree, that com- 
 mands a wide view of the neighboring shore and ocean, he seems 
 calmly to contemplate the motions of the various feathered tribes that 
 pursue their busy avocations below, — the snow-white gulls, slowly 
 winnowing the air ; the busy sand-pipers, coursing along the 
 beach ; trains of ducks, streaming over the surface; silent and 
 watchful cranes, intent and wading; clamorous crows, and all the 
 winged multitudes that subsist by the bounty of this vast liquid 
 magazine of nature. High over all these hovers one whose action 
 instantly arrests his attention. By his wide curvature of wing 
 and sudden suspension in air, he knows him to be the fish-hawk, 
 settling over some devoted victim of the deep. His eye kindles 
 at the sight, and, balancing himself with half-opened wings on the 
 branch, he watches the result. Down, rapid as an arrow from 
 heaven, descends the distant object of his attention, the roar of 
 its wings reaching the ear as it disappears in the deep, making the 
 surges foam around. At this moment the looks of the eagle are 
 all ardor, and, levelling his neck for flight, he sees the fish-hawk 
 emerge, struggling with his prey, and mounting into the air with 
 screams of exultation. These are the signal for our hero, who, 
 launching into the air, instantly gives chase, and soon gains on 
 the fish-hawk. Each exerts his utmost to mount above the other, 
 displaying, in these rencounters, the most elegant and sublime 
 aerial evolutions. The unencumbered eagle rapidly advances, and 
 is just on the point of reaching his opponent, when, with a sudden 
 scream, probably of despair and honest execration, the latter drops 
 his fish ; the eagle, poising himself for a moment as if to take a 
 
148 
 
 ALEXANDER WILSON. 
 
 more certain aim, descends like a whirlwind, snatches it in his 
 grasp ere it reaches the water, and bears his ill-gotten booty 
 silently away to the woods. 
 
 THE MOCKING-BIRD. 
 
 The plumage of the mocking-bird, though none of the home- 
 liest, has nothing gaudy or brilliant in it, and, had he nothing 
 else to recommend him, would scarcely entitle him to notice ; but 
 his figure is well proportioned and even handsome. The ease, 
 elegance, and rapidity of his movements, the animation of his eye, 
 and the intelligence he displays in listening, and laying up lessons 
 from almost every species of the feathered creation within his 
 hearing, are really surprising, and mark the peculiarity of his 
 genius. To these qualities we may add that of a voice full, strong, 
 and musical, and capable of almost every modulation, from the 
 clear, mellow tones of the wood-thrush to the savage screams of 
 the bald eagle. In measure and accent, he faithfully follows his 
 originals; in force and sweetness of expression, he greatly im- 
 proves upon them. In his native groves, mounted upon the top 
 of a tall bush or half-grown tree, in the dawn of dewy morning, 
 while the woods are already vocal with a multitude of warblers, 
 his admirable song rises pre-eminent over every competitor. The 
 ear can listen to his music alone, to which that of all the others 
 seems a mere accompaniment.. Neither is this strain altogether 
 imitative. His own native notes, which are easily distinguishable 
 by such as are well acquainted with those of our various birds of 
 song, are bold and full, and varied seemingly beyond all limits. 
 They consist of short expressions of two, three, or, at the most, 
 five or six syllables, generally interspersed with imitations, and all 
 of them uttered with great emphasis and rapidity, and continued, 
 with undiminished ardor, for half an hour or an hour at a time. 
 His expanded wings and tail, glistening with white, and the 
 buoyant gayety of his action, arrest the eye ; as his song most irre- 
 sistibly does the ear. He sweeps round with enthusiastic ecstasy, 
 he mounts and descends, as his song swells or dies away, and, as 
 Mr. Bartram has beautifully expressed it, " he bounds aloft with 
 the celerity of an arrow, as if to recall his very soul, which ex- 
 pired in the last elevated strain." While thus exerting himself, 
 a bystander destitute of sight would suppose that the whole 
 feathered tribes had assembled together on a trial of skill, each 
 striving to produce his utmost effect, — so perfect are his imita- 
 tions. He many times deceives the sportsman, and sends him in 
 search of birds that, perhaps, are not within miles of him, but 
 whose notes he exactly imitates. Even birds themselves are fre- 
 quently imposed on by this admirable mimic, and are decoyed by 
 
JOHN QU1NCY ADAMS. 
 
 149 
 
 the fancied calls of their mates, or dive with precipitation into the 
 depths of thickets, at the scream of what they suppose to be the 
 sparrow-hawk. 
 
 The mocking-bird loses little of the power and energy of his 
 song by confinement. In his domesticated state, when he com- 
 mences his career of song, it is impossible to stand by unin- 
 terested. He whistles for the dog; Caesar starts up, wags his 
 tail, and runs to meet his master. He squeaks out like a hurt 
 chicken, and the hen hurries about, with hanging wings and 
 bristled feathers, clucking, to protect her injured brood. He 
 runs over the quaverings of the canary, and the clear whistlings 
 of the Virginia nightingale or red-bird, with such superior execu- 
 tion and etfect that the mortified songsters feel their own infe- 
 riority and become altogether silent, while he seems to triumph in 
 their defeat by redoubling his exertions. 
 
 This excessive fondness for variety, however, in the opinion of 
 some, injures his song. His elevated imitations of the brown 
 thrush are frequently interrupted by the crowing of cocks ; and 
 the warblings of the blue-bird, which he exquisitely manages, are 
 mingled with #he screaming of swallows or the cackling of hens. 
 Amidst the simple melody of the robin, we are suddenly surprised 
 by the shrill reiterations of the whip-poor-will; while the notes of 
 the kildeer, blue jay, marten, baltimore, and twenty others, succeed, 
 with such imposing reality, that we look round for the originals, 
 and discover, with astonishment, that the sole performer in this sin- 
 gular concert is the admirable bird now before us. During this 
 exhibition of his powers, he spreads his wings, expands his tail, 
 and throws himself around the cage in all the ecstasy of enthu- 
 siasm, seeming not only to sing, but to dance, keeping time to the 
 measure of his own music. Both in his native and domesticated 
 state, during the solemn stillness of the night, as soon as the moon 
 rises in silent majesty, he begins his delightful solo, and serenades 
 us with a full display of his vocal powers, making the whole 
 neighborhood ring with his inimitable nrelody. 
 
 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, 1767—1848. 
 
 John Quixcy Adams, son of the second President of the United States, was 
 born in Braintree, Massachusetts, on the 11th of July, 1767. In his eleventh year 
 he accompanied his father to the Court of Versailles, and was with him also in 
 some of his other missions. At the age of eighteen, he entered Harvard Uni- 
 versity at an advanced standing, and graduated with distinguished honor in 1787. 
 After studying law three years with Judge Parsons, at Newburyport, he esta- 
 
150 
 
 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 
 
 Wished himself in Boston, and took part in the public affairs of the day. In 1794, 
 he was appointed by Washington Minister to the United Netherlands, and re- 
 mained in Europe till 1801, employed in the several offices of Minister to Holland, 
 England, and Prussia, and in other diplomatic business. At the close of his 
 lather's administration he was recalled, and, in 1S02, was chosen, from the Bos- 
 ton district, a member of the Massachusetts Senate, and soon after was elected a 
 United States Senator for six years from March 4, 1803. While Senator, he was, 
 in 1S06, appointed Professor of Rhetoric in Harvard University, — an office which 
 he filled with much ability till 1S09, 1 when he was appointed by President Monroe 
 Minister to the Court of Russia. In 1813, he was named at the head of five com- 
 missioners appointed by President Madison to negotiate a treaty of peace with 
 Great Britain, which was signed at Gheut, in December, 1814; and soon after he 
 was appointed, by the same President, Minister to the Court of St. James. After 
 having occupied that post until the close of President Madison's administration, 
 he was called home, in 1817, to the Department of State, at the formation of the 
 Cabinet of President Monroe. Mr. Adams's career as a foreign minister termi- 
 nated at this point, — a career that has never been paralleled either in the length 
 of time it covered, the number of courts at which he represented his country, or 
 the variety and importance of the services rendered. 
 
 In 1824, Mr. Adams was elected President of the United States. His adminis- 
 tration was distinguished for its ability and economy; and the 'Presidential chair 
 has been occupied by no man of greater learning, more thorough acquaintance 
 with all our foreign and domestic relations, purer patriotism, or higher integrity of 
 character. At the close of his Presidential term, in 1S29, be retired to his family 
 mansion in Quiney; but he was soon after elected member of the United States 
 House of Representatives, and took his seat in 1831. Many of his friends doubted 
 the wisdom of this step, and feared it would detract from his former fame rather 
 than add to it. But their doubts were soon put to rest ; for, signal as had been 
 his services to his country for a long life, he was yet to put the crowning glory 
 upon them all, by standing forth in the House of Representatives, amid abuse, 
 reproach, and threats of expulsion, as the firm, able, undaunted champion of the 
 right of petition. 
 
 During the years 1836 and 1837, the public mind in the Northern States be- 
 came fully aroused to the enormities of American slavery, — its encroachments on 
 the rights and interests of the free States, the undue influence it was exercising in 
 our national councils, and the evident determination on the part of its advocates to 
 enlarge its borders and its evils, by the addition of new slave territories. Petitions 
 for the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia and 
 the Territories began to pour into Congress from every section of the East and 
 North. These were general!}' presented by Mr. Adams. His age and experience, 
 his well-known influence in the House of Representatives, his patriotism, and 
 his intrepid advocacy of human freedom, commanded the confidence of the 
 people of the free States, and led them to intrust to him their petitions; and 
 with scrupulous fidelity he performed the duty thus imposed upon him. 
 
 The Southern members of Congress became alarmed at these demonstrations, 
 
 1 His Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory were published, in one volume Svo, in 
 1S10. 
 
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 
 
 151 
 
 and determined to arrest them, even at the sacrifice, if need be, of the right of 
 petition, — the most sacred privilege of freemen. On the 8th of February, 1836, a 
 committee was raised by the House of Representatives, to take into consideration 
 what disposition should be made of petitions and memorials for the abolition of 
 slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, and to report thereon. On 
 the 18th of Ma}-, the committee made a long report, through Mr. Pinckuey, re- 
 commending, among others, the adoption of the following resolution: — 
 
 "Resolved, That all petitions, memorials, resolutions, propositions, or papers, 
 relating in any way, or to any extent whatever, to the subject of slavery or tbo 
 abolition of slavery, shall, without being either printed or referred, be laid upon 
 the table, and that no further action whatever shall be had thereon.'' 
 
 Notwithstanding the rule embodied in this resolution virtually trampled the 
 right of petition into the dust, it was adopted by the House by a large majo- 
 rity. But Mr. Adams was not to be deterred, by this arbitrary restriction, from 
 the faithful discharge of his duty as a representative of the people. Petitions on 
 the subject of slavery continued to be transmitted to him in increased numbers. 
 "With unwavering firmness, against a bitter and unscrupulous opposition, exas- 
 perated to the highest pitch by his pertinacity, amidst a tempest of vituperation 
 and abuse, he persevered in presenting these petitions, one by one, to the amount 
 sometimes of two hundred in a day, — demanding the action of the House sepa- 
 rately on each petition. 
 
 His position amid these scenes was in the highest degree illustrious and 
 sublime. An aged man, Avith the burden of years upon him, forgetful of the ele- 
 vated stations he had occupied and the distinguished honors received for past ser- 
 vices, turning away from the repose which age so greatly needs, and laboring, 
 amidst scorn and derision, and threats of expulsion and assassination, to maintain 
 the sacred right of petition for the poorest and humblest in the land, insisting that 
 the voice of a free people should be heard b}- their representatives when they 
 would speak in condemnation of human slavery, and call upon them to maintain 
 the principles of liberty embodied in the immortal Declaration of Independence, 
 was a spectacle unwitnessed before in the history of legislation. 1 
 
 It is impossible, in the limits prescribed to these pages, to enumerate the nume- 
 rous and important measures in which Mr. Adams took a prominent part in the 
 House of Representatives and elsewhere. The brave and eloquent old man lived 
 to see his labors for the right of petition crowned with complete success : in 
 1S45, the obnoxious " gag-rule" was rescinded, and Congress consented to re- 
 ceive and treat respectfully all petitions on the subject of slavery. In his volun- 
 tary and eloquent defence of the Amistad negroes, too, before the Supreme Court 
 of the United States, at the advanced age of seventy-four, he was completely 
 successful, and had the pleasure of hearing the decision of the court pronouncing 
 their liberty. 
 
 1 For a full account of Mr. Adams's labors in the House of Representatives, 
 consult that admirable book, "Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams, 
 by William H. Seward." Rev. Joshua Leavitt, editor of the "Emancipator/' was 
 at that time in Washington, and published in his paper fuller accounts of that 
 memorable session of Congress than I have elsewhere seen; and it is to be hoped 
 he will yet give them to the public in a convenient form, as materials for our 
 country's history. 
 
152 
 
 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 
 
 But his eventful and useful life was now drawing to a close. On Monday, the 
 21st of February, 1818, while at his post in the House of Representatives, and 
 rising to address the Speaker, he was struck with paralysis, fainted, and fell into 
 the arms of the member who was next to him, Mr. Fisher of Ohio. Every thing 
 was immediately done for him that could be by anxious friends, kindred, and 
 skilful physicians ; but all was of no avail. He lingered till the evening of the 
 23d, when he expired, leaving behind him the enviable reputation of being one of 
 the ablest Presidents of the United States, and the most learned and eloquent 
 champion of freedom in the House of Representatives. 1 
 
 THE GOSPEL, A GOSPEL OF LIBERTY AND PEACE. 
 
 Friends and fellow-citizens ! — I speak to you with the voice as 
 of one risen from the dead. Were I now, as I shortly must be, 
 cold in my grave, and could the sepulchre unbar its gates, and 
 open to me a passage to this desk, devoted to the worship of 
 Almighty God, I would repeat the question with which this dis- 
 course was introduced : " Why are you assembled in this place V 
 And one of you would answer me for all : Because the Declaration 
 of Independence, with the voice of an angel from heaven, " put 
 to his mouth the sounding alchemy," and proclaimed universal 
 emancipation upon earth ! It is not the separation of your fore- 
 fathers from their kindred race beyond the Atlantic tide. It is 
 not the union of thirteen British Colonies into one people, and the 
 entrance of that people upon the theatre where kingdoms, and 
 empires, and nations are the persons of the drama. It is not that 
 
 1 " In the history of American statesmen, none lived a life so long in the public 
 service ; none had trusts so numerous confided to their care : none died a death 
 so glorious. Beneath the dome of the nation's capitol; in the midst of the field 
 of his highest usefulness, where he had won fadeless laurels of renown ; equipped 
 with the armor in which he had fought so many battles for truth and freedom, he 
 fell beneath the shaft of the king of terrors. And how bright, how enviable, the 
 reputation he left behind ! As a man, pure, upright, benevolent, religious — his 
 hand unstained by a drop of human blood ; uncharged, unsuspected, of crime, of 
 premeditated wrong, of an immoral act, of an unchaste word, — as a statesman, 
 lofty and patriotic in all his purposes; devoted to the interests of the people; 
 sacredly exercising all power intrusted to his keeping for the good of the public 
 alone, unmindful of personal interest and aggrandizement ; an enthusiastic lover 
 of liberty : a faithful, fearless defender of the rights of man ! The sun of his life, 
 in its lengthened course through the political heavens, was unobscurcd by a spot, 
 midimmed by a cloud; and when, at the close of the long day, it sank beneath 
 the horizon, the whole firmament glowed with the brilliancy of its reflected 
 glories ! Rulers, statesmen, legislators! study and emulate such a life; seek after 
 a character so beloved, a death so honorable, a fame so immortal." — Seward? 8 Life, 
 page 337. 
 
 Since the first edition of this work was put to press, there has been published a 
 " Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams, by Josiah Quincy, LL.D. ;" and a 
 more interesting and valuable piece of biography has not, in my estimation, ap- 
 peared in our country. This life, and the " Life of Amos Lawrence," should be 
 read by every young man who, in entering upon manhood, desires the best exam- 
 ples to aid and cheer him in life's great duties. 
 
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 
 
 153 
 
 this is the birthday of the North American Union, the last and 
 noblest offspring of time. It is that the first words uttered by the 
 genius of our country, in announcing his existence to the world 
 of mankind, was — Freedom to the slave ! Liberty to the captives ! 
 Redemption ! redemption forever to the race of man from the yoke 
 of oppression ! It is not the work of a day j it is not the labor 
 of an age ; it is not the consummation of a century, that we are 
 assembled to commemorate. It is the emancipation of our race. 
 It is the emancipation of man from the thraldom of man ! 
 
 And is this the language of enthusiasm ? The dream of a dis- 
 tempered fancy ? Is it not rather the voice of inspiration ? The 
 language of Holy Writ ? Why is it that the Scriptures, both of 
 the Old and New Covenant, teach you upon every page to look 
 forward to the time when the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and 
 the leopard shall lie down with the kid ? Why is it that, six hun- 
 dred years before the birth of the Redeemer, the sublimest of pro- 
 phets, with lips touched by the hallowed fire from the hand of 
 God, spake and said : — " The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; 
 because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto 
 the meek ; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to pro- 
 claim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to 
 them that are bound" ? x And why is it that, at the first dawn of 
 the fulfilment of this prophecy, — at the birthday of the Saviour in 
 the lowest condition of human existence, — the angel of the Lord 
 came in a flood of supernatural light upon the shepherds, witnesses 
 of the scene, and said : — " Fear not, for behold I bring you good 
 tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people" ? Why is it that 
 there was suddenly with that angel a multitude of heavenly hosts, 
 praising God and saying, u Glory to God in the highest, and on 
 earth peace, good will toward men" ? 2 
 
 What are the good tidings of great joy which shall be to all 
 people ? The prophet had told you, six hundred years before : 
 — " Liberty to the captives, the opening of the prison to them that 
 are bound." The multitude of the heavenly host pronounced the 
 conclusion, to be shouted hereafter by the universal choir of all 
 intelligent created beings : — " Glory to God in the highest, and 
 on earth peace, good will toward men." 
 
 Fellow-citizens ! fellow-Christians ! fellow-men ! Am I speak- 
 ing to believers in the gospel of peace ? To others, I am aware 
 that the capacities of man for self or social improvement are sub- 
 jects of distrust or of derision. The sincere believer receives the 
 rapturous promises of the future improvement of his kind with 
 humble hope and cheering confidence of their final fulfilment. 
 He receives them, too, with the admonition of God to his con- 
 
 Isaiah lxi. 1. 
 
 2 Luke ii. 9, 10, 13, 14. 
 
1.4 
 
 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 
 
 science, to contribute himself, by all the aspirations of his heart 
 ar.<i all the faculties of his soul, to their accomplishment. Tell 
 nc-fc him of impossibilities when human improvement is the theme. 
 Nothing can be impossible which may be effected by human will. 
 See what has been effected ! An attentive reader of the history 
 of mankind, whether in the words of inspiration, or in the records 
 of antiquity, or in the memory of his own experience, must per- 
 ceive that the gradual improvement of his own condition upon 
 earth is the inextinguishable mark of distinction between the ani- 
 mal man and every other animated being, with the innumerable 
 multitudes of which every element of this sublunary globe is 
 peopled. And yet, from the earliest records of time, this animal 
 is the only one in the visible creation who preys upon his kind. 
 The savage man destroys and devours his captive foe. The par- 
 tially civilized man spares his life, but makes him his slave. In 
 the progress of civilization, both the life and liberty of the enemy 
 vanquished or disarmed are spared; ransoms for prisoners are 
 given and received. Progressing still in the paths to perpetual 
 peace, exchanges are established, and restore the prisoner of war 
 to his country and to the enjoyment of all his rights of property 
 and of person. A custom, first introduced by mutual special con- 
 vention, grows into a settled rule of the laws of nations, that per- 
 sons occupied exclusively upon the arts of peace shall, with their 
 property, remain wholly unmolested in the conflicts of nations by 
 arms. We ourselves have been bound by solemn engagements 
 with one of the most warlike nations of Europe, to observe this 
 rule, even in the utmost extremes of war • and in one of the most 
 merciless periods of modern times, I have seen, towards the close 
 of the last century, three members of the Society of Friends, with 
 Barclay's Apology and Penn's Maxims in their hands, pass, peace- 
 ful travellers, through the embattled hosts of France and Britain, 
 unharmed and unmolested, as the three children of Israel in the 
 furnace of Nebuchadnezzar. 
 
 War, then, by the common consent and mere will of civilized 
 man, has not only been divested of its most atrocious cruelties, 
 but for multitudes, growing multitudes of individuals, has already 
 been and is abolished. Why should it not be abolished for all ? 
 Let it be impressed upon the heart of every one of you, impress it 
 upon the minds of your children, that this total abolition of war 
 upon earth is an improvement in the condition of man entirely 
 dependent on his own will. He cannot repeal or change the laws 
 of physical nature. He cannot redeem himself from the ills that 
 flesh is heir to j but the ills of war and slavery are all of his own 
 creation. He has but to will, and he effects the cessation of them 
 altogether. 
 
 Oration at Newburyport, July 4, 1837. 
 
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 
 
 155 
 
 The following is a portion of a letter addressed by this illustrious statesman to 
 a literary society of young men in Baltimore, who had written to him for advice 
 as to a course of general reading. It is dated June 22, 1838, and it thus bears it? 
 eloquent testimony to 
 
 THE VALUE OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 The first, and almost the only book, deserving universal recom- 
 mendation, is the Bible ; and, in recommending that, I fear that 
 some of you will think I am performing a superfluous, and others 
 a very unnecessary, office ; yet such is my deliberate opinion. The 
 Bible is the book, of all others, to be read at all ages and in all 
 conditions of human life; not to be read once or twice or thrice 
 through, and then to be laid aside, but to be read in small por- 
 tions of one or two chapters every day, and never to be inter- 
 mitted unless by some overruling necessity. 
 
 This attentive and repeated reading of the Bible, in small por- 
 tions every day, leads the mind to habitual meditation upon sub- 
 jects of the highest interest to the welfare of the individual in 
 this world, as well as to prepare him for that hereafter to which 
 we are all destined. It furnishes rules of conduct for our conduct 
 towards others in our social relations. In the commandments de- 
 livered from Sinai, in the inimitable sublimity of the Psalms and 
 of the Prophets, in the profound and concentrated observations 
 upon human life and manners embodied in the Proverbs of Solo- 
 mon, in the philosophical allegory so beautifully set forth in the 
 narrative of facts, whether real or imaginary, of the Book of Job, 
 an active mind cannot peruse a single chapter and lay the book 
 aside to think, and take it up again to-morrow, without finding in 
 it advice for our own conduct, which we may turn to useful account 
 in the progress of our daily pilgrimage upon earth ; and when we 
 pass from the Old Testament to the New, we meet at once a sys- 
 tem of universal morality founded upon one precept of universal 
 application, pointing us to peace and good-will towards the whole 
 race of man for this life, and to peace with God and an ever- 
 blessed existence hereafter. 
 
 I speak as a man of the world to men of the world, and I say 
 to you, Search the Scriptures! If ever you tire of them in seek- 
 ing for a rule of faith and a standard of morals, search them as 
 records of history. General and compendious history is one of 
 the fountains of human knowledge to which you should all resort 
 with steady and persevering pursuit ; and the Bible contains the 
 only authentic introduction to the history of the world. Acquaint 
 yourselves also with the chronology and geography of the Bible ; 
 that will lead you to a general knowledge of chronology and of 
 geography, ancient and modern, and these will open to you an in- 
 
156 
 
 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 
 
 * exhaustible fountain of knowledge respecting the globe which you 
 inhabit, and respecting the race of men (its inhabitants) to which 
 you yourselves belong. You may pursue these inquiries just so 
 far as your time and inclination will permit. Give one hour of 
 mental application, (for you must not. read without thinking, or 
 you will read to little purpose,) give an hour of joint reading and 
 thought to the chronology and one to the geography of the Bible, 
 and if it introduces you to too hard a study, stop there. Even 
 for those two hours you will ever after read the Bible, and any 
 other history, with more fruit, more intelligence, more satisfac- 
 tion. It is a book which neither the most ignorant and weakest, 
 nor the most learned and intelligent mind, can read without im- 
 provement. 
 
 Mr. Adams devoted his leisure moments to literature, and occasionally courted 
 the Muses. Dermot M'Morrogh and Poems of Religion and Society were some of 
 the fruits of his versatile mind. From the latter I select 
 
 THE HOUR-GLASS. 
 
 Alas ! how swift the moments fly ! 
 
 How flash the years along ! 
 Scarce here, yet gone already by, 
 
 The burden of a song. 
 See childhood, 3 T outh, and manhood pass, 
 
 And age, with furrow'd brow ; 
 Time was, — Time shall be, — drain the glass, — 
 
 But where in Time is now ? 
 
 Time is the measure but of change : 
 
 No present hour is found ; 
 The past, the future, fill the range 
 
 Of Time's unceasing round. 
 Where, then, is now? In realms above, 
 
 With God*s atoning Lamb : 
 In regions of eternal love, 
 
 Where sits enthroned I AM. 
 
 Then, pilgrim, let thy joys and tears 
 
 On time no longer lean ; 
 But henceforth all thy hopes and fears 
 
 From earth's affections wean : 
 To God let votive accents rise ; 
 
 With truth, with virtue, live : 
 So all the bliss that time denies 
 
 Eternity shall give. 
 
JOSEPn DENNIE. 
 
 157 
 
 JOSEPH DEXXIE, 1768—1812. 
 
 A work upon American Literature professing any degree of completeness 
 should contain a notice of the author of the " Lay Preacher," not so much from 
 any extraordinary merits in his writings, as from his position and influence in his 
 day as a man of letters. He was born in Boston, on the 30th of August, 17GS, 
 and in 1775 his father, who had been a merchant, removed to Lexington. In 17S7 
 he entered the Sophomore class in Harvard University, and soon after leaving 
 college became a student of law in the office of Benjamin West, at Charlestown, 
 ~S.Il. After completing his studies, he opened an ofiice at "Walpole. But he soon 
 became disgusted with the profession, and, resolving to devote his time to letters, 
 went to Boston in the spring of 1795, and established a weekly paper called 
 " The Tablet." But it lived scarcely three months, and Dennie then, upon invita- 
 tion, returned to "Walpole, and became the editor of the " Farmer's Museum." 
 Here he commenced the essays entitled " The Lay Preacher," which laid the foun- 
 dation of his literary reputation. 
 
 In the year 1799, he removed to Philadelphia, having been appointed private 
 secretary of Mr. Pickering, at that time Secretary of State. In the latter part of 
 the year 1800, he published a prospectus of a weekly paper, entitled The Portfolio. 
 Drawn up in the best style of the author, indicating a familiar acquaintance with 
 the best writers in the various departments of polite literature, and inviting the 
 co-operation of men of letters generally, it was hailed with enthusiasm by every 
 class of readers; and the periodical was commenced on the 3d of January, 1S01, 
 with an extensive patronage. 1 
 
 To Dennie the path to honorable independence was now fairly open ; but, unfor- 
 tunately, he had not resolution to sacrifice, to the laudable ambition to gain it, 
 those habits which embittered the latter part of his life. This has been called 
 u the gay period of his career." His charms of conversation were such that he 
 
 1 It was published weekly in quarto form, eight pages constituting a number. 
 It was thus continued for 5 years, forming five volumes, to the close of the year 
 1805, — a volume each year. It was then changed to the octavo form, of 16 pages, 
 and also published weekly, and thus continued for three years, to the close of 
 180S, forming 6 volumes, numbered 1 to 6. At the beginning of the year 1809, it 
 was changed to a monthly magazine of about 116 pages, and thus continued 
 through 1812, when Dennie died, forming for the four years 8 volumes, numbered 
 1 to S. It was published, in the same form, under the editorship of Nicholas 
 Biddle and Paul Allen, for 1813 and 1814, and of Dr. Charles Caldwell for 1815, 
 — three vears. — forming 6 volumes, numbered 1 to 6. In 1816 it was published 
 by Mr. II arrison Hall, being edited by his brother, John E. Hall, Esq., and was 
 thus continued till 1S27, — twelve years. This series formed 22 volumes, numbered 
 1 to 22. The last volume, the 47th of the whole, was published in six numbers ; 
 and then this periodical, so celebrated in its day, and which exerted no small in- 
 fluence on our country's character, closed its varied career. The delinquency of 
 subscribers interfered matei-ially with the success of the work ; and I have it from 
 Mr. Harrison Hall himself that, at the time of its stoppage, ten thousand dol- 
 lars at least were due to it ! It is much to be regretted that there should have 
 been so much irregularity in numbering the volumes of this work. There are four 
 " new series," and five different first, second, third, fourth, and fifth volumes ; so 
 that if one is directed to volume second for any article, he may have to examine 
 five different volumes before he can find it. The 20th vol. (1825) of Hall's series 
 contains a copious index to all the volumes of that series. 
 
 14 
 
158 
 
 JOSEPH DENNIE. 
 
 was the delight of every circle where wit and urbanity were the passports of ad 
 mission. He counted among his warm friends a number of young aspirants fo 
 literary fame, and his table abounded with contributions for the Portfolio. It may 
 be easily imagined, therefore, that one of his habits would not require much per- 
 suasion to exchange the labor of composition for the easier employment of selec- 
 tion. Hence we find that, in the whole course of his editorship of the Portfolio, 
 including a period of twelve years, there are scarcely as many original essays 
 from his pen. In his gayety he lost the author. 1 His cultivated taste and various 
 reading in polite literature enabled him to produce a miscellany which obtained a 
 wide circulation ; and he might have lived in the placid enjoyment of fame and 
 fortune, if the finest gifts of nature could supply the want of prudence. As it was, 
 after editing the Portfolio for eleven years, he died in absolute poverty on the 7th 
 of January, 1S12, though enough to give him a moderate competency was owing 
 to him from subscribers who, year after year, had perused with delight the unpaid- 
 for volumes. He was buried in the ground of St. Peter's Church, Philadelphia, 
 where, a few years after, a monument was placed over his grave. 
 
 It has been customary of late years to depreciate the Portfolio. This we deem 
 unjust; and think it must be done by those who have not read its pages ; for we 
 have no hesitation in saying that it will bear a favorable comparison with any 
 similar contemporaneous periodical, English or American. It had not, indeed, 
 the learning nor the variety of the Gentleman's Magazine, but that had been pub- 
 lished nearly half a century when the Portfolio was commenced. But, by its 
 talent, vivacity, taste, and variety, it did more, perhaps, than any other publica- 
 tion of that time, on this side the Atlantic, to refine the taste of the people, and to 
 give a relish for choice reading and for literary pursuits. 
 
 NIGHT. 
 
 ""Watchman, what of the night?" — Isaiah xxi. 11. 
 
 To this query of Isaiah, the watchman replies, " that the morn- 
 ing cometh, and also the night/' The brevity of this answer has 
 left it involved in something of the obscurity of the season when 
 it was given. I think that night, however sooty and ill-favored it 
 may be pronounced by those who were born under a day-star, 
 merits a more particular description. I feel peculiarly disposed 
 to arrange some ideas in favor of this season. I know that the 
 majority are literally blind to its merits ; they must be prominent, 
 indeed, to be discerned by the closed eyes of the snorer, who 
 thinks that night was made for nothing but sleep. But the stu- 
 dent and the sage are willing to believe that it was formed for 
 higher purposes ; and that it not only recruits exhausted spirits, 
 but sometimes informs inquisitive, and amends wicked ones. 
 
 Duty, as well as inclination, urges the Lay Preacher to ser- 
 monize while others slumber. To read numerous volumes in the 
 morning, and to observe various characters at noon, will leave but 
 
 1 Life by John E. Hall, in the " Philadelphia Souvenir." 
 
JOSEPH DENNIE. 
 
 159 
 
 little time, except the night, to digest the one or speculate upon 
 the other. The night, therefore, is often dedicated to composi- 
 tion j and while the light of the paly planets discovers at his desk 
 the Preacher, more wan than they, he may be heard repeating, 
 emphatically, with Dr. Young, — 
 
 " Darkness has much divinity for me." 
 
 He is then alone, he is then at peace. No companions near but 
 the silent volumes on his shelf ; no noise abroad but the click of 
 the village clock, or the bark of the village dog. The deacon has 
 then smoked his sixth and last pipe, and asks not a question more 
 concerning Josephus or the Church. Stillness aids study, and 
 the sermon proceeds. Such being the obligations to night, it 
 would be ungrateful not to acknowledge them. As my watchful 
 eyes can discern its dim beauties, my warm heart shall feel, and 
 my prompt pen shall describe, the uses and the pleasures of the 
 nocturnal hour. 
 
 Watchman, what of the night ? I can with propriety imagine 
 this question addressed to myself. I am a professed lucubrator, 
 and who so well qualified to delineate the sable hours as 
 
 "A meagre, muse-rid mope, adusi and thin" ? 
 
 However injuriously night is treated by the sleepy moderns, the 
 vigilance of the ancients could not overlook its benefits and joys. 
 In as early a record as the book of Genesis, I find that Isaac, 
 though he devoted his assiduous days to action, reserved specula- 
 tion till night. " He went out to meditate in the field at the 
 eventide." He chose that sad, that solemn hour, to reflect upon 
 the virtues of a beloved and departed mother. The tumult and 
 the glare of day suited not with the sorrow of his soul. He had 
 lost his most amiable, most genuine friend, and his unostentatious 
 grief was eager for privacy and shade. Sincere sorrow rarely 
 suffers its tears to be seen. It was natural for Isaac to select a 
 season to weep in, which should resemble " the color of his fate." 
 The darkness, the solemnity, the stillness of the eve were favor- 
 able to his melancholy purpose. He forsook, therefore, the 
 bustling tents of his father, the pleasant " south country," and 
 " well of Lahairoi he went out and pensively meditated at the 
 eventide. 
 
 The Grecian and Roman philosophers firmly believed that " the 
 dead of midnight is the noon of thought." One of them is beau- 
 tifully described by the poet as soliciting knowledge from the 
 skies, in private and nightly audience, and that neither his theme 
 nor his nightly walks were forsaken till the sun appeared and 
 dimmed his " nobler intellectual beam." W§ undoubtedly owe 
 to the studious nights of the ancients most of their elaborate and 
 
160 
 
 JOSEPH DENNIE. 
 
 immortal productions. Among tliem it was necessary that every 
 man of letters should trim the midnight lamp. The day might 
 be given to the forum or the circus, but the night was the season 
 for the statesman to project his schemes and for the poet to pour 
 his verse. 
 
 Night has likewise, with great reason, been considered in every 
 age as the astronomer's da}'. Young observes, with energy, that 
 " an undevout astronomer is mad." The privilege of contem- 
 plating those brilliant and numerous myriads of planets which 
 bedeck our skies is peculiar to night ; and it is our duty, both as 
 lovers of moral and natural beauty, to bless that season when we 
 are indulged with such a gorgeous display of glittering and useful 
 light. It must be confessed that the seclusion, calmness, and 
 tranquillity of midnight is most friendly to serious and even airy 
 contemplations. 
 
 I think it treason to this sable power, who holds divided empire 
 with day, constantly to shut our eyes at her approach. To long 
 sleep I am decidedly a foe. As it is expressed by a quaint writer, 
 we shall all have enough of that in the grave. Those who cannot 
 break the silence of night by vocal throat or eloquent tongue, 
 may be permitted to disturb it by a snore. But lie, among my 
 readers, who possesses the power of fancy and strong thought, 
 should be vigilant as a watchman. Let him sleep abundantly for 
 health, but sparingly for sloth. It is better, sometimes, to con- 
 sult a page of philosophy than the pillow. — Leuj P readier. 
 
 JACK AND GILL : A CRITICISM. 
 
 Among critical writers, it is a common remark that the fashion 
 of the times has often given a temporary reputation to perform- 
 ances of very little merit, and neglected those much more de- 
 serving of applause. I therefore rejoice that it has fallen to my 
 lot to rescue from neglect this inimitable poem ; for, whatever may 
 be my diffidence, as I shall pursue the manner of the most emi- 
 nent critics, it is scarcely possible to err. The fastidious reader 
 will doubtless smile when he is informed that the work, thus 
 highly praised, is a poem consisting only of four lines; but as 
 there is no reason why a poet should be restricted in his number 
 of verses, as it would be a very sad misfortune if every rhymer 
 were obliged to write a long as well as a bad poem, and more par- 
 ticularly as these verses contain more beauties than we often find 
 in a poem of four thousand, all objections to its brevity should 
 cease. I must at the same time acknowledge that at first I 
 doubted in what class of poetry it should be arranged. Its ex- 
 treme shortness and its uncommon metre seemed to degrade it 
 into a ballad ; but its interesting subject, its unity of plan, and. 
 
JOSEPH DEXXIE. 
 
 161 
 
 above all, its having a beginning, middle, and an end, decide its 
 claim to the epic rank. I shall now proceed, with the candor, 
 though not with the acuteness, of a good critic, to analyze and 
 display its various excellencies. 
 
 The opening of the poem is singularly beautiful : — 
 
 Jack and Gill. 
 
 The first duty of the poet is to introduce his subject; and there 
 is no part of poetry more difficult. We are told by the great 
 critic of antiquity that we should avoid beginning " ab ovo," but 
 go into the business at once. Here our author is very happy ; 
 for, instead of telling us, as an ordinary writer would have done, 
 who were the ancestors of Jack and Grill, that the grandfather of 
 Jack was a respectable farmer, that his mother kept a tavern at 
 the sign of the Blue Bear, and that Grill's father was a justice of 
 the peace, (once of the quorum,) together with a catalogue of 
 uncles and aunts, he introduces them to us at once in their proper 
 persons. 
 
 The choice, too, of names is not unworthy of consideration. It 
 would doubtless have contributed to the splendor of the poem to 
 have endowed the heroes with long and sounding titles, which, by 
 dazzling the eyes of the reader, might prevent an examination of 
 the work itself. These adventitious ornaments are justly disre- 
 garded by our author, who, by giving us plain Jack and Grill, has 
 disdained to rely on extrinsic support. In the very choice of 
 appellations he is, however, judicious. Had he, for instance, 
 called the first character John, he might have given him more 
 dignity j but he would not so well harmonize with his neighbor, 
 to whom, in the course of the work, it will appear he must neces- 
 sari'y be joined. 
 
 The personages being now seen, their situation is next to be 
 discovered. Of this we are immediately informed in the subse- 
 quent line, when we are told 
 
 Jack and Gill 
 "Went up a kill. 
 
 Here the imagery is distinct, yet the description concise. We 
 instantly figure to ourselves the two persons travelling up an 
 ascent, which we may accommodate to our own ideas of declivity, 
 barrenness, rockiness, sandiness, &c, all which, as they exercise 
 the imagination, are beauties of a high order. The reader will 
 pardon my presumption, if I here attempt to broach a new prin- 
 ciple, which no critic with whom I am acquainted has ever men- 
 tioned. It is this, that poetic beauties may be divided into nega- 
 tive and positive, the former consisting of mere absence of fault, 
 the latter in the presence of excellence ; the first of an inferior 
 
 14* 
 
 I 
 
162 
 
 JOSEPH DENNIE. 
 
 order, but requiring considerable critical acumen to discover them, 
 the latter of a higher rank, but obvious to the meanest capacity. 
 To apply the principle in this case, the poet meant to inform us 
 that two persons were going up a hill. Now, the act of going up 
 a hill — although Locke would pronounce it a very complex idea, 
 comprehending person, rising ground, trees, &c. &c. — is an opera- 
 tion so simple as to need no description. Had the poet, therefore, 
 told us how the two heroes went up, whether in a cart or a wagon, 
 and entered into the thousand particulars which the subject in- 
 volves, they would have been tedious, because superfluous. The 
 omission of these little incidents, and telling us simply that they 
 went up the hill, no matter how, is a very high negative beauty. 
 
 Having ascertained the names and conditions of the parties, the 
 reader becomes naturally inquisitive into their employment, and 
 wishes to know whether their occupation is worthy of them. This 
 laudable curiosity is abundantlv gratified in the succeeding lines ; 
 for 
 
 Jack and Gill 
 AVcnt up a hill, 
 To fetch a bucket of "water. 
 
 Here we behold the plan gradually unfolding, a new scene opens 
 to our view, and the description is exceedingly beautiful. We now 
 discover their object, which we were before left to conjecture. 
 We see the two friends, like Pylades and Orestes, assisting and 
 cheering each other in their labors, gaily ascending the hill, 
 eager to arrive at the summit, and to — fill their bucket. Here, 
 too, is a new elegance. Our acute author could not but observe 
 the necessity of machinery, which has been so much commended 
 by critics, and admired by readers. Instead, however, of intro- 
 ducing a host of gods and goddesses, who might have only impeded 
 the journey of his heroes, by the intervention of the bucket, — 
 which is, as it ought to be, simple and conducive to the progress 
 of the poem, — he has considerably improved on the ancient plan. 
 In the management of it, also, he has shown much judgment, by 
 making the influence of the machinery and the subject reciprocal : 
 for while the utensil carries on the heroes, it is itself carried on by 
 them. 
 
 It has been objected, (for every Homer has his Zoilus,) that 
 their employment is not sufficiently dignified for epic poetry ; but, 
 in answer to this, it must be remarked, that it was the opinion of 
 Socrates, and many other philosophers, that beauty should be esti- 
 mated by utility • and surely the purpose of the heroes must have 
 been beneficial. They ascended the rugged mountain to draw 
 water • and drawing water is certainly more conducive to human 
 happiness than drawing blood, as do the boasted heroes of the 
 Iliad, or roving on the ocean, and invading other men's property, 
 
JOSEPH DENNIE. 
 
 163 
 
 as did the pious iEneas. Yes ! they went to draw water. Inte- 
 resting scene ! It might have been drawn for the purpose of 
 culinary consumption ; it might have been to quench the thirst of 
 the harmless animals who relied on them for support ; it might 
 have been to feed a sterile soil, and to revive the drooping plants 
 which they raised by their labors. Is not our author more judi- 
 cious than Apollonins, who chooses for the heroes of his Argonau- 
 tics a set of rascals undertaking to steal a sheepskin ? And, if 
 dignity is to be considered, is not drawing water a circumstance 
 highly characteristic of antiquity ? Do we not find the amiable 
 Rebecca busy at the well ? Does not one of the maidens in the 
 Odyssey delight us by her diligence in the same situation ? and 
 has not a learned Dean proved that it was quite fashionable in 
 Peloponnesus ? Let there be an end to such frivolous remarks. 
 
 But the descriptive part is now finished, and the author hastens 
 to the catastrophe. At what part of the mountain the well was 
 situated, what was the reason of the sad misfortune, or how the 
 prudence of Jack forsook him, we are not informed ; but so, alas ! 
 it happened, 
 
 Jack fell down — - 
 
 Unfortunate John ! At the moment when he was nimbly, for 
 aught we know, going up the hill, perhaps at the moment when 
 his toils were to cease, and he had filled the bucket, he made an 
 unfortunate step, his centre of gravity, as the philosophers would 
 say, fell beyond his base, and he tumbled. The extent of his fall 
 does not, however, appear until the next line, as the author feared 
 to overwhelm us by too immediate a disclosure of his whole misfor- 
 tune. Buoyed by hope, we suppose his affliction not quite remedi- 
 less, that his fall is an accident to which the wayfarers of this life 
 are daily liable, and we anticipate his immediate rise to resume his 
 labors. But how are we undeceived by the heart-rending tale that 
 
 Jack fell down 
 
 And broke his crown- 
 Nothing now remains but to deplore the premature fate of the 
 unhappy John. The mention of the crown has much perplexed 
 the commentators. But my learned reader will doubtless agree with 
 me in conjecturing that, as the crown is often used metaphorically 
 for the head, and as that part is, or, without any disparagement 
 to the unfortunate sufferer, might have been, the heaviest, it was 
 really his pericranium which sustained the damage. Having 
 seen the fate of Jack, we are anxious to know the lot of his com- 
 panion. Alas ! 
 
 And Gill came tumbling after. 
 Here the distress thickens on us. Unable to support the loss of 
 
104 
 
 JOHN M. MASON. 
 
 his friend, he followed him, determined to share his disaster, and 
 resolved that, as they had gone up together, they should not be 
 separated as they came down. 
 
 Of the bucket we are told nothing ; but as it is probable that it 
 fell with its supporters, we have a scene of misery unequalled in 
 the whole compass of tragic description. Imagine to ourselves Jack 
 rapidly descending, perhaps rolling over and over down the moun- 
 tain, the bucket, as the lighter, moving along, and pouring forth 
 (if it had been filled) its liquid stream, Gill following in confu- 
 sion, with a quick and circular and headlong motion ; add to this 
 the dust, which they might have collected and dispersed, with the 
 blood which must have flowed from John's head, and we will wit- 
 ness a catastrophe highly shocking, and feel an irresistible im- 
 pulse to run for a doctor. The sound, too, charmingly " echoes 
 to the sense," — 
 
 Jack fell down 
 And broke liis crown. 
 And Gill came tumbling after. 
 
 The quick succession of movements is indicated by an equally 
 rapid motion of the short syllables ; and in the last line Gill rolls 
 with a greater sprightliness and vivacity than even the stone of 
 Sisyphus. 
 
 Having expatiated so largely on its particular merits, let us con- 
 clude by a brief review of its most prominent beauties. The sub- 
 ject is the fall of men, — a subject high, interesting, worthy of a 
 poet; the heroes, men who do not commit a single fault, and 
 whose misfortunes are to be imputed, not to indiscretion, but to 
 destiny. To the illustration of the subject every part of the poem 
 conduces. Attention is neither wearied by multiplicity of trivial 
 incidents, nor distracted by frequency of digression. The poet 
 prudently clipped the wings of imagination, and repressed the ex- 
 travagance of metaphorical decoration. All is simple, plain, con- 
 sistent. The moral, too, — that part without which poetry is use- 
 less sound, — has not escaped the view of the poet. When we 
 behold two young men, who but a short moment before stood up 
 in all the pride of health, suddenly falling down a hill, how must 
 we lament the instability of all things ! 
 
 JOHN M. MASON, 1770—1829. 
 
 Johx Mitchell Masox, the son of Rev. John Mason, who came to this country 
 from Scotland in 1761, was born in the city of New York on the 19th of March, 
 1770. At the age of seventeen, he was received into his father's church, and soon 
 after entered Columbia College, where he took his first degree in 1789, with high 
 
JOHN M. MASON. 
 
 165 
 
 reputation as a scholar. After leaving college, be commenced the study of theo- 
 logy with his father, and continued with him nearly two years; when it was 
 thought best that he should complete his studies in Edinburgh ; whither he ac- 
 cordingly went early in '1791, and returned in the latter part of the next year, his 
 father having died during his absence. He had been at home but a few months 
 when be was called to his late father's post, the Associate Reformed Presbyterian 
 Church in Cedar Street, and was ordained March, 1793. So much admired was 
 he for his eloquence, that in four years after his settlement (to use his own lan- 
 guage) " it hecame necessary to swarm and in two years the new church, of 
 which he continued the pastor, quite ecpualled in numbers the old. Every year 
 added to the high estimation in which he was held by scholars as well as by the 
 Christian Church. Under the auspices of the Associate Reformed Synod, he 
 planned and founded a theological seminar}', and spent upwards of a year in 
 Scotland and England in obtaining funds and books for it. He was appointed 
 the Professor, (for at first there was but one,) and performed his arduous duties for 
 a number of years without salary. This was the first theological seminary in the 
 United States ; and it owed its existence to his persevering, self-denying, self- 
 sacrificing labors. 
 
 The summer of 1S04 was marked by a calamity which melted the nation into 
 tears, — the murder of Alexander Hamilton by Aaron Burr. Dr. Mason had 
 always been on the most intimate terms with Hamilton, esteeming him the 
 greatest man of our country ; and from the time he received the fatal wound till 
 the next day, when he died, he was often at his bedside, administering to him 
 those consolations which only Christianity can impart. Soon after, at the request 
 of the "Society of the Cincinnati,*' he delivered an oration upon the death of 
 Hamilton, — one of the most eloquent of discourses, and which elicited the warmest 
 praise on both sides of the Atlantic. 1 His deep feelings of grief for the loss of 
 Hamilton, and his admiration of his character, are expressed in many of his letters 
 at this time. The following to a correspondent in Scotland, dated August 11, 1S04, 
 expresses his grief at 
 
 Hamilton's death. 
 
 Xews I have none but what the papers will have announced be- 
 fore this reaches you; melancholy, most melancholy news for 
 America, — the premature death of her greatest man, Major- 
 General Hamilton. I say nothing too strong when I assure you 
 that, all things considered, the loss of Washington was light in 
 comparison with this. His most stupendous talents, which set 
 him above rivalship, and his integrity, with which intrigue had 
 not the hardihood to tamper, held him up as the nation's hope, 
 and as the terror of the unprincipled ; but it marked him out, at 
 the same time, as a victim, to the disappointed and profligate ambi- 
 tion of Vice-President Burr. By the most insidious and cruel 
 artifice he was entrapped, against his judgment, his conscience, 
 
 1 Among others, Judge Jay and Judge Marshall wrote to him letters cf thanks 
 for it. 
 
166 
 
 JOHN M. MASON. 
 
 and his efforts, in a duel with that desperate man, and mortally 
 wounded. The catastrophe happened on the morning of the 11th, 
 and he expired at two o'clock on the 12th ult. The shock and 
 agony of the public mind has never been equalled. Burr went 
 out, determined to kill him ; for he had been long qualifying him- 
 self to become a " dead shot." Ingenuous Hamilton went out to 
 be murdered, being as ignorant of the pistol as myself, and had 
 resolved not to take the life of his antagonist, even if it were in 
 his power. The cry of lamentation and indignation assails Burr 
 from every point of the compass ; nor can he turn his eye any- 
 where without reading his own infamy in the honors heaped upon 
 the illustrious dead. 
 
 In 1807 was commenced the publication of The Christian's Magazine, — a 
 monthly periodical, of which Dr. Mason was the editor, and most of which he 
 wrote. In this appeared, in successive numbers, his controversial papers upon 
 the Episcopal form of church government, in reply to Bishop Hobart. In 1811, 
 he was elected Provost of Columbia College, which post he held till 1816, when, 
 feeling that his powers had been overtaxed and that he was sinking under the 
 weight of his numerous duties, he resigned his office, and took a voyage to Europe 
 to recruit his exhausted powers. He returned after two years, improved indeed 
 in health, but not completely restored. The resumption of his many duties 
 proved too much for his bodily strength, and the next year he had an attack of 
 partial paralysis. From this, however, he somewhat recovered, and in 1821 ac- 
 cepted the invitation of the trustees of Dickinson College to become its President. 
 He had discharged the duties of this high office with the greatest advantage to the 
 Institution for two years, when a fall from his horse quite disabled him, and he 
 resigned and returned to New York the same year, where he died on the 26th of 
 December, 1829, in the sixtieth year of his age. 
 
 Dr. Mason was a remarkable man, — remarkable for his majestic personal appear- 
 ance as well as for his intellectual powers, his learning, and his eloquence. 
 He was in stature about six feet, with a high forehead, deep blue eyes, and a 
 face remarkably expressive of thought, feeling, firmness, and courage. As a 
 pulpit-orator it has been remarked of him by a learned contemporary that " upon 
 the whole, for a combination of clearness, power, majesty, bold conceptions, pro- 
 found thought, sublime and tender emotions, evangelical richness and unction, 
 natural and impressive utterance, adaptation of style and manner to varying sub- 
 jects and assemblies, Dr. Mason would probably not lose by comparison with the 
 best preachers that have adorned the modern pulpit." 1 
 
 1 Read "Memoirs, with a Portion of his Correspondence," 8vo, pp. 560, by Rev. 
 Jacob Van Vechten ; and Works, in four volumes, edited by his son, Rev. Ebe- 
 nezer Mason. 
 
 " In a new church, in Murray Street, I heard Dr. Mason, then regarded as the 
 Boanerges of the city. Instead of a pulpit, — which served as a sort of shelter and 
 defence for the preacher, — he had only a little railing along the edge of the plat- 
 form on which he stood, so as to show his large and handsome person almost 
 down to his shoe-buckles. He preached without notes, and moved freely about, 
 
JOHN M. MASON. 
 
 167 
 
 POLITICS AND RELIGION. 
 
 That religion has, in fact, nothing to do with the politics of 
 many who profess it, is a melancholy truth. But that it has, of 
 right j no concern with political transactions, is quite a new dis- 
 covery. If such opinions, however, prevail, there is no longer any 
 mystery in the character of those whose conduct in political mat- 
 ters violates every precept and slanders every principle of the 
 religion of Christ. But what is politics ? Is it not the science 
 and the exercise of civil rights and civil duties ? And what is 
 religion ? Is it not an obligation to the service of God, founded 
 on his authority, and extending to all our relations, personal and 
 social ? Yet religion has nothing to do with politics ! Where did 
 you learn this maxim ? The Bible is full of directions for your 
 behavior as citizens. It is plain, pointed, awful in its injunctions 
 on ruler and ruled as such: yet religion has nothing to do ivith 
 politics! You are commanded " in all your ways to acknowledge 
 him." "In EVERY THING, by prayer and supplication, ivith 
 thanksgiving, to let your requests he made known unto God." 
 "And WHATSOEVER YE DO, IN WORD OR DEED, to do ALL IN 
 THE NAME of the Lord Jesus." 1 Yet religion has nothing to do 
 with politics ! Most astonishing ! And is there any part of your 
 conduct in which you are, or wish to be, without law to God, and 
 not under the laio of Jesus Christ? Can you persuade your- 
 selves that political men and measures are to undergo no review 
 in the judgment to come ? That all the passion and violence, the 
 fraud and falsehood and corruption, which pervade the system of 
 party, and burst out like a flood at the public elections, are to be 
 blotted from the catalogue of unchristian deeds, because they are 
 politics? Or that a minister of the gospel may see his people, 
 in their political career, bid defiance to their God in breaking 
 through every moral restraint, and keep a guiltless silence, be- 
 cause religion has nothing to do with politics? I forbear to press 
 the argument farther ; observing only that many of our difficulties 
 and sins may be traced to this pernicious notion. Yes, if our reli- 
 gion had had more to do with our politics, if, in the pride of our 
 
 sometimes speaking in a colloquial manner, and then suddenly pouring out sen- 
 tence after sentence glowing with lightning and echoing with thunder. The 
 effect of these outbursts was sometimes very startling. The doctor was not only 
 very imposing in his person, but his voice was of prodigious volume and compass. 
 He was sometimes adventurous in bis speech, occasionally passing off a joke, and 
 not unfrequently verging on what might seem profane but for the solemnity of his 
 manner." — Goodrich's Recollections. 
 
 1 He might have given a still stronger text, — -Philippians i. 27: "Let your 
 politics be such as it becometh the gospel of Christ." Our translation is conversa- 
 tion, (which in King James's day was equivalent to conduct;) but the original is 
 •tokirzvujQz, " act as a citizen," or " act in political matters, as a Christian." 
 
168 
 
 JOHN M. MASON. 
 
 citizenship, we had not forgotten our Christianity, if we had 
 prayed more and wrangled less about the affairs of our country, it 
 would have been infinitely better for us at this day. 
 
 CHARACTER OF HAMILTON. 
 
 He was born to be great. Whoever was second, Hamilton 
 must be first. To his stupendous and versatile mind no investiga- 
 tion was difficult, no subject presented which he did not illumi- 
 nate. Superiority, in some particular, belongs to thousands. 
 Pre-eminence, in whatever he chose to undertake, was the prero- 
 gative of Hamilton. No fixed criterion could be applied to his 
 talents. Often has their display been supposed to have reached 
 the limit of human effort; and the judgment stood firm till set 
 aside by himself. When a cause of new magnitude required new 
 exertion, he rose, he towered, he soared ; surpassing himself as he 
 surpassed others. Then was nature tributary to his eloquence ! 
 Then was felt his despotism over the heart ! Touching, at his 
 pleasure, every string of pity or terror, of indignation or grief, he 
 melted, he soothed, he roused, he agitated ; alternately gentle as 
 the dews and awful as the thunder. Yet, great as he was in the 
 eyes of the world, he was greater in the eyes of those with whom 
 he was most conversant. The greatness of most men, like objects 
 seen through a mist, diminishes with the distance; but Hamilton, 
 like a tower seen afar off under a clear sky, rose in grandeur and 
 sublimity with every step of approach. Familiarity with him was 
 the parent of veneration. Over these matchless talents probity 
 threw her brightest lustre. Frankness, suavity, tenderness, bene- 
 volence, breathed through their exercise. And to his family ! — ■ 
 but he is gone — that noble heart beats no more ; that eye of fire 
 is dimmed; and sealed are those oracular lips. Americans, the 
 serenest beam of your glory is extinguished in the tomb. 
 
 Fathers, friends, countrymen ! the dying breath of Hamilton 
 recommended to you the Christian's hope. His single testimony 
 outweighs all the cavils of the sciolist, and all the jeers of the pro- 
 fane. Who will venture to pronounce a fable that doctrine of life 
 and i m mart edit 1/ which his profound and irradiating mind em- 
 braced as the truth of God ? When you are to die, you will find 
 no source of peace but in the faith of Jesus. Cultivate, for your 
 present repose and your future consolation, what our departed 
 friend declared to be the support of his expiring moments, — 
 " a tender reliance on the mercies of the Almighty, through the 
 merits of the Lord Jesus Christ," 
 
 Hamilton ! we will cherish thy memory, we will embalm thy 
 fame ! Fare thee well, thou unparalleled man, farewell, — forever ! 
 
JOHN M. MASON. 
 
 169 
 
 GOSPEL FOR THE POOR. 
 
 The Lord Jesus, who icent about doing good, has left us an 
 example that ice shoidd follow his steps. Christians, on whom he 
 has bestowed affluence, rank, or talent, should be the last to dis- 
 dain their fellow-men, or to look with indifference on indigence 
 and grief. Pride, unseemly in all, is detestable in them who con- 
 fess that by grace they are saved. Their Lord and Redeemer, 
 who humbled himself by assuming their nature, came to deliver 
 the needy when he crieth, the poor also, and him that hath no 
 helper. And surely, as object which was not unworthy of the 
 Son of God cannot be unworthy of any who are called by his 
 name. Their wealth and opportunities, their talents and time, 
 are not their own, nor to be used according to their own pleasure, 
 but to be consecrated by their vocation as fellow-workers with 
 God. How many hands that hang down would be lifted up ! 
 how many feeble knees confirmed ! how many tears wiped away ! 
 how many victims of despondency and infamy rescued by a close 
 imitation of Jesus Christ ! Go with your opulence to the house 
 of famine and the retreats of disease. Go, deal thy bread to the 
 hungry ; when thou seest the naked, cover him; and hide not thy- 
 self from thine own flesh. Go, and furnish means to rear the 
 offspring of the poor, that they may at least have access to the 
 word of your God. Go, and quicken the flight of the Angel who 
 has the everlasting gospel to preach unto the nations. If you pos- 
 sess not wealth, employ your station in promoting good will toward 
 men. Judge the fatherless; plead for the widow. Stimulate the 
 exertions of others, who may supply what is lacking on your part. 
 Let the beauties of holiness pour their lustre upon your distinc- 
 tions, and recommend to the unhappy that peace which yourselves 
 have found in the salvation of God. If you have neither riches 
 nor rank, devote your talents. Ravishing are the accents which 
 dwell on the tongue of the learned when it speaks a word in season 
 to him that is weary. Press your genius and your eloquence into 
 the service of the Lord your righteousness, to magnify his word, 
 and display the riches of his grace. Who knoweth whether he 
 may honor you to be the minister of joy to the disconsolate, of 
 liberty to the captive, of life to the dead ? If he has denied you 
 wealth, and rank, and talent, consecrate your heart. Let it dis- 
 solve in sympathy. There is nothing to hinder your rejoicing 
 with them that do rejoice, and your iveeping with them that weep, 
 nor to forbid the interchange of kind and soothing offices. A 
 brother is born for adversity ; and not only should Christian be to 
 Christian a friend that sticketh closer than a brother, but he should 
 exemplify the loveliness of his religion to them that are without. 
 An action, a word, marked by the sweetness of the gospel, has 
 
 15 
 
170 
 
 JOSEPH HOPKINSON. 
 
 often been owned of God for producing the happiest enects. Lot 
 no man, therefore, try to excuse his inaction j for no man is too 
 inconsiderable to augment the triumphs of the gospel by assisting 
 in the consolations which it yields to the miserable. 
 
 JOSEPH HOPKINSON, 17*70—1842. 
 
 Joseph Hopkinson was the son of Francis Hopkinson, who was one of the 
 patriots of the Revolution, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and emi- 
 nent for his legal learning, wit, and general attainments. 1 Joseph was born in 
 Philadelphia, in 1770, studied law, and became distinguished for his profound 
 and varied attainments, and as an advocate of singular eloquence and ability. 
 He served for some time as a representative in Congress, and was a member of the 
 Convention which re-modelled the Constitution of Pennsylvania. In 1828, he was 
 appointed Judge of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern Dis- 
 trict of Pennsylvania, which office he filled with great integrity and ability, united 
 to singular urbanity and kindness of manners; and retained it till his death, 
 which occurred on the 15th of January, 1S42. At the time of his death, he was 
 Vice-President of the American Philosophical Society, and President of the 
 Academy of Fine Arts. 
 
 As a writer, Judge Hopkinson is chiefly known as the author of the popular 
 song of 
 
 HAIL, COLUMBIA. 2 
 
 Hail, Columbia! happy land! 
 
 Hail, yc heroes ! heaven-born band ! 
 
 Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause, 
 Who fought, and bled in Freedom's cause, 
 
 1 See pages 59-CS for Life, and Extracts from his works. 
 
 2 The following account of the circumstances attending the composition of this 
 song were communicated, a few months before his death, to the late Rev. Dr. 
 Griswold. " It was written in the summer of 1798, when war with France was 
 thought to be inevitable. Congress was then in session in Philadelphia, delibe- 
 rating upon that important subject, and acts of hostility had actually taken place. 
 The contest between England and France Avas raging, and the people of the 
 United States were divided into parties for the one side or the other, some think- 
 ing that policy and duty required us to espouse the cause of republican France, as 
 she was called ; while others were for connecting ourselves with England, under 
 the belief that she was the great conservative power of good principles and safe 
 government. The violation of our rights by both belligerents was forcing us from 
 the just and wise policy of President Washington, which was to do equal justice 
 to both, to take part with neither, but to preserve a strict and honest neutrality 
 between them. The prospect of a rupture with France was exceedingly offensive 
 to the portion of the people who espoused her cause ; and the violence of the 
 spirit of party has never risen higher, I think not so high, in our country, as it did 
 at that time, upon that question. The theatre was then open in our city. A young 
 man belonging to it, whose talent was as a singer, was about to take his benefit. 
 1 had known him when he was at school. On this acquaintance, he called on mc 
 
JOSEPH HOPKINSON. 
 
 171 
 
 And when the storm of war was gone, 
 Enjoy'd the peace your valor won. 
 Let independence be our boast, 
 Ever mindful what it cost ; 
 Ever grateful for the prize : 
 Let its altar reach the skies. 
 
 Firm — united — let us be, 
 
 Rallying round our liberty ; 
 
 As a band of brothers join'd, 
 
 Peace and safety we shall find. 
 
 Immortal patriots ! rise once more ; 
 
 Defend your rights, defend your shore ; 
 Let no rude foe, with impious hand, 
 Let no rude foe, with impious hand, 
 
 Invade the shrine where sacred lies 
 
 Of toil and blood the well-earn'd prize. 
 While offering peace sincere and just, 
 In Heaven we place a manly trust, 
 That truth and justice will prevail, 
 And every scheme of bondage fail. 
 Firm — united, &c. 
 
 Sound, sound the trump of Fame ! 
 
 Let Washington's great name 
 
 Ring through the world with loud applause, 
 Ring through the world with loud applause; 
 
 Let every clime to Freedom dear 
 
 Listen with a joyful ear. 
 
 With equal skill and godlike power, 
 He governs in the fearful hour 
 Of horrid Avar ; or guides, with ease, 
 The happier times of honest peace. 
 Firm — united, &c. 
 
 Behold the chief who now commands, 
 Once more to serve his country stands, — 
 The rock on which the storm will beat, 
 The rock on which the storm will beat; 
 
 one Saturday afternoon, his benefit being announced for the following Monday. 
 His prospects were very disheartening ; but he said that if he could get a patri- 
 otic song adapted to the tune of the ' President's March/ he did not doubt of a 
 full house ; that the poets of the theatrical corps had been trying to accomplish 
 it, but had not succeeded. I told him I would try what I could do for him. He 
 came the next afternoon, and the song, such as it is, was ready for him. The 
 object of the author was to get up an American spirit, which should be indepen- 
 dent of, and above the interests, passions, and policy of both belligerents, and 
 look and feel exclusively for our own honor and rights. No allusion is made to 
 France or England, or the quarrel between them, or to the question which was 
 most in fault in their treatment of us. Of course the song found favor with both 
 parties, for both were Americans : at least, neither could disavow the sentiments 
 and feelings it inculcated. Such is the history of this song, which has endured 
 infinitely beyond the expectation of the author, as it is beyond any merit it can 
 boast of, except that of. being truly and exclusively patriotic in its sentiments and 
 spirit." 
 
172 
 
 CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. 
 
 But, arm'cl in virtue firm and true, 
 His hopes are fix'd on Heaven and you. 
 When Hope was sinking in dismay, 
 And glooms obscured Columbia's day. 
 His steady mind, from changes free, 
 Resolved on death or liberty. 
 Firm — united, &c. 
 
 CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN, mi— 1810. 
 
 Charles Brockden Brown, descended from a highly respectable family, whose 
 ancestors emigrated Avith William Perm, was born at Philadelphia, January 17, 
 1771. He early gave evidence of his studious propensities, and at the age of eleven 
 was placed under the tuition of Mr. Robert Proud, the author of the History of 
 Pennsylvania. Under his instruction he went over a large course of English read- 
 ing, and acquired the elements of Greek and Latin, applying himself to his studies 
 with great assiduity. But his sedentary habits began to impair his health, and 
 he was for a time taken from his books, and made frequent excursions on foot 
 into the country. He left Mr. Proud's school, finally, before the age of sixteen, 
 and s'oon after began the study of the law. But, when the time came for him 
 to enter upon the practice of his profession, he felt his repugnance to it increase 
 more and more, and he determined to follow his own tastes, and to devote his life 
 to literary pursuits. 
 
 Having formed a strong and congenial friendship with two or three gentle- 
 men of New York, he established, in 1798, his permanent residence in that 
 city. The same year appeared Wieland, the first of that remarkable series of 
 fictions which flowed with such rapid succession from his pen in that and three 
 following years. They are of the intensely terrific school, and such as do not 
 leave the most pleasant impressions upon the mind. The next year appeared 
 Onnond, and soon after the first part of Arthur 3/ervyn ; or, Memoirs of the Year 
 1793. This was the fatal year of the yellow fever in Philadelphia, and Brown 
 transferred upon paper many of the scenes he himself had witnessed. The fol- 
 lowing is one of them : — 
 
 THE PESTILENCE OF 1798. 
 
 In proportion as I drew near the city, the tokens of its calami- 
 tous condition became more apparent. Every farm-house was 
 filled with supernumerary tenants, fugitives from home, and 
 haunting the skirts of the road, eager to detain every passenger 
 with inquiries after news. The passengers were numerous; for 
 the tide of emigration was by no means exhausted. Some were 
 on foot, bearing in their countenances the tokens of their recent 
 terror, and filled with mournful reflections on the forlornness of 
 their state. Few had secured to themselves an asylum ; some 
 
CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. 
 
 173 
 
 were without the means of paying for victuals or lodging for the 
 coming night j others, who were not thus destitute, yet knew not 
 -whither to apply for entertainment, every house being already 
 overstocked with inhabitants, or barring its inhospitable doors at 
 their approach. 
 
 Families of weeping mothers and dismayed children, attended 
 with a few pieces of indispensable furniture, were carried in 
 vehicles of every form. The parent or husband had perished; 
 and the price of some movable, or the pittance handed forth by 
 public charity, had been expended to purchase the means of re- 
 tiring from this theatre of disasters, though uncertain and hope- 
 less of accommodation in the neighboring districts. 
 
 Between these and the fugitives whom curiosity had led to the 
 road, dialogues frequently took place, to which I was suffered to 
 listen. From every mouth the tale of sorrow was repeated with 
 new aggravations. Pictures of their own distress, or of that of 
 their neighbors, were exhibited in all the hues which imagination 
 can annex to pestilence and poverty. 
 
 My preconceptions of the evil now appeared to have fallen short 
 of the truth. The dangers into which I was rushing seemed more 
 numerous and imminent than I had previously imagined. I 
 wavered not in my purpose. A panic crept to my heart, which 
 more vehement exertions were necessary to subdue or control ; 
 but I harbored not a momentary doubt that the course which I 
 had taken was prescribed by duty. There was no difficulty or' re- 
 luctance in proceeding. All for which my efforts were demanded 
 was to walk in this path without tumult or alarm. 
 
 Various circumstances had hindered me from setting out upon 
 this journey as early as was proper. My frequent pauses to listen 
 to the narratives of travellers contributed likewise to procrastina- 
 tion. The sun had nearly set before I reached the precincts of 
 the city. I pursued the track which I had formerly taken, and 
 entered High Street after nightfall. Instead of equipages and a 
 throng of passengers, the voice of levity and glee, which I had for- 
 merly observed, and which the mildness of the season would at 
 other times have produced, I found nothing but a dreary solitude. 
 
 The market-place, and each side of this magnificent avenue, were 
 illuminated, as before, by lamps ; but between the verge of 
 Schuylkill and the heart of the city, I met not more than a dozen 
 figures, and these were ghost-like, wrapped in cloaks, from behind 
 which they cast upon me glances of wonder and suspicion, and, as 
 I approached, changed their course, to avoid touching me. Their 
 clothes were sprinkled with vinegar, and their nostrils defended 
 from contagion by some powerful perfume. 
 
 I cast a look upon the houses, which I recollected to have for- 
 merly been at this hour brilliant with lights, resounding with 
 
 15* 
 
174 
 
 CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. 
 
 lively voices, and thronged with busy faces. Now they were 
 closed, above and below, dark, and without tokens of being in- 
 habited. From the upper windows of some, a gleam sometimes fell 
 upon the pavement I was traversing, and showed that their tenants 
 were not fled, but were secluded or disabled. 
 
 The evening had now advanced, and it behooved me to procure 
 accommodation at some of the inns. These were easily distin- 
 guished by their signs; but many were without inhabitants. At 
 length I lighted upon one, the hall of which was open and the 
 windows lifted. After knocking for some time, a young girl 
 appeared, with many marks of distress. In answer to my ques- 
 tion, she answered that both her parents were sick, and that they 
 could receive no one. I inquired in vain for any other tavern at 
 which strangers mi^ht be accommodated. She knew of none 
 such ; and left me, on some one's calling to her from above, in the 
 midst of my embarrassment. After a moment's pause, I returned, 
 discomfited and perplexed, to the street. 
 
 I proceeded, in a considerable degree, at random. At length I 
 reached a spacious building in Fourth Street, which the sign-post 
 showed me to be an inn. I knocked loudly and often at the door. 
 At length a female opened the window of the second story, and, 
 in a tone of peevishness, demanded what I wanted. I told her 
 that I wanted lodging. 
 
 " Go, hunt for it somewhere else," said she : " you'll find none 
 here." I began to expostulate 5 but she shut the window with 
 quickness, and left me to my own reflections. 
 
 I began now to feel some regret at the journey I had taken. 
 Never, in the depth of caverns or forests, was I equally conscious 
 of loneliness. I was surrounded by the habitations of men • but 
 I was destitute of associate or friend. I had money ; but a horse- 
 shelter or a morsel of food could not be purchased. I came for 
 the purpose of relieving others, but stood in the utmost need my- 
 self. Even in health my condition was helpless and forlorn ; but 
 what would become of me should this fatal malady be contracted ? 
 To hope that an asylum would be afforded to a sick man which 
 was denied to one in health was unreasonable. 
 
 The first impulse which flowed from these reflections was to 
 hasten back to Malverton; which, with sufficient diligence, I 
 might hope to regain before the morning light. I could not, 
 methought, return upon my steps with too much speed. I was 
 prompted to run as if the pest was rushing upon me, and could be 
 eluded only by the most precipitate flight, 
 
 The publication of Arthur Mervyn was succeeded not long after by that of Edgar 
 Huntly ; or, The Adventures of a Sleep- Walker. The scene is laid in the interior 
 of Pennsylvania; and in one of the chapters, Edgar Huntly, the hero of the 
 
CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. 
 
 175 
 
 story, is represented in a wild mountain-fastness, on the brink of a ravine, from 
 which the only avenue lies over the body of a tree thrown across the chasm. The 
 following is a description of his 
 
 PERILOUS ENCOUNTER WITH A PANTHER. 
 
 As soon as I had effected my dangerous passage, I screened 
 myself behind a cliff, and gave myself up to reflection. While 
 occupied with these reflections, my eyes were fixed upon the 
 opposite steeps. The tops of the trees, waving to and fro in the 
 wildest commotion, and their trunks occasionally bending to the 
 blast, which, in these lofty regions, blew with a violence unknown 
 in the tracts below, exhibited an awful spectacle. At length my 
 attention was attracted by the trunk which lay across the gulf, and 
 which I had converted into a bridge. I perceived that it had 
 already swerved somewhat from its original position ) that every 
 blast broke or loosened some of the fibres by which its roots were 
 connected with the opposite bank; and that, if the storm did not 
 speedily abate, there was imminent danger of its being torn from 
 the rock and precipitated into the chasm. Thus my retreat would 
 be cut oft, and the evils from which I was endeavoring to rescue 
 another would be experienced by myself. 
 
 I believed my destiny to hang upon the expedition with which 
 I should recross this gulf. The moments that were spent in these 
 deliberations were critical, and I shuddered to observe that the 
 trunk was held in its place by one or two fibres, which were 
 already stretched almost to breaking. 
 
 To pass along the trunk, rendered slippery by the wet and un- 
 steadfast by the wind, was eminently dangerous. To maintain 
 my hold in passing, in defiance of the whirlwind, required the 
 most vigorous exertions. For this end, it was necessary to dis- 
 commode myself of my cloak and of the volume which I carried 
 in the pocket of my coat. 
 
 Just as I had disposed of these encumbrances, and had risen 
 from my seat, my attention was again called to the opposite steep 
 by the most unwelcome object that at this time could possibly 
 occur. Something was perceived moving among the bushes and 
 rocks, which, for a time, I hoped was nothing more than a raccoon 
 or opossum, but which presently appeared to be a panther. His 
 gray coat, extended claw r s, fiery eyes, and a cry which he at that 
 moment uttered, and which, by its resemblance to the human 
 voice, is peculiarly terrific, denoted him to be the most ferocious 
 and untamable of that detested race. The industry of our 
 hunters has nearly banished animals of prey from these precincts. 
 The fastnesses of Norwalk, however, could not but afford refuge 
 to some of them. Of late I had met them so rarely that my fears 
 
17G 
 
 CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. 
 
 were seldom alive, and I trod without caution the ruggedest and 
 most solitary haunts. Still, however, I had seldom been unfur- 
 nished in my rambles with the means of defence. 
 
 The unfrequency with which I had lately encountered this foe, 
 and the encumbrance of provision, made me neglect, on this occa- 
 sion, to bring with me my usual arms. The beast that was now 
 before me, when stimulated by hunger, was accustomed to assail 
 whatever could provide him with a banquet of blood. He would 
 set upon the man and the deer with equal and irresistible fero- 
 city. His sagacity was equal to his strength, and he seemed able 
 to discover when his antagonist was armed and prepared for 
 defence. 
 
 My past experience enabled me to estimate the full extent of 
 my danger. He sat on the brow of the steep, eyeing the bridge, 
 and apparently deliberating whether he should cross it. It was 
 probable that he had scented my footsteps thus far, and, should 
 he pass over, his vigilance could scarcely fail of detecting my 
 asylum. 
 
 Should he retain his present station, my danger was scarcely 
 lessened. To pass over in the face of a famished tiger was only 
 to rush upon my fate. The falling of the trunk, which had 
 lately been so anxiously deprecated, was now with no less solici- 
 tude desired. Every new gust, I hoped, would tear asunder 
 its remaining bands, and, by cutting off all communication be- 
 tween the opposite steeps, place me in security. My hopes, how- 
 ever, were destined to be frustrated. The fibres of the prostrate 
 tree were obstinately tenacious of their hold, and presently the 
 animal scrambled down the rock and proceeded to cross it. 
 
 Of all kinds of death, that which now menaced me was the 
 most abhorred. To die by disease or by the hand of a fellow- 
 creature was propitious and lenient in comparison with being 
 rent to pieces by the fangs of this savage. To perish in this ob- 
 scure retreat by means so impervious to the anxious curiosity of 
 my friends, to lose my portion of existence by so untoward and 
 ignoble a destiny, was insupportable. I bitterly deplored my 
 rashness in coming hither unprovided for an encounter like 
 this. 
 
 The evil of my present circumstances consisted chiefly in sus- 
 pense. My death was unavoidable, but my imagination had leisure 
 to torment itself by anticipations. One foot of the savage was 
 slowly and cautiously moved after the other. He struck his 
 claws so deeply into the bark that they were with difficulty with- 
 drawn. At length he leaped upon the ground. We were now 
 separated by an interval of scarcely eight feet. To leave the spot 
 where I crouched was impossible. Behind and beside me the 
 cliff rose perpendicularly, and before me was this grim and ter- 
 
CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. 
 
 177 
 
 rible visage. I shrunk still closer to the ground, and closed my 
 eyes. 
 
 From this pause of horror I was aroused by the noise occa- 
 sioned by a second spring of the animal. He leaped into the pit 
 in which I had so deeply regretted that I had not taken refuge, 
 and disappeared. My rescue was so sudden, and so much beyond 
 my belief or my hope, that I doubted for a moment whether my 
 senses did not deceive me. This opportunity of escape was not 
 to be neglected. I left my place and scrambled over the trunk 
 with a precipitation which had like to have proved fatal. The 
 tree groaned and shook under me, the wind blew with unexampled 
 violence, and I had scarcely reached the opposite steep when the 
 roots were severed from the rock, and the whole fell thundering 
 to the bottom of the chasm. 
 
 My trepidations were not speedily quieted. I looked back 
 with wonder on my hairbreadth escape, and on that singular con- 
 currence of events which had placed me in so short a period in 
 absolute security. Had the trunk fallen a moment earlier, I 
 should have been imprisoned on the hill or thrown headlong. 
 Had its fall been delayed another moment, I should have been 
 pursued ; for the beast now issued from his den, and testified his 
 surprise and disappointment by tokens the sight of which made 
 my blood run cold. 
 
 He saw me, and hastened to the verge of the chasm. He 
 squatted on his hind legs, and assumed the attitude of one pre- 
 paring to leap. My consternation was excited afresh by these 
 appearances. It seemed at first as if the rift was too wide for any 
 power of muscles to carry him in safety over ; but I knew the un- 
 paralleled agility of this animal, and that his experience had made 
 him a better judge of the practicability of this exploit than I was. 
 
 Still there was hope that he would relinquish this design as 
 desperate. This hope was quickly at an end. He sprung, and 
 his fore-legs touched the verge of the rock on which I stood. In 
 spite of vehement exertions, however, the surface was too smooth 
 and too hard to allow him to make good his hold. He fell, and a 
 piercing cry uttered below, showed that nothing had obstructed 
 his descent to the bottom. 
 
 In 1800, Brown published the second part of Arthur Mervyn, and in 1801, Clara 
 Howard. This year he returned to his native city, and established his residence 
 in his brother's family. In 1803, he undertook the conduct of a periodical, 
 entitled The Literary Magazine and American Register,— of which five volumes 
 were published. During his residence in New York, he had formed an attach- 
 ment to Miss Elizabeth Linn, daughter of the Rev. William Linn, D.D., of that 
 city, and in November, 1804, they were married. 
 
 With the additional responsibilities of his new station, he pursued his literary 
 labors with increased diligence, lie projected the plan of an Annual Register, the 
 
178 
 
 SAMUEL J. SMITH. 
 
 first volume of which was published in 1806, and was continued till 1809, with 
 great ability. At this time also he contributed many articles of a political and 
 literary character to the "Portfolio." But his constitution, never robust, now 
 began to give way under his sedentary habits and intense application. His 
 friends insisted upon his giving up his literary labors for a time and taking a 
 journey. He did so, but went only to New York, and returned still more feeble. 
 His disorder — pulmonary consumption — made rapid advances ; and on the 22d 
 of February, 1810, he expired calmly and without a struggle. 
 
 Mr. Brown's character was one of great amiability and moral excellence, and 
 his manners were distinguished by a gentleness and unaffected simplicity. His 
 great colloquial powers made him a most agreeable companion ; and his unwearied 
 application is attested by the large amount of his works, the whole number of 
 which, including his editorial labors, must be equal to twenty-four volumes, — 
 a vast amount to be produced in the brief compass of a little more than ten 
 years. 1 
 
 SAMUEL J. SMITH, 1771—1835. 
 
 This excellent man and true poet was one of the Smiths of Burlington, New 
 Jersey, and was the grandson of the historian of that State. He passed a life of 
 singular seclusion on his paternal estate near the city of Burlington, in the prac- 
 tice of all the virtues that purify and ennoble the character. Affluent, unambi- 
 tious, fond of general reading and of the pursuits of a country life, and shrinking 
 from intercourse with strangers, he devoted himself to the duties of his private 
 station j was the counsellor and benefactor of the poor around him ; and, to the 
 few friends who enjoyed his intimacy, one of the most charming of companions. 
 His verses were the careless effusions of a man of genius, indifferent to fame, a 
 shrewd observer of life and manners, of keen satiric wit, of tender sensibility, of 
 earnest and humble piety. A volume of his poetry was published after his death, 
 which occurred in 1835. It is of various and unequal merit, and has never been 
 widely circulated. From this volume the following pieces are selected. We know 
 of no Scripture paraphrase that surpasses the stanzas on the 8th chapter of 
 Matthew. Their chaste and classical beauties, their pure morality and religious 
 feeling, claim for them a place in every collection of American poetry. 
 
 1 " We are unwilling to part, with any thing like a tone of disparagement lin- 
 gering on our lips, with the amiable author to whom our rising literature is under 
 such large and various obligations; who first opened a view into the boundless 
 fields of fiction which subsequent adventurers have successfully explored ; who 
 has furnished so much for our instruction in the several departments of history 
 and criticism, and has rendered still more effectual service by kindling in the 
 bosom of the youthful scholar the same generous love of letters which glowed in 
 his own ; whose writings, in fine, have uniformly inculcated the pure and elevated 
 morality exemplified in his life. The only thing we can regret is that a life so 
 useful should have been so short, if, indeed, that can be considered short which 
 has done so much towards attaining life's great end." — Biographical and Critical 
 Miscellanies, ly William H. Prescott. 
 
SAMUEL J. SMITH. 
 
 179 
 
 "PEACE BE STILL." 1 
 
 When on His mission from his home in heaven, 
 In the frail bark the Saviour deign'd to sleep ; 
 
 The tempest rose — with headlong fury driven, 
 The wave-toss'd vessel whhTd along the deep : 
 
 Wild shriek'd the storm amid the parting shrouds, 
 
 And the vex'd billows dash'd the darkening clouds. 
 
 Ah ! then, how futile human skill and power, — 
 " Save us ! we perish in the o'erwhelming wave," 
 
 They cried, and found, in that tremendous hour, 
 "An eye to pity, and an arm to save." 
 
 He spoke, and lo ! obedient to his will, 
 
 The raging waters and the winds were still. 
 
 And thou, poor trembler on life's stormy sea ! 
 
 Where dark the waves of sin and sorrow roll, 
 To Him for refuge from the tempest flee, — 
 
 To Him, confiding, trust the sinking soul ; 
 For oh ! He came to calm the tempest-toss'd, 
 To seek the wandering and to save the lost. 
 
 For thee, and such as thee, impell'd by love, 
 He left the mansions of the blest on high ; 
 
 Mid sin, and pain, and grief, and fear, to move, — 
 With lingering anguish and with shame to die. 
 
 The debt to Justice boundless Mercy paid, 
 
 For hopeless guilt complete atonement made. 
 
 Oh ! in return for such surpassing grace, 
 
 Poor, blind, and naked, what canst thou impart ? 
 
 Canst thou no offering on His altar place ? 
 Yes, lowly mourner ! give him all thy heart : 
 
 That simple offering he will not disown. — 
 
 That living incense may approach his throne. 
 
 He asks not herds, and flocks, and seas of oil, — 
 No vain oblations please the all-knowing Mind ; 
 
 But the poor, weary, sin-sick, spent with toil, 
 Who humbly seek it, shall deliverance find: 
 
 Like her, the sufferer, who in secret stole 
 
 To touch His garment, and at once was whole. 
 
 Oh, for a voice of thunder ! which might wake 
 The slumbering sinner, ere he sink in death ; 
 
 Oh, for a tempest, into dust to shake 
 
 His sand-built dwelling, while he yet. has breath ! 
 
 A viewless hand, to picture on the wall 
 
 His fearful sentence, ere the curtain fall. 
 
 Child of the dust ! from torpid ruin rise, — 
 Be earth's delusions from thy bosom hurl'd; 
 
 And strive to measure with enlighten'd eyes 
 The dread importance of the eternal world. 
 
 Lines occasioned by reading Matt. viii. 24-26. 
 
SAMUEL J. SMITH. 
 
 The shades of night are gathering round thee fast, — 
 Arise to labor ere thy day be past ! 
 
 In darkness tottering on the slippery verge 
 Of frail existence, soon to be no more ; 
 
 Death's rude, tempestuous, ever-nearing surge 
 Shall quickly dash thee from the sinking shore. 
 
 But ah! the secrets of the following day 
 
 What tongue may utter, or what eye survey ! 
 
 Oh ! think in time, then, what the meek inherit, — 
 What the peace-maker's, what the mourner's part; 
 
 The allotted portion of the poor in spirit, — 
 The promised vision of the pure in heart. 
 
 For yet in Gilead there is balm to spare, 
 
 And, prompt to succor, a Physician there. 
 
 A MORNING HYMN. 
 
 Arise, my soul ! with rapture rise, 
 And, fill'd with love and fear, adore 
 
 The awful Sov'reign of the skies, 
 
 Whose mercy lends me one day more. 
 
 And may this day, indulgent Power ! 
 
 Not idly pass, nor fruitless be ; 
 But may each swiftly flying hour 
 
 xVdvance my soul more nigh to Thee. 
 
 But can it be that Power divine, 
 
 Whose throne is light's unbounded blaze, 
 
 While countless worlds and angels join 
 To swell the glorious song of praise, 
 
 Will deign to lend a favoring ear 
 When I, poor abject mortal, pray? 
 
 Yes, boundless Goodness ! he will hear, 
 Nor cast the meanest wretch away. 
 
 Then let me serve thee all my days, 
 And may my zeal with years increase ; 
 
 For pleasant, Lord! are all thy ways, 
 And all thy paths are paths of peace. 
 
 FOR AN ALBUM. 
 
 To scenes sequester'd from the world's applause, 
 
 In vain the lily of the vale withdraws ; 
 
 In vain to veil, with graceful bend, she tries, 
 
 Her snowy bosom from th' enraptured gaze ; 
 In vain she bids protecting foliage rise, — 
 
 Surrounding sweetness her retreat betrays. 
 
 So, though o'ershadow'd by misfortune's gloom, 
 Through time, obscurely may the good man move, 
 
 His blameless life ascends a sweet perfume, 
 And angels view him with the smiles of love. 
 
JOSIAH QUINCY. 
 
 181 
 
 JOSIAH QUIXCY. 
 
 This distinguished statesman and scholar was horn in Boston, on the 4th of 
 February, 1772. After the usual preparatory studies at Phillips Andover 
 Academy, he entered Harvard College, graduated in 1790, and then entered on 
 the practice of law in his native city. In 1797, he married Eliza Susan, daughter 
 of John Morton, a merchant of Xew York. In 1804, he was elected representa- 
 tive from Boston to the Congress of the United States, and held that station eight 
 successive years, until he declined a re-election in 1813, when he was chosen 
 senator from Suffolk County to the State Senate, which position he held till 1820. 
 The same year he was elected a member of the House of Representatives of Massa- 
 chusetts, and was made speaker at the opening of the session. In 1821, he was 
 appointed Judge of the Municipal Court, but resigned the office on his election as 
 Mayor of Boston in 1S23. He held the office of Mayor six successive years, 
 until he declined a re-election in December, 1S28. In January, 1S29, he was 
 called, to use his own words, "from the dust and clamor of the Capitol to the Pre- 
 sidency of Harvard University," and retained this office until his resignation in 
 1S45. Since that time he has held no public office, but is always ready to lend the 
 influence of his great name to aid every cause which he deems connected with the 
 public good or national honor. 
 
 Such is an outline of the public life of this great and good man, and true patriot. 
 He has held no office which he did not fill with singular fidelity, wisdom, and zeal. 
 With an ardor of temperament and energy of soul seldom equalled, he has ever 
 enlisted these high characteristics in the cause of truth, justice, liberty, humanity; 
 always pursuing the right rather than the seemingly expedient, convinced that in 
 the long run the right is the expedient. His rare moral courage has more than 
 once been put to the test, when he has stood alone, braving any amount of obloquy 
 for pursuing what he deemed the truth, and what duty demanded of him. When 
 he was in the House of Representatives of the United States, he took a position, 
 sometimes literally alone, against the war of 1S12, pronouncing it "an unjust, 
 unnecessary, and iniquitous war;" 1 and when in the Senate of his own State, in 
 reference to a recent naval victory, he presented the following : — " Resolved, as 
 the sense of the Senate of Massachusetts, that, in a war like the present, waged 
 without justifiable cause, and prosecuted in a manner which indicates that con- 
 quest and ambition are its real motives, it is not becoming a moral and religious 
 people to express any approbation of military or naval exploits, which are not 
 immediately connected with the defence of our sea-coast and soil." 
 
 As Mayor of Boston, Mr. Quincy showed uncommon energy, wisdom, and exe- 
 cutive power. At the earliest dawn, he might ofteu have been seen on horseback, 
 traversing the various streets and wharves and alleys, personally to inspect their 
 condition, and to see what improvements might be made. Some of his plans for 
 advancing the best interests of the city seemed at the time, to many cautious men, 
 altogether too extended and almost visionary : but time has proved that they were 
 conceived with wisdom, as they were executed with energy; and the " Hou?*>. of 
 
 1 For myself, I have not the least doubt that the calm and impartial judgment 
 of posteritv will fully endorse this sentiment. 
 
 16 
 
182 
 
 JOSIAH QUINCY. 
 
 Industry/' the " House of Reformation for Juvenile Offenders," as well as the 
 noble granite structure that bears his name, — " Quincy Market," — and numerous 
 other improvements, remain monuments of his wise and vigorous administration. 1 
 
 As President of Harvard College, Mr. Quincy exhibited equal fitness for guiding 
 affairs in academic shades. During his Presidency, debts were paid, endowments 
 secured, buildings renovated, and the general efficiency of this ancient institution 
 largely promoted. The LaAV School, under Judge Story, was enlarged, Dane and 
 Gore Halls were erected, and an Astronomical Observatory established. 
 
 Mr. Quincy is now enjoying a vigorous old age, at his ancestral estate in 
 Quincy ; and, though not taking an active part in public affairs, yet feels a warm 
 interest in them. And, when recently called on by his fellow-citizens, he lifted 
 up his eloquent and courageous voice against the further encroachments of 
 slavery, and urged the free States to exert their proportionate influence in the 
 affairs of the Government. 
 
 The literary productions of Mr. Quincy, besides his Speeches in Congress, and 
 Orations on Various Occasions, which have been published, are Memoir of JosiaJi 
 Quincy, Jr., of 3Iassachusctts, (his father;) Centennial Address on the Two Hun- 
 dredth Anniversary of the Settlement of Boston; A History of Harvard University, 
 2 vols. 8vo; Memoir of James Grahamc, Historian of U.S.; Memoir of Major 
 Samuel Shaw ; History of the Boston Athenaeum; and A Municipal History of the 
 Town and City of Boston from 1630 to 1830, 1 vol. 8vo, 1852. 2 His last work is a 
 Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams ; Boston, Phillips, Sampson & Co., 1S58. 3 
 
 THE LIMITS TO LAWS. 4 
 
 Mr. Chairman : — In relation to the subject now before us, 
 other gentlemen must take their responsibilities : I shall take 
 mine. This embargo must be repealed. You cannot enforce it 
 for any important period of time longer. When I speak of your 
 inability to enforce this law, let not gentlemen misunderstand me. 
 I mean not to intimate insurrections or open defiances of them; 
 although it is impossible to foresee in what acts that u oppression" 
 will finally terminate, which, we are told, " makes wise men mad." 
 I speak of an inability resulting from very different causes. The 
 
 1 His son Josiah was subsequently Mayor of Boston, inheriting all the noble and 
 generous characteristics of his father. 
 
 2 In the Presidential campaign of 1S50 he took the deepest interest, and pub- 
 lished an "Address illustrative of the Nature and Power of the Slave States, and 
 the Duties of the Pree States ; delivered at the Bequest of the Inhabitants of the 
 Town of Quincy, Mass." 
 
 3 It is enough to say in its praise that it is in all respects worthy of its venerable 
 and accomplished author. That it should be distinguished for research, as well as 
 a careful collation and happy arrangement of facts, is what we might suppose 
 from one whose scholarly taste has generally inclined him to historical subjects; 
 but that it should be written in a style of such unflagging vigor to the very 
 close, is what could hardly have been expected from an author of an age so far 
 beyond the period usually allotted to the life of man. 
 
 4 Extract from the Speech of Josiah Quincy, delivered in the House of Bepre- 
 sentatives of the United States, November 28, 1808. 
 
JOSIAH QUINCY. 
 
 183 
 
 gentleman from North Carolina exclaimed the other day, in a 
 strain of patriotic ardor, " What ! Shall not our laws be executed ? 
 Shall their authority be defied ? I am for enforcing them, at 
 every hazard." I honor that gentleman's zeal ; and I mean no 
 deviation from that true respect I entertain for him, when I tell 
 him that, in this instance, " his zeal is not according to know- 
 ledge." 
 
 1 ask this House, is there no control to its authority ? is there 
 no limit to the power of this national legislature ? I hope I shall 
 offend no man when I intimate that two limits exist, — nature and 
 the constitution. Should this House undertake to declare that 
 this atmosphere should no longer surround us, that water should 
 cease to flow, that gravity should not hereafter operate, that the 
 needle should not vibrate to the pole, — sir, I hope I shall not 
 offend, — I think I may venture to affirm that, such a law to the 
 contrary notwithstanding, the air would continue to circulate, the 
 Mississippi, the Hudson, and the Potomac would roll their floods 
 to the ocean, heavy bodies continue to descend, and the myste- 
 rious magnet hold on its course to its celestial cynosure. 
 
 Just as utterly absurd and contrary to nature is it to attempt to 
 prohibit the people of New England, for any considerable length 
 of time, from the ocean. Commerce is not only associated with 
 all the feelings, the habits, the interests, and relations of that 
 people, but the nature of our soil and of our coasts, the state of 
 our population and its mode of distribution over our territory, 
 render it indispensable. We have five hundred miles of sea-coast, 
 all furnished with harbors, bays, creeks, rivers, inlets, basins, 
 with every variety of invitation to the sea, with every species of 
 facility to violate such laws as these. Our people are not scat- 
 tered over an immense surface, at a solemn distance from each 
 other, in lordly retirement, in the midst of extended plantations 
 and intervening wastes : they are collected on the margin of the 
 ocean, by the sides of rivers, at the heads of bays, looking into 
 the water, or on the surface of it, for the incitement and the re- 
 ward of their industry. Among a people thus situated, thus edu- 
 cated, thus numerous, laws, prohibiting them from the exercise 
 of their natural rights, will have a binding effect not one moment 
 longer than the public sentiment supports them. Gentlemen talk 
 of twelve revenue cutters additional, to enforce the embargo laws. 
 Multiply the number by twelve, multiply it by an hundred, join 
 all your ships of war, all your gun-boats, and all your militia, in 
 despite of them all, such laws as these are of no avail when they 
 become odious to public sentiment. 
 
184 
 
 JOSIAH QUINCY. 
 
 AN EMBARGO LIBERTY. 
 
 An embargo Liberty was never cradled in Massachusetts. Our 
 Liberty was not so much a mountain as a sea nymph. She was 
 free as air. She could swim or she could run. The ocean was 
 her cradle. Our fathers met her as she came, like the goddess of 
 beauty from the waves. They caught her as she was sporting on 
 the beach. They courted her whilst she was spreading her nets 
 upon the rocks. But an embargo Liberty; a handcuffed Liberty; 
 a Liberty in fetters ; a Liberty traversing between the four sides 
 of a prison, and beating her head against the walls, is none of our 
 offspring. We abjure the monster. Its parentage is all inland. 
 
 NEAV ENGLAND. 1 
 
 What lessons has New England, in every period of her history, 
 given to the world ! What lessons do her condition and example 
 still give ! How unprecedented ; yet how practical ! how simple ; 
 yet how powerful ! She has proved that all the variety of Chris- 
 tian sects may live together in harmony, under a government 
 which allows equal privileges to all, — exclusive pre-eminence to 
 none. She has proved that ignorance among the multitude is not 
 necessary to order, but that the surest basis of perfect order is the 
 information of the people. She has proved the old maxim, that 
 " no government, except a despotism with a standing army, can 
 subsist where the people have arms/' is false. 
 
 Such are the true glories of the institutions of our fathers ! 
 Such the natural fruits of that patience in toil, that frugality of 
 disposition, that temperance of habit, that general diffusion of 
 knowledge, and that sense of religious responsibility, inculcated 
 by the precepts, and exhibited in the example, of every generation 
 of our ancestors ! * * * 
 
 What, then, are the elements of the liberty, prosperity, and 
 safety which the inhabitants of New England at this day enjoy ? 
 In what language, and concerning what comprehensive truths, 
 does the wisdom of former times address the inexperience of the 
 future ? 
 
 Those elements are simple, obvious, and familiar. 
 
 Every civil and religious blessing of New England, all that 
 here gives happiness to human life, or security to human virtue, is 
 alone to be perpetuated in the forms and under the auspices of a 
 free commonwealth. 
 
 1 From the "Centennial Address," delivered in Boston, September 17, 1830, at 
 the close of the second century from the first settlement of the city. 
 
JOSIAII QUINCY. 
 
 185 
 
 The commonwealth itself has no other strength or hope than the 
 intelligence and virtue of the individuals that compose it. 
 
 For the intelligence and virtue of individuals, there is no other 
 human assurance than laws, providing for the education of the 
 whole people. 
 
 These laws themselves have no strength, or efficient sanction, 
 except in the moral and accountable nature of man, disclosed in 
 the records of the Christian's faith ; the right to read, to construe, 
 and to judge concerning which, belongs to no class or caste of men, 
 but exclusively to the individual, who must stand or fall by his 
 own acts and his own faith, and not by those of another. 
 
 The great comprehensive truths, written in letters of living- 
 light on every page of our history, — the language addressed by 
 every past age of New England to all future ages is this : Human 
 happiness has no perfect security but freedom ; — freedom none but 
 virtue ; — virtue none but knowledge ; and neither freedom, nor 
 virtue, nor knowledge has any vigor, or immortal hope, except in 
 the principles of the Christian faith, and in the sanctions of the 
 C hristian religion. 
 
 Men of Massachusetts ! citizens of Boston ! descendants of the 
 early emigrants ! consider your blessings ; consider your duties. 
 » You have an inheritance acquired by the labors and sufferings of 
 six successive generations of ancestors. They founded the fabric 
 of your prosperity, in a severe and masculine morality j having 
 intelligence for its cement, and religion for its ground-work. Con- 
 tinue to build on the same foundation, and by the same principles ; 
 let the extending temple of your country's freedom rise, in the 
 spirit of ancient times, in proportions of intellectual and moral 
 architecture, — just, simple, and sublime. As from the first to this 
 day, let New England continue to be an example to the world, of 
 the blessings of a free government, and of the means and capacity 
 of man to maintain it ! And, in all times to come, as in all times 
 past, may Boston be among the foremost and the boldest to exem- 
 plify and uphold whatever constitutes the prosperity, the happi- 
 ness, and the glory of New England ! 
 
 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 
 
 The life of a statesman second to none in diligent and effective 
 preparation for public service, and faithful and fearless fulfilment 
 of public duty, has now been sketched, chiefly from materials 
 taken from his published works. The light of his own mind has 
 been thrown on his labors, motives, principles, and spirit. In 
 times better adapted to appreciate his worth, his merits and vir- 
 tues will receive a more enduring memorial. The present is not a 
 moment propitious to weigh them in a true balance. He knew 
 
 16* 
 
186 
 
 ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER. 
 
 how little a majority of the men of his own time were disposed 
 or qualified to estimate his character with justice. To a future 
 age he was accustomed to look with confidence. "Altero seccido" 
 was the appeal made by him through his whole life, and is now 
 engraven on his monument. The basis of his moral character 
 was the religious principle. His spirit of liberty was fostered and 
 inspired by the writings of Milton, Sydney, and Locke, of which 
 the American Declaration of Independence was an emanation, and 
 the Constitution of the United States — with the exception of the 
 clauses conceded to slavery — an embodiment. He was the asso- 
 ciate of statesmen and diplomatists at a crisis when war and deso- 
 lation swept over Europe, when monarchs were perplexed with 
 fear of change, and the welfare of the United States was involved 
 in the common danger. 
 
 After leading the councils which restored peace to conflicting 
 nations, he returned to support the administration of a veteran 
 statesman, and then wielded the chief powers of the republic with 
 unsurpassed purity and steadiness of purpose, energy, and wisdom. 
 Kemoved by fiction from the helm of state, he re-entered the 
 national councils, and, in his old age, stood panoplied in the prin- 
 ciples of Washington and his associates, the ablest and most 
 dreaded champion of freedom, until, from the station assigned him • 
 by his country, he departed, happy in a life devoted to duty, in a 
 death crowned with every honor his country could bestow, and 
 blessed with the hope which inspires those who defend the rights, 
 and uphold, when menaced, momentous interests of mankind. 
 
 Close of the Memoir of J. Q. Adams. 
 
 ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER, 1772—1851. 
 
 The ancestors of Archibald Alexander were from the north of Ireland, and 
 emigrated to Virginia in 1737. He was the son of William Alexander, and was 
 born near Lexington, Rockbridge County, Virginia, April 17, 1772. In 1789, he 
 became the subject of a "revival of religion" at his native place; and, in 1791, 
 was licensed to preach the gospel by the Lexington Presbytery. In 1796, he 
 accepted the Presidency of Hampden Sidney College, at that time in rather a 
 languishing condition, and soon, by his wisdom and energy, imparted to it a 
 more healthful and vigorous tone. He was often sent as a delegate to the Gene- 
 ral Assembly, which usually met in Philadelphia ; and in 1S06 he accepted a call 
 from the Pine Street Church of that city, of which he continued pastor for six 
 years. In 1810, the degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon him by the 
 College of New Jersey; and, two years after, the General Assembly having esta- 
 blished at Princeton a Theological Seminary, Dr. Alexander was chosen Professor 
 of Didactic and Polemic Theology. Here he continued in the laborious discharge 
 
ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER. 
 
 187 
 
 of the duties of his professorship, with great ability and success, until within a 
 short period of his death, which occurred on the 22d of October, 1S51. 1 
 
 That there have been some in the clerical profession of more learning, genius, 
 and pulpit-eloquence than Dr. Alexander, none will deny; but no one has pos- 
 sessed iu a higher degree that rare combination of every great and good quality, 
 of wisdom and piety, which makes, on the whole, the deepest impression and 
 exerts the widest influence. Men of all classes felt his power alike. Beyond any 
 minister of his day, his preaching was equally acceptable to the learned and the 
 illiterate, the old and the young, the untutored and the refined; and the works 
 he has left, replete with wisdom, and instruction, and pious counsel, will remain 
 an ever-enduring monument to his exalted worth. 
 
 THE RIGHT USE OE REASON IN RELIGION. 
 
 That it is the right and the duty of all men to exercise their 
 reason in inquiries concerning religion, is a truth so manifest that 
 it may be presumed there are none who will be disposed to call it 
 in question. 
 
 Without reason there can be no religion j for in every step 
 which we take in examining the evidences of revelation, in inter- 
 preting its meaning, or in assenting to its doctrines, the exercise 
 of this faculty is indispensable. 
 
 When the evidences of Christianity are exhibited, an appeal is 
 made to the reason of men for its truth • but all evidence and all 
 argument would be perfectly futile if reason were not permitted 
 to judge of their force. This noble faculty was certainly given to 
 man to be a guide in religion as well as in other things. He 
 possesses no other means by which he can form a judgment on 
 any subject or assent to an} 7 truth; and it would be no more ab- 
 surd to talk of seeing without eyes than of knowing any thing 
 without reason. 
 
 It is therefore a great mistake to suppose that religion forbids 
 or discourages the right use of reason. So far from this, she 
 enjoins it as a duty of high moral obligation, and reproves those 
 who neglect to judge for themselves what is right. 
 
 But it has frequently been said by the friends of revelation, 
 that although reason is legitimately exercised in examining the 
 evidences of revelation and in determining the sense of the words 
 by which it is conveyed, yet it is not within her province to sit 
 
 1 At the end of the life of this good man, by his son, James W. Alexander, D.D., 
 may be found a list of his various publications. They are fifty-two in number, 
 including sermons and pamphlets. The following are the principal ones : — Evi- 
 dences of the Christian Religion, 12mo, 1S25 ; The Canon of the Old Testament 
 Ascertained, 12mo; Biographical Sketches of the Founder and Principal Alumni of 
 the Log College, 12mo; A History of the Colonization of the Western Coast of Africa, 
 8vo; A History of the Israelitish Nation, Svo; Outlines of Jforal Science, 12mo; 
 Letters to the Aged, ISmo ; Counsels of the Aged to the Young, 18mo; Thoughts on 
 lifligious Experience, 12mo; The Way of Salvation Familiarly Explained, in a 
 Conversation between a Father and his Children, ISnio. 
 
\88 
 
 ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER. 
 
 in judgment on the doctrines contained in such a divine com- 
 munication. This statement is not altogether accurate. For 
 it is manifest that Ave can form no conception of a truth of any- 
 kind without reason; and when we receive any thing as true, 
 whatever may be the evidence on which it is founded, we must 
 view the reception of it to be reasonable. Truth and reason are 
 so intimately connected, that they can never with propriety be 
 separated. Truth is the object, and reason the faculty by which 
 it is apprehended, whatever be the nature of the truth or of the 
 evidence by which it is established. No doctrine can be a proper 
 object of our faith which it is not more reasonable to receive than 
 to reject. If a book, claiming to be a divine revelation, is found 
 to contain doctrines which can in no way be reconciled to right 
 reason, it is a sure evidence that those claims have no solid 
 foundation, and ought to be rejected. But that a revelation 
 should contain doctrines of a mysterious and incomprehensible 
 nature, and entirely different from all our previous conceptions, 
 and, considered in themselves, improbable, is not repugnant to 
 reason; on the contrary, judging from analogy, sound reason 
 would lead us to expect such things in a revelation from God. 
 Every thing which relates to this infinite Being must be to us, in 
 some respect, incomprehensible. Every new truth must be dif- 
 ferent from all that is already known ; and all the plans and 
 works of God are very far above and beyond the conception of 
 >uch minds as ours. Natural religion has as great mysteries as 
 my in revelation ; and the created universe, as it exists, is as 
 iiffercnt from any plan which men would have conceived, as any 
 :>f the truths contained in a revelation can be. 
 
 But it is reasonable to believe what by our senses we perceive 
 to exist ; and it is reasonable to believe whatever God declares to 
 be true. 
 
 In receiving, therefore, the most mysterious doctrines of reve- 
 lation, the ultimate appeal is to reason. Not to determine whether 
 she could have discovered these truths, not to declare whether, 
 considered in themselves, they appear probable, but to decide 
 whether it is not more reasonable to believe what God speaks 
 than to confide in our own crude and feeble conceptions. Just as 
 if an unlearned man should hear an able astronomer declare that 
 the diurnal motion of the heavens is not real, but only apparent, 
 or that the sun was nearer to the earth in winter than in summer; 
 although the facts asserted appeared to contradict his senses, yet 
 it would be reasonable to acquiesce in the declarations made to 
 him by one who understood the subject and in whose veracity he 
 had confidence. If, then, we receive the witness of men in mat- 
 ters above our comprehension, much more should we receive the 
 witness of God. 
 
I 
 
 ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER. 189 
 THE BIBLE. 
 
 The Bible evidently transcends all human effort. It has upon 
 its face the impress of divinity. It shines with a light which, 
 from its clearness and its splendor, shows itself to be celestial. It 
 possesses the energy and penetrating influence which bespeak the 
 omnipotence and omniscience of its Author. It has the effect of 
 enlightening, elevating, purifying, directing, and comforting all 
 those who cordially receive it. Surely, then, it is the word of 
 God, and we will hold it fast, as the best blessing which God has 
 vouchsafed to man. 
 
 THE CONSOLATIONS OF THE GOSPEL, 
 
 There is an efficacy in the truths of the Bible, not only to guide 
 and sanctify, but also to afford consolation to the afflicted in body 
 or mind. Indeed, the gospel brings peace into every bosom where 
 it is cordially received. When the conscience is pierced with the 
 stings of guilt, and the soul writhes under a wound which no 
 human medicine can heal, the promises of the gospel are like the 
 balm of Gilead, a sovereign cure for this intolerable and deeply- 
 seated malady. Under their cheering influence, the broken spirit 
 is healed, and the burden of despair is removed far away. The 
 gospel, like an angel of mercy, can bring consolation into the 
 darkest scenes of adversity : it can penetrate the dungeon, and 
 soothe the sorrows of the penitent in his chains and on his bed of 
 straw. It mitigates the sorrows of the bereaved, and wipes away 
 the bitter tears occasioned by the painful separation of affectionate 
 friends and relatives. By the bright prospects which it opens, 
 and the lively hopes which it inspires, the darkness of the tomb 
 is illuminated, so that Christians are enabled, in faith of the 
 resurrection of the body, to commit the remains of their dearest 
 friends to the secure sepulchre, in confident hope that after a 
 short sleep they will awake to life everlasting. 
 
 The cottages of the poor are often blessed with the consolations 
 of the gospel, which is peculiarly adapted to the children of afflic- 
 tion and poverty. It was one of the signs of Jesus being the true 
 Messiah " that the poor had the gospel preached unto them." Among 
 them it produces contentment, resignation, mutual kindness, and 
 the longing after immortality. The aged and infirm, who, by the 
 gradual failure of their faculties, or by disease and decrepitude, 
 are shut out from the business and enjoyments of this world, may 
 find in the word of God a fountain of consolation. They may, 
 while imbued with its celestial spirit, look upon the world without 
 the least regret for its loss, and may rejoice in the prospect before 
 them, with a joy unspeakable and full of glory. The gospel can 
 
190 ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER. 
 
 render tolerable even the yoke of slavery and the chains of the 
 oppressor. How often is the pious slave, through the blessed in- 
 fluence of the word of God, a thousand times happier than his 
 lordly master ! He cares not for this short deprivation of liberty ; 
 he knows and feels that he is " Christ's freeman," and believes 
 " that all things work together for his good," and that " these 
 light afflictions, which are for a moment, will work out for him 
 a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory I" 
 
 But, moreover, this glorious gospel is an antidote to death itself. 
 He that does the sayings of Christ shall never taste of death: 
 that is, of death as a curse ; he shall never feel the envenomed 
 sting of death. How often does it overspread the spirit of the 
 departing saint with serenity ! How often does it elevate, and fill 
 with celestial joy, the soul which is just leaving the earthly house 
 of this tabernacle ! It actually renders, in many instances, the 
 bed of the dying a place of sweet repose. No terrors hover over 
 them ; no anxious care corrodes their spirit ; no burden oppresses 
 the heart. All is light; all is hope and assurance; all is joy and 
 triumph ! 
 
 Oh, precious gospel ! Will any merciless hand endeavor to 
 tear away from our hearts this best, this last, this sweetest con- 
 solation ? Would you darken the only avenue through which one 
 ray of hope can enter ? Would you tear from the aged and infirm 
 poor the only prop on which their souls can repose in peace ? 
 Would you deprive the dying of their only source of consolation ? 
 Would you rob the world of its richest treasure ? Would you let 
 loose the floodgates of every vice, and bring back upon the earth 
 the horrors of superstition or the atrocities of atheism ? Then 
 endeavor to subvert the gospel; throw around you the firebrands 
 of infidelity ; laugh at religion, and make a mock of futurity ; but 
 be assured that for all these things Grod will bring you into judg- 
 ment. 1 
 
 1 In Sprague's "Annals of the American Pulpit," vol. iii., may be found two 
 very interesting letters upon the character, the learning, the pulpit-eloquence, and 
 the personal manners and habits of Dr. Alexander, — one by John Hall, D.D., 
 and the other by Henry A. Boardman, D.I). 
 
 Two of Dr. Alexander's sons are highly distinguished as scholars as well 
 as theologians. Rev. James Waddel Alexander, D.I)., pastor of a Presbyterian 
 church in New York, has published a Life of his father; Consolation, in Discourses 
 on Select Topics; American Mechanic and Working-Man; The Merchant's Clerk 
 Cheered and Counselled ; Plain Words to a Young Communicant; American Sun- 
 day-School and its Adjuncts. Rev. Joseph Addison Alexander, Professor in the 
 Theological Seminary in Princeton, has published Critical Commentaries on Isaiah, 
 
 2 vols. ; Acts of the Apostles Explained; The Psalms, Translated and Explained, 
 
 3 vols. They both have been frequent contributors to that able religious quar- 
 terly, " The Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review," which was begun by Pro- 
 fessor Hodge in 1825, and has continued mostly under his direction to the pre- 
 sent time, (1859.) 
 
WILLIAM WIRT. 
 
 191 
 
 WILLIAM WIRT, 1772—1834. 
 
 William Whit, the son of Jacob and Henrietta Wirt, was born in Bladensburg, 
 Maryland, on the 8th of November, 1772. His father died when he was an infant, 
 and his mother when he was but eight years old. 1 An orphan at this tender age, 
 he passed into the family and under the guardianship of his uncle, Jasper Wirt, 
 who resided near the same village. His uncle and aunt did all they could to sup- 
 ply the place of the father and mother, and sent him to a classical school in 
 Georgetown, taught by a Mr. Dent. At the age of eleven, he was removed to a 
 flourishing school kept by the Rev. James Hunt, in Montgomery County, Mary- 
 land, where he received the principal part of his education ; having learned as 
 much of the Latin and Greek classics as was then taught in grammai'-schools. 
 
 In the spring of 1790, he entered upon the study of law, at Montgomery Court- 
 House, with Mr. William P. Hunt, the son of his old preceptor; and in 1792 com- 
 menced practice at Culpepper Court-House, in Virginia, at the age of twenty 
 years. In a year or two his business had considerably extended, and in 1795 he 
 married the eldest daughter of Dr. George Gilmer, a distinguished physician, and 
 took up his residence at Pen Park, the seat of his father-in-law, near Charlottes- 
 ville, where he formed the acquaintance of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and other 
 persons of celebrity. In 1799, his wife died. In 1800, his friends urged him to 
 allow himself to be nominated as clerk to the House of Delegates. He was 
 elected j and after having performed the duties of this office two years, he was, 
 in 1802, appointed Chancellor of the Eastern District of Virginia, and took up 
 his residence at Williamsburg. In the same year, he married Elizabeth, the 
 daughter of Colonel Gamble, of Richmond, 2 with whom he enjoyed, through life, 
 
 1 Mr. Wirt's father was a Swiss, his mother a German ; and his face and figure 
 clearly showed his connection with the German race. 
 
 Read an excellent biographical sketch, by Peter Hoffman Cruse, of Baltimore, 
 prefixed to an edition of " The British Spy" published by the Harpers in 1832. 
 But the best life of Mr. Wirt is by John P. Kennedy, Esq., of Baltimore. Mr. 
 Kennedy was born in Baltimore in 1795, graduated at Baltimore College in 1812, 
 and was admitted to the bar in 1816. He has been a most successful lawyer, an 
 eminent politician, (having been twice elected to the House of Delegates in Mary- 
 land, and twice to our National Congress,) and an author of much eminence in 
 fictitious literature. His principal works are, " Swallow Barn/' published in 
 1832: " Horse-Shoe Robinson," 1835; "Rob of the Bowl," 1S38. But the work 
 by which he will be best known is his Life of Wirt, — an admirably-written piece 
 of biography, by which he has associated his own name imperishably with that 
 of his illustrious friend. 
 
 2 "Of all the fortunate incidents in the life of William Wirt, his marriage with 
 this lady may be accounted the most auspicious. During the long term of their 
 wedlock, distinguished for its happy influence upon the fortunes of both, her 
 admirable virtues in the character of wife and mother, her tender affection and 
 watchful solicitude in every thing that interested his domestic regard, and in all 
 that concerned his public repute, commanded from him a devotion which, to the 
 last moment of his life, glowed with an ardor that might almost be called 
 romantic." — Kennedy's Life. 
 
 Mrs. Wirt died at Annapolis, Md., at the house of her daughter Elizabeth, (Mrs, 
 Goldsborough,) January 21, 1857, in the seventy-fourth year of her age. 
 
192 
 
 WILLIAM WIRT. 
 
 the greatest domestic happiness. She united to every virtue of the wife and the 
 mother, literary attainments of no ordinary character. 1 
 
 At the close of the year 1803, Mr. Wirt removed to Norfolk, and entered upon 
 the assiduous practice of his profession. Just before this, he wrote the celebrated 
 letters published in the " Richmond Argus" under the title of The British Spy, 
 which were afterwards collected into a small volume, and have passed through 
 numerous editions. In 180G, he took up his residence at Richmond, believing 
 that he could there find a wider and more lucrative professional field ; and in this 
 city he remained till his appointment to the Attorney-Generalship of the United 
 States. In the next year, he greatly distinguished himself in the trial of Aaron 
 Burr for high treason. Few trials in any country ever excited a greater sensa- 
 tion than this, both from the nature of the accusation and the eminent talents and 
 political station of the accused. Mr. Wirt's speech, occupying four hours, was 
 distinguished for its fine fancy, polished wit, keen repartee, elegant and apposite 
 illustration, and logical reasoning, and placed him at once in the rank of the very 
 first advocates in the country. 
 
 In 1S08, he was elected a member of the Virginia House of Delegates for the 
 city of Richmond. It was the first as well as the last time he ever sat in any 
 legislative body, as he preferred the more congenial pursuits of his profession. In 
 1812, he wrote the greater part of a series of essays originally published in the 
 "Richmond Enquirer" under the title of The Old Bachelor, which have since, 
 in a collective form, passed through several editions. 2 The Life of Patrick Henri/, 
 the largest of his literary productions, was first published in 1817. 
 
 In 1816, he was appointed by Mr. Madison the United States Attorney for the 
 District of Virginia. In 1817, he removed to Washington, having been appointed 
 by Mr. Monroe Attorney-General of the United States, a post which he occupied 
 with high reputation till 1828. In the latter part of this year, he removed to 
 Baltimore, where he resided for the rest of his life. Previous to this, in October, 
 1S2G, he pronounced a discourse on the lives and character of Adams and Jeffer- 
 son, one of the best of his literary efforts, and worthy of the impressive occasion 
 on which it was delivered. In 1830, he delivered an address before one of the 
 
 1 One proof of her extensive reading, as well as of her delicate taste, is the work 
 she published in 1829, entitled " Flora's Dictionary ; by a Lady." As far as my 
 knowledge goes, it was the first of the kind published in our country, and I think 
 it has never been excelled by any of its numerous competitors. The poetical selec- 
 tions are very tasteful and apposite, and are enriched here and there by original 
 contributions from poetical friends. 
 
 2 « Wirt's papers in the ' Old Bachelor' are undoubtedly the best of all his lite- 
 rary compositions; and in the perusal of them we are constantly led to repeat our 
 regrets that one so endowed with the most valuable and pleasant gifts of author- 
 ship had not been favored by fortune with more leisure and opportunity for the 
 cultivation and empkvyment of a talent so auspicious to his own fame, and so well 
 adapted to benefit his country." — Kennedy's Life. 
 
 The "Old Bachelor" reached thirty-three numbers. It is a series of didactic 
 and ethical essays, put together somewhat after the manner of the Spectator. In 
 the dramatis personsc, the chief part is borne by Dr. Cecil, written by Wirt himself, 
 and engrossing much the largest share of the whole. The other contributors 
 were Dabney Carr, Judge Tucker, George Tucker, Dr. Frank Carr, and R. E. 
 Parker. 
 
WILLIAM WIRT. 
 
 193 
 
 literary societies of Rutgers College; 1 and in 1831 the Anti-Masonic Convention 
 that assembled in Baltimore nominated him as their candidate for the Presidency 
 of the United States. Though he obtained but the vote of a single State, Ver- 
 mont, it was generally felt that the election of such a man would be an honor to 
 the country. 
 
 Mr. Wirt was engaged in a cause which was to come before the Supreme Court 
 on Monday, February 10, 1834. The evening before, he felt unwell, and the next 
 day he was confined to his room. On Wednesday he was much worse, and his 
 disease was pronounced to be erysipelas. On Saturday all hopes of his life were 
 given up. About noon on Monday, consciousness had returned, and he had 
 power to speak a few words. Nature had made a last effort to enable him to take 
 leave of his family and friends, to give them assurance that he died in Christian 
 hope, and to join with them in prayer to God. During the last eighteen hours, he 
 was tranquil as a child ; and at eleven o'clock on Tuesday morning, February 18, 
 he breathed his last, leaving a nation to mourn his loss. 
 
 As a public and professional man, Mr. Wirt may be ranked among the first 
 men of our country; and in all the relations of private life, as a man and a 
 Christian, he was most exemplary. In person he was strikingly elegant and com- 
 manding, with a face of the first order of masculine beauty, animated, and express- 
 ing high intellect. His voice was clear and musical, and gave a fascinating 
 power to his eloquence. If to these attractions we add a diction of great force, 
 purity, variety, and splendor, a wit prompt, pure, and brilliant, and an imagi- 
 nation both vivid and playful, we have some idea of the character of the man 
 who was the charm of every social circle, and who was regarded by all who knew 
 him with singular affection and veneration. 2 
 
 THE BLIND PREACHER. 3 
 
 It was one Sunday, as I travelled through the county of Orange, 
 that my eye was caught by a cluster of horses tied near a ruinous, 
 old wooden house in the forest, not far from the roadside. Having 
 
 1 This admirable address has been republished in England, and also in France 
 and Germany. 
 
 2 I trust I shall be pardoned for introducing an anecdote of a personal character, 
 to show Mr. Wirt's estimation of the educational profession. I had seen him two 
 or three times at his house in Washington, before he removed to Baltimore, in 
 1828 ; and a few days after he had settled in that city he called at my school, to 
 place his three boys under my care. On taking leave of me, he most cordially in- 
 vited me to visit his family at all times, concluding with this remark : — " There 
 are three persons, Mr. Cleveland, to whom my house is always open, and with 
 whom I wish to be on intimate terms of friendship and social intercourse, — my 
 clergyman, the teacher of my children, and my physician." Accepting his cordial 
 invitation, I had every opportunity of observing his character in private and 
 social intercourse ; and I can truly say that it fell short in nothing that the 
 most ardent admirer of his talents, eloquence, and public character could desire. 
 How few parents, comparatively, have such a right sense of what is due to the 
 teacher of their children, or indeed any just appx-eciation of the moral dignity of 
 the educational profession ! 
 
 3 The " Blind Preacher," thus described hy Mr.Wirt in 1803, was the Rev. James 
 Waddel, born in Ireland in 1739, and brought here in his infancy by his parents, 
 who settled in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. He became a fine classical scholar, 
 
 17 
 
194 
 
 WILLIAM WIRT. 
 
 frequently seen such objects before in travelling through these 
 States, I had no difficulty in understanding that this was a place 
 of religious worship. 
 
 Devotion alone should have stopped me, to join in the duties of 
 the congregation j but I must confess that curiosity to hear the 
 preacher of such a wilderness was not the least of my motives. On 
 entering, I was struck with his preternatural appearance. He was 
 a tall and very spare old man ; his head, which was covered with 
 a white linen cap, his shrivelled hands, and his voice, were all 
 shaking under the influence of a palsy ; and a few moments ascer- 
 tained to me that he was perfectly blind. 
 
 The first emotions which touched my breast were those of min- 
 gled pity and veneration. But ah ! how soon were all my feelings 
 changed ! The lips of Plato were never more worthy of a prog- 
 nostic swarm of bees than were the lips of this holy man ! It was 
 a day of the administration of the sacrament; and his subject, of 
 course, was the passion of our Saviour. I had heard the subject 
 handled a thousand times; I had thought it exhausted long 
 ago. Little did I suppose that in the wild woods of America 
 I was to meet with a man whose eloquence would give to this 
 topic a new and more sublime pathos than I had ever before 
 witnessed. 
 
 As he descended from the pulpit to distribute the mystic sym- 
 bols, there was a peculiar, a more than human, solemnity in his 
 air and manner, which made my blood run cold, and my whole 
 frame shiver. 
 
 He then drew a picture of the sufferings of our Saviour; his 
 trial before Pilate; his ascent up Calvary; his crucifixion, and his 
 death. I knew the whole history; but never, until then, had I 
 heard the circumstances so selected, so arranged, so colored. It 
 was all new ; and I seemed to have heard it for the first time in 
 my life. His enunciation was so deliberate, that his voice trem- 
 bled on every syllable ; and every heart in the assembly trembled 
 in unison. His peculiar phrases had that force of description, 
 that the original scene appeared to be, at that moment, acting be- 
 fore our eyes. We saw the very faces of the Jews ; the staring, 
 
 and first concluded to devote his life to teaching;. But, his views undergoing a 
 change, he determined to enter the ministry, and he was licensed in 1761, and 
 settled over a Presbyterian church in Lancaster County. In 1776, he removed to 
 Virginia; and, his salary being small, he received some pupils for classical in- 
 struction in his own house. He resided in Louisa County for twenty years, and 
 died there. He lost his eyesight the latter part of his life. Patrick Henry pro- 
 nounced him the greatest orator he ever heard. The late Dr. Archibald Alex- 
 ander married one of his daughters, and hence the middle name of the Rev. James 
 Waddel Alexander, D.D., of New York. To the latter Mr. Wirt stated, in 1830, 
 that, so far from having colored too highly the picture of his eloquence, he had 
 fallen below the truth. 
 
WILLIAM WIRT. 
 
 195 
 
 frightful distortions of malice and rage. We saw the buffet : my 
 soul kindled with a flame of indignation, and my hands were in- 
 voluntarily and convulsively clenched. 
 
 But when he came to touch on the patience, the forgiving meek- 
 ness of our Saviour ; when he drew, to the life, his blessed eyes 
 streaming in tears to heaven j his voice breathing to God a soft 
 and gentle prayer of pardon on his enemies, " Father, forgive 
 them, for they know not what they do," — the voice of the preacher, 
 which had all along faltered, grew fainter and fainter, until, his 
 utterance being entirely obstructed by the force of his feelings, 
 he raised his handkerchief to his eyes, and burst into a loud and 
 irrepressible flood of grief. The effect is inconceivable. The 
 whole house resounded with the mingled groans, and sobs, and 
 shrieks of the congregation. 
 
 It was some time before the tumult had subsided so far as to 
 permit him to proceed. Indeed, judging by the usual, but falla- 
 cious, standard of my own weakness, I began to be very uneasy 
 for the situation of the preacher. For I could not conceive how 
 he would be able to let his audience down from the height to 
 which he had wound them, without impairing the solemnity and 
 dignity of his subject, or perhaps shocking them by the abruptness 
 of the fall. But no ; the descent was as beautiful and sublime 
 as the elevation had been rapid and enthusiastic. 
 
 The first sentence with which he broke the awful silence was a 
 quotation from Rousseau : — u Socrates died like a philosopher, but 
 Jesus Christ, like a Grod l M 
 
 I despair of giving you any idea of the effect produced by this 
 short sentence, unless you could perfectly conceive the whole man- 
 ner of the man, as well as the peculiar crisis in the discourse. 
 Never before did I completely understand what Demosthenes 
 meant by laying such stress on deliver?/. You are to bring before 
 you the venerable figure of the preacher j his blindness, constantly 
 recalling to your recollection old Homer, Ossian, and Milton, and 
 associating with his performance the melancholy grandeur of their 
 geniuses j you are to imagine that you hear his slow, solemn, well- 
 accented enunciation, and his voice of affecting, trembling melody; 
 you are to remember the pitch of passion and enthusiasm to which 
 the congregation were raised ; and then the few minutes of por- 
 tentous, death-like silence which reigned throughout the house ; 
 the preacher removing his white handkerchief from his aged face, 
 (even yet wet from the recent torrent of his tears,) and, slowly 
 stretching forth the palsied hand which holds it, begins the sen- 
 tence, " Socrates died like a philosopher," then pausing, raising 
 his other hand, pressing them both clasped together with warmth 
 and energy to his breast, lifting his " sightless balls" to heaven, 
 and pouring his whole soul into his tremulous voice, — " but 
 
196 
 
 WILLIAM WIRT. 
 
 Jesus Christ, like a God !" If he had been indeed and in truth 
 an angel of light, the effect could scarcely have been more divine. 
 
 British Spy. 
 
 THE POWER OF KINDNESS. 1 
 
 I want to tell you a secret. The way to make yourself pleasing 
 to others is to show that you care for them. The whole world is 
 like the miller of 31ansfield, "who cared for nobody — no, not he 
 — because nobody cared for him and the whole world will serve 
 you so if you give them the same cause. Let every one, there- 
 fore, see that you do care for them, by showing them what Sterne 
 so happily calls " the small, sweet courtesies of life/' — those 
 courtesies in which there is no parade, whose voice is too still to 
 teaze, and which manifest themselves by tender and affectionate 
 looks, and little, kind acts of attention, — giving others the pre- 
 ference in every little enjoyment at the table, in the field, walk- 
 ing, sitting, or standing. This is the spirit that gives to your 
 time of life and to your sex its sweetest charm. It constitutes 
 the sum-total of all the witchcraft of woman. Let the world see 
 that your first care is for yourself, and you will spread the soli- 
 tude of the Upas-tree around you, a.nd in the same way, by the 
 emanation of a poison which kills all the kindly juices of affection 
 in its neighborhood. Such a girl may be admired for her under- 
 standing and accomplishments, but she will never be beloved. 
 The seeds of love can never grow but under the warm and genial 
 influence of kind feeling and affectionate manners. Vivacity goes 
 a great way in young persons. It calls attention to her who dis- 
 plays it, and, if it then be found associated with a generous sensi- 
 bility, its execution is irresistible. On the contrary, if it be found 
 in alliance with a cold, haughty, selfish heart, it produces no far- 
 ther effect, except an adverse one. Attend to this, my daughter : 
 it flows from a heart that feels for you all the anxiety a parent 
 can feel, and not without the hope which constitutes the parent's 
 highest happiness. May Grod protect and bless you ! 
 
 COMMON SENSE. 2 
 
 Common sense is a much rarer quality than genius. This may 
 sound to you a little paradoxical at first, but you will find it true ; 
 for common sense is not, as superficial thinkers are apt to sup- 
 pose, a mere negative faculty : it is a positive faculty, and one 
 of the highest power. It is this faculty that instructs us when to 
 
 1 From a letter to his daughter Laura. 
 
 2 From a letter to his daughter Elizabeth. 
 
WILLIAM WIRT. 
 
 107 
 
 speak, when to be silent, when to act, when to be still; and, 
 moreover, it teaches us what to speak and what to suppress, what 
 to do and what to forbear. Now, pause a moment to reflect on 
 the number of faculties which must be combined to constitute 
 this common sense : a rapid and profound foresight to calculate 
 the consequences of what is to be said or done, a rapid circum- 
 spection and extensive comprehension so as to be sure of taking 
 in all the circumstances which belong to the case and missing no 
 figure in this arithmetic of the mind, and an accuracy of decision 
 which must be as quick as lightning, so as not to let the occasion 
 slip. See what a knowledge of life, either by experience or in- 
 tuition, and what a happy constitutional poise between the pas- 
 sions and the reason, or what a powerful self-command all enter 
 into the composition of that little, demure, quiet, unadmired, and 
 almost despised thing called common sense. It pretends to no 
 brilliancy, for it possesses none; it has no ostentation, for it has 
 nothing to show that the world admires. The powerful and con- 
 stant action of the intellect, which makes its nature, is unob- 
 served even by the proprietor; for every thing is done with 
 intuitive ease, with a sort of unconscious felicity. See, then, the 
 quick and piercing sagacity, the prophetic penetration, the wide 
 comprehension, and the prompt and accurate judgment, which 
 combine to constitute common sense, which is as inestimably 
 valuable as the solar light and as little thought of. 
 
 BURR AND BLANNERHASSET. 1 
 
 Let us put the case between Burr and Blannerhasset. Let us 
 compare the two men and settle this question of precedence be- 
 tween them. It may save a good deal of troublesome ceremony 
 hereafter. 
 
 Who Aaron Burr is, we have seen in part already. I will add 
 that, beginning his operations in New York, he associates with 
 him men whose wealth is to supply the necessary funds. Pos- 
 sessed of the main-spring, his personal labor contrives all the 
 machinery. Pervading the continent from New York to New 
 Orleans, he draws into his plan, by every allurement which he 
 can contrive, men of all ranks and descriptions. To youthful 
 ardor he presents danger and glory ; to ambition, rank and titles 
 and honors ; to avarice, the mines of Mexico. To each person 
 whom he addresses he presents the object adapted to his taste. 
 His recruiting-omcers are appointed. Men are engaged through- 
 out the continent. Civil life is, indeed, quiet upon its surface, 
 
 1 Read an interesting article in the " North American Review," (lxxii. 112, 
 •July, 1851,) upon the Life and Character of Blannerhasset. 
 
 17* 
 
198 
 
 WILLIAM WIRT. 
 
 but in its bosom this man has contrived to deposit the materials 
 which, with the slightest touch of his match, produce an explosion 
 to shake the continent. All this his restless ambition has con- 
 trived j and, in the autumn of 1806, he goes forth for the last 
 time to apply this match. On this occasion he meets with 
 Blannerhasset. 
 
 Who is Blannerhasset ? A native of Ireland, a man of letters, 
 who fled from the storms of his own country to find quiet in ours. 
 His history shows that war is not the natural element of his 
 mind ; if it had been, he never would have exchanged Ireland for 
 America. So far is an army from furnishing the society natural 
 and proper to Mr. Blannerhasset's character, that, on his arrival 
 in America, he retired even from the population of the Atlantic 
 States, and sought quiet and solitude in the bosom of our Western 
 forests. But he carried with him taste and science and wealth • 
 and, lo ! the desert smiled. Possessing himself of a beautiful 
 island in the Ohio, he rears upon it a palace and decorates it with 
 every romantic embellishment of fancy. A shrubbery that Shen- 
 stone might have envied blooms around him. Music that might 
 have charmed Calypso and her nymphs is his. An extensive 
 library spreads its treasures before him. A philosophical appa- 
 ratus offers to him all the secrets and mysteries of nature. Peace, 
 tranquillity, and innocence shed their mingled delights around 
 him. And, to crown the enchantment of the scene, a wife, who 
 is said to be lovely even beyond her sex, and graced with every 
 accomplishment that can render it irresistible, had blessed him 
 with her love and made him the father of several children. The 
 evidence would convince you that this is but a faint picture of the 
 real life. In the midst of all this peace, this innocent simplicity 
 and this tranquillity, this feast of the mind, this pure banquet of 
 the heart, the destroyer comes ; he comes to change this paradise 
 into a hell. Yet the flowers do not wither at his approach. No 
 monitory shuddering through the bosom of their unfortunate pos- 
 sessor warns him of the ruin that is coming upon him. A stranger 
 presents himself. Introduced to their civilities by the high rank 
 which he had lately held in his country, he soon finds his way to 
 their hearts by the dignity and elegance of his demeanor, the light 
 and beauty of his conversation, and the seductive and fascinating- 
 power of his address. The conquest was not difficult. Innocence 
 is ever simple and credulous. Conscious of no design itself, it 
 suspects none in others. It wears no guard before its breast. 
 Every door and portal and avenue of the heart is thrown open, 
 and all who choose it enter. Such was the state of Eden when 
 the serpent entered its bowers. The prisoner, in a more engaging 
 form, winding himself into the open and unpractised heart of the 
 unfortunate Blannerhasset, found but little difficulty in changing 
 
WILLIAM WIRT. 
 
 199 
 
 the native character of that heart and the objects of its affection. 
 By degrees he infuses into it the poison of his own ambition. He 
 breathes into it the fire of his own courage, — a daring and despe- 
 rate thirst for glory, an ardor panting for great enterprises, for 
 all the storm and bustle and hurricane of life. In a short time 
 the whole man is changed, and every object of his former delight 
 is relinquished. No more he enjoys the tranquil scene : it has 
 become flat and insipid to his taste. His books are abandoned. 
 His retort and crucible are thrown aside. His shrubbery blooms 
 and breathes its fragrance upon the air in vain : he likes it not. 
 His ear no longer drinks the rich melody of music : it longs for 
 the trumpet's clangor and the cannon's roar. Even the prattle of 
 his babes, once so sweet, no longer affects him; and the angel- 
 smile of his wife, which hitherto touched his bosom with ecstasy 
 so unspeakable, is now unseen and unfelt. Greater objects have 
 taken possession of his soul. His imagination has been dazzled 
 by visions of diadems, of stars and garters and titles of nobility. 
 He has been taught to burn with restless emulation at the names 
 of great heroes and conquerors. His enchanted island is destined 
 soon to relapse into a wilderness; and in a few months we find 
 the beautiful and tender partner of his bosom, whom he lately 
 " permitted not the winds of" summer " to visit too roughly/' we 
 find her shivering at midnight on the wintry banks of the Ohio, 
 and mingling her tears with the torrents that froze as they fell. 
 Yet this unfortunate man, thus deluded from his interest and his 
 happiness, thus seduced from the paths of innocence and peace, 
 thus confounded in the toils that were deliberately spread for him, 
 and overwhelmed by the mastering spirit and genius of another, — 
 this man, thus ruined and undone and made to play a subordinate 
 part in this grand drama of guilt and treason, — this man is to be 
 called the principal offender, while he by whom he was thus 
 plunged in misery is comparatively innocent, — a mere accessory ! 
 Is this reason ? Is it law ? Is it humanity ? Sir, neither the 
 human heart nor the human understanding will bear a perversion 
 so monstrous and absurd ! so shocking to the soul ! so revolting 
 to reason ! Let Aaron Burr, then, not shrink from the high des- 
 tination which he has courted; and, having already ruined 
 Blannerhasset in fortune, character, and happiness forever, let 
 him not attempt to finish the tragedy by thrusting that ill-fated 
 man between himself and punishment. 
 
 EVERY ONE THE ARCHITECT OF HIS OWN FORTUNE. 
 
 Allow me, young gentlemen, to impress upon your minds this 
 truth : — the education, moral and intellectual, of every individual, 
 must be chiefly his own work. You must be awakened to the 
 
200 
 
 WILLIAM WIRT. 
 
 important truth that, if you aspire to excellence, you must be- 
 come active and vigorous co-operators with your teachers, and 
 work out your own distinction with an ardor that cannot he 
 quenched, a perseverance that considers nothing done while any 
 thing yet remains to be done. Rely upon it that the ancients were 
 right, — Quisque suae fortunse faber: both in morals and intellect 
 we give their final shape to our own characters, and thus become em- 
 phatically the architects of our fortunes. How else should it happen 
 that young men, who have had precisely the same opportunities, 
 should be continually presenting us with such different results, 
 and rushing to such opposite destinies ? Difference of talent will 
 not solve it, because that difference is very often in favor of the 
 disappointed candidate. You shall see issuing from the walls of 
 the same school — nay, sometimes from the bosom of the same 
 family — two young men, of whom the one shall be admitted to 
 be a genius of high order, the other scarcely above the point of 
 mediocrity ; yet you shall see the genius sinking and perishing in 
 poverty, obscurity, and wretchedness ; while, on the other hand, 
 you shall observe the mediocre plodding his slow but sure way up 
 the hill of life, gaining steadfast footing at every step, and mount- 
 ing at length to eminence and distinction, an ornament to his 
 family and a blessing to his country. Now, whose work is this ? 
 Manifestly, their own. They are the architects of their respective 
 fortunes. And of this be assured, — I speak from observation a' 
 certain truth, — There is no excellence without great labor. It is 
 ihc fiat of Fate, from which no power of genius can absolve you. 
 Genius unexerted is like the poor moth that flutters around a 
 candle till it scorches itself to death. It is the capacity for high 
 and long-continued exertion, the vigorous power of profound and 
 searching investigation, the careering and wide-sweeping compre- 
 hension of mind, and those long reaches of thought that 
 
 " pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon, 
 
 Or dive into the bottom of the deep, 
 
 Where fathom-line could never touch the ground, 
 
 And drag up drowned honor by the locks." 
 
 This is the prowess and these the hardy achievements which are 
 to enroll your names among the great men of the earth. 
 
 But how are you to gain the nerve and the courage for enter- 
 prises of this pith and moment? I will tell you. As Milo 
 gained that strength which astounded Greece, — by your oxen self- 
 discipline. You have it in your power, indeed, to make your- 
 selves just what you please ; and of the truth of this hypothesis, 
 to an extent quite incredible to yourselves at this time, observa- 
 tion and experience leave no doubt in my own mind. You may, 
 if you please, become literary fops and dandies, and acquire the 
 
ROBERT TREAT PAINE. 
 
 201 
 
 affected lisp and drawling nonchalance of the London cockney, 
 or you may learn to wield the Herculean club of Dr. Johnson. 
 You may skim the surface of science, or fathom its depths. You 
 may become florid declaimers or cloud-compelling reasoners. 
 You may dwindle into political ephemera, or plume your wings 
 for immortality with Franklin, Hamilton, Jay, Jefferson, the 
 Adamses, and a host of living worthies. You may become dis- 
 solute Voluptuaries and debauchees, and perish in disgrace, or 
 you may climb the steeps of glory, and have your names given, 
 by the trumpet of Fame, to the four quarters of the globe. In 
 short, you may become a disgrace and a reproach to this institu- 
 tion, or her proudest boast and honor ; you may make yourselves 
 the shame or the ornament of your families, and a curse or a 
 blessing to your country. 1 
 
 Address at Rutgers College, 1830. 
 
 ROBERT TREAT PAINE, 1773—1811. 
 
 Robert Treat Paine, son of the Hon. R. Treat Paine, one of the signers of the 
 Declaration of Independence, was born in Taunton, Massachusetts, December 9, 
 1773. He entered Harvard College in 1788, and graduated Avith high honor in 
 1792, delivering an English poem on The Nature and Progress of Liberty. For 
 some years after, he had no fixed employment, but sustained himself chiefly by his 
 pen, writing prologues for the theatre, and poems and editorials for the news- 
 papers. In June, 1798, at the request of the "Massachusetts Charitable Fire 
 Society," soon to celebrate its anniversary, he wrote his celebrated political song 
 of Adams and Liberty. Political excitement ran very high at the time ; for, as 
 the French, whom the anti-Federalists of the day much favored, had behaved 
 towards us in a very insulting manner, it was thought by many that a war would 
 result. But happily this was averted by the firmness of President Adams, whose 
 course Washington himself so much approved, that he consented, if it should be- 
 come necessary, once more to take the command of the army. 
 
 In 1799, Paine entered the law-office of Judge Parsons, at Newburyport, and in 
 1802 was admitted to the bar; but, though for a short time he gave promise of 
 
 1 "We have remarked of Wirt that his life is peculiarly fraught with materials 
 for the edification of youth. His career is full of wholesome teaching to the young 
 votary who strives for the renown of an honorable ambition. Its difficulties and 
 impediments, its temptations and trials, its triumphs over many obstacles, its re- 
 wards, both in the self-approving judgment of his own heart and in the success 
 won by patient labor and well-directed study, and the final consummation of his 
 hopes, in an old age not less adorned by the applause of good men than by the 
 serene and cheerful temper inspired by a devout Christian faith, — all these present 
 a type of human progress worthy of the imitation of the young and gifted, in 
 which they may find the most powerful incentives towards the accomplishment of 
 the noblest ends of a generous love of fame." — Kennedy's Life. 
 
202 
 
 ROBERT TREAT PAINE. 
 
 great eminence in his profession, he soon relaxed into his former indolent habits, 
 living from year to year on a very precarious support, and died on the 11th of 
 November, 1811, leaving a wife and two children entirely destitute. His father, 
 however, took them to his house, and made liberal provision for them. His 
 works in prose and verse were collected, two years after his death, in one octavo 
 volume of 464 pages, and were highly lauded at the time. Of all his writings, 
 however, none are now read but his celebrated political song of 
 
 ADAMS AND LIBERTY. 
 
 Ye sons of Columbia, -who bravely have fought 
 
 For those rights which unstain : d from your sires had descended, 
 May you long taste the blessings your valor has bought, 
 And your sons reap the soil which their fathers defended. 
 'Mid the reign of mild Peace, 
 May your nation increase, 
 With the glory of Rome and the wisdom of Greece ; 
 And ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves, 
 AVhile the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves. 
 
 In a clime w T hose rich vales feed the marts of the world, 
 
 Whose shores are unshaken by Europe's commotion, 
 The trident of commerce should never be hurl'd, 
 To incense the legitimate powers of the ocean. 
 But should pirates invade, 
 Though in thunder array'd, 
 Let your cannon declare the free charter of trade. 
 For ne'er shall the sons, &c. 
 
 The fame of our arms, of our laws the mild sway, 
 
 Had justly ennobled our nation in story, 
 Till the dark clouds of faction obscured our young day, 
 And enveloped the sun of American glory. 
 But let traitors be told, 
 Who their country have sold, 
 And barter'd their God for his image in gold, 
 That ne'er will the sons, &c. 
 
 While France her huge limbs bathes recumbent in blood, 
 
 And Society's base threats with wide dissolution, 
 May Peace, like the dove who return'd from the flood, 
 Find an ark of abode in our mild constitution. 
 For though peace is our aim, 
 Yet the boon we disclaim, 
 [f bought by our sovereignty, justice, or fame. 
 For ne'er shall the sons, &c. 
 
 'Tis the fire of the flint, each American warms ; 
 
 Let Rome's haughty victors beware of collision, 
 Let them bring all the vassals of Europe in arms, 
 We're a world by ourselves, and disdain a division. 
 While with patriot pride, 
 To our laws we're allied, 
 No foe can subdue us, no faction divide. 
 
 For ne"er shall the sons, &c. 
 
WILLIAM SULLIVAN. 
 
 203 
 
 Our mountains are crown'd -with imperial oak; 
 
 Whose roots, like our liberties, ages have nourish'd ; 
 But long e'er our nation submits to the yoke, 
 
 Not a tree shall be left on the field where it flourish'd. 
 Should invasion impend, 
 Every grove -would descend 
 From the hill-tops they shaded, our shores to defend. 
 For ne'er shall the sons, &c. 
 
 Let our patriots destroy Anarch's pestilent worm ; 
 
 Lest our Liberty's growth should be check'd by corrosion ; 
 Then let clouds thicken round us ; we heed not the storm; 
 Our realm fears no shock but the earth's own explosion. 
 Foes assail us in vain, 
 Though their fleets bridge the main, 
 For our altars and laws with our lives we'll maintain. 
 For ne'er shall the sons, &c. 
 
 Should the Tempest of War overshadow our land, 
 
 Its bolts could ne'er rend Freedom's temple asunder; 
 For. unmoved, at its portal would Washington stand, 1 
 And repulse with his breast the assaults of the thunder! 
 His sword from the sleep 
 Of its scabbard would leap, 
 And conduct, with its point, every flash to the deep ! 
 For ne'er shall the sons, &c. 
 
 Let Fame to the world sound America's voice ; 
 
 No intrigues can her sons from their government sever ; 
 Her pride is her Adams : her laws are his choice, 
 And shall flourish till Liberty slumbers forever. 
 Then unite heart and hand, 
 Like Leonidas' band, 
 And swear to the God of the ocean and land, 
 That ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves, 
 While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves. 
 
 WILLIAM SULLIVAN, 1774—1839. 
 
 Johx Sullivax, a gentleman of liberal education and of cultivated manners, 
 came to this country from Ireland about the year 1730, and settled in Berwick, 
 Maine. He left two sons, George and James. James entered the legal profession, 
 and became Governor of Massachusetts. He died in 1S08, leaving five sons and 
 
 1 The following anecdote is related of this ode : — Paine had written all he in- 
 tended, and, being at the house of Major Russell, the editor of the "Boston Cen- 
 tinel," showed him the verses. They were highly approved, but pronounced 
 imperfect, as the name of Washington was omitted. Paine was just then on the 
 point of helping himself to some of the drinks upon the sideboard, when Major 
 Russell pleasantly interposed, and said that he must take nothing till he had 
 written a stanza introducing the name of Washington. Paine walked back and 
 forth a few minutes, when he suddenly called for a pen, and immediately wrote 
 this brilliant stanza, second to none in the ode. 
 
204 
 
 WILLIAM SULLIVAN. 
 
 one daughter. The second of these sons, William, the subject of this notice, was 
 born at Saco, Maine, on the 12th of November, 1774, graduated at Harvard 
 in 1792, and was admitted to the bar in 1795. He devoted himself assiduously 
 to his profession, and became eminently successful in it, enjoying, from his 
 unsullied purity and integrity of character, the highest confidence of his fellow- 
 citizens. 
 
 About the time of his entering upon his professional career, the country was 
 divided into two great political parties, — the "Federalists" and the "Republicans," 
 — whose zeal for their respective causes engendered the bitterest feelings of ani- 
 mosity. Mr. Sullivan early took sides with the Federalists, became a prominent 
 member of the party, and was consequently brought in contact with all its lead- 
 ing and best men. He early visited Philadelphia, and enjoyed the friendship of 
 Washington and many others who subsequently rose to the highest distinction in 
 the country. 
 
 Though for many years Mr. Sullivan's time was much engrossed by his pro- 
 fessional duties, he never gave up entirely his literary pursuits ; and so strong 
 was his attachment to letters, that during the last ten years of his life he 
 declined all professional engagements, devoting himself, with great ardor, from 
 twelve to fourteen hours daily, to studies chiefly pertaining to history and 
 moral philosophy. But his intense application without sufficient exercise under- 
 mined his constitution, and he died on the 3d of September, 1839, aged sixty- 
 four years. 
 
 Mr. Sullivan's publications, besides his occasional Addresses and Essays, were, — 
 1. The Political Class-Booh: intended to instruct the Higher Classes in Schools in 
 the Origin, Nature, and Use of Political Power: 2. The Moral C lass-Book, or the 
 Law of Ilorals : 3. Historical Class-Book ; containing sketches of ancient history 
 to the end of the Western Roman Empire, 476 A.D. : 4. Historical Causes and 
 Effects from the Fall of the Roman Empire, 476, to the Reformation, 1517. These 
 are all admirable works for schools, full of sound instruction, and pervaded by a 
 pure moral tone that cannot fail to exert a happy influence on the youthful mind. 
 But the work most likely to perpetuate his name is the volume entitled The Public 
 Men of the Revolution ; including Events from the Peace of 1783 to the Peace of 
 1815 : in a Series of Letters. This is a work which all should read who desire 
 an accurate acquaintance with these eventful times, and to learn those stern facts 
 which too many of our historians, for the sake of popularity, have cautiously 
 avoided. 
 
 THE "FEDERALISTS." 
 
 The intelligent and honest men who hazarded their lives in 
 the field, or councils, or in both, to free this country from the 
 monarchy and tyranny of Great Britain ; the men who united to 
 form for thirteen free, sovereign, and independent States an elect- 
 ive, national, republican government; the men who thus resisted, 
 English monarchy and tyranny, and who thus formed this re- 
 publican and national union, were Federalists. 
 
 The President of the convention which framed this constitution 
 must have been well informed, by the discussions which he heard, 
 
WILLIAM SULLIVAN. 
 
 205 
 
 of the true meaning and practical application of every sentence 
 and phrase in that instrument. He was the first President of the 
 United States, selected to execute the powers which that instru- 
 ment conferred. The Senate and House of Representatives were 
 composed of men, many of whom had been zealous patriots 
 throughout the Revolutionary struggle, and most of whom had 
 been members of the national or state conventions, or who were 
 otherwise informed of the true meaning and intent of the con- 
 stitution. The first Vice-President was a man who had devoted 
 himself to the cause of the Revolution, and who may be said 
 to have stood second to no one in efforts, as a civilian, to free 
 the country from foreign dominion, and to enable it to govern 
 itself as a republic. The President, the Vice-President, and 
 a large majority of both branches of Congress, were Fede- 
 ralists. 
 
 This new form of government was organized. All the various 
 powers delegated by the constitution were defined by wise laws, 
 and carried into effect. The whole country arose, almost miracu- 
 lously, from a state of confusion, despondency, idleness, and immi- 
 nent peril, to one of peace, confidence, industry, security, and 
 unexampled prosperity. The wreck and ruin which the Revolu- 
 tionary struggle brought on, both of private and public credit, 
 disappeared ; and all the benefits, which those who led the 
 country through the Revolution had desired or imagined, were 
 fully realized. The people of the United States, in their new and 
 flourishing republic, took their place among the nations of the 
 earth. This was the achievement of Federalists. 
 
 In the first twelve years of the national administration, the wars 
 of Europe hazarded the peace of the United States. The aggres- 
 sions of the belligerents, the insolent and seductive character of 
 French enthusiasm, secret combinations, and claims for gratitude 
 (to revolutionary France) called for all the firmness, wisdom, 
 and personal influence of Washington, and for the best exer- 
 tions of his political associates, to save the United States from the 
 loss of all the benefits which had been acquired by previous toils 
 and sacrifices. Compensation for wrongs was amicably made by 
 one of the belligerents, and a treaty, highly beneficial and honor- 
 able, was negotiated and ratified. With another, peace and com- 
 pensation were sought, and insolently denied ; all connection by 
 treaty was annulled ; the attitude of war was assumed ; and then 
 the rights of the country were immediately recognised even by 
 fraudulent and unprincipled France. The prosperity of the 
 country and the benefits of enriching neutrality were secured, 
 amidst all the desolating conflicts of Europe. This was the work 
 of Federalists. 
 
 is 
 
206 
 
 LYMAN BEECHER. 
 
 THE WASHINGTON ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 In the discretionary exercise of executive power, the Washing- 
 ton administration was wise and tolerant. In filling offices, the 
 President preferred, when he could, the Revolutionary chiefs, of 
 whose integrity and ability he had ample proofs. No one will say 
 that such men did not deserve the honors and emoluments of 
 office, which their own perilous efforts helped to establish. He 
 did not, like some of his successors, profess to ask : Is he honest, 
 is he capable, is he faithful to the constitution? He appointed 
 men that were so. He displaced no man for the expression of his 
 opinions, even in the feverish excitement of French delusion. 
 
 With regard to all other foreign governments, — the judiciary; 
 the national bank; the Indian tribes; the mint; in his deport- 
 ment to his own ministers ; his communications to Congress ; his 
 construction of the constitution ; his sacred regard for it ; his 
 devotion to the whole Union ; his magnanimity and forbearance ; 
 his personal dignity; — in all these, and in relation to all other 
 subjects, how great and honorable was his example, how tran- 
 scendently above all praise that man can bestow ! And yet how 
 utterly have his views and his example been disregarded within 
 these thirty years ! 
 
 August, 1833. 
 
 LYMAN BEECHER. 
 
 This venerable and eloquent clergyman was born at New Haven, on tbe 12th 
 of October, 1775. After going through the usual course of preparatory studies, he 
 entered Yale College, and, after graduating, he studied divinit} 7 under Dr. Dwight. 
 He entered the ministry in 179S, and in the following year was settled at East 
 Hampton, Long Island. Here, in 1S06, (two years after Hamilton was killed by 
 Burr,) he preached that admirable sermon, entitled Remedy for Duelling, which, 
 had he published nothing else, is enough to preserve his name to posterity. 1 In 
 1810, he took charge of the First Congregational Church in Litchfield, Connec- 
 ticut, where he remained about sixteen years, and preached with great success, 
 exerting, as such a mind of course must, a commanding influence upon his minis- 
 terial brethren, and the church at large. 2 During this period, he assisted in the 
 establishment of the Connecticut Missionary Society, the Connecticut Education 
 Society, the American Bible Society, and other associations of a similar charac- 
 ter. In 1826, he accepted the call to the Hanover Street Church, Boston, where 
 
 1 "While at East Hampton, he published three other discourses, — The History of 
 East Hampton ; The Government of God Desirable : and a Funeral Sermon. 
 
 2 While at Litchfield, he published sermons on the Reformation of Morals ; 
 Building v]) of Waste Places; A Funeral Discourse ; The Bible a Code of Laws; 
 The Faith once Delivered to the Saints ; The Designs, Bights, and Duties of Local 
 Churches; and The Means of National Prosperity. 
 
LYMAN BEECIIER. 
 
 207 
 
 his labors for two or three years -were most arduous and unremitted in the causo 
 of religion, and the revival of the early Puritan faith, in that great literary and 
 commercial city. Among other labors, he assisted in establishing The Spirit of 
 the Pilgrims, (a monthly religious journal,) and preached, and prepared for the 
 press, Six Sermons on the Nature, Occasions, Signs, Evils, and Remedy of Intempe- 
 rance, 1 of the power and eloquence of which it is enough to say that, notwith- 
 standing all that has been written and published since on this great theme, these 
 sermons yet remain unrivalled. 2 In 1S32, he was called to the Presidency of Lane 
 Theological Seminary, Cincinnati; and for ten years, in conjunction with his 
 academic duties, he sustained the pastoral care of the Second Presbyterian Church 
 in that city. He resigned the pastoral office in 1844, and the Presidency of the 
 Seminary in 1817, and returned to Boston in 1850, where he now resides. Such 
 is the brief chronological outline of Dr. Beecher's life. 3 
 
 Dr. Beecher's chief publications consist of sermons and addresses, and a work 
 on Political Atheism. A collection of his writings, in four compact duodecimo 
 volumes, was published in Boston, in 1852. 
 
 THE SIN OF TRAFFICKING IN ARDENT SPIRITS. 
 
 Has not God connected with all lawful avocations the welfare 
 of the life that now is, and of that which is to come ? And can 
 we lawfully amass property by a course of trade which fills the 
 land with beggars, and widows, and orphans, and crimes ; which 
 
 1 It has been well said : " Had Dr. Beecher no other distinction, his connection 
 with the great moral movement of our age — the Temperance Reform (of which he 
 may be considered one of the founders, if not the founder) — would entitle him to 
 an enviable eminence in the history of his times." 
 
 2 The following racy criticism upon Dr. Beecher's writings appeared in the 
 Bibliotheca Sacra," 1852 : — " His mind is thoroughly of the New England 
 
 stamp; and, whatever subject it touches, its constant struggle is foi defnitcness, 
 clearness, and utility. Beautiful tropes which adorn nothingness and cover up 
 emptiness, — fine language which would express a thought handsomely, if there 
 were any thought there to be expressed by it, — for such things as these you will 
 look in vain among Dr. Beecher's works. In his style there is conciseness and 
 pungency, brilliancy and vigor, clearness and sharpness, rhetoric and logic, in 
 remarkable combination." 
 
 3 In the progress of his life, he writes : — " I have laid no plans of my own, but 
 simply consecrated myself to Christ and his cause, confiding in his guidance and 
 preservation ; and meeting, as I might be able, such exigencies as his providence 
 placed before me, which has always kept my head, hands, and heart full." — Brief 
 Memoirs of the Class 1797, of Yale College. 
 
 " He has devoted his long life, with prodigious activity and vigor, to the pro- 
 motion of religion, learning, and the larger humanities of life. As a preacher ho 
 was very effective, possessing surpassing powers of statement, illustration, and 
 argument." — Goodrich's Recollections. 
 
 Of the many anecdotes illustrative of his ready wit, the following is told. Going 
 home one evening, with a volume of " Rees's EncyclopaKlia" under his arm, a 
 skunk crossed his path, when the Doctor quickly threw the book at him. Upon 
 this the animal retorted, and with such effect that he reached home in a very sorry 
 plight. Some time after, he was assailed, rather abusively, by a controversialist, 
 and a friend advised the Doctor to reply. " No," said he, " I once discharged a 
 quarto at a skunk, and I got the worst of it, and I do not wish to try it again." 
 
208 
 
 LYMAN BEECHER. 
 
 peoples the graveyard with premature mortality, and the world of 
 woe with the victims of despair ? Could all the forms of evil 
 produced in the land by intemperance come upon us in one horrid 
 array, it would appall the nation, and put an end to the traffic in 
 ardent spirits. If in every dwelling built by blood the stone from 
 the wall should utter all the cries which the bloody traffic extorts, 
 and the beam out of the timber should echo them back, who would 
 build such a house ? and who would dwell in it ? What if, in 
 every part of the dwelling, — from the cellar upward, through all 
 the halls and chambers, — babblings, and contentions, and voices, 
 and groans, and shrieks, and wailings, were heard day and night ? 
 What if the cold blood oozed out, and stood in drops upon the 
 walls ; and, by preternatural art, all the ghastly skulls and bones 
 of the victims destroyed by intemperance should stand upon the 
 walls in horrid sculpture, within and without the building ! who 
 would rear such a building ? What if at eventide, and at mid- 
 night, the airy forms of men destroyed by intemperance were 
 dimly seen haunting the distilleries and stores where they received 
 their bane ; following the track of the ship engaged in the com- 
 merce ; walking upon the waves j flitting athwart the deck ; sitting 
 upon the rigging, and sending up, from the hold within and from 
 the waves without, groans, and loud laments, and wailings ! Who 
 would attend such stores ? Who would labor in such distilleries t 
 Who would navigate such ships ? 
 
 APPEAL TO YOUNG MEN. 
 
 Could I call around me in one vast assembly the temperate 
 young men of our land, I would say, — Hopes of the nation, blessed 
 be ye of the Lord now in the dew of your youth. But look well 
 to your footsteps; for vipers, and scorpions, and adders surround 
 your way. Look at the generation who have just preceded you : 
 the morning of their life was cloudless, and it dawned as brightly 
 as your own ; but behold them bitten, swollen, enfeebled, inflamed, 
 debauched, idle, poor, irreligious, and vicious, with halting step 
 dragging onward to meet an early grave ! Their bright prospects 
 are clouded, and their sun is set never to rise. No house of their 
 own receives them, while from poorer to poorer tenements they 
 descend, and to harder and harder fare, as improvidence dries up 
 their resources. And now, who are those that wait on their foot- 
 steps with muffled faces and sable garments ? That is a father — 
 and that is a mother — whose gray hairs are coming with sorrow to 
 the grave. That is a sister, weeping over evils which she cannot 
 arrest • and there is the broken-hearted wife ; and there are the 
 children, hapless innocents, for whom their father has provided 
 the inheritance only of dishonor, and nakedness, and woe. And 
 
LYMAN BEECHER. 209 
 
 is this, beloved young men, the history of your course ? In this 
 scene of desolation, do you behold the image of your future selves? 
 Is this the poverty and disease which, as an armed man, shall 
 take hold on you ? And are your fathers, and mothers, and sisters, 
 and wives, and children, to succeed to those who now move on in 
 this mournful procession, weeping as they go? Yes: bright as 
 your morning now opens, and high as your hopes beat, this is 
 your noon, and your night, unless you shun those habits of intem- 
 perance which have thus early made theirs a day of clouds, and 
 of thick darkness. If you frequent places of evening resort for 
 social drinking; if you set out with drinking, daily, a little, 
 temperately, prudently, it is }*ourselves which, as in a glass, you 
 behold. 
 
 THE DUELLIST UNFIT FOR OFFICE. 
 
 And now, let me ask you solemnly, — with these considerations 
 in view, will you persist in your attachment to these guilty men ? 
 Will you any longer, either deliberately or thoughtlessly, vote for 
 them ? Will you renounce allegiance to your Maker, and cast 
 the Bible behind your back ? Will you confide in men void of 
 the fear of God and destitute of moral principle ? Will you in- 
 trust life to murderers, and liberty to despots? Are you 
 patriots, and will you constitute those legislators who despise you, 
 and despise equal laws, and wage war with the eternal principles 
 of justice ? Are you Christians, and, by upholding duellists, will 
 you deluge the land with blood, and fill it with widows and with 
 orphans ? Will you aid in the prostration of justice, in the escape 
 of criminals, in the extinction of liberty ? Will you place in the 
 chair of state, in the senate, or on the bench of justice, men who, 
 if able, would murder you for speaking truth ? Shall your elec- 
 tions turn on expert shooting, and your deliberative bodies become 
 an host of armed men ? Will you destroy public morality by 
 tolerating, yea, by rewarding, the most infamous crimes ? Will 
 you teach your children that there is no guilt in murder ? Will 
 you instruct them to think lightly of duelling, and train them up 
 to destroy or be destroyed in the bloody field '? Will you bestow 
 your suffrage, when you know that by withholding it you may 
 arrest this deadly evil ) when this, too, is the only way in which it 
 can be done, and when the present is perhaps the only period in 
 which resistance can avail ; when the remedy is so easy, so entirely 
 in your power ) and when God, if you do not punish these guilty 
 men, will most inevitably punish you ? 
 
 Had you beheld a dying father conveyed bleeding and agonizing 
 to his distracted family, had you heard their piercing shrieks and 
 witnessed their frantic agony, would you reward the savage man 
 
 18*- 
 
210 
 
 LYMAN BEECIIER. 
 
 who had plunged them in distress ? Had the duellist destroyed 
 your neighbor ■ had your own father been killed by the man who 
 solicits your suffrage j had your son, laid low by his hand, been 
 brought to your door pale in death and weltering in blood j would 
 you then think the crime a small one ? "Would you honor with 
 your confidence, and elevate to power by your vote, the guilty 
 monster ? And what would you think of your neighbors if, re' 
 gardless of your agony, they should reward him ? xVnd yet such 
 scenes of unutterable anguish are multiplied every year. Every 
 year the duellist is cutting down the neighbor of somebody. 
 Every year, and many times in the year, a father is brought 
 dead or dying to his family, or a son laid breathless at the feet of 
 his parents ; and every year you are patronizing by your votes the 
 men who commit these crimes, and looking with cold indifference 
 upon, and even mocking, the sorrows of your neighbour. Beware, 
 — I admonish you to beware, and especially such of you as have 
 promising sons preparing for active life, lest, having no feeling 
 for the sorrows of another, you be called to weep for your own 
 sorrow ; lest your sons fall by the hands of the very murderer for 
 whom you vote, or by the hand of some one whom his example has 
 trained to the work of blood. 
 
 THE EAST AND THE WEST ONE. 
 
 What will become of the West if her prosperity rushes up to 
 such a majesty of power, while those great institutions of learning 
 and religion linger which are necessary to form the mind, and the 
 conscience, and the heart of that vast world ? It must not be 
 permitted. And yet what is done must be done quickly; for 
 population will not wait, and commerce will not cast anchor, and 
 manufactures will not shut off the steam nor shut down the gate, 
 and agriculture, pushed by millions of freemen on their fertile 
 soil, will not withhold her corrupting abundance. 
 
 We must educate ! we must educate ! or we must perish by our 
 own prosperity. If we do not, short from the cradle to the grave 
 will be our race. If, in our haste to be rich and mighty, we out- 
 run our literary and religious institutions, they will never over- 
 take us, or only come up after the battle of liberty is fought and 
 lost, as spoils to grace the victory, and as resources of inexorable 
 despotism for the perpetuity of our bondage. And let no man at 
 the East quiet himself and dream of liberty whatever may be- 
 come of the West, Our alliance of blood, and political institu- 
 tions, and common interests, is such that we cannot stand aloof in 
 the hour of her calamity, should it ever come. Her destiny is 
 our destiny; and the day that her gallant ship goes down, our 
 little boat sinks in the vortex ! 
 
JAMES K. PAULDING. 
 
 211 
 
 I would add, as a motive to immediate action, that if we do fail 
 in our great experiment of self-government, our destruction will 
 be as signal as the birthright abandoned, the mercies abused, and 
 the provocation offered to beneficent Heaven. The descent of de- 
 solation will correspond with the past elevation. No punishments 
 of Heaven are so severe as those for mercies abused ; and no in- 
 strumentality employed in their infliction is so dreadful as the 
 wrath of man. No spasms are like the spasms of expiring liberty, 
 and no waitings such as her convulsions extort. It took Rome 
 three hundred years to die; and our death, if we perish, will be 
 as much more terrific as our intelligence and free institutions have 
 given to us more bone and sinew and vitality. May God hide me 
 from the day when the dying agonies of my country shall begin ! 
 thou beloved land, bound together by the ties of brother- 
 hood, and common interest, and perils, live forever, — one and 
 undivided ! Plea for the West, 1835. 
 
 JAMES K. PAULDING. 
 
 It is now 1 more than half a century since James Kirke Paulding made bis first 
 appearance as an author. He is of the old Dutch stock, and was born in Plea- 
 sant Valley, a town in Dutchess County, New York, on the 22d of August, 177S. 
 All the advantages of education which he had were such only as a country school 
 could afford; and at about the age of eighteen, through the assistance of one 
 of his brothers, he obtained a place in a public office in New York City. His 
 sister had married Peter Irving, a merchant of high character, who was after- 
 wards a representative to Congress, and through him he became acquainted with 
 his younger brother, Washington Irving, with whom he contracted an intimate 
 friendship. This resulted in the publication, in 1S07, of a series of papers, writ- 
 ten sometimes by one and sometimes by the other, and sometimes jointly by both, 
 called Salmagundi, 2 — the principal object of which was to satirize the follies of 
 fashionable life. Contrary to the expectation of the authors, it became very 
 popular, and had a wide circulation, though at this day most of its wit and satire 
 is little appreciated. 
 
 The success of this work probably decided the authors to a literary life, who, 
 however, in future pursued their avocations separately. In 1817, Mr. Paulding 
 published the Lay of a Scotch Fiddle, a satirical poem, and Jokehj, a burlesque 
 of " B.okeby," in six cantos ; and the next year, a prose pamphlet entitled The 
 United States and England, which was called forth by a criticism in the "London 
 Quarterly" on " Inchiquiu's Letters," written by Mr. Charles J. Ingersoll, of Phila- 
 delphia. 1 In 1815, he passed part of the summer in a tour through Virginia, 
 
 1 1859. 
 
 2 A word of French derivation, meaning a medley, a mixture of various ingre- 
 dients. 
 
 3 See note on page 103 for an account of Inchiquiu's Letters. 
 
212 
 
 JAMES K. PAULDING. 
 
 where lie wrote and afterwards published his Letters from the South, containing 
 sketches of scenery, manners, and character. 1 In 1816, he published The Divert- 
 ing History of John Bull and Brother Jonathan, the most popular of his satires; 
 in 1818, The Backwoodsman, a descriptive poem; in the next year, the second 
 series of Salmagundi, of which he was the sole author; and in 1823, Konigsmarhe, 
 a novel founded on the history of the Swedish settlements on the Delaware, the 
 title of which was afterwards changed to that of Old Times in the New World. In 
 1824 appeared John Bull in America, or The New Munchausen; in 1820, Merry 
 Talcs of the Three Wise Jfcn of Gotham; and, in the two following years, The 
 New Pilgrim's Progress, and The Tides of a Good Woman by a Doubtful Gentleman. 
 In 1S31, he published his Dutchman's Fireside, the best of his novels. It is a 
 domestic story of the Old French "War, and the scene is laid among the sources 
 of the Hudson and the borders of Lake Champlain. In the three following years 
 appeared Westward Ho, a novel founded on forest-life, the scenery of which is 
 chiefly in Kentuckj^; Life of Washington; and Slavery in the United States. 2 
 
 From 1837 to 1841, Mr. Paulding was at the head of the Navy Department 
 of the United States, under the Van Buren administration ; since which he has 
 retired from public life, and now resides on the east bank of the Hudson, about 
 eight miles above Poughkeepsie. In 1846, he published a new novel, — The Old 
 Continental ; and, in 1850, his last work, — The Puritan's Daughter, the scenery of 
 which is laid partly in England and partly in the United States. 
 
 murderer's creek. 
 
 Little more than a century ago, the beautiful region watered by 
 this stream 3 was possessed by a small tribe of Indians, which has 
 long since become extinct or incorporated with some other savage 
 nation of the West. Three or four hundred yards from where 
 the stream discharges itself into the Hudson, a white family, of 
 the name of Stacy, had established itself in a log house, by tacit 
 permission of the tribe, to whom Stacy had made himself useful 
 by his skill in a variety of little arts highly estimated by the 
 savages. In particular, a friendship subsisted between him and 
 an old Indian, called Naoman, who often came to his house and 
 partook of his hospitality. The Indians never forgive injuries nor 
 forget benefits. The family consisted of Stacy, his wife, and two 
 children, a boy and a girl, the former five, the latter three, 
 years old. 
 
 1 A large portion of Letter XL, upon slavery, which, with comments creditable 
 to the author's humanity, pictures a distressing scene of a slave-gang, — men, 
 women, and children, — chained together, and driven southward for a market, was 
 suppressed in a second edition, a little before the time he was made Secretary 
 of the Navy, under Van Buren. 
 
 2 This book, which does little credit to the author, is now out of print; and I 
 presume another edition will never be called for. How wide the difference be- 
 tween what is written for the times, to please a diseased, popular taste, and that 
 which is written for universal, ever-enduring truth ! 
 
 3 In Orange County, New York. 
 
JAMES K. PAULDING. 
 
 213 
 
 One day, Naoman came to Stacy's log hut in his absence, 
 lighted his pipe, and sat down. He looked very serious, some- 
 times sighed deeply, but said not a word. Stacy's wife asked 
 him what was the matter, — if he was sick. He shook his head, 
 sighed, but said nothing, and soon went away. The next day, he 
 came again and behaved in the same manner. Stacy's wife began 
 to think strange of this, and related it to her husband, who ad- 
 vised her to urge the old man to an explanation the next time he 
 came. Accordingly, when he repeated his visit the day after, she 
 was more importunate than usual. At last the old Indian said, 
 ¥ I am a red man, and the pale faces are our enemies : why should 
 I speak ?" — " But my husband and I are your friends : you have 
 eaten salt with us a thousand times, and my children have sat on 
 your knees as often. If you have any thing on your mind, tell it 
 me." — " It will cost me my life if it is known, and the white- 
 faced women are not good at keeping secrets," replied Naoman. — 
 " Try me, and see." — " Will you swear by your Great Spirit that 
 you will tell none but your husband ?" — u I have none else to 
 tell." — "But will you swear?" — "I do swear by our Great Spirit 
 I will tell none but my husband." — " Not if my tribe should kill 
 you for not telling?" — "Not if your tribe should kill me for not 
 telling." 
 
 Naoinan then proceeded to tell her that, owing to some en- 
 croachments of the white people below the mountains, his tribe 
 had become irritated, and were resolved that night to massacre all 
 the white settlers within their reach ; that she must send for her 
 husband, inform him of the danger, and, as secretly and speedily 
 as possible, take their canoe and paddle with all haste over the 
 river to Fishkill for safety. " Be quick, and do nothing that may 
 excite suspicion," said Naoman, as he departed. The good wife 
 sought her husband, who was down on the river fishing; told him 
 the story, and, as no time was to be lost, they proceeded to their 
 boat, which was unluckily filled with water. It took some time 
 to clear it out, and, meanwhile, Stacy recollected his gun, which 
 had been left behind. He proceeded to the house, and returned 
 with it. All this took up considerable time, and precious time it 
 proved to this poor family. The daily visits of old Naoman, and 
 his more than ordinary gravity, had excited suspicion in some of 
 the tribe, who had, accordingly, paid particular attention to the 
 movements of Stacy. One of the young Indians, who had been 
 kept on the watch, seeing the whole family about to take to the 
 boat, ran to the little Indian village, about a mile off, and gave the 
 alarm. Five Indians collected, ran down to the river, where their 
 canoes were moored, jumped in, and paddled after Stacy, who by 
 this time had got some distance out into the stream. They gained 
 on him so fast that twice he dropped his paddle and took up his 
 
214 
 
 JAMES K. PAULDING. 
 
 gun. But his wife prevented his shooting by telling him that, if 
 he fired and they were afterwards overtaken, they would meet 
 with no mercy from the Indians. He accordingly refrained, and 
 plied his paddle till the sweat rolled in big drops down his fore- 
 head. All would not do : they were overtaken within a hundred 
 yards from the shore, and carried back with shouts of yelling 
 triumph. 
 
 When they got ashore, the Indians set fire to Stacy's house, 
 and dragged himself, his wife and children, to their village. 
 Here the principal old men, and Naoman among them, assembled 
 to deliberate on the affair. The chief men of the council stated 
 that some of the tribe had undoubtedly been guilty of treason, in 
 apprizing Stacy, the white man, of the designs of the tribe, 
 whereby they took the alarm and wellnigh escaped. He proposed 
 to examine the prisoners, to learn who gave the information. The 
 old men assented to this, and Naoman among the rest. Stacy was 
 first interrogated by one of the old men, who spoke English and 
 interpreted to the others. Stacy refused to betray his informant. 
 His wife was then questioned j while, at the same moment, two 
 Indians stood threatening the two children with tomahawks, in 
 case she did not confess. She attempted to evade the truth, by 
 declaring she had a dream the night before, which alarmed her, 
 and that she had persuaded her husband to fly. " The Great 
 Spirit never deigns to talk in dreams to a white face," said the old 
 Indian. " Woman, thou hast two tongues and two faces. Speak 
 the truth, or thy children shall surely die." The little boy and 
 girl were then brought close to her, and the two savages stood 
 over them, ready to execute their bloody orders. 
 
 " Wilt thou name," said the old Indian, " the red man who be- 
 trayed his tribe ? I will ask thee three times." The mother 
 answered not. " Wilt thou name the traitor ? This is the second 
 time." The poor mother looked at her husband and then at her 
 children, and stole a glance at Naoman, who sat smoking his pipe 
 with invincible gravity. She wrung her hands, and wept, but re- 
 mained silent. " Wilt thou name the traitor? 'Tis the third and 
 last time." The agony of the mother waxed more bitter : again 
 she sought the eye of Naoman, but it was cold and motionless. 
 A pause of a moment awaited her reply, and the tomahawks were 
 raised over the heads of the children, who besought their mother 
 not to let them be murdered. 
 
 " Stop," cried Naoman. All eyes were turned upon him. 
 " Stop," repeated he, in a tone of authority. " White woman, 
 thou hast kept thy word with me to the last moment. I am the 
 traitor. I have eaten of the salt, warmed myself at the fire, 
 shared the kindness, of these Christian white people, and it was I 
 that told them of their danger. I am a withered, leafless, branch- 
 
JAMES K. PAULDING 
 
 215 
 
 less trunk. Cut me down, if you will : I am ready." A yell of 
 indignation sounded on all sides. Naoman descended from the 
 little bank where he sat, shrouded his face with his mantle of 
 skins, and submitted to his fate. He fell dead at the feet of the 
 white woman by a blow of the tomahawk. 
 
 But the sacrifice of Naoman and the firmness of the Christian 
 white woman did not suffice to save the lives of the other victims. 
 They perished, — how, it is needless to say; and the memory of 
 their fate has been preserved in the name of the pleasant stream 
 on whose banks they lived and died, which to this day is called 
 .Murderer's Creek. 
 
 QUARREL OF SQUIRE BULL AND HIS SON. 
 
 John Bull was a choleric old fellow, who held a good manor in 
 the middle of a great mill-pond, and which, by reason of its being 
 quite surrounded by water, was generally called Bulloch Maud. 
 Bull was an ingenious man, an exceedingly good blacksmith, a 
 dexterous cutler, and a notable weaver and pot-baker besides. He 
 also brewed capital porter, ale, and small beer, and was in fact a 
 sort of Jack-of-all-trades, aud good at each. In addition to these, 
 he was a hearty fellow, an excellent bottle-companion, and pass- 
 ably honest as times go. 
 
 But what tarnished all these qualities was a very quarrelsome, 
 overbearing disposition, which was always getting him into some 
 scrape or other. The truth is, he never heard of a quarrel going 
 on among his neighbors but his fingers itched to be in the thickest 
 of them \ so that he was hardly ever seen without a broken head, 
 a black eye, or a bloody nose. Such was Squire Bull, as he was 
 commonly called by the country-people his neighbors, — one of 
 those odd, testy, grumbling, boasting old codgers, that never get 
 credit for what they are, because they are always pretending to be 
 what they are not. 
 
 The squire was as tight a hand to deal with in doors as out ; 
 sometimes treating his family as if they were not the same flesh 
 and blood, when they happened to differ with him in certain 
 matters. One day he got into a dispute with his youngest son 
 Jonathan, who was familiarly called Brother Jonathan, about 
 whether churches ought to be called churches or meeting-houses, 
 and whether steeples were not an abomination. The squire, either 
 having the worst of the argument, or being naturally impatient 
 of contradiction, (I can't tell which,) fell into a great passion, and 
 swore he would physic such notions out of the boy's noddle. So 
 he went to some of his doctors and got them to draw up a pre- 
 scription, made up of thirty-nine different articles, many of them 
 bitter enough to some palates. This he tried to make Jonathan 
 
21G 
 
 JAMES K. PAULDING. 
 
 swallow, and, finding he made villanous wry faces, and would not 
 do it, fell upon him and beat him like fury. After this, he made 
 the house so disagreeable to him, that Jonathan, though as hard 
 as a pine^knot and as tough as leather, could bear it no longer. 
 Taking his gun and his axe, he put himself in a boat and paddled 
 over the mill-pond to some new lands to which the squire pre- 
 tended some sort of claim, intending to settle them, and build a 
 meeting-house without a steeple as soon as he grew rich enough. 
 
 When he got over, Jonathan found that the land was quite in 
 a state of nature, covered with wood, and inhabited by nobody but 
 wild beasts. But, being a lad of mettle, he took his axe on one 
 shoulder and his gun on the other, marched into the thickest of 
 the wood, and, clearing a place, built a_ log hut. Pursuing his 
 labors, and handling his axe like a notable woodman, he in a few 
 years cleared the land, which he laid out into th irteen good farms} 
 and, building himself a fine frame house, about half finished, began 
 to be quite snug and comfortable. 
 
 But Squire Bull, who was getting old and stingy, and, besides, 
 was in great want of money, on account of his having lately been 
 made to pay swinging damages for assaulting his neighbors and 
 breaking their heads, — the squire, I say, finding Jonathan was 
 getting well to do in the world, began to be very much troubled 
 about his welfare; so he demanded that Jonathan should pay him 
 a good rent for the land which he had cleared and made good for 
 something. He trumped up I know not what claim against him, 
 and, under different pretences, managed to pocket all Jonathan's 
 honest gains. In fact, the poor lad had not a shilling left for 
 holiday occasions ', and, had it not been for the filial respect he 
 felt for the old man, he would certainly have refused to submit to 
 such impositions. 
 
 But, for all this, in a little time Jonathan grew up to be very 
 large of his age, and became a tall, stout, double-jointed, broad- 
 footed cub of a fellow, awkward in his gait and simple in his ap- 
 pearance, but showing a lively, shrewd look, and having the pro- 
 mise of great strength when he should get his full growth. He 
 was rather an odd-looking chap, in truth, and had many queer 
 ways ; but everybody that had seen John Bull saw a great like- 
 ness between them, and swore he was John's own boy, and a true 
 chip of the old block. Like the old squire, he was apt to be 
 blustering and saucy, but in the main was a peaceable sort of 
 careless fellow, that would quarrel with nobody if you only let 
 him alone. 
 
 While Jonathan was outgrowing his strength, Bull kept on 
 picking his pockets of every penny he could scrape together ; till 
 at last one day when the squire was even more than usually press- 
 ing in his demands, which he accompanied with threats, Jonathan 
 
"WILLIAM TUDOR. 
 
 217 
 
 started up in a furious passion, and threw the tea-kettle at the 
 old man's head. The choleric Bull was hereupon exceedingly 
 enraged ; and, after calling the poor lad an undutiful, ungrateful, 
 rebellious rascal, seized him by the collar, and forthwith a furious 
 scuffle ensued. This lasted a long time ; for the squire, though 
 in years, was a capital boxer, and of most excellent bottom. At 
 last, however, Jonathan got him under, and, before he would let 
 him up, made him sign a paper giving up all claim to the farms, 
 and acknowledging the fee-simple to be in Jonathan forever. 
 
 "WILLIAM TUDOR, 1779—1830. 
 
 The family of Tudor is of "Welsh origin. John, the first of the name in America, 
 came to Boston early the last century. His son "William, having graduated at 
 Harvard College in 1769, commenced the practice of law in Boston, and married 
 Delia Jarvis, a lady of refinement and of taste congenial with his own. Their 
 son William, the subject of this biographical sketch, was born in Boston on the 
 28th of January, 1779, was fitted for college at Phillips Academy, in Andover, 
 and graduated at Harvard in 1796. Being destined for commercial life, he 
 entered the counting-room of John Codman; and when he was twenty-one, he 
 was sent by him to Paris, as his confidential agent in a matter of great business 
 interest. After being abroad nearly a year, he returned home, and soon after 
 went to Leghorn on commercial business ; visiting also Prance, Germany, and 
 England, and returned to America, confirmed in his love of letters, which, amid 
 all the turmoil of business, he ever continued to' cherish. A few of his friends and 
 associates had for sometime contemplated the formation of a literary club : he 
 entered warmly into their views, and soon the Anthology Society was formed, of 
 which he was one of the most efficient as well as earliest members. 1 
 
 1 The Monthly Anthology was begun by Mr. Phineas Adams, a graduate of 
 Harvard, and then a schoolmaster in Boston. The first number, under the title 
 of " The Monthly Anthology and Boston Review, edited by Sylvanus Per-se," 
 was published in Boston by E. Lincoln, in November, 1803. At the end of six 
 months, he gave it up to the Rev. "William Emerson,* who induced two or three 
 gentlemen to join with him in the care of the work, and thus laid the foundation 
 of the Anthology Club. The club was regularly organized and governed by rules ; 
 the number of resident members varied from eight to sixteen. It was one of its 
 rules that every member should write for the work, and nothing was published 
 without the consent of the society. The club met once a week in the evening, 
 and. after deciding on the merits of the manuscripts offered, partook of a plain 
 supper, and enjoyed the full pleasure of a literary chat. The following were the 
 members of the club, some for a short time only, others during the greater part 
 
 * Mr. Emerson was pastor of the - First Church" in Boston from 1799 to 1811. It wis on 
 his motion, in the Anthology Club, seconded by Wm. Smith Shaw, that the vote to establish 
 a library of periodical publications was adopted: and this constituted the first step towards 
 the establishment of the Boston Athen£eum, whose library is now one of the best in the 
 country. While this noble institution endures, it will perpetuate the memory of the 
 " Anthology Club." 
 
 19 
 
218 
 
 WILLIAM TUDOR. 
 
 In the year 1S05, Frederick Tudor, the brother of William, formed the plan of 
 establishing a new branch of commerce, by the transportation of ice to the tropi- 
 cal climates. The plan was, of course, ridiculed by a large portion of the com- 
 munity; but he persevered. William was sent as his agent to the West Indies; 
 and though many obstacles, as might be expected, were encountered, yet the per- 
 severance of Frederick finally triumphed over all. He established the traffic, 
 accpuired in it great affluence, and created for his country an important branch 
 of commerce, of which he was unquestionably the author and founder. 
 
 On his return from the Y\"est Indies, William Tudor rejoined the Anthology 
 Club, was chosen a member of the Massachusetts Legislature for the town of Bos- 
 ton, and, at the request of its authorities, delivered an oration on the 4th of July, 
 1S09. In 1S10, he again went to Europe, in the employ of Stephen Higginson, 
 Jr., an eminent Boston merchant, upon commercial business; but returned, the 
 next year, to devote his time to pursuits more kindred to his genius. Indeed, 
 general literature and the political relations of his country now became the chief 
 objects of his attention ; and to open a field for the discussion of these subjects, he 
 formed, in 1811, the design of establishing the "Xorth American Review," which 
 still continues a noble monument of his industry, intellectual power, and varied 
 learning. In May, 1815, it first made its appearance. 1 Mr. Tudor took upon 
 
 of its existence: — Rev. Drs. Gardiner, Kirkland, and McKean, Professor Sidney 
 Willard, Rev. Messrs. Emerson, Buckminster, S. C. Thacher, and Tuckerman ; 
 Drs. Jackson, Warren, Gorham, and Bigelow; Messrs. W. S. Shaw, Wm. Tudor, 
 Peter Thacher, Arthur M. Walter, Edmund T. Dana, Wm. Wells, R. H. Gardiner, 
 B. Welles, J. Savage, J. Field, Winthrop Sargent, Thomas Gray, J. Stickney, 
 Alex. H. Everett, J. Head, Jr., and George Ticknor. This work undoubtedly 
 rendered great service to our literature, and aided in the diffusion of good taste in 
 the community. It was one of the first efforts of regular criticism on American 
 books, and it suffered few productions of the day to escape its notice. The 
 writers, of course, received no pay: they worked in this field for the love of it; 
 for the profits of the Review did not pay for their suppers. 
 
 1 The " Xorth American Review" came out, under Mr. Tudor's editorship, 
 in May, 1S15. It was published at first every two months, and was thus con- 
 tinued to the twenty-first number, (inclusive.) which was the number for Septem- 
 ber, 1818. Three numbers constituted a volume : consequently, the first seven 
 volumes are of the bi-monthly issue. With December, ISIS, commenced the 
 eighth volume with the quarterly issue. The tenth volume begins with January, 
 1S20, and is called the first of the " new series," probably because it passed over 
 December, in order that the volumes might thenceforth correspond with the years, 
 there being two volumes in the same year. The following have been the editors 
 of this ablest and oldest of American periodicals : — 
 
 William Tudor from Mav, 1S15, to March, 1817, inclusive, 4 vols. 
 
 Jared Sparks " Mav, 1S17, to March, 1S18, " 2 " 
 
 Edward T. Channine.... " May, 1818, to Sept., 1S19, " 3 " 
 
 Edward Everett .T.... " Jan., 1820, to Oct., 1823, « 8 " 
 
 Jared Sparks " Jan., 1 S24, to April, 1830, « 13 « 
 
 Alex. H. Everett " July, 1830, to Oct., 1835, " 11 « 
 
 John G. Palfrey " Jan., 1836, to Oct., 1842, « 14 " 
 
 Francis Bowen " Jan., 1843, to Oct., 1S53, " 22 " 
 
 Andrew P. Peabody « Jan., 1854, to Oct., 1S58, " 10 " 
 
 Total volumes to 185S, inclusive... 87 
 The Rev. Andrew P. Peabody, of Portsmouth, N.H., still continues the editorship 
 of this review, of whom it is praise enough to say that he fully sustains it? pre- 
 vious high reputation. 
 
WILLIAM TUDOR. 
 
 219 
 
 himself, avowedly, the character of editor, and sustained the work with little 
 external aid. Of the first four volumes, three-fourths of the articles arc known 
 to he wholly from his pen. 
 
 In 1S19, Mr. Tudor published Letters on the Eastern States ; in 1S21, a volume 
 of Miscellanies j and in 1S23, the Life of James Otis, a most instructive and inte- 
 resting piece of biography, which may indeed be regarded as a history of the 
 times. In the same year, he conceived the design of purchasing the summit of 
 Bunker Hill, and erecting thereon a monument commemorative of the battle. 
 Xot having the means himself, he communicated his views to some wealthy 
 friends, and the result was the organization of the "Bunker Hill Monument 
 Association." 
 
 In 1S23, he was appointed Consul at Lima and the ports of Peru, the duties of 
 which office he discharged with singular ability. There he remained till, in 1S27, 
 he received the appointment of Charge d'Affaires of the United States at Rio 
 Janeiro, where he died on the 9th of March, 1S30, of a fever incident to the 
 climate. 
 
 In "William Tudor, the qualities of the gentleman and the man of busiuess, of 
 the scholar and the man of the world, were so manifestly and so happily blended, 
 that, both in public conduct and private intercourse, his character commanded 
 universal respect and confidence. And when we look at the part he took in sus- 
 taining the " Monthly Anthology," at a time when we hardly had any literature 
 of our own, and subsequently as the founder of the " North American Review," 
 and the chief writer of its earlier volumes, we must say that to no one is the cause 
 of American literature more deeply indebted. 1 
 
 INFLUENCE OF FEMALES ON SOCIETY. 
 
 From an accurate account of the condition of women in any 
 country, it would not be difficult to infer the whole state of society. 
 So great is the influence they exercise on the character of men, 
 that the latter will be elevated or degraded according to the situa- 
 tion of the weaker sex. Where women are slaves, as in Turkey, 
 the men will be the same ; where they are treated as moral beings, 
 where their minds are cultivated, and they are considered equals, 
 the state of society must be high, and the character of the men 
 energetic and noble. There is so much quickness of comprehen- 
 sion, so much susceptibility of pure and generous emotion, so 
 much ardor of affection, in women, that they constantly stimulate 
 men to exertion, and have at the same time a most powerful 
 agency in soothing the angry feelings, and in mitigating the harsh 
 and narrow propensities, which are generated in the strife of the 
 passions. 
 
 The advantages of giving a superior education to women are not 
 confined to themselves, but have a salutary influence on our sex. 
 
 1 Read an excellent sketch of his life in " The History of the Boston Athe- 
 naeum," by Hon. Josiah Quincy. 
 
220 
 
 WILLIAM TUDOR. 
 
 The fear that increased instruction will render them incompetent 
 or neglectful in domestic life, is absurd in theory and completely 
 destroyed by facts. Women, as well as men, when once esta- 
 blished in life, know that there is an end of trifling ; its solicitudes 
 and duties multiply upon them equally fast ; the former are apt to 
 feel them much more keenly, and too frequently abandon all pre- 
 vious acquirements to devote themselves wholly to these. But if 
 the one sex have cultivated and refined minds, the other must 
 meet them from shame, if not from sympathy. If a man finds 
 that his wife is not a mere nurse or a housekeeper ; that she can, 
 when the occupations of the day are over, enliven a winter's even- 
 ing; that she can converse on the usual topics of literature, and 
 enjoy the pleasures of superior conversation, or the reading of a 
 valuable book, he must have a perverted taste indeed if it does not 
 make home still dearer, and prevent him from resorting to taverns 
 for recreation The benefits to her children need not be men- 
 tioned ; instruction and cultivated taste in a mother enhance their 
 respect and affection for her and their love of home, and throw a 
 charm over the whole scene of domestic life. 
 
 CHARACTER OF JAMES OTIS. 
 
 James Otis was one of the most able and high-minded men that 
 this country has produced He was, in truth, one of the master- 
 spirits who began and conducted an opposition which at first was 
 only designed to counteract and defeat an arbitrary administration, 
 but which ended in a revolution, emancipated a continent, and 
 established, by the example of its effects, a lasting influence on all 
 the governments of the civilized world. He espoused the cause 
 of his country not merely because it was popular, but because he 
 saw that its prosperity, freedom, and honor would be all dimi- 
 nished, if the usurpation of the British Parliament was successful. 
 His enemies constantly represented him as a demagogue, yet no 
 man was less so ; his character was too liberal, proud, and honest 
 to play that part. He led public opinion by the energy which 
 conscious strength, elevated views, and quick feelings inspire ; and 
 was followed with that deference and reliance which great talents 
 instinctively command. These were the qualifications that made 
 him for many years the oracle and guide of the patriotic party. It 
 was not by supple and obscure intrigues, by unworthy flatteries 
 and compliances, by a degrading adoption of plebeian dress, man- 
 ners, or language, that he obtained the suffrages of the people, but 
 by their opinion of his uprightness, their knowledge of his disin- 
 terestedness, and their conviction of his ability. He vindicated 
 the rights of his countrymen, not in the spirit of a factious tri- 
 bune, aiming to subvert established authority, but as a Roman 
 
WILLIAM TUDOR. 
 
 221 
 
 senator, who became the voluntary advocate of an injured pro- 
 vince. He valued his own standing, and that of his family, in 
 society, and did not wish a change or a revolution. He acknow- 
 ledged a common interest with his countrymen, and sacrificed in 
 their support all his hopes of personal aggrandizement. Had he 
 taken part with the administration, he might have commanded 
 every favor in their power to bestow ; in sustaining that of his 
 native land, he well knew that his only reward would be the good 
 will of its inhabitants, and the sweet consciousness of performing 
 his duty ; and that he must be satisfied with the common lot of 
 great patriotism in all ages, — present poverty and future fame. 
 
 In fine, he was a man of powerful genius and ardent temper, 
 with wit and humor that never failed : as an orator, he was bold, 
 argumentative, impetuous, and commanding, with an eloquence 
 that made his own excitement irresistibly contagious; as a lawyer, 
 his knowledge and ability placed him at the head of his profession ; 
 as a scholar, he was rich in acquisition, and governed by a classic 
 taste; as a statesman and civilian, he was sound and just in his 
 views ; as a patriot, he resisted all allurements that might weaken 
 the cause of that country to which he devoted his life, and for 
 which he sacrificed it. The future historian of the United States, 
 in considering the foundations of American independence, will 
 find that one of the corner-stones must be inscribed with the 
 name of James Otis. 
 
 CAUSE OE THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 
 
 The following authentic anecdote on the origin of American 
 taxation may be gratifying to persons who are fond of tracing the 
 currents of events up to their primitive sources, and who know 
 how often changes in human affairs are first put in motion by 
 very trifling causes. When President Adams was minister at the 
 Court of St. James, he often saw his countryman, Benjamin West, 
 the late President of the Royal Academy. Mr. West always re- 
 tained a strong and unyielding affection for his native land, which, 
 to borrow a term of his own art, was in fine keeping with his ele- 
 vated genius. The patronage of the king was nobly bestowed 
 upon him; and it forms a fine trait in the character of both, that, 
 when a malicious courtier endeavored to embarrass him, by asking 
 his opinion on the news of some disastrous event to America, in 
 the presence of the king, he replied that he never could rejoice in 
 any misfortune to his native country ; for which answer the king 
 immediately gave him his protecting approbation. Mr. West one 
 day asked Mr. Adams if he should like to take a walk with him, 
 and see the cause of the American Revolution. The minister, 
 having known something of this matter, smiled at the proposal, 
 
222 
 
 FRANCIS S. KEY. 
 
 but told him that he should be glad to see the cause of that revo- 
 lution, and to take a walk with his friend West anywhere. The 
 next morning he called, according to agreement, and took Mr. 
 Adams into Hyde Park, to a spot near the Serpentine River, 
 where he gave him the following narrative : — " The king came to 
 the throne a young man, surrounded by flattering courtiers, one 
 of whose frequent topics it was to declaim against the meanness 
 of his palace, which was wholly unworthy a monarch of such a 
 country as England. They said that there was not a sovereign in 
 Europe who was lodged so poorly; that his sorry, dingy, old brick 
 palace of St. James looked like a stable, and that he ought to 
 build a palace suited to his kingdom. The king was fond of archi- 
 tecture, and would therefore more readily listen to suggestions 
 which were, in fact, all true. This spot that you see here was 
 selected for the site, between this and this point, which were 
 marked out. The king applied to his ministers on the subject; 
 they inquired what sum would be wanted by his majesty, who said 
 that he would begin with a million. They stated the expenses of 
 the war, and the poverty of the treasury, but that his majesty's 
 wishes should be taken into full consideration. Some time after- 
 wards, the king was informed that the wants of the treasury were 
 too urgent to admit of a supply from their present means, but that 
 a revenue might be raised in America to supply all the king's 
 wishes. This suggestion was followed up, and the king was in 
 this way first led to consider, and then to consent to, the scheme 
 for taxing the colonies." 
 
 FRANCIS S. KEY, 1779—1843. 
 
 Francis Scott Key, the son of an officer in the army of the Revolution, was 
 born in Frederick County, Maryland, August 1, 1779. He studied law, and in 
 1801 established himself in his profession at Fredericktown ; but, after a few 
 years, he removed to "Washington, D. C, and became District-Attorney for the 
 city, where he lived till his death, January 11, 1843. 
 
 A small volume of Mr. Key's poems was published, with an introductory letter 
 by Chief-Justice Taney, in 1S57. Besides that stirring national song by which 
 he is chiefly known, it contains many pieces of very great beauty. 
 
 THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER. 1 
 I. 
 
 Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, 
 
 What so proudly we hail'd, at the twilight's last gleaming ? 
 
 1 In 1814, when the British fleet was at the mouth of the Potomac River, and 
 intended to attack Baltimore, Mr. Key and Mr. Skinner were sent in a vessel with 
 
FRANCIS S. KEY. 
 
 223 
 
 Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, 
 
 O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming ; 
 And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, 
 Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there: 
 Oh, say, does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave 
 O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ? 
 
 ii. 
 
 On that shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep, 
 Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, 
 What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, 
 
 As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses? 
 Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, 
 In full glory reflected now shines in the stream : 
 'Tis the Star-Spangled Banner; oh, long may it wave 
 O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ! 
 
 in. 
 
 And where are the foes who so vauntingly swore 
 
 That the havoc of war, and the battle's confusion, 
 A home and a country should leave us no more ? 
 
 Their blood has wash'd out their foul footsteps' pollution ; 
 No refuge could save the hireling and slave 
 From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave ; 
 And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph doth wave 
 O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave! 
 
 TV. 
 
 Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand 
 
 Between their loved homes and the war's desolation ! 
 
 Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land 
 Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation ! 
 
 Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, 
 
 And this be our motto, " In God is our trust ;" 
 
 a flag of truce to obtain the release of some prisoners the English had taken in 
 their expedition against Washington. They did not succeed, and were told that 
 they would be detained till after the attack had been made on Baltimore. Ac- 
 cordingly, they went in their own vessel, strongly guarded, with the British fleet 
 as it sailed up the Patapsco : and when they came within sight of Fort McHenry, 
 a short distance below the city, they could see the American flag distinctly flying 
 on the ramparts. As the day closed in, the bomhardment of the fort commenced, 
 and Mr. Key and Mr. Skinner remained on deck all night, watching with deep 
 anxiety every shell that was fired. While the bombardment continued, it was 
 sufficient proof that the fort had not surrendered. It suddenly ceased some time 
 before day ,• but as they had no communication with any of the enemy's ships, 
 they did not know whether the fort had surrendered, or the attack upon it had 
 been abandoned. They paced the deck the rest of the night in painful suspense, 
 watching with intense anxiety for the return of day. At length the light 
 came, and they saw that ''our flag was still there," and soon they were informed 
 that the attack had failed. In the fervor of the moment, Mr. Key took an old 
 letter from his pocket, and on its back wrote the most of this celebrated song, 
 finishing it as soon as he reached Baltimore. He showed it to his friend Judge 
 Nicholson, who was so pleased with it that he placed it at once in tbe hands of 
 the printer, and in an hour after it was all over the city, and hailed with enthu- 
 siasm, and took its place at once as a national song. 
 
224 
 
 FRANCIS S. KEY. 
 
 And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave 
 O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ! 
 
 Of Mr. Key's sacred lyrics there are two — exquisite little gems — that should be 
 found in every collection of American poetry. 
 
 LIFE. 
 
 If life's pleasures cheer thee, 
 
 Give them not thy heart, / 
 Lest the gifts ensnare thee 
 From thy God to part: 
 His praises speak, his favor seek, 
 
 Fix there thy hopes' foundation ; 
 Love him, and he shall ever be 
 The rock of thy salvation. 
 
 If sorrow e'er befall thee, 
 
 Painful though it be, 
 Let not fear appall thee : 
 To thy Saviour flee : 
 He, ever near, thy prayer will hear, 
 
 And calm thy pert urbation ; 
 The waves of woe shall ne'er o'erflow 
 The rock of thy salvation. 
 
 Death shall never harm thee, 
 Shrink not from his blow, 
 For thy God shall arm thee, 
 And victory bestow : 
 For death shall bring to thee no sting, 
 
 The grave no desolation ; 
 'Tis gain to die, with Jesus nigh, 
 The rock of thy salvation. 
 
 HYMN. 
 
 Lord, with glowing heart I'd praise thee 
 
 For the bliss thy love bestows, 
 For the pardoning grace that saves me, 
 
 And the peace that from it flows. 
 Help, God! my weak endeavor., 
 
 This dull soul to rapture raise ; 
 Thou must light the flame, or never 
 
 Can my love be warm'd to praise. 
 
 Praise, my soul, the God that sought thee, 
 
 Wretched wanderer, far astray ; 
 Found thee lost, and kindly brought thee 
 
 From the paths of death away. 
 Praise, with love's devoutest feeling, 
 
 Him who saw thy guilt-born fear, 
 And, the light of hope revealing, 
 
 Bade the blood-stain'd cross appear. 
 
JOSEPH T. BUCKINGHAM. 225 
 
 Lord ! this "bosom's ardent feeling 
 
 Vainly would my lips express ; 
 Low before thy footstool kneeling, 
 
 Deign thy suppliant's prayer to bless. 
 Let thy grace, my soul's chief treasure, 
 
 Love's pure flame within me raise ; 
 And, since words can never measure, 
 
 Let my life show forth thy praise. 
 
 JOSEPH T. BUCKINGHAM. 
 
 Joseph T. Buckingham, one of the most prominent journalists of New Eng- 
 land, was born at Windham, Connecticut, on the 21st of December, 1779. After 
 working upon a farm till he was sixteen years old, he obtained a situation in the 
 printing-office of David Carlisle, the publisher of " The Farmer's Museum," at 
 Walpole, N. H. ; which he left in a few months, and apprenticed himself in the 
 office of the " Greenfield Gazette." 
 
 In 1800, he went to Boston, and in 1805 he commenced the publication, on his 
 own account, of a magazine, under the title of The Pvlyanthos. It was suspended 
 in 1807, resumed in 1812, and continued till 1815. In January, 1809, he published 
 the first number of The Ordeal, a political weekly, of sixteen pages, octavo, which 
 was discontinued in six months. In 1817, he commenced, with Samuel L. Knapp, 
 a lawyer of Boston, a weekly paper, entitled The New England Galaxy and Masonic 
 Magazine, which was conducted with great spirit, talent, and independence, and 
 obtained a large circulation. In 1828, he sold it in order to devote his entire 
 attention to "The Boston Courier," a daily paper which he had commenced in 
 March, 1824. He continued to edit the " Courier" with great ability till 1848, 
 when he sold out his interest in this also. 
 
 In 1831, Mr. Buckingham commenced, in conjunction with his son Edwin, 
 The New England Magazine, — a monthly of ninety-six pages, octavo, and one of 
 the best of its class ever published in our country, containing articles by some 
 of the best writers and most popular authors of the day. In less than two years 
 his son Edwin died at sea, in a voyage undertaken for the benefit of his health; 
 and, in 1834, the magazine was transferred to Dr. Samuel G. Howe and John O. 
 Sargent. 
 
 Mr. Buckingham was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives 
 for seven years, (four from Boston and three from Cambridge,) and of the Senate 
 four years from Middlesex County. Since he retired from the press, he has pub- 
 lished Specimens of Newspaper Literature, with Personal Memoirs, Anecdotes, and 
 Reminiscences, in two volumes, and Personal Memoirs and Recollections of Editorial 
 Life, also in two volumes. These are very interesting and instructive books, and 
 give us a high opinion of the author, as an industrious and upright man, never 
 discouraged by difficulties ; as a writer of pure and nervous English ; and as an 
 editor, truthful, independent, courageous, and loving the right more than the ex- 
 pedient. As a legislator, Mr. Buckingham did himself lasting honor by the re- 
 
226 
 
 JOSEPH T. BUCKINGHAM. 
 
 ports ho presented as chairman of committees on Lotteries, on the Mexican War, 
 on the Fugitive Slave Bill, and on many other questions of public interest. 
 
 NATIONAL FEELING LAFAYETTE. 
 
 The incidents of the last few days have been such as will pro- 
 bably never again be witnessed by the people of America, — such 
 as were never before witnessed by any nation under heaven. 
 History cannot produce the record of an event to parallel that 
 which has awakened this universal burst of pleasure, this simul- 
 taneous shout of approbation, that echoes through our wide- 
 extended empire. 
 
 The multitudes we see are not assembled to talk over their 
 private griefs, to indulge in querulous complaints, to mingle their 
 murmurs of discontent, to pour forth tales of real or imaginary 
 wrongs, to give utterance to political recriminations. The effer- 
 vescence of faction seems for the moment to be settled, the colli- 
 sion of discordant interests to subside, and hushed is the clamor 
 of controversy. There is nothing portentous of danger to the 
 commonwealth in this general awakening of the high and the low, 
 the rich and the poor, the old and the young, — this " impulsive: 
 ardor" which pervades the palace of wealth and the hovel of 
 poverty, decrepit age and lisping infancy, virgin loveliness and 
 vigorous manhood. No hereditary monarch graciously exhibits 
 his august person to the gaze of vulgar subjects. No conquering 
 tyrant comes in his triumphal car, decorated with the spoils of 
 vanquished nations, and followed by captive princes, marching to 
 the music of their chains. No proud and hypocritical hierarch, 
 playing " fantastic airs before high Heaven/' enacts his solemn 
 mockeries to deceive the souls of men and secure for himself the 
 honor of an apotheosis. The shouts which announce the approach 
 of a chieftain are unmingled with any note of sorrow. No love- 
 lorn maiden's sigh touches his ear; no groan from a childless 
 father speaks reproach ; no widow's curse is uttered, in bitterness 
 of soul, upon the destroyer of her hope; no orphan's tear falls 
 upon his shield to tarnish its brightness. The spectacle now ex- 
 hibited to the world is of the purest and noblest character, — a 
 spectacle which man may admire and God approve, — an assembled 
 nation offering the spontaneous homage of a nation's gratitude to 
 a nation's benefactor. 
 
 There is probably no man living whose history partakes so 
 largely of the spirit of romance and chivalry as that of the indi- 
 vidual who is now emphatically the guest of the people. At the 
 age of nineteen years, he left his country and espoused the cause 
 of the American colonies. His motive for this conduct must have 
 been one of the noblest that ever actuated the heart of man. He 
 
JOSEPH T. BUCKINGHAM. 
 
 227 
 
 was in possession of large estates, allied to the highest orders of 
 French nobility, surrounded by friends and relatives, with pros- 
 pects of future distinction and favor as fair as ever opened to the 
 ardent view of aspiring and ambitious youth. He was just mar- 
 ried to a lady of great worth and respectability, and it would seem 
 that nothing was wanting to a life of affluence and ease. Yet 
 Lafayette left his friends, his wealth, his country, his prospects 
 of distinction, his wife, and all the sources of domestic bliss, to 
 assist a foreign nation in its struggle for freedom, and at a time, 
 too, when the prospects of that country's success were dark, dis- 
 heartening, and almost hopeless. He fought for that country, he 
 fed and clothed her armies, he imparted of his wealth to her poor. 
 He saw her purposes accomplished, and her government esta 
 blished on principles of liberty. He refused all compensation for 
 his services. He returned to his native land, and engaged in 
 contests for liberty there. He was imprisoned by a foreign 
 government, suffered every indignity and every cruelty that could 
 be inflicted, and lived, after his release, almost an exile on the 
 spot where he was born. More than forty years after he first 
 embarked in the cause of American liberty, he returns to see 
 once more his few surviving companions in arms, and is met by 
 the grateful salutations of the whole nation. It is not possible to 
 reflect on these facts without feeling our admiration excited to a 
 degree that almost borders on reverence. Sober history, it is 
 hoped, will do justice to the name of Lafayette. It is not in the 
 power of fiction to embellish his character or his life. 
 
 New England Galaxy, 1826. 
 
 THE EVILS OF LOTTERIES. 
 
 A lottery is gaming. This is against the policy of society, and 
 there are few civilized nations that have not adopted means to re- 
 strain or entirely prohibit it ; because it is seeking property for 
 which no equivalent is to be paid, and because it leads directly to 
 losses and poverty, and, by exciting bad passions, is the fruitful 
 original of vice and crime. 
 
 It is the worst species of gaming, because it brings adroitness, 
 cunning, experience, and skill to contend against ignorance, folly, 
 distress, and desperation. It can be carried on to an indefinite 
 and indefinable extent without exposure ; and, by a mode of 
 settling the chances by "combination numbers," — an invention 
 of the modern school of gambling, — the fate of thousands and 
 hundreds of thousands may be determined by a single turn of the 
 wheel. 
 
 Lotteries, like other games of chance, are seductive and infa- 
 tuating. Every new loss is an inducement to a new adventure; 
 
228 
 
 WASHINGTON ALLSTON. 
 
 and, filled with vain hopes of recovering what is lost, the unthink- 
 ing victim is led on, from step to step, till he finds it impossible 
 to regain his ground, and he gradually sinks into a miserable out- 
 cast; or, by a bold and still more guilty effort, plunges at once 
 into that gulf where he hopes protection from the stings of con- 
 science, a refuge from the reproaches of the world, and oblivion 
 from existence. 
 
 If we consider the dealing in lottery-tickets as a calling or 
 employment, so far as the venders are concerned, it deserves to be 
 treated, in legislation, as those acts are which are done to get 
 money by making others suffer ; to live upon society by making 
 a portion of its members dishonest, idle, poor, vicious, and crimi- 
 nal. In its character and consequences, the dealing in lottery- 
 tickets is the worst, species of gaming, and deserves a severer 
 punishment than any fine would amount to. If it involves the 
 moral and legal offences of fraud and cheating, does it not deserve 
 an infamous punishment, if any fraudulent acquisition of mere 
 property should be punished with infamy? Considered in its 
 complicated wrongs to society, it certainly deserves the severest 
 punishment, because it makes infamous criminals out of innocent 
 persons, and visits severe afflictions on parents, employers, family 
 connections, and others, who in this respect have done no wrong 
 themselves; and thus the innocent are made to suffer for the 
 guilty, — an anomaly which is revolting to all our notions of 
 justice, and to all the moral and natural sympathies of mankind. 
 
 Legislative Report, 1833. 
 
 WASHINGTON ALLSTON, 1779—1843. 
 
 " The clement of beauty which in thee 
 
 Was a prevailing spirit, pure and high, 
 And from all guile had made thy being free, 
 
 Now seems to whisper thou canst never die! 
 For Nature's priests we shed no idle tear: 
 
 Their mantles on a noble lineage fall: 
 Though thy white locks at length have press'd the bier 
 
 Death could not fold thee in Oblivion's pall : 
 Majestic forms thy hand in grace array'd 
 
 Eternal watch shall keep beside thy tomb, 
 And hues aerial, that thy pencil stay'd, 
 
 Its shades with Heaven's radiance illume: 
 Art's meek apostle, holy is thy sway, 
 From the heart's records ne'er to pass away !" 
 
 H. T. TCCKERMAX. 
 
 Washixgtox Allston was born at Charleston, S. C, on the 5th of November, 
 1779. He was sent to New England to receive his education, and graduated at 
 Harvard College in 1800. Throughout his collegiate course, he showed his 
 innate love of nature, music, poetry, and painting ; and though, from his strong 
 aspirations after the beautiful, the pure, and the sublime, he led what might be 
 
WASHINGTON ALLSTON. 
 
 220 
 
 called an ideal life, yet he was far from being a recluse, but was a popular, high- 
 spirited youth, and passionately fond of society. As a scholar in classical and 
 English literature his rank was high ; and on taking his degree he delivered a 
 poem which was much applauded. 
 
 On leaving college, he determined to devote his life to the fine arts, and 
 embarked for London in the autumn of 1801. He at once became a student of 
 the Royal Academy, with whose President, Benjamin West, he formed an inti- 
 mate and lasting friendship. After three years spent in England, he went to 
 Paris, and thence to Italy, where he first met with Coleridge. 1 In 1809, he re- 
 turned to America, and remained two years in Boston, his adopted home, and 
 there married the sister of Dr. W. E. Channing. In 1811, he went again to Eng- 
 land, where his reputation as an artist had been completely established. In 1813, 
 he published a small volume entitled The Sylphs of the Seasons, and other Poems, 
 which was republished in this country, and gave him a rank among our best 
 poets. Soon after this he passed through a long and serious illness, from which 
 he had scarcely recovered when he suffered the loss of his wife. These trials, 
 however severe, were truly sanctified to him : he became an earnest and sincere 
 Christian, and to the close of life preserved a beauty and consistency of Christian 
 character rarely equalled. 
 
 In 1S18, he again returned to America, and again made Boston his home. 
 " There, in a circle of warmly-attached friends, surrounded by a sympathy and 
 admiration which his elevation and purity, the entire harmony of his life and 
 pursuits, could not fail to create, he devoted himself to his art, the labor of his 
 love." In 1830, he married his second wife, the daughter of the late Judge 
 Dana, and removed to Cambridge, and soon after began the preparation of a 
 course of lectures on art. But four of these he completed. His death occurred 
 at his own house, Cambridge, on Sunday morning, July 9, 1843. "He had 
 finished a day and week of labor in his studio, upon his great picture of Bel- 
 shazzar's Feast, 2 the fresh paint denoting that the last touches of his pencil were 
 given to that glorious but melancholy monument of the best years of his later 
 life."3 
 
 1 In one of his letters he thus writes : — " To no other man do I owe so much, 
 intellectually, as to Mr. Coleridge,* with whom I became acquainted in Rome, and 
 who has honored me with his friendship for more than five-and-twenty years. He 
 used to call Rome the silent city ; but I never could think of it as such while with 
 him ; for, meet him when and where I would, the fountain of his mind was never 
 dry, but, like the far-reaching aqueducts that once supplied this mistress of the 
 world, its living stream seemed specially to flow for every classic ruin over which 
 we wandered. And when I recall some of our walks under the pines of the Villa 
 Borghese, I am almost tempted to dream that I have once listened to Plato in the 
 groves of the Academy." 
 
 2 This embodiment of a sublime conception, magnificent even in its unfinished 
 state, may be seen in the Picture Gallery of the Boston Athenaeum. 
 
 3 Memoir of Allston prefixed to an edition of his works, by Richard Henry 
 Dana, Jr. 
 
 " Allston's appearance and manners accorded perfectly with his character. His 
 form was slight and his movements quietly active. The lines of his countenance, 
 the -breadth of the brow, the large and speaking eye, and the long, white hair, 
 made him an immediate object of interest. If not engaged in conversation, there 
 was a serene abstraction in his air. When death so tranquilly overtook him, for 
 many hours it was difficult to believe that he was not sleeping, so perfectlv did 
 
 20 
 
230 
 
 WASHINGTON ALLSTON. 
 
 The Sylphs of the Seasons is Allston's most finished poem. The argument in 
 hrief is this. The poet falls asleep, and in his dream finds himself in 
 
 " A bright saloon, 
 That scern'd illumined by the moon," 
 
 where " four damsels stood of faery race," — the sylphs of the four seasons, — each 
 of whom addresses him, striving by her eloquence to "win his heart and hand." 
 The following is the best portion of 
 
 THE ADDRESS OF THE SYLPH OF SPRING. 
 
 Then spake the Sylph of Spring serene : — 
 " 'Tis / thy joyous heart, I ween, 
 
 With sympathy shall move ; 
 For I, with living melody 
 Of birds, in choral symphony, 
 First waked thy soul to poesy, 
 
 To piety and love. 
 
 "When thou, at call of vernal breeze, 
 And beckoning bough of budding trees, 
 
 Hast left thy sullen fire, 
 And stretch'd thee in some mossy dell, 
 And heard the browsing wether's bell, 
 Blithe echoes rousing from their cell 
 
 To swell the tinkling choir ; 
 
 "Or heard, from branch of flowering thorn, 
 The song of friendly cuckoo warn 
 
 The tardy-moving swain ; 
 Hast bid the purple swallow hail, 
 And seen him now through ether sail, 
 Now sweeping downward o'er the vale, 
 
 And skimming now the plain ; 
 
 "Then, catching with a sudden glance 
 The bright and silver-clear expanse 
 
 Of some broad river's stream, 
 Beheld the boats adown it glide, 
 And motion wind again the tide, 
 Where, chain'd in ice by Winter's pride, 
 
 Late rojl'd the heavy team : 
 
 " 'Twas mine the warm, awakening hand, 
 That made thy grateful heart expand, 
 
 And feel the high control 
 Of Him, the mighty Power, that moves 
 Amid the waters and the groves, 
 And through his vast creation proves 
 
 His omnipresent soul. 
 
 the usual expression remain. His torchlight burial, at Mount Auburn, harmonized, 
 in its beautiful solemnity, with the lofty and sweet tenor of his life." — Tuckerman's 
 Artist Life. 
 
WASHINGTON ALLSTON. 
 
 231 
 
 "Or, brooding o'er some forest rill, 
 Fringed with the early daffodil, 
 
 And quivering maiden-hair, 
 When thou hast mark'd the dusky bed, 
 With leaves and water-rust o'erspread, 
 That seem'd an amber light to shed 
 
 On all was shadow'd there ; 
 
 "And thence, as by its murmur call'd, 
 The current traced to where it brawl'd 
 
 Beneath the noontide ray, 
 And there beheld the checker'd shade 
 Of waves, in many a sinuous braid, 
 That o'er the sunny channel play*d, 
 
 With motion ever gay : 
 
 " 'Twas I to these the magic gave, 
 That made thy heart, a willing slave, 
 
 To gentle Nature bend, 
 And taught thee how, with tree and flower, 
 And whispering gale, and dropping shower, 
 In converse sweet to pass the hour, 
 
 As with an early friend ; 
 
 " That made thy heart, like His above, 
 To flow with universal love 
 
 For every living thing. 
 And, oh, if I, with ray divine, 
 Thus tempering, did thy soul refine, 
 Then let thy gentle heart be mine, 
 
 And bless the Sylph of Spring." 
 
 Of Mr. Allston's fugitive poems, that which has been most praised is his ode 
 entitled 
 
 AMERICA TO GREAT BRITAIN. 1 
 
 All hail ! thou noble land, 
 Our fathers' native soil ! 
 Oh, stretch thy mighty hand, 
 Gigantic grown by toil, 
 O'er the vast Atlantic wave to our shore! 
 For thou with magic might 
 Canst reach to where the light 
 Of Phoebus travels bright 
 The world o'er. 
 
 The Genius of our clime, 
 
 From his pine-embattled steep, 
 Shall hail the guest sublime ; 
 
 While the Tritons of the deep 
 
 1 Written in America, in the year 1810, and in 1817 inserted by Coleridge in the 
 first edition of his " Sibylline Leaves," with the following note : — " This poem, 
 written by an American gentleman, a valued and dear friend, I communicate to 
 the reader for its moral no less than its poetic spirit.*' — Editor. 
 
 "a 
 
232 
 
 WASHINGTON ALLSTON. 
 
 With their conchs the kindred league shall proclaim. 
 Then let the world combine, — 
 O'er the main our naval line 
 Like the milky-way shall shine 
 Bright in fame ! 
 
 Though ages long have pass'd 
 
 Since our fathers left their home, 
 Their pilot in the blast, 
 
 O'er untravell'd seas to roam, 
 Yet lives the blood of England in our veins ! 
 And shall we not proclaim 
 That blood of honest fame 
 Which no tyranny can tame 
 By its chains ? 
 
 While the language free and bold 
 Which the Bard of Avon sung, 
 In which our Milton told 
 
 How the vault of heaven rung 
 When Satan, blasted, fell with his host ; — 
 While this, with reverence meet, 
 Ten thousand echoes greet, 
 From rock to rock repeat 
 Round our coast ; — 
 
 While the manners, while the arts, 
 
 That mould a nation's soul, 
 Still cling around our hearts, — 
 Between let ocean roll, 
 Our joint communion breaking with the Sun: 
 Yet still from either beach 
 The voice of blood shall reach, 
 More audible than speech, 
 "We are One." 1 
 
 Allston's Lectures on Art are very beautiful and instructive ; but to be appre- 
 ciated they must be read as a whole. Of his prose, therefore, I select the following 
 few aphorisms from many that were written on the walls of his studio : — 
 
 BENEVOLENCE. 
 
 No right judgment can ever be formed on any subject having 
 a moral or intellectual bearing without benevolence ; for so strong 
 is man's natural self-bias, that, without this restraining principle, 
 he insensibly becomes a competitor in all such cases presented to 
 his mind ; and, when the comparison is thus made personal, unless 
 the odds be immeasurably against him, his decision will rarely be 
 
 1 Note by the Author. — This alludes merely to the moral union of the two coun- 
 tries. The author would not have it supposed that the tribute of respect offered 
 in these stanzas to the land of his ancestors would be paid by him if at the expense 
 of the independence of that which gave him birth. 
 
 
 
BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 
 
 288 
 
 impartial. In other words, no one can see any thing as it really 
 is through the misty spectacles of self-love. We must wish well 
 to another in order to do him justice. Now, the virtue in this 
 good will is not' to blind us to his faults, but to our own rival and 
 interposing merits. 
 
 TRUTH. 
 
 If the whole world should agree to speak nothing but truth, 
 what an abridgment it would make of speech ! And what an 
 unravelling there would be of the invisible webs which men, like 
 so many spiders, now weave about each other ! But the contest 
 between Truth and Falsehood is now pretty well balanced. Were 
 it not so, and had the latter the mastery, even language would 
 soon become extinct, from its very uselessness. The present 
 superfluity of words is the result of the warfare. 
 
 HUMILITY. 
 
 The only true independence is in humility ; for the humble man 
 exacts nothing, and cannot be mortified, — expects nothing, and 
 cannot be disappointed. Humility is also a healing virtue ; it will 
 cicatrize a thousand wounds, which pride would keep forever open. 
 But humility is not the virtue of a fool ; since it is not conse- 
 quent upon any comparison between ourselves and others, but 
 between what we are and what we ought to be, — which no man 
 ever was. 
 
 BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 
 
 Professor Benjamin Silliman, the son of G. S. Silliman, Esq., a lawyer of 
 distinction, and a Revolutionary patriot and soldier, was born in North Stratford, 
 now Trumbull, Connecticut, on the 8th of August, 1779. In 1792, he entered 
 Yale College, with which from that time he has been almost uninterruptedly 
 connected. In 1799, he was appointed a tutor in the college, and, at the sug- 
 gestion of its President, Dr. D wight, he resolved, in 1801, to devote himself to 
 chemistry, and the associated sciences, mineralogy and geology. After studying 
 for some time at New Haven, he spent two seasons in Philadelphia; and in 1805 
 he visited Europe, both to purchase books and apparatus, and to attend the lec- 
 tures of the distinguished Professors in Edinburgh and London. He had given a 
 partial preliminary course before he went abroad; and, after his return, he de- 
 livered, in 1806 and 1807, his first full course of lectures in Yale College. In 
 1810, he published an account of his travels, which was received with great favor, 
 and passed through several editions. 
 
 In 1818, Professor Silliman founded the "American Journal of Science and 
 Arts," — a work which has done more than any other to raise the reputation of 
 
 20* 
 
234 
 
 BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 
 
 our country for science, and to make her known and honored abroad; while it has 
 placed the learned editor in the very front rank of scientific men, and will ever 
 remain a permanent monument to his zeal and perseverance in his favorite 
 studies. Besides communicating with the public on scientific subjects through 
 the press, he has frequently given courses of scientific lectures to popular 
 audiences in our cities and towns, and always with great acceptance. His easy 
 and dignified manners bespeak the gentleman born and bred; while his happy 
 talent at illustration, and tact in communicating knowledge, always render his 
 lectures as pleasing as they are instructive. 
 
 In 1853, Prof. Silliman resigned his office as a Professor in Yale College, and 
 was complimented with the title of " Professor Emeritus." He was succeeded in 
 the department of Geology by Prof. James D. Dana, and in that of Chemistry by 
 his son, Prof. Benjamin Silliman, Jr. 1 Notwithstanding his advanced years and 
 laborious life, his vigor of mind and body remains unimpaired, (January, 1S59;) 
 and, since his retirement from active duties in college, he has continued to take a 
 deep interest in the progress of science at home and abroad. He has also become 
 conspicuous among American citizens for the earnestness with which he united 
 with others in the recent movements for opposing the further extension of slavery, 
 and showing his warm sympathies with the free settlers of Kansas. 
 
 Professor Silliman has fitly been called the "Father of American Periodical 
 Science and, although others of his countrymen preceded him in the study of 
 nature, no man probably has done so much as he to awaken and encourage 
 students of science, to collect and diffuse the researches of American natural- 
 ists, and to arouse in all classes of the community a respect for learning and a 
 desire for its advancement. 2 
 
 NATURE OF GEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 
 
 Geological Evidence is the same which is readily admitted as 
 satisfactory in the case of historical antiquities. 
 
 When, in 1738, the workmen, in excavating a well, struck 
 upon the theatre of Herculaneum, which had reposed for more 
 than sixteen centuries beneath the lava of Vesuvius; when, in 
 1748, Pompeii was disencumbered of its volcanic ashes and cin- 
 ders, and thus two buried cities were brought to light, — had 
 history been quite silent respecting their existence, would not 
 observers say, — and have they not all actually said, — here are the 
 
 1 Prof. Silliman, Jr. has already shown his ability to fill the Professorship his 
 father so long honored, by the two works recently published, — First Principles of 
 Chemistry, and First Principles of Physics or Natural Philosophy, — both admirable 
 text-books for our schools and colleges. 
 
 2 The following are the titles of most of Professor Silliman's publications : — ■ 
 American Journal of Science, 50 vols., 1818-45 : Second Series, by Silliman and 
 Dana, still in progress; 25 vols, down to 1858: Journal of Travels in England, 
 Holland, and Scotland, in 1805-06, 2 vols.: Travels in Canada, in 1819: Henry's 
 Elements of Chemistry, edited with notes, 3 editions: Bakewell's Geology, 3 editions, 
 edited with notes and appendixes : Elements of Chemistry, in the order of Lectures 
 given in Yale College, 2 vols. : Visit to Europe in 1851, 2 vols., six editions. 
 
BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 
 
 235 
 
 works of man, — his temples, his forums, his amphitheatres, his 
 tombs, his shops of traffic and of arts, his houses, furniture, pic- 
 tures, and personal ornaments ; here are his streets, with their 
 pavements and wheel-ruts worn in the solid stone, his coins, his 
 grin ding-mills, his wine, food, and medicines ; here are his dun- 
 geons and stocks, with the skeletons of the prisoners chained in 
 their awful solitudes; and here and there are the bones of a vic- 
 tim who, although at liberty, was overtaken by the fiery storm, 
 while others were quietly buried in their domestic retreats. The 
 falling cinders and ashes copied, as they fell, even the delicate out- 
 line of female forms, as well as the head and helmet of a sentinel ; 
 and, having concreted, they thus remain true volcanic casts, to be 
 seen by remote generations, as now in the Museum of Naples. 
 
 Because the soil had formed, and grass and trees had grown, 
 and successive generations of men had unconsciously walked, 
 tilled the ground, or built their houses, over the entombed cities, 
 and because they were covered by volcanic cinders, ashes, and 
 projected stones, does any one hesitate to admit that they were 
 once real cities; that at the time of their destruction they stood 
 upon what was then the upper surface; that their streets once 
 rang with the noise of business, their halls and theatres with the 
 voice of pleasure ; that in an evil time they were overwhelmed by 
 a volcanic tempest from Vesuvius, and their name and place for 
 more than seventeen centuries blotted out from the earth and for- 
 gotten ? The tragical story is legibly perused by every observer, 
 and all alike, whether learned or unlearned, agree in the conclu- 
 sions to be drawn. 
 
 To establish all this, it is of no decisive importance that 
 scholars have gleaned here and there a fragment from the Roman 
 classics to show that such cities once existed, and that they were 
 overthrown by an eruption in the year a.d. 79, which gave occa- 
 sion for the letter of the younger Pliny, describing the death of 
 his uncle, the great naturalist, while observing the volcanic 
 phenomena. 
 
 In such cases, the coincidences of historical and other writings, 
 and the gleanings of tradition, are indeed valuable and gratifying : 
 they are even of great utility, not in proving the events, — for of 
 them there is a physical record that cannot deceive, — but in fix- 
 ing the order and the time of the occurrences. 
 
 The nature of the catastrophe is, however, perfectly intelligible 
 from the appearances themselves, and needs no historical confirma- 
 tion. No man ever imagined that Herculaneum and Pompeii 
 were created where we now find their ruins ; no one hazards the 
 absurd conjecture that they are a lusus naturae; but all units in 
 giving an explanation consistent alike with geology, history, and 
 common sense. 
 
236 
 
 TIMOTHY FLINT. 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE EVIDENCE FOSSIL FISHES OF 
 
 MOUNT BOLCA. 1 
 
 The one hundred and sixteen species of fishes found in Mount 
 Bolca, embedded in marly limestone and buried under lava, in- 
 form us that they were once living and active beings; before those 
 hills were deposited, and when the waters stood over the place 
 where, in the bottom of the sea, the fishes were entombed ; the 
 rock that contains their dry skeletons, often entirely perfect, was 
 formed around them, doubtless in the state of a calcareous and 
 argillaceous sediment ; this calcareous stratum, being not impro- 
 bably thrown up by a volcanic heave, first enclosed the fishes, sud- 
 denly and without violence. In subsequent periods, it was itself 
 overwhelmed by a submarine eruption of molten volcanic rock, 
 which congealed over the fish-rock, and, this being a very bad con- 
 ductor of heat, preserved the entombed fossils from injury. Then, 
 again, on the bottom of the sea, the calcareous sediment wrapped 
 around in its soft folds another school of fishes, and again the 
 molten rock flowed over the calcareous marl; and so on in several 
 successions. 
 
 But this is not all. This remarkable mountain is eighty miles 
 from the Adriatic, the nearest sea, and it rises two thousand feet 
 in elevation above it. It is plain, then, not only that all these 
 deposits were formed successively beneath a great sea, — for the 
 fishes are all marine, — but the mountain, with the country to 
 which it appertains, has been elevated by forces existing in the 
 earth : it emerged from the surrounding waters, and, ages since, 
 became dry land. 
 
 TIMOTHY FLINT, 1780—1840. 
 
 This early historian and scene-painter of our Western country was born in 
 Reading, Massachusetts, in 1780, and graduated at Harvard College in 1800. 
 After devoting two years to the study of theology, he became pastor of the Con- 
 gregational Church in Lunenburg, Massachusetts, where he continued till 1814. 
 His health having become impaired by too sedentary pursuits, he deemed it best 
 to seek a milder climate, and in 1815 became a missionary in the Valley of the 
 Mississippi. After passing a winter at Cincinnati, he journeyed through portions 
 of Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, and then took up his abode at St. Charles, Mis- 
 souri, where he remained nearly three years. In 1S22, he removed to New 
 Orleans, and the next year went to Alexandria, on the Red River, where he took 
 -marge of a literary institution. Here he began to write his Recollections of Tea 
 
 1 Near Verona, in Italy. 
 
TIMOTHY FLINT. 
 
 237 
 
 Years passed in the Valley of the Mississippi, which was published in Boston in 
 1826, and considered then to be the most important contribution to American 
 geography that had been made. In the following year, he published a novel, en- 
 titled Francis Berrian; or, The Mexican Patriot, — a story of romantic adventure 
 with the Camanches, connected with the Mexican struggle for independence. 
 This was followed, in 1828, by Arthur denning, — a very hazardous attempt to 
 write another Robinson Crusoe. George Mason, the Young Back-woodsman, fol- 
 lowed, but without increasing the author's reputation. The last of his novels 
 was The Shoshonee Valley, published in Cincinnati in 1830, the scene of which 
 was laid among the Indians of Oregon. 
 
 In 1832, Mr. Flint published, in Boston, Lectures upon Natural History, Geo- 
 logy, Chemistry, the Application of Steam, and Interesting Discoveries in the Arts. 
 In 1831, he removed to Cincinnati, and became the editor of the "Western 
 Monthly Magazine," which he conducted with much ability, writing more or less 
 for every number, for three years. He then removed to Louisiana, being in 
 quite feeble health, and hoping to be benefited by the Southern climate. But he 
 was disappointed, and in May, 1840, he resolved to try again the air of his own 
 New England. But all was of no avail, and he expired at Reading, Massa- 
 chusetts, August 18, 1840. 
 
 Mr. Flint will always be known as one of the earliest geographers of our 
 country, whose works, from their clear and beautiful descriptions of scenery, and 
 from their pictures of our Western wilds and prairies before they were trodden by 
 the foot of civilized man, will always maintain a position in our early literature, 
 and be read with interest. 
 
 INDIAN MOUNDS. 
 
 At first the eye mistakes these mounds for hills ; but when it 
 catches the regularity of their breastworks and ditches, it dis- 
 covers at once that they are the labors of art and of men. When 
 the evidence of the senses convinces us that human bones moulder 
 in these masses; when you dig about them, and bring to light 
 domestic utensils, and are compelled to believe that the busy tide 
 of life once flowed here • when you see at once that these races 
 were of a very different character from the present generation, — 
 you begin to inquire if any tradition, if any the faintest records, 
 can throw any light upon these habitations of men of another 
 age. Is there no scope, beside these mounds, for imagination and 
 for contemplation of the past? The meri, their joys, their sor- 
 rows, their bones, are all buried together. But the grand features 
 of nature remain. There is the beautiful prairie over which they 
 "strutted through life's poor play/' The forests, the hills, the 
 mounds, lift their heads in unalterable repose, and furnish the 
 same sources of contemplation to us that they did to those gene- 
 rations that have passed away. 
 
 These mounds must date back to remote depths in the olden 
 time. From the ages of the trees on them, we can trace them 
 
238 TIMOTHY FLINT. 
 
 back six hundred years, leaving it entirely to the imagination to 
 descend further into the depths of time beyond. And yet, after 
 the rains, the washing, and the crumbling of so many ages, many 
 of them are still twenty-five feet high. Some of them are spread 
 over an extent of acres. I have seen, great and small, I should 
 suppose, a hundred. Though diverse in position and form, they 
 all have a uniform character. They are, for the most part, in 
 rich soils and in conspicuous situations. Those on the Ohio are 
 covered with very large trees. But in the prairie regions, where 
 I have seen the greatest numbers, they are covered with tall grass, 
 and are generally near beaches, — which indicate the former courses 
 of the rivers, in the finest situations for present culture ; and the 
 greatest population clearly has been in those very positions where 
 the most dense future population will be. 
 
 FASHION AND RUIN versus INDUSTRY AND INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 I cannot conceive that mere idlers, male or female, can have 
 respect enough for themselves to be comfortable. I have no con- 
 ception of a beautiful woman, or a fine man, in whose eye, in 
 whose port, in whose whole expression, this sentiment does not 
 stand embodied : — "I am called by my Creator to duties; I have 
 employment on the earth ; my sterner but more enduring plea- 
 sures are in discharging my duties. " 
 
 Compare the sedate expression of this sentiment in the counte- 
 nance of man or woman, when it is known to stand as the index 
 of character and the fact, with the superficial gaudiness of a 
 simple, good-for-nothing belle, who disdains usefulness and em- 
 ployment, whose empire is a ball-room, and whose subjects, 
 dandies as silly and as useless as herself. Who, of the two, has 
 most attractions for a man of sense ? The one a helpmate, a for- 
 tune in herself, who can aid to procure one if the husband has it 
 not, who can soothe him under the loss of it, and, what is more, 
 aid him to regain it; and the other a painted butterfly, for orna- 
 ment only during the vernal and sunny months of prosperity, and 
 then not becoming a chrysalis, an inert moth in adversity, but a 
 croaking, repining, ill-tempered termagant, who can only recur to 
 the days of her short-lived triumph, to embitter the misery, and 
 poverty, and hopelessness of a husband, who, like herself, knows 
 not to dig, and is ashamed to beg. 
 
 We are obliged to avail ourselves of severe language in appli- 
 cation to a deep-rooted malady. We want words of power. We 
 need energetic and stern applications. No country ever verged 
 more rapidly towards extravagance and expense. In a young 
 republic, like ours, it is ominous of any thing but good. Men of 
 thought, and virtue, and example, are called upon to look to this 
 
TIMOTHY FLINT. 
 
 239 
 
 evil. Ye patrician families, that croak, and complain, and fore- 
 bode the downfall of the republic, here is the origin of your evils. 
 Instead of training your son to waste his time, as an idle young 
 gentleman at large ; instead of inculcating on your daughter that 
 the incessant tinkling of a harpsichord, or a scornful and lady- 
 like toss of the head, or dexterity in waltzing, are the chief requi- 
 sites to make her way in life ; if you can find no better employ- 
 ment for them, teach him the use of the grubbing-hoe, and her to 
 make up garments for your servants. Train your son and daugh- 
 ter to an employment, to frugality, to hold the high front and to 
 walk the fearless step of independence. When your children 
 have these possessions, you may go down to the grave in peace as 
 regards their temporal fortunes. 
 
 Western Review, 1835. 
 THE SHORES OF THE OHIO. 
 
 It was now the middle of November. The weather up to this 
 time had been, with the exception of a couple of days of fog and 
 rain, delightful. The sky has a milder and lighter azure than 
 that of the Northern States. The wide, clean sand-bars stretch- 
 ing for miles together, and now and then a flock of wild geese, 
 swans, or sand-hill cranes, and pelicans, stalking along on them; 
 the infinite varieties of form of the towering bluffs j the new tribes 
 of shrubs and plants on the shores ; the exuberant fertility of the 
 soil, evidencing itself in the natural as well as cultivated vegeta- 
 tion j in the height and size of the corn, of itself alone a matter 
 of astonishment to an inhabitant of the Northern States ; in the 
 thrifty aspect of the young orchards, literally bending under their 
 fruit ; the surprising size and rankness of the weeds, and, in the 
 enclosures where cultivation had been for a while suspended, the 
 matted abundance of every kind of vegetation that ensued, — all 
 these circumstances united to give a novelty and freshness to the 
 scenery. The bottom forests everywhere display the huge syca- 
 more, the king of the Western forest, in all places an interesting 
 tree, but particularly so here, and in Autumn, when you see its 
 white and long branches among its red and yellow fading leaves. 
 You may add, that in all the trees that have been stripped of their 
 leaves, you see them crowned with verdant tufts of the viscus or 
 mistletoe, with its beautiful white berries, and their trunks en- 
 twined with grape-vines, some of them in size not much short of 
 the human body. To add to this union of pleasant circumstances, 
 there is a delightful temperature of the air, more easily felt than 
 described. There is something, too, in the gentle and almost im- 
 perceptible motion, 1 as you sit on the deck of the boat, and see 
 
 1 This was written, of course, before the age of steamboats. 
 
240 
 
 TIMOTHY FLINT. 
 
 the trees apparently moving by you, and new groups of scenery 
 still opening upon your eye, together with the view of these 
 ancient and magnificent forests which the axe has not yet de- 
 spoiled, the broad and beautiful river, the earth and the sky, 
 which render such a trip at this season the very element of 
 poetry. 
 
 TIIE INDIAN BELLE AND BEAU. 
 
 As regards the vanity of the Indian, we have not often had the 
 fortune to contemplate a young squaw at her toilet ; but, from the 
 studied arrangement of her calico jacket, from the glaring circles 
 of vermilion on her plump and circular face, from the artificial 
 manner in which her hair, of intense black, is clubbed in a coil 
 of the thickness of a man's wrist, from the long time it takes her 
 to complete these arrangements, from the manner in which she 
 minces and ambles, and plays off her prettiest airs, after she has 
 put on all her charms, we should clearly infer that dress and per- 
 sonal ornament occupy the same portion of her thoughts that 
 they do of the fashionable woman of civilized society. In regions 
 contiguous to the whites, the squaws have generally, a calico shirt 
 of the finest colors. 
 
 A young Indian warrior is notoriously the most thorough- 
 going beau in the world. Bond Street and Broadway furnish no 
 subjects that will undergo as much crimping and confinement, to 
 appear in full dress. We are confident that we have observed 
 such a character, constantly occupied with his paints and his 
 pocket-glass, three full hours, laying on his colors, and arranging 
 his tresses, and contemplating, from time to time, with visible 
 satisfaction, the progress of his growing attractions. When he 
 has finished, the proud triumph of irresistible charms is in his 
 eye. The chiefs and warriors, in full dress, have one, two, or 
 three broad clasps of silver about their arms; generally jewels in 
 their ears, and often in their noses; and nothing is more common 
 than to see a thin, circular piece of silver, of the size of a dollar, 
 depending from the nose, a little below the upper lip. 
 
 Xothing shows more clearly the influence of fashion : this orna- 
 ment, so painfully inconvenient as it evidently is to them, and so 
 horridly ugly and disfiguring, seems to be the utmost finish of 
 Indian taste. Painted porcupine-quills are twisted in their hair. 
 Tails of animals hang from their hair behind. A necklace of 
 bear's or alligator's teeth, or of claws of the bald eagle, hangs 
 loosely down, with an interior and smaller circle of large red 
 beads; or, in default of them, a rosary of red hawthorns sur- 
 rounds the neck. From the knees to the feet, the legs are orna- 
 mented with great numbers of little, perforated, cylindrical pieces 
 of silver or brass, that emit a simultaneous tinkle as the person 
 
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. 
 
 241 
 
 walks. If to all this he add an American hat, and a soldier's 
 coat of blue, faced with red, over the customary calico shirt of 
 the gaudiest colors that can be found, he lifts his feet high, and 
 steps firmly on the ground, to give his tinklers an uniform and 
 full sound, and apparently considers his appearance with as much 
 complacency as the human bosom can be supposed to feel. This 
 is a very curtailed view of an Indian beau ; but every reader 
 competent to judge will admit its fidelity, as far as it goes, to the 
 description of a young Indian warrior when prepared to take part 
 in a public dance. 
 
 WILLIAM ELLERY CHAXNIXG, 17S0— 1842. 
 
 "Thou livest in the life of all good things; 
 
 What words thou spakest lor Freedom shall not die; 
 Thou sleepest not. for no*v thy love hath wings 
 To soar where hence thy hope could hardly fly. 
 
 '•Farewell, good man. good angel now! this hand 
 Soon, like thine own. shall lose its cunning too; 
 Soon shall this soul, like thine, bewilderd stand, 
 Then leap to thread the free unfathonrd blue. 
 
 -When that day conies, oh, may this hand grow cold, 
 Busy, like thine, for freedom and the right! 
 Oh. may this soul, like thine, be ever bold 
 To face dark slavery's encroaching blight!" 
 
 James Rcssell Lowell. 
 
 William Ellerv Channesg was born at Newport, Rhode Island. April 7, 1780. 
 His father was William Channing, Esq., an eminent lawyer, and his mother was 
 the daughter of William Ellery, one of the signers of the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence. He graduated at Harvard University in 1798, with the highest honors 
 of the institution, and, after leaving college, pursued the study of theology. 
 He became distinguished as a preacher, and at nearly the same time received an 
 invitation from two religious societies in Boston to settle with them as their 
 pastor. He accepted the call from the church in Federal Street, which was then 
 the smaller and weaker of the two; and his ordination took place on the 1st of 
 June, 1S03. 
 
 The society rapidly increased under his charge, his reputation and influence in 
 the community became marked and extensive, and his assistance was soon eagerly 
 sought in a broader sphere of exertion and usefulness. In 1S12, he was appointed 
 "Dexter Lecturer on Biblical Criticism" in Harvard University; but the state of 
 his health did not allow him to enter on the duties of the office, and he resigned 
 it the following year. He was then chosen a member of the Corporation of the 
 college, and held a seat in this board till 1S26. In 1820, the honorary degree 
 of D.D. was conferred on him. In 1S22, he visited Europe for his health, which 
 was somewhat improved by the voyage; but a feeble constitution and liability to 
 disease proved great impediments to his labors through his life, and it is astonish- 
 ing how much, with such drawbacks, he reallv accomplished. 
 
 21 
 
242 
 
 WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. 
 
 In 1830, when the anti-slavery feeling began to take more outward form in 
 Boston, Dr. Channing's sympathies were warmly with it, though he did not then 
 join the ranks of the " abolitionists," technically so called. His interest in the 
 subject, however, increased from year to year, and in 1831 he published his 
 work on slavery, which showed that his whole heart was in the great cause of 
 humanity. 1 In October, 1834, he preached a sermon to his people upon the mob 
 violence exerted in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and other cities 
 in the country, against the friends of liberty. In 1837, he addressed his cele- 
 brated Letters to Henri/ Clay against that nefarious plot to extend the area of 
 slavery, — the annexation of Texas. In 1840, he reviewed Joseph John Gurney's 
 Letters on West India Emancipation ; and in 1842, he delivered an address at the 
 anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the West Indies, held August 1, at 
 Lenox, Massachusetts. This was his last public address. His health had been 
 very feeble for a long time, and, being taken with typhus fever, his exhausted 
 frame sunk under it, and he died October 2, 1842. His end was calm and peace- 
 ful. Sustained by the consolations of religion, he met, undismayed, his summons 
 into the future world, assured of a happy immortality. 
 
 Of the moral purity of Dr. Channing's character, it is scarcely possible to speak 
 too highly. In every relation of life, he deserved unqualified praise. His con- 
 duct was a daily exhibition of the characteristic evangelical virtues, — purity of 
 heart, ardent love to God, habitual obedience to his will, benevolence to man, and 
 those amiable qualities which shed a constant sunshine through the breast of their 
 possessor, and strongly endeared him to all within the circle of his friendship and 
 acquaintance. In the latter period of his life, he took a deep and earnest interest 
 in the cause of Freedom, at a time when such a position was uniformly attended, 
 to a greater or less degree, by the coldness or loss of friends, by obloquy, re- 
 proach, misrepresentation, ostracism from accustomed social circles, and, in some 
 parts of the country, by mobs and personal violence. 2 
 
 Dr. Channing's numerous contributions to the "Christian Examiner" and other 
 reviews, together with his sermons, addresses, and miscellaneous works, have been 
 
 1 " There is one word that covers every cause to which Channing devoted his 
 talents and his heart, and that word is Freedom. Liberty is the key of his re- 
 ligious, his political, his philanthropic principles. Free the slave, free the serf, 
 free the ignorant, free the sinful. Let there be no chains upon the conscience, the 
 intellect, the pursuits, or the persons of men. Free agency is the prime distinc- 
 tion and privilege of humanity. It is the first necessity of a moral being. Extin- 
 guish freedom, and you extinguish humanity. Tyranny is spiritual murder, as 
 sin is moral suicide." — Discourse of Rev. Henry W. Belloics, D.D. 
 
 2 Though of a frame so attenuated and feeble that one might fear that the very 
 wind would blow him away, he had a high and dauntless soul, — a moral courage 
 that shone most illustrious when such qualities were most needed ; and when, in 
 November, 1837, the news of the murder of Owen P. Lovejoy, in Alton, Illinois, 
 for defending his free press, reached Boston, he headed a petition to the civil 
 authorities for the use of Faneuil Hall for a meeting of citizens, to express their 
 disapprobation of such deeds of lawless violence. It is commentary enough upon 
 the character of soul required at that time to head such a petition, to say that, even 
 with the name of Channing in the most conspicuous position, it was refused. Men 
 who thus stand out boldly for the right, regardless of consequences, deserve to bo 
 held up as an example for imitation to all coming generations. 
 
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. 
 
 243 
 
 collected and published in six volumes, by bis nephew, William E. Channing, which 
 have passed through numerous editions. Among the most admired of his general 
 writings are his Remarks on the Character and Writings of John 3Iilton ; on Bona- 
 partej on Fenelon ; and on Self-Culture. Of the last it has been justly said, tbat 
 "its direct appeal to whatever of character or manliness there may be in th« 
 young, is almost irresistible." 
 
 THE PURIFYING INFLUENCE OF POETRY. 
 
 We believe that poetry, far from injuring society, is one of the 
 great instruments of its refinement and exaltation. It lifts the 
 mind above ordinary life, gives it a respite from depressing cares, 
 and awakens the consciousness of its affinity with what is pure and 
 noble. In its legitimate and highest efforts, it has the same ten- 
 dency and aim with Christianity, — that is, to spiritualize our 
 nature. True, poetry has been made the instrument of vice, the 
 pander of bad passions ; but when genius thus stoops, it dims its 
 fires, and parts with much of its power • and even when poetry is 
 enslaved to licentiousness and misanthropy, she cannot wholly for- 
 get her true vocation. Strains of pure feeling, touches of tender- 
 ness, images of innocent happiness, sympathies with what is good 
 in our nature, bursts of scorn or indignation at the hollowness of 
 the world, passages true to our moral nature, often escape in an 
 immoral work, and show us how hard it is for a gifted spirit to 
 divorce itself wholly from what is good. Poetry has a natural 
 alliance with our best, affections. It delights in the beauty and 
 sublimity of outward nature and of the soul. It indeed portrays 
 with terrible energy the excesses of the passions j but they are 
 passions which show a mighty nature, which are full of power, 
 which command awe, and excite a deep though shuddering sym- 
 pathy. Its great tendency and purpose is to carry the mind be- 
 yond and above the beaten , dusty, weary walks of ordinary life; 
 to lift it into a purer element, and to breathe into it more pro- 
 found and generous emotion. It reveals to us the loveliness of 
 nature, brings back the freshness of youthful feeling, revives the 
 relish of simple pleasures, keeps unquenched the enthusiasm 
 which warmed the spring-time of our being, refines youthful love, 
 strengthens our interest in human nature by vivid delineations of 
 its tenderest and loftiest feelings, spreads our sympathies over all 
 classes of society, knits us by new ties with universal being, and, 
 through the brightness of its prophetic visions, helps faith to lay 
 hold on the future life. 
 
 We are aware that it is objected to poetry that it gives wrong 
 views and excites false expectations of life, peoples the mind with 
 shadows and illusions, and builds up imagination on the ruins of 
 wisdom. That there is a wisdom against which poetry wars — the 
 
244 
 
 WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. 
 
 wisdom of the senses, which makes physical comfort and gratifica- 
 tion the supreme good, and wealth the chief interest of life — we 
 do not deny ; nor do we deem it the least service which poetry 
 renders to mankind, that it redeems them from the thraldom of 
 this earth-born prudence. But, passing over this topic, we would 
 observe that the complaint against poetry, as abounding in illusion 
 and deception, is, in the main, groundless. In many poems there 
 is more of truth than in many histories and philosophic theories. 
 The fictions of genius are often the vehicles of the sublimest veri- 
 ties, and its flashes often open new regions of thought, and throw 
 new light on the mysteries of our being. In poetry, the letter is 
 falsehood, but the spirit is often profoundest wisdom. And if 
 truth thus dwells in the boldest fictions of the poet, much more 
 may it be expected in his delineations of life; for the present life, 
 which is the first stace of the immortal mind, abounds in the 
 materials of poetry, and it is the highest office of the bard to de- 
 tect this divine element among the grosser pleasures and labors of 
 our earthly being. The present life is not wholly prosaic, precise, 
 tame, and finite. To the gifted eye it abounds in the poetic. The 
 affections which spread beyond ourselves, and stretch far into 
 futurity ; the workings of mighty passions, which seem to arm the 
 soul with an almost superhuman energy; the innocent and irre- 
 pressible joy of infancy; the bloom, and buoyancy, and dazzling 
 hopes of youth ; the throbbings of the heart when it first wakes to 
 love, and dreams of a happiness too vast for earth ; woman, with 
 her beauty, and grace, and gentleness, and fulness of feeling, and 
 depth of affection, and her blushes of purity, and the tones and 
 looks which only a mother's heart can inspire, — these are all 
 poetical. It is not true that the poet paints a life which does 
 not exist. He only extracts and concentrates, as it were, life's 
 ethereal essence, arrests and condenses its volatile fragrance, 
 brings together its scattered beauties, and prolongs its more re- 
 fined but evanescent joys j and in this he does well ; for it is good 
 to feel that life is not wholly usurped by cares for subsistence and 
 physical gratifications, but admits, in measures which may be in- 
 definitely enlarged, sentiments and delights worthy of a higher 
 being. This power of poetry to refine our views of life and happi- 
 ness is more and more needed as society advances. It is needed 
 to withstand the encroachments of heartless and artificial manners, 
 which make civilization so tame and uninteresting. It is needed 
 to counteract the tendency of physical science, which — being now 
 sought, not, as formerly, for intellectual gratification, but for 
 multiplying bodily comforts — requires a new development of 
 imagination, taste, and poetry, to preserve men from sinking into 
 an earthly, material, epicurean life. 
 
WILLIAM ELLERY CIIANN1NG. 
 
 245 
 
 BOOKS. 
 
 In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most pre- 
 cious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours. God be thanked 
 for books ! They are the voices of the distant and the dead, and 
 make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. Books are the 
 true levellers. They give to all who will faithfully use them the 
 society, the spiritual presence, of the best and greatest of our race. 
 No matter how poor I am, — no matter though the prosperous of 
 my own time will not enter my obscure dwelling, — if the sacred 
 writers will enter and take up their abode under my roof, if Mil- 
 ton will cross my threshold to sing to me of Paradise, and Shak- 
 speare to open to me the worlds of imagination and the workings 
 of the human heart, and Franklin to enrich me with his practical 
 wisdom, — I shall not pine for want of intellectual companionship, 
 and I may become a cultivated man, though excluded from what 
 is called the best society in the place where I live. 
 
 THE MORAL DIGNITY OF THE EDUCATIONAL PROFESSION. 
 
 One of the surest signs of the regeneration of society will be the 
 elevation of the art of teaching to the highest rank in the com- 
 munity. When a people shall learn that its greatest benefactors 
 and most important members are men devoted to the liberal in- 
 struction of all its classes, to the work of raising to life its buried 
 intellect, it will have opened to itself the path of true glory. 
 
 There is no office higher than that of a teacher of youth ; for 
 there is nothing on earth so precious as the mind, soul, and cha- 
 racter of the child. No office should be regarded with greater 
 respect. 1 The first minds in the community should be encou- 
 raged to assume it. Parents should do all but impoverish them- 
 selves, to induce such to become the guardians and guides of 
 their children. To this good all their show and luxury should 
 be sacrificed. 
 
 Here they should be lavish, whilst they straiten themselves in 
 every thing else. They should wear the cheapest clothes, live on 
 the plainest food, if they can in no other way secure to their fami- 
 lies the best instruction. They should have no anxiety to accumu- 
 late property for their children, provided they can place them 
 under influences which will awaken their faculties, inspire them 
 with pure and high principles, and fit them to bear a manly, use- 
 ful, and honorable part in the world. No language can express 
 
 1 "The expression of gratitude is a virtue and a pleasure: a liberal mind will 
 delight to celebrate the memory of its parents; and the teachers of science are 
 the parents of the mind." — Gibbox. 
 
 21* 
 
246 
 
 "WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. 
 
 the cruelty or folly of that economy which, to leave a fortune to a 
 child, starves his intellect, impoverishes his heart. 
 
 MILTON AND JOHNSON. 
 
 We have enlarged on Milton's character, not only from the 
 pleasure of paying that sacred debt which the mind owes to him 
 who has quickened and delighted it, but from an apprehension 
 that Milton has not yet reaped his due harvest of esteem and 
 veneration. The mists which the prejudices and bigotry of John- 
 son spread over his bright name, are not yet wholly scattered, 
 though fast passing away. "We wish not to disparage Johnson. 
 We could find no pleasure in sacrificing one great man to the 
 manes of another. But we owe it to Milton and to other illus- 
 trious names to say that Johnson has failed of the highest end of 
 biography, which is to give immortality to virtue, and to call forth 
 fervent admiration towards those who have shed splendor on past 
 ages. We acquit Johnson, however, of intentional misrepresenta- 
 tion. He did not, and could not, appreciate Milton. We doubt 
 whether two other minds, having so little in common as those of 
 which we are now speaking, can be found in the higher walks of 
 literature. Johnson was great in his own sphere, but that sphere 
 was comparatively " of the earth," whilst Milton's was only infe- 
 rior to that of angels. It was customary, in the day of John- 
 sou's glory, to call him a giant, to class him with a mighty but 
 still an earth-born race. Milton we should rank among seraphs. 
 Johnson's mind acted chiefly on man's actual condition, on the 
 realities of life, on the springs of human action, on the passions 
 which now agitate society, and he seems hardly to have dreamed 
 of a higher state of the human mind than was then exhibited. 
 Milton, on the other hand, burned with a deep yet calm love of 
 moral grandeur and celestial purity. He thought, not so much 
 of what man is, as of what he might become. His own mind was 
 a revelation to him of a higher condition of humanity, and to 
 promote this he thirsted and toiled for freedom, as the element 
 for the growth and improvement of his nature. In religion, 
 Johnson was gloomy and inclined to superstition, and on the sub- 
 ject of government leaned towards absolute power; and the idea 
 of reforming either never entered his mind but to disturb and 
 provoke it. The church and the civil polity under which he 
 lived seemed to him perfect, unless he may have thought that the 
 former would be improved by a larger infusion of Romish rites 
 and doctrines, and the latter by an enlargement of the royal pre- 
 rogative. Hence a tame acquiescence in the present forms of 
 religion and government marks his works. Hence we find so 
 little in his writings which is electric and soul-kindling, and 
 
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNINO. 247 
 
 which gives the reader a consciousness of being made for a state 
 of loftier thought and feeling than the present. Milton's whole 
 soul, on the contrary, revolted against the maxims of legitimacy, 
 hereditary faith, and servile reverence for established power. He 
 could not brook the bondage to which men had bowed for ages. 
 " Reformation'' was the first word of public warning which broke 
 from his youthful lips, and the hope of it was the solace of his 
 declining years. The difference between Milton and Johnson 
 may be traced, not only in these great features of mind, but in 
 their whole characters. Milton was refined and spiritual in his 
 habits, temperate almost to abstemiousness, and refreshed himself 
 after intellectual effort by music. Johnson inclined to more 
 sensual delights. Milton was exquisitely alive to the outward 
 creation, to sounds, motions, and forms, to natural beauty and 
 grandeur. Johnson, through defect of physical organization, if 
 not through deeper deficiency, had little susceptibility of these 
 pure and delicate pleasures, and would not have exchanged the 
 ctrand for the vale of Tempe or the gardens of the Hesperides. 
 How could Johnson be just to Milton ? 
 
 CHRISTIANITY THE GREAT EMANCIPATOR. 
 
 I pass to another topic suggested by Mr. Griirney's book. What 
 is it, let me ask, which has freed the West India slave, and is now 
 raising him to the dignity of a man ? The answer is most cheer- 
 ing. The great emancipator has been Christianity. Policy, in- 
 terest, state-craft, church-craft, the low motives which have 
 originated other revolutions, have not worked here. From the 
 times of Clarkson and Wilberforce down to the present day, the 
 friends of the slave, who have pleaded his cause and broken his 
 chains, have been Christians ; and it is from Christ, the divine 
 philanthropist, from the inspiration of his cross, that they have 
 gathered faith, hope, and love for the conflict. This illustration 
 of the spirit and power of Christianity is a bright addition to the 
 evidences of its truth. We have here the miracle of a great 
 nation, rising in its strength, not for conquest, not to assert its 
 own rights, but to free and elevate the most despised and injured 
 race on earth ; and as this stands alone in human history, so it 
 recalls to us those wonderful works of mercy and power by which 
 the divinity of our religion was at first confirmed. 
 
 It is with deep sorrow that I am compelled to turn to the 
 contrast between religion in England and religion in America. 
 There it vindicates the cause of the oppressed; here it rivets the 
 chain and hardens the heart of the oppressor. At the South, 
 what is the Christian ministry doing for the slave? Teaching 
 the rightfulness of his yoke, joining- in the cry against the men 
 
248 
 
 WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. 
 
 who plead for his freedom, giving the sanction of God's name to 
 the greatest offence against his children. This is the saddest 
 view presented by the conflict with slavery. The very men 
 whose office it is to plead against all wrong, to enforce the obliga- 
 tion of impartial, inflexible justice, to breathe the spirit of uni- 
 versal brotherly love, to resist at all hazards the spirit and evil 
 customs of the world, to live and to die under the banner of 
 Christian truth, have enlisted under the standard of slavery. 
 
 Review of Gurneifs Letters, 1840. 
 
 CHARACTER OP THE NEGRO RACE. 
 
 I pass to another topic suggested by Mr. Gurney's book. 
 According to this, and all the books written on the subject, eman- 
 cipation has borne a singular testimony to the noble elements of 
 the negro character. It may be doubted whether any other race 
 would have borne this trial as well as they. Before the day of 
 freedom came, the West Indies and this country foreboded fearful 
 consequences from the sudden transition of such a multitude from 
 bondage to liberty. Revenge, massacre, unbridled lust, were to 
 usher in the grand festival of emancipation, which was to end in 
 the breaking out of a new Pandemonium on earth. Instead of 
 this, the holy day of liberty was welcomed by shouts and tears of 
 gratitude. The liberated negroes did not hasten, as Saxon serfs 
 in like circumstances might have done, to haunts of intoxication, 
 but to the house of God. Their rude churches were thronged. 
 Their joy found utterance in prayers and hymns. History con- 
 tains no record more touching than the account of the religious, 
 tender thankfulness which this vast boon awakened in the negro 
 breast. And what followed ? Was this beautiful emotion an 
 evanescent transport, soon to give way to ferocity and vengeance ? 
 It was natural for masters, who had inflicted causeless stripes, and 
 filled the cup of the slaves with bitterness, to fear their rage after 
 liberation. But the overwhelming joy of freedom having sub- 
 sided, they returned to labor. Not even a blow was struck in the 
 excitement of that vast change. No violation of the peace re- 
 quired the interposition of the magistrate. The new relation was 
 assumed easily, quietly, without an act of violence ; and, since that 
 time, in the short space of two years, how much have they accom- 
 plished ! Beautiful villages have grown up, little freeholds have 
 been purchased, the marriage tie has become sacred, the child is 
 educated, crime has diminished, there are islands where a greater 
 proportion of the young are trained in schools than among the 
 whites of the slave States. I ask whether any other people on 
 the face of the earth would have received and used the infinite 
 blessing of liberty so well. M>M* 
 
WILLIAM ELLERY CIIANNING. 
 
 249 
 
 EVERY MAN GREAT. 
 
 Every man, in every condition, is great. It is only our own 
 diseased sight which makes him little. A man is great as a man, 
 he he where or what he may. The grandeur of his nature turns 
 to insignificance all outward distinctions. His powers of intellect, 
 of conscience, of love, of knowing God, of perceiving the beauti- 
 ful, of acting on his own mind, on outward nature, and on his 
 fellow-creatures, — these are glorious prerogatives. Through the 
 vulgar error of undervaluing what is common, we are apt, indeed, 
 to pass these by as of little worth. But, as in the outward crea- 
 tion, so in the soul, the common is the most precious. Science 
 and art may invent splendid modes of illuminating the apartments 
 of the opulent; but these are all poor and worthless, compared 
 with the common light which the sun sends into all our windows, 
 which he pours freely, impartially, over hill and valley, which 
 kindles daily the eastern and western sky : and so the common 
 lights of reason, and conscience, and love, are of more worth and 
 dignity than the rare endowments which give celebrity to a few. 
 Let us not disparage that nature which is common to all men ; for 
 no thought can measure its grandeur. It is the image of God, the 
 image even of his infinity, for no limits can be set to its unfolding. 
 He who possesses the divine powers of the soul is a great being, 
 be his place what it may. You may clothe him with rags, may 
 immure him in a dungeon, may chain him to slavish tasks. But 
 he is still great. You may shut him out of your houses; but God 
 opens to him heavenly mansions. He makes no show, indeed, in 
 the streets of a splendid city ; but a clear thought, a pure affec- 
 tion, a resolute act of a virtuous will, have a dignity of quite 
 another kind, and far higher than accumulations of brick, and 
 granite, and plaster, and stucco, however cunningly put together. 
 
 The truly great are to be found everywhere ; nor is it easy to 
 say in what condition they spring up most plentifully. Heal great- 
 ness has nothing to do with a man's sphere. It does not lie in 
 the magnitude of his outward agency, in the extent of the effects 
 which he produces. The greatest men may do comparatively little 
 abroad. Perhaps the greatest in our city at this moment are 
 buried in obscurity. Grandeur of character lies wholly in force 
 of soul, — that is, in the force of thought, moral principle, and love; 
 and this may be found in the humblest condition of life. A man 
 brought up to an obscure trade, and hemmed in by the wants of a 
 growing family, may, in his narrow sphere, perceive more clearly, 
 discriminate more keenly, weigh evidence more wisely, seize on 
 the right means more decisively, and have more presence of mind 
 in difficulty, than another who has accumulated vast stores of 
 knowledge by laborious study; and he has more of intellectual 
 
250 
 
 GULIAN C. VERPLANCK. 
 
 greatness. Many a man, who has gone but a few miles from home, 
 understands human nature better, detects motives and weighs cha- 
 racter more sagaciously, than another who has travelled over the 
 known world, and made a name by his reports of different coun- 
 tries. It is force of thought which measures intellectual, and so it 
 is force of principle which measures moral, greatness, — that highest 
 of human endowments, that brightest manifestation of the Divinity. 
 The greatest man is he who chooses the Right with invincible re- 
 solution, who resists the sorest temptations from within and with- 
 out, who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully, who is calmest in 
 storms and most fearless under menace and frowns, whose reliance 
 on truth, on virtue, on God, is most unfaltering. I believe this 
 greatness to be most common among the multitude, whose names 
 are never heard. Among common people will be found more of 
 hardship borne manfully, more of unvarnished truth, more of re- 
 ligious trust, more of that generosity which gives what the giver 
 needs himself, and more of a wise estimate of life and death, than 
 among the more prosperous. In these remarks you will see why 
 I feel and express a deep interest in the obscure, — in the mass of 
 men. The distinctions of society vanish before the light of these 
 truths. I attach myself to the multitude, not because they are 
 voters and have political power, but because they are men, and 
 have within their reach the most glorious prizes of humanity. 
 
 Address on Self- Culture. 
 
 GULIAN C. VERPLANCK. 
 
 Gulian Crom.melin Veiiplanck is, as his name indicates, of German descent; 
 yet he remarks, in one of his addresses, " I cannot hut remember that I have New 
 England blood in my veins : that many of my happiest youthful days were passed 
 in her villages." He was born in the city of New York about the year 1781 ; 
 graduated at Columbia College in 1801, studied law, and then went abroad, and 
 passed several years in Great Britain and on the continent. On his return, he 
 became interested in politics, and was elected to the State Legislature. He had 
 very early a reputation for scholarship and taste, but published nothing under his 
 own name till 1818, when he delivered an address before the New York Historical 
 Society, which soon passed through several editions. In 1822, he accepted the 
 Professorship of the Evidences of Christianity in the Theological Seminary of the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church, in New York; and two years after published Essays 
 on the Nature and Uses of the Various Evidences of Revealed Religion, which have 
 been much admired, not only for the clearness of their argument, but for the 
 beauty of their style. 
 
 For eight years from 1825 Mr. Verplanck was a member of Congress for the 
 city of New York, and as such secured the respect and admiration of his asso- 
 ciates, by his fine manners, dignified bearing, and extensive acquirements. In 
 
GULIAN C. VERPLANCK. 
 
 251 
 
 1827, he united with Bryant and Sands in the production of an annual called t lie 
 " Talisman," which was illustrated with engravings, and continued three years. 
 In 1833, he published, in one volume, his Discourses and Addresses on Subjects of 
 American History, Arts, and Literature, and a Discourse on the Right Moral Influence 
 and Use of Liberal Studies, and, in 1S34, Influence of Moral Causes vpon Opinion, 
 Science, and Literature. The last of his literary labors is a splendid edition of 
 Shakspeare, in three large volumes, octavo, begun in 1844 and completed in 
 December, 1846. Besides its judicious selection of notes of the best commentators 
 upon difficult passages, forming a sort of comprehensive commentary, its value is 
 not a little enhanced by the elaborate introductions and critical notes of the editor 
 himself. 
 
 Mr. Verplanck now resides, in a green and vigorous old age, at Fishkill Land- 
 ing, on the banks of the Hudson.' 
 
 JOHN JAY. 
 
 The name of John Jay is gloriously associated with that of 
 Alexander Hamilton in the history of our liberties and our laws. 
 John Jay had completed his academic education in this college 
 several years before the commencement of the Revolution. The 
 beginning of the contest between Great Britain and the colonies 
 found him already established in legal reputation, and, young as 
 he still was, singularly well fitted for his country's most arduous 
 services, by a rare union of the dignity and gravity of mature 
 age with youthful energy and zeal. At the age of thirty, he 
 drafted, and in effect himself formed, the first constitution of the 
 State of New York, under which we lived for forty-five years, 
 which still forms the basis of our present State government, and 
 from which other States have since borrowed many of its most 
 remarkable and original provisions. At that age, as soon as New 
 York threw off her colonial character, he was appointed the first 
 Chief Justice of the State. Then followed a long, rapid, and 
 splendid succession of high trusts and weighty duties, the results 
 of which are recorded in the most interesting pages of our national 
 annals. It was the moral courage of Jay, at the head of the 
 Supreme Court of his own State, that gave confidence and union 
 to the people of New York. It was from his richly-stored mind 
 that proceeded, while representing this State in the Congress of 
 the United States, (over whose deliberations he for a time pre- 
 sided,) many of those celebrated state papers whose grave elo- 
 quence commanded the admiration of Europe, and drew forth the 
 eulogy of the master orators and statesmen of the times, — of Chat- 
 ham and Burke ; whilst, by the evidence which they gave to the 
 wisdom and talent that guided the councils of America, they con- 
 tributed to her reputation and ultimate triumph as much as the 
 most signal victories of her arms. As our minister at Madrid and 
 
252 GULIAN C. VERPLANCK. 
 
 Paris, his sagacity penetrated, and his calm firmness defeated, the 
 intricate wiles of the diplomatists and cabinets of Europe, until, in 
 illustrious association with Franklin and John Adams, he settled 
 and signed the definitive treaty of peace, recognising and confirm- 
 ing our national independence. On his return home, a not less 
 illustrious association awaited him, in a not less illustrious cause, 
 — the establishment and defence of the present national constitu- 
 tion, with Hamilton and Madison. The last Secretary of Foreign 
 Affairs under the old confederation, he was selected by Washing- 
 ton as the first Chief Justice of the United States under the new 
 constitution. 
 
 His able negotiation and commercial treaty with Great Britain, 
 and his six years' administration as Governor of this State, com- 
 pleted his public life. 
 
 After a long and uninterrupted series of the highest civil em- 
 ployments, in the most difficult times, he suddenly retired from 
 their toils and dignities, in the full vigor of mind and body, at a 
 time when the highest honors of the nation still courted his accept- 
 ance, and at an age when, in most statesmen, the objects of ambi- 
 tion show as gorgeously, and its aspirations are as stirring, as ever. 
 He looked upon himself as having fully discharged his debt of 
 service to his country ; and, satisfied with the ample share of pub- 
 lic honor which he had received, he retired with cheerful content, 
 without ever once casting a reluctant eye towards the power or 
 dignities he had left. For the last thirty years of his remaining 
 life, he was known to us only by the occasional appearance of his 
 name, or the employment of his pen, in the service of piety or 
 philanthropy. A halo of veneration seemed to encircle him, as 
 one belonging to another world, though yet lingering amongst us. 
 When, during the last year, the tidings of his death came to us, 
 they were received through the nation, not with sorrow or mourn- 
 ing, but with solemn awe, like that with which we read the myste- 
 rious passage of ancient Scripture, — " And Enoch walked with 
 God; and he was not, for God took him/' 
 
 Address Delivered at Columbia College, 1830. 
 
 THE SCHOOLMASTER. 
 
 Next in rank and in efficacy to that pure and holy source of 
 moral influence — the Mother — is that of the Schoolmaster. It 
 is powerful already. What would it be if in every one of those 
 school districts, which we now count by annually increasing thou- 
 sands, there were to be found one teacher well informed without 
 pedantry, religious without bigotry or fanaticism, proud and fond 
 of his profession, and honored in the discharge of its duties? How 
 wide would be the intellectual, the moral influence of such a body 
 
GULIAN C. VERPLANCK. 
 
 253 
 
 of men ! Many such we have already amongst us, men humbly 
 wise and obscurely useful, whom poverty cannot depress, nor 
 neglect degrade. But to raise up a body of such men, as nume- 
 rous as the wants and the dignity of the country demand, their 
 labors must be fitly remunerated, and themselves and their calling 
 cherished and honored. 
 
 The schoolmaster's occupation is laborious and ungrateful ; its 
 rewards are scanty and precarious. He may indeed be, and he 
 ought to be, animated by the consciousness of doing good, — that 
 best of all consolations, that noblest of all motives. But that, too, 
 must be often clouded by doubt and uncertainty. Obscure and 
 inglorious as his daily occupation may appear to learned pride or 
 worldly ambition, yet, to be truly successful and happy, he must 
 be animated by the spirit of the same great principles which in- 
 spired the most illustrious benefactors of mankind. If he bring 
 to his task high talent and rich acquirement, he must be content 
 to look into distant years for the proof that his labors have not 
 been wasted, that the good seed which he daily scatters abroad 
 does not fall on stony ground and wither away, or among thorns, 
 to be choked by the cares, the delusions, or the vices of the world. 
 He must solace his toils with the same prophetic faith that enabled 
 the greatest of modern philosophers, 1 amidst the neglect or con- 
 tempt of his own times, to regard himself as sowing the seeds of 
 truth for posterity and the care of Heaven. He must arm him- 
 self against disappointment and mortification, with a portion of 
 that same noble confidence which soothed the greatest of modern 
 poets when, weighed down by care and danger, by poverty, old 
 age, and blindness, still 
 
 " In prophetic dream lie saw 
 The youth unborn, with pious awe, 
 Imbibe each virtue from his sacred page." 
 
 He must know, and he must love to teach his pupils, not the 
 meagre elements of knowledge, but the secret and the use of their 
 own intellectual strength, exciting and enabling them hereafter to 
 raise for themselves the veil which covers the majestic form of 
 Truth. He must feel deeply the reverence due to the youthful 
 mind, fraught with mighty though undeveloped energies and 
 affections, and mysterious and eternal destinies. Thence he must 
 have learned to reverence himself and his profession, and to look 
 upon its otherwise ill-requited toils as their own exceeding great 
 reward. 
 
 If such are the difficulties and the discouragements, such the 
 duties, the motives, and the consolations, of teachers who are 
 
 1 Bacon, " Severe posteris ac Deo immortali." 
 22 
 
254 
 
 JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. 
 
 worthy of that name and trust, how imperious, then, the obliga- 
 tion upon every enlightened citizen who knows and feels the value 
 of such men, to aid them, to cheer them, and to honor them ! Thus 
 shall we best testify our gratitude to the teachers and guides of 
 our ow r n youth, thus best serve our country, and thus most effec- 
 tually diffuse over our land light, and truth, and virtue. 1 
 
 JOHN JAMES AUDUBON, 1782—1851. 
 
 John James Audubon, author of the splendid work on the birds of America, 
 was born in New Orleans on the 4th of May, 1780, of French parents, and re- 
 ceived his education at Paris. Returning in his eighteenth year, he settled on a 
 farm, purchased for him by his father, a few miles north of Philadelphia, where 
 the Perkioming falls into the Schuylkill, and here commenced that series of 
 drawings of the numerous birds with which the woods around him were filled, — 
 drawings which finally resulted in his magnificent collection of The Birds of 
 America. Here, too, he was married, and here was born his eldest son. He soon 
 engaged in commercial business; but, being unsuccessful, he resolved to seek his 
 fortunes in the "West. As early as 1810, be sailed down the Ohio in an open boat, 
 with his wife and child, in search of a congenial spot in those then almost wilder- 
 ness regions in which to fix his home and pursue the researches to which he gave 
 all his energies. 
 
 1 From A Tribute to the Memory of Daniel IT. Barnes, delivered at the annual 
 meeting of the High School Society, November. 1829. Mr. Barnes originated, 
 and conducted for some years with great reputation, the High School of New 
 York ; was a classical scholar of high attainments, a member of the New York 
 Lyceum of Natural History, and said to be at that time the first conchologist in 
 the United States. He was elected President of Columbia College in Washington, 
 D. C, but declined the appointment, preferring to remain in the institution (the 
 High School) to which he had been devoted from its foundation. 
 
 In "Harper's Magazine'' for January. 1859, is a long and admirably- written 
 article upon the teacher's office, from which I must make a short extract: — "The 
 ideal view of the teacher's office is one of the noblest and grandest that can enter 
 the human mind. Call it the highest of earthly offices, — call it the chieftainship 
 among those intellectual and moral forces that have the stability, welfare, glory 
 of society committed to their guidance and support, — and the language, so far 
 from approaching the borders of extravagance and bombast, is justified by the 
 decisions of the most sober reason. . . . Men arc opening their eyes to the fact 
 that; education does a much grander work for man as man than for man as arti- 
 san, physician, lawyer, statesman ; and the truth is slowly vindicating itself that 
 it is a mightier instrumentality for the family than for the state. We hail this 
 as a significant indication of a brighter era. Of all causes that have tended to 
 enfeeble the power of the teacher and to restrict the scope of education, the gene- 
 ral sentiment that the whole system was simply designed to make respectable 
 citizens has been most pernicious. Happily for the age, a broader and sounder 
 view is taking hold on the public mind. It is one step toward freedom from the 
 bondage of a material civilization ; and, if faithfully pursued, we shall soon see 
 teaching regarded as the apostleship of God's providence." 
 
JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. 
 
 255 
 
 From that time, his career was one of adventure, romantic incident, and varied 
 fortune. Hardly a region in the United States was left unvisited by him, and the 
 most inaccessible haunts of nature were continually disturbed by this adventurous 
 and indefatigable ornithologist, to whom a new discovery cr a fresh experience 
 was only the incentive to greater ardor and renewed efforts in his favorite depart- 
 ment of science. 
 
 In 1S21, he visited Philadelphia with his drawings ; but, not receiving much 
 encouragement, he went to New York, where he "met with a kindness well 
 suited to elevate his depressed spirits." In 1S26, he sailed for Europe, where his 
 work — The Birds of America 1 — procured him a generous reception from the most 
 distinguished men of science and letters. In 1829, he returned home; and, after 
 other explorations of the woods in various parts of the country for four years, he 
 published the second volume of his great work in 1S34, 2 the third in 1835, and 
 the fourth and last in 1838. 3 In 1839, he purchased a beautiful place on the 
 Hudson, a little above New York, and commenced a smaller edition of his Birds, 
 which was completed in 1811, in seven imperial octavo volumes. In this delight- 
 ful suburban residence he spent the latter years of his life, and died on the 27th 
 of January, 1851, leaving behind him a name which is a rich legacy to science 
 and art. 4 
 
 THE HUMMING-BIRD. 
 
 AYhere is the person who, on observing this glittering fragment 
 of the rainbow, would not pause, admire, and instantly turn his 
 mind with reverence toward the almighty Creator, the wonders 
 of whose hand we at every step discover, and of whose sublime 
 conceptions we everywhere observe the manifestations in his ad- 
 mirable system of creation ? There breathes not such a person ; 
 so kindly have we all been blessed with that intuitive and noble 
 feeling, admiration ! 
 
 Xo sooner has the returning sun again introduced the vernal 
 season, and caused millions of plants to expand their leaves and 
 
 1 It was published in numbers, each containing five colored plates of large folio 
 size. The first of these appeared in 1S25, and the first volume in 1829. 
 
 2 In this year (1834) he completed his Ornithological Biography, in two volumes. 
 
 3 The whole work has four hundred and thirty-five plates, and contains one 
 thousand and sixty-five distinct specimens, from the humming-bird to the eagle. 
 The subscription-price for the four volumes was one thousand dollars. The 
 number of subscribers was about one hundred and seventy. 
 
 4 U I cannot but think that his countrymen made too little account of his death. 
 It was perhaps, however, not to be expected that the multitude, who knew nothing 
 of his services, should pay him their tributes of gratitude and respect; but it was 
 to be supposed that our scientific societies and our artist associations would at 
 least propose a monument to one who was so rare an ornament to both. Yet, if 
 they were neglectful, there are those who will not be, and who will long cherish 
 his name; and, in the failure of all human memorials, as it has been elsewhere 
 said, the little wren will whisper it about our homes, the robin and the reed-bird 
 pipe it from the meadows, the ring-dove will coo it from the dewy depths of the 
 woods, and the mountain-eagle scream it to the stars." — Homes of American 
 Authors. 
 
256 
 
 JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. 
 
 blossoms to his genial beams, than the little humming-bird is seen 
 advancing on fairy wings, carefully visiting every opening flower-cup, 
 and, like a curious florist, removing from each the injurious insects 
 that otherwise would ere long cause their beauteous petals to 
 droop and decay. Poised in the air, it is observed peeping cau- 
 tiously, and with sparkling eye, into their innermost recesses, 
 whilst the ethereal motions of its pinions, so rapid and so light, 
 appear to fan and cool the flower, without injuring its fragile 
 texture, and produce a delightful murmuring sound, well adapted 
 for lulling the insects to repose. * * * 
 
 The prairies, the fields, the orchards and gardens, nay, the 
 deepest shades of the forests, are all visited in their turn, and 
 everywhere the little bird meets with pleasure and with food. Its 
 gorgeous throat in beauty and brilliancy baffles all competition. 
 Now it glows with a fiery hue, and again it is changed to the 
 deepest velvety black. The upper parts of its delicate body are of 
 resplendent changing green ; and it throws itself through the air 
 with a swiftness and vivacity hardly conceivable. It moves from 
 one flower to another like a gleam of light, upwards, downwards, 
 to the right, and to the left. In this manner it searches the ex- 
 treme northern portions of our country, following with great pre- 
 caution the advances of the season, and retreats with equal care a.t 
 the approach of autumn. 
 
 THE MOCKING-BIRD. 
 
 It is where the great magnolia shoots up its majestic trunk, 
 crowned with evergreen leaves, and decorated with a thousand 
 beautiful flowers that perfume the air around ; where the forests 
 and fields are adorned with blossoms of every hue ; where a genial 
 warmth seldom forsakes the atmosphere ; where berries and fruits 
 of all descriptions are met with at every step ; in a word, it is 
 where nature seems to have paused, as she passed over the earth, 
 and, opening her stores, to have strewed with unsparing hand the 
 diversified seeds from which have sprung all the beautiful and 
 splendid forms which I should in vain attempt to describe, that 
 the mocking-bird should have fixed its abode, there only that its 
 wondrous song should be heard. But where is that favored 
 land ? It is, reader, in Louisiana. It is there that you should 
 listen to the love-song of the mocking-bird, as I at this moment 
 do. See how he flies round his mate, with motions as light as 
 those of the butterfly ! His tail is widely expanded, he mounts 
 in the air to a small distance, describes a circle, and, again alight- 
 ing, approaches his beloved one, his eyes gleaming with delight; 
 for she has already promised to be his and his only. His beautiful 
 wings are gently raised, he bows to his love, and, again bouncing 
 
JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. 
 
 257 
 
 upwards, opens his bill and pours forth his melody, full of exulta- 
 tion at the conquest which he has made. 
 
 They are not the soft sounds of the flute or the hautboy that I 
 hear, but the sweeter notes of nature's own music. The mellow- 
 ness of the song, the varied modulations and gradations, the extent 
 of its compass, the great brilliancy of execution, are unrivalled. 
 There is probably no bird in the world that possesses all the 
 musical qualifications of this king of song, who has derived all 
 from nature's self. Yes, reader, all ! 
 
 No sooner has he again alighted, and the conjugal contract has 
 been sealed, than, as if his breast was about to be rent with de- 
 light, he again pours forth his notes with more softness and rich- 
 ness than before. He now soars higher, glancing around with a 
 vigilant eye, to assure himself that none has witnessed his bliss. 
 When these love-scenes are over, he dances through the air, full 
 of animation and delight, and, as if to convince his lovely mate 
 that, to enrich her hopes, he has much more love in store, he that 
 moment begins anew, and imitates all the notes which nature has 
 imparted to the other songsters of the grove. 
 
 THE WOOD-THRUSH. 
 
 This bird is my greatest favorite of the feathered tribes of our 
 woods. To it I owe much. How often has it revived my droop- 
 ing spirits, when I have listened to its wild notes in the forest, 
 after passing a restless night in my slender shed, so feebly secured 
 against the violence of the storm as to show me the futility of my 
 best efforts to rekindle my little fire, whose uncertain and vacil- 
 lating light had gradually died away under the destructive weight 
 of the dense torrents of rain that seemed to involve the heavens 
 and the earth in one mass of fearful murkiness : — how often, after 
 such a night, when, far from my dear home, and deprived of the 
 presence of those nearest to my heart, wearied, hungry, drenched, 
 I have been obliged to wait with the patience of a martyr for the 
 return of day, silently counting over the years of my youth, doubt- 
 ing, perhaps, if ever again I should return to my home and embrace 
 my family : — how often, as the first glimpses of morning gleamed 
 doubtfully amongst the dusky masses of the forest-trees, has there 
 come upon my ear, thrilling along the sensitive cords which connect 
 that organ, with the heart, the delightful music of this harbinger 
 of day ! — and how fervently, on sue h occasions, have I blessed the 
 Being who formed the wood-thrush, and placed it in those solitary 
 forests, as if to console me amidst my privations, to cheer my de- 
 pressed mind, and to make me feel, as I did, that man never 
 should despair, whatever may be his situation, as he can never be 
 certain that aid and deliverance are not at hand. 
 
 22* 
 
258 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 The wood-thrush seldom commits a mistake after such a storm; 
 for no sooner are its sweet notes heard than the heavens gradually 
 clear, the bright refracted light rises in gladdening rays from 
 beneath the distant horizon, the effulgent beams increase in their 
 intensity, and the great orb of day at length bursts cn the sight. 
 The gray vapor that floats along the ground is quickly dissipated, 
 the world smiles at the happy change, and the woods are soon 
 heard to echo the joyous thanks of their many songsters. At that 
 moment all fears vanish, giving place to an inspiriting hope. The 
 hunter prepares to leave his camp. He listens to the wood- 
 thrush, while he thinks of the course which he ought to pursue ; 
 and, as the bird approaches to peep at him, and learn somewhat 
 his intentions, he raises his mind toward the Supreme Disposer of 
 events. Seldom, indeed, have I heard the song of this thrush, 
 without feeling all that tranquillity of mind to which the secluded 
 situation in which it delights is so favorable. The thickest and 
 darkest woods always appear to please it best. The borders of 
 murmuring streamlets, overshadowed by the dense foliage of the 
 lofty trees growing on the gentle declivities, amidst which the 
 sunbeams seldom penetrate, are its favorite resorts. There it is 
 that the musical powers of this hermit of the woods must be heard 
 to be fully appreciated and enjoyed. 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER, 1782—1852. 
 
 This most distinguished of all American statesmen and orators, the son of 
 Ebenezer and Abigail Webster, was born in Salisbury, New Hampshire, on the 
 18th of January, 1782. It was early remarked tbat he had uncommon endow- 
 ments, and in his fourteenth year he was placed in Phillips Exeter Academy, 
 at that time under the care of Dr. Benjamin Abbot, to prepare for college. 
 He entered Dartmouth College in 1797; and when he graduated in 1801, a high 
 future was predicted for him by the more sagacious of his classmates. He im- 
 mediately entered upon his legal studies, and, in 1805, began the practice of his 
 profession in the village of Boscawen, whence he removed to Portsmouth, New 
 Hampshire, in September, 1807. Here he resided nine years, enjoying the friend- 
 ship and profiting by the rivalry of such men as Samuel Dexter, Joseph Story, 
 Jeremiah Smith, and Jeremiah Mason. 
 
 It was in the extra session of the thirteenth Congress, which met in May, 1813, 
 that Mr. Webster commenced his political career, as a representative from New 
 Hampshire. He was placed on the Committee of Foreign Affairs, — an evidence 
 of the high estimation in which he was held, our country being then at war with 
 Great Britain. He delivered his maiden speech on the 10th of June, 1813, 
 and at once assumed a front rank amongst debaters. His speeches — chiefly on 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 259 
 
 topics connected with the war — were characterized by masterly vigor, and by an 
 uncommon acquaintance with constitutional learning and with the history of 
 the Government. 
 
 In August, 1816, Mr. Webster removed to Boston, and took the place which 
 belonged to his commanding talent and legal eminence. In 1818, be made his 
 brilliant and powerful speech in the celebrated Dartmouth College case, which 
 ranked him among the very first jurists of the country. In 1820, he was elected 
 a member of the convention for revising the Constitution of Massachusetts. In 
 December of the same year, he delivered his eloquent Discourse in Commemora- 
 tion of the Landing of the Pilgrims. Two years afterwards, he was re-elected 
 to Congress from Boston ; and on the 19th of January, 1823, (little more than a 
 month after he took his seat,) he made his celebrated speech on the Greek Revo- 
 lution, which gave him high reputation as a statesman and an orator. In this, 
 as in his Plymouth oration, he showed his warm sympathies on the side of free- 
 dom. In 1825, he delivered an oration on the laying of the corner-stone of 
 Bunker Hill Monument, and, the next year, a eulogy upon Adams and Jeffer- 
 son, — both of which are among his happiest efforts. 
 
 In 1828, Mr. Webster took his seat in the Senate of the United States, in which 
 he remained twelve years. During this time, the most important questions were 
 considered, and measures of the highest moment were brought forward, in the dis- 
 cussion of which he always took a leading part. In 1830, he made what is justly 
 considered the greatest of his Congressional efforts, — his reply to Colonel Hayne, 
 of South Carolina. This gentleman, in a speech on a resolution moved by Mr. 
 Foote, of Connecticut, relative to the survey of the public lands, had indulged in 
 some personalities against Mr. Webster, had commented with severity on the 
 political course of the New England States, and had laid down, in an authorita- 
 tive manner, his views of the doctrine of " nullification." Mr. Webster felt it 
 his duty to defend himself, to vindicate New England, and to point out the fal- 
 lacies of " nullification." This he did in a speech which, for beauty, perspicuity, 
 and strength of style, for sound logic, keen sarcasm, true patriotism, and lofty 
 eloquence combined, has hardly its equal in the English language. 
 
 In 1839, Mr. Webster visited Europe. His fame had, of course, preceded him, 
 and he was everywhere received with the attention due to his character, talents, 
 and eloquence. On the accession of General Harrison to the Presidency, in 1841, 
 he was appointed Secretary of State. While in this office, he was the means of 
 settling the Northeastern boundary question with Great Britain, and the result 
 of his labors, on the whole, met the approbation of the public. 1 About this time, 
 his fame as a public man received its first stain in his " Creole Letter" of instruc- 
 tions to Mr. Everett, then our minister to England, demanding of the British 
 Government some slaves which had escaped to one of their islands. 2 It need 
 
 1 It has been thought by many, fully competent to judge in the case, that he 
 here made a great mistake, and gave to England what, according to the terms 
 of an early treaty with her, she had no right to, — a large slice of the State of 
 Maine, (about five thousand square miles,) which never, probably, would have 
 been given had the disputed territory lain on our Southern confines. 
 
 2 The brig " Creole" sailed from Richmond in October, 1841, with one hundred 
 and thirty-five slaves, bound for New Orleans. When a few days from port, the 
 slaves rose, murdered a passenger who claimed the ownership of most of them, 
 took possession of the vessel, and steered her for the port of Nassau, in the Bri- 
 
260 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 hardly be said that the demand was never complied with. Mr. Harrison's cabinet 
 was broken up in 1842: but Mr. Webster remained in office till the spring of 
 1843, during which time steps were taken which led to the recognition of the in- 
 dependence of the Sandwich Islands by the principal maritime powers. With 
 the commencement of Mr. Polk's administration, in 1845, Mr. Webster returned 
 to the Senate of the United States, in which he continued through 1850. In 
 1846, he opposed our infamous Mexican war, but, with an inconsistency un- 
 worthy of his great powers, voted for supplies to carry it on. 
 
 On the 7th of March, 1850, he made his celebrated speech on the " Compromise 
 Measures," including the infamous Fugitive Slave Bill. When the news first 
 came that Mr. Webster had given his support to that bill, the people of the 
 North could hardly believe it. But when the news was confirmed, the scorn, 
 the mortification, the indignation that were felt, can only be realized by those 
 who were conversant at the time with public affairs. 1 The speech itself, in point 
 of style and argument, is altogether the weakest of all his efforts. How could 
 it be otherwise? How could Daniel Webster, with his great heart, true hu- 
 manity, and giant intellect, be eloquent in supporting such a measure? But 
 this was not the worst, even : he went about from place to place, — to Buffalo, 
 Syracuse, Albany, &c, — endeavoring to show the people the rightfulness and 
 the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Bill. Alas, that such a mind should 
 have labored in such a work ! 2 
 
 In June, 1852, the Whig Convention met at Baltimore, to nominate a candidate 
 for the Presidency. That he was immeasurably superior to any of the names 
 before the Convention, in every great quality requisite for a President, no one ever 
 
 tish island of New Providence. It is deeply to be regretted for Mr. Webster's 
 fame that he should have penned such a letter to our minister as he did, demand- 
 ing of England a surrender of these slaves, — a letter so weak in argument and so 
 unfeeling in sentiment. Let us suppose that a number of Englishmen, taken by 
 the Algerines and reduced to slavery, had found such means to escape as did the 
 slaves of the Creole," and had taken shelter in our country: what would our 
 Government say to a demand from Algiers to give them up ? 
 
 1 It was soon after he had delivered this speech, that Whittier wrote his poem 
 entitled " Ichabod," justly admired for its deep feeling, regretful tenderness, and 
 sublime pathos. 
 
 2 The following remarks show the light in which this portion of Mr. Webster's 
 history is viewed from the stand-point of liberty by that eminent Christian 
 jurist, Judge Jay, who loved truth above all other things : whose writings, it has 
 been justly remarked, " are uniformly characterized by the candor of a philo- 
 sopher, the accuracy of a statesman, the courtesy of a gentleman, and the charity 
 of a Christian;" and who well understood the meaning of the words of the Apostle 
 that ''charity rejoiceth in the truth :" — 
 
 " Of all the traitors to the cause of humanity, Mr. Webster is to me one of the 
 most revolting. After the most solemn pledges never to consent to the introduc- 
 tion of slavery into the Territories, he refused to apply the Wilmot Proviso to 
 New Mexico and California, under the impudent pretext that to apply it would 
 be 'to re-enact the laws of God,' it being •physically impossible that slavery could 
 exist in those Territories. Afterwards, becoming desperate in the Presidential 
 canvass, he went about making speeches in favor of the Fugitive Slave Law, and in- 
 sulting every lawyer who denied that it was constitutional. But his most heinous 
 sin was his arming this law with the terrors of constructive treason. The Chris- 
 tiana treason trials were instituted in obedience to orders from the State Depart- 
 ment, and Castner Hanway was tried for his life for levying war against the 
 United States, because he refused to aid in catching a fugitive slave ! !" 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 261 
 
 doubted. But of the two hundred and ninety-three votes he got but thirty-three, 
 and that only once. Fifty-three times did the Convention ballot; but the South, 
 for whom he had made such sacrifices, never gave him a single vote, and General 
 Scott proved the "available" man. 1 On Mr. Webster's return to Boston from 
 Washington, July 9, the citizens gave him a grand public reception. It was kind 
 iu them thus to administer a balm to his wounded spirit, and to ease his fall. He 
 then returned to his farm at Marshfield, where he died Sunday, October 21, 1852. 
 The news of his death excited profound sorrow throughout the country, and 
 demonstrations of mourning appeared in all quarters, evincing how complete 
 a hold he had upon the affections of his countrymen, who were willing, for a time 
 at least, to forget his errors and lapses, in the recollection of his transcendent 
 abilities exerted so many years for good. 2 
 
 Of the character of Mr. Webster as a jurist, a statesman, an orator, there can 
 be but one opinion with all candid minds : — that he was head and shoulders above 
 all his contemporaries, — " Facile primus inter pares." As a jurist, if exceeded by 
 some in depth of professional reading, he was still master of all the learning re- 
 quired for the discussion of every question, however abstruse ; while for a memory 
 that grasped every detail, for a skill that nothing could elude, for a compactness 
 and clearness of statement that made his statements arguments, for rare condensa- 
 tion and surpassing logic, he must always rank as the first of his age. 
 
 As a statesman, few have equalled him. He could study and judge subjects in 
 all their relations and details, with a large and liberal comprehensiveness, with a 
 wide range of political knowledge, and sound views of constitutional interpreta- 
 tion ; and had he always followed the instincts of his own heart, and the prompt- 
 ings of his own enlightened conscience, and not looked at what he thought would 
 be most conducive to his interests in his Presidential aspirings, he would have left 
 a fame surpassed by that of no man, living or dead. 
 
 As an orator, Mr. Webster had none of the graces of the finished rhetorician ; 
 
 1 No one now doubts that, had Mr. Webster, with his giant mind and power- 
 ful eloquence, exerted all his abilities to defeat, as he did to carry through, 
 the "Compromise Bill," he would have succeeded; would have reversed the 
 whole current of public affairs; would have carried with him the sound judgment 
 and enthusiastic feeling of the whole North; and thus would have been borne 
 onward, on the mighty wave of popular enthusiasm, into the Presidential chair. 
 What an opportunity for good forever lost ! Let his fate be a warning to all 
 aspirants for political distinction, and impress upon them the truth that it is infi- 
 nitely better to be right, than to possess the highest office in the gift of the people. 
 
 " High worth is elevated place : 'tis more ; 
 It makes the post stand candidate for thee; 
 Makes more than monarchs, — makes an holiest man.'' 
 
 2 I have looked on many mighty men, — King George, the " first gentleman in 
 England ;" Sir Astley Cooper, the Apollo of his generation ; Peel, O'Connell, 
 Palmerston, Lyndhurst, — all nature's noblemen; I have seen Cuvier, Guizot, 
 Arago, Lamartine, marked in their persons by the genius which has carried their 
 names over the world; I have seen Clay, and Calhoun, and Pinckney, and King, 
 and D wight, and Daggett, who stand as high examples of personal endowment in 
 our annals ; and yet not one of these approached Mr. Webster in the commanding- 
 power of their personal presence. There was a grandeur in his form, an intelli- 
 gence in his deep, dark eye, a loftiness in his expansive brow, a significance in his 
 arched lip, altogether bey« nd those of any other human being I ever saw." — 
 Goodrich's Recollections. 
 
262 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 but be bad what is infinitely better, — a vigor, precision, and perspicuity of style, 
 and a ricb imagination, united to a manliness of person and grandeur of mien, 
 tbat riveted tbe attention of his audience, and produced an overwhelming effect 
 on a deliberative assembly. Witness his discourse at Plymouth, his address at 
 Banker Hill, his remarkable speech at Salem on the trial of Knapp for murder, 
 his eulogy on Adams and Jefferson, and his reply to Hayne. 
 
 Mr. Webster's works, with a life by Edward Everett, have been published in six 
 volumes, octavo, — volumes full of thought, pregnant with instruction, abounding 
 in knowledge, beautified, adorned, and commended by a style that unites, in a 
 remarkable degree, the four highest qualities, — perspicuity, beauty, precision, 
 and strength. 
 
 OUR COUNTRY IN 1920. 
 
 The hours of this day are rapidly flying, and this occasion will 
 soon be past. Neither we nor our children can expect to behold 
 its return. They are in the distant regions of futurity; they exist 
 only in the all-creating power of God who shall stand here, a hun- 
 dred years hence, to trace, through us, their descent from the Pil- 
 grims, and to survey, as we have now surveyed, the progress of 
 their country during the lapse of a century. We would anticipate 
 their concurrence with us in our sentiments of deep regard for our 
 common ancestors. We would anticipate and partake the plea- 
 sure with which they will then recount the steps of New Eng- 
 land's advancement. On the morning of that day, although it 
 will not disturb us in our repose, the voice of acclamation and 
 gratitude, commencing on the Rock of Plymouth, shall be trans- 
 mitted through millions of the sons of the Pilgrims, till it lose 
 itself in the murmurs of the Pacific seas. 
 
 We would leave, for the consideration of those who shall then 
 occupy our places, some proof that we hold the blessings trans- 
 mitted from our fathers in just estimation; some proof of our 
 attachment to the cause of good government, and of civil and re- 
 ligious liberty j some proof of a sincere and ardent desire to pro- 
 mote every thing which may enlarge the understandings and im- 
 prove the hearts of men. And when, from the long distance of 
 one hundred years, they shall look back upon us, they shall know, 
 at least, that we possessed affections which, running backward, 
 and warming with gratitude for what our ancestors have done for 
 our happiness, run forward also to our posterity, and meet them 
 with cordial salutation, ere yet they have arrived on the shore of 
 being. 
 
 Advance, then, ye future generations ! We would hail you, as 
 you rise in your long succession, to fill the places which we now 
 fill, and to taste the blessings of existence where we are passing, 
 and soon shall have passed, our own human duration. We bid you 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 2G3 
 
 welcome to this pleasant land of the fathers. We bid you welcome 
 to the healthful skies and the verdant fields of New England. We 
 greet your accession to the great inheritance which we have en- 
 joyed. We welcome you to the blessings of good government and 
 religious liberty. We welcome you to the treasures of science and 
 the delights of learning. We welcome you to the transcendent 
 sweets of domestic life, to the happiness of kindred, and parents, 
 and children. We welcome you to the immeasurable blessings of 
 rational existence, the immortal hope of Christianity, and the 
 light of everlasting truth ! 
 
 Oration at Plymouth. 1820. 
 ADDRESS TO THE SURVIVING SOLDIERS OF THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 Venerable men ! you have come down to us from a former 
 generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives, 
 that you might behold this joyous day. You are now where you 
 stood fifty years ago, this very hour, with your brothers and your 
 neighbors, shoulder to shoulder, in the strife for your country. 
 Behold, how altered ! The same heavens are indeed over your 
 heads; the same ocean rolls at your feet; but all else, how 
 changed ! You hear now no roar of hostile cannon ; you see no 
 mixed volumes of smoke and flame rising from burning Charles- 
 town. The ground strewed with the dead and the dying; the im- 
 petuous charge ; the steady and successful repulse ; the loud call 
 to repeated assault ; the summoning of all that is manly to re- 
 peated resistance ; a thousand bosoms freely and fearlessly bared 
 in an instant to whatever of terror there may be in war and death, 
 — all these you have witnessed ; but you witness them no more. 
 All is peace. The heights of yonder metropolis, its towers and 
 roofs, which you then saw filled with wives and children and 
 countrymen in distress and terror, and looking with unutterable 
 emotions for the issue of the combat, have presented you to-day 
 with the sight of its whole happy population, come out to welcome 
 and greet you with an universal jubilee. Yonder proud ships, by 
 a felicity of position appropriately lying at the foot of this mount, 
 and seeming fondly to cling around it, are not means of annoyance 
 to you, but your country's own means of distinction and defence. 
 All is peace; and God has granted you this sight of your country's 
 happiness, ere you slumber in the grave forever. He has allowed 
 you to behold and to partake the reward of your patriotic toils ; and 
 He has allowed us, your sons and countrvmen, to meet you here, 
 and, in the name of the present generation, in the name of your 
 country, in the name of liberty, to thank you ! 
 
264 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 She has clotted the surface of the whole globe with her posses- 
 sions and military posts, whose morning drum-beat, following the 
 sun and keeping company with the hours, circle the earth daily 
 with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of 
 England. 
 
 THE MORNING. 
 
 The air is tranquil, and its temperature mild. It is morning, and 
 a morning sweet, and fresh, and delightful. Everybody knows 
 the morning in its metaphorical sense, applied to so many objects, 
 and on so many occasions. The health, strength, and beauty of 
 early years lead us to call that period the " morning of life." But 
 the morning itself few people, inhabitants of cities, know any thing 
 about. Among all our good people, not one in a thousand sees 
 the sun rise once a year. They know nothing of the morning. 
 With them, morning is not a new issuing of light, a new bursting 
 forth of the sun, a new waking up of all that has life, from a sort 
 of temporary death, to behold again the works of God, the heavens 
 and the earth • it is only part of the domestic day, belonging to 
 breakfast, to reading the newspapers, answering notes, sending 
 the children to school, and giving orders for dinner. The first 
 streak of light, the earliest purpling of the east, which the lark 
 springs up to greet, and the deeper coloring into orange and red, 
 till at length the " glorious sun is seen, regent of day/' — this they 
 never enjoy, for they never see it. 
 
 I know the morning, — I am acquainted with it, and I love it. 
 I love it, fresh and sweet as it is, a daily new creation, breaking 
 forth and calling all that have life, and breath, and being, to new 
 adoration, new enjoyments, and new gratitude. 
 
 THE LOVE OF HOME. 
 
 It is only shallow-minded pretenders who either make dis- 
 tinguished origin a matter of personal merit, or obscure origin a 
 matter of personal reproach. Taunt and scoffing at the humble 
 condition of early life affect nobody in America but those who are 
 foolish enough to indulge in them; and they are generally suffi- 
 ciently punished by public rebuke. A man who is not ashamed 
 of himself need not be ashamed of his early condition. It did not 
 happen to me to be born in a log cabin ; but my elder brothers 
 and sisters were born in a log cabin, raised among the snow-drifts 
 of New Hampshire, at a period so early, that when the smoke first 
 rose from its rude chimney and curled over the frozen hills, there 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 265 
 
 was no similar evidence of a white man's habitation between it 
 and the settlements on the rivers of Canada. 
 
 Its remains still exist. I make to it an annual visit. I carry 
 my children to it, to teach them the hardships endured by the 
 generations which have gone before them. I love to dwell on the 
 tender recollections, the kindred ties, the early affections, and the 
 touching narratives and incidents which mingle with all I know 
 of this primitive family abode. I weep to think that none of 
 those who inhabited it are now among the living; and if ever I 
 am ashamed of it, or if ever I fail in affectionate veneration for 
 him who reared it, and defended it against savage violence and 
 destruction, cherished all the domestic virtues beneath its roof, 
 and, through the fire and blood of a seven years' revolutionary 
 war, shrunk from no danger, no toil, no sacrifice, to serve his 
 country, and to raise his children to a condition better than his 
 own, may my name, and the name of my posterity, be blotted for- 
 ever from the memory of mankind ! 
 
 THE NATURE OF TRUE ELOQUENCE. 
 
 True eloquence does not consist in speech. It cannot be 
 brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it, but they 
 will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshalled in every 
 way, but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in 
 the subject, and in the occasion. Affected passion, intense ex- 
 pression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire after it, — they 
 cannot reach it. It comes, if it come at all, like the outbreaking 
 of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic 
 fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. The graces taught 
 in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances of 
 speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the 
 fate of their wives, their children, and their country hang on the 
 decision of the hour. Then words have lost their power, rhetoric 
 is vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius 
 itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of 
 higher qualities. Then patriotism is eloquent ; then self-devotion 
 is eloquent. The clear conception, outrunning the deductions of 
 logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, 
 speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every 
 feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward, to his 
 object, — this, this is eloquence; or, rather, it is something greater 
 and higher than all eloquence : it is action, noble ; sublime, God- 
 like action. 
 
 23 
 
266 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 JUSTICE. 
 
 Justice is the great interest of man on earth. It is the liga- 
 ment which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together. 
 Where her temple stands, and so long as it is duly honored, there 
 is a foundation for social security, general happiness, and the im- 
 provement and progress of our race. 
 
 DEATH THE GREAT LEVELLER. 
 
 One may live as a conqueror, a king, or a magistrate, but he 
 must die as a man. The bed of death brings every human being 
 to his pure individuality, to the intense contemplation of that 
 deepest and most solemn of all relations, — the relation between 
 the Creator and the created. 
 
 PURPOSE OF BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 
 
 Let it not be supposed that our object in erecting this edifice 
 is to perpetuate national hostility, or even to cherish a mere mili- 
 tary spirit. It is higher, purer, nobler. We consecrate our work 
 to the spirit of national independence, and we wish that the light 
 of peace may rest upon it forever. We rear a memorial of our 
 conviction of that unmeasured benefit which has been conferred 
 on our own land, and of the happy influences which have been 
 produced, by the same events, on the general interests of man- 
 kind. We come, as Americans, to mark a spot which must for- 
 ever be dear to us and our posterity. We wish that whosoever, 
 in all coming time, shall turn his eye hither, may behold that the 
 place is not undistinguished where the first great battle of the 
 devolution was fought. We wish that this structure may pro- 
 claim the magnitude and importance of that event to every class 
 and every age. We wish that infancy may learn the purpose of 
 its erection from maternal lips, and that weary and withered age 
 may behold it, and be solaced by the recollections which it sug- 
 gests. We wish that labor may look up here, and be proud, in 
 the midst of its toil. We wish that, in those days of disaster 
 which, as they come on all nations, must be expected to come on 
 us also, desponding patriotism may turn its eyes hitherward, and 
 be assured that the foundations of our national power still stand 
 strong. We wish that this column, rising towards heaven among 
 the pointed spires of so many temples dedicated to God, may con- 
 tribute also to produce in all minds a pious feeling of dependence 
 and gratitude. We wish, finally, that the last object on the sight 
 of him who leaves his native shore, and the first to gladden his 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 207 
 
 who revisits it, may be something which shall remind him of the 
 liberty and the glory of his country. Let it rise, till it meet the 
 sun in his coining ) let the earliest light of the morning gild it, 
 and parting day linger and play on its summit. 
 
 CRIME REVEALED BY CONSCIENCE. 
 
 The deed 1 was executed with a degree of self-possession and 
 steadiness equal to the wickedness with which it was planned. 
 The circumstances, now clearly in evidence, spread out the whole 
 scene before us. Deep sleep had fallen on the destined victim, 
 and on all beneath his roof. A healthful old man, to whom sleep 
 was sweet, the first sound slumbers of the night held him in their 
 soft but strong embrace. The assassin enters, through the win- 
 dow already prepared, into an unoccupied apartment. With 
 noiseless foot he paces the lonely hall, half lighted by the moon ; 
 he winds up the ascent of the stairs, and reaches the door of the 
 chamber. Of this, he moves the lock, by soft and continued 
 pressure, till it turns on its hinges without noise ; and he enters, 
 and beholds his victim before him. The room was uncommonly 
 open to the admission of light. The face of the innocent sleeper 
 was turned from the murderer, and the beams of the moon, rest- 
 ing on the gray locks of his aged temple, showed him where to 
 strike. The fatal blow is given ! and the victim passes, without 
 a struggle or a motion, from the repose of sleep to the repose of 
 death ! It is the assassin's purpose to make sure work • and he 
 yet plies the dagger, though it was obvious that life had been de- 
 stroyed by the blow of the bludgeon. He even raises the aged 
 arm, that he may not fail in his aim at the heart, and replaces it 
 again over the wounds of the poniard ! To finish the picture, he 
 explores the wrist for the pulse ! He feels for it, and ascertains 
 that it beats no longer ! It is accomplished. The deed is done. 
 He retreats, retraces his steps to the window, passes out through 
 it as he came in, and escapes. He has done the murder, — no eye 
 has seen him, no ear has heard him. The secret is his own, and 
 it is safe ! 
 
 Ah, gentlemen ! that was a dreadful mistake ! Such a secret 
 can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of God has neither 
 nook nor corner where the guilty can bestow it, and say it is safe. 
 Not to speak of that eye which glances through all disguises, and 
 beholds every thing as in the splendor of noon, such secrets of 
 guilt are never safe from detection, even by men. True it is, 
 generally speaking, that " murder will out." True it is that 
 Providence hath so ordained, and doth so govern things, that 
 
 1 The murder of Joseph AVhite, Esq., of Salem, Mass., April G, 1830. 
 
268 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 those who break the great law of heaven, by shedding man's 
 blood, seldom succeed in avoiding discovery. Especially in a 
 case exciting so much attention as this, discovery must come, and 
 will come, sooner or later. A thousand eyes turn at once to ex- 
 plore every man, every thing, every circumstance, connected with 
 the time and place; a thousand ears catch every whisper ; a thou- 
 sand excited minds intensely dwell on the scene, shedding all 
 their light, and ready to kindle the slightest circumstance into a 
 blaze of discovery. Meantime, the guilty soul cannot keep its 
 own secret. It is false to itself; or, rather, it feels an irresistible 
 impulse of conscience to be true to. itself. It labors under its 
 guilty possession, and knows not what to do with it. The human 
 heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant. It 
 finds itself preyed on by a torment, which it dares not acknow- 
 ledge to God nor man. A vulture is devouring it, and it can ask 
 no sympathy or assistance either from heaven or earth. The 
 secret which the murderer possesses soon comes to possess him ; 
 and, like the evil spirits of which we read, it overcomes him, and 
 leads him whithersoever it will. He feels it beating at his heart, 
 rising to his throat, and demanding disclosure. He thinks the 
 whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost 
 hears its workings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has 
 become his master. It betrays his discretion, it breaks down his 
 courage, it conquers his prudence. When suspicions from with- 
 out begin to embarrass him, and the net of circumstance to entangle 
 him, the fatal secret struggles with still greater violence to burst 
 forth. It must be confessed, it tcill be confessed; there is no 
 refuge from confession but suicide, — and suicide is confession. 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 Mr. President, — I shall enter on no encomium upon Massa- 
 chusetts, — she needs none. There she is, — behold her, and judge 
 for yourselves. There is her history : the world knows it by 
 heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston, and Con- 
 cord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill, — and there they will re- 
 main forever. The bones of her sons, falling in the great struggle 
 for independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every State, 
 from New England to Georgia; and there they will lie forever. 
 And, sir, where American liberty raised its first voice, and where 
 its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in the 
 strength of its manhood and full of its original spirit. If discord 
 and disunion shall wound it, if party strife and blind ambition 
 shall hawk at and tear it, if folly and madness, if uneasiness under 
 salutary and necessary restraint, shall succeed to separate it from 
 that union, by which alone its existence is made sure, it will 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 269 
 
 stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy 
 was rocked j it will stretch forth its arm, with whatever of vigor 
 it may still retain, over the friends who gather round it; and it 
 will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the proudest monuments of 
 its own glory, and on the very spot of its origin. 
 
 Speech in reply to Ilayne. 
 
 LIBERTY AND UNION. 
 
 Mr. President, — I have thus stated the reasons of my dissent 
 to the doctrines which have been advanced and maintained. I 
 am conscious of having detained you and the Senate much too 
 long. I was drawn into the debate with no previous delibera- 
 tion such as is suited to the discussion of so grave and important 
 a subject. But it is a subject of which my heart is full, and I 
 have not been willing to suppress the utterance of its spontaneous 
 sentiments. I cannot, even now, persuade myself to relinquish 
 it, without expressing once more my deep conviction that, since 
 it respects nothing less than the union of the States, it is of most 
 vital and essential importance to the public happiness. I profess, 
 sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the pros- 
 perity and honor of the whole country, and the preservation of 
 our federal union. It is to that union that we owe our safety at 
 home, and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that 
 union that we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most 
 proud of our country. That union we reached only by the dis- 
 cipline of our virtues- in the severe school of adversity. It had its 
 origin in the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate com- 
 merce, and ruined credit. Under its benign influences, these 
 great interests immediately awoke, as from the dead, and sprang 
 forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration has teemed 
 with fresh proofs of its utility and its blessings ; and, although 
 our territory has stretched out wider and wider, and our popula- 
 tion spread farther and farther, they have not outrun its protec- 
 tion or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of 
 national, social, and personal happiness. I have not allowed my- 
 self, sir, to look beyond the union, to see what might lie hidden 
 in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances 
 of preserving liberty when the bonds that unite us together shall 
 be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over 
 the precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I 
 can fathom the depth of the abyss below ; nor could I regard him 
 as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this government whose 
 thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how the Union 
 should be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition 
 of the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed. While 
 
 23* 
 
270 JOSEPH STORY. 
 
 the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects 
 spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek 
 not to penetrate the veil. God grant that, in my day at least, that 
 curtain may not rise. God grant that on my vision never may be 
 opened what lies behind. When my eyes shall be turned to be- 
 hold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him 
 shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glo- 
 rious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a 
 land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal 
 blood ! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold 
 the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored 
 throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and tro- 
 phies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or pol- 
 luted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such 
 miserable interrogatory as What is all this worth? nor those 
 other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first, and Union after- 
 wards ; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living 
 light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and 
 over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that 
 other sentiment, dear to every true American heart, — Liberty and 
 Union, now and forever, one and inseparable. 
 
 JOSEPH STORY, 1782—1845. 
 
 This eminent jurist and scholar was born in Marblehead, Mass., September 18, 
 1782, and graduated at Harvard College, in 1798. He studied law under Judge 
 Putnam, and established himself in the practice of it at Salem. He soon entered 
 into political life, and was chosen a member of the Massachusetts Legislature in 
 1805. In 1809, he was chosen by the Democratic party a representative to Con- 
 gress from Essex, South District. In 1811, he was nominated by President Madi- 
 son to the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, and he then severed 
 himself entirely from all political connections. In 1830, he was appointed Dane 
 Professor in the Law School of Harvard University, on the munificent foundation 
 of his friend, Hon. Nathan Dane, of Beverly ; and he continued to discharge the 
 duties of this office with great ability and success till the day of his death, which 
 took place on the 10th of September, 1845. 
 
 For profound legal learning, acuteness of intellect, soundness of judgment, and 
 general knowledge, Judge Story has had few superiors in our country. As a 
 teacher of jurisprudence, he brought to the important duties of the Professor's 
 chair, besides his exuberant learning, great patience, a strong delight in the sub- 
 jects which he expounded, a copious and persuasive eloquence, and a contagious 
 enthusiasm, which filled his pupils with love for the law, and for the master who 
 taught it so well. 
 
 As an author, Judge Story began his career early in life, by publishing an ex- 
 
JOSEPH STORY. 
 
 271 
 
 cellent edition of Abbott on the Law of Shipping. Soon after his appointment to 
 the Dane Professorship, he published his Commentaries on the Constitution of the 
 United States, in three volumes, octavo. These were followed by a succession of 
 treatises on different branches of the law, the extent and excellence of which, with 
 the vast amount of legal learning displayed in them, leave it a matter of astonish- 
 ment that they could be prepared, within the short space of twelve years, by a 
 man who was all the while discharging, with great assiduity, the onerous duties 
 of a Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, and a Professor in the Law 
 School of the University. But in his devotion to the science of the law, he did 
 not forget the claims of literature and general scholarship; and his addresses on 
 public occasions, his contributions to the " North American Review," and other 
 miscellaneous writings, show a mind imbued with sound and varied learning. 
 
 As a man, and a member of society, he was remarkable for his domestic vir- 
 tues, his warm affections and generous temper, and the purity, elevation, and sim- 
 plicity of his life. The members of the Suffolk Bar, in their resolutions upon the 
 occasion of his death, declare "that the death of one so great as a judge, as an 
 author, as a teacher, and so good as a man, is a loss which is irreparable to the 
 bar, to the country, and to mankind." 
 
 THE IMPORTANCE OF CLASSICAL LEARNING. 
 
 The importance of classical learning to professional education is 
 so obvious, that the surprise is that it could ever have become 
 matter of disputation. I speak not of its power in refining the 
 taste, in disciplining the judgment, in invigorating the under- 
 standing, or in warming the heart with elevated sentiments, but 
 of its power of direct, positive, necessary instruction. Until the 
 eighteenth century, the mass of science, in its principal branches, 
 was deposited in the dead languages, and much of it still reposes 
 there. To be ignorant of these languages is to shut out the lights 
 of former times, or to examine them only through the glimmerings 
 of inadequate translations. What should we say of the jurist who 
 never aspired to learn the maxims of law and equity which adorn 
 the Roman codes ? What of the physician who could deliberately 
 surrender all the knowledge heaped up for so many centuries in 
 the Latinity of continental Europe ? What of the minister of re- 
 ligion who should choose not to study the Scriptures in the origi- 
 nal tongue, and should be content to trust his faith and his hopes, 
 for time and for eternity, to the dimness of translations which may 
 reflect the literal import, but rarely can reflect, with unbroken 
 force, the beautiful spirit of the text ? 
 
 I pass over all consideration of the written treasures of anti- 
 quity which have survived the wreck of empires and dynasties, of 
 monumental trophies and triumphal arches, of palaces of princes 
 and temples of the gods. I pass over all consideration of those 
 admired compositions in which wisdom speaks as with a voice from 
 heaven; of those sublime efforts of poetical genius which still 
 
272 
 
 JOSEPH STORY. 
 
 freshen, as they pass from age to age, in undying vigor j of those 
 finished histories which still enlighten and instruct governments 
 in their duty and their destiny; of those matchless orations which 
 roused nations to arms and chained senates to the chariot-wheels 
 of all-conquering eloquence. These all may now be read in our 
 vernacular tongue. Ay ! as one remembers the face of a dead 
 friend, by gathering up the broken fragments of his image • as 
 one listens to the tale of a dream twice told ; as one catches the 
 roar of the ocean in the ripple of a rivulet ; as one sees the blaze 
 of noon in the first glimmer of twilight. 
 
 FREE SCHOOLS. 
 
 I know not what more munificent donation any government can 
 bestow than by providing instruction at the public expense, not 
 as a scheme of charity, but of municipal policy. If a private per- 
 son deserves the applause of all good men, who founds a single 
 hospital or college, how much more are they entitled to the appel- 
 lation of public benefactors who, by the side of every church in 
 every village, plant a school of letters ! Other monuments of the 
 art and genius of man may perish, but these, from their very 
 nature, seem, as far as human foresight can go, absolutely im- 
 mortal. The triumphal arches of other days have fallen ; the 
 sculptured columns have crumbled into dust j the temples of taste 
 and religion have sunk into decay j the pyramids themselves seem 
 but mighty sepulchres hastening to the same oblivion to which the 
 dead they cover have long since passed. But here, every suc- 
 cessive generation becomes a living memorial of our public schools, 
 and a living example of their excellence. Never, never may this 
 glorious institution be abandoned or betrayed by the weakness of 
 its friends or the power of its adversaries ! It can scarcely be aban- 
 doned or betrayed while New England remains free, and her re- 
 presentatives are true to their trust. It must forever count in its 
 defence a majority of all those who ought to influence public 
 affairs by their virtues or their talents ; for it must be that here 
 they first felt the divinity of knowledge stir within them. What 
 consolation can be higher, what reflection prouder, than the 
 thought that in weal and in woe our children are under the public 
 guardianship, and may here gather the fruits of that learning 
 which ripens for eternity ! 
 
 THE DANGERS THAT THREATEN OUR REPUBLIC. 
 
 The fate of other republics — their rise, their progress, their de 
 cline, and their fall — are written but too legibly on the pages of 
 history, if, indeed, they were not continually before us in the 
 
JOSEPH STORY. 
 
 273 
 
 startling fragments of their ruins. Those republics have perished, 
 and have perished by their own hands. Prosperity has enervated 
 them, corruption has debased them, and a venal populace has 
 consummated their destruction. The people, alternately the prey 
 of military chieftains at home and of ambitious invaders from 
 abroad, have been sometimes cheated out of their liberties by 
 servile demagogues, sometimes betrayed into a surrender of them 
 by false patriots, and sometimes they have willingly sold them for 
 a price to the despot who has bidden highest for his victims. 
 They have disregarded the warning voice of their best statesmen, 
 and have persecuted and driven from office their truest friends. 
 They have listened to the counsels of fawning sycophants or base 
 calumniators of the wise and the good. They have reverenced 
 power more in its high abuses and summary movements than in 
 its calm and constitutional energy, when it dispensed blessings 
 with an unseen but a liberal hand. They have surrendered to 
 faction what belonged to the common interests and common 
 rights of the country. Patronage and party, the triumph of an 
 artful popular leader, and the discontents of a day, have out- 
 weighed, in their view, all solid principles and institutions of 
 government. Such are the melancholy lessons of the past history 
 of republics down to our own. * * * 
 
 If our Union should once be broken up, it is impossible that a 
 new constitution should ever be formed, embracing the whole ter- 
 ritory. We shall be divided into several nations or confederacies, 
 rivals in power, pursuits, and interests ; too proud to brook in- 
 jury, and too near to make retaliation distant or ineffectual. Our 
 very animosities will, like those of all other kindred nations, be- 
 come more deadly, because our lineage, our laws, and our language 
 are the same. Let the history of the Grecian and Italian re- 
 publics warn us of our dangers. The National Constitution is 
 our last and our only security. United, we stand ; divided, 
 we fall. 
 
 Let, then, the rising generation be inspired with an ardent love 
 of their country, an unquenchable thirst for liberty, and a pro- 
 found reverence for the Constitution and the Union. Let the 
 American youth never forget that they possess a noble inherit- 
 ance, bought by the toils, and sufferings, and blood of their ances- 
 tors; and capable, if wisely improved and faithfully guarded, of 
 transmitting to their latest posterity all the substantial blessings 
 of life, the peaceful enjoyment of liberty, of property, of religion, 
 and of independence. The structure has been erected by archi- 
 tects of consummate skill and fidelity, its foundations are solid, 
 its compartments are beautiful as well as useful, its arrangements 
 are full of wisdom and order, and its defences are impregnable 
 from without. It has bee n reared for immortality, if the work of 
 
274 
 
 WASHINGTON IRVING. 
 
 man may justly aspire to such a title. It may, nevertheless, 
 perish in an hour, by the folly, or corruption, or negligence of its 
 only keepers, the people. Republics are created by the virtue, 
 public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. The}^ fall when 
 the wise are banished from the public councils because they dare 
 to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded because they flatter 
 the people in order to betray them. 
 
 Conclusion of his Exposition of the Constitution. 
 
 WASHINGTON IRVING. 
 
 £! What ! Irving ! thrice welcome, warm heart and fine brain ! 
 You bring back the happiest spirit from Spain, 
 And the gravest sweet humor that ever was there 
 Since Cervantes met death in his gentle despair. 
 Nay, don't be embarrass'd, nor look so beseeching, 
 I sha'n't run directly against my own preaching, 
 And. having just laugh'd at their Raphaels and Dantes, 
 Go to setting you up beside matchless Cervantes; 
 But allow me to speak what I honestly feel ; — 
 To a true poet-heart add the fun ol Dick Steele, 
 Throw in all of Addison minus the chill, 
 With the whole of that partnership's stock and good will, 
 Mix well, and, while stirring, hum o'er, as a spell. 
 The ' fine old English gentleman;' — simmer it well : 
 Sweeten just to your own private liking, then strain, 
 That only the finest and clearest remain : 
 Let it stand out of doors till a soul it receives 
 From the warm lazy sun loitering down through green leaves; 
 And you'll find a choice nature, not wholly deserving 
 A name either English or Yankee — just Irving." 
 
 James Russell Lowell's Fable for the Critics. 
 
 This most justly celebrated and widely-known of all American prose-writers 
 was born in the city of New York, on the 3d of April, 1783. After receiving an 
 ordinary school-education, he commenced, at the age of sixteen, the study of the 
 law. In 1804, in consequence of ill health, he sailed for Bordeaux, and thence 
 roamed over the most beautiful portions of Southern Europe, visited Switzerland, 
 sojourned in Paris, passed through Holland to England, and returned home in 
 1806 and again resumed the study of the law. He was admitted to the bar in 
 November of that year, but never practised. Shortly after, he joined Mr. Pauld- 
 ing in writing Salmagundi, the first number of which appeared in 1807. It was 
 a miscellany full of humor and fun, which captivated the town, and decided the 
 fortunes of the authors. In December of the following year, he published The 
 History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker, — a most original and humorous 
 work; and, a few years after, he edited the "Analectic Magazine." In the 
 autumn of 1814, he joined the military staff of the Governor of New York, as aid- 
 de-camp, and secretary, with the title of colonel. At the close of the war, he 
 embarked for Liverpool, with a view of making a second tour of Europe ; but, 
 financial troubles intervening, and the remarkable success which attended his 
 literary enterprises being an encouragement to pursue a vocation which necessity, 
 no less than taste, now urged him to follow, he embarked in the career of author- 
 
WASHINGTON IRVING. 
 
 275 
 
 ship. In 181S appeared the papers called the Sketch- Book, transmitted from 
 London, where he wrote them, to New York, which at once attracted universal 
 admiration, not here ouly, but in England, where they were republished in 1820. 
 After residing a few years in England, Mr. Irving again visited Paris, and re- 
 turned to England to bring out Braeebridge Hall, in London, May, 1S22. Tho 
 next winter he passed in Dresden, and in the following spring put Tales of a Tra- 
 veller to press. He soon after went to Madrid, and wrote The Life of Columbus, 
 which appeared in 1828. In the spring of that year, he visited the south of 
 Spain, and the result was the Chronicles of the Conquest of Grenada, which was 
 published in 1829. The same year, he revisited that region, and collected the 
 materials for his Alhambra. In July, he went to England, being appointed 
 Secretary of Legation to the American Embassy in London, which office he held 
 until the return of Mr. McLane, in 1831. 
 
 While in England, Mr. Irving received one of the twenty-guinea gold medals 
 provided by George IV. for eminence in historical composition, and the degree of 
 LL.D. from the University of Oxford. His return to New York, in 1832, was 
 greeted by a festival, at which were gathered his surviving friends, and all the 
 illustrious men of his native metropolis. The following summer, he accompanied 
 one of the commissioners for removing the Indian tribes west of the Mississippi. 
 The fruit of this excursion was his graphic Tour of the Prairies. Soon after ap- 
 peared Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey, and Legends of the Conquest of Spain. 
 In 1830, he published Astoria, and in 1837, The Adventures of Captain Bonneville. 
 In 1839, he entered into an engagement, which lasted two years, with the pro- 
 prietors of the Knickerbocker Magazine, to furnish, monthly, articles for that 
 periodical. Early in 1842, he was appointed minister to Spain ; and on his re- 
 turn to this country, in 1846, he began the publication of a revised edition of his 
 works, to the list of which he afterwards added a Life of Goldsmith. He has re- 
 cently published a Life of Washington, in five volumes, which promises to be the 
 most popular life of that illustrious statesman whose name he wears. 
 
 After the genial lines of James Russell Lowell, above quoted, so happily de- 
 scriptive of Mr. Irving's style, wo will add nothing but a short quotation from a 
 beautifully-written and appreciative sketch of his life, in the " Homes of American 
 Authors :" — " The eminent success which has attended the late republication of 
 Irving's works teaches a lesson that we hope will not be lost on the cultivators 
 of literature. It proves a truth which all men of enlightened taste intuitively 
 feel, but which is constantly forgotten by aspirants for literary fame, and that is, 
 — the permanent value of a direct, simple, and natural style. It is not only the 
 genial philosophy, the humane spirit, the humor and pathos, of Irving, which en- 
 dear his writings and secure for them an habitual interest, but it is in the refresh- 
 ment afforded by a constant recurrence to the unalloyed, unaffected, clear, flow- 
 ing style in which he invariably expresses himself." 1 
 
 1 Read " Homes of American Authors " North American Review," ix. 322, 
 xxviii. 103, xxix. 293, xxxv. 265, xli. 1, xliv. 200; " Edinburgh Review," xxxiv. 
 160, xxxvii. 337. But for a full account of Irving's writings, with well-selected 
 criticisms upon his works, both from English and American Reviews, consult 
 that admirable book, — Allibone's Critical Dictionary of English Literature and 
 British and American Authors. See p. 771 of this book. 
 
276 
 
 WASHINGTON IRVING. 
 
 COLUMBUS FIRST DISCOVERS LAND IN THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 The breeze had been fresh all day, with more sea than usual, 
 and they had made great progress. At sunset they had stood 
 again to the west, and were ploughing the waves at a rapid rate, 
 the Pinta keeping the head, from her superior sailing. The 
 greatest animation prevailed throughout the ships : not an eye 
 was closed that night. As the evening darkened, Columbus took 
 his station on the top of the castle or cabin on the high poop of 
 his vessel, ranging his eye along the dusky horizon, and maintain- 
 ing an intense and unremitting watch. About ten o'clock, he 
 thought he beheld a light glimmering at a great distance. Fear- 
 ing his eager hopes might deceive him, he called to Pedro 
 Gutierrez, gentleman of the king's bedchamber, and inquired 
 whether he saw such a light ; the latter replied in the affirmative. 
 Doubtful whether it might not yet be some delusion of the fancy, 
 Columbus called Rodrigo Sanchez, of Segovia, and made the same 
 inquiry. By the time the latter had ascended the round-house, 
 the light had disappeared. They saw it once or twice afterwards 
 in sudden and passing gleams, as if it were a torch in the bark 
 of a fisherman, rising and sinking with the waves, or in the hand 
 of some person on shore, borne up and down as he walked from 
 house to house. So transient and uncertain were these gleams, 
 that few attached any importance to them ; Columbus, however, 
 considered them as certain signs of land, and, moreover, that the 
 land was inhabited. 
 
 They continued their course until two in the morning, when a 
 gun from the Pinta gave the joyful signal of land. It was first 
 descried by a mariner named Rodrigo de Triana ; but the reward 
 was afterwards adjudged to the admiral for having previously 
 perceived the light. The land was now clearly seen about two 
 leagues distant ; whereupon they took in sail, and lay to, waiting 
 impatiently for the dawn. 
 
 The thoughts and feelings of Columbus in this little space of 
 time must have been tumultuous and intense. At length, in 
 spite of every difficulty and danger, he had accomplished his ob- 
 ject. The great mystery of the ocean was revealed; his theory, 
 which had been the scoft' of sages, was triumphantly established ; 
 he had secured to himself a glory durable as the world itself. 
 
 It is difficult to conceive the feelings of such a man at such a 
 moment, or the conjectures which must have thronged upon his 
 mind as to the land before him, covered with darkness. That it 
 was fruitful was evident from the vegetables which floated from 
 its shores. He thought, too, that he perceived the fragrance of 
 aromatic groves. The moving light he had beheld proved it the 
 residence of man. But what were its inhabitants ? Were they 
 
WASHINGTON IRVING. 
 
 277 
 
 like those of the other parts of the globe; or were they some 
 strange and monstrous race, such as the imagination was prone in 
 those times to give to all remote and unknown regions ? Had he 
 come upon some wild island far in the Indian sea; or was this 
 the famed Oipango itself, the object of his golden fancies? A 
 thousand speculations of the kind must have swarmed upon him, 
 as, with his anxious crews, he waited for the night to pass away, 
 wondering whether the morning light would reveal a savage wil- 
 derness, or dawn upon spicy groves, and glittering fanes, and 
 gilded cities, and all the splendor of Oriental civilization. 
 
 Life of Columbus. 
 
 FILIAL AFFECTION. 
 
 I sought the village church. It is an old low edifice of gray 
 stone, on the brow of a small hill, looking over fertile fields, 
 towards where the proud towers of Warwick Castle lift them- 
 selves against the distant horizon. 
 
 A part of the churchyard is shaded by large trees. Under one 
 of them my mother lay buried. You have no doubt thought me 
 a light, heartless being. I thought myself so ; but there are mo- 
 ments of adversity which let us into some feelings of our nature 
 to which we might otherwise remain perpetual strangers. 
 
 I sought my mother's grave : the weeds were already matted 
 over it, and the tombstone was half hid among nettles. I cleared 
 them away, and they stung my hands; but I was heedless of the 
 pain, for my heart ached too severely. I sat down on the grave, 
 and read over and over again the epitaph on the stone. 
 
 It was simple, but it was true. I had written it myself. I 
 had tried to write a poetical epitaph, but in vain : my feelings re- 
 fused to utter themselves in rhyme. My heart had gradually 
 been filling during my lonely wanderings ; it was now charged to 
 the brim, and overflowed. I sank upon the grave, and buried my 
 face in the tall grass, and wept like a child. Yes, I wept in man- 
 hood upon the grave, as I had in infancy upon the bosom, of my 
 mother. Alas ! how little do we appreciate a mother's tenderness 
 while living ! how heedless are we in youth of all her anxieties 
 and kindness ! But when she is dead and gone, when the cares 
 and coldness of the world come withering to our hearts, when we 
 find how hard it is to meet with true sympathy, how few love us 
 for ourselves, how few will befriend us in our misfortunes, then 
 it is that we think of the mother we have lost. It is true I had 
 always loved my mother, even in my most heedless days; but I 
 felt how inconsiderate and ineffectual had been my love. My 
 heart melted as I retraced the days of infancy, when I was led 
 by a mother's hand and rocked to sleep in a mother's arms, 
 and was without care or sorrow. " my mother V exclaimed I, 
 
 24 
 
278 
 
 "WASHINGTON IRVING. 
 
 burying my face again in the grass of the grave, " oh that I were 
 once more by your side, sleeping, never to wake again on the cares 
 and troubles of this world !" 
 
 I am not naturally of a morbid temperament, and the violence 
 of n y emotion gradually exhausted itself. It was a hearty, 
 honest, natural discharge of grief which had been slowly accumu- 
 lating, and gave me wonderful relief. I rose from the grave as 
 if I had been offering up a sacrifice, and I felt as if that sacrifice 
 had been accepted. 
 
 I sat down again on the grass, and plucked, one by one, the 
 weeds from her grave ; the tears trickled more slowly down my 
 cheeks, and ceased to be bitter. It was a comfort to think that 
 she had died before sorrow and poverty came upon her child, and 
 that all his great expectations were blasted. 
 
 I leaned my cheek upon my hand, and looked upon the land- 
 scape. Its quiet beauty soothed me. The whistle of a peasant 
 from an adjoining field came cheerily to my ear. I seemed to 
 respire hope and comfort with the free air that whispered through 
 the leaves, and played lightly with my hair, and dried the tears 
 upon my cheek. A lark, rising from the field before me, and 
 leaving as it were a stream of song behind him as he rose, lifted 
 my fancy with him. He hovered in the air just above the place 
 where the towers of Warwick Castle marked the horizon, and 
 seemed as if fluttering with delight at his own melody. " Surely," 
 thought I, " if there was such a thing as transmigration of souls, 
 this might be taken for some poet let loose from earth, but still 
 revelling in song, and carolling about fair fields and lordly 
 towers." 
 
 At this moment the long-forgotten feeling of poetry rose within 
 me. A thought sprang at once into my mind. " I will become 
 an author !" said I. " I have hitherto indulged in poetry as a 
 pleasure, and it has brought me nothing but pain : let me try 
 what it will do when I cultivate it with devotion as a pursuit." 
 
 The resolution thus suddenly aroused within me heaved a load 
 from off my heart. I felt a confidence in it from the very place 
 where it was formed. It seemed as though my mother's spirit 
 whispered it to me from the grave. " I will henceforth," said I, 
 " endeavor to be all that she fondly imagined me. I will endeavor 
 to act as if she were witness of my actions j I will endeavor to 
 acquit myself in such a manner that, when I revisit her grave, 
 there may at least be no compunctious bitterness with my tears." 
 
 I bowed down and kissed the turf in solemn attestation of my 
 vow. I plucked some primroses that w r ere growing there, and 
 laid them next my heart. I left the churchyard with my spirit 
 once more lifted up, and set out a third time for London in the 
 character of an author. Bmcebridge Hall. 
 
WASHINGTON IRVING. 
 
 279 
 
 THE ALHAMBRA BY MOONLIGHT. 
 
 The moon, which then was invisible, has gradually gained upon 
 the nights, and now rolls in full splendor above the towers, pour- 
 ing a flood of tempered light into every court and hall. The gar- 
 den beneath my window is gently lighted tip, the orange and citron 
 trees are tipped with silver, the fountain sparkles in the moon- 
 beams, and even the blush of the rose is faintly visible. 
 
 I have sat for hours at my window inhaling the sweetness of 
 the garden, and musing on the checkered features of those whose 
 history is dimly shadowed out in the elegant memorials around. 
 Sometimes I have issued forth at midnight when every thing was 
 quiet, and have wandered over the whole building. Who can do 
 justice to a moonlight night in such a climate and in such a 
 place ? The temperature of an Andalusian midnight, in summer, 
 is perfectly ethereal. We seem lifted up into a purer atmosphere ; 
 there is a serenity of soul, a buoyancy of spirits, an elasticity of 
 frame, that render mere existence enjoyment. The effect of 
 moonlight, too, on the Alhambra has something like enchant- 
 ment. Every rent and chasm of time, every mouldering tint and 
 weather-stain, disappears, the marble resumes its original white- 
 ness, the long colonnades brighten in the moonbeams, the halls 
 are illuminated with a softened radiance, until the whole edifice 
 reminds one of the enchanted palace of an Arabian tale. 
 
 At such time I have ascended to the little pavilion, called the 
 Queen's Toilette, to enjoy its varied and extensive prospect. To 
 the right, the snowy summits of the Sierra Nevada would gleam 
 like silver clouds against the darker firmament, and all the out- 
 lines of the mountain would be softened, yet delicately defined. 
 My delight, however, would be to lean over the parapet of the 
 tocador, and gaze down upon Granada, spread out like a map be- 
 low me, all buried in deep repose, and its white palaces and con- 
 vents sleeping as it were in the moonshine. 
 
 Sometimes I would hear the faint sounds of castanets from 
 some party of dancers lingering in the Alameda ; at other times I 
 have heard the dubious tones of a guitar, and the notes of a single 
 voice rising from some solitary street, and have pictured to my- 
 self some youthful cavalier serenading his lady's window, — a gal- 
 lant custom of former clays, but now sadly on the decline, except 
 in the remote towns and villages of Spain. 
 
 Such are the scenes that have detained me for many an hour 
 loitering about the courts and balconies of the castle, enjoying 
 that mixture of reverie and sensation which steal away existence 
 in a Southern climate, — and it has been almost morning before I 
 have retired to my bed, and been lulled to sleep by the falling 
 waters of the fountain of Lindaraxa. The Alhambra. 
 
280 
 
 WASHINGTON IRVING. 
 
 THE GRAVE. 
 
 The love which survives the tomb is one of the noblest attri- 
 butes of the soul. If it has its woes, it has likewise its delights; 
 and when the overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the 
 gentle tear of recollection, when the sudden anguish and the con- 
 vulsive agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved are 
 softened away into pensive meditation on all that it was in the 
 days of its loveliness, who would root out such a sorrow from the 
 heart ? Though it may sometimes throw a passing cloud over the 
 bright hour of gayety, or spread a deeper sadness over the hour 
 of gloom, yet who would exchange it, even for the song of plea- 
 sure or the burst of revelry ? No : there is a voice from the 
 tomb sweeter than song. There is a remembrance of the dead to 
 which we turn even from the charms of the living. Oh, the 
 grave ! — the grave ! It buries every error, covers every defect, 
 extinguishes every resentment ! From its peaceful bosom spring 
 none but fond regrets and tender recollections. Who can look 
 down upon the grave even of an enemy, and not feel a com- 
 punctious throb that he should ever have warred with the poor 
 handful of earth that lies mouldering before him ? 
 
 But the grave of those we loved, — what a place for meditation ! 
 There it is that we call up in long review the whole history of 
 virtue and gentleness, and the thousand endearments lavished 
 upon ris almost unheeded in the daily intercourse of intimacy ; 
 there it is that we dwell upon the tenderness, the solemn, awful 
 tenderness, of the parting scene. The bed of death, with all its 
 stifled griefs, its noiseless attendants, its mute, watchful assi- 
 duities ! The last testimonies of expiring love ! The feeble, 
 fluttering, thrilling — oh, how thrilling 1 — pressure of the hand ! 
 The faint, faltering accents, struggling in death to give one more 
 assurance of affection ! The last fond look of the glazing eye, 
 turning upon us even from the threshold of existence ! 
 
 Ay, go to the grave of buried love, and meditate ! There settle 
 the account with thy conscience for every past benefit unrequited, 
 every past endearment unregarded, of that departed being, who 
 can never, never, never return to be soothed by thy contrition ! 
 
 If thou art a child, and hast ever added a sorrow to the soul or 
 a furrow to the silvered brow of an affectionate parent, — if thou 
 art a husband, and hast ever caused the fond bosom that ventured 
 its whole happiness in thy arms to doubt one moment of thy kind- 
 ness or thy truth, — if thou art a friend, and hast ever wronged, in 
 thought, or word, or deed, the spirit that generously confided in 
 thee, — if thou art a lover, and hast ever given one unmerited 
 pang to that true heart which now lies cold and still beneath thy 
 feet, — then be sure that every unkind look, every ungracious 
 
WASHINGTON IRVING. 
 
 281 
 
 word, and every ungentle action, will come thronging back upon 
 thy memory and knocking dolefully at thy soul ; then be sure 
 that thou wilt lie down sorrowing and repentant on the grave, and 
 utter the unheard groan, and pour the unavailing tear, more deep, 
 more bitter, because unheard and unavailing. 
 
 Then weave thy chaplet of flowers, and strew the beauties of 
 nature about the grave ; console thy broken spirit, if thou canst, 
 with these tender yet futile tributes of regret ; but take warning 
 by the bitterness of this thy contrite affliction over the dead, and 
 henceforth be more faithful and affectionate in the discharge of 
 thy duties to the living. 
 
 Sketch-Book. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF A DUTCHMAN. 
 
 The renowned Wouter (or Walter) Van Twiller was descended 
 from a long line of Dutch burgomasters, who had successively 
 dozed away their lives, and grown fat upon the bench of magis- 
 tracy in Rotterdam, and who had comported themselves with such 
 singular wisdom and propriety that they were never either heard 
 or talked of, — which, next to being universally applauded, should 
 be the object of ambition of all magistrates and rulers. There are 
 two opposite ways by which some men make a figure in the world : 
 one by talking taster than they think ; and the other by holding 
 their tongues and not thinking at all. By the first, many a smat- 
 terer acquires the reputation of a man of quick parts; by the 
 other, many a dunderpate, like the owl, the stupidest of birds, 
 comes to be considered the very type of wisdom. This, by-the- 
 way, is a casual remark, which I would not for the universe have 
 it thought I apply to Governor Van Twiller. It is true he was a 
 man shut up within himself, like an oyster, and rarely spoke ex- 
 cept in monosyllables ; but then it was allowed he seldom said a 
 foolish thing. So invincible was his gravity that he was never 
 known to laugh, or even to smile, through the whole course of a 
 long and prosperous life. Nay, if a joke were uttered in his pre- 
 sence that set light-minded hearers in a roar, it was observed to 
 throw him into a state of perplexity. Sometimes he would deign 
 to inquire into the matter; and when, after much explanation, 
 the joke was made as plain as a pikestaff, he would continue to 
 smoke his pipe in silence, and at length, knocking out the ashes, 
 would exclaim, " Well ! I see nothing in all that to laugh about !" 
 
 The person of this illustrious old gentleman was formed and 
 proportioned as though it had been moulded by the hands of some 
 cunning Dutch statuary, as a model of majesty and lordly grandeur. 
 He was exactly five feet six inches in height, and six feet five 
 inches in circumference. His head was a perfect sphere, and of 
 such stupendous dimensions, that dame Nature, with all her sex's 
 
 24* 
 
282 JOSEPH S. BUCKMINSTER. 
 
 ingenuity, would have been puzzled to construct a neck capable 
 of supporting it; wherefore she wisely declined the attempt, and 
 settled it firmly on the back of his back-bone, just between the 
 shoulders. His body was oblong, and particularly capacious at 
 bottom j which was wisely ordered by Providence, seeing that he 
 was a man of sedentary habits, and very averse to the idle labor 
 of walking. His legs were short, but sturdy in proportion to the 
 weight they had to sustain j so that when erect he had not a little 
 the appearance of a beer-barrel on skids. His face — that infallible 
 index of the mind — presented a vast expanse, unfurrowed by any 
 of those lines and angles which disfigure the human countenance 
 with what is termed expression. Two small gray eyes twinkled 
 feebly in the midst, like two stars of lesser magnitude in a hazy 
 firmament ; and his full-fed cheeks, which seemed to have taken 
 toll of every thing that went into his mouth, were curiously 
 mottled and streaked with dusky red, like a spitzenberg apple. 
 
 His habits were as regular as his person. He daily took his 
 four stated meals, appropriating exactly an hour to each ; he 
 smoked and doubted eight hours, and he slept the remaining 
 twelve of the four-and-twenty. Such was the renowned Wouter 
 Van Twiller, — a true philosopher ■ for his mind was either ele- 
 vated above, or tranquilly settled below, the cares and perplexities 
 of this world. He had lived in it for years, without feeling the 
 least curiosity to know whether the sun revolved round it, or it 
 round the sun ; and he had watched, for at least half a century, 
 the smoke curling from his pipe to the ceiling, without once 
 troubling his head with any of those numerous theories by which 
 a philosopher would have perplexed his brain, in accounting for 
 its rising above the surrounding atmosphere. 
 
 Knickerbocker. 
 
 JOSEPH S. BUCKMIXSTER, 1784—1812. 
 
 Joseph Stevens Buckmixster was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 
 May 26, 1781. His ancestors, both by his father's and his mother's side, for 
 several generations, were clergymen. His father, Dr. Buckminster, was for a 
 long time a minister of Portsmouth, and was esteemed one of the most eminent 
 clergymen of the State. His mother, the only daughter of Dr. Stevens, of Kit- 
 tery, was a woman of an elegant and cultivated mind; and, though dying while 
 the subject of this memoir was very young, she had made such impressions on 
 his mind and heart as deeply and permanently affected his character. 
 
 Mr. Buckminster was a striking example of the early development of talents. 
 There was no period, after his earliest infancy, when he did not impress on all 
 who saw hkn a conviction of the certainty of his future eminence. He received 
 
JOSEPH S. BUCKMINSTER. 
 
 283 
 
 his education preparatory for college at Exeter Academy, New Hampshire, nndei 
 the care of the venerable Dr. Benjamin Abbot, for whom all his pupils ever enter- 
 tained the highest veneration. 1 At the age of thirteen he entered Harvard Uni- 
 versity, nearly a year in advance, and at once took the highest rank as a scholar, 
 which he continued to maintain throughout his whole collegiate career. 
 
 In 1S00, he received the honors of the University, and entered at once upon 
 the study of theology, for which he had an inclination at an early age. In 
 October, 1804, he was invited to preach before the Brattle Street Church, Boston, 
 and he was ordained as their pastor January 30, 1805. 
 
 But a cloud was soon to overshadow this fair prospect; for, in October of that 
 year, he was attacked by a fit of epilepsy, brought on by too intense application 
 to his studies. In the spring of 1S0G, the increase of this fatal malady induced 
 his friends to insist upon his taking a voyage to Europe; and, accordingly, he 
 embarked in May for Liverpool. After travelling through Great Britain and a 
 considerable portion of Western Skirope, he returned home in September of the 
 next year. He was welcomed by his congregation with unabated affection, and 
 resumed the duties of his office with redoubled activity, and for a few 3 r ears he 
 continued to labor with unwearied industry, continually filling a larger space in 
 the public eye, when, in the midst of all his usefulness, he was suddenly cut 
 down. A violent attack of his old disorder at once made a total wreck of his 
 intellect, and, after lingering for a few days, during which he had not even a 
 momentary interval of reason, he sank under its force, June 9, 1812, having just 
 completed his twenty-eighth year. 
 
 Few men ever died more lamented by the community in which they lived than 
 Mr. Buckminster. His death was felt by all classes, and all sects of Christians, 
 to be a great public loss. His life was one of uniform purity and rectitude, of 
 devotion to his Master's service, of disinterested zeal for the good of mankind. 
 As a scholar, Professor Norton remarks, "There is no question that he was one 
 of the most eminent men whom our country has produced. In the time which 
 was left him by his many interruptions, he had acquired such a variety of know- 
 ledge, that one could hardly converse with him on any subject connected with 
 his profession, or with the branches of elegant literature, without having some 
 new ideas suggested, without receiving some information, or being at least directed 
 how to obtain it. Yet he did not labor to acquire learning merely for the sake 
 of exhibiting it to the wonder of others ; but his studies were all for profit and 
 usefulness. Of his public discourses I do not fear speaking with exaggerated 
 praise. To listen to them was the indulgence and gratification of our best affec- 
 tions. It was to follow in the triumph of religion and virtue." 2 
 
 1 Dr. Johnson has very justly said, "Not to mention the school or master of 
 distinguished men is a kind of historical fraud by which honest fame is inju- 
 riously diminished." 
 
 2 Read a memoir prefixed to his works, 2 vols., Boston, 1839 ; also an article in 
 the "North American Review," x. 204; but, above all, " Memoirs of the Rev. 
 Joseph Buckminster, D.D., and of his Son, Rev. Joseph Stevens Buckmiuster," 
 by his sister, Eliza Buckminster Lee. Also a very fine article in the "Christian 
 Examiner" for September, 1849. 
 
284 JOSEPH S. BUCKMINSTER. 
 
 USES OF SICKNESS. 
 
 Sickness teaches us not only the uncertain tenure, but the utter 
 vanity and unsatisfactoriness, of the dearest objects of human 
 pursuit. Introduce into the chamber of a sick and dying man the 
 whole pantheon of idols which he has vainly worshipped, — fame, 
 wealth, pleasure, beauty, power, — what miserable comforters are 
 they all ! Bind a wreath of laurel round his brow, and see if it 
 will assuage his aching temples. Spread before him the deeds 
 and instruments which prove him the lord of innumerable pos- 
 sessions, and see if you can beguile him of a moment's anguish; 
 see if he will not give you up those barren parchments for one 
 drop of cool water, one draught of pure air. Go, tell him, when a 
 fever rages through his veins, that his table smokes with luxuries, 
 that the wine moveth itself aright and giveth its color in the cup, 
 and see if this will calm his throbbing pulse. Tell him, as he 
 lies prostrate, helpless and sinking with debility, that the song 
 and dance are ready to begin, and that all without him is life, 
 alacrity, and joy. Nay, more, place in his motionless hand the 
 sceptre of a mighty empire, and see if he will be eager to grasp 
 it. This, my friends, this is the school in which our desires must 
 be disciplined, and our judgments of ourselves and the objects of 
 our pursuit corrected. 
 
 TEMPTATIONS OF THE YOUNG. 
 
 It is true that every age and employment has its snares ; but 
 the feet of the young are most easily entrapped. Issuing forth, 
 as you do, in the morning of life, into the wide field of existence, 
 where the flowers are all open, it is no wonder that you pluck 
 some that are poisonous. Tasting every golden fruit that hangs 
 over the garden of life, it is no wonder that you should find some 
 of the most tempting hollow and mouldy. But the peculiar cha- 
 racteristic of your age, my young friends, is impetuosity and pre- 
 sumptuousness. You are without caution, because without expe- 
 rience. You are precipitate, because you have enjoyed so long 
 the protection of others that you have yet to learn to protect your- 
 selves. You grasp at every pleasure because it is new, and every 
 society charms with a freshness which you will be surprised to 
 find gradually wearing away. Young as you are upon the stage, 
 there seems to be little for you to know of yourselves ; therefore 
 you are contented to know little, and the world will not let you 
 know more till it has disappointed you oftener. 
 
 Entering, then, into life, you will find every rank and occupa- 
 tion environed with its peculiar temptations ; and, without some 
 other and higher principle than that which influences a merely 
 
JOSEPH S. BTJCKMINSTER. 
 
 285 
 
 worldly man, you are not a moment secure. You are poor, and 
 you think pleasure and fashion and ambition will disdain to spread 
 their snares for so ignoble a prey. It is true, they may. But 
 take care that dishonesty does not dazzle you with an exhibition 
 of sudden gains. Take care that want docs not disturb your 
 imagination by temptations to fraud. Distress may drive you to 
 indolence and despair, and these united may drown you in intem- 
 perance. Even robbery and murder have sometimes stalked in at 
 the breach which poverty or calamity has left unguarded. You 
 are rich, and you think that pride and a just sense of reputation 
 • will preserve you from the vices of the vulgar. It is true, they 
 may j and you may be ruined in the progress of luxury, and lost 
 to society, and, at last, to God, while sleeping in the lap of the 
 most nattering and enervating abundance. 
 
 The last resource against temptation is prayer. Escaping, 
 then, from your tempter, fly to G-od. Cultivate the habit of de- 
 votion. It shall be a wall of fire around you, and your glory in 
 the midst of you. To this practice the uncorrupted sentiments 
 of the heart impel you, and invitations are as numerous as they 
 are merciful to encourage you. When danger has threatened 
 your life, you have called upon Grod. When disease has wasted 
 your health, and you have felt the tomb opening under your feet, 
 you have called upon Grod. When you have apprehended heavy 
 misfortunes or engaged in hazardous enterprises, you have, per- 
 haps, resorted to God to ask his blessing. But what are all these 
 dangers to the danger which your virtue may be called to encoun- 
 ter on your first entrance into life ? In habitual prayer you will 
 find a safeguard. You will find every good resolution fortified by 
 it, and every seduction losing its power, when seen in the new 
 light which a short communion with Heaven affords. In prayer 
 you will find that a state of mind is generated which will shed a 
 holy influence over the whole character ; and those temptations to 
 which you were just yielding will vanish, with all their allure- 
 ments, when the day-star of devotion rises in your hearts. 
 
 ACTIVE AND INACTIVE LEARNING. 
 
 The history of letters does not, at this moment, suggest to me 
 a more fortunate parallel between the effects of active and of 
 inactive learning than in the well-known characters of Cicero and 
 Atticus. Let me hold them up to your observation, not because 
 Cicero was faultless, or Atticus always to blame, but because, like 
 you, they were the citizens of a republic. They liwed in an age 
 of learning and of dangers, and acted upon opposite principles 
 when Borne was to be saved, if saved at all, by the virtuous 
 energy of her most accomplished minds. If we look now for 
 
286 
 
 JOSEPH S. BUCKMINSTER. 
 
 Atticus, we find him in the quiet of his library, surrounded with 
 books, while Cicero was passing through the regular course of 
 public honors and services, where all the treasures of his mind 
 were at the command of his country. If we follow them, we find 
 Atticus pleasantly wandering among the ruins of Athens, pur- 
 chasing up statues and antiques, while Cicero was at home, blasting 
 the projects of Catiline, and at the head of the senate, like the 
 tutelary spirit of his country, as the storm was gathering, secretly 
 watching the doubtful movements of Caesar. If we look to the 
 period of the civil wars, we find Atticus always reputed, indeed, 
 to belong to the party of the friends of liberty, yet originally dear 
 to Sylla and intimate with Cloclius, recommending himself to 
 Caesar by his neutrality, courted by Antony, and connected with 
 Octavius; poorly concealing the epicureanism of his principles 
 under the ornaments of literature and the splendor of his bene- 
 factions ; till at last this inoffensive and polished friend of suc- 
 cessive usurpers hastens out of life to escape from the pains of a 
 lingering disease. Turn now to Cicero, the only great man at 
 whom Caesar always trembled, the only great man whom falling- 
 Rome did not fear. Do you tell me that his hand once offered 
 incense to the dictator ? Remember, it was the gift of gratitude 
 only, and not of servility ; for the same hand launched its indig- 
 nation against the infamous Antony, whose power was more to be 
 dreaded, and whose revenge pursued him till this father of his 
 country gave his head to the executioner without a struggle, for 
 he knew that Rome was no longer to be saved. If, my friends, 
 you would feel what learning, and genius, and virtue should 
 aspire to in a clay of peril and depravity, when you are tired of 
 the factions of the city, the battles of Caesar, the crimes of the 
 triumvirate, and the splendid court of Augustus, do not go and 
 repose in the easy chair of Atticus, but refresh your virtues and 
 your spirits with the contemplation of Cicero. 1 
 
 Phi Beta Kappa Oration. 
 
 1 " If I should attempt to fix the period at which I first felt all the power of Mr. 
 Buckminstcr's influence, it would be at the delivery of his oration before the Phi 
 Beta Kappa Society, in August, 1809 ; at which time I had been two years in 
 college, but still hardly emerged from boyhood. That address — although the 
 standard of merit for such performances is higher now than it was then — will, I 
 think, still be regarded as one of the very best of its class, admirably appropriate, 
 thoroughly meditated, and exquisitely wrought. It unites sterling sense, sound 
 and various scholarship, precision of thought, the utmost elegance of style, with- 
 out pomp or laborious ornament, with a fervor and depth of feeling truly evan- 
 gelical. These qualities, of course, are preserved in the printed text of the ora- 
 tion. But the indescribable charm of his personal appearance and manner, — the 
 look, the voice, the gesture and attitude, the unstudied outward expression of the 
 inward feeling, — of these no idea can be formed by those who never heard him." 
 — Edward Everett. 
 
LEVI FRISBIE. 
 
 287 
 
 LEVI FRISBIE, 1784—1822. 
 
 Levi Frisbie, whose father, of the same name, was a clergyman of Ipswich, 
 Massachusetts, was born in that ancient town in the year 1781. After completing 
 his preparatory studies at Andover Academy, Mr. Frisbie entered Harvard Uni- 
 versity in 1798. As a student, he was among the most distinguished in his class 
 for talents and accpuisitions, for correctness of conduct, integrity, and manliness. 
 Soon after leaving college, he commenced the study of the law; but his fair 
 prospects were soon clouded by an affection of his eyes, which so deprived him of 
 their use for the purpose of study that he was never after able to employ them 
 except for very short periods. 
 
 Being thus unable to pursue his professional studies, he accepted the place of 
 Latin tutor in Harvard University in 1805, in which he continued till 1811, when 
 he was appointed Professor of the Latin Language, which chair he held till 1817. 
 On the 5th of November of that year 1 , he was inaugurated as Professor of Moral 
 Philosophy ; and the address which he delivered upon the occasion is one that 
 shows his eminent fitness for that high office, as a scholar of enlarged views, re- 
 iiued taste, deep thought, and elevated Christian principles. But, alas ! " Death 
 loves a shining mark/' Professor Frisbie had given but two courses of lectures 
 when symptoms of that insidious but fatal disease — consumption — appeared, and 
 on the 9th of July, 1822, after a lingering illness, he breathed his last. 
 
 Of his character, one who was associated with him in the faculty of the college, 
 and his most intimate friend, 1 thus writes: — "If those who knew him best were 
 called upon to mention any virtue of which he was particularly distinguished, I 
 believe they would unite in naming Integrity. He was a man who, if ever any 
 one could, might have told the world his purposes, and risen in their respect. If 
 you were to determine whether he would pursue any particular course of conduct 
 or aim at any particular object, you had only to determine whether he would 
 think that object right, and that course of conduct his duty, and you were sure 
 that no selfish or mean passion, and no sinister purpose, would interfere to lead 
 insensibly his judgment astray. There were no false appearances about him. 
 He had nothing of that disguise and cunning which are sometimes mistaken for 
 policy. His conduct lay before you in broad daylight; and you never were at a 
 loss for his motives, and you never perceived any but what were honorable. His 
 notions of right and wrong were founded upon the laws of religion and of God 
 and not upon the maxims of the world. He compared his actions, not with the 
 opinions and sentiments of the day, but with the eternal principles of morality." 2 
 
 THE RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE OF MORALS AND LITERATURE. 
 
 In no productions of modern genius is the reciprocal influence 
 of morals and literature more distinctly seen than in those of the 
 
 1 Professor Andrews Norton, — one of Harvard's most distinguished sons, — in 
 his "Address at the Interment of Professor Frisbie." 
 
 2 In 181 7, Professor Frisbie was married to Miss Catharine Saltonstall Mellen, 
 daughter of John Mellen, Esq., of Cambridge. 
 
288 
 
 LEVI FRISBIE. 
 
 author of Childe Harold. His character produced the poems, and 
 it cannot be doubted that his poems are adapted to produce such 
 a character. His heroes speak a language supplied not more by 
 imagination than consciousness. They are not those machines 
 that, by a contrivance of the artist, send forth a music of their 
 own, but instruments through which he breathes his very soul, in 
 tones of agonized sensibility that cannot but give a sympathetic 
 impulse to those who hear. The desolate misanthropy of his mind 
 rises, and throws its dark shade over his poetry like one of his 
 own ruined castles; we feel it to be sublime, but we forget that it 
 is a sublimity it cannot have till it is abandoned by every thing 
 that is kind, and peaceful, and happy, and its halls are ready to 
 become the haunts of outlaws and assassins. Nor are his more 
 tender and affectionate passages those to which we can yield our- 
 selves without a feeling of uneasiness. It is not that we can here 
 and there select a proposition formally false or pernicious, but that 
 he leaves an impression unfavorable to a healthful state of thought 
 and feeling, peculiarly dangerous to the finest minds and most 
 susceptible hearts. They are the scene of a summer evening, 
 where all is tender, and beautiful, and grand ; but the damps of 
 disease descend with the dews of heaven, and the pestilent vapors 
 of night are breathed in with the fragrance and balm, and the 
 delicate and fair are the surest victims of the exposure. 
 
 Although I have illustrated the moral influence of literature, 
 principally from its mischiefs, yet it is obvious, if what I have 
 said be just, it may be rendered no less powerful as a means of 
 good. Indeed, the fountains of literature into which an enemy 
 has sometimes infused poison naturally flow with refreshment and 
 health. Cowper and Campbell have led the muses to repose in 
 the bowers of religion and virtue ; and Miss Edgeworth has so 
 cautiously combined the features of her characters that the pre- 
 dominant expression is ever what it should be. She has shown 
 us not vices ennobled by virtues, but virtues degraded and per- 
 verted by their union with vices. The success of this lady has 
 been great; but, had she availed herself more of the motives and 
 sentiments of religion, we think it would have been greater. She 
 has stretched forth a powerful hand to the impotent in virtue; 
 and had she added, with the Apostle, " In the name of Jesus of 
 Nazareth/' we should almost have expected miracles from its 
 touch. 
 
 The incorporating of religion with morality is a means of prac- 
 tical influence, and extends to every order in society. It is not 
 the fountain which plays only in the gardens of the palace, but 
 the rain of heaven, which descends alike upon the enclosures of 
 the rich and the poor, and refreshes the meanest shrub no less 
 than the fairest flower. The sages of antiquity seem to have 
 
LEVI FRISBIE. 
 
 289 
 
 believed that morality had nothing to do with religion j and Chris- 
 tians of the Middle Ages, that religion had nothing to do with 
 morality ; but, at the present day, we acknowledge how intimate 
 and important is their connection. It is not views of moral fit- 
 ness, by which the minds of men are at first to be affected, but by 
 connecting their duties with the feelings and motives, the hopes 
 and fears, of Christianity. Both are necessary : the latter, to 
 prompt and invigorate virtue j the former, to give it the beauty 
 of knowledge and taste. It is heat that causes the germ to spring 
 and flourish in the heart ; but it is light that imparts verdure to 
 its foliage, and their hues to its flowers. 
 
 TACITUS LIVY. 
 
 The moral sensibility of Tacitus is, we think, that particular 
 circumstance by which he so deeply engages his reader, and is 
 perhaps distinguished from every other writer in the same depart- 
 ment of literature; and the scenes he was to describe peculiarly 
 required this quality. His writings comprise a period the most 
 corrupt within the annals of man. The reigns of the Neros, and 
 many of their successors, seemed to have brought together the 
 opposite vices of extreme barbarism and excessive luxury; the 
 most ferocious cruelty and slavish submission ; voluptuousness the 
 most effeminate, and sensuality worse than brutal. Not only all 
 the general charities of life, but the very ties of nature, were 
 annihilated, by a selfishness the most exclusively individual. The 
 minions of power butchered the parent, and the child hurried to 
 thank the emperor for his goodness. The very fountains of 
 abomination seemed to have been broken up, and to have poured 
 over the face of society a deluge of pollution and crimes. How 
 important, then, was it for posterity that the records of such an 
 era should be transmitted by one in whose personal character there 
 should be a redeeming virtue, who would himself feel, and awaken 
 in his readers, that disgust and abhorrence which such scenes 
 ought to excite ! Such a one was Tacitus. There is in his narra- 
 tive a seriousness approaching sometimes almost to melancholy, 
 and sometimes bursting forth in expressions of virtuous indigna- 
 tion. He appears always to be aware of the general complexion 
 of the subjects of which he is treating; and even when extra- 
 ordinary instances of independence and integrity now and then 
 present themselves, you perceive that his mind is secretly con- 
 trasting them with those vices with which his observation was 
 habitually familiar. * * * 
 
 We have mentioned what appear to us the most striking cha- 
 racteristics of Tacitus. When compared with his great prede- 
 cessor, he is no less excellent, but essentially different. Livy is 
 
 25 
 
290 
 
 LEVI FRISBIE. 
 
 only a historian ; Tacitus is also a philosopher. The former gives 
 you images ; the latter, impressions. In the narration of events, 
 Livy produces his effect by completeness and exact particularity ; 
 Tacitus, by selection and condensation. The one presents to you 
 a panorama : you have the whole scene, with all its complicated 
 movements and various appearances, vividly before you. The 
 other shows you the most prominent and remarkable groups, and 
 compensates in depth what he wants in minuteness. Livy hurries 
 you into the midst of the battle, and leaves you to be borne along 
 by its tide; Tacitus stands with }^ou upon an eminence where you 
 may have more tranquillity for distinct observation ; or, perhaps, 
 when the armies have retired, walks with you over the field, points 
 out to you the spot of each most interesting particular, and shares 
 with you those solemn and profound emotions which you have 
 now the composure to feel. 
 
 MORAL TASTE. 
 
 Sensibility to beauty is in some degree common to all ; but it is 
 infinitely varied, according as it has been cultivated by habit and 
 education. To the man whose taste has been formed on just 
 principles, and who has been led to perceive and relish what is 
 truly beautiful, a new world is opened. He looks abroad over 
 nature, and contemplates the productions of art, with sentiments 
 to which those who are destitute of this faculty are strangers. 
 He perceives in the works of God, and in the contrivances of 
 man, all the utility for which they were destined and adapted, in 
 common with others; but besides this, his heart is filled with 
 sentiments of the beautiful or the grand, according to the nature 
 of the object. It is in literature that taste, in the more common 
 use of the word, has its most extensive sphere, and most varied 
 gratifications; yet, whether it be exercised on nature, the fine 
 arts, or literature, we are aware how much depends on associations 
 with life, feeling, and human character. Why does the traveller 
 wander with such peculiar interest over the mountains and plains 
 of Italy and Greece, but because every spot is consecrated by the 
 memory of great events, or presents to him the memorials of de- 
 parted genius ? It is for this reason that poetry peoples even soli- 
 tude and desolation with imaginary life ; so that, in ancient days, 
 every forest had its dryads, every fountain its nymphs, and the 
 voice of the naiades was heard in the murmuring of the streams. 
 It is partly in reference to the same principle that deserts and 
 mountains, where all is barrenness and solitude, raise in the mind 
 emotions of sublimity. It is a feeling of vastness and desolation 
 that depends in a great degree on the absence of every thing 
 having life or action. The mere modifications of nature are 
 
LEVI FRISBIE. 
 
 291 
 
 beautiful; the human form from its just proportions, the human 
 face from the harmonious combination of features and coloring ; 
 but it is only when this form is living and moving, and when this 
 face is suffused with emotion and animated with intelligence, 
 when the attitude and the look alike express the workings of the 
 heart and mind, that we feel the perfect sentiment of beauty. 
 
 Thus inanimate nature, and literature in its transcripts of the 
 aspects of nature, become most interesting by association with 
 life and action, and, above all, with man. It is from descriptions 
 of man, considered as a moral being, that even literary taste re- 
 ceives many of its highest gratifications. There is a moral as 
 well as natural beauty and grandeur. A rational agent, animated 
 by high principles of virtue, exhibiting the most generous affec- 
 tions, and preferring on all occasions what is just to what is ex- 
 pedient, is the noblest picture which the hand of genius can pre- 
 sent. Very few indeed are insensible to those fine touches of 
 moral feeling which are given in our best writers ) but their full 
 effect requires not only an improved mind, but a heart in harmony 
 with whatever is most excellent in our natures, and a lively sus- 
 ceptibility to moral greatness. This susceptibility is moral taste. 
 
 From Professor Frisbie's beautiful and finished fugitive poetry we select tbe 
 following little gem : — 
 
 A DREAM. 
 
 T0 * * -X- •5f < 
 
 Stay, stay, sweet vision, do not leave me ; 
 
 Soft sleep, still o'er my senses reign ; 
 Stay, loveliest phantom, still deceive me ; 
 
 Ah, let me dream that dream again ! 
 
 Thy head was on my shoulder leaning ; 
 
 Thy hand in mine was gently press : d ; 
 Thine eyes, so soft and full of meaning, 
 
 Were bent on me, and I was blest. 
 
 No word was spoken : all was feeling, 
 
 The silent transport of the heart ; 
 The tear, that o'er my cheek was stealing, 
 
 Told what words could ne'er impart. 
 
 And could this be but mere illusion ? 
 
 Could fancy all so real seem? 
 Sure fancy's scenes are wild confusion; 
 
 And can it be I did but dream ? 
 
 I'm sure I felt thy forehead pressing, 
 
 Thy very breath stole o'er my cheek ; 
 I'm sure I saw those eyes confessing 
 
 What the tongue could never speak. 
 
292 
 
 JOHN PIERPONT. 
 
 All, no ! 'tis gone, 'tis gone, and never 
 Mine such waking bliss can be : 
 
 Oh, I would sleep, would sleep forever, 
 Could I thus but dream of thee ! 
 
 JOHN PIERPONT. 
 
 John Pierpont was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, on the 6th of April, 1785, 
 and received his collegiate education at Yale College, where he graduated in 1804. 
 The next year he went to South Carolina, and was private tutor in the family of 
 Colonel William Allston, where he commenced his legal studies. In 1809, he re- 
 turned home, entered the celebrated law-school of his native town, and in 1812, 
 having been admitted to the bar of Essex County, Massachusetts, opened an 
 office in Newburyport. He soon, however, as other poets have done, abandoned 
 the law, determining to find his pleasure and'his occupation in literary pursuits; 
 and in 1816 he published The Airs of Palestine, which was received with very 
 great favor. At the close of that year, he entered the theological school of Har- 
 vard University, determined to devote himself to the ministry, and in April, 1819, 
 was ordained as pastor of the Hollis Street Church, in Boston. In 1835 and 1836, 
 he visited Europe for his health, going through the principal cities of England, 
 France, and Italy, and extending his tour to the East, visiting Athens, Corinth, 
 Constantinople, and Asia Minor. Soon after his return home, he collected and 
 published, in 1SI0, all his poems, in one volume, in the preface to which he says, 
 "If poetry is always fiction, there is no poetry in this book. It gives a true, 
 though an all too feeble, expression of the author's feelings and faith, — of his love 
 of right, freedom, and man, and of his correspondent and most hearty hatred of 
 every thing that is at war with them; and of his faith in the providence and gra- 
 cious promises of God." The longest poem of the volume is The Airs of Pales- 
 tine. The subject is music, principally as connected with sacred history, but with 
 occasional digressions into the land of mythology and romance. It has no unity 
 of plan, but consists of a succession of brilliant pictures. Though this subject, so 
 congenial to the "poet's verse," had been often handled, from Pindar to Gray, yet 
 our author, nothing daunted, did not shrink from trying his own powers upon it. 
 It is enough to say that he has succeeded. For beauty of language, finish of 
 versification, richness of classical and sacred allusions, and harmony of numbers, 
 we consider that it takes rank among the very first of American poems and will 
 be among those that will survive their century. But Mr. Pierpont has aimed at 
 something more than gratifying his own scholarly tastes and charming his 
 readers with the love of the beautiful. He is a reformer, a whole-hearted and a 
 fearless one; and a large number of his fugitive pieces have been written to pro- 
 mote the holy causes of temperance and freedom. Mr. Pierpont has also pre- 
 pared an excellent series of reading-books for schools : — The Little Learner, The 
 Young Reader, Introduction to National Reader, National Reader, and The Ame- 
 rican First Class Book. 
 
JOHN PIERPONT. 
 
 CLASSICAL AND SACRED THEMES FOR MUSIC. 
 
 Where lies our path ? — though many a vista call, 
 We may admire, but cannot tread them all. 
 Where lies our path ? — a poet, and inquire 
 What hills, what vales, what streams, become the lyre ? 
 See, there Parnassus lifts his head of snow ; 
 See at his foot the cool Cephissus flow ; 
 There Ossa rises ; there Olympus towers ; 
 Between them, Tempe breathes in beds of flowers, 
 Forever verdant ; and there Peneus glides 
 Through laurels, whispering on his shady sides. 
 Your theme is Music : yonder rolls the Avave 
 Where dolphins snatch' d Arion from his grave, 
 Enchanted by his lyre : Cithairon's shade 
 Is yonder seen, where first Amphion play'd 
 Those potent airs, that, from the j ieldiug earth, 
 Charm' d stones around him, and gave cities birth. 
 And fast b} r Hasmus, Thracian Hebrus creeps 
 O'er golden sands, and still for Orpheus weeps, 
 Whose gory head, borne by the stream along, 
 Was still melodious, and expired in song. 
 There Xereids sing, and Triton winds his shell ; 
 There be thy path, — for there the muses dwell. 
 
 No, no, — a lonelier, lovelier path be mine : 
 Greece and her charms I leave for Palestine. 
 There, purer streams through happier valleys flow, 
 And sweeter flowers on holier mountains blow. 
 I love to breathe where Gilead sheds her balm ; 
 I love to walk on Jordan's banks of palm ; 
 I love to wet my foot on Hermon's dews ; 
 I love the promptings of Isaiah's muse ; 
 In Carmel's holy grots I'll court repose, 
 And deck my mossy couch with Sharon's deathless rose. 
 
 SONG OF THE SHEPHERDS. 
 
 While thus the shepherds watch'd the host of night, 
 O'er heaven's blue concave flash'd a sudden light. 
 The unrolling glory spread its folds divine 
 O'er the green hills and vales of Palestine ; 
 And, lo ! descending angels, hovering there, 
 Stretch'd their loose wings, and in the purple air 
 Hung o'er the sleepless guardians of the fold : 
 When that high anthem, clear, and strong, and bold, 
 On wavy paths of trembling ether ran : — 
 "Glory to God, — Benevolence to man, — 
 Peace to the world:" — and in full concert came, 
 From silver tubes and harps of golden frame, 
 The loud and sweet response, whose choral strains 
 Linger'd and languish'd on Judea's plains. 
 Yon living lamps, charm'd from their chambers blue 
 By airs so heavenly, from the skies withdrew : 
 
294 
 
 JOHN PIERPONT. 
 
 All ? — all, but one, that hung and burn'd alone, 
 And with mild lustre over Bethlehem shone. 
 Chaldea's sages saw that orb afar 
 Glow unextinguish'd ; — 'twas Salvation's Star. 
 
 LICENSE-LAWS. 
 
 "We license thee for so much gold," 1 
 
 Says Congress, — they're our servants there, — 
 
 " To keep a pen where men are sold 
 Of sable skin and woolly hair ; 
 
 For ' public good 7 requires the toil 
 
 Of slaves on freedom's sacred soil." 
 
 "For so much gold we license thee" — 
 So say our laws — "a draught to sell, 
 
 That bows the strong, enslaves the free, 
 And opens wide the gates of hell : 
 
 For ' public good' requires that some 
 
 Should live, since many die, by rum." 
 
 Ye civil fathers ! while the foes 
 
 Of this destroyer seize their swords, 
 
 And Heaven's own hail is in the blows 
 They're dealing, — will ye cut the cords 
 
 That round the falling fiend they draw, 
 
 And o'er him hold your shield of law ? 
 
 And will ye give to man a bill 
 
 Divorcing him from Heaven's high sway ; 
 And, while God says, "Thou shalt not kill," 
 
 Say ye, for gold, "Ye may, — ye may" ? 
 Compare the body with the soul ! 
 Compare the bullet with the bowl ! 
 
 In which is felt the fiercer blast 
 
 Of the destroying angel's breath ? 
 Which binds its victim the more fast ? 
 
 Which kills him with the deadlier death ? 
 Will ye the felon fox restrain, 
 And yet take off the tiger's chain ? 
 
 The living to the rotting dead 
 
 The God-contemning Tuscan 2 tied, 
 
 Till, by the way, or on his bed, 
 
 The poor corpse-carrier droop'd and died, — 
 
 Lash'd hand to hand, and face to face, 
 
 In fatal and in loathed embrace. 
 
 Less cutting, think ye, is the thong 
 That to a breathing corpse, for life, 
 
 1 Four hundred dollars is the sum prescribed by Congress — the local legislature 
 of the District of Columbia — for a license to keep a prison-house and market for 
 the sale of men, women, and children. See Jay'a "View of the Action of the 
 Federal Government in Behalf of Slavery," p. 87. 
 
 2 Mezentius. See Virgil, JEneid, viii. 481-491. 
 
JOHN PIERPONT. 
 
 295 
 
 Lashes, in torture loathed and long, 
 
 The drunkard's child, the drunkard's wife? 
 To clasp that clay, to breathe that breath, 
 And no escape ! Oh, that is death ! 
 
 Are ye not fathers ? When your sons 
 Look to you for their daily bread, 
 
 Dare ye, in mockery, load with stones 
 The table that for them ye spread ? 
 
 How can ye hope your sons will live, 
 
 If ye, for fish, a serpent give ? 
 
 O holy God ! let light divine 
 
 Break forth more broadly from above, 
 Till we conform our laws to thine, 
 
 The perfect law of truth and love ; 
 For truth and love alone can save 
 Thy children from a hopeless grave. 
 
 HYMN. 1 
 
 O Thou, to whom in ancient time 
 
 The lyre of Hebrew bards was strung, 
 
 Whom kings adored in song sublime, 
 
 And prophets praised with glowing tongue; 
 
 Not now on Zion's height, alone, 
 Thy favor' d worshipper may dwell ; 
 
 Nor where, at sultry noon, thy Son 
 Sat, weary, by the Patriarch's well. 
 
 From every place below the skies, 
 
 The grateful song, the fervent prayer — 
 
 The incense of the heart — may rise 
 To heaven, and find acceptance there. 
 
 In this, thy house, whose doors we now 
 
 For social worship first unfold, 
 To thee the suppliant throng shall bow, 
 
 While circling years on years are roll'd. 
 
 To thee shall Age, with snowy hair, 
 
 And Strength and Beauty, bend the knee, 
 
 And Childhood lisp, with reverent air, 
 Its praises and its prayers to thee. 
 
 thou, to whom in ancient time 
 
 The lyre of prophet-bards was strung, 
 
 To thee, at last, in every clime 
 
 Shall temples rise, and praise be sung. 
 
 1 Written for the Opening of the Independent Congregational Church in Barton 
 Square, Salem, December 7, 1821. 
 
JOHN PIERPONT. 
 
 MY CHILD. 
 
 I cannot make him dead ! 
 
 His fair sunshiny head 
 Ts ever bounding round my study-chair ; 
 
 Yet, when my eyes, now dim 
 
 With tears, I turn to him, 
 The vision vanishes, — he is not there ! 
 
 I walk my parlor floor, 
 
 And through the open door, 
 I hear a footfall on the chamber stair ; 
 
 I'm stepping toward the hall 
 
 To give the boy a call ; 
 And then bethink me that — he is not there ! 
 
 I thread the crowded street ; 
 
 A satchell'd lad I meet, 
 With the same beaming eyes and color'd hair, 
 
 And, as he's running by, 
 
 Follow him with my eye, 
 Scarcely believing that — he is not there ! 
 
 I know his face is hid 
 
 Under the coffin-lid ; 
 Closed are his eyes ; cold is his forehead fair ; 
 
 My hand that marble felt ; 
 
 O'er it in prayer I knelt ; 
 Yet my heart whispers that — he is not there ! 
 
 I cannot make him dead ! 
 
 When passing by the bed, 
 So long watch'd over with parental care, 
 
 My spirit and my eye 
 
 Seek it inquiringly, 
 Before the thought comes that — he is not there ! 
 
 When, at the cool, gray break 
 
 Of day, from sleep I wake, 
 With my first breathing of the morning air 
 
 My soul goes up, with joy, 
 
 To Him who gave my boy ; 
 Then comes the sad thought that — he is not there ! 
 
 When at the day's calm close, 
 
 Before we seek repose, 
 I'm with his mother, offering up our prayer, 
 
 Whate'er I may be saying, 
 
 I am, in spirit, praying 
 For our boy's spirit, though — he is not there ! 
 
 Not there ! — Where, then, is he ? 
 
 The form I used to see 
 Was but the raiment that he used to wear; 
 
 The grave, that now doth press 
 
 Upon that cast-off dress, 
 Is but his wardrobe lock'd ; — he is not there ! 
 
JOHN PIERPONT. 
 
 297 
 
 He lives ! — In all the past 
 
 He lives ; nor, to the last, 
 Of seeing him again will I despair ; 
 
 In dreams I see him now ; 
 
 And, on his angel brow, 
 I see it written, " Thou shalt see me there!" 
 
 Ye?, we all live to God! 
 
 Father, thy chastening rod 
 So help us, thine afflicted ones, to bear, 
 
 That, in the spirit-land, 
 
 Meeting at thy right hand, 
 'Twill be our heaven to find that — he is there! 
 
 NOT ON THE BATTLE-FIELD. 1 
 
 no, no — let me lie 
 
 Not on a field of battle, when I die ! 
 
 Let not the iron tread 
 Of the mad war-horse crush my helmed head : 
 
 Nor let the reeking knife, 
 That I have drawn against a brother's life, 
 
 Be in my hand when Death 
 Thunders along, and tramples me beneath 
 
 His heavy squadron's heels, 
 Or gory felloes of his cannon's wheels. 
 
 From such a dying bed, 
 Though o'er it float the stripes of white and red, 
 
 And the bald Eagle brings 
 The cluster'd stars upon his wide-spread wings, 
 
 To sparkle in my sight, 
 0, never let my spirit take her flight ! 
 
 1 know that Beauty's eye 
 
 Is all the brighter where gay pennants fly, 
 
 And brazen helmets dance, 
 And sunshine flashes on the lifted lance : 
 
 I know that bards have sung, 
 And people shouted till the welkin rung, 
 
 In honor of the brave 
 Who on the battle-field have found a grave ; 
 
 I know that o'er their bones 
 Have grateful hands piled monumental stones. 
 
 Some of these piles I've seen : 
 The one at Lexington, upon the green 
 
 Where the first blood was shed 
 That to my country's independence led ; 
 
 And others, on our shore, 
 The "Battle Monument" at Baltimore, 
 
 And that on Bunker's Hill. 
 Ay, and abroad, a few more famous still ; 
 
 Thy "Tomb," Themistocles, 
 That looks out yet upon the Grecian seas, 
 
 1 To fall on the battle-field fighting for my dear country, — that'would not be 
 hard. — The Neighbors. 
 
JOHN PIERPONT. 
 
 And vrhich the waters kiss 
 That issue from the gulf of Salamis. 
 
 And thine, too, have I seen, 
 Thy mound of earth, Patroclus, robed in green, 
 
 That, like a natural knoll, 
 Sheep climb and nibble over, as they stroll, 
 
 Watch'd by some turban'd boy, 
 Upon the margin of the plain of Troy. 
 
 Such honors grace the bed, 
 I know, whereon the warrior lays his head, 
 
 And hears, as life ebbs out, 
 The conquer'd flying, and the conqueror's shout. 
 
 But, as his eyes grow dim, 
 What is a column or a mound to him? 
 
 What, to the parting soul, 
 The mellow note of bugles? What the roll 
 
 Of drums ? No : let me die 
 Where the blue heaven bends o'er me lovingly, 
 
 And the soft summer air, 
 As it goes by me, stirs my thin white hair, 
 
 And from my forehead dries 
 The death-damp as it gathers, and the skies 
 
 Seem waiting to receive 
 My soul to their clear depth ! Or let me leave 
 
 The world when round my bed 
 Wife, children, weeping friends are gathered, 
 
 And the calm voice of prayer 
 And holy hymning shall my soul prepare 
 
 To go and be at rest 
 With kindred spirits — spirits who have bless'd 
 
 The human brotherhood 
 By labors, cares, and counsels for their good. 
 
 And in my dying hour, 
 When riches, fame, and honor have no power 
 
 To bear the spirit up, 
 Or from my lips to turn aside the cup 
 
 That all must drink at last, 
 0, let me draw refreshment from the past ! 
 
 Then let my soul run back, 
 With peace and joy, along my earthly track, 
 
 And see that all the seeds 
 That I have scatter'd there, in virtuous deeds 
 
 Have sprung up, and have given, 
 Already, fruits of which to taste is heaven ! 
 
 And though no grassy mound 
 Or granite pile say 'tis heroic ground 
 
 Where my remains repose, 
 Still will I hope — vain hope, perhaps ! — that those 
 
 Whom I have striven to bless, 
 The wanderer reclaim' d, the fatherless, 
 
 May stand around my grave, 
 With the poor prisoner, and the poorer slave, 
 
 And breathe an humble prayer 
 That they may die like him whose bones are mouldering there. 
 
SAMUEL WOODWORTH. 
 
 299 
 
 SAMUEL WOODWORTH, 1785—1842. 
 
 Samuel Woodworth: was born in Scituate, Massachusetts, January 13, 1785. 
 Having learned the art of printing in his native State, he removed to New York 
 in 1S09, and was for some years editor of a newspaper there. Afterwards, he 
 published a weekly miscellany, called " The Ladies' Literary Gazette ;" and in 
 1823, in conjunction with Mr. George P. Morris, he established " The New York 
 Mirror," long the most popular journal of literature and art in this country. In 
 the latter years of his life he suffered from paralysis ; and he died in New York, 
 December 9, 1812, much respected for his moral worth and poetic talent. 
 
 Mr. Woodworth published, in 1813, an Account of the War icith Great Britain, 
 and in 1818, a volume of Poems, Odes, and Songs, and other Metrical Effusions. 
 From the latter we select the well-known song, by far the best of his lyrics, and 
 which will ever hold its place among the choice songs of our country, called 
 
 THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET. 
 
 How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood, 
 
 When fond recollection presents them to view ! 
 The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wild wood, 
 
 And every loved spot which my infancy knew ; 
 The wide-spreading pond, and the mill which stood by it, 
 
 The bridge, and the rock where the cataract fell ; 
 The cot of my father, the dairy-house nigh it, 
 
 And e'en the rude bucket which hung in the well. 
 The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, 
 The moss-cover'd bucket which hung in the well. 
 
 That moss-cover'd vessel I hail as a treasure ; 
 
 For often, at noon, when return'd from the field, 
 I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure, 
 
 The purest and sweetest that, nature can yield. 
 How ardent I seized it, with hands that were glowing ! 
 
 And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell ; 
 Then soon, with the emblem of truth overflowing, 
 
 And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well ; 
 The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, 
 The moss-cover'd bucket arose from the well. 
 
 How sweet from the green mossy brim to receive it, 
 
 As, poised on the curb, it inclined to my lips ! 
 Not a full blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it, 
 
 Though fill'd with the nectar that Jupiter sips. 
 And now, far removed from the loved situation, 
 
 The tear of regret will intrusively swell, 
 As fancy reverts to my father's plantation, 
 
 And sighs for the bucket which hangs in the well ; 
 The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, 
 The moss-cover'd bucket which hangs in the well. 
 
300 
 
 ANDREWS NORTON. 
 
 ANDREWS NORTON, 1786—1853. 
 
 Rev. Andrews Nortox, D.D., was born in Hingham, Massachusetts, on the 
 31st of December, 1786, and graduated at Harvard College in 1804. He studied 
 theology, but never became a settled clergyman ; and in 1809, be was elected tutor 
 in Bowdoin College, which situation he held for two years. In 1S11, he was 
 appointed tutor and librarian in Harvard; and, in 1813, he succeeded Rev. Dr. 
 Channing as Biblical lecturer. Upon the organization of the theological depart- 
 ment, in 1819, he was appointed "Dexter Professor of Sacred Literature," and 
 fulfilled its duties till 1830, when he was compelled by ill health to resign it. 
 He continued to reside in Cambridge till his death, which took place on the 18th 
 of September, 1853. Dr. Norton was married, in 1821, to Miss Catherine Eliot, 
 daughter of Samuel Eliot, Esq., of Boston. 
 
 Dr. Norton was a profound and accurate scholar, an eminent theologian, and 
 for talent, acquirements, and influence, one of the first men in New England. He 
 wrote occasionally for the literary and theological journals published in his 
 vicinity, and is the author of several theological works. His greatest and most 
 matured work is on the Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels, — the first 
 volume of which appeared in 1837, and the second and third in 1844. He also 
 published A Statement of Reasons for not believing the Doctrine of Trinitarians con- 
 cerning the Nature of God and the Person of Christ, and some other religious tracts 
 of a controversial nature. His contributions to the literary and religious jour- 
 nals of his time, though not numerous, were of a very able character. He was 
 the editor of the " General Repository and Review," which was published in 
 Cambridge, and was continued for three years, from 1812. To the new series of 
 the "Christian Disciple," in 1819, he contributed many valuable papers. In the 
 early volumes of the " Christian Examiner," the articles on the " Poetry of Mrs. 
 Hemans," on " Pollok's Course of Time," on the " Future Life of the Good," 
 and on the " Punishment of Sin," and in the fourth, fifth, and sixth volumes, 
 a series of articles on the Epistle to the Hebrews, are from his pen. In the 
 " North American Review," his most noticeable articles are those on " Franklin," 
 in September, 1818; on "Byron," in October, 1825; on Rev. William Ware's 
 " Letters from Palmyra," in October, 1837 ; and a Memoir of Mrs. Grant of 
 Laggan, in January, 1845. He has also written some verses of a devotional cast, 
 of great beauty and sweetness. 1 
 
 1 "Mr. Norton's writings are all impressed with the same strongly-marked 
 qualities, bearing the image of the man ; the same calm but deep tone of religious 
 feeling; the same exalted seriousness of view, as that of man in sight of God and 
 on the borders of eternity; the same high moral standard, the same transparent 
 clearness of statement ; the same logical closeness of reasoning ; the same quiet 
 earnestness of conviction ; the same sustained confidence in his conclusions, rest- 
 ing as they did, or as he meant they should, on solid grounds and fully-examined 
 premises ; the same minute accuracy and finish ; the same strict truthfulness and 
 sincerity, saying nothing for mere effect. And the style is in harmony with the 
 thought, — pure, chaste, lucid, aptly expressive, unaffected, uninvolved, English 
 undefiled; scholarly, yet never pedantic, strong, yet not hard or dry; and, when 
 the subject naturally called for it, clothing itself in the rich hues and the beautiful 
 forms of poetic fancy, that illumined, while it adorned, his thought." — Christian 
 Examiner, November, 1853. 
 
ANDREWS NORTON. 
 
 301 
 
 POSTHUMOUS INFLUENCE OF THE WISE AND GOOD. 
 
 The relations between man and man cease not with life. The 
 dead leave behind them their memory, their example, and the 
 effects of their actions. Their influence still abides with us. 
 Their names and characters dwell in our thoughts and hearts. 
 We live and commune with them in their writings. We enjoy 
 the benefit of their labors. Our institutions have been founded 
 by them. We are surrounded by the works of the dead. Our 
 knowledge and our arts are the fruit of their toil. Our minds 
 have been formed by their instructions. We are most intimately 
 connected with them by a thousand dependencies. Those whom 
 we have loved in life are still objects of our deepest and holiest 
 affections. Their power over us remains. They are with us in 
 our solitary walks ; and their voices speak to our hearts in the 
 silence of midnight. Their image is impressed upon our dearest 
 recollections and our most sacred hopes. They form an essential 
 part of our treasure laid up in heaven. For, above all, we are 
 separated from them but for a little time. We are soon to be 
 united with them. If we follow in the path of those we have 
 loved, we too shall soon join the innumerable company of the 
 spirits of just men made perfect. Our affections and our hopes 
 are not buried in the dust, to which we commit the poor remains 
 of mortality. The blessed retain their remembrance and their 
 love for us in heaven ; and we will cherish our remembrance and 
 our love for them while on earth. 
 
 Creatures of imitation and sympathy as we are, we look around 
 us for support and countenance even in our virtues. We recur 
 for them, most securely, to the examples of the dead. There is a 
 degree of insecurity and uncertainty about living worth. The 
 stamp has not yet been put upon it which precludes all change, 
 and seals it up as a just object of admiration for future times. 
 There is no service which a man of commanding intellect can 
 render his fellow-creatures better than that of leaving behind him an 
 unspotted example. If he do not confer upon them this benefit ; 
 if he leave a character dark with vices in the sight of God, but 
 dazzling with shining qualities in the view of men, it may be that 
 all his other services had better have been forborne, and he had 
 passed inactive and unnoticed through life. It is a dictate of 
 wisdom, therefore, as well as feeling, when a man, eminent for his 
 virtues and talents, has been taken away, to collect the riches of 
 his goodness and add them to the treasury of human improve- 
 ment. The true Christian liveth not for himself, and dieth not 
 for himself; and it is thus, in one respect, that he dieth not for 
 himself. 
 
 26 
 
302 
 
 ANDREWS NORTON. 
 
 REFORMERS. 
 
 It is delightful to remember that there have been men who, in 
 the cause of truth and virtue, have made no compromises for their 
 own advantage or safety; who have recognised " the hardest duty 
 as the highest who, conscious of the possession of great talents, 
 have relinquished all the praise that was within their grasp, all 
 the applause which they might have so liberally received, if they 
 had not thrown themselves in opposition to the errors and vices 
 of their fellow-men, and have been content to take obloquy and 
 insult instead ; who have approached to lay on the altar of God 
 " their last infirmity." They, without doubt, have felt that deep 
 conviction of having acted right which supported the martyred 
 philosopher of Athens, when he asked, " What disgrace is it to 
 me if others are unable to judge of me, or to treat me as they 
 ought V There is something very solemn and sublime in the 
 feeling produced by considering how differently these men have 
 been estimated by their contemporaries, from the manner in which 
 they are regarded by God. We perceive the appeal which lies 
 from the ignorance, the folly, and the iniquity of man, to the 
 throne of Eternal Justice. A storm of calumny and reviling has 
 too often pursued them through life, and continued, when they 
 could no longer feel it, to beat upon their graves. But it is no 
 matter. They had gone where all who have suffered and all who 
 have triumphed in the same noble cause receive their reward ; 
 and where the wreath of the martyr is more glorious than that of 
 the conqueror. 
 
 SCENE AFTER A SUMMER SHOWER. 
 
 The rain is o'er. How dense and bright 
 Yon pearly clouds reposing lie ! 
 
 Cloud above cloud, a glorious sight, 
 Contrasting with the dark blue sky ! 
 
 In grateful silence earth receives 
 
 The general blessing: fresh and fair 
 
 Each flower expands its little leaves, 
 As glad the common joy to share. 
 
 The soften'd sunbeams pour around 
 A fairy light, uncertain, pale ; 
 
 The wind flows cool : the scented ground 
 Is breathing odors on the gale. 
 
 Mid yon rich clouds' voluptuous pile, 
 Methinks some spirit of the air 
 
 Might rest to gaze below a while, 
 Then turn to bathe and revel there. 
 
ANDREWS NORTON. 
 
 303 
 
 The sun breaks forth ; from off the scene 
 Its floating veil of mist is flung, 
 
 And all the wilderness of green 
 
 With trembling drops of light is hung. 
 
 Now gaze on nature — yet the same — 
 Glowing with life, by breezes fann'd, 
 
 Luxuriant, lovely, as she came 
 
 Fresh in her youth from God's own hand 2 
 
 Hear the rich music of that voice 
 Which sounds from all below, above : 
 
 She calls her children to rejoice, 
 
 And round them throws her arms of love. 
 
 Drink in her influence — low-born care, 
 And all the train of mean desire, 
 
 Refuse to breathe this holy air, 
 And mid this living light expire ! 
 
 FORTITUDE. 
 
 Faint not, poor traveller, though thy way 
 Be rough, like that thy Saviour trod ; 
 
 Though cold and stormy lower the day, 
 This path of suffering leads to God. 
 
 Nay, sink not ; though from every limb 
 Are starting drops of toil and pain; 
 
 Thou dost but share the lot of Him 
 With whom his followers are to reign. 
 
 Thy friends are gone, and thou, alone, 
 Must bear the sorrows that assail ; 
 
 Look upward to the eternal throne, 
 And know a Friend who cannot fail. 
 
 Bear firmly ; yet a few more days, 
 And thy hard trial will be past ; 
 
 Then, wrapt in glory's opening blaze, 
 Thy feet will rest on heaven at last. 
 
 Christian ! thy Friend, thy Master, pray'd 
 When dread and anguish shook his frame ; 
 
 Then met his sufferings undismay'd : 
 Wilt thou not strive to do the same ? 
 
 ! think'st thou that his Father's love 
 Shone round him then with fainter rays 
 
 Than now, when, throned all height above, 
 Unceasing voices hymn his praise ? 
 
 Go, sufferer ! calmly meet the woes 
 
 Which God's own mercy bids thee bear; 
 
 Then, rising as thy Saviour rose, 
 Go ! his eternal victory share. ' 
 
304 
 
 RICHARD H. DANA. 
 
 RICHARD H. DANA. 
 
 Richard H. Dana, eminent alike as a poet and essayist, was born in Cam- 
 bridge, Massachusetts, on the 15th of 'November, 1787. His father, Francis Dana, 
 was minister to Russia during the Revolution, and subsequently member of the 
 Massachusetts Convention for adopting the United States Constitution, member 
 of Congress, and chief-justice of his native State. At the age often, the son went 
 to Newport, Rhode Island, the residence of his maternal grandfather, the Hon. 
 William Ellery, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Here he 
 remained till he entered Harvard College ; on leaving which, he entered upon the 
 study of the law. After admission to the Boston bar, he was for a time iu the 
 office of Gen. Robert Goodloe Harper, of Baltimore. Eventually, however, he 
 concluded to return to his native town and there enter upon the practice of his 
 profession. But he soon found it too laborious for his health and not congenial 
 to his tastes : accordingly he gave it up, and made an arrangement with his 
 relative, Prof. Edward 1. Channing, to assist him in conducting the "North 
 American Review," which had then been established about two years. In 1821, 
 he published his Idle 3Ian, in numbers, in which were some of his most admirable 
 tales. But the general tone of it was too high to be popular, and the publication 
 was relinquished. His first poem, The Dying Raven, he published in 1825, in the 
 "New York Review," then edited by the poet Bryant. Two years after, he pub- 
 lished The Buccaneer, and other Poems, and in 1833, his Poems and Prose Writings. 
 His lectures on Shakspeare, which have been delivered in many cities of the 
 Union, he has not given to the press. In 1S50, Baker & Scribner published a 
 complete edition of his Poems and Prose Writings, in two volumes. 1 Of late 
 years Mr. Dana has given us nothing new; nor need he, to be secure of his im- 
 mortality. He lives a life of quiet domestic retirement, his summer residence 
 being a picturesque spot on the shores of Cape Ann, while during the winter 
 months he lives iu Boston. 
 
 The longest poem of Mr. Dana is The Buccaneer. It is a tale of piracy and 
 murder, and of a terrible supernatural retribution. The character of the Buc- 
 caneer, Matthew Lee, is drawn in a few bold and masterly lines. Disappointed 
 in an effort to engage in honest trade, he makes up his mind to devote his life to 
 piracy. A young bride, whose husband has fallen in the Spanish war, seeks a 
 passage in his ship to some distant shore. The ship is at sea. The murderer is 
 
 1 "In Mr. Dana's poeti\y the moral and religious element is as strongly marked 
 as in his prose, and constitutes that indwelling power which elevates the whole to 
 so high a sphere. Inasmuch as religious truth touches the soul so closely, affects 
 its most hidden and secret life, and excites its profoundest and loftiest emotions, 
 no mind which has not been moved by such truths can fully appreciate the 
 highest products of literature or art, much less produce them." — North American 
 Review, January, 1851. 
 
 "We admire Mr. Dana more than any other American poet, because he has 
 aimed not merely to please the imagination, but to rouse up the soul to a solemn 
 consideration of its future destinies. We admire him because his poetry is full of 
 benevolent, domestic feeling; but, more than this, because it is full of religious 
 feeling. The fountain which gushes here has mingled with the 'well of water 
 springing up to everlasting life.'" — Rev. George B. Cheever. 
 
RICHARD H. DANA. 
 
 305 
 
 meditating his deed of death. The fearful scene follows. How strong, distinct, 
 and terrible is the description of the pirate's feelings, and * 
 
 THE SCENE OF DEATH. 
 
 He cannot look on her mild eye, — 
 
 Her patient words his spirit quell. 
 Within that evil heart there lie 
 The hates and fears of hell. 
 His speech is short ; he wears a surly brow. 
 There's none will hear the shriek. What fear ye now ? 
 
 The workings of the soul ye fear ; 
 
 Ye fear the power that goodness hath ; 
 Ye fear the Unseen One, ever near, 
 "Walking his ocean path. 
 From out the silent void there comes a cry : — 
 "Vengeance is mine! Thou, murderer, too shalt die!" 
 
 Nor dread of ever-during woe, 
 Nor the sea's awful solitude, 
 Can make thee, wretch, thy crime forego. 
 Then, bloody hand, — to blood! 
 The scud is driving wildly overhead ; 
 The stars burn dim; the ocean moans its dead. 
 
 Moan for the living, — moan our sins, — 
 
 The wrath of man, more fierce than thine. 
 Hark ! still thy waves ! The work begins : 
 Lee makes the deadly sign. 
 The crew glide down like shadows. Eye and hand 
 Speak fearful meanings through the silent band. 
 
 They're gone. The helmsman stands alone, 
 
 And one leans idly o'er the bow. 
 Still as a tomb the ship keeps on ; 
 Nor sound nor stirring now. 
 Hush ! hark ! as from the centre of the deep, 
 Shrieks ! fiendish yells ! They stab them iu their sleep ! 
 
 The scream of rage, the groan, the strife, 
 
 The blow, the gasp, the horrid cry, 
 The panting, throttled prayer for life, 
 The dying's heaving sigh, 
 The murderer's curse, the dead man's fix'd, still glare, 
 And fear's and death's cold sweat, — they all are there! 
 
 On pale, dead men, on burning cheek, 
 
 On quick, fierce eyes, brows hot and damp, 
 On hands that with the warm blood reek, 
 Shines the dim cabin-lamp. 
 Lee look'd. "They sleep so sound," he, laughing, said, 
 " They'll scarcely wake for mistress or for maid." 
 
 A crash ! They've forced the door ; and then 
 One long, long, shrill, and piercing scream 
 
 Comes thrilling 'bove the grcwl of men. 
 : Tis hers ! God, redeem 
 
306 
 
 RICHARD H. DANA. 
 
 From worse than death thy suffering, helpless child ! 
 That dreadful shriek again, — sharp, sharp, and -wild ! 
 
 It ceased. — With speed o' th' lightning's flash, 
 
 A loose-robed form, with streaming hair, 
 Shoots by. — A leap ! — a quick, short splash! 
 'Tis gone ! — and nothing there ! 
 The waves have swept away the bubbling tide. 
 Bright-crested waves, how calmly on they ride ! 
 
 She's sleeping in her silent cave, 
 
 Nor hears the loud, stern roar above, 
 Nor strife of man on land or wave. 
 Young thing ! her home of love 
 She soon has reach'd ! Fair, unpolluted thing, 
 They harm'd her not ! "Was dying suffering ? 
 
 Oh. no ! — To live when joy was dead ; 
 
 To go with one lone, pining thought, — 
 To mournful love her being wed, — 
 Feeling what death had wrought ; 
 To live the child of avoc, nor shed a tear, 
 Bear kindness, and yet share not joy or fear ; 
 
 To look on man, and deem it strange 
 
 That he on things of earth should brood, 
 "When all the throng' d and busy range 
 To her was solitude, — 
 Oh, this was bitterness ! Death came and press'd 
 Her wearied lids, and brought the sick heart rest. 
 
 THE HUSBAND AND WIFE'S GRAVE. 
 
 Husband and wife ! No converse now ye hold, 
 As once ye did in your young day of love, 
 On its alarms, its anxious hours, delays, 
 Its silent meditations and glad hopes, 
 Its fears, impatience, quiet sympathies ; 
 Nor do ye speak of joy assured, and bliss 
 Full, certain, and possess'd. Domestic cares 
 Call you not now together. Earnest talk 
 On what your children may be moves you not. 
 Ye lie in silence, and an awful silence ; 
 Not like to that in which ye rested once 
 Most happy, — silence eloquent, when heart 
 With heart held speech, and your mysterious frames, 
 Harmonious, sensitive, at every beat 
 Touch'd the soft notes of love. 
 
 Is this thy prison-house, thy grave, then, Love ? 
 And doth death cancel the great bond that holds 
 Commingling spirits ? Are thoughts that knoAV no bounds, 
 But, self-inspired, rise upward, searching out 
 The Eternal Mind, the Father of all thought,— 
 Are they become mere tenants of a tomb? 
 
 And do our loves all perish with our frames ? 
 Do those that took their root and put forth buds, 
 
RICHARD II. DANA. 
 
 307 
 
 And their soft leaves unfolded in the warmth 
 
 Of mutual hearts, grow up and live in beauty, 
 
 Then fade and fail, like fair, unconscious flowers ? 
 
 Are thoughts and passions that to the tongue give speech, 
 
 And make it send forth winning harmonies, — 
 
 That to the cheek do give its living glow, 
 
 And vision in the eye the soul intense 
 
 With that for which there is no utterance, — 
 
 Are these the body's accidents ? — no more ? — 
 
 To live in it, and, when that dies, go out 
 
 Like the burnt taper's flame ? 
 
 Oh, listen, man I 1 
 A voice within us speaks the startling word, 
 " Man, thou shalt never die !" Celestial voices 
 Hymn it around our souls : according harps, 
 By angel fingers touch'd when the mild stars 
 Of morning sang together, sound forth still 
 The song of our great immortality ; 
 Thick-clustering orbs, and this our fair domain, 
 The tall, dark mountains, and the deep-toned seas, 
 Join in this solemn, universal song. 
 Oh, listen ye, our spirits ; drink it in 
 From all the air! 'Tis in the gentle moonlight; 
 Is floating in day's setting glories ; Night, 
 Wrapp'd in her sable robe, with silent step 
 Comes to our bed and breathes it in our ears : 
 Night and the dawn, bright day and thoughtful eve, 
 All time, all bounds, the limitless expanse. 
 As one great mystic instrument, are touch'd 
 By an unseen, living Hand, and conscious chords 
 Quiver with joy in this great jubilee. 
 The dying hear it ; and as sounds of earth 
 Grow dull and distant, wake their passing souls 
 To mingle in this heavenly harmony. 
 
 Why is i that I linger round this tomb ? 
 What hoLls it? Dust that cumber'd those I mourn. 
 They shook it off, and laid aside earth's robes, 
 And put on those of light. They're gone to dwell 
 In love, — their God's and angels'. Mutual love, 
 That bound them here, no longer needs a speech 
 For full communion ; nor sensations strong, 
 Within the breast, their prison, strive in vain 
 To be set free, and meet their kind in joy. 
 
 I thank thee, Father, 
 That at this simple grave on which the dawn 
 Is breaking, emblem of that day which hath 
 
 No close, thou kindly unto my dark mind » 
 Hast sent a sacred light, and that away 
 
 1 "We scarcely know where, in the English language, we could point out a 
 aner extract than this, of the same character. It has a softened grandeur worthy 
 of the subject ; especially in the noble paragraph commencing ' Oh, listen, man ?" 
 — Rev. G. B. Cheever. 
 
308 
 
 RICHARD H. DANA. 
 
 From this green hillock, whither I had come 
 In sorrow, thou art leading me in joy. 
 
 THE DEATH OF SIN AND THE LIFE OF HOLINESS. 
 
 Blinded by passion, man gives up his breath, 
 Uncall'd by God. We look, and name it death. 
 Mad wretch ! the soul hath no last sleep ; the strife 
 To end itself but wakes intenser life 
 In the self-torturing spirit. Fool, give o'er! 
 Hast thou once been, yet think'st to be no more? 
 What! life destroy itself? Oh, idlest dream, 
 Shaped in that emptiest thing, — a doubter's scheme ! 
 Think'st in a universal soul will merge 
 Thy soul, as rain-drops mingle with the surge ? 
 Or, scarce less skeptic, sin will have an end, 
 And thy purged spirit with the holy blend 
 In joys as holy ? Why a sinner now ? 
 As falls the tree, so lies it. So shalt thou. 
 God's Book, rash doubter, holds the plain record. 
 Dar'st talk of hopes and doubts against that Word? 
 Or palter with it in a quibbling sense ? 
 That Book shall judge thee when thou passest hence. 
 Then, with thy spirit from the bod}- freed, 
 Then shalt thou know, see, feel, what's life indeed. 
 
 Bursting to life, thy dominant desire 
 Shall upward name, like a tierce forest fire ; 
 Then, like a sea of fire, heave, roar, and dash, — 
 Roll up its lowest depths in waves, and flash 
 A wild disaster round, like its own woe. — 
 Each wave cry, "Woe forever!" in its flow, 
 And then pass on, — from far adown its path 
 Send back commingling sounds of woe and wrath, — 
 Th' indomitable Will shall know no sway ; 
 God calls. — man, hear him ; quit that fearful way ! 
 
 Come, listen to His voice who died to save 
 Lost man, and raise him from his moral grave ; 
 From darkness show'd a path of light to heaven ; 
 Cried, "Rise and walk: thy sins are all forgiven." 
 
 Blest are the pure in heart. Wouldst thou be blest ? 
 He'll cleanse thy spotted soul. Wouldst thou find rest? 
 Around thy toils and cares he'll breathe a calm, 
 And to thy wounded spirit lay a balm, 
 From fear draw love, and teach thee where to seek 
 Lost strength and grandeur, — with the bow'd and meek. 
 
 Come lowly ; he will help thee. Lay aside 
 That subtle, first of evils, — human pride. 
 Know God, and, so, thyself ; and be afraid 
 To call aught poor or low that he has made. 
 Fear naught but sin ; love all but sin ; and learn 
 In all beside 'tis wisdom to discern 
 His forming, his creating power, — and bind 
 Earth, self, and brother to th' Eternal Mind. 
 
RICHARD II. DANA. 
 
 309 
 
 THE MOTHER AND SON. 
 
 " The sun not set yet, Thomas T" " Xot quite, sir. It blazes 
 through the trees on the hill yonder as if their branches were all 
 on fire/' 
 
 Arthur raised himself heavily forward, and, with his hat still 
 over his brow, turned his glazed and dim eyes toward the setting 
 sun. It was only the night before that he had heard his mother 
 was ill, and could survive but a day or two. He had lived nearly 
 apart from society, and, being a lad of a thoughtful, dreamy mind, 
 had made a world to himself. His thoughts and feelings were so 
 much in it that, except in relation to his own home, there were the 
 same vague notions in his brain, concerning the state of things 
 surrounding him, as we have of a foreign land. 
 
 He had passed the night between tumultuous grief and numb 
 insensibility. Stepping into the carriage, with a slow, weak 
 motion, like one who was quitting his sick-chamber for the first 
 time, he began his way homeward. As he lifted his eyes upward, 
 the few stars that were here and there over the sky seemed to 
 look down in pity, and shed a religious and healing light upon 
 him. But they soon went out, one after another, and as the last 
 faded from his sight, it was as if something good and holy had 
 forsaken him. The faint tint in the east soon became a ruddy 
 glow, and the sun, shooting upward, burst over every living thing 
 in full glory. The sight went to Arthur's sick heart, as if it were 
 in mockery of his sorrow. 
 
 Leaning back in his carriage, with his hand over his eyes, he 
 was carried along, hardly sensible it was day. The old servant, 
 Thomas, who was sitting by his side, went on talking in a low, 
 monotonous tone ; but Arthur only heard something sounding in 
 his ears, scarcely heeding that it was a human voice. He had a 
 sense of wearisomeness from the motion of the carriage; but in 
 all things else the day passed as a melancholy dream. 
 
 Almost the first words Arthur spoke were those I have men- 
 tioned. As he looked out upon the setting sun, he shuddered 
 and turned pale, for he knew the hill near him. As they wound 
 round it, some peculiar old trees appeared, and he was in a few 
 minutes in the midst of the scenery near his home. The river 
 before him, reflecting the rich evening sky, looked as if poured 
 out from a molten mine ; and the birds, gathering in, were shoot- 
 ing across each other, bursting into short, gay notes, or singing 
 their evening songs in the trees. It was a bitter thing to find all 
 so bright and cheerful, and so near his own home, too. His 
 horses' hoofs struck upon the old wooden bridge. The sound 
 went to his heart ; for it was here his mother took her last leave 
 of him, and blessed him. 
 
310 
 
 RICHARD H. DANA. 
 
 As lie passed through the village, there was a feeling of strange- 
 ness that every thing should be just as it was when he left it. 
 An undefined thought floated in his mind, that his mother's state 
 should produce a visible change in whatever he had been familiar 
 with. But the boys were at their noisy games in the street, the 
 laborers returning together from their work, and the old men 
 sitting quietly at their doors. He concealed himself as well as 
 he could, and bade Thomas hasten on. 
 
 As they drew near the house, the night was shutting in about 
 it, and there was a melancholy gusty sound in the trees. Arthur 
 felt as if approaching his mother's tomb. He entered the parlor. 
 There was the gloom and stillness of a deserted house. Presently 
 he heard a slow, cautious step overhead. It was in his mother's 
 chamber. His sister had seen him from the window. She hur- 
 ried down, and threw her arms about her brother's neck, without 
 uttering a word. As soon as he could speak, he asked, " Is she 
 alive ?" — he could not say, my mother. " She is sleeping," 
 answered his sister, " and must not know to-night that you are 
 here : she is too weak to bear it now." " I will go look at her, 
 then, while she sleeps," said he, drawing his handkerchief from 
 his face. His sister's sympathy had made him shed the first tears 
 which had fallen from him that day, and he was more composed. 
 
 He entered the chamber with a deep and still awe upon him ; 
 and, as he drew near his mother's bedside, and looked on her 
 pale, placid face, he scarcely dared breathe, lest he should dis- 
 turb the secret communion that the soul was holding with the 
 world into which it was soon to enter. His grief, in the loss 
 which he was about to suffer, was forgotten in the feeling of a 
 holy inspiration, and he was, as it were, in the midst of invisible 
 spirits, ascending and descending. His mother's lips moved 
 slightly as she uttered an indistinct sound. He drew back, and 
 his sister w r ent near to her, and she spoke. It was the same 
 gentle voice which he had known and felt from his childhood. 
 The exaltation of his soul left him, — he sunk down, — and his 
 sorrow r went over him like a flood. 
 
 The next day, as soon as his mother became composed enough 
 to see him, Arthur went into her chamber. She stretched out 
 her feeble hand, and turned toward him, with a look that blessed 
 him. It was the short struggle of a meek spirit. She covered 
 her eyes with her hand, and the tears trickled down between her 
 pale, thin fingers. As soon as she became tranquil, she spoke of 
 the gratitude she felt at being spared to see him before she died. 
 
 " My dear mother," said Arthur, — but he could not go on. 
 His voice choked, and his eyes filled. " Do not be so afflicted, 
 Arthur, at the loss of me. We are not to part forever. Remem- 
 ber, too, how comfortable and happy you have made my days. 
 
RICHARD II. DANA. 
 
 311 
 
 Heaven, I am sure, will bless so good a son as you have been to 
 me. Fou will have that consolation, my son, which visits too few 
 sons, perhaps : 3^011 will be able to look back upon your conduct, 
 not without pain only, but with a sacred joy. And think here- 
 after of the peace of mind you give me, now that I am about to 
 die, in the thought that I am leaving your sister to your love and 
 care. So long as you live, she will find you both father and 
 brother to her." She paused for a moment. " I have long felt 
 that I could meet death with composure ; but I did not know, — • 
 I did not know, till now that the hour is come, how hard a thing- 
 it would be to leave my children." 
 
 The hue of death was now fast spreading over his mother's face. 
 He stooped forward to catch the sound of her breathing. It 
 grew quick and faint. " My mother I" She opened her eyes, for 
 the last time, upon him; a faint flush passed over her cheek; 
 there was the serenity of an angel in her look; her hand just 
 pressed his. It was all over. 
 
 His spirit had endured to its utmost. It sank down from its 
 unearthly height; and, with his face upon his mother's pillow, 
 he wept like a child. He arose with a softened grief, and, step- 
 ping into an adjoining chamber, spoke to his aunt. "It is past," 
 said he. " Is my sister asleep ? Well, be it so : let her have 
 rest : she needs it." He then went to his own chamber, and shut 
 himself in. 
 
 It is an impression, of which we cannot rid ourselves if we 
 would, when sitting by the body of a friend, that he has still a 
 consciousness of our presence ; that, though he no longer has a 
 concern in the common things of the world, love and thought are 
 still there. The face which we had been familiar with so long, 
 when it was all life and motion, seems only in a state of rest. We 
 know not how to make it real to ourselves that in the body before 
 us there is not a something still alive. 
 
 Arthur was in such a state of mind as he sat alone in the room 
 by his mother, the day after her death. It was as if her soul was 
 holding communion with spirits in paradise, though it still abode 
 in the body that lay before him. He felt as if sanctified by the 
 presence of one to whom the other world had been opened, — as if 
 under the love and protection of one made holy. The religious 
 reflections which his mother had early taught him gave him 
 strength : a spiritual composure stole over him, and he found 
 himself prepared to perform the last offices to the dead. 
 
 When the hour came, Arthur rose with a firm step and fixed 
 eye, though his face was tremulous with the struggle within him. 
 He went to his sister, and took her arm within his. The bell 
 struck. Its heavy, undulating sound rolled forward like a sea, 
 He felt a beating through his frame, which shook him so that he. 
 
312 
 
 RICHARD HENRY WILDE. 
 
 reeled. It was but a momentary weakness. He moved on, pass 
 ing those who surrounded him as if they had been shadows. 
 While he followed the slow hearse, there was a vacancy in his 
 eye, as it rested on the coffin, which showed him hardly conscious 
 of what was before him. His spirit was with his mother's. As 
 he reached the grave, he shrunk back, and turned pale; but, 
 dropping his head upon his breast, and covering his face, he stood 
 motionless as a statue till the service was over. 
 
 It was a gloomy and chilly evening when he returned home. 
 As he entered the house from which his mother had gone for- 
 ever, a sense of dreary emptiness oppressed him, as if his abode 
 had been deserted by every living thing. He walked into his 
 mother's chamber. The naked bedstead, and the chair in which 
 she used to sit, were all that were left in the room. As he threw 
 himself back into the chair, he groaned in the bitterness of his 
 spirit. A feeling of forlornness came over him, which was not 
 to be relieved by tears. She, whom he watched over in her dying 
 hour, and whom he had talked to as she lay before him in death, 
 as if she could hear and answer him, had gone from him. 
 Nothing was left for the senses to fasten fondly on, and time had 
 not yet taught him to think of her only as a spirit. But time and 
 holy endeavors brought this consolation ; and the little of life that 
 a wasting disease left him was passed by him, when alone, in 
 thoughtful tranquillity; and among his friends he appeared with 
 that gentle cheerfulness which, before his mother's death, had 
 been a part of his nature. 
 
 RICHARD HENRY WILDE, 1789—1847. 
 
 This accomplished scholar and poet was horn in Dublin, Ireland, on the 24th 
 of September, 1789. When he was seven years old, his father, who had been a 
 hardware-merchant, came to Baltimore to better his fortunes. By the mis- 
 management of a partner in Dublin, he lost nearly all the property he left 
 behind, and died poor in 1802. The following year the widowed mother re- 
 moved to Augusta, Georgia, and there opened a small shop to gain her living, 
 her' son Richard aiding her during the day, and pursuing his studies at night. 
 He early directed his attention to the law, and, in 1809, was admitted to the 
 bar. He rose rapidly in his profession, and was soon elected Attorney-General 
 of the State. 
 
 In 1815, when just past the legal age, he was chosen representative to Con- 
 gress, and served but one term. He was again a member of that body from 1828 
 to 1835. He then went to Europe, passing most of his time, when abroad, in 
 Italy, in the pursuit of his favorite study, Italian literature. On his return 
 home, he published, in 1842, Conjectures and Researches concerning the Love, 
 
RICHARD HENRY WILDE. 
 
 313 
 
 Madness, and Imprisonment of Torquato Tasso, in two volumes.' In 1844, he 
 removed to New Orleans, and here acquired the highest rank as a civilian. 
 In the spring of 1S47, he was appointed Professor of Constitutional Law in the 
 University of Louisiana. His lectures had been partially prepared, but were 
 never delivered, his useful career being cut short by death on the 10th of 
 September, 1847. His son, William Cummings Wilde, Esq., of New Orleans, 
 is soon to publish the life and works of his father, in which will be his longest 
 poem, Hesperia, which he left in manuscript. 
 
 JOHN RANDOLPH AND DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 Among the legislators of that day, but not of them, in the 
 fearful and solitary sublimity of genius, stood a gentleman from 
 Virginia, whom it was superfluous to designate. Whose speeches 
 were universally read ? Whose satire was universally feared ? 
 Upon whose accents did this habitually listless and un listening 
 house hang, so frequently, with rapt attention ? Whose fame was 
 identified with that body for so long a period ? Who was a more 
 dexterous debater, a riper scholar, better versed in the politics 
 of our own country, or deeper read in the history of others ? 
 Above all, who was more thoroughly imbued with the idiom of 
 the English language — more completely master of its strength, 
 and beauty, and delicacy, or more capable of breathing thoughts 
 of flame in words of magic and tones of silver ? 
 
 Nor may I pass over in silence a representative from New 
 Hampshire, who has almost obliterated all memory of that dis- 
 tinction by the superior fame he has attained as a Senator from 
 Massachusetts. Though then but in the bud of his political life, 
 and hardly conscious, perhaps, of his own extraordinary powers, 
 he gave promise of the greatness he has achieved. The same 
 vigor of thought; the same force of expression; the short sen- 
 tences ; the calm, cold, collected manner ; the air of solemn dig- 
 nity ; the deep, sepulchral, unimpassioned voice ; all have been 
 developed only, not changed, even to the intense bitterness of his 
 frigid irony. The piercing coldness of his sarcasms was indeed 
 peculiar to him ; they seemed to be emanations from the spirit 
 
 1 "Wilde's theory about Tasso is, that Tasso was devotedly attached to the 
 Princess Leonora of Ferrara, who seems to have requited his affection, but that 
 the difference in their rank made it necessary for him, by feigning madness, to 
 conceal their attachment; that it was most ignominiously betrayed by a heartless 
 friend, who possessed himself of the secret by means of false keys ; and that the sub- 
 sequent severity of the Duke Alphonso had its origin in his knowledge of the 
 love of the princess. The volume does equal honor to the genius, the learning, 
 and the impartiality of the author. How we could wish that more of our coun- 
 trymen, whom circumstances enable to reside abroad, would devote their time and 
 wealth to such honorable labors as have engaged the leisure of Mr. Wilde \" — 
 Democratic Review, February, 1842. 
 
 27 
 
314 
 
 RICHARD HENRY WILDE. 
 
 of the icy ocean. Nothing could be at once so novel and so 
 powerful; it was frozen mercury becoming as caustic as red- 
 hot iron. 
 
 MY LIFE IS LIKE THE SUMMER ROSE. 
 
 My life is like the summer rose 
 
 That opens to the morning sky, 
 But, ere the shades of evening close, 
 
 Is scatter'd on the ground to die. 
 Yet on that rose's humble bed 
 The softest dews of night are shed, 
 As if she wept such waste to see — 
 But none shall drop a tear for me. 
 
 My life is like the autumn leaf 
 
 That trembles in the moon's pale ray ; 
 Its hold is frail — its state is brief — 
 Restless, and soon to pass away : 
 But when that leaf shall fall and fade, 
 The parent tree will mourn its shade, 
 The winds bewail the leafless tree — 
 But none shall breathe a sigh for me. 
 
 My life is like the print which feet 
 
 Have left on Tampa's desert strand ; 
 Soon as the rising tide shall beat, 
 
 Their track will vanish from the sand : 
 Yet, as if grieving to efface 
 All vestige of the human race, 
 On that lone shore loud moans the sea — ■ 
 But none shall thus lament for me. 
 
 TO THE MOCKING-BIRD. 
 
 Wing'd mimic of the woods! thou motley fool! 
 
 Who shall thy gay buffoonery describe ? 
 Thine ever-ready notes of ridicule 
 
 Pursue thy fellows still with jest and gibe. 
 Wit, sophist, songster, Yorick of thy tribe. 
 
 Thou untaught satirist of Nature's school ; 
 To thee the palm of scoffing we ascribe, 
 
 Arch-mocker and mad Abbot of Misrule ! 
 For such thou art by day ; but all night long 
 
 Thou pour'st a soft, sweet, pensive, solemn strain, 
 As if thou didst in this thy moonlight song 
 
 Like to the melancholy Jacques complain, 
 Musing on falsehood, folly, vice, and wrong, 
 
 And sighing for thy motley coat again. 
 
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 
 
 315 
 
 JAMES FENIMORE COOPER, 1789—1851. 
 
 James Fejjimore Cooper, the celebrated American novelist, was born in Bur- 
 lington, New Jersey, in the year 1789. His father, William Cooper, an English 
 emigrant, who had settled there many years before, had purchased a large quantity 
 of land on the borders of Lake Otsego, New York, and thither Cooper was removed 
 in his infancy, and there passed his childhood, — in a region that was then an 
 almost unbroken wilderness. At the age of thirteen, he entered Yale College, 
 but left it in three years, and became a midshipman in the United States Navy, 
 in which he continued for six years, making himself, unconsciously, master of 
 that knowledge and imagery which he afterwards employed to so much advan- 
 tage in his romances of the sea. In 1811, having resigned his post as midship- 
 man, he married Miss Delancey, sister of Rev. Dr. Delancey, with whom, after a 
 brief residence in Westchester County, the scene of one of his finest fictions, he 
 removed to Cooperstown, where, Avith the exception of his occasional absences in 
 Europe, he passed the greater part of his life, and where he died on the 14th of 
 September, 1851. 
 
 Before his removal to Cooperstown, he had written and published a novel of 
 English life, called Precaution, which met with but little favor. But The Sjvj, 
 which followed in 1821, at once established his fame, and was soon republished in 
 England and on the Continent. It had its faults, indeed, — defects in plot, and 
 occasional blemishes in the composition : but it was a work of original genius, 
 and was widely read and admired. The Pioneers, which appeared in 1823, not 
 only sustained but advanced his reputation; and each succeeding volume of the 
 Leather-Stocking Tales, The Prairie, The Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder, 
 and The Deerslayer, was read with increasing interest. Shortly after the success 
 of The Pioneers had made Mr. Cooper the first novelist of the country, he achieved 
 a triumph on the sea as signal as that he had already won upon the land. His 
 romance of The Pilot, followed at intervals by The Red Rover, The Water- Witch, 
 The Two Admirals, Wing and Wing, &c, placed him at the head of nautical 
 novelists, where he still stands, perhaps, without a rival. 1 
 
 In the year 1826, Mr. Cooper went to Europe, where his fame had preceded 
 him, and where, while advancing his own reputation by new fictions, he defended 
 
 1 Read articles on his writings in "North American Review," xxiii. 150, 
 xxvii. 139, xlix. 432; "American Quarterly," lvii. 407. In the " Bibliotheca 
 Americana," by 0. A. Roorbach, is a list of all his works, amounting to forty 
 volumes. 
 
 The following, I believe, is a complete list of his novels, with the dates of their 
 publication : — 
 Precaution, 1821. 
 The Spy, 1821. 
 The Pioneers, 1823. 
 The Pilot, 1823. 
 Lionel Lincoln. 1825. 
 Last of the Mohicans, 1826. 
 Red Rover, 1827. 
 The Prairie, 1827. 
 Travelling Bachelor, 1828. 
 Wept of Wish-ton-Wish, 1829. 
 The Water-Witch, 1830. 
 The Bravo. 1831. 
 
 The Heidenmauer, 1832. 
 The Headsman. 1833. 
 The Monikins, 1S35. 
 Homeward Bound, 1838. 
 Home as Found, 1838. 
 The Pathfinder, 1840. 
 Mercedes of Castile, 1840. 
 The Deerslayer, 1841. 
 The Two Admirals, 1842. 
 Wing and Wing, 1842'. 
 Ned Myers, 1843. 
 
 Wyandotte, 1843. 
 
 Afloat and Ashore, 1844. 
 
 Miles Wallingford, 1844. 
 
 The Chainbearer, 1845. 
 
 Satanstoe, 1845. 
 
 The Red Skins. 184G. 
 
 The Crater. 1847. 
 
 Jack Tier, 1848. 
 
 Oak Openings, 1848. 
 
 The Sea Lions. 1849. 
 
 The Ways of the Hour. 1850. 
 
316 
 
 JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 
 
 that of his country by pamphlets and letters. These again brought upon him a 
 shower of rejoinders, and much of the time when he was abroad was spent in 
 controversial writings. In 1833, he returned home. 
 
 Besides his novels, Mr. Cooper was the author of a History of the United States 
 Navy, Gleanings in Europe, Sketches of Switzerland, and several smaller works, 
 which have run through many editions. His mind was always fertile and active, 
 and his mode of treating his subjects full of animation and freshness. He was 
 one of those frank and decided characters who make strong enemies and warm 
 friends, — who repel by the positiveness of their convictions, while they attract by 
 the richness of their culture and the amiability of their lives. He was nicely 
 exact in all his business relations, but generous and noble in the management of 
 his means. His beautiful residence on the Otsego was ever the home of a large 
 and liberal hospitality ; and those who knew him best were those who loved 
 him most, and who deplored his loss with the keenest feelings. 1 
 
 THE CAPTURE OF A WHALE. 
 
 " Tom/' cried Barnstable, starting, " there is the blow of a 
 whale." 
 
 " Ay, ay, sir," returned the cockswain, with undisturbed com- 
 posure j " here is his spout, not half a mile to seaward ; the easterly 
 gale has driven the creater to leeward, and he begins to find him- 
 self in shoal water. He's been sleeping, while he should have 
 been working to windward !" 
 
 " The fellow takes it coolly, too ! he's in no hurry to get an 
 offing." 
 
 "I rather conclude, sir," said the cockswain, rolling over his 
 tobacco in his mouth very composedly, while his little sunken 
 eyes began to twinkle with pleasure at the sight, " the gentleman 
 has lost his reckoning, and don't know which way to head, to take 
 himself back into blue water." 
 
 " ; Tis a fin back!" exclaimed the lieutenant; "he will soon 
 make headway, and be off." 
 
 "No, sir; 'tis a right whale," answered Tom; "I saw his 
 
 1 " Mr. Cooper's character was peculiar and decided, creating strong attach- 
 ments and equally strong dislikes. There was no neutral ground in his nature. 
 He had fixed opinions, and was bold and uncompromising in expressing them. 
 He was exact in his dealings and generous in his disposition. His integrity and 
 uprightness no one ever called in question. He had less fear of public opinion, 
 and more self-reliance, than are common in our country ; and his courage and 
 truthfulness were worthy of all praise. He was an ardent patriot, and as ready 
 to defend his country when in the right, as to rebuke her when he deemed her in 
 the wrong. He was affectionate in his domestic relations, and his home was the 
 seat of a cordial and generous hospitality." — G. S. HlLLARD. 
 
 " Mr. Cooper dined with me. He was in person solid, robust, athletic ; in voice, 
 manly ; in manner, earnest, emphatic, almost dictatorial, — with something of self- 
 assertion bordering on egotism. The first effect was unpleasant, indeed repulsive ; 
 but there shone through all this a frankness which excited confidence, respect, 
 and at last affection." — Goodrich' s Recollections. 
 
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 
 
 317 
 
 spout ; he threw up a pair of as pretty rainbows as a Christian 
 
 would wish to look at. He's a raal oil-butt, that fellow I" 
 Barnstable laughed, and exclaimed, in joyous tones — 
 " Give strong way, my hearties ! There seems nothing better 
 
 to be done ; let us have a stroke of a harpoon at that impudent 
 
 rascal." 
 
 The men shouted spontaneously, and the old cockswain suffered 
 his solemn visage to relax into a small laugh, while the whale- 
 boat sprang forward like a courser for the goal. During the few 
 minutes they were pulling towards their game, long Tom arose 
 from his crouching attitude in the stern sheets, and transferred 
 his huge frame to the bows of the boat, where he made such pre- 
 paration to strike the whale as the occasion required. The tub, 
 containing about half of a whale-line^ was placed at the feet of 
 Barnstable, who had been preparing an oar to steer with, in place 
 of the rudder, which was unshipped in order that, if necessary, 
 the boat might be whirled round when not advancing. 
 
 Their approach was utterly unnoticed by the monster of the 
 deep, who continued to amuse himself with throwing the water 
 in two circular spouts high into the air, occasionally flourishing 
 the broad flukes of his tail with graceful but terrific force, until 
 the hardy seamen were within a few hundred feet of him, when 
 he suddenly cast his head downwards, and, without apparent 
 effort, reared his immense body for many feet above the water, 
 waving his tail violently, and producing a whizzing noise, that 
 sounded like the rushing of winds. The cockswain stood erect, 
 poising his harpoon, ready for the blow ; but, when he beheld the 
 creature assuming this formidable attitude, he waved his hand to 
 his commander, who instantly signed to his men to cease rowing. 
 In this situation the sportsmen rested a few moments, while the 
 whale struck several blows on the water in rapid succession, the 
 noise of which re-echoed along the cliffs like the hollow reports 
 of so many cannon. After this wanton exhibition of his terrible 
 strength, the monster sunk again into his native element, and 
 slowly disappeared from the eyes of his pursuers. 
 
 " Which way did he head, Tom V cried Barnstable, the moment 
 the whale was out of sight. 
 
 " Pretty much up and down, sir," returned the cockswain, 
 whose eye Was gradually brightening with the excitement of the 
 sport; "he'll soon run his nose against the bottom, if he stands 
 long on that course, and will be glad to get another snuff of pure 
 air; send her a few fathoms to starboard, sir, and I promise we 
 shall not be out of his track." 
 
 The conjecture of the experienced old seaman proved true, for 
 in a few minutes the water broke near them, and another spout 
 was cast into the air, w'len the huge animal rushed for half his 
 
 27* 
 
318 
 
 JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 
 
 length in the same direction, and fell on the sea with a turbulence 
 and foam equal to that which is produced by the launching of a 
 vessel, for the first time, into its proper element. After this 
 evolution, the whale rolled heavily, and seemed to rest from fur- 
 ther efforts. 
 
 His slightest movements were closely watched by Barnstable 
 and his cockswain, and, when he was in a state of comparative 
 rest, the former gave a signal to his crew to ply their oars once . 
 more. A few long and vigorous strokes sent the boat directly 
 up to the broadside of the whale, with its bows pointing towards 
 one of the fins, which was, at times, as the animal yielded slug- 
 gishly to the action of the waves, exposed to view. The cock- 
 swain poised his harpoon with much precision, and then darted it 
 from him with a violence that buried the iron in the body of their 
 foe. The instant the blow was made, long Tom shouted, with 
 singular earnestness, — 
 
 " Starn all !" 
 
 " Stern all V echoed Barnstable; when the obedient seamen, by 
 united efforts, forced the boat in a backward direction, beyond the 
 reach of any blow from their formidable antagonist. The alarmed 
 animal, however, meditated no such resistance ; ignorant of his 
 own power, and of the insignificance of his enemies, he sought 
 refuge in flight. One moment of stupid surprise succeeded the 
 entrance of the iron, when he cast his huge tail into the air with 
 a violence that threw the sea around him into increased commo- 
 tion, and then disappeared, with the quickness of lightning, amid 
 a cloud of foam. 
 
 "Snub him!" shouted Barnstable; "hold on, Tom; he rises 
 already." 
 
 " Ay, ay 3 sir," replied the composed cockswain, seizing the line, 
 which was running out of the boat with a velocity that rendered 
 such a manoeuvre rather hazardous, and causing it to yield more 
 gradually round the large loggerhead, that was placed in the bows 
 of the boat for that purpose. Presently the line stretched for- 
 ward, and, rising to the surface with tremulous vibrations, it indi- 
 cated the direction in which the animal might be expected to re- 
 appear. Barnstable had cast the bows of the boat towards that 
 point, before the terrified and wounded victim rose once more to 
 the surface, whose time was, however, no longer wasted in his 
 sports, but who cast the waters aside as he forced his way, with 
 prodigious velocity, along their surface. The boat was dragged 
 violently in his wake, and cut through the billows with a terrifis 
 rapidity, that at moments appeared to bury the slight fabric in the 
 ocean. When long Tom beheld his victim throwing his spouts on 
 high again, he pointed with exultation to the jetting fluid, which 
 was streaked with the deep red of blood, and cried, — 
 
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 
 
 319 
 
 " Ay, I've touched the fellow's life ! It must be more than two 
 foot of blubber that stops my iron from reaching the life of any 
 whale that ever sculled the ocean." 
 
 " I believe you have saved yourself the trouble of using the 
 bayonet you have rigged for a lance," said his commander, who 
 entered into the sport with all the ardor of one whose youth had 
 been chiefly passed in such pursuits; "feel your line ; Master 
 Coffin ; can we haul alongside of our enemy ? I like not the 
 course he is steering, as he tows us from the schooner." 
 
 "'Tis the creater's way, sir," said the cockswain; "you know 
 they need the air in their nostrils when they run, the same as a 
 man ; but lay hold, boys, and let us haul up to him." 
 
 The seamen now seized their whale-line, and slowly drew their 
 boat to within a few feet of the tail of the fish, whose progress 
 became sensibly less rapid as he grew weak with the loss of blood. 
 In a few minutes he stopped running, and appeared to roll un- 
 easily on the water, as if suffering the agony of death. 
 
 " Shall we pull in and finish him, Tom V* cried Barnstable ; " a 
 few sets from your bayonet would do it." 
 
 The cockswain stood examining his game with cool discretion, 
 and replied to this interrogatory, — 
 
 " No, sir, no; he's going into his flurry; there's no occasion for 
 disgracing ourselves by using a soldier's weapon in taking a whale. 
 Starn off", sir, starn off ! the creater's in his flurry." 
 
 The warning of the prudent cockswain was promptly obeyed, 
 and the boat cautiously drew off to a distance, leaving to the 
 animal a clear space while under its dying agonies. From a state 
 of perfect rest, the terrible monster threw its tail on high as when 
 in sport, but its blows were trebled in rapidity and violence, till 
 all was hid from view by a pyramid of foam, that was deeply 
 dyed with blood. The roarings of the fish were like the bellow- 
 ings of a herd of bulls, and, to one who was ignorant of the fact, 
 it would have appeared as if a thousand monsters were engaged 
 in deadly combat behind the bloody mist that obstructed the 
 view. Gradually these efforts subsided, and, when the discolored 
 water again settled down to the long and regular swell of the 
 ocean, the fish was seen exhausted, and yielding passively to its 
 fate. As life departed, the enormous black mass rolled to one 
 side ; and when the white and glistening skin of the belly 
 became apparent, the seamen well knew that their victory was 
 achieved. 
 
 THE WRECK OF THE ARIEL. 
 
 " Go, my boys, go," said Barnstable, as the moment of dreadful 
 uncertainty passed; "you have still the whale-boat, and she, at 
 least, will take you nigh the shore ; go into her, my boys ; God 
 
320 
 
 JAMES FEXIMORE COOPER. 
 
 bless you, God bless you all; you have been faithful and honest 
 fellows, and I believe he will not yet desert you ; go, my friends, 
 while there is a lull." 
 
 The seamen threw themselves, in a mass of human bodies, into 
 the light vessel, which nearly sunk under the unusual burden ; 
 but when they looked around them, Barnstable, and Merry, Dil- 
 lon, and the cockswain, were yet to be seen on the decks of the 
 Ariel. The former was pacing, in deep and perhaps bitter melan- . 
 choly, the wet planks of the schooner, while the boy hung, un- 
 heeded, on his arm, uttering disregarded petitions to his com- 
 mander to desert the wreck. Dillon approached the side where 
 the boat lay, again and again j but the threatening countenances 
 of the seamen as often drove him back in despair. Tom had 
 seated himself on the heel of the bowsprit, where he continued, in 
 an attitude of quiet resignation, returning no other answers to the 
 loud and repeated calls of his shipmates, than by waving his hand 
 towards the shore. 
 
 " Now, hear me," said the boy, urging his request to tears : 
 " if not for my sake, or for your own sake, Mr. Barnstable, or for 
 the hopes of God's mercy, go into the boat, for the love of my 
 cousin Katherine." 
 
 The young lieutenant paused in his troubled walk, and, for a 
 moment, he cast a glance of hesitation at the cliffs; but, at 
 the next instant, his eyes fell on the ruin of his vessel, and he 
 answered, — 
 
 " Never, boy, never : if my hour has come, I will not shrink 
 from my fate." 
 
 " Listen to the men, dear sir : the boat will be swamped along- 
 side the wreck, and their cry is, that without you they will not let 
 her go." 
 
 Barnstable motioned to the boat, to bid the boy enter it, and 
 -urned away in silence. 
 
 " Well," said Merry, with firmness, "if it be right that a lieu- 
 tenant shall stay by the wreck, it must also be right for a mid- 
 shipman. Shove off : neither Mr. Barnstable nor myself will quit 
 the vessel." 
 
 " Boy, your life has been intrusted to my keeping, and at my 
 hands will it be required," said his commander, lifting the 
 struggling youth, and tossing him into the arms of the seamen. 
 " Away with ye, and God be with you : there is more weight in 
 you now than can go safe to land." 
 
 Still, the seamen hesitated ; for they perceived the cockswain 
 moving, with a steady tread, along the deck, and they hoped he 
 had relented, and would yet persuade the lieutenant to join h\> 
 crew. But Tom, imitating the example of his commander, seized 
 the latter, suddenly, in his powerful grasp, and threw him over 
 
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 
 
 321 
 
 the bulwarks with an irresistible force. At the same moment, he 
 cast the fast of the boat from the pin that held it, and, lifting his 
 broad hands high into the air, his voice was heard in the tempest. 
 
 " God's will be done with me I" he cried. " I saw the first 
 timber of the Ariel laid, and shall live just long enough to see it 
 turn out of her bottom ; after which I wish to live no longer." 
 
 But his shipmates were swept far beyond the sounds of his 
 voice before half these words were uttered. All command of the 
 boat was rendered impossible, by the numbers it contained, as well 
 as the raging of the surf; and, as it rose on the white crest of a 
 wave, Tom saw his beloved little craft for the last time : it fell 
 into a trough of the sea, and in a few moments more its fragments 
 were ground into splinters on the adjacent rocks. The cockswain 
 still remained where he had cast off the rope, and beheld the 
 numerous heads and arms that appeared rising, at short intervals, 
 on the waves; some making powerful and well-directed efforts to 
 gain the sands, that were becoming visible as the tide fell, and 
 others wildly tossed in the frantic movements of helpless despair. 
 The honest old seaman gave a cry of joy, as he saw Barnstable 
 issue from the surf, bearing the form of Merry in safety to the 
 sands, where, one by one, several seamen soon appeared also, 
 dripping and exhausted. Many others of the crew were carried, 
 in a similar manner, to places of safety ; though, as Tom returned 
 to his seat on the bowsprit, he could not conceal from his reluctant 
 eyes the lifeless forms that were, in other spots, driven against the 
 rocks, with a fury that soon left them but few of the outward 
 vestiges of humanity. 
 
 Dillon and the cockswain were now the sole occupants of their 
 dreadful station. The former stood, in a kind of stupid despair, 
 a witness of the scene we have related ; but, as his curdled blood 
 began again to flow more warmly through his heart, he crept 
 close to the side of Tom, with that sort of selfish feeling that 
 makes even hopeless misery more tolerable, when endured in 
 participation with another. 
 
 " When the tide falls," he said, in a voice that betrayed the 
 agony of fear, though his words expressed the renewal of hope, 
 " we shall be able to walk to land." 
 
 " There was One, and only One, to whose feet the waters were 
 the same as a dry deck," returned the cockswain; " and none but 
 such as have this power will ever be able to walk from these rocks 
 to the sands." The old seaman paused, and, turning his eyes, 
 which exhibited a mingled expression of disgust and compassion, 
 on his companion, he added, with reverence, " Had you thought 
 more of him in fair weather, your case would be less to be pitied 
 in this tempest !" 
 
 " Do you still think there is much danger ?" asked Dillon. 
 
322 
 
 JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 
 
 " To them that have reason to fear death. Listen ! Do you 
 hear that hollow noise beneath ye V 1 
 "'Tis the -wind driving by the vessel." 
 
 "'Tis the poor thing herself," said the affected cockswain, 
 " giving her last groans. The water is breaking up her decks, 
 and, in a few minutes more, the handsomest model that ever 
 cut a wave will be like the chips that fell from her timbers in 
 framing !" 
 
 " Why, then, did you remain here ?" cried Dillon, wildly. 
 
 " To die in my coffin, if it should be the will of God," returned 
 Tom. u These waves to me are what the land is to you: I was 
 born on them, and I have always meant that they should be my 
 grave." 
 
 " But I — I," shrieked Dillon, " I am not ready to die ! — I can- 
 not die ! — I will not die !" 
 
 "Poor wretch !" muttered his companion, "you must go, like 
 the rest of us : when the death-watch is called, none can skulk 
 from the muster." 
 
 " I can swim," Dillon continued, rushing with frantic eager- 
 ness to the side of the wreck. " Is there no billet of wood, no 
 rope, that I can take with me ?" 
 
 " None : every thing has been cut away, or carried off by the 
 sea. If ye are about to strive for your life, take with ye a stout 
 heart and a clean conscience, and trust the rest to God I" 
 
 " God I" echoed Dillon, in the madness of his frenzy : " I know 
 no God ! there is no God that knows me !" 
 
 " Peace !" said the deep tones of the cockswain, in a voice that 
 seemed to speak in the elements ; " blasphemer, peace !" 
 
 The heavy groaning, produced by the water, in the timbers of 
 the Ariel, at that moment, added its impulse to the raging feelings 
 of Dillon, and he cast himself headlong into the sea. 
 
 The water, thrown by the rolling of the surf on the beach, was 
 necessarily returned to the ocean, in eddies, in different places, 
 favorable to such an action of the element. Into the edge of one 
 of these counter-currents, that was produced by the very rocks on 
 which the schooner lay, and which the watermen call the " under- 
 tow," Dillon had, unknowingly, thrown his person ; and when the 
 waves had driven him a short distance from the wreck, he was 
 met by a stream that his most desperate efforts could not over- 
 come. He was a light and powerful swimmer, and the struggle 
 was hard and protracted. With the shore immediately before his 
 eyes, and at no great distance, he was led, as by a false phantom, 
 to continue his efforts, although they did not advance him a foot. 
 The old seaman, who, at first, had watched his motions with care- 
 less indifference, understood the danger of his situation at a 
 glance; and, forgetful of his own fate, he shouted aloud, in a 
 
JAMES A. HILLHOUSE. 
 
 323 
 
 voice that was driven over the struggling victim, to the ears of 
 his shipmates on the sands, — 
 
 " Sheer to port, and clear the under-tow ! sheer to the south- 
 ward !" 
 
 Dillon heard the sounds, but his faculties were too much ob- 
 scured by terror to distinguish their object; he, however, blindly 
 yielded to the call, and gradually changed his direction, until his 
 face was once more turned towards the vessel. The current swept 
 him diagonally by the rocks, and he was forced into an eddy 
 where he had nothing to contend against but the waves, whosi 
 violence was much broken by the wreck. In this state he con 
 tinued still to struggle, but with a force that was too much 
 weakened to overcome the resistance he met. Tom looked around 
 him for a rope, but not one presented itself to his hands : all had 
 gone over with the spars, or been swept away by the waves. At 
 this moment of disappointment, his eyes met those of the despe- 
 rate Dillon. Calm, and inured to horrors, as was the veteran sea- 
 man, he involuntarily passed his hand before his brow, as if to 
 exclude the look of despair he encountered; and when, a moment 
 afterwards, he removed the rigid member, he beheld the sinking 
 form of the victim, as it gradually settled in the ocean, still 
 struggling, with regular but impotent strokes of the arms and 
 feet, to gain the wreck, and to preserve an existence that had 
 been so much abused in its hour of allotted probation. 
 
 " He will soon know his Grod, and learn that his God knows 
 him !" murmured the cockswain to himself. As he yet spoke, the 
 wreck of the Ariel yielded to an overwhelming sea, ana, after a 
 universal shudder, her timbers and planks gave way, and were 
 swept towards the cliffs, bearing the body of the simple-hearted 
 cockswain among the ruins. 
 
 JAMES A. HILLHOUSE, 17S9— 1841. 
 
 "Hillhouse, whose music, like his themes, 
 Lifts earth to heaven. — whose poet-dreams 
 Are pure and holy as the hymn 
 Echoed from harps of seraphim 
 By bard> that drank at Zion's fountains 
 
 When glory, p 'ace. and hope were hers. 
 And beautiful upon the mountains 
 
 The fjet of angel-messengers." — Halleck. 
 
 The Hillhouse family held a high social position in Deny, Ireland, and one of 
 the members emigrated to America and settled in Connecticut in 1720. The 
 father of the poet, Hon. James Hillhouse, who died in 1833, filled various offices 
 in his native State, and was for many years a leading member of Congress. 
 
 The subject of the present sketch wa- born in New Haven, on the 26th of 
 
324 
 
 JAMES A. HILLHOUSE. 
 
 September, 1789. At the age of fifteen, he entered Yale College, and graduated 
 in 1S08, with a high reputation for scholarship. At the Commencement of 1812, 
 he delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society a descriptive poem, entitled The 
 Judgment, which gained him high reputation. It is in the form of a "vision," 
 and is designed to represent the fearful events of the great day of final retribution. 1 
 
 In 1820, he published Percy's Masque, a Drama in Five Acts, founded upon the 
 ballad of "The Hermit of Warkwortk," by Bishop Percy. In 1822, he was mar- 
 ried to Cornelia Lawrence, daughter of Isaac Lawrence, Esq., of New York, and 
 took up his residence in New Haven, at "Sachem's Wood," the name of his beau- 
 tiful seat, — occupied with the pursuits of a man of taste and fortune. 
 
 During the year 1821, Hadad, a Dramatic Poem, was written, and the next 
 year was committed to the press. It is based upon the belief in a former intercourse 
 between mankind and the good and evil beings of the spiritual world, and the 
 scene is laid in Judea, in the time of King David. Hadad, a Syrian prince, is in 
 Jerusalem, and falls in love with Tamar, the sister of Absalom ; but she will 
 give no encouragement to him unless he renounce his heathenism and conform 
 to the Jewish worship. This is generally considered the most finished of hi? 
 productions. 2 In 1839, he published, in Boston, in two volumes, all the above- 
 mentioned poems, with Demetrio, a Tragedy in Fire Acts, founded on an Italiau 
 tale of love, jealous}-, and revenge ; and Sachem's Wood, together with several 
 orations w r hieh he had delivered on public occasions. 
 
 For some time previous to this, the health of Mr. Hillhouse had been failing, 
 and in the autumn of 1840 he left home, for the last time, to visit his friends ii$ 
 Boston. He returned somewhat benefited; but, on the second day of the follow- 
 ing January, his disorder assumed an alarming form, which terminated fatally on 
 the evening of the fourth of that month. 3 
 
 h 
 
 SCENE FROM HADAD. 
 
 The garden of Absalom's house on Mount Zion, near the palace, overlooking the city. 
 Tamar sitting by a fountain. [Enter Hadad.] 
 
 Had. Delicious to behold*the world at rest. 
 Meek Labor wipes his brow, and intermits 
 The curse, to clasp the younglings of his cot ; 
 Herdsmen and shepherds fold their flocks — and, hark ! 
 What merry strains they send from Olivet! 
 The jar of life is still; the city speaks 
 
 1 " In Hadad and The Judgment bis scriptural erudition and deep perceptions 
 of the Jewish character, and his sense of religious truth, are evinced in the most 
 carefully-finished and nobly-conceived writings." — H. T. Tuckerman. 
 
 2 " Hillhouse's dramatic and other pieces are the first instances, in this country, 
 of artistic skill in the higher and more elaborate spheres of poetic writing. He 
 possessed the scholarship, the leisure, the dignity of taste, and the noble sym- 
 pathy requisite thus ' to build the loft}- rhyme ;' and his volumes, though unattract- 
 ive to the mass of readers, have a permanent interest and value to the refined, 
 the aspiring, and the disciplined mind." — II. T. Tuckerman. 
 
 3 Bead criticisms upon his writings in the " North American Review," January, 
 1826, by F. W. P. Greenwood, and January, 1840, by John G. Palfrey; also, tlie 
 leading article in the "New Englander," November, 1858, by H. T. Tuckerman. 
 
JAMES A. HILLHOUSE. 
 
 325 
 
 In gentle murmurs ; voices chime with lutes 
 Waked in the streets and gardens ; loving pairs 
 Eye the red west, in one another's arms ; 
 And nature, breathing dew and fragrance, yields 
 A glimpse of happiness, which He, who form'd 
 Earth and the stars, had power to make eternal. 
 
 Tarn. Ah, Hadad, meanest thou to reproach the Friend 
 "Who gave so much, because he gave not all ? 
 
 Had. Perfect benevolence, methinks, had will'd 
 Unceasing happiness, and peace, and joy ; 
 Fill'd the whole uuiverse of human hearts 
 With pleasure, like a flowing spring of life. 
 
 Tarn. Our Prophet teaches so, till man rebell'd. 
 
 Had. Mighty rebellion ! Had he 'leagured heaven 
 With beings powerful, numberless, and dreadful, 
 ►Strong as the enginery that rocks the world 
 When all its pillars tremble ; mix'd the tires 
 Of onset with annihilating bolts 
 Defensive volley'd from the throne; this, this 
 Had been rebellion worthy of the name, 
 Worthy of punishment. But what did man? 
 Tasted an apple ! and the fragile scene, 
 Eden, and innocence, and human bliss, 
 The nectar-flowing streams, life-giving fruits, 
 Celestial shades, and amaranthine flowers, 
 Vanish ; and sorrow, toil, and pain, and death, 
 Cleave to him by an everlasting curse. 
 
 Tarn. Ah! talk not thus. 
 
 Had. Is this benevolence ? — 
 Nay, loveliest, these things sometimes trouble me ; 
 For I was tutor'd in a brighter faith. 
 Our Syrians deem each lucid fount, and stream, 
 Forest, and mountain, glade, and bosky dell, 
 Peopled with kind divinities, the friends 
 Of man, a spiritual race, allied 
 To him by many sympathies, who seek 
 His happiness, inspire him with gay thoughts, 
 Cool with their waves, and fan him with their airs. 
 O'er them, the Spirit of the Universe, 
 Or Soul of Nature, circumfuses all 
 With mild, benevolent, and sunlike radiance ; 
 Pervading, warming, vivifying earth, 
 As spirit does the body, till green herbs, 
 And beauteous flowers, and branchy cedars rise; 
 And shooting stellar influence through her caves ; 
 Whence minerals and gems imbibe their lustre. 
 
 Tarn. Dreams, Hadad, empty dreams. 
 
 Had. These deities 
 They invocate with cheerful, gentle rites, 
 Hang garlands on their altars, heap their shrines 
 With Nature's bounties, fruits, and fragrant flowers. 
 Not like yon gory mouut that ever reeks — 
 
 Tarn. Cast not reproach upon the holy altar. 
 
 Had. Nay, sweet. — Having enjoy 'd all pleasures here 
 That Nature prompts, but chieflv blissful love, 
 28 
 
326 JAMES A. HILLHOUSE. 
 
 At death, the happy Syrian maiden deems 
 
 Her immatei-ial flies into the fields, 
 
 Or circumambient clouds, or crystal brooks, 
 
 And dwells, a Deity, with those she worshipp'd, 
 
 Till time or fate return her in its course 
 
 To quaff, once more, the cup of human joy. 
 
 Tarn. But thou believ'st not this ? 
 
 Had. I almost wish 
 Thou didst ; for I have fear'd, my gentle Tamar, 
 Thy spirit is too tender for a law 
 Announced in terror, coupled with the threats 
 Of an inflexible and dreadful Being. 
 
 Turn. (In tears, clasping her hands.) 
 Witness, ye heavens ! Eternal Father, witness ! 
 Blest God of Jacob ! Maker ! Friend, Preserver ! 
 That, with my heart, my undivided soul, 
 I love, adore, and praise thy glorious name, 
 Confess thee Lord of all, believe thy laws 
 Wise, just, and merciful, as they are true. 
 
 Hadad, Hadad! you misconstrue much 
 The sadness that usurps me: 'tis for thee 
 
 1 grieve — for hopes that fade — for your lost soul, 
 And my lost happiness. 
 
 Had. say not so, 
 Beloved princess. Why distrust my faith ? 
 
 Tarn. Thou know'st, alas ! my weakness ; but remember, 
 I never, never will be thine, although 
 The feast, the blessing, and the song were past, 
 Though Absalom and David called me bride, 
 Till sure thou own'st, with truth and love sincere, 
 The Lord Jehovah. 
 
 HADAD's DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY OF DAVID. 
 
 'Tis so ; — the hoary harper sings aright ; 
 How beautiful is Zion ! — Like a queen, 
 Arm'd with a helm, in virgin loveliness, 
 Her heaving bosom in a bossy cuirass, 
 She sits aloft, begirt with battlements 
 And bulwarks swelling from the rock, to guard 
 The sacred courts, pavilions, palaces, 
 Soft gleaming through the umbrage of the woods, 
 Which tuft her summit, and, like raven tresses, 
 Wave their dark beauty round the tower of David. 
 Resplendent with a thousand golden bucklers, 
 The embrasures of alabaster shine; 
 Hail'd by the pilgrims of the desert, bound 
 To Judah's mart with orient merchandise. 
 But not, for thou art fair and turret-crown'd, 
 Wet with the choicest dew of heaven, and bless'd 
 With golden fruits, and gales of frankincense, 
 Dwell I beneath thine ample curtains. Here, 
 Where saints and prophets teach, where the stern law 
 Still speaks in thunder, where chief angels watch, 
 And where the Glory hovers, here I war. 
 
JAMES A. IIILLIIOUSE. 
 
 327 
 
 HOW PATERNAL WEALTH SHOULD BE EMPLOYED. 
 
 The mischievous, and truly American notion, that, to enjoy a 
 respectable position, every man must traffic, or preach, or practise, 
 or hold an office, brings to beggary and infamy many who might 
 have lived, under a justcr estimate of things, usefully and happily; 
 and cuts us off from a needful, as well as ornamental portion of 
 society. The necessity of laboring for sustenance is, indeed, the 
 great safeguard of the world, the ballast, without which the wild 
 passions of men would bring communities to speedy wreck. But 
 man will not labor without a motive ; and successful accumulation, 
 on the part of the parent, deprives the son of this impulse. In- 
 stead, then, of vainly contending against laws as insurmountable 
 as those of physics, and attempting to drive their children into 
 lucrative industry, why do not men, who have made themselves 
 opulent, open their eyes, at once, to the glaring fact, that the cause 
 — the cause itself — which braced their own nerves to the struggle 
 for fortune, does not exist for their offspring ? The father has 
 taken from his son his motive ! — a motive confessedly important 
 to happiness and virtue, in the present state of things. He is 
 bound, therefore, by every consideration of prudence and human- 
 ity, neither to attempt to drag him forward without a cheering, 
 animating principle of action — nor recklessly to abandon him to his 
 own guidance — nor to poison him with the love of lucre for itself; 
 but, under new circumstances, with new prospects, at a totally 
 difFerent starting-place 'from his own, to supply other motives — 
 drawn from our sensibility to reputation, from our natural desire 
 to know, from an enlarged view of our capacities and enjoyments, 
 and a more high and liberal estimate of our relations to society. 
 Fearful, indeed, is the responsibility of leaving youth, without 
 mental resources, to the temptations of splendid idleness ! Men 
 who have not considered this subject, while the objects of their 
 affection yet surround their table, drop no seeds of generous sen- 
 timents, animate them with no discourse on the beauty of dis- 
 interestedness, the paramount value of the mind, and the dignity 
 of that renown which is the echo of illustrious actions. Absorbed 
 in one pursuit, their morning precept, their mid-day example, and 
 their evening moral, too often conspire to teach a single maxim, 
 and that in direct contradiction of the inculcation, so often and so 
 variously repeated : " It is better to get wisdom than gold." Right 
 views, a careful choice of agents, and the delegation, betimes, of 
 strict authority, would insure the object. Only let the parent 
 feel, and the son be early taught, that, with the command of 
 money and leisure, to enter on manhood without having mastered 
 every attainable accomplishment, is more disgraceful than thread- 
 bare garments, and we might have the happiness to see in the 
 
328 
 
 WILLIAM JAY. 
 
 inheritors of paternal wealth, less frequently, idle, ignorant prodi- 
 gals and heart-breakers, and more frequently, high-minded, highly- 
 educated young men, embellishing, if not called to public trusts, 
 a private station. 
 
 WILLIAM JAY, 1789— 1S58. 
 
 William Jay, the son of that wise statesman and able jurist, John Jay, the 
 first Chief-Justice of the United States, was born in the city of New York, June 
 16, 1789. In 1807, he graduated at Yale College, and studied law in Albany, 
 but, through infirm health, never practised his profession, and took up his re- 
 sidence at the paternal mansion, in Bedford, Westchester County, New York, 
 which he afterwards inherited. In 1812, he was married to Augusta McVickar, 
 daughter of John McVickar, Esq., of New York, — a lady in whose character 
 were blended all the Christian virtues. She died in April, 1857. 
 
 Soon after his marriage, Mr. Jay was appointed First Judge of the county of 
 Westchester, and he was continued upon the bench by successive Governors, of 
 opposite politics, through the varied changes of party, till 1843. His first appear- 
 ance as a writer was in his advocacy of the claims of the American Bible Society, 
 which led him into a controversy with Bishop Hobart, and which excited great 
 attention at the time from the ability with which it was conducted. He was 
 always a warm advocate of Sunday-schools, of temperance, and of peace, and he 
 was for many years the President of the American Peace Society, for which he 
 wrote several addresses. In 1833, he published, in two volumes, octavo, The 
 Life and Writings of John Jay. 
 
 But his distinctive life-work was what he did in behalf of the Anti-Slavery cause. 
 His first publication upon this subject was in 1834, entitled An Inquiry into the 
 Character and Tendency of the American Colonization and American Anti-Slavery 
 Societies. This was followed by A View of the Action of the Federal Government 
 in Behalf of Slavery. Since that time, his writings upon the subject have been 
 constant and numerous, as occasions and subjects arose upon which he deemed it 
 his duty to let his views be known. The chief of the pamphlets thus written 
 were published in 1853, in a large duodecimo of G70 pages, entitled Miscellaneous 
 ' Writings on Slavery. All his publications on this subject are uniformly charac- 
 terized by the candor of a philosopher, the accuracy of a statesman, the courtesy 
 of a gentleman, and the charity of a Christian. The extent of his information 
 and the correctness of his assertions, in all historical subjects, were alike re- 
 markable. None of his statements in his carefully-written History of the Jfexiean 
 War have ever been refuted, — a history that will remain an enduring monument 
 to his truthfulness and faithfulness in historic research, to his unbending in- 
 tegrity, and to his pure and elevated Christian principles. 
 
 Judge Jay died at his residence in Bedford, Westchester County, New York, on 
 the 14th of October, 1858, leaving an example worthy of all imitation. In the 
 discharge of his judicial duties for thirty years, he showed himself the wise and 
 upright as well as learned judge; while in his private life he was a model of per- 
 sonal excellence, — an exemplification of the true Christian character. 
 
WILLIAM JAY. 
 
 320 
 
 PATRIOTISM. 
 
 Counterfeits imply an original. There is such a virtue as 
 patriotism, acknowledged and inculcated by both natural and re- 
 vealed religion ; and it is but a development of that benevolence 
 which springs from moral goodness. To do good unto all men 
 as we have opportunity, is an injunction invested with divine 
 authority. Generally, our ability to do good is confined to our 
 families, neighbors, and countrymen j and the natural promptings 
 of our hearts lead us to select these, in preference to more distant 
 objects, for the subjects of our kind offices. Our benevolence, 
 when directed, to our countrymen at large, constitutes patriotism; 
 and its exercise is as much controlled by the laws of morality as 
 when confined to our neighbors or our families. A voice from 
 heaven has forbidden us " to do evil that good may come." The 
 sentiment, " Our country, right or wrong," is as profligate and 
 impious as would be the sentiment, " Our church, or our party, 
 right or wrong." If it be rebellion against God to violate his 
 laws for the benefit of one individual, however dear to us, not less 
 sinful must it be to commit a similar act for the benefit of any 
 number of individuals. If we may not, in kindness to the high- 
 wayman, assist him in robbing and murdering the traveller, what 
 divine law permits us to aid any number of our own countrymen 
 in robbing and murdering other people ? He who engages in a 
 defensive war, with a full conviction of its necessity and justice, 
 may be impelled by patriotism, by a benevolent desire to save the 
 lives, and property, and rights of his countrymen. But, if he be- 
 lieves the war to be one of invasion and conquest, and utterly 
 unjust, by taking part in it he assumes its guilt, and becomes 
 responsible for its crimes. 
 
 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 
 
 The American people have by acclamation adjudged John 
 Quincy Adams a patriot, — a judgment from which not one 
 politician of any name has dared to appeal. This judgment sets 
 aside, condemns, and repudiates almost every test of patriotism 
 prescribed by the demagogues of the day. It has now been de- 
 cided, by a tribunal which these men admit to be infallible, that a 
 man may be a patriot, nay, an " illustrious patriot," according to 
 the official gazette, who openly repudiates the sentiment, " Our 
 country, right or wrong;" 1 who, on a question of international law, 
 
 1 In some verses written by Mr. Adams shortly before his death, and entitled 
 " Congress, Slavery, and an Unjust War," are these lines : — 
 
 " And say not thou, ' My country, right or wrong,' 
 Nor shed thy blood for an unhallow'd cause." 
 28* 
 
330 
 
 WILLIAM JAY. 
 
 sides with a foreign government against his own j who gives " aid 
 and comfort" to the enemy by denouncing as unjust the war 
 waged against him, and by striving to withhold supplies from the 
 army sent to fight him ; who mourns over the degeneracy of his 
 country and doubts whether she is to be numbered " among the 
 first liberators or the last oppressors of the race of immortal man j" 
 who, notwithstanding all "the compromises of the Constitution/' 
 denounces human bondage as a crime against God, and proposes 
 so to change the Constitution as to effect the immediate abolition 
 of hereditary slavery throughout the American Confederacy, and, 
 pouring contempt upon the lying Democracy of the day, claims for 
 the black man the same rights of suffrage that are accorded to his 
 white fellow-citizen. 
 
 Such is the character of a patriot, as established by the latest 
 decision of the American public. Surely there must have been 
 some potent principle of action which impelled him to pursue a 
 path so divergent from those usually selected by political aspirants, 
 — one, to all appearance, leading him far from popular applause, 
 and yet in the end conducting him to the very pinnacle of fame. 
 There was such a principle, and it is shadowed forth in the moral 
 with which Mr. McDowell " adorned his tale." " His life," said 
 the Virginia eulogist, " has been a continuous and beautiful illus- 
 tration of the great truth that, while the fear of man is the con- 
 summation of all folly, the fear of God is the beginning of wis- 
 dom." 1 Unhappy it is for our country, that the reverse of this 
 truth forms the maxim by which so many of our public men 
 apparently govern their conduct. But what was the secret of the 
 great strength of this moral Samson? Since his death, certain 
 letters to his son have been given to the press, and in these we 
 find an answer to the inquiry. It appears that, while at the court 
 of St. Petersburg, in 1811, he commenced a series of letters to his 
 absent child, on the study of the Bible, — " the divine revelation," 
 as he called it. In these he remarks, " I have myself, for many 
 years, made it a practice to read through the Bible once every 
 year. I have always endeavored to read it with the same spirit 
 and temper of mind which I now recommend to you; that is, 
 with the intention and desire that it may contribute to my ad- 
 vancement in wisdom and virtue. My custom is, to read four or 
 five chapters every morning, immediately after rising from my 
 bed. It employs about half an hour of my time, and seems to me 
 the most suitable manner of beginning the day." The following 
 advice to his son seems both indicative of his own future course, 
 and prophetic of its glorious termination : — " Never give way to 
 
 1 From the Eulogy pronounced in the House of Representatives, by Hon. Wil- 
 liam McDowell, of Virginia. 
 
WILLIAM JAY. 
 
 331 
 
 the pushes of impudence, wrong-headedness, or intractability, 
 which would lead or draw you aside from the dictates of your 
 own conscience and your own sense of right. Till you die, let 
 not your integrity depart from you. Build your house upon the 
 rock, and then let the rains descend, and the flood come, and the 
 winds blow, and beat upon that house, it shall not fall. So pro- 
 mises your blessed Lord and Master." In a most wonderful 
 manner was this promise fulfilled in his own case, even in the 
 present world. But there is a day approaching when the secrets 
 of all hearts shall be laid open, and when every man shall come to 
 judgment. Then will those who have in this life pursued expe- 
 diency in preference to duty, learn, when too late, that " the 
 wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." 
 
 THE HIGHER LAW 7 . 1 
 
 Human government is indispensable to the happiness and pro- 
 gress of human society. Hence God, in his wisdom and benevo- 
 lence, wills its existence ; and in this sense, and this alone, the 
 powers that be are ordained by him. But civil government can- 
 not exist if each individual may, at' his pleasure, forcibly resist 
 its injunctions. Therefore, Christians are required to submit to 
 the powers that be, whether a Nero or a slave-catching Congress. 
 But obedience to the civil ruler often necessarily involves-rebel- 
 lion to God. Hence we are warned by Christ and his apostles, 
 and by the example of saints in all ages, in such cases, not to 
 obey, but to submit and suffer. We are to hold fast our allegiance 
 to Jehovah, but at the same time not to take up arms to defend 
 ourselves against the penalties imposed by the magistrate for our 
 disobedience. Thus the divine sovereignty and the authority of 
 human government are both maintained. Revolution is not the 
 abolition of human government, but a change in its form, and its 
 lawfulness depends on circumstances. What was the " den" in 
 which John Bunyan had his glorious vision of the " Pilgrim's 
 Progress" ? A prison to which he was confined for years for 
 refusing obedience to human laws. And what excuse did this 
 holy man make for conduct now denounced as wicked and rebel- 
 lious ? "I cannot obey, but I can suffer." The Quakers have 
 from the first refused to obey the law requiring them to bear arms ; 
 yet have they never been vilified by our politicians and " cotton 
 clergymen" as rebels against the powers that be, nor sneered at 
 for their acknowledgment of a " higher" than human law. The 
 
 1 From "A Letter to the Hon. Samuel A. Elliot, Representative in Congress 
 from the City of Boston, in Reply to his Apology for Voting for the Fugitive 
 Slave Bill." 
 
332 
 
 JARED SPARKS. 
 
 Lord Jesus Christ, after requiring us to love God and our neigh- 
 bor, added, " There is none other commandment greater than 
 these no, not even a slave-catching act of Congress, which re- 
 quires us to hunt our neighbor, that he may be reduced to the 
 condition of a beast of burden. Rarely has the religious faith of 
 the community received so rude a shock as that which has been 
 given it by your horrible law, and the principles advanced by its 
 political and clerical supporters. Cruelty, oppression, and in- 
 justice are elevated into virtues; while justice, mercy, and com- 
 passion are ridiculed and vilified. 
 
 JARED SPARKS. 
 
 Jaued Sparks, whose name will ever be inseparably associated with American 
 history, and who has done so much to hand down to posterity the great names and 
 important events of our Revolutionary annals, was born in Willington, Conuec- 
 ticut, in 1789. His father was a poor farmer, and he was apprenticed to a car- 
 penter. But his innate love of books was so strong that he would devote all his 
 leisure time to reading and study ; and, finding a number of kind friends ready to 
 aid him in his pursuit of knowledge, he went, in 1809, to Phillips Academy, 
 Exeter, New Hampshire. He graduated at Harvard in 1815 ; was preceptor of 
 Lancaster Academy for one year, and then returned to Cambridge to pursue his 
 theological studies, at the same time discharging the duties of tutor in the college, 
 in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. 
 
 On the 5th of May, 1819, he was ordained over the First Unitarian Church in 
 Baltimore, and for a number of years he wrote extensively upon subjects of 
 theological controversy, publishing, in 1820, Letters on the Ministry, Ritual, and 
 Doctrines of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in reply to a sermon by Rev. 
 William E. Wyatt, of St. Paul's Church. About this time he edited a monthly 
 periodical, entitled The Unitarian Miscellany and Christian Monitor. "While in 
 Baltimore, he commenced the publication of a Collection of Essays and Tracts in 
 Theology, from Various Authors, with Biographical and Critical Notices ; com- 
 pleted in Boston, in 1826, in six volumes. In 1823 appeared An Inquiry into the 
 Comparative Moral Tendency of Trinitarian and Unitarian Doctrines, in a scries 
 of Letters to Samuel Miller, D.D., of Princeton. The latter part of that year he 
 removed to Boston, and purchased the "North American Review," of which he 
 became the sole editor, and continued such till 1S30. In 1828, "he commenced 
 that noble series of volumes illustrative of American History, to which he has 
 ever since devoted himself, and which have forever associated his own name with 
 the names of the most illustrious of our countrymen." 
 
 The first of his historical works was the Life of John Ledyard, the American 
 Navigator and Traveller, one volume, octavo, published in 1828 ; the second, The 
 Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, in 12 volumes, 1S29 to 1831.; 
 the third, The Life of Gouverneur Morris, in three volumes, 1832; the fourth, Tie 
 
JAR ED SPARKS. 
 
 333 
 
 Life and Writings of Washington, twelve volumes, 1833 to 1840; the fifth, The 
 Works of Benjamin Franklin, with Notes and a Life of the Author, ten volumes, 
 1S40 : the sixth, Correspondence of the American Revolution j being Letters of Emi- 
 nent Men to George Washington, from the time of his talcing the command of the army 
 to the end of his Presidency, four volumes, 1853, 
 
 In 1835, Mr. Sparks commenced the Library of American Biography, and the 
 first series, in ten volumes, was completed in 1S39. The "Second Scries," con- 
 sisting of fifteen volumes, was begun in 1S43, and finished in 1816. Of the 
 sixty lives in these twenty-five volumes, Mr. Sparks wrote the biographies of 
 Ethan Allen, Benedict Arnold, Father Marquette, Robert Cavelier de la Salle, 
 Count Pulaski, John Ribault, Charles Lee, and John Ledyard. It is to Mr. 
 Sparks, also, that we are indebted for one of the most valuable periodical publi- 
 cations, "The American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge," the 
 first volume of which was edited by him in 1830. This is a work of such value 
 as a book of reference that no one who has ever taken it feels that he can do 
 without it. 
 
 In 1839, Mr. Sparks was appointed to the M'Lean Professorship of Ancient 
 and Modern History in Harvard University, which chair he held till 1849, when 
 he was elected President of that institution. This high post of honor and re- 
 sponsibility he held till 1852, when he felt obliged to resign it on account of ill 
 health. 
 
 Such is a brief outline of the literary labors of this distinguished scholar, who 
 now resides in Cambridge, engaged, it is said, on a History of the Foreign Rela- 
 tions of the United States during the American Revolution. 
 
 ANECDOTE OF JOHN LEDYARD. 
 
 On the margin of the Connecticut River, which runs near the 
 college, 1 stood many majestic forest trees, nourished by a rich 
 soil. One of these Ledyard contrived to cut down. Pie then 
 set himself at work to fashion its trunk into a canoe, and in this 
 labor he was assisted by some of his fellow-students. As the 
 canoe was fifty feet long, and three wide, and was to be dug out 
 and constructed by these unskilful workmen, the task was not 
 a trifling one, nor such as could be speedily executed. Operations 
 were carried on with spirit, however, till Ledyard wounded him- 
 self with an axe, and was disabled for several days. "When he 
 recovered, he applied himself anew to his work ; the canoe was 
 finished, launched into the stream, and, by the further aid of his 
 companions, equipped and prepared for a voyage. His wishes 
 were now at their consummation, and, bidding adieu to these 
 haunts of the muses, where he had gained a dubious mine, he set 
 off alone, with a light heart, to explore a river with the naviga- 
 tion of which he had not the slightest acquaintance. The dis- 
 
 1 Dartmouth College, Xew Hampshire. 
 
334 
 
 JARED SPARKS. 
 
 tance to Hartford was not less than one hundred and forty miles ; 
 much of the way was through a wilderness, and in several places 
 there were dangerous falls and rapids. 
 
 With a bearskin for a covering, and his canoe well stocked 
 with provisions, he yielded himself to the current, and floated 
 leisurely down the stream, seldom using his paddle, and stopping 
 only in the night for sleep. He told Mr. Jefferson in Paris, four- 
 teen years afterwards, that he took only two books with him, a 
 Greek Testament and Ovid, one of which he was deeply engaged 
 in reading when his canoe approached Bellows' Falls, where he 
 was suddenly roused by the noise of the waters rushing among 
 the rocks through the narrow passage. The danger was imminent, 
 as no boat could go down that fall without being instantly dashed 
 in pieces. With difficulty he gained the shore in time to escape 
 such a catastrophe, and, through the kind assistance of the people 
 in the neighborhood, who were astonished at the novelty of such 
 a voyage down the Connecticut, his canoe was drawn by oxen 
 around the fall, and committed again to the water below. From 
 that time, till he arrived at his place of destination, we hear of no 
 accident, although he was carried through several dangerous 
 passes in the river. On a bright spring morning, just as the sun 
 was rising, some of Mr. Seymour's family were standing near his 
 house on the high bank of the small river that runs through the 
 city of Hartford and empties itself into the Connecticut River, 
 when they espied at some distance an object of unusual appear- 
 ance, moving slowly up the stream. Others were attracted by the 
 singularity of the sight, and all were conjecturing what it could 
 be, till its questionable shape assumed the true and obvious form 
 of a canoe; but by what impulse it was moved forward, none 
 could determine. Something was seen in the stern, but appa- 
 rently without life or motion. At length the canoe touched the 
 shore directly in front of the house ; a person sprang from the 
 stern to a rock in the edge of the water, threw off a bearskin in 
 which he had been enveloped, and behold John Ledyard, in the 
 presence of his uncle and connections, who were filled with 
 wonder at this sudden apparition ; for they had received no intel- 
 ligence of his intention to leave Dartmouth, but supposed him 
 still there, diligently pursuing his studies, and fitting himself to 
 be a missionary among the Indians. 
 
 We cannot look back to Ledyard, thus launching himself alone 
 in so frail a bark, upon the waters of a river wholly unknown to 
 him, without being reminded of the only similar occurrence which 
 has been recorded — the voyage down the river Niger, by Mungo 
 Park, a name standing at the very head of those most renowned 
 for romantic and lofty enterprise. The melancholy fate, it is true, 
 by which he was soon arrested in his noble career, adds greatly to 
 
V 
 
 JARED SPARKS. 
 
 335 
 
 the interest of his situation, when pushing from the shore his 
 little boat Joliba, and causes us to read his last affecting letter to 
 his wife with emotions of sympathy more intense, if possible, than 
 would be felt if the tragical issue were not already known. In 
 many points of character, there was a strong resemblance between 
 these two distinguished travellers, and they both perished, mar- 
 tyrs in the same cause, attempting to explore the hidden regions 
 of Africa. 
 
 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 
 
 The acts of the Revolution derive dignity and interest from the 
 character of the actors, and the nature and magnitude of the 
 events. Statesmen were at hand, who, if not skilled in the art 
 of governing empires, were thoroughly imbued with the principles 
 of just government, intimately acquainted with the history of 
 former ages, and, above all, with the condition, sentiments, feel- 
 ings of their countrymen. If there were no Eichelieus nor 
 3Iazarins, no Cecils nor Chathams, in America, there were men 
 who, like Themistocles, knew how to raise a small state to glory 
 and greatness. 
 
 The eloquence and the internal counsels of the Old Congress 
 were never recorded : we know them only in their results ; but 
 that assembly, with no other power than that conferred by the 
 suffrage of the people, with no other influence than that of their 
 public virtue and talents, and without precedent to guide their 
 deliberations — unsupported even by the arm of the law or of 
 ancient usages — that assembly levied troops, imposed taxes, and 
 for years not only retained the confidence and upheld the civil 
 existence of a distracted country, but carried through a perilous 
 war under its most aa'^ravatimr burdens of sacrifice and suffering. 
 Can we imagine a situation in which were required higher moral 
 courage, more intelligence and talent, a deeper insight into human 
 nature and the principles of social and political organizations, or, 
 indeed, any of those qualities which constitute greatness of cha- 
 racter in a statesman ? See, likewise, that work of wonder, the 
 Confederation — a union of independent States, constructed in the 
 very heart of a desolating war, but with a beauty and strength, 
 imperfect as it was, of which the ancient leagues of the Amphic- 
 tyons, the Aehaeans, the Lycians, and the modern confederacies 
 of Germany, Holland, Switzerland, afford neither exemplar nor 
 parallel. 
 
 In their foreign affairs, these same statesmen showed no less 
 sagacity and skill, taking their stand boldly in the rank of nations, 
 maintaining it there, competing with the tactics of practised di- 
 plomacy, and extorting from the powers of the Old World not only 
 the homage of respect, but the proffers of friendship. 
 
336 
 
 LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURXEY. 
 
 The instructive lesson of history, teaching by example, can no- 
 where be studied with more profit, or with a better promise, than 
 in this Revolutionary period of America; and especially by us, 
 who sit under the tree our fathers have planted, enjoy its shade, 
 and are nourished by its fruits. But little is our merit or gain 
 that we applaud their deeds, unless we emulate their virtues. 
 Love of country was in them an absorbing principle, an un- 
 divided feeling; not of a fragment, a section, but of the whole 
 country. Union was the arch on which they raised the strong 
 tower of a nation's independence. Let the arm be palsied that 
 would loosen one stone in the basis of this fair structure, or mar 
 its beauty j the tongue mute that would dishonor their names, by 
 calculating the value of that which they deemed without price. 
 
 They have left us an example already inscribed in the world's 
 memory ; an example portentous to the aims of tyranny in every 
 land ; an example that will console in all ages the drooping aspi- 
 rations of oppressed humanity. They have left us a written 
 charter as a legacy, and as a guide to our course. But every day 
 convinces us that a written charter may become powerless. Igno- 
 rance may misinterpret it ; ambition may assail, and faction de- 
 stroy, its vital parts ; and aspiring knavery may at last sing its 
 requiem on the tomb of departed liberty. It is the spirit which 
 lives ; in this are our safety and our hope, — the spirit of our 
 fathers ; and while this dwells deeply in our remembrance, and 
 its flame is cherished, ever burning, ever pure, on the altar of our 
 hearts ; while it incites us to think as they have thought, and do 
 as they have done, the honor and the praise will be ours, to have 
 preserved, unimpaired, the rich inheritance which they so nobly 
 achieved. 
 
 LYDIA HUXTLEY SIGOURXEY. 
 
 Lydia Huntley Sigourxey is the only child of the late Ezekiel Huntley, of 
 Norwich, Connecticut, where she was born on the 1st of September, 1791. In 
 her earliest jears she gave evidence of uncommon abilities, and when eight years 
 old began to develop those poetical talents which have since made her name so 
 widely and favorably known. The hest advantages of education which could he 
 attained in her childhood and youth were secured to her : and, upon leaving 
 school, she herself engaged in the instruction of a select number of young ladies, 
 — a position to which she had long aspired. 
 
 In 1S15, Miss Huntley was induced by Daniel "Wadsworth, Esq., — an intelli- 
 gent and wealthy gentleman of Hartford, — to give a volume of her poems to the 
 public. It was published under the modest title of Moral Pieces in Prose and 
 Verse, and showed very clearly that an author who had done so well could do still 
 
LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY. 
 
 337 
 
 better. 1 In 1819, she was married to Charles Sigourney, Esq., a leading mer- 
 chant of Hartford, and a gentleman of education and literary taste. Henceforth 
 her career was to be that of an author. The true interests of her own sex and the 
 good of the rising generation stimulated her efforts in such works as Letters to 
 Pupils; Letters to Young Ladies ; Whisper to a Bride; and Letters to Mothers. 
 The guidance of the unfolding mind, impressed on her as it was, night and day, 
 by the assiduous home-culture of her own children, called forth the Child's Book; 
 Girl's Book; Boys Book; How to be Happy ; and a variety of other juvenile 
 works, which have been deservedly popular. 
 
 A conviction of the importance of temperance suggested Water-Drops ; of the 
 blessings of peace, Olive- Leaves. Scenes in my Native Land portray some of the 
 attractions of the country that she loves; and Pleasant Memories of Pleasant 
 Lands give us life-pictures of a tour in Europe. Those " who go down to the sea 
 in ships" find a companion in her Sea and Sailor; the forgotten red man is re- 
 membered in Pocahontas ; the harp of comfort for mourners is hung upon the 
 Weeping Willow; while the young and blooming may hear her Voice of Flowers 
 among the lilies of the field. Sayings of the Little Ones, and Poems for their 
 Mothers, express her sympathies for the helpless stranger just entering life; Past 
 Meridian, 2 for the wearied pilgrim trembling at the gates of the west; while 
 Lucy Howard's Journal shows the influence of a right home-training on the duties 
 and destinies of woman. Since she entered the field of authorship, between forty 
 and fifty volumes, varying in size, have emanated from her pen; and she yet 
 continues, with unflagging industry, her intellectual labors, enjoying, with un- 
 impaired powers, that happiness of existence which sometimes brightens with 
 age. Every thing that she has written has been pure and elevating in its whole 
 tone and influence : other writers have had more learning, more genius, more 
 power, but none have employed their talents for a higher end, — to make the 
 world wiser, happier, holier. An accomplished critic 3 has remarked of her poems 
 that "they express, with great purity and evident sincerity, the tender affections 
 which are so natural to the female heart, and the lofty aspirations after a higher 
 and better state of being, which constitute the truly ennobling and elevating 
 principle in art as well as nature. Love and religion are the unvarying elements 
 
 1 This was quite favorably noticed in the very first number of the " North 
 American Review," May, IS 15. Little did she then dream that so long a literary 
 life was before her, — a life of pure beneficence, — and that forty-two years after, 
 the same review would notice her forty-second published work {Past Meridian) in 
 still warmer terms of praise. 
 
 2 "Mrs. Sigourney has never before written so wisely, so usefully, so beauti- 
 fully, as in this volume. In saying so, we yield to none in our high appreciation 
 of her previous literary merit; but, unless we greatly mistake, this is one of the 
 comparatively few books of our day which will be read with glistening eyes and 
 glowing heart, when all who now read it will have gone to their graves. It is 
 written by her in the character of one who has passed the meridian of life, and 
 addresses itself to sensations and experiences which all whose faces are turned 
 westward can understand, and feel with her. It is devotion, philosophy, and 
 poetry, so intertwined that each is enriched and adorned by the association. 
 Above all, it blends with the serene sunset of a well-spent life the young morning 
 beams of the never-setting day." — North American Iievieio, January, 1857. 
 
 3 Alexander H. Everett. 
 
 29 
 
338 
 
 LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY. 
 
 ot her song. If her power of expression was equal to the purity and elevation 
 of her habits of thought and feeling, she would be a female Milton or a Christian 
 Pindar." 
 
 WIDOW AT HER DAUGHTER'S BRIDAL. 
 
 Deal gently, thou, whose hand hath won 
 
 The young bird from its nest away, 
 Where, careless, 'neath a vernal sun, 
 
 She gayly caroll'd, day by day ; 
 The haunt is lone, the heart must grieve, 
 
 From whence her timid wing doth soar, 
 They pensive list at hush of eve, 
 
 Yet hear her gushing song no more. 
 
 Deal gently with her : thou art dear, 
 
 Beyond what vestal lips have told, 
 And, like a lamb from fountains clear, 
 
 She turns confiding to thy fold ; 
 She round thy sweet domestic bower 
 
 The wreath of changeless love shall twine, 
 Watch for thy step at vesper hour, 
 
 And blend her holiest prayer with thine. 
 
 Deal gently, thou, when, far away, 
 
 'Mid stranger scenes her foot shall rove, 
 Nor let thy tender care decay, — 
 
 The soul of woman lives in love : 
 And shouldst thou, wondering, mark a tear, 
 
 Unconscious, from her eyelids break, 
 Be pitiful, and soothe the fear 
 
 That man's strong heart may ne'er partake. 
 
 A mother yields her gem to thee, 
 
 On thy true breast to sparkle rare, 
 She places 'neath thy household tree 
 
 The idol of her fondest care ; 
 And by thy trust to be forgiven 
 
 When judgment wakes in terror wild, 
 By all thy treasured hopes of heaven, 
 
 Deal gently with the widow's child. 
 
 NIAGARA. 
 
 Flow on forever, in thy glorious robe 
 Of terror and of beauty. Yes, flow on, 
 Unfathom'd and resistless. God hath set 
 His rainbow on thy forehead, and the cloud 
 Mantled around thy feet. — And he doth give 
 Thy voice of thunder power to speak of him 
 Eternally, — bidding the lip of man 
 Keep silence, and upon thy rocky altar pour 
 Incense of awe-struck praise. 
 
LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY. 
 
 And who can dare 
 To lift the insect trump of earthly hope, 
 Or love, or sorrow, 'mid the peal sublime 
 Of thy tremendous hymn ? — Even Ocean shrinks 
 Back from thy brotherhood, and his wild waves 
 Retire abash'd. — For he doth sometimes seem 
 To sleep like a spent laborer, and recall 
 His wearied billows from their vexing play, 
 And lull them to a cradle calm: but thou, 
 With everlasting, undecaying tide, 
 Doth rest not night or day. 
 
 The morning stars, 
 When first they sang o'er young creation's birth, 
 Heard thy deep anthem, — and those wrecking fir< 
 That wait the archangel's signal to dissolve 
 The solid earth, shall find Jehovah's name 
 Graven, as with a thousand diamond spears, 
 On thine unfathom'd page. — Each leafy bough 
 That lifts itself within thy proud domain, 
 Doth gather greenness from thy living spray, 
 And tremble at the baptism. — Lo ! yon birds 
 Do venture boldly near, bathing their wing 
 Amid thy foam and mist. — 'Tis meet for them 
 To touch thy garment's hem, — or lightly stir 
 The snowy leaflets of thy vapor wreath, — 
 Who sport unharm'd upon the fleecy cloud, 
 And listen at the echoing gate of heaven, 
 Without reproof. — But as for us, — it seems 
 Scarce lawful with our broken tones to speak 
 Familiarly of thee. — Methinks, to tint 
 Thy glorious features with our pencil's point, 
 Or woo thee to the tablet of a song, 
 Were profanation. 
 
 Thou dost make the soul 
 A wondering witness of thy majesty ; 
 And while it rushes with delirious joy 
 To tread thy vestibule, dost chain its step, 
 And check its rapture with the humbling view 
 Of its own nothingness, bidding it stand 
 In the dread presence of the Invisible, 
 As if to answer to its God through thee. 
 
 A BUTTERFLY ON A CHILD'S GRAVE. 
 
 A butterfly bask'd on a baby's grave, 
 Where a lily had chanced to grow : 
 "Why art thou here, with thy gaudy dye, 
 When she of the blue and sparkling eye 
 Must sleep in the churchyard low ?" 
 
 Then it lightly soar'd through the sunny air, 
 And spoke from its shining track : 
 
LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY. 
 
 "I was a -worm till I won my wings, 
 And she whom thou mourn'st, like a seraph sings 
 Wouldst thou call the blest one hack?" 
 
 DEATH OF AN INFANT. 
 
 Death found strange beauty on that polish'd brow, 
 And dash'd it out. There was a tint of rose 
 On cheek and lip. He touclrd the veins with ice, 
 And the rose faded. Forth from those blue eyes 
 There spake a wishful tenderness, a doubt 
 Whether to grieve or sleep, which innocence 
 Alone may wear. With ruthless haste he bound 
 The silken fringes of those curtaining lids 
 Forever. There had been a murmuring sound 
 With which the babe would claim its mother's ear, 
 Charming her even to tears. The spoiler set 
 The seal of silence. But there beam'd a smile, 
 So fix'd, so holy, from that cherub brow, 
 Death gazed, and left it there. He dared not steal 
 The signet-ring of Heaven. 
 
 ALPINE ELOWERS. 
 
 Meek dwellers 'mid yon terror-stricken cliff's ! 
 With brows so pure, and incense-breathing lips, 
 Whence are ye? Did some white-wing'd messenger 
 On mercy's missions trust your timid germ 
 To the cold cradle of eternal snows? 
 Or, breathing on the callous icicles, 
 Bid them with tear-drops nurse ye ? — 
 
 — Tree nor shrub 
 Dare that drear atmosphere ; no polar pine 
 Uprears a veteran front ; yet there ye stand, 
 Leaning your cheeks against the thick-ribb*d ice, 
 And looking up with brilliant eyes to Him 
 Who bids you bloom unblanch'd amid the waste 
 Of desolation. Man, who, panting, toils 
 O'er slippery steeps, or, trembling, treads the verge 
 Of yawning gulfs, o'er which the headlong plunge 
 Is to eternity, looks shuddering up, 
 And marks ye in your placid loveliness. — 
 Fearless, yet frail, — and, clasping his chill hands, 
 Blesses your pencill'd beauty. 'Mid the pomp 
 Of mountain-summits rushing on the sky, 
 And chaining the rapt soul in breathless awe, 
 He bows to bind you drooping to his breast, 
 Inhales your spirit from the frost-wing'd gale 
 And freer dreams of heaven. 
 
 CONTENTMENT. 
 
 Think'st thou the steed that restless roves 
 O'er rocks and mountains, fields and groves, 
 
LYDIA HUNTLEY S1G0UHNEY. 
 
 341 
 
 With wild, unbridled bound. 
 Finds fresher pasture than the bee, 
 On thyiny bank or vernal tree, 
 Intent to store her industry 
 
 "Within her waxen round? 
 
 Think'st thou the fountain forced to turn 
 Through marble vase or sculptured urn 
 
 Affords a sweeter draught 
 Than that which, in its native sphere, 
 Perennial, undisturb'd and clear, 
 Flows the lone traveller's thirst to cheer, 
 
 And wake his grateful thought ? 
 
 Think'st thou the man whose mansions hold 
 The worldling's pomp and miser's gold 
 
 Obtains a richer prize 
 Than he who, in his cot at rest, 
 Finds heavenly peace a willing guest, 
 And bears the promise in his breast 
 
 Of treasure in the skies ? 
 
 THE CORAL-INSECT. 
 
 Toil on ! toil on ! ye ephemeral train, 
 
 Who build in the tossing and treacherous main ; 
 
 Toil on — for the wisdom of man ye mock, 
 
 With your sand-based structures and domes of rock : 
 
 Your columns the fathomless fountains lave, 
 
 And your arches spring up to the crested wave ; 
 
 Ye're a puny race, thus to boldly rear 
 
 A fabric so vast, in a realm so drear. 
 
 Ye bind the deep with your secret zone, 
 
 The ocean is seal'd, and the surge a stone ; 
 
 Fresh wreaths from the coral pavement spring, 
 
 Like the terraced pride of Assyria's king ; 
 
 The turf looks green where the breakers roll'd ; 
 
 O'er the whirlpool ripens the rind of gold ; 
 
 The sea-snatch'd isle is the home of men, 
 
 And the mountains exult where the wave hath been. 
 
 But why do ye plant 'neath the billows dark 
 The wrecking reef for the gallant bark ? 
 There are snares enough on the tented field, 
 'Mid the blossom'd sweets that the valleys yield ; 
 There are serpents to coil, ere the flowers are up ; 
 There's a poison-drop in man's purest cup ; 
 There are foes that watch for his cradle breath; 
 And why need ye sow the floods with death? 
 
 With mouldering bones the deeps are white, 
 From the ice-clad pole to the tropics bright ; 
 The mei*maid hath twisted her fingers cold 
 With the mesh of the sea-boy's curls of gold, 
 
342 
 
 LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY. 
 
 And the gods of ocean hare frown'd to see 
 The mariner's bed in their halls of glee ; 
 Hath earth no graves, that ye thus must spread 
 The boundless sea for the thronging dead? 
 
 Ye build — ye build — but ye enter not in, 
 
 Like the tribes whom the desert devour'd in their sin ; 
 
 From the land of promise ye fade and die, 
 
 Ere its verdure gleams forth on your weary eye; 
 
 As the kings of the cloud-crown'd pyramid, 
 
 Their noteless bones in oblivion hid, 
 
 Ye slumber unmark'd 'mi?l the desolate main, 
 
 While the wonder and pride of your works remain. 
 
 THE GAIN OF ADVERSITY. 
 
 " Sweet are the nses of adversity." 
 
 A Lily said to a threatening Cloud 
 That in sternest garb array'd him, 
 
 "You have taken my lord, the Sun, away, 
 And I knoAV not where you have laid him." 
 
 It folded its leaves, and trembled sore 
 As the hours of darkness press'd it, 
 
 But at morn, like a bride, in beauty shone, 
 For with pearls the dews had dress'd it. 
 
 Then it felt ashamed of its fretful thought, 
 And fain in the dust would hide it, 
 
 For the night of weeping had jewels brought, 
 Which the pride of day denied it. 
 
 THE PRIVILEGES OF AGE. 
 
 The aged, especially if their conquest of self is imperfect, are 
 prone to underrate the advantages that remain. Their minds 
 linger among depressing subjects, repining for what "time's effac- 
 ing fingers'' will never restore. Far better would it be to muse 
 on their remaining privileges, to recount them, and to rejoice in 
 them. Many instances have I witnessed, both of this spirit, and 
 the want of it, which left enduring impressions. 
 
 I well remember an ancient dwelling, sheltered by lofty, um- 
 brageous trees, and with all the appendages of rural comfort. A 
 fair prospect of hill and dale, and broad river, and distant spire, 
 cheered the vine-covered piazzas, through whose loop-holes, with 
 the subdued cry of the steam-borne cars, the world's great Babel 
 made a dash at the picture without coming too near. Traits of 
 agricultural life, divested of its rude and sordid toils, were plea- 
 santly visible. A smooth-coated and symmetrical cow ruminated 
 over her clover-meal. A faithful horse, submissive to the gentlest 
 
LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY. 
 
 343 
 
 rein, protruded his honest face through the barn window. A few 
 brooding mothers were busy with the nurture of their chickens, 
 while the proud father of the flock told, with a clarion-voice, his 
 happiness. There were trees, whose summer fruits were richly 
 swelling, and bushes of ripening berries, and gardens of choice 
 vegetables. Those who, from the hot and dusty city, came to 
 breathe the pure air of this sylvan retreat, took note of these 
 " creature-comforts," and thought they added beauty to the 
 landscape. 
 
 Within the abode, fair pictures and books of no mean literature 
 adorned the parlors; in the carpeted kitchen, ticked the stately 
 old family clock, while the bright dishes stood in orderly array 
 upon the speckless shelves. Visitants could not but admire that 
 union of taste and education which makes rural life beautiful. It 
 might seem almost as an Elysium, where care would delight 
 to repose, or philosophjr to pursue her researches without interrup- 
 tion. But to any such remark, the excellent owner was wont 
 mournfully to reply, — 
 
 " Here are only two old people together. Our children are 
 married and gone. Some of them are dead. .We cannot be ex- 
 pected to have much enjoyment." 
 
 Oh, dear friends, but it is expected that you should. Your 
 very statement of the premises is an admission of peculiar sources 
 of comfort. 
 
 " Two old people together." Whose sympathies can be so per- 
 fect ? And is not sympathy a source of happiness ? Side by 
 side ye have journeyed through joys and sorrows. You have stood 
 by the grave's brink when it swallowed up your idols, and the 
 iron that entered into your souls was fused as a living link, that 
 time might never destroy. Under the cloud, and through the 
 sea, you have walked hand in hand, heart to heart. What subjects 
 of communion must you have, with which no other human being 
 could intermeddle ! 
 
 " Tico old people." Would your experience be so rich and 
 profound, if you were not old ? or your congeniality so entire, 
 if one was old, and the other young ? What a blessing that you 
 can say, There are two of us. Can you realize the loneliness of 
 soul that must gather around the words "left alone 1" How many 
 of memory's cherished pictures must then be viewed through 
 blinding tears ! how feelingly the expression of the poet must be 
 adopted — " 'tis the survivor dies" ! 
 
 "Our children are married and. gone." Would you have it 
 otherwise ? Was it not fitting for them to comply with the insti- 
 tution of their Creator ? Is it not better than if they were all at 
 home, without congenial employment, pining in disappointed hope, 
 or solitude of the heart? Married and gone ! To teach in other 
 
344 
 
 ALEXANDER II . EVERETT. 
 
 homes the virtues they have learned from you. Perchance, in 
 newer settlements, to diffuse the energy of right habits, and the 
 high influence of pure principles. Gone! to learn the luxury of 
 life's most intense affections, and wisely to train their own young 
 blossoms for time and for eternity. Praise God that it is so. 
 
 " Some are dead." They have gone a little before. They have 
 shown you the way through that gate where all the living must 
 pass. Will not their voice of welcome be sweet in the skies ? 
 Dream ye not sometimes that ye hear the echo of their harp- 
 strings ? Is not your eternal home brought nearer and made 
 dearer by them ? Then praise God. 
 
 Past Meridian. 
 
 ALEXANDER H. EVERETT, 1791—1847. 
 
 Alexander Hill Everett, son of Rev. Oliver Everett, of Dorchester, Massa- 
 chusetts, was born in Boston, March 19, 1790, and graduated with very dis- 
 tinguished reputation .at Harvard University, in 1806. After leaving college, he 
 was an usher in Phillips Exeter Academy, and then engaged in the study of the 
 law. In 1809, he accompanied John Quincy Adams, as secretary of legation, to 
 St. Petersburg,- and after that his life was more devoted to diplomatic pursuits 
 than to the legal profession. 
 
 In 1S15, he again went to Europe as secretary of legation at the court of the 
 King of the Netherlands, and returned home in 1817. In IS 1 8 he embarked 
 again for Holland, having been appointed charge d'affaires; and in 1825 he 
 accepted the position of ambassador at the court of Madrid, where he remained 
 till 1829. A few months after his return to the United States from Madrid, Mr. 
 Everett became the editor and principal proprietor of the " North American 
 Review." He had long been a leading contributor to this journal, and under his 
 charge it was materially improved. About the year 1832, he engaged actively in 
 politics, and, in 1815, was appointed commissioner to China ; but, in consequence 
 of ill health, he proceeded no farther than Rio Janeiro, whence he returned to the 
 United States. After an interval of several months, he again sailed for Canton, 
 but had hardly become settled in his new residence, when his mortal career was 
 terminated, on the 28th of June, 1847. 
 
 Mr. Everett was one of the most eminent literary men of our country ; profi- 
 cient in the languages and literature of modern Europe, in philosophy, in diplo- 
 macy, the law of nations, and all the learning requisite for a statesman; and in 
 his death our country incurred the loss of one who had served her ably and 
 faithfully abroad, and had contributed essentially to elevate, among European 
 scholars, the character of American literature. 
 
 Besides his numerous contributions to periodicals, Mr. Everett's principal 
 published works are, Europe, — a treatise on the political condition of Europe in 
 1821, published in 1822; America, — a similar treatise on our country, published 
 in 1S25 ; and New Ideas on Population, suggested by, and a reply to, Malthus and 
 
ALEXANDER H. EVERETT. 
 
 345 
 
 his school, published in 1827. Two volumes of his Critical and Miscellaneous 
 Essays had been published before his death, and he was, at the time of that 
 event, preparing for a continuation of the series. 1 
 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 Whatever may be the extent of the distress in England, or the 
 difficulty of finding any remedies for it which shall be at once 
 practicable and sufficient, it is certain that the symptoms of de- 
 cline have not yet displayed themselves on the surface ; and no 
 country in Europe, at the present day, probably none that ever 
 flourished at any preceding period of ancient or of modern times, 
 ever exhibited so strongly the outward marks of general industry, 
 wealth, and prosperity. The misery that exists, whatever it may 
 be, retires from public view; and the traveller sees no traces of it 
 except in the beggars, — which are not more numerous than they 
 are on the Continent, — in the courts of justice, and in the news- 
 papers. On the contrary, the impressions he receives from the 
 objects that meet his view are almost uniformly agreeable. He 
 is pleased with the great attention paid to his personal accommo- 
 dation as a traveller, with the excellent roads, and the conve- 
 niences of the public carriages and inns. The country every- 
 where exhibits the appearance of high cultivation, or else of wild 
 and picturesque beauty ; and even the unimproved lands are dis- 
 posed with taste and skill, so as to embellish the landscape very 
 highly, if they do not contribute as they might to the substantial 
 comfort of the people. From every eminence, extensive parks 
 and grounds, spreading far and wide over hill and vale, inter- 
 spersed with dark woods and variegated with bright waters, un- 
 roll themselves before the eye, like enchanted gardens. And 
 while the elegant constructions of the modern proprietors fill the 
 mind with images of ease and luxury, the mouldering ruins that 
 remain of former ages, of the castles and churches of their feudal 
 ancestors, increase the interest of the picture by contrast, and 
 associate with it poetical and affecting recollections of other times 
 and manners. Every village seems to be the chosen residence of 
 Industry, and her handmaids, Neatness and Comfort; and, in the 
 various parts of the island, her operations present themselves 
 under the most amusing and agreeable variety of forms. Some- 
 times her votaries are mounting to the skies in manufactories of 
 innumerable stories in height, and sometimes diving in mines into 
 the bowels of the earth, or dragging up drowned treasures from 
 
 1 Read an excellent biographical sketch of Mr. Everett in the tenth volume 
 of the " Democratic Review," and an article on his Essays in the eighteenth 
 volume of the same 
 
346 
 
 ALEXANDER H. EVERETT. 
 
 the bottom of the sea. At one time the ornamented grounds of a 
 wealthy proprietor seem to realize the fabled Elysium; and again, 
 as you pass in the evening through some village engaged in the 
 iron manufacture, where a thousand forges are feeding at once 
 their dark-red fires, and clouding the air with their volumes of 
 smoke, you might think yourself, for a moment, a little too near 
 some drearier residence. 
 
 CLAIMS OF LITERATURE UPON AMERICA. 
 
 Independence and liberty — the great political objects of all com- 
 munities — have been secured to us hy our glorious ancestors. In 
 these respects, we are only required to j )rescri ' e an d transmit 
 unimpaired to our posterity the inheritance which our fathers 
 bequeathed to us. To the present and to the following genera- 
 tions is left the easier task of enriching, with arts and letters, the 
 proud fabric of our national glory. Our Sparta is indeed a noble 
 one. Let us then do our best for it. 
 
 Let me not, however, be understood to intimate that the pur- 
 suits of literature or the finer arts of life have been, at any period 
 of our history, foreign to the people of this country. The 
 founders of the colonies, the Winthrops, the Smiths, the Raleighs, 
 the Penns, the Oglethorpes, were among the most accomplished 
 scholars and elegant writers, as well as the loftiest and purest 
 spirits, of their time. Their successors have constantly sustained, 
 in this respect, the high standard established by the founders. 
 Education and religion — the two great cares of intellectual and 
 civilized men — were always with them the foremost objects of 
 attention. The principal statesmen of the Revolution were per- 
 sons of high literary cultivation : their public documents were 
 declared, by Lord Chatham, to be equal to the finest specimens 
 of Greek and Roman wisdom. In every generation, our country 
 has contributed its full proportion of eminent writers. 
 
 In this respect, then, our fathers did their part ; our friends of 
 the present generation are doing theirs, and doing it well. But 
 thus far the relative position of England and the United States 
 has been such that our proportional contribution to the common 
 literature was naturally a small one. England, by her great supe- 
 riority in wealth and population, was, of course, the head-quarters 
 of science and learning. All this is rapidly changing. You are 
 already touching the point when your wealth and population will 
 equal those of England. The superior rapidity of your progress 
 will, at no distant period, give you the ascendency. It will then 
 belong to your position to take the lead in arts and letters, as in 
 policy, and to give the tone to the literature of the language. Let 
 it be your care and study not to show yourselves unequal to thia 
 
ALEXANDER H. EVERETT. 
 
 347 
 
 high calling, — to vindicate the honor of the New World in this 
 generous and friendly competition with the Old. You will per- 
 haps be told that literary pursuits will disqualify you for the 
 active business of life. Heed not the idle assertion. Reject it as 
 a mere imagination, inconsistent with principle, unsupported by 
 experience. Point out, to those who make it, the illustrious cha- 
 racters who have reaped in every age the highest honors of stu- 
 dious and active exertion. Show them Demosthenes, forging by the 
 light of the midnight lamp those thunderbolts of eloquence which 
 
 "Shook the arsenal and fulmined over Greece, — ■ 
 To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne." 
 
 Ask them if Cicero would have been hailed with rapture as the 
 father of his country, if he had not been its pride and pattern in 
 philosophy and letters. Inquire whether Caesar, or Frederick, or 
 Bonaparte, or Wellington, or Washington, fought the worse be- 
 cause they knew how to write their own commentaries. Remind 
 them of Franklin, tearing at the same time the lightning from 
 heaven and the sceptre from the hands of the oppressor. Do they 
 say to you that study will lead you to skepticism ? Recall to their 
 memory the venerable names of Bacon, Milton, Newton, and 
 Locke. Would they persuade you that devotion to learning will 
 withdraw your steps from the paths of pleasure ? Tell them they 
 are mistaken. Tell them that the only true pleasures are those 
 which result from the diligent exercise of all the faculties of body, 
 and mind, and heart, in pursuit of noble ends by noble means. 
 Repeat to them the ancient apologue of the youthful Hercules, in 
 the pride of strength and beauty, giving up his generous soul to 
 the worship of virtue. Tell them your choice is also made. Tell 
 them, with the illustrious Roman orator, you would rather be in 
 the wrong with Plato than in the right with Epicurus. Tell 
 them that a mother in Sparta would have rather seen her son 
 brought home from battle a corpse upon his shield, than dis- 
 honored by its loss. Tell them that your mother is America, 
 your battle the warfare of life, your shield the breastplate of 
 religion. 
 
 Though Mr. Everett is most known by his vigorous and classic prose, yet he 
 published a volume of original and translated Poems, in 1S45, which are a credit 
 to our literature. From these I select the following spirited lines : — ■ 
 
 THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 
 
 Scion of a mighty stock ! 
 Hands of iron, — hearts of oak, — 
 Follow with unflinching tread 
 Where the noble fathers led. 
 
 Craft and subtle treachery, 
 Gallant youth ! are not for thee ; 
 Follow thou in word and deeds 
 "Where the God within thee leads. 
 
348 
 
 GEORGE TICK NOR. 
 
 Honesty with steady eye, 
 Truth and pure simplicity, 
 Love that gently winnetk hearts, 
 These shall be thy only arts. 
 
 Prudent in the council train, 
 Dauntless on the battle plain, 
 Ready at thy country's need 
 For her glorious cause to bleed. 
 
 Where the dews of night distil 
 Upon Vernon's holy hill ; 
 Where above it, gleaming far, 
 Freedom lights her guiding star, — 
 
 Thither turn the steady eye, 
 Flashing with a purpose high ; 
 Thither with devotion meet 
 Often turn the pilgrim feet. 
 
 Let thy noble motto be 
 God, — the Country, — Liberty ! 
 Planted on Religion's rock, 
 Thou shalt stand in every shock. 
 
 Laugh at danger far or near ; 
 Spurn at baseness, spurn at fear ; 
 Still, with persevering might, 
 Speak the truth and do the right. 
 
 So shall peace, a charming guest, 
 Dovelike in thy bosom rest ; 
 So shall honor's steady blaze 
 Beam upon thy closing days. 
 
 Happy if celestial favor 
 Smile upon the high endeavor ; 
 Happy if it be thy call. 
 In the holy cause to fall. 
 
 GEORGE TICKNOR. 
 
 George Tickxor was born in Boston, Massachusetts, August 1, 1791, and 
 graduated at Dartmouth College in 1807. After devoting three years to ancient 
 classics and general literature, he entered upon the study of the law, and in 1813 
 was admitted to the bar. But his literary tastes proved too strong for his profes- 
 sional, and in 1815 he embarked for Europe, where, in many of her capitals, 
 and in Gb'ttingen University, he spent five years in studying the languages and 
 literature of Europe, and returned in 1820, to enter upon the Professorship of 
 Modern Languages and Literature in Harvard University, to which during his 
 absence he had been appointed. The courses of lectures which he delivered, year 
 after year, upon French and Spanish literature; upon eminent Europeans, as 
 Dante and Goethe; on the English poets, and other kindred topics, excited the 
 deepest interest, and were pronounced by the most competent judges to be of 
 the very highest order, not only from the beauty and richness of their style, but 
 from their stores of learning, and the fund of valuable information they conveyed. 
 Indeed, the enthusiasm they enkindled among the students of Harvard, formed 
 quite an era in the history of that venei-able seat of learning. 
 
 After laboring fifteen years, Professor Ticknor resigned his professorship, and, 
 with his family, paid another visit to Europe. In 1840, after his return home, he 
 entered actively upon the composition of his great work, The History of Spanish 
 Literature, which in 1849 made its appearance, in three octavo volumes, both in this 
 country and in England. 1 It at once arrested the attention of scholars on both 
 sides of the Atlantic, and received the highest encomiums from the principal 
 journals of England and the Continent. It has been translated into the Spanish 
 
 1 In the " Christian Examiner" for January, 1850, will be found a most genial 
 and scholarly review of Mr. Ticknor's great work, by George S. Hillard. 
 
GEORGE TICKNOR. 
 
 U9 
 
 and German languages, which fact of itself attests the worth of a work on which 
 the seal of an cver-during fame is already set. 
 
 Besides his great work, Mr. Ticknor has given ns The Remains of Nathaniel 
 Apphton Haven, rcith a Memoir of his Life, and has contributed valuable articles 
 to the " North American Review," one of which — the Life of Lafayette — has 
 passed through several editions. He has also taken a great interest in the cause 
 of education, and his noble library (perhaps the most valuable private collection 
 in the country) has always been open to the scholar in search of any thing 
 which its treasures could impart. 
 
 DON QUIXOTE. 
 
 At the very beginning of his great work, Cervantes announces 
 it to be his sole purpose to break down the vogue and authority 
 of books of chivalry, and at the end of the whole, he declares 
 anew, in his own person, that " he had no other desire than to 
 render abhorred of men the false and absurd stories contained in 
 books of chivalry;" exulting in his success, as an achievement of 
 no small moment. And such, in fact, it was j for we have abundant 
 proof that the fanaticism for these romances was so great in Spain, 
 during the sixteenth century, as to have become matter of alarm to 
 the more judicious. At last they were deemed so noxious, that, in 
 1553, they were prohibited by law from being printed or sold in 
 the American colonies, and in 1555 the same prohibition, and 
 even the burning of all copies of them extant in Spain itself, was 
 earnestly asked for by the Cortes. The evil, in fact, had become 
 formidable, and the wise began to see it. 
 
 To destroy a passion that had struck its roots so deeply in the 
 character of all classes of men, to break up the only reading 
 which at that time could be considered widely popular and 
 fashionable, was certainly a bold undertaking, and one that marks 
 any thing rather than a scornful or broken spirit, or a want of faith 
 in what is most to be valued in our common nature. The great 
 wonder is, that Cervantes succeeded. But that he did there is 
 no question. No book of chivalry was written after the appear- 
 ance of Don Quixote in 1605; and from the same date, even 
 those already enjoying the greatest favor ceased, with one or two 
 unimportant exceptions, to be reprinted ; so that, from that time 
 to the present, they have been constantly disappearing, until they 
 are now among the rarest of literary curiosities ; — a solitary in- 
 stance of the power of genius to destroy, by a single well-timed 
 blow, an entire department, and that, too, a nourishing and 
 favored one, in the literature of a great and proud nation. 
 
 The general plan Cervantes adopted to accomplish this object, 
 without, perhaps, foreseeing its whole course, and still less all its 
 
 30 
 
350 
 
 GEORGE TICKNOR. 
 
 results, was simple as well as original. In 1605, lie published 
 the First Part of Don Quixote, in which a country gentleman of 
 La Mancha — full of genuine Castilian honor and enthusiasm, 
 gentle and dignified in his character, trusted by his friends, and 
 loved by his dependants — is represented as so completely crazed 
 by long reading the most famous books of chivalry, that he 
 believes them to be true, and feels himself called on to become 
 the impossible knight-errant they describe, — nay, actually goes 
 forth into the world to defend the oppressed and avenge the 
 injured, like the heroes of his romances. 
 
 To complete his chivalrous equipment, — which he had begun 
 by fitting up for himself a suit of armor strange to his century, — 
 he took an esquire out of his neighborhood j a middle-aged pea- 
 sant, ignorant and credulous to excess, but of great good-nature j 
 a glutton and a liar ; selfish and gross, yet attached to his master ; 
 shrewd enough occasionally to see the folly of their position, but 
 always amusing, and sometimes mischievous, in his interpretations 
 of it. These two sally forth from their native village in search 
 of adventures, of which the excited imagination of the knight, 
 turning windmills into giants, solitary inns into castles, and 
 galley-slaves into oppressed gentlemen, finds abundance wherever 
 he goes ; while the esquire translates them all into the plain prose 
 of truth with an admirable simplicity, quite unconscious of its 
 own humor, and rendered the more striking by its contrast with 
 the lofty and courteous dignity and magnificent illusions of the 
 superior personage. There could, of course, be but one con- 
 sistent termination of adventures like these. The knight and his 
 esquire suffer a series of ridiculous discomfitures, and are at last 
 brought home, like madmen, to their native village, where Cer- 
 vantes leaves them, with an intimation that the story of their 
 adventures is by no means ended. 
 
 The latter half of Don Quixote is a contradiction of the proverb 
 Cervantes cites in it, — that second parts were never yet good 
 for much. It is, in fact, better than the first. It shows more 
 freedom and vigor; and, if the caricature is sometimes pushed to 
 the very verge of what is permitted, the invention, the style of 
 thought, and, indeed, the materials throughout, are richer, and 
 the finish is more exact. 
 
 But throughout both parts Cervantes shows the impulses and 
 instincts of an original power with most distinctness in his de- 
 velopment of the characters of Don Quixote and Sancho ; cha- 
 racters in whose contrast and opposition is hidden the full spirit 
 of his peculiar humor, and no small part of what is most charac- 
 teristic of the entire fiction. They are his prominent personage. 
 He delights, therefore, to have them as much as possible in the 
 front of his scene. They grow visibly upon his favor as he 
 
GEORGE TICKXOR. 
 
 351 
 
 advances, and the fondness of his liking for them makes him con- 
 stantly produce them in lights and relations as little foreseen by 
 himself as they are by his readers. The knight, who seems to 
 have been originally intended for a parody of the Amadis, becomes 
 gradually a detached, separate, and wholly independent personage, 
 into whom is infused so much of a generous and elevated nature, 
 such gentleness and delicacy, such a pure sense of honor, and such 
 a warm love for whatever is noble and good, that we feel almost 
 the same attachment to him that the barber and the curate did, 
 and are almost as ready as his family was to mourn over his death. 
 
 The case of Sancho is again very similar, and perhaps in some 
 respects stronger. At first, he is introduced as the opposite of 
 Don Quixote, and used merely to bring out his master's pecu- 
 liarities in a more striking relief. It is not until we have gone 
 through nearly half of the First Part that he utters one of those 
 proverbs which form afterwards the staple of his conversation and 
 humor; and it is not until the opening of the Second Part, and, 
 indeed, not till he comes forth, in all his mingled shrewdness and 
 credulity, as governor of Barataria, that his character is quite 
 developed and completed to the full measure of its grotesque yet 
 congruous proportions. 
 
 Cervantes, in truth, came at last to love these creations of his 
 marvellous power as if they were real, familiar personages, and to 
 speak of them and treat them with an earnestness and interest 
 that tend much to the illusion of his readers. Both Don Quixote 
 and Sancho are thus brought before us, like such living realities, 
 that at this moment the figures of the crazed, gaunt, dignified 
 knight, and of his round, selfish, and most amusing esquire, dwell 
 bodied forth in the imaginations of more, among all conditions of 
 men throughout Christendom, than any other of the creations of 
 human talent. The greatest of the great poets — Homer, Dante, 
 Shakspeare, Milton — have no doubt risen to loftier heights, and 
 placed themselves in more imposing relations with the noblest 
 attributes of our nature ; but Cervantes — always writing under 
 the unchecked impulse of his own genius, and instinctively con- 
 centrating in his fiction whatever was peculiar to the character of 
 his nation — has shown himself of kindred to all times and all 
 lands ; to the humblest degrees of cultivation as well as to the 
 highest; and has thus, beyond all other writers, received in re- 
 turn a tribute of sympathy and admiration from the universal 
 spirit of humanity for one of the most remarkable monuments of 
 modern genius. But though this may be enough to fill the mea- 
 sure of human fame and glory, it is not all to which Cervantes is 
 entitled; for, if we would do him the justice that would have 
 been dearest to his own spirit, and even if we would ourselves 
 fully comprehend and enjoy the whole of his Don Quixote, wo 
 
352 CHARLES SPRAGUE. 
 
 should, as we read it, bear in mind that this delightful romance 
 was not the result of a youthful exuberance of feeling, and a 
 happy external condition, nor composed in his best years, when 
 the spirits of its author were light and his hopes high • but that 
 — with all its unquenchable and irresistible humor, with its bright 
 views of the world, and his cheerful trust in goodness and virtue 
 — it was written in his old age, at the conclusion of a life nearly 
 every step of which had been marked with disappointed expecta- 
 tions, disheartening struggles, and sore calamities ; that he began 
 it in a prison, and that it was finished when he felt the hand of 
 death pressing heavy and cold upon his heart. If this be remem- 
 bered as we read, we may feel, as we ought to feel, what admira- 
 tion and reverence are due, not only to the living power of Don 
 Quixote, but to the character and genius of Cervantes; if it be 
 forgotten or underrated, we shall fail in regard to both. 
 
 CHARLES SPRAGUE. 
 
 This finished poet and graceful prose-Avritcr was born in Boston on the 26th of 
 October, 1791. He was educated in his native city, and placed at an early age 
 in a mercantile house, and at the age of twenty-one engaged in business on his 
 own account. After a few years, he was elected cashier of the Globe Bank, in 
 Boston, which office he still holds. 
 
 Mr. Sprague is an eminent and encouraging example of the union of large 
 business capacity and exact business habits with a love of literature and signal 
 success in its pursuit. He was born a poet, and no forms of the counting-house 
 or of the bank could repress bis native genius. He early published a series of pro- 
 logues, which attracted much attention, and in 1823 was a successful competitor 
 for the Prize Ode at an exhibition in Boston in honor of Shakspeare. 1 On the 4th 
 of July, 1825, he delivered an oration before the inhabitants of Boston, which is 
 above the ordinary productions of that character. In 1827, he delivered an 
 admirable Oration before the Massachusetts Society for the Siqiprcssion of Intem- 
 pera7ice; and in 1829, a poem before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard 
 University, entitled Curiosity. This is the longest of his poetical productions, and 
 has many passages of signal beauty. In 1S30, he pronounced an ode at the 
 Centennial Celebration of the settlement of Boston, which has, perhaps, a little 
 more finish than the " Shakspeare Ode but it displays not so much spirit, vigor, 
 
 1 With the exception of Gray's "Bard" and "Progress of Poesy," and two or 
 three of Collins's odes, I think this ode superior to any thing of the kind in our 
 language, not excepting Dryden's celebrated "Alexander's Feast." In beauty, in 
 vigor, in happy allusions and pertinent illustrations, it is quite equal to Dry- 
 den's* while it has none of those gross associations which are a sad blemish in its 
 great prototype. 
 
CHARLES SPRAGUE. 
 
 353 
 
 or genius. Besides these, Mr. Sprague has written many smaller pieces, which 
 have fully sustained his early reputation. 1 
 
 SIIAKSPEARE ODE. 
 
 God of the glorious Lyre ! 
 Whose notes of old on lofty Pindus rang. 
 
 While Jove's exulting choir 
 Caught the glad echoes and responsive sang, — 
 Come ! bless the service and the shrine 
 We consecrate to thee and thine. 
 
 Fierce from the frozen north, 
 When Havoc led his legions forth, 
 ; er Learning's sunny groves the dark destroyers spread: 
 In dust the sacred statue slept, 
 Fair Science round her altars wept, 
 And Wisdom cowl'd his head. 
 
 At length, Olympian lord of morn, 
 The raven veil of night was torn, 
 
 When, through golden clouds descending, 
 Thou didst hold thy radiant flight, 
 
 O'er Nature's lovely pageant bending, 
 Till Avon roll'd, all sparkling, to thy sight ! 
 
 There, on its bank, beneath the mulberry's shade, 
 Wrapp'd in young dreams, a wild-eyed minstrel stray'd. 
 Lighting there, and lingering long, 
 Thou didst teach the bard his song ; 
 
 Thy fingers strung his sleeping shell, 
 And round his brows a garland curl'd ; 
 
 On his lips thy spirit fell, 
 And bade him wake and warm the world. 
 
 Then Shakspeare rose ! 
 Across the trembling strings 
 His daring hand he flings, 
 And lo ! a new creation glows ! 
 There, clustering round, submissive to his will, 
 Fate's vassal train his high commands fulfil. — 
 
 Madness, with his frightful scream, 
 Vengeance, leaning on his lance, 
 Avarice, with his blade and beam, 
 Hatred, blasting with a glance, 
 Remorse that weeps, and Rage that roars, 
 And Jealousy that dotes, but dooms, and murders, yet adores. 
 Mirth, his face with sunbeams lit, 
 Waking laughter's merry swell, 
 
 1 "Chai'les Sprague wrote for me but little in The Token; yet that was of dia- 
 mond worth." — Goodrich's Recollections. Head articles on his poetry in '' North 
 American Review," xix. 253, xxxix. 313, lii. 533. A beautiful edition of his 
 Poems and Prose Writings has been published by Ticknor & Fields, Boscon. 
 
 30* 
 
 | 
 
354 
 
 CHARLES SPRAGUE. 
 
 Arm in arm with fresh-eyed Wit, 
 That waves his tingling lash, while Folly shakes his bell. 
 
 Despair, that haunts the gurgling stream, 
 Kiss'd by the virgin moon's cold beam, 
 "Where some lost maid wild chaplets wreathes, 
 And, swan-like, there her own dirge breathes, 
 Then, broken-hearted, sinks to rest, 
 Beneath the bubbling wave that shrouds her maniac breast. 
 
 Young Love, with eye of tender gloom, 
 Now drooping o ; er the hallow'd tomb 
 
 "Where his plighted victims lie, — 
 
 AVhere they met, but met to die ; 
 And now, when crimson buds are sleeping, 
 Through the dewy arbor peeping, 
 Where Beauty's child, the frowning world forgot, 
 To Youth's devoted tale is listening, 
 Rapture on her dark lash glistening, 
 While fairies leave their cowslip cells and guard the happy spot. 
 
 Thus rise the phantom throng, 
 Obedient to their Master's song, 
 
 And lead in willing chains the wondering soul along. 
 For other worlds war's Great One sigh'd in vain, — 
 O'er other worlds see Shakspeare rove and reign ! 
 The rapt magician of his own wild lay, 
 Earth and her tribes his mystic wand obey. 
 Old Ocean trembles, Thunder cracks the skies, 
 Air teems with shapes, and tell-tale spectres rise ; 
 Night's paltering hags their fearful orgies keep, 
 And faithless Guilt unseals the lip of Sleep ; 
 Time yields his trophies up, and Death restores 
 The moulder'd victims of his voiceless shores. 
 The fireside legend and the faded page, 
 The crime that cursed, the deed that bless'd an age, 
 All, all come forth, — the good to charm and cheer, 
 To scourge bold Yice, and start the generous tear ; 
 With pictured Folly gazing fools to shame, 
 
 And guide young Glory's foot along the path of fame. 
 
 Lo ! hand in hand, 
 Hell's juggling sisters stand, 
 To greet their victim from the fight ; 
 
 Group'd on the blasted heath, 
 They tempt him to the work of death, 
 Then melt in air, and mock his wondering sight. 
 
 In midnight's hallow'd hour 
 
 He seeks the fatal tower, 
 AVhere the lone raven, perch'd on high, 
 
 Pours to the sullen gale 
 
 Her hoarse, prophetic wail, 
 And croaks the dreadful moment nigh. 
 See, by the phantom dagger led, 
 
 Pale, guilty thing ! 
 Slowly he steals, with silent tread, 
 And grasps his coward steel to smite his sleeping king ! 
 
CHARLES SPRAGUE. 
 
 355 
 
 Hark ! 'tis the signal bell, 
 Struck by that bold and unsex'd one 
 Whose milk is gall, whose heart is stone ; 
 His ear hath caught the knell, — 
 'Tis done ! 'tis done ! 
 Behold him from the chamber rushing 
 Where his dead monarch's blood is gushing ! 
 Look where he trembling stands, 
 Sad gazing there, 
 Life's smoking crimson on his hands, 
 And in his felon heart the worm of wild despair ! 
 
 Mark the sceptred traitor slumbering ! 
 
 There flit the slaves of conscience round, 
 With boding tongue foul murders numbering ; 
 Sleep's leaden portals catch the sound. 
 In his dream of blood for mercy quaking, 
 At his own dull scream behold him waking ! 
 Soon that dream to fate shall turn: 
 For him the living furies burn ; 
 For him the vulture sits on yonder misty peak, 
 And chides the lagging night, and whets her hungry beak. 
 Hark ! the trumpet's warning breath 
 Echoes round the vale of death. 
 Unhorsed, unhelm'd, disdaining shield, 
 The panting tyrant scours the field. 
 Vengeance ! he meets thy dooming blade ! 
 The scourge of earth, the scorn of Heaven, 
 He falls ! unwept and unforgiven, 
 And all his guilty glories fade. 
 Like a crush'd reptile in the dust he lies, 
 And Hate's last lightning quivers from his eyes ! 
 
 Behold yon crownless king, — 
 
 Yon white-lock'd, weeping sire, — 
 Where heaven's unpillar'd chambers ring, 
 And burst their streams of flood and fire ! 
 He gave them all, — the daughters of his love ; 
 That recreant pair ! they drive him forth to rove, 
 In such a night of woe, 
 The cubless regent of the wood 
 Forgets to bathe her fangs in blood, 
 And caverns with her foe ! 
 Yet one was ever kind ; 
 AVhy lingers she behind ? 
 pity ! — view him by her dead form kneeling, 
 Even in wild frenzy holy nature feeling. 
 His aching eyeballs strain 
 
 To see those curtain'd orbs unfold, 
 That beauteous bosom heave again ; 
 
 But all is dark and cold. 
 In agony the father shakes ; 
 Grief's choking note 
 Swells in his throat, 
 Each wither'd heart-string tugs and breaks ! 
 
CHARLES SPRAGUE. 
 
 Round her pale neck his dying arms he wreathes, 
 
 And on her marble lips his last, his death-kiss breathes. 
 
 Down, trembling wing ! — shall insect weakness keep 
 
 The sun-defying eagle's sweep? 
 
 A mortal strike celestial strings, 
 And feebly echo what a seraph sings ? 
 
 ■ Who now shall grace the glowing throne 
 
 Where, all unrivall'd, all alone, 
 Bold Shakspeare sat, and look'd creation through, 
 The minstrel monarch of the worlds he drew ? 
 
 That throne is cold — that lyre in death unstrung 
 On whose proud note delighted Wonder hung. 
 Yet old Oblivion, as in wrath he sweeps, 
 One spot shall spare, — the grave where Shakspeare sleeps, 
 llulers and ruled in common gloom may lie, 
 But Nature's laureate bards shall never die. 
 Art's chisell'd boast and Glory's trophied shore 
 Must live in numbers, or can live no more. 
 While sculptured Jove some nameless waste may claim, 
 Still rolls the Olympic car in Pindar's fame ; 
 Troy's doubtful walls in ashes pass'd away, 
 Yet frown on Greece in Homer's deathless lay ; 
 Rome, slowly sinking in her crumbling fanes, 
 Stands all immortal in her Maro's strains ; 
 So, too, yon giant empress of the isles, 
 On whose broad sway the sun forever smiles, 
 To Time's unsparing rage one day must bend, 
 And all her triumphs in her Shakspeare end ! 
 
 Thou ! to whose creative power 
 
 We dedicate the festal hour, 
 While Grace and Goodness round the altar stand, 
 Learning's anointed train, and Beauty's rose-lipp'd band — 
 Realms yet unborn, in accents now unknown, 
 Thy song shall learn, and bless it for their own. 
 
 Deep in the West as Independence roves, 
 His banners planting round the land he loves, 
 Where Nature sleeps in Eden's infant grace, 
 In Time's full hour shall spring a glorious race. 
 Thy name, thy verse, thy language, shall they bear, 
 And deck for thee the vaulted temple there. 
 
 Our Roman-hearted fathers broke 
 
 Thy parent empire's galling yoke; 
 But thou, harmonious master of the mind, 
 Around their sons a gentler chain shalt bind; 
 Once more in thee shall Albion's sceptre wave, 
 And what her Monarch lost her Monarch-Bard shall save. 
 
 THE BROTHERS. 
 
 We are but two — the others sleep 
 Through Death's untroubled night ; 
 
 We are but two — oh, let us keep 
 The link that binds us bright ! 
 
CHARLES SPRAGUE. 
 
 357 
 
 Heart leaps to heart — the sacred flood 
 That warms us is the same ; 
 
 That good old man — his honest blood 
 Alike we fondly claim. 
 
 We in one mother's arms were lock'd — 
 
 Long be her love repaid ; 
 In the same cradle we were rock'd, 
 
 Round the same hearth we play'd. 
 
 Our boyish sports were all the same, 
 
 Each little joy and woe ; 
 Let manhood keep alive the flame, 
 
 Lit up so long ago. 
 
 We are but two — be that the band 
 
 To hold us till we die ; 
 Shoulder to shoulder let us stand, 
 
 Till side by side we lie. 
 
 THE FAMILY MEETING. 1 
 
 We are all here ! 
 
 Father, mother, 
 
 Sister, brother, 
 All who hold each other dear. 
 Each chair is fill'd — we're all at home; 
 To-night let no cold stranger come ; 
 It is not often thus around 
 Our old familiar hearth we're found. 
 Bless, then, the meeting and the spot ; 
 For once be every care forgot ; 
 Let gentle Peace assert her power, 
 And kind Affection rule the hour ; 
 
 We're all — all here. 
 
 We're not all here ! 
 Some are away, — the dead ones dear 
 Who throng'd with us this ancient hearth, 
 And gave the hour to guiltless mirth. 
 Fate, with a stern, relentless hand, 
 Look'd in and thinn'd our little band ; 
 Some like a night-flash pass'd away, 
 And some sank, lingering, day by day : 
 The quiet graveyard — some lie there : 
 And cruel Ocean has his share — 
 
 We're not all here. 
 
 We are all here ! 
 Even they — the dead — though dead, so dear. 
 
 1 These lines were written on occasion of the accidental meeting of all tho 
 surviving members of a family, the father and mother of which, one eighty-two, 
 the other eighty years old, have lived in the same house fifty-three years. 
 
358 
 
 CHARLES SPRAGUE. 
 
 Fond Memory, to her duty true, 
 Brings back their faded forms to view. 
 How lifelike, through the mist of years, 
 Each well-remember'd face appears ! 
 We see them as in times long past ; 
 From each to each kind looks are cast; 
 We hear their words, their smiles behold, 
 They're round us as they were of old — 
 We are all here. 
 
 We are all here ! 
 
 Father, mother, 
 
 Sister, brother, 
 You that I love with love so dear. 
 This may not long of us be said : 
 Soon must we join the gather' d dead ; 
 And by the hearth we now sit round 
 Some other circle will be found. 
 Oh, then, that wisdom may we know 
 Which yields a life of peace below ! 
 So, in the world to follow this, 
 May each repeat, in words of bliss, 
 
 We're all — all here! 
 
 THE WINGED WORSHIPPERS. 
 
 ADDRESSED TO TWO SWALLOWS THAT FLEW INTO CHAUNCE Y-PLACE CHURCH 
 DURING DIVINE SERVICE. 
 
 Gay, guiltless pair, 
 What seek ye from the fields of heaven ? 
 
 Ye have no need of prayer, 
 Ye have no sins to be forgiven. 
 
 Why perch ye here, 
 Where mortals to their Maker bend? 
 
 Can your pure spirits fear 
 The God ye never could offend ? 
 
 Ye never knew 
 The crimes for which we come to weep: 
 
 Penance is not for you, 
 Bless'd wanderers of the upper deep. 
 
 To you 'tis given 
 To wake sweet Nature's untaught lays ; 
 
 Beneath the arch of heaven 
 To chirp away a life of praise. 
 
 Then spread each wing, 
 Far, far above, o'er lakes and lands, 
 
 And join the choirs that sing 
 In yon blue dome not rear'd with hands. 
 
 Or, if ye stay, 
 To note the consecrated hour, 
 
 Teach me the airy way, 
 And let me try your envied power. 
 
CHARLES SPItAGUE. 
 
 359 
 
 Above the crowd, 
 On upward wings could I but fly, 
 I'd bathe in yon bright cloud, 
 And seek the stars that gem the sky. 
 
 'Twere Heaven indeed 
 Through fields of trackless light to soar, 
 
 On Nature's charms to feed, 
 And Nature's own great God adore ! 
 
 I SEE THEE STILL. 
 
 I rock'd her iu the cradle, 
 And laid her in the tomb. She was the youngest. 
 What fireside circle hath not felt the charm 
 Of that sweet tie? The youngest ne'er grow old, 
 The fond endearments of our earlier days 
 We keep alive in them, and when they die 
 Our youthful joys we bury with them. 
 
 I see thee still ; 
 Remembrance, faithful to her trust, 
 Calls thee in beauty from the dust ; 
 Thou comest in the morning light, 
 Thou'rt with me through the gloomy night ; 
 In dreams I meet thee as of old ; 
 Then thy soft arms my neck enfold, 
 And thy sweet voice is in my ear : 
 In every scene to memory dear, 
 
 I see thee still. 
 
 I see thee still, 
 In every hallow'd token round ; 
 This little ring thy finger bound, 
 This lock of hair thy forehead shaded, 
 This silken chain by thee was braided, 
 These flowers, all wither'd now, like thee, 
 Sweet Sister, thou didst cull for me ; 
 This book was thine ; here didst thou read ; 
 This picture — ah ! yes, here indeed 
 
 I see thee still. 
 
 I see thee still ; 
 Here was thy summer noon's retreat, 
 Here was thy favorite fireside seat ; 
 This was thy chamber — here, each day, 
 I sat and watch'd thy sad decay : 
 Here, on this bed, thou last didst lie ; 
 Here, on this pillow, — thou didst die. 
 Dark hour ! once more its woes unfold : 
 As then I saw thee, pale and cold, 
 
 I see thee still! 
 
 I see thee still ; 
 Thou art not in the grave confined — 
 Death cannot claim the immortal Mind ; 
 
360 
 
 JOHN HOWARD PAYNE. 
 
 Let Earth close o'er its sacred trust, 
 But Goodness dies not in the dust ; 
 Thee, my Sister ! 'tis not thee 
 Beneath the coffin's lid I see ; 
 Thou to a fairer land art gone ; 
 There, let me hope, my journey done, 
 To see thee still ! 
 
 JOHN HOWARD PAYNE, 1792— 1S52. 
 
 John Howard Payne was born in the city of New York, June 9, 1792. He 
 early showed great poetical taste, together with a strong passion for the stage, on 
 which he made his first appearance at the Park Theatre of his native city, in his 
 sixteenth year, in the character of Young Norval. After that, for some years, 
 he performed in our chief cities with great success. In 1813 he went to England, 
 and established in London a theatrical journal, called the Opera-Glaus. He re- 
 turned home in 1834, and in 1S51 was appointed Consul at Tunis, where he died 
 the next year, at the age of sixty. 
 
 Payne wrote a number of dramas and other poems; but he is now only known 
 by the favorite air of Home, Sweet Home, which he introduced, when in London, 
 into an opera called "Clari; or, The Maid of Milan." No song was evermore 
 popular; and the profits arising from it (which went to the manager of the 
 theatre, Charles Kemble, and not to Payne) are said to have amounted to two 
 thousand guineas in two years. It is known and admired wherever the English 
 language is spoken, and richly deserves a place here. 
 
 HOME, SWEET HOME. 
 
 'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, 
 Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home ! 
 A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there, 
 Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere. 
 
 Home ! home ! sweet home ! 
 
 There's no place like home ! 
 
 An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain : 
 Oh, give me my lowly thatch'd cottage again ; 
 The birds singing gayly that came at my call : 
 Give me these, and the peace of mind, dearer than all. 
 
 Home ! sweet, sweet home ! 
 
 There's no place like home ! 
 
SEBA SMITH. 
 
 361 
 
 SEBA SMITH. 
 
 Seba Smith was born in Buckfield, Maine, September 14, 1792, and graduated 
 at Bowdoin College in 1818, the first scholar in his class. After teaching school 
 a few years, he purchased one-half of the " Eastern Argus," — then the leading 
 paper of the State, — edited it for four years, and then sold out his interest in this 
 paper and established the " Portland Daily Courier," which he conducted suc- 
 cessfully for seven years. It owed much of its life and fame to the original Letters 
 of 3/ajor Jack Downing, which probably had a more extensive popularity than 
 any series of papers before published in the country. The object of these Letters 
 was to portray the weaknesses, or follies, or faults, of many of the leading men 
 and measures of the times, and the work was done with great skill and infinite 
 humor. In 1839, he removed to New York, where he still resides, engaged in 
 literary pursuits. During the last twenty years, he has been a contributor to 
 many of the leading periodicals, and has edited different magazines. His pub- 
 lished works are, — Jfy Thirty Years out of the United States Senate, by Major Jack 
 Doicning, illustrated by numerous characteristic engravings j a volume of humorous 
 stories, entitled ' Way Down East; and New Elements of Geometry. A volume of 
 his poems, not hitherto published in a collected form, is now in preparation for 
 the press. From his fugitive pieces I select the following touching lines : — 
 
 THE MOTHER IN THE SNOW-STORM. 1 
 
 The cold winds swept the mountain's height, 
 
 And pathless was the dreary wild, 
 And 'mid the cheerless hours of night 
 
 A mother wander'd with her child. 
 As through the drifting snow she press'd, 
 The babe was sleeping on her breast. 
 
 And colder still the winds did blow, 
 
 And darker hours of night came on, 
 And deeper grew the drifts of snow ; 
 
 Her limbs were chill'd, her strength was gone. 
 "O God! : ' she cried, in accents wild, 
 " If I must perish, save my child !" 
 
 She stripp'd her mantle from her breast, 
 
 And bared her bosom to the storm, 
 And round the child she wrapp'd the vest, 
 
 And smiled to think her babe was warm. 
 With one cold kiss one tear she shed, 
 And sunk upon a snowy bed. 
 
 At dawn a traveller passed by, 
 
 And saw her 'neath a snowy veil ; 
 The frost of death was in her eye, 
 
 Her cheek was cold, and hard, and pale, — 
 He moved the robe from off the child, 
 The babe look'd up and sweetly smiled. 
 
 Suggested by a real incident that occurred in the Green Mountains, Vermont. 
 
 31 
 
362 
 
 HENRY WARE, JR. 
 
 HENRY WARE, Jr., 1793—1843. 
 
 Henry Ware, Jr., the son of the Rev. Henry Ware, D.D., " Hollis Pro- 
 fessor of Divinity" in Harvard College, was born in Hingham, Massachusetts,, 
 April 21, 1793, and graduated at Harvard College in 1S12. On leaving college, 
 he became an assistant teacher in Phillips Exeter Academy, devoting his leisure 
 time to a preparation for the Christian ministry, the profession which had been 
 his choice from his very youth. He completed his theological studies in 1S16, 
 and on the first day of the following year was ordained as pastor of the "Second 
 Church," in Boston. After twelve years of labor in that situation, he was dis- 
 missed at his own request, and travelled in Europe for a year, for the improve- 
 ment of his health, which had been impaired by long-continued mental applica- 
 tion. On his return, he was elected " Parkman Professor of Pulpit Elocpuence 
 and Pastoral Theology" in Harvard University, which chair he continued to fill 
 with great acceptance and ability till the summer of 1842, when his declining 
 health obliged him to resign it ; and he died on the 22d of September of the next 
 year. 
 
 Dr. Ware's works, edited by Rev. Chandler Robins, have been published in Boston, 
 by James Munroe & Co., in four volumes. They consist of essays, sermons, con- 
 troversial tracts and memoirs, all showing a mind of chaste, Christian scholar- 
 ship, and a heart full of love to God and love to man, and alive to every thing 
 that pertains to the best good of the great human family. They also contain 
 selections from his poetry ; for Dr. Ware had the true poetic spirit, and fully 
 appreciated the poet's elevated and elevating mission, as is beautifully shown in 
 the following few lines on the connection between 
 
 SCIENCE AND POETRY. 
 
 Science and Poetry, recognising, as they do, the order and the 
 beauty of the universe, are alike handmaids of devotion. They 
 have been, they may be, drawn away from her altar, but in their 
 natural characters they are co-operators, and, like twin-sisters, 
 they walk hand in hand. Science tracks the footprints of the 
 great creating power ; poetry unveils the smile of the all-sus- 
 taining love. Science adores as a subject; poetry worships as a 
 child. One teaches the law, and the other binds the soul to it 
 in bands of beauty and love. They turn the universe into a 
 temple, earth into an altar, the systems into fellow-worshippers, 
 and eternity into one long day of contemplation and praise. 
 
 CHOOSING A PROFESSION. 
 
 In answering the question, " What is to be considered a 
 living?" men immediately separate a thousand different ways, 
 according to their previous habits of life, the society in which 
 they have lived, their notions of worldly prosperity, their love of 
 
HENRY WARE, JR. 
 
 3(53 
 
 self-gratification, their ambition, and the numbeiless other things 
 which go to make a man's idea of happiness. If men would 
 cease to take counsel of these — if they could calmly look with 
 the eye of sober reason on life and its purposes, on the earth and 
 its means of gratification — it would be less difficult to decide this 
 matter, and there would be less clashing than there is between 
 this first obligation to make a worldly provision, and the subse- 
 quent obligations of a higher nature. 
 
 He who accounts it necessary, or most desirable, to become 
 rich, who connects his ideas of happiness and honor with large 
 possessions and the artificial consideration which is attached to 
 wealth, errs in his first purpose, goes astray in the very first step, 
 and multiplies the hazards of disappointment and chagrin. Yet 
 perhaps there is no error more common — not the extravagant 
 error of aiming at great wealth, as the object for which to live — • 
 but the error of so setting one's desires on a more than compe- 
 tence ; of so looking with contempt on the prospect of a merely 
 comfortable existence, that the taste for simple and natural plea- 
 sure is lost, and the higher motives of virtue, usefulness, and 
 truth lose their comparative estimation. Hence uneasy desires, 
 restless discontent, dissatisfaction, repining and envy at the more 
 successful ; hence, in a word, icretchedness, in a condition where 
 a well-ordered mind could be full of gratitude. In a commercial 
 community, like that in which we live, which is rushing onward 
 in a tide of prosperity that astonishes while we gaze, and infatu- 
 ates the mind of those who are engaged in the commotion — in such 
 a community, especially, there is danger that the judgment be 
 perverted, that the humbler but useful callings become dis- 
 tasteful, and multitudes of young men, to the peril of their inno- 
 cence, at the risk of corruption and wretchedness, press into the 
 crowded ranks of Mammon, and suffer themselves to forget there 
 is any good but gold. It has been said by one who has long 
 watched the commercial world in this country, that only one in 
 seven of those who enter this walk succeed in it ; that six in every 
 seven fail — a dreadful proportion of blanks, considering the quan- 
 tity of blasted hopes and blighted integrity, of broken hearts and 
 ruined characters, which it involves. And yet into this des- 
 perate struggle how eagerly are our young men rushing ! With 
 six chances of ruin to one of success, how many are leaving the 
 less crowded, the more certain, the more quiet avocations of pro- 
 fessional life, for which their higher education had fitted them — 
 and in which competence, with cultivated minds and useful occu- 
 pations, would be far happier in the long run, and far more 
 honorable, than this ambition to grow rich in business — whilst 
 letters are forgotten, philosophy is deserted, the acquisitions of 
 intellect are thrown away, and the mind, that might have illu- 
 
364 
 
 HENRY WARE, JR. 
 
 mined society by its genius, confines its noble powers to the pitiful 
 drudgery of barter, and the miserable cares of gain ! 
 
 SEASONS OF PRAYER. 
 
 To prayer ! to prayer ! — -for the morning breaks, 
 And earth in her Maker's smile awakes. 
 His light is on all, below and above — 
 The light of gladness, and life, and love. 
 Oh ! then, on the breath of this early air, 
 Send upward the incense of grateful prayer. 
 
 To prayer ! — for the glorious sun is gone, 
 And the gathering darkness of night comes on. 
 Like a curtain from God's kind hand it flows, 
 To shade the couch where his children repose. 
 Then kneel, while the watching stars are bright, 
 And give your last thoughts to the Guardian of night. 
 
 To prayer ! — for the day that God has blest 
 Comes tranquilly on with its welcome rest. 
 It speaks of creation's early bloom, 
 It speaks of the Prince who burst the tomb. 
 Then summon the spirit's exalted powers, 
 And devote to Heaven the hallow'd hours. 
 
 There are smiles and tears in the mother's eyes, 
 
 For her new-born infant beside her lies. 
 
 Oh ! hour of bliss ! when the heart o'erflows 
 
 With rapture a mother only knows : 
 
 Let it gush forth in words of fervent prayer ; 
 
 Let it swell up to Heaven for her precious care. 
 
 There are smiles and tears in that gathering band, 
 Where the heart is pledged with the trembling hand: 
 What trying thoughts in her bosom swell, 
 As the bride bids parents and home farewell ! 
 Kneel down by the side of the tearful fair, 
 And strengthen the perilous hour with prayer. 
 
 Kneel down by the dying sinner's side, 
 And pray for his soul, through Him who died. 
 Large drops of anguish are thick on his brow : 
 Oh ! what are earth and its pleasures now ? 
 And what shall assuage his dark despair 
 But the penitent cry of humble prayer ? 
 
 Kneel down at the couch of departing faith, 
 
 And hear the last words the believer saith. 
 
 He has bidden adieu to his earthly friends ; 
 
 There is peace in his eye, that upward bends ; 
 
 There is peace in his calm, confiding air ; 
 
 For his last thoughts are God's — his last words, prayer. 
 
 The voice of prayer at the sable bier ! 
 
 A voice to sustain, to soothe, and to cheer. 
 
HENRY C. CAREY. 
 
 365 
 
 It commends the spirit to God who gave ; 
 It lifts the thoughts from the cold, dark grave ; 
 It points to the glory where He shall reign 
 "Who whisper'd, " Thy brother shall rise again." 
 
 The voice of prayer in the world of bliss ! 
 But gladder, purer than rose from this. 
 . The ransom'd shout to their glorious King, 
 "Where no sorrow shades the soul as they sing ; 
 But a sinless and joyous song they raise, 
 And their voice of prayer is eternal praise. 
 
 Awake \ awake ! and gird up thy strength, 
 
 To join that holy band at length. 
 
 To Him, who unceasing love displays, 
 
 Whom the powers of nature unceasingly praise, 
 
 To Him thy heart and thy hours be given ; 
 
 For a life of prayer is the life of heaven. 
 
 HEXRY C. CAREY. 
 
 This prolific and able writer on political economy, whose praise is in both 
 hemispheres, is the son of Mathew Carey, 1 and was born in Philadelphia in 1793. 
 Succeeding his father in his extensive publishing business in 1821, he continued 
 in this pursuit, so congenial to his literary tastes, till 183S. He seemed to 
 inherit a strong inclination to investigate subjects in connection with political 
 economy, and in 1S36 gave the results of his speculations in an Essay on the 
 Bate of Wages, which in 1840 was expanded into the Laics of Wealth, or Prin- 
 ciples of Political Economy, 3 vols, octav e The positions of this work at once 
 attracted the attention of the European political economists, and from many 
 of them elicited the warmest praise. It was published in Italian at Turin, and 
 in Swedish at Upsal. In 1848 Mr. Carey published The Past, the Present, and 
 the Future, the design of -which is to explain the facts of history by the aid of great 
 and universal laws, directly the reverse of those taught by Ricardo, Malthus, and 
 other eminent political economists. This work also has been translated into 
 several of the languages of Europe. 
 
 For several years, Mr. Carey contributed all the leading articles, and others of 
 less importance, to the periodical entitled " The Plough, the Loom, and the 
 Anvil." Many of these were collected and published in a volume, entitled The 
 Harmony of Interests, Agricultural, Manufacturing, and Commercial ; and others 
 of them in a pamphlet called The Prospect, Agricultural, Manufacturing, Commer- 
 
 1 Mathew Carey was born in Dublin in 1760, and, coming over to this country 
 early in life, established himself in the book-publishing business, which for 
 nearly half a century he carried on very extensively and with great success. 
 He was also distinguished as a philanthropist, and up to the very last year of his 
 long life he took the lead in many efforts to aid the deserving poor, and to ame- 
 liorate the condition of the suffering. He died in 1839. 
 
 31* 
 
366 HENRY C. CAREY. 
 
 cial, and Financial, at the Opening o/lSol. 1 In 1853 appeared The Slave-Trade. 
 Domestic and Foreign : why it exists, and how it may be extinguished. In the 
 latter part of 1857 appeared a series of admirable Letters addressed to the Presi- 
 dent of the United States upon the depressed condition of the financial, commer- 
 cial, agricultural, and manufacturing interests of our country, which have been 
 warmly commended and widely copied. His last work, in three volumes 
 octavo, is entitled Principles of Social Science, to which nothing that has appeared 
 upon this subject in the present century is equal, either in fulness or practical 
 efficiency ; and it will, we think, place him, in the estimation of all fair and 
 competent judges, among the very first of political economists. 
 
 MAN THE SUBJECT OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. 
 
 Man, the molecule of society, is the subject of social science. 
 In common with all other animals, he requires to eat, drink, and 
 sleep ) but his greatest need is that of association with his fellow- 
 men. Dependent upon the experience of himself and others for 
 all his knowledge, he requires language to enable him either to 
 record the results of his own observation, or to profit by those 
 of others j and of language there can be none without association. 
 Without language, he must remain in ignorance of the existence 
 of powers granted to him in lieu of the strength of the ox and the. 
 horse, the speed of the hare, and the sagacity of the elephant, and 
 must remain below the level of the brute creation. To have lan- 
 guage, there must be association and combination of men with 
 their fellow-men ; and it is on this condition only that man can be 
 man • on this alone that we can conceive of the being to which we 
 attach the idea of man. " It is not good/' said God, " that man 
 should live alone 5" nor do we ever find him doing so, — the earliest 
 records of the world exhibiting to us beings living together in 
 society, and using words for the expression of their ideas. Lan- 
 guage escapes from man at the touch of nature herself; 2 and the 
 power of using words is his essential faculty, enabling him to 
 maintain commerce with his fellow-men, and fitting him for that 
 association without which language cannot exist. The words 
 " society" and " language" convey to the mind separate and dis- 
 tinct ideas ; and yet by no effort of the mind can we conceive of 
 the existence of the one without the other. 
 
 1 Of the Harmony of Interests, " Blackwood's Magazine" thus remarks : — " Mr. 
 Carey, the well-known statistical writer of America, has supplied us with ample 
 materials for conducting such an inquiry; and we can safely recommend his 
 remarkable work to all who wish to investigate the causes of the progress or 
 decline of industrial communities." 
 
 "Mr. Carey has clearly substantiated his claim to be the leading writer now 
 devoted to the study of political economy. In his pregnant discussions, he baa 
 not only elevated the scientific position of his country, but nobly subserved the 
 cause of humanity." — A r . Y. Quarterly. 2 See remarks of Noah Webster, p. 142. 
 
HENRY C. CAREY. 
 
 367 
 
 The subject of social science, then, is man, the being to whom 
 have been given reason and the faculty of individualizing sounds 
 so as to give expression to every variety of idea, and who has 
 been placed in a position to exercise that faculty. Isolate him, 
 and with the loss of the power of speech he loses the power to 
 reason, and with it the distinctive quality of man. Restore him 
 to society, and with the return of the power of speech he becomes 
 again the reasoning man. 
 
 COMMERCE AND TRADE. 
 
 The words " commerce" and " trade" are commonly regarded 
 as convertible terms; yet are the ideas they express so widely 
 different as to render it essential that their difference be clearly 
 understood. All men are prompted to associate and combine with 
 each other, to exchange ideas and services with each other, and 
 thus to maintain commerce. Some men seek to perform ex- 
 changes for other men, and thus to maintain TRADE. 
 
 Commerce is the object everywhere desired and everywhere 
 sought to be accomplished. Traffic is the instrument used by 
 commerce for its accomplishment; and the greater the necessity 
 for the instrument, the less is the power of those who require to 
 use it. The nearer the consumer and the producer, and the more 
 perfect the power of association, the less is the necessity for the 
 trader's services, but the greater are the powers of those who 
 produce and consume, and the desire to maintain commerce. The 
 more distant they are, the greater is the need of the trader's ser- 
 vices, and the greater is his power ; but the poorer and weaker 
 become the producers and the consumers, and the smaller is the 
 commerce. The men who buy and sell, who traffic and transport, 
 desire to prevent association, and thus to preclude the mainte- 
 nance of commerce; and the more perfectly their object is accom- 
 plished, the larger is the proportion of the commodities passing 
 through their hands retained by them, and the smaller the pro- 
 portion to be divided between the producers and the consumers. 
 
 THE WARRIOR-CHIEF AND THE TRADER. 
 
 The object of the warrior-chief being that of preventing the 
 existence of any motion in society except that which centres in 
 himself, he monopolizes land, and destroys the power of voluntary 
 association among the men he uses as his instruments. The sol- 
 dier, obeying the word of command, is so far from holding him- 
 self responsible to God or man for the observance of the rights of 
 person or of property, that he glories in the extent of his rob- 
 beries and in the number of his murders. The man of the Rocky 
 
368 
 
 HENRY C. CAREY. 
 
 Mountains adorns his person with the scalps of his butchered 
 enemies ; while the more civilized murderer contents himself with 
 adding a ribbon to the decoration of his coat ; but both are savages 
 alike. The trader — equally with the soldier seeking to prevent 
 any movement except that which centres in himself — also uses 
 irresponsible machines. The sailor is among the most brutalized 
 of human beings, bound, like the soldier, to obey orders, at the 
 risk of having his back seamed by the application of the whip. 
 The human machines used by war and trade are the only ones, 
 except the negro slave, who are now flogged. 
 
 The soldier desires labor to be cheap, that recruits may readily 
 be obtained. The great land-owner desires it may be cheap, that 
 he may be enabled to appropriate to himself a large proportion of 
 the proceeds of his land ; and the trader desires it to be cheap, 
 that he may be enabled to dictate the terms upon which he will 
 buy as well as those upon which he will sell. 
 
 The object of all being thus identical, — that of obtaining power 
 over their fellow-men, — it is no matter of surprise that we find the 
 trader and the soldier so uniformly helping and being helped by 
 each other. The bankers of Rome were as ready to furnish mate- 
 rial aid to Caesar, Pompey, and Augustus, as are now those of 
 London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Vienna to grant it to the Em- 
 perors of France, Austria, and Russia; and as indifierent as they 
 in relation to the end for whose attainment it was destined to be 
 used. War and trade thus travel together, as is shown by the 
 history of the world. The only difference between wars made for 
 purposes of conquest, and those for the maintenance of monopolies 
 of trade, being that the virulence of the latter is much greater than 
 is that of the former. The conqueror, seeking political power, is 
 sometimes moved by a desire to improve the condition of his fel- 
 low-men ; but the trader, in pursuit of power, is animated by no 
 other idea than that of buying in the cheapest market and selling 
 in the dearest, — cheapening merchandise in the one, even at the 
 cost of starving the producers, and increasing his price in the 
 other, even at the cost of starving the consumers. Both profit by 
 whatever tends to diminution in the power of voluntary associa- 
 tion and consequent decline of commerce. The soldier forbids 
 the holding of meetings among his subjects. The slave-owner 
 interdicts his people from assembling together, except at such 
 times and in such places as meet his approbation. The shipmaster 
 rejoices when the men of England separate from each other, and 
 transport themselves by hundreds of thousands to Canada and 
 Australia, because it enhances freights; and the trader rejoices, 
 because the more widely men are scattered, the more they need 
 the service of the middle-man, and the richer and more powerful 
 does he become at their expense. 
 
SAMUEL G. GOODRICH. 
 
 369 
 
 SAMUEL G. GOODRICH. 
 
 If any one could claim a place in the pages of this Compendium of American 
 Literature from the number and popularity of his published works, then Samuel 
 G. Goodrich, the renowned "Peter Parley," has a right here above all others. 
 He was born at Ridgefield, Connecticut, on the 19th of August, 1793, and in early 
 life commenced the publication of historical, geographical, and other school-books, 
 at Hartford, in his native State, and subsequently became, in the same depart- 
 ment, a writer so prolific, that it was no easy task to compute the number of his 
 published works. 1 In 1824, on his return from Europe, he published "The 
 Token," — a collection of original pieces in prose and poetry, by various contri- 
 butors, and elegantly illustrated. It was the first "Annual," we believe, that 
 appeared in our country, and it became very popular. It was continued for 
 fifteen years, and many of the poems and tales in it were written by himself. 
 
 Besides his almost numberless compilations, Mr. Goodrich has published the 
 following original works : — In 1836, Sketches from a Student's Window, being a 
 collection of his contributions to "The Token" and various magazines; in 1838, 
 Fireside Education ; in 1841, The Outcast, and other Poems; in 1856, Recollec- 
 tions of a Lifetime, or Men and Things I have Seen, in two volumes. Fx'om the 
 latter I have made the following prose selections : — 
 
 TIMOTHY D WIGHT. 
 
 Dr. Dwight was perhaps even more distinguished in conversa- 
 tion than in the pulpit. He was indeed regarded as without a 
 rival in this respect; his knowledge was extensive and various, 
 and his language eloquent, rich, and flowing. His fine voice and 
 noble person gave great effect to what he said. When he spoke, 
 others were silent. This arose in part from the superiority of his 
 powers, but in part also from his manner, which was somewhat 
 authoritative. Thus he engrossed, not rudely, but with the will- 
 ing assent of those around him, the lead in conversation. Never- 
 theless, I must remark that in society the imposing grandeur of 
 his personal appearance in the pulpit was softened by a general 
 blandness of expression and a sedulous courtesy of manner, which 
 
 1 The number of works that Mr. Goodrich has published, either written, com- 
 piled, or edited by himself, is so great that the very catalogue would fill two 
 pages of my book. For a full account of the same, and also for a list of spurious 
 works that have been claimed to be written by him, see the appendix to the 
 second volume of his Recollections of a Lifetime. They may be summed up as 
 folloAvs : — Miscellaneous Works, including fourteen volumes of "The Token," 
 thirty volumes: School-Books, twenty-seven volumes; Tales, under the name 
 of "Peter Parley," thirty-six volume-s ; Parley's Historical Conyiends, thirty-six 
 volumes; Parley's Miscellanies, seventy volumes: in all, one hundred and 
 seventy-seven volumes. "Of all th 2se," he says, "about seven millions of 
 volumes have been sold; and about three hundred thousand volumes are now 
 sold annually." 
 
870 
 
 SAMUEL G. GOODRICH. 
 
 were always conciliating, and sometimes really captivating. His 
 smile was irresistible. 
 
 In reflecting upon this good and great man, and reading his 
 works in after-time, I am still impressed with his general supe- 
 riority, — his manly intellect, his vast range of knowledge, and his 
 large heart; yet I am persuaded that, on account of his noble 
 person, — the perfection of the visible man, — he exercised a power 
 in his day and generation somewhat beyond the natural scope of 
 his mental endowments. Those who only read his works cannot 
 fully realize the impression which he made upon the age in which 
 he lived. His name is still honored ; many of his works still 
 live. His " Body of Divinity" takes the precedence, not only 
 here, but in England, over all works of the same kind and the 
 same doctrine j but at the period to which I refer, he was re- 
 garded with a species of idolatry by those around him. Even the 
 pupils of the college under his presidential charge — those who are 
 not usually inclined to hero-worship — almost adored him. To 
 this day, those who had the good fortune to receive their educa- 
 tion under his auspices look back upon it as a great era in 
 their lives. 
 
 There was indeed reason for this. With all his greatness in 
 other respects, Dr. Dwight seems to have been more particularly 
 felicitous as the teacher, the counsellor, the guide, of educated 
 young men. In the lecture-room, all his high and noble qualities 
 seemed to find their full scope. He did not here confine himself 
 to merely scientific instruction : he gave lessons in morals and 
 manners, and taught, with a wisdom which experience and com- 
 mon sense only could have furnished, the various ways to insure 
 success in life. He gave lectures upon health, — the art of main- 
 taining a vigorous constitution with the earnest pursuit of pro- 
 fessional duties, — citing his own example, which consisted in 
 laboring every day in the garden, when the season permitted, and 
 at other times at some mechanical employment. He recommended 
 that in intercourse with mankind, his pupils should always con- 
 verse with each individual upon that subject in which he was 
 most instructed, observing that he never met a man of whom he 
 could not learn something. He gave counsel suited to the various 
 professions : to those who were to become clergymen, he imparted 
 the wisdom which he had gathered by a life of long and active 
 experience; he counselled those who were to become lawyers, 
 physicians, merchants, — and all with a fulness of knowledge and 
 a felicity of illustration and application, as if he had actually spent 
 a life in each of these vocations. And more than this : he sought 
 to infuse into the bosom of all that high principle which served to 
 inspire his own soul, — that is, to be always a gentleman, taking 
 St. Paul as his model. He considered not courtesy only, but 
 
SAMUEL G. GOODRICH. 
 
 371 
 
 truth, honor, manliness in all things, as essential to this character. 
 Every kind of meanness he despised. Love of country was the 
 constant theme of his eulogy. Religion was the soul of his sys- 
 tem. God was the centre of gravity, and man should make the 
 moral law as inflexible as the law of nature. Seeking to elevate 
 all to this sphere, he still made its orbit full of light, — the light 
 of love, and honor, and patriotism, and literature, and ambition, — 
 all verging towards that fulness of glory which earth only reflects 
 and heaven only can unfold. 
 
 THE RURAL DISTRICTS OUR COUNTRY'S STRENGTH. 
 
 The importance of the progress and improvement of the coun- 
 try towns is plain, when we consider that here, and not in the 
 great cities, — New York, or Boston, or Philadelphia, — are the hope, 
 strength, and glory of our nation. Here, in the smaller towns 
 and villages, are indeed the majority of the people, and here there 
 is a weight of sober thought, just judgment, and virtuous feeling, 
 that will serve as rudder and ballast to our country, whatever 
 weather may betide. 
 
 As I have so recently travelled through some of the finest and 
 most renowned portions of the European continent, I find myself 
 constantly comparing the towns and villages which I see here 
 with those foreign lands. One thing is clear, that there are in 
 continental Europe no such country towns and villages as those 
 of New England and some other portions of this country. Not 
 only the exterior but the interior is totally different. The villages 
 there resemble the squalid suburbs of a city ; the people are like 
 their houses, — poor and subservient, — narrow in intellect, feeling, 
 and habits of thought. I know twenty towns in France, having 
 from two to ten thousand inhabitants, where, if you except the 
 prefects, mayors, notaries, and a few other persons in each place, 
 there is scarcely a family that rises to the least independence of 
 thought, or even a moderate elevation of character. All the 
 power, all the thought, all the genius, all the expanse of intellect, 
 are centred at Paris. The blood of the country is drawn to this 
 seat and centre, leaving the limbs and members cold and pulseless 
 as those of a corpse. 
 
 How different is it in this country ! The life, vigor, poAver of 
 these United States are diffused through a thousand veins and 
 arteries over the whole people, every limb nourished, every mem- 
 ber invigorated ! New York, Philadelphia, and Boston do not 
 give law to this country ; that comes from the people — the 
 farmers, mechanics, manufacturers, merchants — independent in 
 their circumstances, and sober, religious, virtuous in their habits 
 of thought and conduct. I make allowance for the sinister 
 
872 
 
 SAMUEL G. GOODRICH. 
 
 influence of vice which abounds in some places; for the debasing 
 effects of demagogism in our politicians ; for the corruption of 
 selfish and degrading interests, cast into the general current 
 of public feeling and opinion. I admit that these sometimes 
 make the nation swerve, for a time, from the path of wisdom ; but 
 the wandering is neither wide nor long. The preponderating 
 national mind is just and sound, and, if danger comes, it will 
 manifest its power and avert it. 
 
 BOSTON IN 1824. 
 
 In 1824, Boston was notoriously the literary metropolis of the 
 Union, — the admitted Athens of America. Edward Everett had 
 given permanency to the u North American Review and though 
 he had just left the editorial chair, his spirit dwelt in it, and his 
 fame lingered around it. Richard II. Dana, Edward T. (man- 
 ning, Jared Sparks, George Bancroft, and others, were among the 
 rising lights of the literary horizon. The newspaper press pre- 
 sented the witty and caustic " Galaxy," edited by Buckingham ; 
 the dignified and scholarly " Daily Advertiser," conducted by 
 Nathan Hale ; and the frank, sensible, manly " Centinel," under 
 the editorial patriarch, Benjamin Russell. Channing was in the 
 pulpit and Webster at the forum. Society was strongly impressed 
 with literary tastes; genius was respected and cherished; a man, 
 in those days, who had achieved a literary fame, was at least equal 
 to a president of a bank, or a treasurer of a manufacturing com- 
 pany. The pulpit shone bright and far, with the light of scholar- 
 ship radiated from the names of Beecher, Greenwood, Pierpont, 
 Lowell, Palfrey, Doane, Stone, Frothingham, Gannett : the bar 
 also reflected the glory of letters through H. G. Otis, Charles 
 Jackson, William Prescott, Benjamin Gorham, Willard Phillips, 
 James T. Austin, among the older members, and Charles G. 
 Loring, Charles P. Curtis, Richard Fletcher, Theophilus Parsons, 
 Franklin Dexter, J. Quincy, Jr., Edward G. Loring, Benjamin 
 R. Curtis, among the younger. The day had not yet come when 
 it was glory enough for a college professor to marry a hundred 
 thousand dollars of stocks, or when it was the chief end of a 
 lawyer to become the attorney of an insurance company, or a 
 bank, or a manufacturing corporation. Corporations, without 
 souls, had not yet become the masters and moulders of the soul 
 of society. Books with a Boston imprint had a prestige equal 
 to a certificate of good paper, good print, good binding, and 
 good matter. And while such was the state of things at Boston, 
 how was it at New York ? Why, all this time the Harpers, who 
 till recently had been mere printers in Dover Street, had scarcely 
 entered upon their career as publishers, and the Appletons, Put- 
 
SAMUEL G. GOODRICH. 
 
 378 
 
 nam, Derby, the Masons, and other shining lights in the trade of 
 New York at the present time, were either unborn, or in the nur- 
 sery, or at school. 
 
 AVhat a revolution do these simple items suggest, — wrought in 
 the space of thirty years ! The sceptre has departed from Judah : 
 New York is now the acknowledged metropolis of American lite- 
 rature, as well as of art and commerce. Nevertheless, if we look 
 at Boston literature at the present time, as reflected in the publish- 
 ing lists of Messrs. Little, Brown & Co., Ticknor & Fields, Phillips, 
 Sampson & Co., Crocker & Brewster, Gould & Lincoln, we shall see 
 that the light of other days has not degenerated. Is it not aug- 
 mented, indeed ? — for since the period I speak of, Prescott, Long- 
 follow, Hawthorne, Whipple, Holmes, Lowell, Hillard, have joined 
 the Boston constellation of letters ?* 
 
 1 Philadelphia will not silently see herself thus ignored as a hook-publishing 
 city. Her earlier publishers, Mathew Carey, John Grigg, and others, did an 
 amount of business second at that time to no other houses in the country. In 
 1804, Mr. Carey set up the Bible in quarto form, and kept the type standing, — the 
 first enterprise of that kind, it is thought, in the world ; and of this, over two 
 hundred thousand impressions were published. And it may here be remarked 
 that Philadelphia continues to manufacture more Bibles (outside of the American 
 Bible Society) than all other cities in the Union combined. 
 
 In the first quarter of the present century there were published in Philadelphia 
 such works as these : — Dobson's Encyclopedia, 21 vols. ; Bees' Cyclopedia, 46 vols. ; 
 Edinburgh Encyclopedia, 18 vols. ; while the Encyclopedia Americana,. 13 vols. 
 Svo, published more than twenty years ago by Carey & Lea, cost for authorship 
 alone about twenty-five thousand dollars. Nearly forty years ago, John Grigg 
 first exhibited that ability and energy which soon placed the house of Grigg, 
 Elliott & Co. at the head of the distributing houses of the country; and their 
 successors, J. B. Lippincott & Co., are probably the largest book-selling and 
 book-distributing house in the world. It has recently been made a matter of 
 boast that Chambers & Co., of Edinburgh, had sent out ten tons in a fortnight; 
 whereas Lippincott & Co. have sent out for three weeks together tex tons 
 
 EVERY DAY ! 
 
 As to Medical Books, it is said that more than three-fourths of the whole 
 number issued in the United States are printed and published in Philadelphia. 
 The three firms most extensively engaged in this branch are Blanchard & Lea, 
 J. B. Lippincott & Co., and Lindsay & Blakiston. The first of these firms continues 
 to publish the "American Journal of Medical Science," whose reputation is 
 second to none other in the world. Professor Wood's " Practice of Medicine" is 
 used not only in the best medical colleges in this country, but is a text-book in 
 some of the highest rank in Great Britain; and Professor Dunglison's "Medical 
 Dictionary," published by Blanchard & Lea, is said to be the most comprehensive 
 book of the kind in our language. 
 
 In the department of Voyages and Travels, to mention no other, we wouM 
 name the United States Exploring Expedition, by Charles Wilkes, in five royal 
 octavo volumes, with a volume of maps, published by Blanchard & Lea; for it 
 may well be doubted if any other work of travels has equalled — certainly none 
 has excelled — this in artistic and mechanical execution. 
 
 In the matter of School Books, the publications of J. B. Lippincott & Co., 
 Cowperthwait & Co., E. C. & J. Biddle, and E. II. Butler & Co., doubtless exceed 
 those of any other four houses in the country. The last house issues annually 
 nearly four hundred thousand volumes of Mitchell's series of Geographies alone. 
 
 If we now turn our attention to books elegantly illustrated, and printed and 
 
 32 
 
374 
 
 CARLOS WILCOX. 
 
 CARLOS WILCOX, 1794—1827. 
 
 Carlos Wilcox was born at Newport, New Hampshire, October 22, 1794. He 
 graduated at Middlebury College in 1813, and then entered the theological school 
 at Andover, Massachusetts. He began to preach in 1819; but his health failed, 
 and he accepted an invitation from a friend in Salisbury, Connecticut, to reside 
 at his house, where he spent two years and composed his Age of Benevolence. 
 In 1821, he was ordained as pastor of the North Congregational Church, Hart- 
 ford, and soon won a high reputation for eloquence; but his health began to 
 decline rapidly, and after various journeys for its restoration, to no purpose, he 
 breathed his last on the 27th of May, 1S27. 
 
 His Remains, with a Memoir of his Life, were published in 182S. The volume 
 contains two poems, the Age of Benevolence ; The Religion of Taste, delivered in 
 1821 before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Yale College; and fourteen Sermons. 
 Both of the poems are incomplete; but of such merit are they as fragments, that 
 they make us the more sorrowful for what we have lost. 1 
 
 SEPTEMBER. 
 
 The sultry summer past, September comes, 
 Soft twilight of the slow-declining year ; — 
 All mildness, soothing loneliness and peace ; 
 The fading season ere the falling come, 
 More sober than the buxom blooming May, 
 And therefore less the favorite of the world, 
 But dearest month of all to pensive minds. 
 'Tis now far spent ; and the meridian sun, 
 Most sweetly smiling with attemper'd beams, 
 Sheds gently down a mild and grateful warmth. 
 Beneath its yellow lustre, groves and woods, 
 Checker'd by one night's frost with various hues, 
 
 bound in the richest manner, no house in the country surpasses, if any equals, 
 that of E. H. Butler & Co. Their last published work of this kind, — A Gallery 
 of Famous Poets, selected and arranged by Professor Henry Coppee, — as bound by 
 Pawson & Nicholson,* is pronounced by all competent judges to be the most 
 magnificent book ever issued in this country certainly, and quite equalling any 
 ever printed in England. 
 
 1 " He was a true poet, and deeply interesting in his character, both as a man 
 and a Christian. He resembled Cowper in many respects, — in the gentleness and 
 tenderness of his sensibilities, — in the modest and retiring disposition of his 
 mind, in its fine culture and its original poetic cast, — and not a little iu the 
 character of his poetry." — George B. Cheever. 
 
 * I believe New York and Boston booksellers acknowledge Pawson & Nicholson the best 
 binders in this country, and not surpassed even by Hay day of London. The junior partner. 
 James B. Nicholson, has published a work of great practical value upon the subject, untitled 
 ••A Manual of the Art of Bookbinding; containing Full Instructions in the Different 
 Branches of Forwarding, Gilding, and Finishing; also" the Art of Marbling Book-Edges and 
 Paper. The whole designed for the Practical Workman, the Amateur, and the Book- 
 Collector." 
 
CARLOS WILCOX. 
 
 While yet no wind has swept a leaf away. 
 
 Shine doubly rich. It were a sad delight 
 
 Down the smooth stream to glide, and see it tinged 
 
 Upon each brink with all the gorgeous hues, 
 
 The yellow, red, or purple of the trees, 
 
 That, singly, or in tufts, or forests thick, 
 
 Adorn the shores ; to see, perhaps, the side 
 
 Of some high mount reflected far below 
 
 With its bright colors, intermix'd with spots 
 
 Of darker green. Yes, it were sweetly sad 
 
 To wander in the open fields, and hear, 
 
 E'en at this hour, the noon-day hardly past, 
 
 The lulling insects of the summer's night; 
 
 To hear, where lately buzzing swarms were heard, 
 
 A lonely bee long roving here and there 
 
 To find a single flower, but all in vain ; 
 
 Then, rising quick, and with a louder hum, 
 
 In widening circles round and round his head, 
 
 Straight by the listener flying clear away, 
 
 As if to bid the fields a last adieu ; 
 
 To hear, within the woodland's sunny side, 
 
 Late full of music, nothing, save, perhaps, 
 
 The sound of nutshells by the squirrel dropp'd 
 
 From some tall beech, fast falling through the leaves. 
 
 FREEDOM. 
 
 All are born free, and all with equal rights. 
 So speaks the charter of a nation proud 
 Of her unequall'd liberties and laws, 
 While in that nation — shameful to relate — 
 One man in five is born and dies a slave. 
 Is this my country ? this that happy land, 
 The wonder and the envy of the world? 
 Oh for a mantle to conceal her shame ! 
 But why, when Patriotism cannot hide 
 The ruin which her guilt will surely bring 
 If unrepented ? and, unless the God 
 Who pour'd his plagues on Egypt till she let 
 The oppress'd go free, and often pours his wrath, 
 In earthquakes and tornadoes, on the isles 
 Of Western India, laying waste their fields, 
 Dashing their mercenary ships ashore, 
 Tossing the isles themselves like floating wrecks, 
 And burying towns alive in one wide grave, 
 No sooner oped but closed, let judgment pass 
 For once untasted till the general doom, 
 Can it go well with us while we retain 
 This cursed thing ? Will not untimely frosts, 
 Devouring insects, drought, and wind and hail, 
 Destroy the fruits of ground long till'd in chains? 
 Will not some daring spirit, born to thoughts 
 Above his beast-like state, find out the truth, 
 That Africans are men ; and, catching fire 
 
876 
 
 CARLOS WILCOX. 
 
 From Freedom's altar raised before his eyes 
 
 With incense fuming sweet, in others light 
 
 A kindred flame in secret, till a train, 
 
 Kindled at once, deal death on eyery side ? 
 
 Cease then, Columbia, for thy safety cease, 
 
 And for thine honor, to proclaim the praise 
 
 Of thy fair shores of liberty and joy, 
 
 While thrice five hundred thousand wretched slaves, 1 
 
 In thine own bosom, start at every word 
 
 As meant to mock their woes, and shake their chains, 
 
 Thinking defiance which they dare not speak. 
 
 DOING GOOD, TRUE HAPPINESS. 
 
 Wouldst thou from sorrow find a sweet relief? 
 
 Or is thy heart oppress'd with woes untold ? 
 Balm wouldst thou gather for corroding grief? 
 
 Pour blessings round thee like a shower of gold. 
 
 'Tis when the rose is wrapp'd in many a fold 
 Close to its heart, the worm is wasting there 
 
 Its life and beauty ; not when, all unroll'd, 
 Leaf after leaf, its bosom, rich and fair, 
 Breathes freely its perfumes throughout the ambient air. 
 
 Wake, thou that sleepest in enchanted bowers. 
 
 Lest these lost years should haunt thee on the night 
 When death is waiting for thy number'd hours 
 
 To take their swift and everlasting flight ; 
 
 Wake, ere the earth-born charm unnerve thee quite, 
 And be thy thoughts to work divine address'd; 
 
 Do something — do it soon — with all thy might ; 
 An angel's wing would droop if long at rest, 
 And God himself, inactive, were no longer blest. 
 
 Some high or humble enterprise of good 
 
 Contemplate, till it shall possess thy mind, 
 Become thy study, pastime, rest, and food, 
 
 And kindle in thy heart a flame refined. 
 
 Pray Heaven for firmness thy whole soul to bind 
 To this thy purpose — to begin, pursue, 
 
 With thoughts all fix'd, and feelings purely kind; 
 Strength to complete, and with delight review, 
 And grace to give the praise where all is ever due. 
 
 No good of worth sublime will Heaven permit 
 To light on man as from the passing air ; 
 
 The lamp of genius, though by nature lit, 
 If not protected, pruned, and fed with care, 
 Soon dies, or runs to waste with fitful glare ; 
 
 And learning is a plant that spreads and towers 
 Slow as Columbia's aloe, proudly rare, 
 
 That 'mid gay thousands, with the suns and showers 
 Of half a century, grows alone before it flowers. 
 
 1 According to the census of 1850, there are in the land 3,204,317 slaves,— 
 about one to every six freemen. 
 
Author of tfiz Corufictrors Grave, 
 
 Prated Lv W. Pat 
 
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 
 
 377 
 
 Has immortality of name been given 
 
 To them that idly worship hills and groves, 
 
 And burn sweet incense to the queen of heaven ? 
 Did Newton learn from fancy, as it roves, 
 To measure worlds, and follow where each moves ? 
 
 Did Howard gain renown that shall not cease, 
 By wanderings wild that nature's pilgrim loves ? 
 
 Or did Paul gain heaven's glory and its peace 
 By musing o'er the bright and tranquil isles of Greece ? 
 
 Beware lest thou, from sloth, that would appear 
 But lowliness of mind, with joy proclaim 
 
 Thy want of worth, — a charge thou couldst not hear . 
 From other lips, without a blush of shame, 
 Or pride indignant ; then be thine the blame, 
 
 And make thyself of worth ; and thus enlist 
 The smiles of all the good, the dear to fame ; 
 
 'Tis infamy to die and not be miss'd, 
 Or let all soon forget that thou didst e'er exist. 
 
 Bouse to some work of high and holy love, 
 And thou an angel's happiness shalt know ; 
 
 Shalt bless the earth while in the world above ; 
 The good begun by thee shall onward flow 
 In many a branching stream, and wider grow ; 
 
 The seed that, in these few and fleeting hours, 
 Thy hands, unsparing and unwearied, sow, 
 
 Shall deck thy grave with amaranthine flowers, 
 And yield thee fruits divine in heaven's immortal bowers. 
 
 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 
 
 This eminent poet and political philosopher, the son of Peter Bryant, M.D., of 
 Cummington, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, was born in that town on the 
 3d of November, 1794. When only ten years of age, Mr. Bryant produced several 
 small poems, which, though bearing, of course, the marks of immaturity, were 
 thought of sufficient merit to be published in a neighboring newspaper, — the 
 " Hampshire Gazette." After going through the usual preparatory studies, he 
 entered the sophomore class of Williams College, in 1810, and for two years pur- 
 sued his studies with commendable industry, — being distinguished more espe- 
 cially for his fondness of the classics. Anxious, however, to begin the profession 
 which he had chosen, — the law, — he procured an honorable dismission at the end 
 of the junior year, and in 1815 was admitted to practice at the bar of Plymouth. 
 
 But Mr. Bryant did not, during the period of his professional studies, neglect 
 the cultivation of his poetic talents. In 1S08, before he entered college, he had 
 published, in Boston, a satirical poem which attracted so much attention that a 
 second edition was demanded the next year. But what gave him his early, 
 enviable rank as a poet was the publication, in the " North American Review," 
 
 32* 
 
378 
 
 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 
 
 in 1817, of the poem Thanatopsis, written four years before, (in 1812.) That a 
 young man, not yet nineteen, should have produced a poem so lofty in concep- 
 tion and so beautiful in execution, so full of chaste language and delicate and 
 striking imagery, and, above all, so pervaded by a noble and cheerful religious 
 philosophy, may well be regarded as one of the most remarkable examples of early 
 maturity in literary history. Nor did this production stand alone : the Inscrip- 
 tion for an Entrance into a Wood followed in 1813 ; and The Waterfowl in 1S16. 
 In 1821, he wrote his longest poem, The Ages, which was delivered before the Phi 
 Beta Kappa Society of Harvard College, and soon after published in Boston in 
 connection with his other poems. The appearance of this volume at once placed 
 Mr. Bryant in the very front rank of American poets. 
 
 In 1822, Mr. Bryant was married to Miss Fairchild, of Great Barrington, 
 Massachusetts, whither he had removed to prosecute his profession. But, though 
 skilful and successful in it, he preferred to devote his life to the more congenial 
 pursuits of literature; and in 1825 he removed to New York, where he edited 
 a monthly periodical, " The New York Review and Athenaeum Magazine," in 
 which appeared many forcible and just criticisms, and some of his best poems. 
 In 1S2G, he became the editor of the " Evening Post," — one of the oldest and most 
 influential of the daily gazettes in our country. At once its columns evinced new 
 spirit and vigor, and it became the leading journal of the so-called " Democratic" 
 party, supporting its views in relation to banks, free trade, <tc. with signal ability. 
 But in later years, when he thought that that party had abandoned the principles 
 of its founders, and was becoming too much the ally of the slave-power, he 
 divorced himself from it, and devoted his talents and influence to the cause of 
 republican freedom. 1 
 
 Mr. Bryant has visited Europe five times,— in 1831, 1830, 1849, 1852, and 
 1857, — enriching his journal with his letters descriptive of the scenes, places, 
 countries, and persons visited. In 1850, he published a collection of letters 
 written during his travels, under the title of Letters of a Traveller, of which 
 several editions have appeared. His letters written during his last tour, mostly 
 in Spain, have been lately published, and form the Second Scries of Letters of a 
 Traveller. But notwithstanding the ease and charm of his descriptive style, and 
 its terseness and power in discussing political subjects, it is as a poet that Mr. 
 Bryant will ever be most known, most loved, and most honored. 2 
 
 1 When the " Evening Post" completed its first half-centurj', in 1851, Mr. 
 Bryant wrote its history, which appeared in a pamphlet. 
 
 2 For criticisms of Mr. Bryant's poetry, read articles in "Democratic Review," 
 vols. vii. and x. ; "North American Review," vols, xiii., xxxiv., and lv. ; "Chris- 
 tian Examiner," vols. xxii. and xxxiii. ; "American Quarterly Review," vol. xx. 
 In the " Democratic Review" for February, 1845, is a fine article on his poetry, 
 by H. T. Tuckerman. In the " North American Review" for January, 1844, are 
 the following just and well-written remarks: — 
 
 " His poems are almost perfect of their kind. The fruits of meditation, rather 
 than of passion or imagination, and rarely startling with an unexpected image or 
 sudden outbreak of feeling, they are admirable specimens of what may be called 
 the philosophy of the soul. They address the finer instincts of our nature with a 
 voice so winning and gentle, they search out with such subtle power all in the 
 heart which is true and good, that their influence, though quiet, is resistless. 
 
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 
 
 379 
 
 THANATOPSIS. 
 
 To him who, in the love of Nature, holds 
 Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
 A various language ; for his gayer hours 
 She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 
 And eloquence of beauty, and she glides 
 Into his darker musings with a mild 
 And healing sympathy, that steals away 
 Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts 
 Of the last bitter hour come like a blight 
 Over thy spirit, and sad images 
 Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, 
 And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, 
 Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart; — ■ 
 Go forth, under the open sky, and list 
 To Nature's teachings, while from all around — 
 Earth and her waters, and the depths of air — 
 Comes a still voice. — Yet a few days, and thee 
 The all-beholding sun shall see no more 
 In all his course ; nor yet in the cold ground, 
 Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, 
 Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist 
 Thy image. Earth, that nourish'd thee, shall claim 
 Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again; 
 And, lost each human trace, surrendering up 
 Thine individual being, shalt thou go 
 To mix forever with the elements, 
 To be a brother to the insensible rock 
 And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain 
 Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak 
 Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. 
 Yet not to thine eternal resting-place 
 Shalt thou retire alone, — nor couldst thou wish 
 Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down 
 Witli patriarchs of the infant world, — with kings, 
 The powerful of the earth, — the wise, the good, 
 Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, 
 All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills 
 
 They have consecrated to many minds things which before it was painful to con- 
 template. Who can say that his feelings and fears respecting death have not re- 
 ceived an insensible change since reading the Thanatopsis ? Indeed, we think 
 that Bryant's poems are valuable not only for their intrinsic excellence, but for 
 the vast influence their wide circulation is calculated to exercise on national feel- 
 ings and manners. It is impossible to read them without being morally bene- 
 fited : they purify as well as please; they develop or encourage all the elevated 
 and thoughtful tendencies of the mind. In the jar and bustle of our Americau 
 life, more favorable to quickness and acuteness of mind than to meditation, it is 
 well that we have a poet who can bring the hues and odors of nature into the 
 crowded mart, and, by ennobling thoughts of man and his destiny, induce the 
 most worldly to give their eyes an occasional glance upward, and the most selfish 
 to feel that the love of God and man is better than the love of mammon." 
 
 An elegant edition of Mr. Bryant's poems, arranged by himself, and richly 
 illustrated, has just been published by Appleton & Co. 
 
380 
 
 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 
 
 Rock-ribb'd and ancient as the sun, — the vales 
 
 Stretching in pensive quietness between ; 
 
 The venerable woods, — rivers that move 
 
 In majesty, and the complaining brooks 
 
 That make the meadows green: and, pourd round all, 
 
 Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste, — 
 
 Are but the solemn decorations all 
 
 Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, 
 
 The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, 
 
 Are shining on the sad abodes of death, 
 
 Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread 
 
 The globe are but a handful to the tribes 
 
 That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings 
 
 Of morning, traverse Barca's desert sands, 
 
 Or lose thyself in the continuous woods 
 
 Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound 
 
 Save its own dashings, — yet — the dead are there, 
 
 And millions in those solitudes, since first 
 
 The flight of years began, have laid them down 
 
 In their last sleep, — the dead reign there alone. 
 
 So shalt thou rest ; and what if thou withdraw 
 
 In silence from the living, and no friend 
 
 Take note of thy departure ? All that breathe 
 
 Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh 
 
 When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care 
 
 Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase 
 
 His favorite phantom ; yet all these shall leave 
 
 Their mirth and their employments, and shall come 
 
 And make their bed with thee. As the long train 
 
 Of ages glides away, the sons of men — ■ 
 
 The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes 
 
 In the full strength of years, matron and maid, 
 
 And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man — 
 
 Shall, one by one, be gather'd to thy side, 
 
 By those who in their turn shall follow them. 
 
 So live that, when thy summons comes to join 
 The innumerable caravan, which moves 
 To that mysterious realm where each shall take 
 His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
 Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, 
 Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustain'd and soothed 
 By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave 
 Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
 About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 
 
 TO A WATERFOWL. 
 
 Whither, 'midst falling dew, 
 While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, 
 Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue 
 
 Thy solitary way ? 
 
 Vainly the fowler's eye 
 Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, 
 
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 
 
 As, darkly limn'd upon the crimson sky, 
 Thy figure floats along. 
 
 Seek'st thou the plashy brink 
 Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, 
 Or where the rocking billows rise and sink 
 
 On the chafed ocean side ? 
 
 There is a Power whose care 
 Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, — 
 The desert and illimitable air, — 
 
 Lone wandering, but not lost. 
 
 All day thy wings have fann'd, 
 At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, 
 Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, 
 
 Though the dark night is near. 
 
 And soon that toil shall end ; 
 Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, 
 And scream among thy fellows ; reeds shall bend, 
 
 Soon, o'er thy shelter'd nest. 
 
 Thou'rt gone ; the abyss of heaven 
 Hath swallow'd up thy form ; yet on my heart 
 Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, 
 
 And shall not soon depart. 
 
 He who, from zone to zone, 
 Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, 
 In the long way that I must tread alone, 
 
 Will lead my steps aright. 
 
 THE CONQUEROR'S GRAVE. 
 
 Within this lowly grave a conqueror lies ; 
 And yet the monument proclaims it not, 
 Nor round the sleeper's name hath chisel wrought 
 The emblems of a fame that never dies, — 
 Ivy and amaranth in a graceful sheaf 
 Twined with the laurel's fair, imperial leaf. 
 A simple name alone, 
 To the great world unknown, 
 Is graven here, and wild flowers rising round, 
 Meek meadow-sweet and violets of the ground. 
 Lean lovingly against the humble stone. 
 
 Here, in the quiet earth, they laid apart 
 No man of iron mould and bloody hands, 
 Who sought to wreak upon the cowering lands 
 
 The passions that consumed his restless heart ; 
 But one of tender spirit and delicate frame, 
 Gentlest in mien and mind 
 Of gentle womankind, 
 Timidly shrinking from the breath of blame ; 
 
 One in whose eyes the smile of kindness made 
 Its haunt, like flowers by sunny brooks in May ; 
 
382 
 
 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 
 
 Yet at the thought of others' pain, a shade 
 Of sweeter sadness chased the smile away. 
 
 Nor deem that when the hand that moulders here 
 Was raised in menace, realms were chill'd with fear, 
 
 And armies muster' d at the sign as when 
 Clouds rise on clouds before the rainy east, — 
 
 Gray captains leading bands of veteran men 
 And fiery youths to be the vultures' feast. 
 Not thus were waged the mighty wars that gave 
 The victory to her who fills this grave ; 
 Alone her task was wrought : 
 Alone the battle fought ; 
 Through that long strife her constant hope was stay'd 
 On God alone, nor look'd for other aid. 
 
 She met the hosts of sorrow with a look 
 
 That alter'cl not beneath the frown they wore ; 
 
 And soon the lowering brood were tamed, and took 
 Meekly her gentle rule, and frown'd no more. 
 
 Her soft hand put aside the assaults of wrath, 
 And calmly broke in twain 
 The fiery shafts of pain, 
 
 And rent Hie nets of passion from her path. 
 By that victorious hand despair was slain. 
 
 With love she vanquish' d hate, and overcame 
 
 Evil with good in her Great Master's name. 
 
 Her glory is not of this shadowy state, 
 
 Glory that with the fleeting season dies ; 
 But when she enter'd at the sapphire gate, 
 
 What joy was radiant in celestial eyes ! 
 How heaven's bright depths with sounding welcomes rung, 
 And flowers of heaven by shining hands were flung ! 
 And He who, long before, 
 Pain, scorn, and sorrow bore, 
 The mighty Sufferer, with aspect sweet, 
 Smiled on the timid stranger from his seat ; 
 He who, returning glorious from the grave, 
 Dragg'd Death, disarm' d, in chains, a crouching slave. 
 
 See, as I linger here, the sun grows low ; 
 
 Cool airs are murmuring that the night is near. 
 gentle sleeper, from thy grave I go 
 
 Consoled, though sad, in hope, and yet in fear. 
 Brief is the time, I know, 
 The warfare scarce begun ; 
 Yet all may win the triumphs thou hast won ; 
 Still flows the fount whose waters strengthen'd thee. 
 
 The victors' names are yet too few to fill 
 Heaven's mighty roll; the glorious armory 
 
 That minister'd to thee is open'd still. 
 
 THE PAST. 
 
 Thou unrelenting Past ! 
 Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain, 
 
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 
 
 383 
 
 And fetters, sure and fast, 
 Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign. 
 
 Far in thy realm withdrawn 
 Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom, 
 
 And glorious ages gone 
 Lie deep within the shadow of thy womb. 
 
 Childhood, with all its mirth, 
 Youth, Manhood, Age that draws us to the ground, 
 
 And, last, Man's Life on earth, 
 Glide to thy dim dominions, and are bound. 
 
 Thou hast my better years, 
 Thou hast my earlier friends — the good — the kind, 
 
 Yielded to thee with tears, — 
 The venerable form — the exalted mind. 
 
 My spirit yearns to bring 
 The lost ones back; — yearns with desire intense, 
 
 And struggles hard to wring 
 Thy bolts apart, and pluck thy captives thence. 
 
 In vain : — thy gates deny 
 All passage save to those who hence depart ; 
 
 Nor to the streaming eye 
 Thou giv'st them back, — nor to the broken heart. 
 
 In thy abysses hide 
 Beauty and excellence unknown : — to thee 
 
 Earth's wonder and her pride 
 Are gather'd, as the waters to the sea ; 
 
 Labors of good to man, 
 Unpublish'd charity, unbroken faith, — 
 
 Love, that midst grief began, 
 And grew with years, and falter'd not in death. 
 
 Full many a mighty name 
 Lurks in thy depths, unutter'd, unrevered ; 
 
 With thee are silent fame, 
 Forgotten arts, and wisdom disappear'd. 
 
 Thine for a space are they : — ■ 
 Yet shalt thou yield thy treasures up at last ; 
 
 Thy gates shall yet give way, 
 Thy bolts shall fall, inexorable Past ! 
 
 All that of good and fair 
 Has gone into thy womb from earliest time, 
 
 Shall then come forth, to wear 
 The glory and the beauty of its prime. 
 
 They have not perish'd — no ! 
 Kind words, remember'd voices once so sweet, 
 
 Smiles, radiant long ago, 
 And features, the great soul's apparent seat, 
 
 All shall come back ; each tie 
 Of pure affection shall be knit again ; 
 
 Alone shall Evil die, 
 And Sorrow dwell a prisoner in thy reign. 
 
384 
 
 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 
 
 And then shall I behold 
 Him by whose kind paternal side I sprung, 
 
 And her who, still and cold, 
 Fills the next grave, — the beautiful and young. 1 
 
 THE EVENING WIND. 
 
 Spirit that breathest through my lattice, thou 
 That cool'st the twilight of the sultry day ! 
 
 Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow ; 
 Thou hast been out upon the deep at play, 
 
 Riding all day the wild blue waves till now, 
 
 Roughening their crests, and scattering high their spray, 
 
 And swelling the white sail. I welcome thee 
 
 To the scorch'd land, thou wanderer of the sea! 
 
 Nor I alone, — a thousand bosoms round 
 
 Inhale thee in the fulness of delight; 
 And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound 
 
 Livelier, at coming of the wind of night; 
 And languishing to hear thy grateful sound, 
 
 Lies the vast inland, stretch'd beyond the sight. 
 Go forth, into the gathering shade; go forth, — 
 God's blessing breathed upon the fainting earth ! 
 
 Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest, 
 
 Curl the still waters, bright with stars, and rouse 
 
 The wide, old wood from his majestic rest, 
 Summoning, from the innumerable boughs, 
 
 The strange, deep harmonies that haunt his breast : 
 Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bows 
 
 The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass, 
 
 And where the o'ershadowing branches sweep the grass. 
 
 The faint old man shall lean his silver head 
 To feel thee ; thou shalt kiss the child asleep, 
 
 And dry the moisten'd curls that overspread 
 
 His temples, while his breathing grows more deep ; 
 
 And they avIio stand about the sick man's bed 
 Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep, 
 
 And softly part his curtains to allow 
 
 Thy visit, grateful to his burning broAV. 
 
 Go — but the circle of eternal change, 
 
 Which is the life of nature, shall restore, 
 With sounds and scents from all thy mighty range, 
 
 Thee to thy birthplace of the deep once more ; 
 Sweet odors in the sea-air, sweet and strange, 
 
 Shall tell the home-sick mariner of the shore ; 
 
 1 "No poet in our country — we might perhaps add, in any country — is so ex- 
 quisite in rhythm, so classically puro and accurate in language, so appropriate in 
 diction, phrase, simile, metaphor, as Bryant. He dips his pen in words as av< 
 endowed painter his pencil in colors. His vein is deep, bis chosen themes 
 serious, and generally tinged with a not unpleasing melancholy; but pathos io 
 his pre-eminent endowment." — Knickerbocker, i. 318. 
 
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 
 
 385 
 
 And, listening to thy murmur, he shall deem 
 He hears the rustling leaf and running stream. 
 
 THE BATTLE-FIELD. 
 
 Once this soft turf, this rivulet's sands, 
 Were trampled by a hurrying crowd, 
 
 And fiei'y hearts and armed hands 
 Encounter' d in the battle-cloud. 
 
 Ah ! never shall the land forget 
 
 How gush'd the life-blood of her brave, — 
 Gush'd, warm with hope and courage yet, 
 
 Upon the soil they fought to save. 
 
 Now all is calm, and fresh, and still, 
 
 Alone the chirp of flitting bird, 
 And talk of children on the hill, 
 
 And bell of wandering kine, are heard. 
 
 No solemn host goes trailing by 
 
 The black-mouth'd gun and staggering wain; 
 Men start not at the battle-cry: 
 
 Oh, be it never heard again ! 
 
 Soon rested those who fought ; but thou 
 Who minglest in the harder strife 
 
 For truths which men receive not now, 
 Thy warfare only ends with life. 
 
 A friendless warfare ! lingering long 
 Through weary day and weary year ; 
 
 A wild and many-weapon'd throng 
 
 Hang on thy front, and flank, and rear. 
 
 Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof, 
 And blench not at thy chosen lot ; 
 
 The timid good may stand aloof, 
 
 The sage may frown — yet faint thou not, 
 
 Nor heed the shaft too surely cast, 
 The foul and hissing bolt of scorn ; 
 
 For with thy side shall dwell, at last, 
 The victory of endurance born. 
 
 Truth, crush'd to earth, shall rise again ; 
 
 The eternal years of God are hers ; 
 But Error, wounded, writhes in pain, 
 
 And dies among his worshippers. 1 
 
 i Of this verse an English critic thus writes : — " Mr. Bryant has certainly 
 the rare merit of having written a stanza which will bear comparison with any 
 four lines in our recollection. It has always read to us as one of the noblest in 
 the English language. The thought is complete, the expression perfect. A 
 poem of a dozen such verses would be like a row of pearls, each above a king's 
 ransom." 
 
 33 
 
386 
 
 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 
 
 Yea. though thou lie upon the dust, 
 
 When they who help'd thee flee in fear, 
 
 Die full of hope and manly trust, 
 Like those who fell in battle here. 
 
 Another hand thy sword shall wield, 
 Another hand the standard wave, 
 
 Till from the trumpet's mouth is peal'd 
 The blast of triumph o'er thy grave. 
 
 THE ANTIQUITY OF FREEDOM. 
 
 Freedom ! thou art not, as, poets dream, 
 A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs, 
 And wavy tresses gushing from the cap 
 With which the Roman master crown'd his slave 
 When he took off the gyves. A bearded man, 
 Arm'd to the teeth, art thou ; one mailed hand 
 Grasps the broad shield, and one the sword; thy brow, 
 Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarr'd 
 With tokens of old wars ; thy massive limbs 
 Are strong with struggling. Power at thee has launch'd 
 His bolts, and with nis lightnings smitten thee ; 
 They could not quench the life thou hast from heaven. 
 Merciless power has dug thy dungeon deep, 
 And his swart armorers, by a thousand fires, 
 Have forged thy chain ; yet, while he deems thee bound> 
 The links are shiver'd, and the prison-walls 
 Fall outward : terribly thou springest forth, 
 As springs the flame above a burning pile, 
 And shout est to the nations, who return 
 Thy shoutings, while the pale oppressor flies. 
 
 Thy birthright was not given by human hands : 
 Thou wert twin-born with man. In pleasant fields, 
 While yet our race was few, thou sat'st with him, 
 To tend the quiet flock and watcli the stars, 
 And teach the reed to utter simple airs. 
 Thou by his side, amid the tangled wood, 
 Didst war upon the panther and the wolf, 
 His only foes ; and thou with him didst draw 
 The earliest furrow on the mountain-side, 
 Soft with the deluge. Tyranny himself, 
 Thy enemy, although of reverend look, 
 Hoary with many years, and far obey'd, 
 Is later born than thou ; and as he meets 
 The grave defiance of thine elder eye, 
 The usurper trembles in his fastnesses. 
 
 Thou shalt wax stronger with the lapse of yeara, 
 But he shall fade into a feebler age ; 
 Feebler, yet subtler. He shall weave his snares, 
 And spring them on thy careless steps, and clap 
 His wither'd hands, and from their ambush call 
 His hordes to fall upon thee. He shall send 
 
JOHN NEAL. 
 
 387 
 
 Quaint maskers, wearing fair and gallant forms, 
 
 To catch thy gaze, and uttering graceful woi'ds 
 
 To charm thy ear ; while his sly imps, by stealth, 
 
 Twine round thee threads of steel, light thread on thread 
 
 That grow to fetters ; or bind down thy arms 
 
 With chains conceal'd in chaplets. Oh ! not yet 
 
 Mayst thou unbrace thy corslet, nor lay by 
 
 Thy sword ; nor yet, Freedom ! close thy lids 
 
 In slumber ; for thine enemy never sleeps, 
 
 And thou must watch and combat till the day 
 
 Of the new earth and heaven. 
 
 JOHN NEAL. 
 
 John Neal was born in Portland, Maine, October 25, 1793. In 1818, he went 
 to Baltimore, and engaged in the dry-goods business with John Pierpont; but, 
 being unsuccessful, he turned his attention to literature, and commenced his 
 career by writing for the " Portico" a series of critical essays on the works of 
 Byron. In 1818, he published his first novel, Keep Cool, written, as he says, "chiefly 
 for the discouragement of duelling." The Battle of Niagara, with other Poems; 
 Otho, a tragedy in five acts ; and Goldau, the Maniac Harper, successively followed. 
 He also wrote a large part of " The History of the American Revolution, by Paul 
 Allen," as Allen had announced it, received subscriptions for it, and was too lazy 
 to finish it. Four novels, Logan, Randolph, Errata, Seventy -Six, followed in rapid 
 succession. Written in haste, and with but little care, they are now neglected ; 
 though at the time they made so favorable an impression that some of them 
 were l'epublisbed in England. Tbis induced the writer to embark for that coun- 
 try, where he arrived in January, 1821. He very soon became a contributor to 
 various periodicals, making his first appearance in " Blackwood's Magazine," 
 for which he wrote a series of interesting and piquant articles on American 
 writers. He also published, while abroad, his novel Brother Jonathan. 
 
 After remaining three years in Great Britain, he returned to his native city, 
 and soon commenced the publication of a weekly newspaper, called " The 
 Yankee," which, not meeting with much encouragement, was, in about a year, 
 merged in " The New England Galaxy." 1 In 1828, he published Rachel Dyer, 
 a story, the subject of which is " Salem Witchcraft." This was followed by 
 Authorship, by a Ncw-Enr/lander over the Sea; The Down-Easters ; and Ruth 
 Elder. In all these works there is great power and much originality; but, setting 
 all method and style at defiance, they will not survive the life of the author. 2 
 Some of his occasional essays, however, as well as a few pieces of poetry written 
 for the magazines, possess great merit, and ought to be preserved. A volume of 
 
 1 See page 225, Life of Joseph T. Buckingham. 
 
 2 "John Neal's forces are multitudinous, and fire briskly at every thing. They 
 occupy all the provinces of letters, and are nearly useless from being spread over 
 too much ground." — Whipple's Essays. 
 
388 
 
 JOHN NEAL. 
 
 selections from his works might be made that would be a valuable contribution to 
 our literature. Mr. Neal now (1859) resides in Portland. 
 
 CHILDREN WHAT ARE THEY? 
 
 What are children ? Step to the window with me. The street 
 is full of them. Yonder a school is let loose, and here, just within 
 reach of our observation, are two or three noisy little fellows, and 
 there another party mustering for play. Some are whispering to- 
 gether, and plotting so loudly and so earnestly as to attract every- 
 body's attention, while others are holding themselves aloof, with 
 their satchels gaping so as to betray a part of their plans for to- 
 morrow afternoon, or laying their heads together in pairs for a 
 trip to the islands. Look at them, weigh the question I have put 
 to you, and then answer it as it deserves to be answered : — What are 
 children ? 
 
 To which you reply at once, without any sort of hesitation, per- 
 haps, — " Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined or, " Men 
 are but children of a larger growth j" or, peradventure, " The 
 child is father of the man/' And then perhaps you leave me, 
 perfectly satisfied with yourself and with your answer, having 
 " plucked out the heart of the mystery," and uttered, without 
 knowing it, a string of glorious truths. * * * 
 
 Among the children who are now playing together, like birds 
 among the blossoms of earth, haunting all the green shadowy 
 places thereof, and rejoicing in the bright air, happy and beauti- 
 ful creatures, and as changeable as happy, with eyes brimful of 
 joy and with hearts playing upon their little faces like sunshine 
 upon clear waters; among those who are now idling together on 
 that slope, or pursuing butterflies together on the edge of that 
 wood, a wilderness of roses, you would see not only the gifted 
 and the powerful, the wise and the eloquent, the ambitious and 
 the renowned, the long-lived and the long-to-be-lamented of an- 
 other age ; but the wicked and the treacherous, the liar and the 
 thief, the abandoned profligate and the faithless husband, the 
 gambler and the drunkard, the robber, the burglar, the ravisher, 
 the murderer, and the betrayer of his country. The child is 
 father of the man. 
 
 Among them and that other little troop just appearing, children 
 with yet happier faces and pleasanter eyes, the blossoms of the 
 future, — the mothers of nations, — you would see the founders of 
 states and the destroyers of their country, the steadfast and the 
 weak, the judge and the criminal, the murderer and the execu- 
 tioner, the exalted and the lowly, the unfaithful wife and the 
 
JOHN NEAL. 
 
 389 
 
 broken-hearted husband, the proud betrayer and his pale victim, 
 the living and breathing portents and prodigies, the embodied 
 virtues and vices of another age and another world, and all play- 
 ing together ! Men are but children of a larger growth. * * * 
 
 Even fathers and mothers look upon children with a strange 
 misapprehension of their dignity. Even with the poets, they are 
 only the flowers and blossoms, the dew-drops or the playthings, of 
 earth. Yet " of such is the kingdom of heaven/' The Kingdom 
 of Heaven! with all its principalities and powers, its hierarchies, 
 dominations, thrones ! The Saviour understood them better • to 
 him their true dignity was revealed. Flowers ! They are the 
 flowers of the invisible world • indestructible, self-perpetuating 
 flowers, with each a multitude of angels and evil spirits under- 
 neath its leaves, toiling and wrestling for dominion over it ! 
 Blossoms ! They are the blossoms of another world, whose fruit- 
 age is angels and archangels. Or dew-drops ! They are dew- 
 drops that have their source, not in the chambers of the earth, 
 nor among the vapors of the sky, which the next breath of wind, 
 or the next flash of sunshine, may dry up forever, but among the 
 everlasting fountains and inexhaustible reservoirs of mercy and 
 love. Playthings ! If the little creatures would but appear to 
 us in their true shape for a moment ! We should fall upon our 
 faces before them, or grow pale with consternation, or fling them 
 otF with horror and loathing. 
 
 What would be our feelings to see a fair child start up before 
 us a maniac or a murderer, armed to the teeth ? to find a nest of 
 serpents on our pillow? a destroyer, or a traitor, a Harry the 
 Eighth, or a Benedict Arnold, asleep in our bosom ? A Cathe- 
 rine or a Peter, a Bacon, a Galileo, or a Bentham, a Napoleon, or 
 a Voltaire, clambering up our knees after sugar-plums ? Cuvier 
 laboring to distinguish a horse-fly from a blue-bottle, or dissecting 
 a spider with a rusty nail ? La Place trying to multiply his OAvn 
 apples, or to subtract his playfellow's gingerbread ? What should 
 we say to find ourselves romping with Messalina, Swedenborg, 
 and Madame de Stael ? or playing bo-peep with Murat, Robes- 
 pierre, and Charlotte Corday ? or puss puss in the corner with 
 George Washington, Jonathan Wild, Shakspeare, Sappho, Jeremy 
 Taylor, Alfieri, and Harriet Wilson ? Yet stranger things have 
 happened. These were all children but the other day, and clam- 
 bered about the knees, and rummaged in the pockets, and nestled 
 in the laps of people no better than we are. But if they could 
 have appeared in their true shape for a single moment, while they 
 were playing together, what a scampering there would have been 
 among the grown folks ! How their fingers would have tingled ! 
 
 Now to me there is no study half so delightful as that of these 
 little creatures, with hearts fresh from the gardens of the sky, in 
 
 33* 
 
390 
 
 EDWARD ROBINSON. 
 
 their first and fairest and most unintentional disclosures, while 
 they are indeed a mystery, — a fragrant, luminous, and beautiful 
 mystery ! 
 
 Then why not pursue the study for yourself? The subjects 
 are always before you. No books are needed, no costly drawings, 
 no lectures, neither transparencies nor illustrations. Your speci- 
 mens are all about you. They come and go at your bidding. 
 They are not to be hunted for, along the edge of a precipice, on 
 the borders of the wilderness, in the desert, nor by the sea-shore. 
 They abound not in the uninhabited or un visited place, but in 
 your very dwelling-houses, about the steps of your doors, in every 
 street of every village, in every green field, and every crowded 
 thoroughfare. 
 
 EDWARD ROBINSON. 
 
 This renowned philologist and traveller, the son of Rev. William Robinson, 
 ■who was pastor of the Congregational Church at Southington, Connecticut, for 
 forty-one years, was born at that place on the 10th of April, 1794. He was des- 
 tined for mercantile life, but, being on a visit to his uncle, at Clinton, Oneida 
 County, New York, early in 1812, he concluded to enter Hamilton College, which 
 had just been chartered. Accordingly, in the fall, he joined the first Freshman 
 class, and graduated in 1816, with the highest honors. In October of the next 
 year he was appointed tutor in his Alma Mater, where he remained a year, teach- 
 ing the mathematics and the Greek language. In the latter part of the year 1818, 
 he was married to the youngest daughter of the Rev. Samuel Kirkland, and 
 sister of the late President Kirkland, of Harvard University. She died in the 
 following July, and Mr. Robinson remained in Clinton, pursuing his studies, for 
 two years longer. 
 
 In December, 1821, he went to Andover, Massachusetts, and after being here 
 two years, without having been connected with the seminar}', he was appointed 
 assistant instructor, and continued such till 1826, translating in the mean time, 
 from the Latin, Wahl's Clavis Novi Testamenti," or Lexicon of the New 
 Testament. 
 
 In the summer of 1826, he went to Europe, and spent four years in travelling, 
 combined with hard study, in the mean time (1828) marrying the youngest 
 daughter of Professor Ludwig von Jacob, of Halle. On his return home in 
 1830, he was appointed Professor Extraordinary of Sacred Literature in the 
 Andover Theological Seminary. In 1831, he commenced the publication of the 
 '' Biblical Repository," of which he was the editor and chief contributor for four 
 years. In 1833 appeared his translation of "Buttman's Greek Grammar/' and 
 in 1836, his new Lexicon of the New Testament, and his translation of the 
 " Hebrew Lexicon of Gesenius." 
 
 In 1837, Dr. Robinson was appointed Professor of Biblical Literature in the 
 Union Theological Seminary, in the city of New York, the position which he still 
 
EDWARD ROBINSON. 
 
 391 
 
 holds. He accepted the appointment on condition that he might be permitted to 
 carry out a plan previously formed, of visiting the lands of the Bible, in con- 
 junction with his friend, Rev. Eli Smith, a missionary of the American Board. 
 This he accomplished, and then repaired to Berlin, where he devoted himself for 
 two years to the preparation of his Biblical Researches in Palestine. In 1840, he 
 returned to New York, and his great work was published the next year in three 
 volumes, at Boston, London, and Halle. It at once established his fame, and, 
 for learning, unwearied investigation, and scrupulous fidelity, placed him in the 
 very front rank of travellers ; and the Royal Geographical Society of London 
 awarded to him one of their gold medals. 
 
 Notwithstanding his many official labors connected with the seminary, Dr. 
 Robinson projected and established, in 1843, " The Bibliotheca Sacra," which, for 
 critical theological learning, has not its superior on either side of the Atlantic. 
 He also published, in 1845, a Harmony of the Four Gospels in Greek, and the next 
 year an English Harmon}/. In 1S50 appeared a new edition of his Lexicon of the 
 New Testament. 
 
 The next year he again set out for Palestine, to make new researches, as well 
 as to go over some of the ground formerly explored. He returned in 1852, and 
 made preparations for a new volume, which appeared in 1856, both in this coun- 
 try and England, and in the German language at Berlin. This great work is 
 now the standard upon the geography of Palestine, and for accuracy and tho- 
 roughness leaves nothing more to be desired. 1 
 
 PLAIN BEFORE SINAI. 
 
 As we advanced, the valley still opened wider and wider, with 
 a gentle ascent, and became full of shrubs and tufts of herbs, shut 
 in on each side by lofty granite ridges with rugged, shattered 
 peaks a thousand feet high, while the face of Horeb rose directly 
 before us. Both my companion and myself involuntarily ex- 
 claimed, " Here is room enough for a large encampment I" 
 Reaching the top of the ascent, or water-shed, a fine broad plain 
 lay before us, sloping down gently towards the S.S.E., enclosed 
 by rugged and venerable mountains of dark granite, stern, naked, 
 splintered peaks and ridges of indescribable grandeur, and termi- 
 nated at the distance of more than a mile by the bold and awful 
 
 1 Palestine, Past and Present: with. Biblical, Literary, and Scientific Notices: By 
 Rev. Henry S. Osborn, A.M., Professor of Natural Science in Roanoke College, 
 Salem, Virginia. This is a work of very great merit, recently published by James 
 Challen & Son, Philadelphia, — a pleasant and animated book of travels, with per- 
 sonal reminiscences, descriptions of scenery, interspersed with occasional religious 
 reflections and philosophical discussions; and all in a pure and lively style. It 
 is illustrated by a series of original engravings from the pencil of the author, and 
 by a new map of Palestine, and is altogether the most pleasant and readable work 
 upon this land we have yet seen, — of no ephemeral interest, but of a living, 
 permanent value. 
 
392 
 
 EDWARD ROBINSON. 
 
 front of Horeb, rising perpendicularly, in frowning majesty, from 
 twelve to fifteen hundred feet in height. It was a scene of solemn 
 grandeur, wholly unexpected, and such as we had never seen j 
 and the associations which at the moment rushed upon our minds 
 were almost overwhelming. As we went on, new points of in- 
 terest were continually opening to our view. On the left of 
 Horeb, a deep and narrow valley runs up S. S. E., between lofty 
 walls of rock, as if in continuation of the S. E. corner of the 
 plain. In this valley, at the distance of near a mile from the 
 plain, stands the convent; and the deep verdure of its fruit-trees 
 and cypresses is seen as the traveller approaches, — an oasis of 
 beauty amid scenes of the sternest desolation. Still advancing, 
 the front of Horeb rose like a wall before us ; and one can ap- 
 proach quite to the foot, and touch the mount. As we crossed 
 the plain, our feelings were strongly affected at finding here, so 
 unexpectedly, a spot so entirely adapted to the scriptural account 
 of the giving of the law. No traveller has described this plain, 
 nor even mentioned it, except in a slight and general manner, 
 probably because the most have reached the convent by another 
 route, without passing over it; and perhaps, too, because neither 
 the highest point of Sinai, (now called Jebel Mtisa,) nor the still 
 loftier summit of St. Catharine, is visible from any part of it. 
 
 THE TOP OF SINAI, (SUFSAFEH.) 
 
 The extreme difficulty and even danger of the ascent was well 
 rewarded by the prospect that now opened before us. The whole 
 plain er-Rahah lay spread out beneath our feet, with the adjacent 
 wadys and mountains ; while Wady esh-Sheikh on the right, and 
 the recess on the left, both connected with and opening broadly 
 from er-Rahah, presented an area which serves nearly to double 
 that of the plain. Our conviction was strengthened that here, or 
 on some one of the adjacent cliffs, was the spot where the Lord 
 "descended in fire" and proclaimed the law. Here lay the plain 
 where the whole congregation might be assembled ; here was the 
 mount that could be approached and touched, if not forbidden ; 
 and here the mountain brow, where alone the lightnings and the 
 thick cloud would be visible, and the thunders and the voice of 
 the trump be heard, when the Lord " came down in the sight of all 
 the people upon Mount Sinai." We gave ourselves up to the im- 
 pressions of the awful scene, and read, with a feeling that will 
 never be forgotten, the sublime account of the transaction and the 
 commandments there promulgated, in the original words as re- 
 corded by the great Hebrew legislator. 1 
 
 1 Esod. xix. 9-25 ; xx. 1-2L 
 
EDWARD ROBINSON. 
 
 393 
 
 THE CEDARS OF LEBANON. 1 
 
 The cedars are not less remarkable for their position than foi 
 their age and size. The amphitheatre in which they are situated 
 is of itself a great temple of nature, the most vast and magnificent 
 of all the recesses of Lebanon. The lofty dorsal ridge of the 
 mountain, as it approaches from the south, tends slightly towards 
 the east for a time, and then, after resuming its former direction, 
 throws off a spur of equal altitude towards the west, which sinks 
 down gradually into the ridge terminating at Ehden. This ridge 
 sweeps round so as to become nearly parallel with the main ridge, 
 thus forming an immense recess or amphitheatre, approaching to 
 the horseshoe form, surrounded by the loftiest ridges of Lebanon, 
 which rise still two or three thousand feet above it and are partly 
 covered with snows. In the midst of this amphitheatre stand the 
 cedars, utterly alone, with not a tree besides, nor hardly a green 
 thing in sight. The amphitheatre fronts towards the west, and, 
 as seen from the cedars, the snows extend round from south to 
 north. The extremities of the arc, in fronfc, bear from the cedars 
 southwest and northwest. High up in the recess, the deep, pre- 
 cipitous chasm of the Kadisha has its beginning, — the wildest and 
 grandest of all the gorges of Lebanon. 
 
 Besides the natural grace and beauty of the cedar of Lebanon, 
 which still appear in the trees of middle age, though not in the 
 more ancient patriarchs, there is associated with this grove a feel- 
 ing of veneration, as the representative of those forests of Lebanon 
 so celebrated in the Hebrew Scriptures. To the sacred writers, 
 the cedar was the noblest of trees, the monarch of the vegetable 
 kingdom. Solomon " spake of trees, from the cedar-tree that is in 
 Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall." 2 
 To the prophets it was the favorite emblem for greatness, splendor, 
 and majesty : hence kings and nobles — the pillars of society — are 
 everywhere cedars of Lebanon. 3 Especially is this the case in the 
 splendid description, by Ezekiel, of the Assyrian power and 
 glory. 4 Hence, too, in connection with its durability and fra- 
 grance, it was regarded as the most precious of all wood, and was 
 employed in costly buildings, for ornament and luxury. In Solo- 
 mon's temple, the beams of the roof, as also the boards and the 
 ornamental work, were of the cedar of Lebanon f and it was like- 
 wise used in the later temple of Zerubbabel. 6 David's palace was 
 
 1 The elevation of the cedars above the sea is given by Russegger and Sehnbert 
 at six thousand Paris feet, — equivalent to six thousand four hundred English feet. 
 The peaks of Lebanon above rise nearly three thousand feet higher. 
 
 2 1 Kings iv. 33; comp. Judges ix. 15; 2 Kings xiv. 9; Ps. xxix. 5; eiv. 16. 
 
 3 Isa. ii. 13; xiv. 8; xxxvii. 21; Jer. xxii. 23; Ezek. xvii. 22; Zech. xi. 1, &e. 
 
 4 Ezek. xxxi. 3-9.— 5 1 Kings vi. 9, 10 ; comp. v. 6, 8, 10 ; 1 Chron. xxii. 4. 
 6 Ezra iii. 7. 
 
394 EDWARD EVERETT. 
 
 built with cedar j 1 and so lavishly was this costly wood employed 
 in one of Solomon's palaces, that it is called " the house of the 
 forest of Lebanon." 2 As a matter of luxury, also, the cedar was 
 sometimes used for idols, 3 and for the masts of ships. 4 In like 
 manner, the cedar was highly prized among heathen nations. It 
 was employed in the construction of their temples, as at Tyre and 
 Ephesus; and also in their palaces, as at Persepolis. 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT. 
 
 Edward Everett, the son of Rev. Oliver Everett, and a younger brother 
 of Alexander II. Everett, -was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, on the 11th 
 of April, 1794. After the usual preparatory studies at Exeter Academy, Xew 
 Hampshire, under the venerable Dr. Abbot, he entered Harvard College at the 
 early age of thirteen, and took his degree, in course, in 1811, -with a high reputa- 
 tion as a scholar. The ne#t year he was appointed a tutor in the College, and 
 held the situation for two years, when he entered the theological school at Cam- 
 bridge, and in 1814, when but twenty years of age, succeeded the eloquent 
 Buckminster as pastor of Brattle Street Church, Boston. The next year he was 
 elected Professor of the Greek Language and Literature in Harvard College, with 
 the privilege of further qualifying himself for its duties by a visit to Europe. 
 He accepted the appointment, and immediately embarked for England, whence 
 he went to Gb'ttingen University, where he remained more than two years, 
 devoting his time to Greek literature and the German language, and receiving 
 the degree of P. D., or Doctor of Philosophy. He returned home in 1S19, and 
 entered at once upon the duties of his professorship. In 1820, he became editor 
 of the " Xortk American Review," infusing new spirit into that journal, to which 
 in the next four years he contributed about fifty papers, and above sixty more 
 subsequently, when the Review was edited by his brother Alexander, and those 
 who succeeded him. In 1821, he delivered an oration before the Phi Beta Kappa 
 Society, upon The Circumstances favorable to the Progress of Literature in America, 
 closing it with a beautiful apostrophe to General Lafayette, who was present on 
 the occasion. In 1S25, he took his seat in the House of Representatives of the 
 United States, from Middlesex County, and kept the same for ten years, bearing 
 a prominent part in many of the debates. 5 In 1835, he retired from Congress, 
 and for four years successively he was elected Governor of Massachusetts ; but in 
 
 1 2 Sam. v. 11: vii. 2; comp. Jer. xxii. 14, 15. — 2 1 Kings vii. 2; x. 17. — 
 3 Isa. xliv. 14; Plin. H. X. xiii. 11. — 4 Ezek. xxvii. 5: where the description 
 evidently refers to splendid pleasure-vessels. 
 
 D His Congressional career did not, I am sorry to say, add much to his reputa- 
 tion. In bis maiden speech, March 9, ]S26, he went out of his way to apolo- 
 gize for slavery and to defend it from the Xew Testament. For this he was 
 rebuked with great force by Ichabod Bartlett, of Portsmouth, Xew Hampshire, 
 by Churchill C. Cambreleng, of Xew York, and with withering sarcasm by John 
 Randolph, of Virginia. 
 
> 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT. 395 
 
 1839, lie lost his election by one single vote. In 1841, he was appointed Minister 
 Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James, for which post he was peculiarly well 
 qualified by his great learning, his elegance of manners, and his familiarity with 
 most of the European languages. On his return home in 1846, he was elected 
 President of Harvard College, a position which he held till 1849. In November, 
 1852, he again entered political life, succeeding Daniel Webster as Secretary of 
 State, under the administration of Millard Fillmore, and in 1853 he succeeded 
 John Davis, of Massachusetts, in the United States Senate. 1 
 
 Mr. Everett now resides in Boston, occupied, it is said, in the preparation of a 
 systematic treatise on the modern Law of Nations. His published works are 
 A Defence of Christianity. 1 vol. ; Miscellaneous Writings, 2 vols. 8vo ; Orations 
 and Sjieeches, 2 vols. Svo. These four last volumes contain eighty-one articles on 
 literature, science, the arts, political economy, education, including his various 
 orations and addresses before literary, scientific, and agricultural societies. 2 
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE MAYFLOWER. 
 
 Methinks I see it now, that one solitary, adventurous vessel, 
 the Mayflower, of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects 
 of a future state, and bound across the unknown sea. I behold it 
 pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, the uncertain, the tedious 
 voyage. Suns rise and set, and weeks and months pass, and 
 winter surprises them on the deep, but brings them not the sight 
 of the wished-for shore. I see them now, scantily supplied with 
 provisions, crowded almost to suffocation in their ill-stored prison, 
 delayed by calms, pursuing a circuitous route, and now driven in 
 fury before the raging tempest, on the high and giddy waves. 
 The awful voice of the storm howls through the rigging. The 
 
 1 On the 14th of March, 1854, in the United States Senate, he presented a huge 
 petition, signed by three thousand and fifty clergymen of New England, against 
 the "Nebraska Bill." The object of the petition was immediately attacked, and 
 the petitioners themselves foully (though characteristically) assailed, by Senators 
 Douglas, of Illinois, and Mason, of Virginia; while Senators Houston, of Texas, 
 and Seward, of New York, warmly and eloquently defended both. Mr. Everett 
 also spoke; but his remarks were so tame and apologetical, that it would have 
 been better for the cause of freedom had he been silent. 
 
 2 " As a mau of letters, in every branch of public service, and in society aud 
 private life, Mr. Everett has combined the useful with the ornamental, with a 
 tact, a universality, and a faithfulness, almost unprecedented. At Windsor 
 Castle, we find him fluently conversing with each member of the diplomatic corps 
 in their vernacular tongue ; in Florence, addressing the Scientific Congress with 
 characteristic grace and wisdom; in London, entertaining the most gifted and 
 wisely-chosen party of artists, authors, and men of rank or state, in a mamier 
 which elicits their best social sentiments ; at home, in the professor's chair, in the 
 popular assembly, in the lyceum-hall, or to celebrate an historical occasion, 
 giving expression to high sentiment, or memorable fact, with the finished 
 style and thrilling emphasis of the accomplished orator." — Homes of American 
 Authors, 
 
396 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT. 
 
 laboring masts seem straining from their base ; the dismal sound 
 of the pumps is heard; the ship leaps, as it were, madly from 
 billow to billow; the ocean breaks, and settles with engulfing 
 floods over the floating deck, and beats with deadening weight 
 against the staggered vessel. I see them, escaped from these 
 perils, pursuing their all-but desperate undertaking, and landed 
 at last, after a five months' passage, on the ice-clad rocks of Ply- 
 mouth j weak and weary from the voyage, poorly armed, scantily 
 provisioned, depending on the charity of their shipmaster for a 
 draught of beer on board, drinking nothing but water on 
 shore, without shelter, without means, surrounded by hostile 
 tribes. Shut now the volume of history, and tell me, on any 
 principle of human probability, what shall be the fate of this 
 handful of adventurers ? Tell me, man of military science, in 
 how many months were they all swept otf by the thirty savage 
 tribes, enumerated within the early limits of New England ? 
 Tell me, politician, how long did this shadow of a colony, on 
 which your conventions and treaties had not smiled, languish on 
 the distant coast ? Student of history, compare for me the baf- 
 fled projects, the deserted settlements, the abandoned adventures, 
 of other times, and find the parallel of this ! Was it the winter's 
 storm, beating upon the houseless heads of women and children ? 
 Was it hard labor and spare meals ? Was it disease ? Was it the 
 tomahawk ? Was it the deep malady of a blighted hope, a ruined 
 enterprise, and a broken heart, aching in its last moments at the 
 recollection of the loved and left, beyond the sea ? Was it some, 
 or all of these united, that hurried this forsaken company to their 
 melancholy fate ? And is it possible that neither of these causes 
 — that not all combined — were able to blast this bud of hope ? 
 Is it possible that, from a beginning so feeble, so frail, so worthy, 
 (not so much of admiration as of pity,) there has gone forth a 
 progress so steady, a growth so wonderful, a reality so important, 
 a promise, yet to be fulfilled, so glorious ? 
 
 PAMPERING THE BODY AND STARVING THE SOUL. 
 
 What, sir, feed a child's body, and let his soul hunger ! pamper 
 his limbs, and starve his faculties ! Plant the earth, cover a thou- 
 sand hills with your droves of cattle, pursue the fish to their 
 hiding-places in the sea, and spread out your wheat-fields across 
 the plain, in order to supply the wants of that body which will 
 soon be as cold and as senseless as the poorest clod, and let the 
 pure spiritual essence within you, with all its glorious capacities 
 for improvement, languish and pine ! What ! build factories, 
 turn in rivers upon the water-wheels, unchain the imprisoned 
 spirits of steam, to weave a garment for the body, and let the 
 
EDWARD EVERETT. 
 
 397 
 
 soul remain unadorned and naked ! What ! send out your ves- 
 sels to the furthest ocean, and make battle with the monsters of 
 the deep, in order to obtain the means of lighting up your dwell- 
 ings and workshops, and prolonging the hours of labor for the 
 meat that perisheth, and permit that vital spark, which God has 
 kindled, which he has intrusted to our care, to be fanned into a 
 bright and heavenly flame, — permit it, I say, to languish and go 
 out ! What considerate man can enter a school, and not reflect, 
 with awe, that it is a seminary where immortal minds are train- 
 ing for eternity ? What parent but is, at times, weighed down 
 with the thought, that there must be laid the foundations of a 
 building which will stand, when not merely temple and palace, 
 but the perpetual hills and adamantine rocks on which they 
 rest, have melted away ! — that a light may there be kindled 
 which will shine, not merely when every artificial beam is ex- 
 tinguished, but when the affrighted sun has fled away from the 
 heavens ? 
 
 THE ETERNAL CLOCKWORK OF THE SKIES. 
 
 We derive from the observations of the heavenly bodies which 
 are made at an observatory our only adequate measures of time, 
 and our only means of comparing the time of one place with the 
 time of another. Our artificial timekeepers, — clocks, watches, 
 and chronometers, — however ingeniously contrived and admirably 
 fabricated, are but a transcript, so to say, of the celestial motions, 
 and would be of no value without the means of regulating them 
 by observation. It is impossible for them, under any circum- 
 stances, to escape the imperfection of all machinery, the work of 
 human hands ; and the moment we remove with our timekeeper 
 east or west, it fails us. It will keep home-time alone, like the 
 fond traveller who leaves his heart behind him. The artificial 
 instrument is of incalculable utility, but must itself be regulated 
 by the eternal clockwork of the skies. 
 
 This single consideration is sufficient to show how completely 
 the daily business of life is affected and controlled by the heavenly 
 bodies. It is they and not our main-springs, our expansion- 
 balances, and our compensation-pendulums, which give us our 
 time. To reverse the line of Pope, — 
 
 'Tis with our watches as our judgments : none 
 Go just alike, but each believes his own. 
 
 But for all the kindreds and tribes and tongues of men, — each 
 upon their own meridian, — from the Arctic pole to the equator, 
 from the equator to the Antarctic pole, the eternal sun strikes 
 twelve at noon, and the glorious constellations, far up in the ever- 
 
 34 
 
398 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT. 
 
 lasting belfries of the skies, chime twelve at midnight — twelve 
 for the pale student over his nickering lamp — twelve amid the 
 flaming wonders of Orion's belt, if he crosses the meridian at that 
 fated hour — twelve by the weary couch of languishing humanity, 
 twelve in the star-paved courts of the Empyrean — twelve for the 
 heaving tides of the ocean ; twelve for the weary arm of labor j 
 twelve for the toiling brain; twelve for the watching, waking, 
 broken heart j twelve for the meteor which blazes for a moment 
 and expires j twelve for the comet whose period is measured by 
 centuries j twelve for every substantial, for every imaginary thing, 
 which exists in the sense, the intellect, or the fancy, and which 
 the speech or thought of man, at the given meridian, refers to 
 the lapse of time. 
 
 Discourse at Albany, 1856. 
 THE HEAVENS BEFORE AND AFTER DAWN. 
 
 I had occasion, a few weeks since, to take the early train from 
 Providence to Boston, and for this purpose rose at two o'clock in 
 the morning. Every thing around was wrapt in darkness and 
 hushed in silence, broken only by what seemed at that hour the 
 unearthly clank and rush of the train. It was a mild, serene 
 midsummer's night : the sky was without a cloud, the winds 
 were whist. The moon, then in the last quarter, had just risen, 
 and the stars shone with a spectral lustre but little affected by her 
 presence. Jupiter, two hours high, was the herald of the day; 
 the Pleiades just above the horizon shed their sweet influence in 
 the east ; Lyra sparkled near the zenith ; Andromeda veiled her 
 newly-discovered glories from the naked eye in the south ; the 
 steady pointers far beneath the pole looked meekly up from the 
 depths of the north to their sovereign. 
 
 Such was the glorious spectacle as I entered the train. As we 
 proceeded, the timid approach of twilight became more percep- 
 tible ; the intense blue of the sky began to soften ; the smaller 
 stars, like little children, went first to rest; the sister-beams of 
 the Pleiades soon melted together ; but the bright constellations of 
 the west and north remained unchanged. Steadily the wondrous 
 transfiguration went on. Hands of angels hidden from mortal 
 eyes shifted the scenery of the heavens ; the glories of night dis- 
 solved into the glories of the dawn. The blue sky now turned 
 more softly gray ; the great watch-stars shut up their holy eyes ; 
 the east began tc kindle. Faint streaks of purple soon bluslio.l 
 along the sky; the whole celestial concave was filled with the in- 
 flowing tides of the morning light, which came pouring down 
 from above in one great ocean of radiance; till at length, as we 
 reached the Blue Hills, a flash of purple fire blazed out from 
 
EDWARD EVERETT. 
 
 399 
 
 above the horizon, and turned the dewy tear-drops of flower and 
 leaf into rubies and diamonds. In a few seconds, the everlasting 
 gates of the morning were thrown wide open, and the lord of day, 
 arrayed in glories too severe for the gaze of man, began his state. 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 THE UNIVERSAL BOUNTIES OF PROVIDENCE. 
 
 A celebrated skeptical philosopher of the last century — the his- 
 torian, Hume — thought to demolish the credibility of the Chris- 
 tian revelation, by the concise argument, — " It is contrary to 
 experience that a miracle should be true, but not contrary to ex- 
 perience that testimony should be false.'"' Contrary to experience 
 that phenomena should exist which we cannot trace to causes per- 
 ceptible to the human sense, or conceivable by human thought ! 
 It would be much nearer the truth to say that within the hus- 
 bandman's experience there are no phenomena which can be 
 rationally traced to any thing but the instant energy of creative 
 power. 
 
 Did this philosopher ever contemplate the landscape at the 
 close of the year, when seeds, and grains, and fruits have ripened, 
 and stalks have withered, and leaves have fallen, and winter has 
 forced her icy curb even into the roaring jaws of Niagara, and 
 sheeted half a continent in her glittering shroud, and all this 
 teeming vegetation and organized life are locked in cold and 
 marble obstructions, and after week upon week, and month upon 
 month, have swept, with sleet, and chilly rain, and howling 
 storm, over the earth, and riveted their crystal bolts upon the 
 door of nature's sepulchre, — when the sun at length begins to 
 wheel in higher circles through the sky, and softer winds to 
 breathe over melting snows, — did he ever behold the long-hidden 
 earth at length appear, and soon the timid grass peep forth ; and 
 anon the autumnal wheat begin to paint the field, and velvet 
 leaflets to burst from purple buds, throughout the reviving forest, 
 and then the mellow soil to open its fruitful bosom to every grain 
 and seed dropped from the planter's hand, — buried, but to spring 
 up again, clothed with a new, mysterious being; and then, as 
 more fervid suns inflame the air, and softer showers distil from 
 the clouds, and gentler dews string their pearls on twig and 
 tendril, did he ever watch the ripening grain and fruit, pendent 
 from stalk, and vine, and tree; the meadow, the field, the pas- 
 ture, the grove, each after his kind, arrayed in myriad-tinted 
 garments, instinct with circulating life j seven millions of counted 
 leaves on a single tree, each of which is a system whose exquisite 
 complication puts to shame the shrewdest cunning of the human 
 hand j every planted seed and grain, which had been loaned to 
 
400 
 
 JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE. 
 
 the earth, compounding its pious usury thirty, sixty, a hundred 
 fold, — all harmoniously adapted to the sustenance of living nature, 
 the bread of a hungry world ; here, a tilled corn-field, whose yel- 
 low blades are nodding with the food of man; there, an implanted 
 wilderness, — the great Father's farm, — where He " who hears the 
 raven's cry" has cultivated, with his own hand, his merciful crop 
 of berries, and nuts, and acorns, and seeds, for the humbler fami- 
 lies of animated nature ; the solemn elephant, the browsing deer, 
 the wild pigeon whose fluttering caravan darkens the sky, the 
 merry squirrel, who bounds from branch to branch, in the joy of 
 his little life, — has he seen all this ? Does he see it every year, 
 and month, and day ? Does he live, and move, and breathe, and 
 think, in this atmosphere of wonder, — himself the greatest wonder 
 of all, whose smallest fibre and faintest pulsation is as much a 
 mystery as the blazing glories of Orion's belt? And does he still 
 maintain that a miracle is contrary to experience ? If he has, 
 and if he does, then let him go, in the name of Heaven, and say 
 that it is contrary to experience that the august Power which 
 turns the clods of the earth into the daily bread of a thousand 
 million souls could feed five thousand in the wilderness. 
 
 Address before the New York Agricultural Society. October 9, 1857. 
 
 JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE, 1795—1820. 
 
 Green be the turf above thee, 
 
 Friend of my better days ! 
 None knew thee but to love thee, 
 
 Nor named thee but to praise. 
 
 Tears fell, when thou wert dying, 
 From eyes unused to weep; 
 
 And long, where thou art lying, 
 Will tears the cold turf steep. 
 
 When hearts, whose truth was proven, 
 Like thine, are laid in earth, 
 
 There should a wreath be woven, 
 To tell the world their worth;— 
 
 And I, who woke each morrow 
 To clasp thy hand in mine. 
 
 Who shared thy joy and sorrow, 
 Whose weal and woe were thine, — 
 
 It should be mine to braid it 
 
 Around thy faded brow; 
 But I've in vain essay d it, 
 
 And feel I cannot now. 
 
 While memory bids me weep thee, 
 Nor thoughts nor words are free; 
 
 The grief is tix'd too deeply 
 That mourns a man like thee. 
 
 Fitz-Greene IIalleck. 
 
 Joseph Rodman Drake was born in the city of New York, August 7, 1795. 
 After a suitable preparatory education, he entered upon the study of medicine, 
 obtained his degree in October, 1S1C, and soon after was married to a daughter 
 of Henry Eckford, a wealthy merchant, and was thus placed above the necessity 
 of laboring in his profession. It was well that it was so; for his health, always 
 delicate, began to decline, and, in the winter of 1819, he went to New Orleans, 
 in the hope that its milder climate would be of service to him. But he returned 
 in the spring of 1S20, not in the least improved, lingered through the summer, 
 and died on the 21st of September, 1820. 
 
 Drake began to write verses when he was very young, and, before he was six- 
 teen, contributed, anonymously, to two or three newspapers. Some humorous 
 
JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE. 
 
 401 
 
 and satirical odes, called the Croaker Pieces, were written by him for the " Even- 
 ing Post," in March, 1819; and soon after, his friend Halleck, the poet, united 
 with him, and the pieces were signed "Croaker & Go." The last one, written by 
 Drake, was that spirited ode, The American Flag. But 
 
 THE CULPRIT FAY 
 
 is that on which the fame of Drake chiefly l-ests, and an ever-enduring foundation 
 will it prove to be ; for a poem of more exquisite fancy — as happily conceived as 
 it is artistically executed — we have hardly had since the days of Milton's 
 " Comus." It opens with the gathering — "in the middle watch of a summer's 
 night" — of countless spirits of earth from their various homes. 
 
 IV. 
 
 They come from beds of lichen green, 
 They creep from the mullen's velvet screen ; 
 
 Some on the backs of beetles fly 
 From the silver tops of moon-touch'd trees, 
 
 Where they swung in their cobweb hammocks high, 
 And rock'd about in the evening breeze ; 
 
 Some from the hum-bird's downy nest, — 
 They had driven him out by elfin power, 
 
 And, pillow'd on plumes of his rainbow breast, 
 Had slumber'd there till the charmed hour; 
 
 Some had lain in the scoop of the rock, 
 With glittering ising-stars inlaid ; 
 
 And some had open'd the four-o r clock, 
 And stole within its purple shade. 
 
 And now they throng the moonlight glade, 
 Above — below — on every side, 
 
 Their little minim forms array'd 
 In the tricksy pomp of fairy pride ! 
 
 They assemble for the following purpose : — 
 
 v. 
 
 For an Ouphe has broken his vestal vow ; 
 He has loved an earthly maid, 
 And left for her his woodland shade ; 
 He has lain upon her lip of dew, 
 And sunn'd him in her eye of blue, 
 Fann'd her cheek with his wing of air, 
 Play'd in the ringlets of her hair, 
 And, nestling on her snowy breast, 
 Forgot the lily-king's behest. 
 For this the shadowy tribes of air 
 
 To the elfin court must haste away : — 
 And now they stand expectant there, 
 
 To hear the doom of the culprit Fay. 
 
 The hapless creature is thus condemned : — 
 
 VIII. 
 
 " Thou shalt seek the beach of sand 
 Where the water bounds the elfin land ; 
 
 31* 
 
402 
 
 JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE. 
 
 Thou shalt watch the oozy brine 
 
 Till the sturgeon leaps in the bright moonshine, 
 
 Then dart the glistening arch below, 
 
 And catch a drop from his silver bow. 
 
 The water-sprites will wield their arms 
 
 And dash around, with roar and rave, 
 And vain are the woodland spirits' charms, 
 
 They are the imps that rule the wave. 
 Yet trust thee in thy single might : 
 If thy heart be pure and thy spirit right, 
 Thou shalt win the warlock fight. 
 
 IX. 
 
 " If the spray-bead gem be won, 
 
 The stain of thy wing is wash'd away : 
 But another errand must be done 
 
 Ere thy crime be lost for aye ; 
 Thy flame-wood lamp is quench'd and dark, 
 Thou must reillume its spark. 
 Mount thy steed and spur him high 
 To the heavens' blue canopy ; 
 And when thou seest a shooting star, 
 Follow it fast, and follow it far, — 
 The last faint spark of its burning train 
 Shall light the elfin lamp again. 
 Thou hast heard our sentence, Fay ; 
 Hence! to the water-side, away!" 
 
 The following description of his armor is one of surpassing delicacy and 
 beauty : — 
 
 XXV. 
 
 He put his acorn helmet on ; 
 
 It was plumed of the silk of the thistle-down : 
 
 The corslet plate that guarded his breast 
 
 Was once the wild bee's golden vest ; 
 
 His cloak, of a thousand mingled dyes, 
 
 Was form'd of the wings of butterflies ; 
 
 His shield was the shell of a lady-bug queen, 
 
 Studs of gold on a ground of green ; 
 
 And the quivering lance which he brandish'd bright, 
 
 Was the sting of a wasp he had slain in fight. 
 
 Swift he bestrode his fire-fly steed ; 
 
 He bared his blade of the bent grass blue ; 
 He drove his spurs of the cockle-seed, 
 
 And away like a glance of thought he flew, 
 To skim the heavens, and follow far 
 The fiery trail of the rocket-star. 
 
 Then away he goes, 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Up to the vaulted firmament 
 
 His path the fire-fly courser bent, 
 
 And at every gallop on the wind, 
 
 He flung a glittering spark behind ; 
 
 He flies like a feather in the blast 
 
 Till the first light cloud in heaven is past. 
 
JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE. 
 
 403 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Up to the cope careering swift, 
 
 In breathless motion fast, 
 Fleet as the swallow cuts the drift, 
 
 Or the sea-roc rides the blast, 
 The sapphire sheet of eve is shot, 
 
 The sphered moon is past, 
 The earth but seems a tiny blot 
 
 On a sheet of azure cast. 
 Oh ! it was sweet, in the clear moonlight, 
 
 To tread the starry plain of even, 
 To meet the thousand eyes of night, 
 
 And feel the cooling breath of heaven ! 
 But the Elfin made no stop or stay 
 Till he came to the bank of the milky way, 
 Then he check'd his courser's foot, 
 And watch'd for the glimpse of the planet-shoot. 
 
 ****** 
 
 He is successful in his mission, and, on his return, the myriad joyous and 
 dancing sprites — his merry companions — thus welcome him, and then all 
 vanish : — 
 
 Ouphe and Goblin ! Imp and Sprite ! 
 
 Elf of eve ! and starry Fay ! 
 Ye that love the moon's soft light, 
 
 Hither — hither wend your way ; 
 Twine ye in a jocund ring, 
 
 Sing and trip it merrily, 
 Hand to hand, and wing to wing, 
 
 Round the wild witch-hazel tree. 
 
 Hail the wanderer again 
 
 With dance and song, and lute and lyre, 
 Pure his wing and strong his chain, 
 
 And doubly bright his fairy fire. 
 Twine ye in an airy round, 
 
 Brush the dew and print the lea ; 
 Skip and gambol, hop and bound, 
 
 Round the wild witch-hazel tree. 
 
 The beetle guards our holy ground, 
 
 He flies about the haunted place, 
 And if mortal there be found, 
 
 He hums in his ears and flaps his face ; 
 The leaf-harp sounds our roundelay, 
 
 The owlet's eyes our lanterns be ; 
 Thus we sing, and dance, and play. 
 
 Round the wild witch-hazel tree. 
 
 But, hark! from tower on tree-top high, 
 
 The sentry-elf his call has made : 
 A streak is in the eastern sky, 
 
 Shapes of moonlight ! flit and fade ! 
 The hill-tops gleam in morning's spring, 
 The skylark shakes his dappled wing, 
 The day-glimpse glimmers on the lawn, 
 The cock has crow'd, — and the Fays are gon 
 
404 JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE. 
 
 Thus ends The Culprit Fay, of the beauty of which but a faint idea can be given 
 by any extracts; for, to be fully enjoyed, it must be read and re-read as a whole. 
 It is a poem remarkable not only as the richest creation of pure fancy in our 
 literature, but for its great power and absorbing interest; for, though it is divested 
 of every human element, it interests us as deeply as if its characters were real 
 flesh and blood. 
 
 THE AMERICAN FLAG. 
 
 I. 
 
 When Freedom from her mountain height 
 Unfurl' d her standard to the air, 
 
 She tore the azure robe of night, 
 And set the stars of glory there. 
 
 She mingled with its gorgeous dyes 
 
 The milky baldric of the skies, 
 
 And striped its pure, celestial white, 
 
 With streamings of the morning light; 
 
 Then from his mansion in the sun 
 
 She call'd her eagle bearer down, 
 
 And gave into his mighty hand 
 
 The symbol of her chosen land. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Majestic monarch of the cloud, 
 
 Who rear'st aloft thy regal form, 
 To hear the tempest-trumpings loud, 
 And see the lightning lances driven, 
 
 When strive the warriors of the storm, 
 And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven, 
 Child of the sun! to thee 'tis given 
 
 To guard the banner of the free, 
 To hover in the sulphur smoke, 
 To ward away the battle-stroke, 
 And bid its blendings shine afar, 
 Like rainbows on the cloud of war, 
 
 The harbingers of victory ! 
 
 in. 
 
 Flag of the brave ! thy folds shall fly, 
 
 The sign of hope and triumph high, 
 When speaks the signal trumpet tone, 
 
 And the long line comes gleaming on. 
 Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet, 
 
 Has dimm'd the glistening bayonet, 
 Each soldier eye shall brightly turn 
 
 To where thy sky-born glories burn ; 
 And as his springing steps advance, 
 Catch war and vengeance from the glance. 
 And when the cannon-mouthings loud 
 
 Heave in wild wreaths the battle-shroud, 
 And gory sabres rise and fall 
 "Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall; 
 
WILLIAM B. TAPPAN. 
 
 405 
 
 Then shall thy meteor glances glow, 
 And cowering foes shall sink beneath 
 
 Each gallant arm that strikes below 
 That lovely messenger of death. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Flag of the seas ! on ocean wave 
 
 Thy stars shall glitter o"er the brave ; 
 When death, careering on the gale, 
 
 Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail, 
 And frighted waves rush wildly back 
 
 Before the broadside's reeling rack, 
 Each dying wanderer of the sea 
 
 Shall look at once to heaven and thee, 
 And smile to see thy splendors fly 
 In triumph o'er his closing eye. 
 
 v. 
 
 Flag of the free heart's hope and home ! 
 
 By angel hands to valor given ; 
 Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, 
 
 And all thy hues were born in heaven. 
 Forever float that standard sheet ! 
 
 Where breathes the foe but falls before us, 
 With Freedom's soil beneath our feet, 
 
 And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us ! 
 
 WILLIAM B. TAPPAN, 1795—1849. 
 
 William Bingham Tappan, the son of Samuel Tappan, a teacher in Beverly, 
 Massachusetts, was born in that town in 1795. At the age of ten, he had written 
 several pieces, which gave promise of future excellence. Losing his father when 
 but twelve years old, he was soon after apprenticed to a clockmaker in Boston. 
 In 1816, he removed to Philadelphia, and established himself in business there ; 
 but he soon found that this was not his sphere, and determined to devote himself 
 to a literary life. In 1819, he published a small volume of poems, entitled New 
 England, and other Poems, which was well received. In 1822, he was married to 
 Miss Amelia Colton, daughter of Major Luther Colton, of Longmeadow, Massa- 
 chusetts, and soon after this he entered, as salesman, into the Depository of the 
 American Sunday-School Union, to which cause he devoted the rest of his life, 
 with great enthusiasm and energy. In 1829, he was transferred to Cincinnati, to 
 take charge of the Depository in that city, but returned to Philadelphia in 1834 ; 
 and in 1838 he went to Boston to superintend the affairs of the " S. S. Union" 
 operations in New England. In 1841, he was licensed to preach, that he might 
 with more effect present the cause of the Sunday-school to the churches. 
 
 At this time, he had published two or three volumes of poetry. In 1845 ap- 
 peared Poetry of the Heart ; in 1846, Sacred and Miscellaneous Poems ; in 1847, 
 
406 
 
 WILLIAM B. TAPPAN. 
 
 Poetry of Life ; in 1S48, The Sunday -School, and other Poems ; and in 1849, Late 
 and Early Poems. While engaged in the preparation of a new volume, he fell a 
 victim to the epidemic then prevailing in Boston, — the cholera, — on the 19th of 
 June, 1S49. His death was deeply and widely lamented; for it was felt that a 
 good man, who was devoting to the cause of sacred literature the high gift God 
 had given him, had been taken away in the midst of his usefulness. "With the 
 simplicity of a child, he combined the polish and dignity of the Christian gentle- 
 man; with the glowing fancy of the poet, the lowly spirit of the saint; with 
 the severest scrutiny of his own heart, the largest charity for others." 
 
 The following pieces will give some idea of the pure and elevated Christian 
 feeling that pervades his poetry. 
 
 THERE IS AN HOUR OF PEACEFUL REST. 
 
 There is an hour of peaceful rest, 
 
 To mourning wanderers given; 
 There is a joy for souls distress'd, 
 A balm for every wounded breast — 
 
 'Tis found above, in heaven. 
 
 There is a soft, a downy bed, 
 
 Far from these shades of even ; 
 A couch for weary mortals spread, 
 Where they may rest the aching head, 
 
 And find repose in heaven. 
 
 There is a home for weary souls, 
 
 By sin and sorrow driven , 
 When toss'd on life's tempestuous shoals, 
 Where storms arise and ocean rolls, 
 
 And all is drear — 'tis heaven. 
 
 There Faith lifts up her cheerful eye, 
 
 The heart no longer riven ; 
 And views the tempest passing by, 
 The evening shadows quickly fly, 
 
 And all serene in heaven. 
 
 There fragrant flowers, immortal, bloom, 
 
 And joys supreme are given: 
 There rays divine disperse the gloom, — 
 Beyond the confines of the tomb 
 
 Appears the dawn of heaven. 
 
 GETHSEMANE. 
 
 'Tis midnight, and on Olive's brow 
 The star is dimm'd that lately shone ; 
 
 'Tis midnight; in the garden now, 
 The suffering Saviour prays alone. 
 
 'Tis midnight, and, from all removed, 
 Immanuel wrestles, lone, with fears ; 
 
 E'en the disciple that he loved, 
 
 Heeds not his Master's grief and tears. 
 
FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. 
 
 407 
 
 'Tis midnight, and for others' guilt 
 The Man of Sorrows weeps in blood ; 
 
 Yet he that hath in anguish knelt, 
 Is not forsaken by his God. 
 
 'Tis midnight, from the heavenly plains 
 Is borne the song that angels know ; 
 
 Unheard by mortals are the strains 
 That sweetly soothe the Saviour's woe. 
 
 WHY SHOULD WE SIGH ? 
 
 Why should we sigh, when Fancy's dream, — 
 
 The ray that shone 'mid youthful tears, — 
 Departing, leaves no kindly gleam, 
 
 To cheer the lonely waste of years ? 
 Why should we sigh ? — The fairy charm 
 
 That bound each sense in folly's chain 
 Is broke, and Reason, clear and calm, 
 
 Resumes her holy rights again. 
 
 Why should we sigh that earth no more 
 
 Claims the devotion once approved ? 
 That joys endear'd, with us are o'er, 
 
 And gone are those these hearts have loved ? 
 Why should we sigh ? — Unfading bliss 
 
 Survives the narrow grasp of time ; 
 And those that ask'd our tears in this, 
 
 Shall render smiles in yonder clime. 
 
 FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. 
 
 This well-known poet was born at Guilford, Connecticut, in August, 1795. In 
 1813, he entered a banking-bouse in New York, and remained in that city en- 
 gaged in mercantile pursuits till 1849, when he returned to Connecticut, where he 
 now resides. At an early age he showed a taste for poetry ; but he first attracted 
 public attention by a series of humorous and satirical odes published in the 
 "Evening Post," in 1819, and written in conjunction with his friend Drake, with 
 the signature of " Croaker." Towards the close of the same year, he published 
 Fanny, the longest of his satirical poems, which passed through several edi- 
 tions. In 1823, he went to Europe, and after his return, in 1827, he published a 
 small volume containing, among other pieces, Alnwick Castle, and that spirited, 
 finished, and justly-admired ode, Marco Bozzaris, — the corner-stone of his glory. 
 In 1847, Appleton & Co. published a beautifully-illustrated edition of all he had 
 then written ; and in 1852 a volume containing additional poems was published 
 
408 
 
 FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. 
 
 by Redfleld. 1 It has always been regretted by the public that one who writes so 
 well should have written so little. 2 
 
 MARCO BOZZARIS. 3 
 
 At midnight, in his guarded tent, 
 
 The Turk was dreaming of the hour 
 When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent, 
 
 Should tremble at his power : 
 In dreams, through camp and court he bore 
 The trophies of a conqueror; 
 
 In dreams, his song of triumph heard ; 
 Then wore his monarch's signet ring : 
 Then pressed that monarch's throne — a king ; 
 As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing, 
 
 As Eden's garden bird. 
 
 At midnight, in the forest shades, 
 
 Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band,. 
 True as the steel of their tried blades, 
 
 Heroes in heart and hand. 
 There had the Persian's thousands stood, 
 There had the glad earth drunk their blood 
 
 On old Platasa's day ; 
 And now there breathed that haunted air 
 The sons of sires who conquer'd there, 
 "With arm to strike, and soul to dare, 
 
 As quick, as far as they. 
 
 An hour pass'd on — the Turk awoke ; 
 That bright dream was his last ; 
 
 1 This year (1859) has appeared a new edition of his poems, in one small 
 volume, in blue and gold, published by Appleton & Co. 
 
 2 " Mr. Halleck has written very little, but that little is of great excellence. His 
 poeti-y is polished and graceful, and finished with great care under the guidance 
 of a fastidious taste. A vein of sweet and delicate sentiment runs through all 
 his serious productions, and he combines with this a power of humor of the most 
 refined and exquisite cast. He has the art of passing from grave to gay, or the 
 reverse, by the most skilful and happily-managed transitions." — G. S. Hillard. 
 
 " The poems of Fitz-Greene Halleck, although limited in quantity, are perhaps 
 the best known and most cherished, especially in the latitude of New York, of all 
 American verses. All his verses have a vital meaning, and the clear ring of pure 
 metal. They are few, but memorable. The school-boy and the old ' Knicker- 
 bockei*' both know them by heart. Burns, and the Lines on the Death of Drake * 
 have the beautiful impressiveness of the highest elegiac verse. Marco Bozzaris is 
 perhaps the best martial lyric in the language, Red Jacket the most effective 
 Indian portrait, and Twilight an apt piece of contemplative verse; while Aln- 
 tcick Castle combines his grave and gay style with inimitable art and admirable 
 effect. As a versifier, he is an adept in that relation of sound to sense which em- 
 balms thought in deathless melody." — Henry T. Tucxerman. 
 
 3 He fell in an attack upon the Turkish camp at Lapsi, the site of the ancient 
 Plataea, August 20, 1823, and expired in the moment of victory. The modern 
 Greeks, like the Italians, pronounce a as in father, and zz like tz. This hero's 
 name, therefore, is pronounced Bot-zah'ri. * See p. 400. 
 
FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. 
 
 He woke to hear his sentries shriek, 
 " To arms ! they come! the Greek! the Greek!" 
 He woke — to die midst flame, and smoke, 
 And shout, and groan, and sabre-stroke, 
 
 And death-shots falling thick and fast 
 As lightnings from the mountain-cloud ; 
 And heard, with voice as trumpet loud, 
 
 Bozzakis cheer his band : 
 " Strike — till the last arm'd foe expires ; 
 Strike — for your altars and your fires ; 
 Strike — for the green graves of your sires : 
 
 God, and your native land !" 
 
 They fought, — like brave men, long and well ; 
 
 They piled that ground with Moslem slain ; 
 They conquer'd — but Bozzaris fell, 
 
 Bleeding at every vein. 
 His few surviving comrades saw 
 His smile when rang their proud hurrah, 
 
 And the red field was won : 
 Then saw in death his eyelids close 
 Calmly, as to a night's repose, 
 
 Like flowers at set of sun. 
 
 Come to the bridal chamber, Death ! 
 
 Come to the mother's, when she feels, 
 For the first time, her first-born's breath ; 
 
 Come when the blessed seals 
 That close the pestilence are broke, 
 And crowded cities wail its stroke ; 
 Come in Consumption's ghastly form, 
 The earthquake shock, the ocean storm ; 
 Come when the heart beats high and warm, 
 
 With banquet-song, and dance, and wine ; 
 And thou art terrible — the tear, 
 The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier, 
 And all we know, or dream, or fear, 
 
 Of agony, are thine. 
 
 But to the hero, when his sword 
 
 Has won the battle for the free, 
 Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word ; 
 And in its hollow tones are heard 
 
 The thanks of millions yet to be. 
 Come, when his task of fame is wrought— 
 Come, with her laurel-leaf, blood-bought — 
 
 Come, in her crowning hour — and then 
 Thy sunken eye's unearthly light 
 To him is welcome as the sight 
 
 Of sky and stars to prison'd men : 
 Thy grasp is welcome as the hand 
 Of brother in a foreign land ; 
 Thy summons welcome as the cry 
 That told the Indian isles were nigh 
 35 
 
410 
 
 FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. 
 
 To the world-seeking Genoese, 
 When the land-wind, from woods of palm, 
 And orange-groves, and fields of balm, 
 
 Blew o'er the Haytien seas. 
 
 Bozzaris ! with the storied brave, 
 
 Greece nurtured in her glory's time, 
 Rest thee — there is no prouder grave, 
 
 Even in her own proud clime. 
 She wore no funeral weeds for thee, 
 
 Nor bade the dark hearse wave its plume, 
 Like torn branch from death's leafless tree, 
 In sorrow's pomp and pageantry, 
 
 The heartless luxury of the tomb : 
 But she remembers thee as one 
 Long loved and for a season gone. 
 For thee her poets' lyre is wreathed, 
 Her mai^ble wrought, her music breathed : 
 For thee she rings the birthday bells ; 
 Of thee her babes' first lisping tells : 
 For thine her evening prayer is said 
 At palace couch, and cottage bed ; 
 Her soldier, closing with the foe, 
 Gives for thy sake a deadlier blow ; 
 His plighted maiden, when she fears 
 For him, the joy of her young years, 
 Thinks of thy fate, and checks her tears. 
 
 And she, the mother of thy boys, 
 Though in her eye and faded cheek 
 Is read the grief she will not speak, 
 
 The memory of her buried joys, 
 And even she who gave thee birth, 
 Will, by their pilgrim-circled hearth, 
 
 Talk of thy doom without a sigh : 
 For thou art Freedom's now, and Fame's, 
 One of the few, the immortal names 
 
 That were not born to die. 
 
 BURNS. 
 
 TO A ROSE, BROUGHT FROM NEAR ALLOWAY KIRK, IX AYRSHIRE, IN THE 
 AUTUMN OP 1822. 
 
 Wild Rose of Alloway ! my thanks : 
 Thou 'mindst me of that autumn noon 
 
 When first we met upon "the banks 
 And braes o' bonny Doon." 
 
 Like thine, beneath the thorn-tree's bough, 
 
 My sunny hour was glad and brief, 
 We've cross'd the winter sea, and thou 
 
 Art wither'd — flower and leaf. 
 
 And will not thy death-doom be mine — 
 The doom of all things wrought of clay — 
 
 And wither'd my life's leaf like thine, 
 Wild rose of Alloway ! 
 
FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. 
 
 Not so his memory, for whose sake 
 My bosom bore thee far and long, 
 
 His — who a humbler flower could make 
 Immortal as his song. 
 
 There have been loftier themes than his, 
 And longer scrolls, and louder lyres, 
 
 And lays lit up with Poesy's 
 Purer and holier fires : 
 
 Yet read the names that know not death ; 
 
 Few nobler ones than Burns are there ; 
 And few have won a greener wreath 
 
 Than that which binds his hair. 
 
 His is that language of the heart 
 
 In which the answering heart would speak, 
 Thought, word, that bids the warm tear start, 
 
 Or the smile light the cheek ; 
 
 And his that music, to whose tone 
 
 The common pulse of man keeps time, 
 
 In cot or castle's mirth or moan, 
 In cold or ( sunny clime. 
 
 And who hath heard his song, nor knelt 
 Before its spell with willing knee, 
 
 And listen'd, and believed, and felt 
 The Poet's mastery? 
 
 O'er the mind's sea, in calm and storm, 
 O'er the heart's sunshine and its showers, 
 
 O'er Passion's moments, bright and warm, 
 O'er Reason's dark, cold hours ; 
 
 On fields where brave men "die or do," 
 In halls where rings the banquet's mirth, 
 
 Where mourners weep, where lovers woo, 
 From throne to cottage hearth ? 
 
 What sweet tears dim the eyes unshed, 
 What wild vows falter on the tongue, 
 
 When' " Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled," 
 Or " Auld Lang Syne," is sung! 
 
 Pure hopes, that lift the soul above, 
 
 Come with his Cotter's hymn of praise, 
 
 And dreams of youth, and truth, and love, 
 With "Logan's" banks and braes. 
 
 And when he breathes his master-lay 
 Of Alloway's witch-haunt ed wall, 
 
 All passions in our frames of clay 
 Come thronging at his call. 
 
 Imagination's world of air, 
 
 And- our own world, its gloom and glee, 
 Wit, pathos, poetry, are there, 
 
 And death's sublimity. 
 
412 
 
 FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. 
 
 And Burns — though brief the race he ran. 
 Though rough and dark the path he trod — 
 
 Lived — died — in form and soul a Man, 
 The image of his God. 
 
 Through care, and pain, and want, and woe, 
 With wounds that only death could heal, 
 
 Tortures — the poor alone can know, 
 The proud alone can feel ; 
 
 He kept his honesty and truth, 
 
 His independent tongue and pen, 
 And moved, in manhood as in youth, 
 
 Pride of his fellow-men. 
 
 Praise to the bard ! his words are driven, 
 Like flower-seeds by the far winds sown, 
 
 Where'er, beneath the sky of heaven, 
 The birds of fame have flown. 
 
 Praise to the man ! a nation stood 
 
 Beside his coffin with wet eyes, 
 Her brave, her beautiful, her good, 
 
 As when a loved one dies. 
 
 Such graves as his are pilgrim-shrines, 
 Shrines to no code or creed confined — 
 
 The Delphian vales, the Palestines, 
 The Meccas, of the mind. 
 
 Sages, with Wisdom's garland wreathed, 
 
 Crown'd kings, and mitred priests of power, 
 
 And warriors with their bright swords sheathed, 
 The mightiest of the hour ; 
 
 And lowlier names, whose humble home 
 
 Is lit by Fortune's dimmer star, 
 Are there — o'er wave and mountain come, 
 
 From countries near and far ; 
 
 Pilgrims, whose wandering feet have press'd 
 The Switzer's snow, the Arab's sand, 
 
 Or trod the piled leaves of the West, 
 My own green forest-land. 
 
 All ask the cottage of his birth, 
 
 Gaze on the scenes he loved and sung, 
 
 And gather feelings not of earth 
 His fields and streams among. 
 
 They linger by the Doon's low trees, 
 And pastoral Nith, and wooded Ayr, 
 
 And round thy sepulchres, Dumfries ! 
 The Poet's tomb is there. 
 
 But what to them the sculptor's art, 
 
 His funeral columns, wreaths, and urns ? 
 
 Wear they not graven on the heart 
 The name of Robert Burns ? 
 
JAMES GATES PERCIVAL. 
 
 413 
 
 THE WORLD IS BRIGHT BEFORE THEE. 
 T0 * * * *. 
 
 The -world is bright before thee ; 
 
 Its summer flowers are thine ; 
 Its calm, blue sky is o'er thee, 
 
 Thy bosom pleasure's shrine : 
 And thine the sunbeam given 
 
 To nature's morning hour, 
 Pure, warm, as when from heaven 
 
 It burst on Eden's bower. 
 
 There is a song of sorrow, 
 
 The death-dirge of the gay, 
 That tells, ere dawn of morrow, 
 
 These charms may melt away, — 
 That sun's bright beam be shaded, 
 
 That sky be blue no more, 
 The summer flowers be faded, 
 
 And youth's warm promise o'er. 
 
 Believe it not ; though lonely 
 
 Thy evening home may be ; 
 Though beauty's bark can only 
 
 Float on a summer sea, 
 Though Time thy bloom is stealing, 
 
 There's still, beyond his art, 
 The wild-flower wreath of feeling, 
 
 The sunbeam of the heart. 
 
 JAMES GATES PERCIVAL, 1795—1856. 
 
 Tins eminent scholar and classic poet was born at Berlin, Connecticut, Septem- 
 ber 15, 1795, and graduated at Yale College in 1815, with high honor. After 
 leaving college, he entered the medical school connected with the same, and 
 received the degree of M.D. He did not, however, engage in practice, but de- 
 voted himself chiefly to the cultivation of his poetical powers and to the pursuits 
 of science and literature. He first appeared before the public as an author in 
 1821, when he published a volume containing some minor poems, and the first 
 part of his Prometheus, which was very favorably noticed in the " North American 
 Review." In 1822, he published two volumes of miscellaneous poems and prose 
 writings, and the second part of Prometheus, a poem in the Spenserian measure. 
 In 1824, he was for a short time in the service of the United States, as Professor 
 of Chemistry in the Military Academy at West Point, and subsequently as a sur- 
 geon connected with the recruiting-station at Boston. But his tastes lay in a 
 different direction, and he gave himself to the Muses, and to historical, philo- 
 logical, and scientific pursuits. In 1827, he was employed to revise the manuscript 
 
 35* 
 
414 JAMES GATES PERCIVAL. 
 
 of Dr. Webster's large Dictionary, and not long after this he published a cor- 
 rected translation of Malte-Brun's Geography. In 1835, he was appointed, in 
 connection with Professor C. U. Shepard, to make a survey of the geological and 
 mineralogical resources of the State of Connecticut. Dr. Percival took charge of 
 the geological part, and his report thereon was published in 1842. In 1843 ap- 
 peared, at New Haven, his last published volume of miscellaneous poetry, entitled 
 The Dream of Day, and other Poems. In 1854, he was appointed State Geologist 
 of Wisconsin, and his first report on that survey was published in January, 1855. 
 The larger part of this year he spent in the field. While preparing his second 
 report, his health gave way, and, after a gentle decline, he expired on the 2d of 
 May, 1856, at Hazel Green, Wisconsin. 
 
 However much distinguished Mr. Percival may be for his classical learning, 
 and for his varied attainments in philology and general science, he will be chiefly 
 known to posterity as one of the most eminent of our poets, for the richness of his 
 fancy, the copiousness and beauty of his language, his life-like descriptions, his 
 sweet and touching pathos, as well as, at times, his spirited and soul-stirring 
 
 ODE. LIBERTY TO ATHENS. 
 
 The flag of freedom floats once more 
 
 Around the lofty Parthenon ; 
 It waves, as waved the palm of yore 
 
 In days departed long and gone ; 
 As bright a glory, from the skies, 
 
 Pours down its light around those towers, 
 And once again the Greeks arise, 
 
 As in their country's noblest hours ; 
 Their swords are girt in virtue's cause, 
 
 Minerva's sacred hill is free, — 
 Oh, may she keep her equal laws, 
 
 While man shall live, and time shall be. 
 
 The pride of all her shrines went down ; 
 
 The Goth, the Frank, the Turk, had reft 
 The laurel from her civic crown ; 
 
 Her helm by many a sword was cleft : 
 She lay among her ruins low, — 
 
 Where grew the palm, the cypress rose, 
 
 1 " The vein of his poetry is often as rich as any we have ever known. The 
 pieces are not few in number in which the soul of the author, rising as he pro- 
 ceeds, involves itself and the reader in a cloud of delicious enchantment. . . . 
 We are most pleased with his intimate familiarity with classical literature : he 
 has caught from the study of Greek models a certain Attic psrity and severity of 
 style conspicuous in some of his best-wrought pieces." — Contributions to Lite- 
 rature, by Samuel Gilman. For a very just view of Dr. Percival's character as a 
 man, read Goodrich's Recollections, vol. ii. pp. 139 and 140 : also in the New 
 Englander, May, 1859, an admirable article on Percival's scholarship and cha- 
 racter, by Ed. W. Robbins. The Life in Kettell's Specimens was written by Rev. 
 Royal Robbin3, of Berlin, Connecticut. 
 
 2 " In this crowded, classical, and animated picture, the occasional resemblance 
 to Lord Byron ought not to be called an imitation so much as a successful attempt 
 at rivalry." Read articles on his poetry, in the 14th, 16th, and 22d volumes of 
 the " North American Review," and 2d of the " American Quarterly Review." 
 
JAMES GATES PERCIVAL. 
 
 415 
 
 And, crush'd and bruised by many a blow, 
 She cower'd beneath her savage foes : 
 
 But now again she springs from earth, 
 Her loud, awakening trumpet speaks ; 
 
 She rises in a brighter birth, 
 
 And sounds redemption to the Greeks. 
 
 It is the classic jubilee, — 
 
 Their servile years have roll'd away ; 
 The clouds that hover'd o'er them flee, 
 
 They hail the dawn of freedom's day ; 
 From heaven the golden light descends, 
 
 The times of old are on the wing, 
 And glory there her pinion bends, 
 
 And beauty wakes a fairer spring ; 
 The hills of Greece, her rocks, her waves, 
 
 Are all in triumph's pomp array'd ; 
 A light that points their tyrants' graves 
 
 Plays round each bold Athenian's blade. 
 
 The Parthenon, the sacred shrine, 
 
 Where wisdom held her pure abode : 
 The hill of Mars, where light divine 
 
 Proclaim'd the true but unknown God ; 
 Where justice held unyielding sway, 
 
 And trampled all corruption down, 
 And onward took her lofty way 
 
 To reach at truth's unfading crown : 
 The rock, where liberty was full, 
 
 Where eloquence her torrents roll'd, 
 And loud, against the despot's rule, 
 
 A knell the patriot's fury toll'd: 
 The stage, whereon the drama spake 
 
 In tones that seem'd the words of Heaven, 
 Which made the wretch in terror shake, 
 
 As by avenging furies driven : 
 The groves and gardens, where the fire 
 
 Of wisdom, as a fountain, burn'd, 
 And every eye, that dared aspire 
 
 To truth, has long in worship turn'd : 
 The halls and porticos, where trod 
 
 The moral sage, severe, unstain'd, 
 And where the intellectual God 
 
 In all the light of science reign'd : 
 The schools, where rose in symmetry 
 
 The simple, but majestic pile, 
 Where marble threw its roughness by, 
 
 To glow, to frown, to weep, to smile, 
 Where colors made the canvas live, 
 
 Where music roll'd her flood along, 
 And all the charms that art can give, 
 
 Were blent with beauty, love, and song : 
 The port, from whose capacious womb 
 
 Her navies took their conquering road : 
 The heralds of an awful doom 
 
 To all who would not kiss her rod 
 
416 
 
 JAMES GATES PERCIVAL. 
 
 On these a dawn of glory springs, 
 
 These trophies of her brightest fame ; 
 Away the long-chain'd city flings 
 
 Her weeds, her shackles, and her shame ; 
 Again her ancient souls awake, 
 
 Harmodius bears anew his sword ; 
 Her sons in wrath their fetters break, 
 
 And freedom is their only lord. 
 
 CONSUMPTION. 
 
 There is a sweetness in woman's decay, 
 When the light of beauty is fading away, 
 When the bright enchantment of youth is gone, 
 And the tint that glow'd, and the eye that shone, 
 • And darted around its glance of power, 
 And the lip that vied with the sweetest flower 
 That ever in Psestum's 1 garden blew, 
 Or ever was steep'd in fragrant dew, 
 When all that was bright and fair is fled, 
 But the loveliness lingering round the dead. 
 
 Oh, there is a sweetness in beauty's close, 
 Like the perfume scenting the wither'd rose ; 
 For a nameless charm around her plays, 
 And her eyes are kindled with hallow'd rays, 
 And a veil of spotless purity 
 Has mantled her cheek with its heavenly dye ; 
 Like a cloud whereon the queen of night 
 Has pour'd her softest tint of light ; 
 And there is a blending of white and blue, 
 Where the purple blood is melting through 
 The snow of her pale and tender cheek ; 
 And there are tones, that sweetly speak 
 Of a spirit who longs for a purer day, 
 And is ready to wing her flight away. 
 
 In the flush of youth and the spring of feeling, 
 When life, like a sunny stream, is stealing 
 Its silent steps through a flowery path, 
 And all the endearments, that pleasure hath, 
 Are pour'd from her full, o'erflowing horn. 
 When the rose of enjoyment conceals no thorn, 
 In her lightness of heart, to the cheery song 
 The maiden nuiy trip in the dance along, 
 And think of the passing moment, that lies, 
 Like a fairy dream, in her dazzled eyes, 
 And yield to the present, that charms around 
 With all that is lovely in sight and sound, 
 Where a thousand pleasing phantoms flit, 
 With the voice of mirth, and the burst of wit, 
 And the music that steals to the bosom's core, 
 And the heart in its fulness flowing o'er 
 
 Biferique rosaria Pwsti. — Virgil, Geor. iv. 119. 
 
JAMES GATES PERCIVAL. 
 
 With a few big drops, that are soon repress'd, 
 
 For short is the stay of grief in her breast: 
 
 In this enliven'd and gladsome hour 
 
 The spirit may burn with a brighter power ; 
 
 But dearer the calm and quiet day, 
 
 When the heaven-sick soul is stealing away. 
 
 And when her sun is low declining, 
 
 And life wears out with no repining, 
 
 And the whisper, that tells of early death, 
 
 Is soft as the west wind's balmy breath, 
 
 When it comes at the hour of still repose, 
 
 To sleep in the breast of the wooing rose ; 
 
 And the lip, that swell'd with a living glow, 
 
 Is pale as a curl of new-fallen snow ; 
 
 And her cheek, like the Parian stone, is fair,— 
 
 But the hectic spot that flushes there, 
 
 W T hen the tide of life, from its secret dwelling, 
 
 In a sudden gush is deeply swelling, 
 
 And giving a tinge to her icy lips, 
 
 Like the crimson rose's brightest tips, 
 
 As richly red, and as transient too, 
 
 As the clouds in autumn's sky of blue, 
 
 That seem like a host of glory met 
 
 To honor the sun at his golden set : 
 
 Oh, then, when the spirit is taking wing, 
 
 How fondly her thoughts to her dear one cling, 
 
 As if she would blend her soul with his 
 
 In a deep and long imprinted kiss ! 
 
 So fondly the panting camel flies, 
 
 Where the glassy vapor cheats his eyes, 
 
 And the dove from the falcon seeks her nest, 
 
 And the infant shrinks to its mother's breast. 
 
 And though her dying voice be mute, 
 
 Or faint as the tones of an unstrung lute, 
 
 And though the glow from her cheek be fled, 
 
 And her pale lips cold as the marble dead, 
 
 Her eye still beams unwonted fires 
 
 With a woman's love and a saint's desires, 
 
 And her last fond, lingering look is given 
 
 To the love she leaves, and then to heaven ; 
 
 As if she would bear that love away 
 
 To a purer world and a brighter day. 
 
 NIGHT. 
 
 Am I not all alone ? — The world is still 
 
 In passionless slumber, — not a tree but feels 
 The far-pervading hush, and softer steals 
 The misty river by. — Yon broad bare hill 
 Looks coldly up to heaven, and all the stars 
 Seem eyes deep fix'd in silence, as if bound 
 By some unearthly spell, — no other sound 
 But the owl's unfrequent moan. — Their airy car 
 The winds have station'd on the mo ...ntain-peaks. 
 
418 JAMES GATES PERCIYAL. 
 
 Am I not all alone ? — A spirit speaks 
 
 From the abyss of night, "Not all alone, — 
 Nature is round thee with her banded powers, 
 •And ancient genius haunts thee in these hours, — 
 Mind and its kingdom now are all thy own." 
 
 LOVE OF STUDY. 1 
 
 And wherefore does the student trim his lamp, 
 And watch his lonely taper, when the stars 
 Are holding their high festival in heaven, 
 And worshipping around the midnight throne ? 
 And wherefore does he spend so patiently, 
 In deep and voiceless thought, the blooming hours 
 Of youth and joyance, when the blood is warm, 
 And the heart full of buoyancy and fire ? 
 
 He has his pleasures, — he has his reward : 
 For there is in the company of books, 
 The living souls of the departed sage, 
 And bard and hero ; there is in the roll 
 Of eloquence and history, which speak 
 The deeds of early and of better days ; 
 In these and in the visions that arise 
 Sublime in midnight musings, and array 
 Conceptions of the mighty and the good, 
 There is an elevating influence, 
 That snatches us a while from earth, and lifts 
 The spirit in its strong aspirings, where 
 Superior beings fill the court of heaven. 
 And thus his fancy wanders, and has talk 
 "With high imaginings, and pictures out 
 Communion with the worthies of old time. 
 
 * -:'r * -k- * 
 
 With eye upturn'd, watching the many stars, 
 And ear in deep attention fix ; d, he sits, 
 Communing with himself, and with the world, 
 The universe around him, and with all 
 The beings of his memory and his hopes ; 
 Till past becomes reality, and joys, 
 That beckon in the future, nearer draw, 
 And ask fruition, — oh, there is a pure, 
 A hallow'd feeling in these midnight dreams ! 
 They have the light of heaven around them, breathe 
 The odor of its sanctity, and are 
 Those moments taken from the sands of life, 
 "Where guilt makes no intrusion, but they bloom 
 Like islands flowering on Arabia's wild. 
 And there is pleasure in the utterance 
 Of pleasant images in pleasant words, 
 
 1 " There are many youths, and some men, who most earnestly devote them- 
 selves to solitary studies, from the mere love of the pursuit. I have here 
 attempted to give some of the causes of a devotion which appears so unaccount- 
 able to the stirring world." 
 
JAMES GATES PERCIVAL. 
 
 419 
 
 Melting like melody into the ear, 
 And stealing on in one continual flow 
 Unruffled and unbroken. It is joy 
 Ineffable to dwell upon the lines 
 That register our feelings, and portray, 
 In colors always fresh and ever new, 
 Emotions that were sanctified, and loved, 
 As something far too tender, and too pure, 
 For forms so frail and fading. 
 
 EXTRACT FROM PROMETHEUS. 
 
 Our thoughts are boundless, though our frames are frail, 
 
 Our souls immortal, though our limbs decay ; 
 Though darken'd in this poor life by a veil 
 
 Of suffering, dying matter, we shall play 
 
 In truth's eternal sunbeams ; on the way 
 To heaven's high capitol our cars shall roll; 
 
 The temple of the Power whom all obey, 
 That is the mark we tend to, for the soul 
 Can take no lower flight, and seek no meaner goal. 
 
 I feel it, — though the flesh is weak, I feel 
 
 The spirit has its energies untamed 
 By all its fatal wanderings ; time may heal 
 
 The wounds which it has suffer d ; folly claim'd 
 
 Too large a portion of its youth ; ashamed 
 Of those low pleasures, it would leap and fly, 
 
 And soar on wings of lightning, like the famed 
 Elijah, when the chariot, rushing by, 
 Bore him with steeds of fire triumphant to the sky. 
 
 We are as barks afloat, upon the sea, 
 
 Helmless and oarless, when the light has fled 
 
 The spirit, whose strong influence can free 
 The drowsy soul, that slumbers in the dead 
 Cold night of mortal darkness ; from the bed 
 
 Of sloth he rouses at her sacred call, 
 
 And, kindling in the blaze around him shed, 
 
 Rends with strong effort sin's debasing thrall, 
 
 And gives to God his strength, his heart, his mind, his all. 
 
 Our home is not on earth ; although we sleep, 
 
 And sink in seeming death a while, yet, then, 
 The awakening voice speaks loudly, and we leap 
 
 To life, and energy, and light, again ; 
 
 We cannot slumber always in the den 
 Of sense and selfishness ; the day will break, 
 
 Ere we forever leave the haunts of men ; 
 Even at the parting hour the soul will wake, 
 Nor, like a senseless brule, its unknown journey take. 
 
 How awful is that hour, when conscience stings 
 The hoary wretch, win on his death-bed hears, 
 
 Deep in his soul, the thundering voice that rings, 
 In one dark, damning moment, crimes of years ; 
 
420 
 
 MARIA BROOKS. 
 
 And, screaming like a vulture in his ears, 
 
 Tells, one by one, his thoughts and deeds of shame, 
 
 How wild the fury of his soul careers ! 
 His swart eye flashes with intensest flame, 
 And like the torture's rack the wrestling of his frame. 
 
 MARIA BROOKS, 1795— 1S15. 
 
 Maria Gowen (known by the name of "Maria del Occidente," given to her by 
 the poet Southey) was descended from a Welsh family, and born in Medford in 
 1795. She early displayed uncommon powers of mind, which were judiciously 
 cultivated and directed by an intelligent and educated father. She was married 
 very early in life to Mr. John Brooks, a merchant-tailor of Boston, who, a few 
 years after their marriage, lost the greater part of his property, when Mrs. Brooks 
 resorted to poetry for her amusement and consolation. In 1S20, she gave to the 
 public a small volume, entitled Judith, Esther, and other Poems, by a Lover of the 
 Fine Arts. It contained much that was beautiful, and gave promise of far 
 higher excellence. In 1S23, Mr. Brooks died, and she went to reside with a pater- 
 nal uncle in Cuba, where, in 1821, she completed her first canto of Zophiel, or The 
 Bride of Seven, which she had planned and nearly written before leaving Boston. 
 It was published in Boston in 1825 : other cantos were written from time to time, 
 and the sixth was published in 1829. 
 
 Mrs. Brooks's uncle having died, leaving her an ample income, she returned 
 soon after to the United States, and in 1831 visited England, where she was 
 cordially welcomed by the poet Southey, who pronounced her " the most impas- 
 sioned and most imaginative of all poetesses." "When she left England, she in- 
 trusted to his care her completed work, which he carried through the press, in 
 London, in 1833. After returning home, she had printed, for private circulation, 
 Idomcn, or the Vale of the Yumtiri, being simply her own history, under a different 
 name. In 1813, she sailed for Matanzas, in Cuba, where she died on the 11th of 
 November, 1815. 
 
 Zophiel, or The Bride of Seven, Mrs. Brooks's chief poem, is a beautiful tale 
 of an exiled Jewish maiden in Media, and is evidently suggested by the Book 
 of Tobit in the Apocrypha. Sara, the heroine in Tobit, is married to seven hus- 
 bands successively, who all die on entering the bridal chamber, being killed by 
 Asmodeus, the evil spirit. At last Tobias, the son of Tobit, being instructed by 
 the angel Raphael how to overcome the evil spirit, marries Sara, and drives off 
 Asmodeus by means of " a smoke" made of "the liver and heart of a fish." In 
 Mrs. Brooks's poem, The Bride of Seven, Zophiel is Asmodeus, and Egla is Sara, 
 a maiden of exquisite beauty, grace, and tenderness ; but though the poem shows 
 much artistic skill and has many passages of great beauty and power, it is defi- 
 cient in simplicity and true human feeling, and receives rather the homage of the 
 intellect than of the heart. Hence, while it commands the warm approbation of 
 the few, it will never please or interest the many. Some of Mrs. Brooks's minor 
 poems, however, have all the finish of Zophiel, and at the same time interest our 
 feelings. 
 
MARIA BROOKS. 
 
 421 
 
 MORNING. 
 
 How beauteous art thou, thou morning sun! — 
 The old man, feebly tottering forth, admires 
 
 As much thy beauty, now life's dx^eam is done, 
 As when he moved exulting in his fires. 
 
 The infant strains his little arms to catch 
 The rays that glance about his silken hair ; 
 
 And Luxury hangs her amber lamps, to match 
 
 Thy face, when turn'd away from bower and palace fair. 
 
 Sweet to the lip the draught, the blushing fruit ; 
 
 Music and perfumes mingle with the soul ; 
 How thrills the kiss, when feeling's voice is mute ! 
 
 And light and beauty's tints enhance the whole. 
 
 Yet each keen sense were dulness but for thee : 
 Thy ray to joy, love, virtue, genius, warms; 
 
 Thou never weariest ; no inconstancy 
 
 But comes to pay new homage to thy charms. 
 
 How many lips have sung thy praise, how long ! 
 
 Yet, when his slumbering harp he feels thee woo, 
 The pleasured bard pours forth another song, 
 
 And finds in thee, like love, a theme forever new. 
 
 Thy dark-eyed daughters come in beauty forth, 
 
 In thy near realms ; and, like their snow-wreaths fair, 
 
 The bright-hair'd youths and maidens of the north 
 Smile in thy colors when thou art not there. 
 
 'Tis there thou bidst a deeper ardor glow, 
 
 And higher, purer reveries completest ; 
 As drops that farthest form the ocean flow, 
 
 Refining all the way, form springs the sweetest. 
 
 Haply, sometimes, spent with the sleepless night, 
 
 Some wretch, impassion'd, from sweet morning's breath 
 
 Turns his hot brow, and sickens at thy light ; 
 
 But Nature, ever kind, soon heals or gives him death. 
 
 CONFIDING LOVE. 
 
 What bliss for her who lives her little day, 
 
 In blest obedience, like to those divine, 
 Who to her loved, her earthly lord, can say, 
 
 " God is thy law, most just, and thou art mine." 
 To every blast she bends in beauty meek : 
 
 Let the storm beat — his arms her shelter kind — 
 And feels no need to blanch her rosy cheek 
 
 With thoughts befitting his superior mind. 
 Who only sorrows when she sees him pain'd, 
 
 Then knows to pluck away Pain's keenest dart ; 
 Or bid Love catch it ere its goal be gain'd, 
 
 And steal its venom ere it reach his heart. 
 
422 
 
 MARIA BROOKS. 
 
 "lis the soul's food: the fervid must adore. — 
 
 For this tne heathen, unsufficcd with thought, 
 Moulds him an idol of the glittering ore, 
 
 And shrines his smiling goddess, marble- wrought. 
 "What bliss for her, even in this world of woe, 
 
 Sire! who mak'st yon orb strewn arch thy throne; 
 That sees thee in thy noblest work below 
 
 Shine undefaced, adored, and all her own ! 
 This I had hoped, but hope, too dear, too great, 
 
 Go to thy grave! — I feel thee blasted, now. 
 Give me. Fate's sovereign, well to bear the fate 
 
 Thy pleasure sends : this, my sole prayer, allow ! 
 
 MARRIAGE. 
 
 The bard has sung, God never form'd a soul 
 
 Without its own peculiar mate, to meet 
 Its wandering half, Avhen ripe to crown the whole 
 
 Bright plan of bliss, most heavenly, most complete ! 
 
 But thousand evil things there are that hate 
 
 To look on happiness : these hurt, iurpede, 
 And, leagued with time, space, circumstance, and fate, 
 
 Keep kindred heart from heart, to pine, and pant, and bleed 
 
 And as the dove to far Palmyra flying 
 
 From where her native founts of Antioch beam, 
 
 Weary, exhausted, longing, panting, sighing, 
 Lights sadly at the desert's bitter stream; 
 
 So many a soul, o'er life's drear desert faring, 
 Love's pure congenial spring unfound, unquafPd, 
 
 Sutfers, recoils, then, thirsty, and despairing 
 
 Of what it would, descends and sips the nearest draught. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 Day, in melting purple dying, 
 Blossoms, all around me sighing, 
 Fragrance, from the lilies straying, 
 Zephyr, with my ringlets playing, 
 
 Ye but waken my distress ; 
 
 I am sick of loneliness. 
 
 Thou, to whom I love to hearken, 
 Come, ere night around me darken; 
 Though thy softness but deceive me, 
 Say thou'rt true, and I'll believe thee ; 
 
 Veil, if ill, thy soul's intent, — 
 
 Let me think it innocent ! 
 
 Save thy toiling, spare thy treasure: 
 All I ask is friendship's pleasure ; 
 Let the shining ore lie darkling, 
 Bring no gem in lustre sparkling : 
 
WILLIAM li. SPRAGUE. 
 
 423 
 
 Gifts and gold are naught to me ; 
 I would only look on thee ! 
 
 Tell to thee the high-wrought feeling, 
 
 Ecstasy but in revealing ; 
 
 Paint to thee the deep sensation, 
 
 Rapture in participation, 
 
 Yet but torture, if comprest 
 In a lone, unfriended breast. 
 
 Absent still ! Ah ! come and bless me ! 
 
 Let these eyes again caress thee ; 
 
 Once, in caution, I could fly thee : 
 
 Now, I nothing could deny thee ; 
 In a look if death there be, 
 Come, and I will gaze on thee ! 
 
 WILLIAM B. SPRAGUE. 
 
 The life of Dr. Sprague, like the lives of most literary men, has been but 
 little fertile in incidents. He was born in Andover, Connecticut, on the 16th of 
 October, 179.% his paternal ancestor having originally settled in Duxbury, Massa- 
 chusetts. Fo was fitted for college chiefly under the Rev. Abiel Abbot, of 
 Coventry, and entered Yale College in 1811. After receiving his degree, he 
 entered the Theological Seminary at Princeton, and -when he had completed his 
 course ther-, he was invited to become a colleague with the Rev. Dr. Joseph 
 Lathrop, »*■ West Springfield, Massachusetts, where he was settled August 25, 
 1819. D> July, 1829, he resigned his charge there, and on the 26th of the next 
 month v,-o,s installed pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church, Albany, New 
 York, n-here he has continued to this clay, in a life of constant employment and 
 most extended usefulness. 
 
 Dr- Sprague's published works have been very numerous, and all of them are 
 excellent in their kind. The following, we believe, are the chief of them : — 
 Letters to a Daughter, 1822 ; Letters from Europe, 1828 ; Lectures to Young People, 
 1831; Lectures on Revivals, 1832 ; Hints on Christian Intercourse, 1834; Contrast 
 hehceen True and False Religion, 1837; Life of Rev. Edward Dorr Grij/in, 1838; 
 Life of President Dicight, (in Sparks's American Biography,) 1815; Aids to Early 
 Religion, 1847; Words to a Young Man's Conscience, 1818; Letters to Young 
 Men, founded on the Life of Joseph, 1851, — of which eight editions have been 
 issued; European Celebrities, 1855. In 1856 appeared, in large octavo form, the 
 first two volumes of the great work on which his fame will chiefly rest, Annals 
 of the American Pulpit. These comprise the lives of deceased clergymen of the 
 orthodox Congregational Church. They were followed in 1S58 by two more 
 volumes, of the same size, upon the Presbyterian Church, and in 1859 by another 
 volume, upon the Episcopal Church; anl will, if his life and health permit, be 
 
424 
 
 WILLIAM B. SPRAGUE. 
 
 succeeded by volumes upon the clergymen of other denominations — the whole 
 forming the most valuable and authentic books of reference of the kind in our 
 language. 
 
 VOLTAIRE AND WILBERFORCE. 
 
 Let me now, for a moment, show you what the two systems 
 Atheism and Christianity — can do, have done, for individual 
 character ; and I can think of no two names to which I may 
 refer with more confidence, in the way of illustration, than 
 Voltaire and Wilhcrforce ; both of them names which stand out 
 with prominence upon the world's history, and each, in its own 
 way, imperishable. 
 
 Voltaire was perhaps the master-spirit in the school of French 
 Atheism j 1 and though he was not alive to participate in the hor- 
 rors of the revolution, probably he did more by his writings to 
 combine the elements for that tremendous tempest than any other 
 man. And now I undertake to say that you may draw a charac- 
 ter in which there shall be as much of the blackness of moral tur- 
 pitude as your imagination can supply, and yet you shall not have 
 exceeded the reality as it was found in the character of this apos- 
 tle of Atheism. You may throw into it the darkest shades of self- 
 ishness, making the man a perfect idolater of himself ; you may 
 paint the serpent in his most wily form to represent deceit and 
 cunning; you may let sensuality stand forth in all the loathsome- 
 ness of a beast in the mire ; you may bring out envy, and malice, 
 and all the baser and all the darker passions, drawing nutriment 
 from the pit; and when you have done this, you may contemplate 
 the character of Voltaire, and exclaim, " Here is the monstrous 
 original I" The fires of his genius kindled only to wither and 
 consume; he stood, for almost a century, a great tree of poison, 
 not only cumbering the ground, but infusing death into the atmo- 
 sphere j and though its foliage has long since dropped off, and its 
 branches have withered, and its trunk fallen, under the hand 
 of time, its deadly root still remains ; and the very earth that 
 nourishes it is cursed for its sake. 
 
 And now I will speak of Wilberforce ; and I do it with grati- 
 tude and triumph, — gratitude to the God who made him what he 
 was ; triumph that there is that in his very name which ought to 
 
 1 I am not aware that Voltaire ever formally professed himself an Atheist; and 
 I well know that his writings contain some things which would seem inconsistent 
 with atheistical opinions. But not only are many of his works deeply pervaded 
 by the spirit of Atheism, but there is scarcely a doctrine of natural religion which 
 he has nyt somewhere directly and bitterly assailed ; so that I cannot doubt that 
 he falls fairly into the ranks of those who say, " There is no God." 
 
WILLIAM B. SPRAGUE. 
 
 425 
 
 make Atheism turn pale. Wilberforce was the friend of man. 
 Wilberforce was the friend of enslaved and wretched man. Wil- 
 berforce (for I love to repeat his name) consecrated the energies 
 of his whole life to one of the noblest objects of benevolence j it 
 was in the cause of injured Africa that he often passed the night 
 in intense and wakeful thought; that he counselled with the 
 wise, and reasoned with the unbelieving, and expostulated with 
 the unmerciful; that his heart burst forthwith all its melting 
 tenderness, and his genius with all its electric fire; that he 
 turned the most accidental meeting into a conference for the 
 relief of human woe, and converted even the Senate-House into ••< 
 a theatre of benevolent action. Though his zeal had at one time 
 almost eaten him up, and the vigor of his frame was so far gone 
 that he stooped over and looked into his own grave, yet his faith 
 failed not ; his fortitude failed not ; and, blessed be God, the vital 
 spark was kindled up anew, and he kept on laboring through a 
 long succession of years; and at length, just as his friends were 
 gathering around him to receive his last whisper, and the angels 
 were gathering around to receive his departing spirit, the news, 
 worthy to be borne by angels, was brought to him, that the great 
 object to which his life had been given was gained; and then, 
 Simeon-like, he clasped his hands to die, and went off to heaven 
 with the sound of deliverance to the captive vibrating sweetly 
 upon his ear. 
 
 Both Voltaire and Wilberforce are dead ; but each of them 
 lives in the character he has left behind him. And now who 
 does not delight to honor the character of the one ? who does not 
 shudder to contemplate the character of the other ? 
 
 Contrast between True and False Religion. 
 
 VIRTUE CROWNED WITH USEFULNESS. 
 
 What a noble example of usefulness was Joseph in every rela- 
 tion which he sustained — in every condition in which he was 
 placed ! Of what he was to the Midianitish merchants, previous 
 to his being sold to Potiphar, we have no account ; but, from that 
 period to the close of his life, the monuments of his benevolent 
 activity are continually rising before us. And what was true of 
 Joseph is true of every other good man, — his life is crowned 
 with usefulness. For the truth of this remark, I refer you to 
 your own observation, and will ask your attention to a few 
 thoughts only, illustrative of the manner in which virtue operates 
 to secure this end. 
 
 In the first place, virtue renders its possessor useful, by 
 securing to his faculties their right direction and their legitimate 
 exercise. But, while virtue keeps the faculties appropriately em- 
 
 36* 
 
42G 
 
 WILLIAM B. SPRAGUE. 
 
 ployed, she makes the most of all those opportunities for doing 
 good which grow out of the various relations and conditions in 
 life. Place her where you will, and she finds means of useful- 
 ness, which she diligently and scrupulously improves. In the 
 various occupations and professions in which the mass of men 
 look for nothing beyond their own aggrandizement, the truly 
 good man finds channels innumerable through which to send forth 
 a healthful and quickening influence on the neighborhood, the 
 community, the world. Suppose that he is so obscure that, 
 though he is in your immediate neighborhood, you never hear 
 of him — yet there are those who do know him, and to whom 
 he has access in daily intercourse. These he can influence by his 
 example, his conversation, perhaps by his prayers ; and it is by no 
 means improbable that some will dwell in heaven forever, because 
 they have dwelt on earth within the circle of his influence. Or 
 suppose that he is left to linger out years upon a sick-bed, and is 
 thereby cut off from all intercourse, except with those who come 
 to sympathize in his affliction, or minister to his wants — even 
 there he may be an eminently useful man. By his faith in God, 
 his cheerful submission, his elevated devotion, he may leave an 
 indelible impression for good on those who are about his bedside ; 
 and the story of what passes there may penetrate some other 
 hearts to which it may be communicated ; and the prayers which 
 he offers up may be the medium through which the richest bless- 
 ings shall be conveyed to multitudes whom he has never seen. I 
 repeat, it is the privilege of the good man to be useful always — 
 he may be sick and poor, he may be unknown and forgotten, he 
 may even be imprisoned and manacled, and yet, so long as he has 
 lips that can move in prayer, or a heart that can beat to the spi- 
 ritual miseries of the world, you may not say that he is a cum- 
 berer of the ground. 
 
 What a delightful employment to reflect on a useful life, when 
 life is drawing to a close ! How transported must have been the 
 apostle when he could say, " I have fought a good fight, I have 
 finished my course, I have kept the faith !" You, my young 
 friends, will soon be in his circumstances, in respect to the open- 
 ing of another world upon your spirits. Murmur not, though 
 God place you in the humblest circumstances here ; but be thank- 
 ful that, even in these circumstances, your consciences may at 
 least bear testimony to a useful life. Let this blessed result be 
 accomplished in your experience, and, be your condition on earth 
 what it may, you need not envy the rich man his wealth, nor the 
 statesman his laurels, nor the monarch his crown. 
 
SARAH JOSEPHA HALE. 
 
 427 
 
 SARAH JOSEPHA HALE. 
 
 Sarah Josepha Buell, was born in Newport, New Hampshire, in the year 
 1795, whither her parents had removed soon after the close of the Revolution, 
 from Saybrook, Connecticut. Her mother was a woman of a highly cultivated 
 mind, and attended carefully to the education of her children ; and our authoress 
 had also the advantage of the instruction of a brother who graduated at Dart- 
 mouth College in 1809. In 1814, she was married to Mr. David Hale, a lawyer 
 of distinguished abilities and great excellence of character, but who died in 1822, 
 leaving her with five children, the eldest but seven years old. To train, support, 
 and educate these, she engaged in literature as a profession. Her first publica- 
 tion was The Genius of Oblivion, and other Original Poems, printed at Concord, in 
 1823. Her next work was Northwood, a Tale of JVeio England, in two volumes, 
 published in Boston, in 1827, in which is happily illustrated common life among 
 the descendants of the Puritans. In 1828, she removed to Boston, and became 
 the editor of " The Ladies' Magazine," the first periodical, exclusively devoted to 
 her sex, which appeared in America. She continued to edit this until 1837, when 
 it was united with " The Lady's Book," in Philadelphia, of the literary depart- 
 ment of which she has ever since had charge. 1 However, as her sons were in 
 Harvard College, she continued to reside in Boston, till 1811, when she removed 
 to Philadelphia, where she now resides. 
 
 Mrs. Hale has been a most industrious, as well as instructive, writer. Her 
 other publications are, Sketches of American Character; Floras Interpreter ; 
 (republished in London ;) The Ladies' Wreath, a selection from the Female Poets 
 of England and America; The Way to Live Well, and to be Well while we Live ; 
 Grosvenor, a Tragedy; Alice Bay, a Romance in Rhyme ; Harry Gray, the Widow's 
 Son, a Story of the Sea; Three Hours, or the Vigil of Love, and other Poems ; A 
 Complete Dictionary of Poetical Quotations, containing Selections from the Writings 
 of the Poets of England and America; and lastly, Woman's Record, or, Sketches 
 of all Distinguished Women from ( the beginning' till A.D. 1850, a large octavo, 
 in double columns, of nine hundred pages. This is the most important of her 
 productions, and very valuable as a book of reference. 
 
 THE LIGHT OF HOME. 
 
 My son, thou wilt dream the world is fair, 
 
 And thy spirit will sigh to roam, 
 And thou must go ; but never, when there, 
 
 Forget the light of Home ! 
 
 1 We always regretted that Mrs. Hale did not at once resign the editorial charge 
 of " The Lady's Book" when its proprietor, Louis A. Godey, removed, at the dic- 
 tation of some Southern subscribers, the name of Grace Greenwood from the cover 
 of his magazine, because she was also a contributor to " The National Era." See 
 his letter in the " Era," of February 12, 1850, to the editors of the Columbia 
 (South Carolina) " Telegraph." For some deservedly severe comments upon this 
 letter, see " The New York Independent" of that time. 
 
SARAH JOSEPHA HALE. 
 
 Though Pleasure may smile with a ray more bright, 
 
 It dazzles to lead astray ; 
 Like the meteor's flash, 'twill deepen the night 
 
 When treading thy lonely way: — 
 
 But the hearth of home has a constant flame, 
 
 And pure as vestal fire — ■ 
 'Twill burn, 'twill burn forever the same, 
 
 For nature feeds the pyre. 
 
 The sea of ambition is tempest-toss'd, 
 And thy hopes may vanish like foam — 
 
 When sails are shiver'd and compass lost, 
 Then look to the light of Home ! 
 
 And there, like a star through midnight cloud, 
 
 Thou'lt see the beacon bright ; 
 For never, till shining on thy shroud, 
 
 Can be quench'd its holy light. 
 
 The sun of fame may gild the name, 
 
 But the heart ne'er felt its ray ; 
 And fashion's smiles, that rich ones claim. 
 
 Are beams of a wintry day : 
 
 How cold and dim those beams would be, 
 Should Life's poor wanderer come ! — 
 
 My son, when the world is dark to thee, 
 Then turn to the light of Home. 
 
 IT SNOWS. 
 
 " It snows !" cries the Schoolboy, — " Hurrah !" and his shout 
 
 Is ringing through parlor and hall, 
 While swift, as the wing of a swallow, he's out, 
 
 And his playmates have answer'd his call : 
 It makes the heart leap but to witness their joy, — 
 
 Proud wealth has no pleasures, I trow, 
 Like the rapture that throbs in the pulse of the boy, 
 
 As he gathers his treasures of snow ; 
 Then lay not the trappings of gold on thine heirs, 
 While health and the riches of Nature are theirs. 
 
 "It snows!" sighs the Imbecile, — " Ah!" and his breath 
 
 Comes heavy, as clogg'd with a weight ; 
 While from the pale aspect of Nature in death, 
 
 He turns to the blaze of his grate: 
 And nearer, and nearer, his soft-cushion'd chair 
 
 Is wheel'd tow'rds the life-giving flame, — 
 He dreads a chill puff of the snow-burden'd air, 
 
 Lest it wither his delicate frame : 
 Oh, small is the pleasure existence can give, 
 When the fear we shall die only proves that we live ! 
 
 " It snows !" cries the Traveller. — " Ho !" and the word 
 Has quicken'd his steed's lagging pace ; 
 
FRANCIS WAYLAND. 
 
 429 
 
 The wind rushes by, but its howl is unheard, — 
 
 Unfelt the sharp drift in his face ; 
 For bright through the tempest his own home appear'd, — 
 
 Ay, though leagues intervened, he can see ; 
 There's the clear, glowing hearth, and the table prepared, 
 
 And his wife with their babes at her knee. 
 Blest thought ! how it lightens the grief-laden hour, 
 That those we love dearest are safe from its power ! 
 
 "It snows!" cries the Belle, — "Dear, how lucky!" and turns 
 
 From her mirror to watch the flakes fall ; 
 Like the first rose of summer, her dimpled cheek burns 
 
 While musing on sleigh-ride and ball : 
 There are visions of conquest, of splendor, and mirth, 
 
 Floating over each drear winter's day ; 
 But the tintings of Hope, on this storm-beaten earth, 
 
 Will melt, like the snow-flakes, away ; 
 Turn, turn thee to heaven, fair maiden, for bliss ; 
 That world has a fountain ne'er open'd in this. 
 
 "It snows!" cries the Widow, — "0 God!" and her sighs 
 
 Have stifled the voice of her prayer ; 
 Its burden ye'll read in her tear-swollen eyes, 
 
 On her cheek, sunk with fasting and care. 
 'Tis night, — and her fatherless ask her for bread, — 
 
 But " He gives the young ravens their food," 
 And she trusts, till her dark hearth adds horror to dread, 
 
 And she lays on her last chip of wood. 
 Poor sufferer ! that sorrow thy God only knows, — 
 'Tis a pitiful lot to be poor when it snows ! 
 
 FRANCIS WAYLAND. 
 
 Francis Wayland, for more than a quarter of a century the distinguished 
 President of Brown University, was born in the city of New York, on the 11th of 
 March, 1796. When he was eleven years of age, his father removed to Pough- 
 keepsie, where he was prepared for college by the Rev. Daniel H. Barnes. In 
 1811, he entered the junior class in Union College, and, after graduating, studied 
 medicine for three years, and was admitted to practice; but, experiencing a 
 change of religious views, he relinquished this profession for the ministry, and in 
 1816 entered the theological seminary at Andover, Massachusetts. In 1817, he 
 accepted a tutorship in Union College, and in 1S21 he was called to the pastorate 
 of the First Baptist Church in Boston. While here, he published, in 1823, his 
 first printed work, — a sermon on The Moral Dignity of the Missionary Enterprise, 
 — a very eloquent production, which had great success, and placed him in tho 
 rank of the first writers of his day. To this succeeded, iu 1825, two excellent dis- 
 courses on The Duties of an American Citizen. 
 
 In 1826, he returned to Schenectady as Professor of Mathematics and Natural 
 Philosophy in Union College ; but, before the close of the year, he removed to 
 
430 
 
 FRANCIS WAYLAND. 
 
 Providence, Rhode Island, having been elected to the presidency of Brown Uni- 
 versity, into which office he was inducted in February, 1827 ; and never was a 
 choice of a president more happy, for the college started at once into new life. 
 In a few years appeared his Moral Science, Political Economy, and Intellectual 
 Philosojjhy, which have enjoyed great popularity, and been introduced as text- 
 books into many of our best colleges. He also deserves high commendation for 
 the noble part he has borne in the anti-slavery discussion, shown partly in his 
 correspondence with Rev. Richard Fuller, of Beaufort, South Carolina. Their 
 letters were published in one duodecimo volume, entitled Domestic Slavery con- 
 sidered as a Scriptural Institution. 
 
 Besides the great ability and thoroughness conspicuous in all his writings, Dr. 
 Wayland has shown true independence in thought and action. He was the first 
 President of a college to advocate and carry out a change in the collegiate course, 
 extending the benefits of the college beyond the small class intending to pursue 
 professional studies, by introducing a partial course to be pursued by such as 
 intend to engage in mechanics or in mercantile business, and conferring degrees 
 according to the attainments made. He has also identified himself with a move- 
 ment among his own religious denomination, by the advocacy of lay preaching, 1 
 and a better adaptation of the training of candidates to the work of the Chris- 
 tian ministry. In 1856, Dr. Wayland resigned the presidency of Brown Uni- 
 versity, and now resides in Providence. 2 
 
 THE OBJECT OF MISSIONS. 
 
 Our object will not have been accomplished till the tomahawk 
 shall be buried forever, and the tree of peace spread its broad 
 branches from the Atlantic to the Pacific; until a thousand 
 smiling villages shall be reflected from the waves of the Missouri, 
 and the distant valleys of the West echo with the song of the 
 reaper ; till the wilderness and the solitary place shall have been 
 glad for us, and the desert has rejoiced and blossomed as the 
 rose. Our labors are not to cease until the last slave-ship shall 
 have visited the coast of Africa, and, the nations of Europe and 
 America having long since redressed her aggravated wrongs, 
 
 1 Read an admirable book, anonymously published in 1857, by J. B. Lippincott 
 & Co., entitled " Priesthood and Clergy Unknown to Christianity; or, The Church 
 a Community of Co-Equal Brethren." The author is one of our most distin- 
 guished "divines," — a D.D. eminent alike for his piety and learning. 
 
 2 His published works are, — 1. Occasional Discourses, 1 vol. ; 2. Moral Science ; 
 3. Political Economy ; 4. TI>ou(]hts on Collegiate Education ; 5. Limitations of Human 
 Responsibility; 6. University Sermons; 7. Memoirs of Judson, 2 vols.; 8. Intellec- 
 tual Philosophy ; ( J. Notes on the Principles and Practices of the Baptists. Besides 
 these volumes, a number of his occasional addresses and discourses have been 
 published; as, Discourse on the Life and Character of Hon. Nicholas Brown ; of 
 William G. Goddard, LL.D. ; and of James N. Granger, D.D. His latest work 
 '1858) is a duodecimo of 281 pages, entitled Sermons to the Churches. 
 
FRANCIS WAYLAND. 
 
 431 
 
 Ethiopia, from the Mediterranean to the Cape, shall have 
 stretched forth her hand unto God. 
 
 In a word, point us to the loveliest village that smiles upon a 
 Scottish or New England landscape, and compare it with the 
 filthiness and brutality of a Caffrarian kraal, and we tell you that 
 our object is to render that Caffrarian kraal as happy and as glad- 
 some as that Scottish or New England village. Point us to the 
 spot on the face of the earth where liberty is best understood and 
 most perfectly enjoyed, where intellect shoots forth in its richest 
 luxuriance, and where all the kindlier feelings of the heart are 
 constantly seen in their most graceful exercise ; point us to the 
 loveliest and happiest neighborhood in the world on which we 
 dwell, and we tell you that our object is to render this whole 
 earth, with all its nations, and kindreds, and tongues, and people, 
 as happy, nay, happier than that neighborhood. Our object is to 
 furnish every family upon the face of the whole earth with the 
 word of God written in its own language, and to send to every 
 neighborhood a preacher of the cross of Christ. Our object will 
 not be accomplished until every idol temple shall have been 
 utterly abolished, and a temple of Jehovah erected in its room ; 
 until this earth, instead of being a theatre, on which immortal 
 beings are preparing by crime for eternal condemnation, shall 
 become one universal temple, in which the children of men are 
 learning the anthems of the blessed above, and becoming meet to 
 join the general assembly and church of the first-born, whose 
 names are written in heaven. 
 
 THE ILIAD AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 Of all the books with which, since the invention of writing, 
 this world has been deluged, the number of those is very small 
 which have produced any perceptible effect on the mass of human 
 character. By far the greater part have been, even by their con- 
 temporaries, unnoticed and unknown. Not many a one has made 
 its little mark upon that generation that produced it, though it 
 sunk with that generation to utter forgetfulness. But, after the 
 ceaseless toil of six thousand years, how few have been the works, 
 the adamantine basis of whose reputation has stood unhurt amid 
 the fluctuations of time, and whose impression can be traced 
 through successive centuries, on the history of our species ! 
 
 When, however, such a work appears, its effects are absolutely 
 incalculable ; and such a work, you are aware, is the Iliad of 
 Homer. Who can estimate the results produced by the incom- 
 parable efforts of a single mind ? who can tell what Greece owes 
 to this first-born of song? Her breathing marbles, her solemn 
 temples, her unrivalled eloquence, and her matchless verse, all 
 
432 
 
 FRANCIS TV A YL AND. 
 
 point us to that transcendent genius, who, by the very splendor 
 of his own effulgence, woke the human intellect from the slumber 
 of ages. It was Homer who gave laws to the artist; it was 
 Homer who inspired the poet ; it was Homer who thundered in 
 the senate ; and, more than all, it was Homer who was sung by 
 the people ; and hence a nation was cast into the mould of one 
 mighty mind, and the land of the Iliad became the region of taste, 
 the birthplace of the arts. 
 
 But, considered simply as an intellectual production, who will 
 compare the poems of Homer with the Holy Scriptures of the 
 Old and New Testament ? Where in the Iliad shall we find sim- 
 plicity and pathos which shall vie with the narrative of Moses, or 
 maxims of conduct to equal in wisdom the Proverbs of Solomon, 
 or sublimity which does not fade away before the conceptions of 
 Job, or David, or Isaiah, or St. John ? But I cannot pursue this 
 comparison. I feel that it is doing wrong to the mind which dic- 
 tated the Iliad, and to those other mighty intellects on whom the 
 light of the holy oracles never shined. 
 
 If, then, so great results have flowed from this one effort of a 
 single mind, what may we not expect from the combined efforts 
 of several, at least his equals in power over the human heart ? If 
 that one genius, though groping in the thick darkness of absurd 
 idolatry, wrought so glorious a transformation in the character of 
 his countrymen, what may we not look for from the universal 
 dissemination of those writings on whose authors was poured the 
 full splendor of eternal truth ? If unassisted human nature, spell- 
 bound by a childish mythology, have done so much, what may we 
 not hope for from the supernatural efforts of pre-eminent genius, 
 which spake as it was moved by the Holy Ghost ? 
 
 THE GUILT OF PUNISHING THE INNOCENT. 
 
 By our very constitution as men, we are under solemn and un- 
 changeable obligations to respect the rights of the meanest thing 
 that lives. Every other man is created with the same rights as 
 ourselves; and most of all, he is created with the inalienable 
 " right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." To deprive 
 him of these as a punishment for crime, while yet he continues 
 under the protection of law, is one of the severest inflictions that 
 the criminal code of any human government can recognize, even 
 when the punishment is confined to his own person. But what 
 crime can be conceived of so atrocious as to justify the consign- 
 ing of a human being to servitude for life, and the extension of 
 this punishment to his posterity down to the remotest genera- 
 tions ? Were this the penalty even for murder, every man in 
 the civilized world would rise up in indignation at its enormous 
 
FRANCIS WAYLAND. 
 
 433 
 
 injustice. How great, then, must be the injustice when such a 
 doom is inflicted, not upon criminals convicted of atrocious 
 wickedness, but upon men, women, and children who have never 
 been accused of any crime, and against whom there is not even 
 the suspicion of guilt ! Can any moral creature of God be inno- 
 cent that inflicts such punishment upon his fellow-creatures who 
 have never done any thing to deserve it ? I ask, what have those 
 poor, defenceless, and undefended black men done, that they and 
 their children forever should thus be consigned to hopeless ser- 
 vitude ? If they have done nothing, how can we be innocent if we 
 inflict such punishment upon them ? But yet more. The spirit 
 of Christianity, if I understand it aright, teaches us not merely 
 the principles of pure and elevated justice, but those of the most 
 tender and all-embracing charity. The Captain of our salvation 
 was anointed "to preach the gospel to the poor; he was sent to 
 heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and 
 recovering of sight to the blind ; to set at liberty them that are 
 bruised." " He is the comforter of them that are cast down." 
 Can the disciple of such a Saviour, then, inflict the least, how 
 much less the greatest of punishments upon a human being who 
 has never been guilty of a crime that should deserve it ? 
 
 THE TRUE GOSPEL MINISTRY. 
 
 It so chanced that, at the close of the last war with Great 
 Britain, I was temporarily a resident of the city of New York. 
 The prospects of the nation were shrouded in gloom. We had 
 been for two or three years at war with the mightiest nation on 
 earth, and, as she had now concluded a peace with the continent 
 of Europe, we were obliged to cope with her single-handed. Our 
 harbors were blockaded. Communication coast-wise, between our 
 ports, was cut off. Our ships were rotting in every creek and 
 cove where they could find a place of security. Our immense 
 annual products were moulding in our warehouses. The sources 
 of profitable labor were dried up. Our currency was reduced to 
 irredeemable paper. The extreme portions of our country were 
 becoming hostile to each other, and differences of political opinion 
 were embittering the peace of every household. The credit of 
 the Government was exhausted. No one could predict when the 
 contest would terminate, or discover the means by which it could 
 much longer be protracted. 
 
 It happened that, on a Saturday afternoon in February, a ship 
 was discovered in the offing, which was supposed to be a cartel, 
 bringing home our commissioners at Ghent, from their unsuccess- 
 ful mission. The sun had set gloomily, before any intelligence 
 from the vessel had reached the city. Expectation became pain- 
 
 37 
 
434 
 
 FRANCIS WAYLAND. 
 
 fully intense as the hours of darkness drew on. At length a boat 
 reached the wharf, announcing the fact that a treaty of peace had 
 been signed, and was waiting for nothing but the action of our 
 Government to become a law. The men on whose ears these 
 words first fell rushed in breathless haste into the city, to repeat 
 them to their friends, shouting, as they ran through the streets, 
 Peace ! peace ! peace ! Every one who heard the sound repeated 
 it. From house to house, from street to street, the news spread 
 with electric rapidity. The whole city was in commotion. Men 
 bearing lighted torches were flying to and fro, shouting like mad- 
 men, Peace ! peace ! peace ! When the rapture had partially 
 subsided, one idea occupied every mind. But few men slept that 
 night. In groups they were gathered in the streets and by the 
 fireside, beguiling the hours of midnight by reminding each other 
 that the agony of war was over, and that a worn-out and dis- 
 tracted country was about to enter again upon its wonted career 
 of prosperity. Thus, every one becoming a herald, the news 
 soon reached every man, woman, and child in the city, and 
 in this sense the city was evangelized. All this you see was 
 reasonable and proper. But when Jehovah has offered to our 
 world a treaty of peace, when men doomed to hell may be raised 
 to seats at the right hand of God, why is not a similar zeal dis- 
 played in proclaiming the good news ? Why are men perishing 
 all around us, and no one has ever personally offered to them 
 salvation through a crucified Redeemer ? 
 
 But who is thus to preach the gospel ? What would be the 
 answer to this question, if we listen to the voice of common 
 humanity ? When the brazen serpent was lifted up, who was to 
 carry the good news throughout the camp ? When the glad 
 tidings of peace arrived in the city, who was to proclaim it to his 
 fellow-citizens ? When the news of peace with God, through the 
 blood of the covenant, is proclaimed to us, who shall make it 
 known to those perishing in sin ? The answer in each case is, 
 every one. Were no command given, the common principles of 
 our nature would teach us that nothing but the grossest selfish- 
 ness would claim to be exempted from the joyful duty of extend- 
 ing to others the blessing which we have received ourselves. 
 
 But let us see how the apostles themselves understood the pre- 
 cept. Their own narrative shall inform us. " At that time there 
 was a great persecution against the church that was at Jerusalem, 
 and they were scattered abroad throughout all the regions of 
 Judea and Samaria, except the apostles." " Therefore, they that 
 were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word." 
 These men were not apostles, nor even original disciples of Christ; 
 for they were men of Cyprus and Cyrene. Yet they went every- 
 where preaching the word, and in so doing they pleased the 
 
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. 
 
 435 
 
 Master, for the Holy Spirit accompanied their labors with the 
 blessing from on high. The ascended Saviour thus approved 
 of their conduct, and testified that their understanding of his last 
 command was correct. 
 
 Indeed, the Saviour requires every disciple, as soon as he 
 becomes a partaker of divine grace, to become a herald of salva- 
 tion to his fellow-men ; and every man possessed of the gifts for 
 the ministry mentioned in the New Testament is bound to conse- 
 crate them to Christ, either in connection with his secular pur- 
 suits, or by devoting his whole time to this particular service. 
 If this be so, you see that in the church of Christ there is no 
 ministerial caste ; no class elevated in rank above their brethren, 
 on whom devolves the discharge of the more dignified or more 
 honorable portions of Christian labor, while the rest of the disci- 
 ples are to do nothing but raise the funds necessary for their sup- 
 port. The minister does the same work that is to be done by 
 every other member of the body of Christ ; but, since he does it 
 exclusively, he may be expected to do it more to edification. Is it 
 his business to labor for the conversion of sinners and the sancti- 
 fication of the body of Christ? so is it theirs. In every thing 
 which they do as disciples, he is to be their example. I know 
 that we now restrict to the ministry the administration of the 
 ordinances, and to this rule I think there can be no objection. 
 But we all know that for this restriction rue have no example in 
 the Neio Testament. 
 
 WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT, 1796—1859. 
 
 This eminent historian was bom in Salem, Massachusetts, on the 4th of May, 
 1796. His grandfather was Colonel William Prescott, who, in conjunction with 
 General Putnam, commanded at the battle of Bunker Hill. His father, Hon. 
 William Prescott, was born in Pepperell, Massachusetts, and, after residing in 
 Salem from 1798 to 1808, removed to Boston, where for nearly forty years he 
 practised law, eminently distinguished as a jurist and as one of the wisest and 
 best men Massachusetts has produced. 
 
 Our author had the benefit of his early classical training under Dr. Gardner, 
 of Boston, who was a pupil of Dr. Parr; and in 1814 he graduated at Harvard 
 College. It was his intention to devote himself to the profession of his father, 
 but just before commencement an accident deprived him of one of his eyes, and 
 the other, from sympathy, became so weak that he could not use it with safety. 
 He spent two years in travelling in England and on the continent, where he con- 
 sulted the best oculists, but obtained no relief. On his return home, the question 
 presented itself to him, to what he should devoce his life. Feeling that profes- 
 sional life would mako greater requisitions upon the organs of sight than literary 
 
436 
 
 WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. 
 
 occupation, in which he could make greater use of the eyes of others, he resolved 
 on becoming an historian, and to devote ten years in preparing himself for the 
 work. It was a beautiful sight to see a young man of fortune, whose partial 
 deprivation of sight might have been an excuse for declining all exertion, thus 
 rising above his affliction, and, with an industry that never tired, and a courage 
 that never faltered, toiling day after day and year after year for an end so 
 worthy and so noble. 
 
 He selected for his subject the History of Ferdinand and Isabella, one of 
 the few important subjects of European history which had not been fully treated 
 of, and which seemed to invite the hand of a master. This great work appeared 
 in 1838, and was published simultaneously in London and Boston. It was received 
 on both sides of the Atlantic with the highest praise. 1 It has since run through 
 many editions, and been translated into German, Italian, French, and Spanish. 
 This was followed by his Conquest of Mexico, in 1843; and in 1847 appeared his 
 Conquest of Peru. In both of these works he draws largely from manuscript 
 materials received from Spain ; both are written in the author's most attractive 
 and brilliant style, and both were followed by the highest and most gratifying 
 success in Europe and America. 
 
 In 1S50, Mr. Prescott made a short visit to England, where he was received 
 with marked kinduess and respect by men most distinguished in society and 
 letters, and where the University of Oxford conferred on him the honorary 
 degree of Doctor in Civil Law. 
 
 He now planned his last, (as it has proved to be,) and most comprehensive 
 work, The History of the Reign of Philip the Second, and collected a large amount 
 of materials for it. But of this he lived to complete and publish only three vo- 
 lumes, comprising about fifteen years of Philip's reign, leaving twenty-eight 
 more to be treated; when his indefatigable labors were cut short by his sudden 
 death. He was seized with apoplexy, at his residence, Beacon Street, Boston, on 
 the 28th of January, 1859, at half-past twelve, and expired at two o'clock. 
 
 Mr. Prescott was not only a man of genius and elegant scholarship, who has 
 shed a lustre on the literature of America, but one whose high moral worth, 
 amiable disposition, and charming companionable qualities made him the orna- 
 ment and delight of every social circle. His death, therefore, was a great loss to 
 society as well as to the nation and the world of letters. 2 
 
 1 " Mr. Prescott's work is one of the most successful historical productions of 
 our time. Besides the merits which we have already alluded to, the author pos- 
 sesses one Avhich, in our opinion, is worth all the rest, — that is, impartiality. The 
 inhabitant of another world, he seems to have shaken off all the prejudices of ours: 
 he has written a history without party spirit and without bias of any sort. In a 
 word, he has, in every respect, made a most valuable addition to our historical 
 literature." — Edinburgh. Review, lxviii. 404. 
 
 "An historical work that need hardly fear a comparison with any that has 
 issued from the European press since this century began." — London Quarterly 
 Review, lxiv. 58. 
 
 2 The London "Athenaeum/' which has rarely of late years praised the work 
 of any American author, devotes five columns to a review of the new volume of 
 Prescott's History of the Reign of Philip the Second. It says, "In no previous 
 compositions has he exhibited, we think, so much sustained, varied, and concen- 
 trated power. The style throughout runs on a high level, but is free from all 
 artificial pomp and rhetorical redundance. It is at once simple, firm, and digni- 
 
WILLIAM IIICKLING PRESCOTT. 
 
 437 
 
 RETURN OF COLLMBUS. 
 
 Great was the agitation in the little community of Palos, as 
 they beheld the well-known vessel of the admiral re-entering their 
 harbor. Their desponding imaginations had long since consigned 
 him to a watery grave } for, in addition to the preternatural hor- 
 rors which hung over the voyage, they had experienced the most 
 stormy and disastrous winter within the recollection of the oldest 
 mariners. Most of them had relatives or friends on board. They 
 thronged immediately to the shore to assure themselves with their 
 own eyes of the truth of their return. When they beheld their 
 faces once more, and saw them accompanied by the numerous evi- 
 dences which they brought back of the success of the expedition, 
 they burst forth in acclamations of joy and gratulation. They 
 awaited the landing of Columbus, when the whole population of 
 the place accompanied him and his crew to the principal church, 
 where solemn thanksgivings were offered up for their return ; 
 while every bell in the village sent forth a joyous peal in honor 
 of the glorious event. The admiral was too desirous of present- 
 ing himself before the sovereigns, to protract his stay long at 
 Palos. He took with him on his journey specimens of the multi- 
 farious products of the newly-discovered regions. He was accom- 
 panied by several of the native islanders, arrayed in their simple 
 barbaric costume, and decorated, as he passed through the prin- 
 cipal cities, with collars, bracelets, and other ornaments of gold, 
 rudely fashioned. He exhibited also considerable quantities of 
 the same metal in dust, or in crude masses, numerous vegetable 
 exotics, possessed of aromatic or medicinal virtue, and several 
 kinds of quadrupeds unknown in Europe, and birds whose varie- 
 ties of gaudy plumage gave a brilliant effect to the pageant. The 
 admiral's progress through the country was everywhere impeded 
 by the multitudes thronging forth to gaze at the extraordinary 
 spectacle, and the more extraordinary man, who, in the emphatic 
 
 tied." The review concludes as follows : — " The genius of Mr. Prescott as a histo- 
 rian has never been exhibited to better advantage than in this very remarkable 
 volume, which is grounded on varied and ample authority." 
 
 At a meeting of the New York Historical Society, shortly after Mr. Prescott's 
 death, Mr. Bancroft, the historian, made some feeling and appropriate remarks, 
 from which we select the following: — "Mr. Prescott's personal appearance itself 
 was singularly pleasing, and won for him everywhere, in advance, a welcome 
 and favor. His countenance had something that brought to mind 'the beautiful 
 disdain' that hovers on that of the Apollo. But, while he was high-spirited, he was 
 tender, and gentle, and humane. His voice was like music; and one could never 
 hear enough of it. His cheerfulness reached and animated all about him. He 
 could indulge in playfulness, and could also speak earnestly and profoundly; but 
 he knew not how to be ungracious or pedantic. In truth, the charms of his con- 
 versation were unequalled, he so united the rich stores of memory with the ease 
 of one who is familiar with the world." 
 
 37* 
 
438 
 
 WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. 
 
 language of that time, which has now lost its force from its fami- 
 liarity, first revealed the existence of a " New World." As he 
 passed through the busy, populous city of Seville, every window, 
 balcony, and housetop, which could afford a glimpse of him, is 
 described to have been crowded with spectators. It was the 
 middle of April before Columbus reached Barcelona. The no- 
 bility and cavaliers in attendance on the court, together with the 
 authorities of the city, came to the gates to receive him, and 
 escorted him to the royal presence. Ferdinand and Isabella were 
 seated, with their son, Prince John, under a superb canopy of 
 state, awaiting his arrival. On his approach, they rose from their 
 seats, and, extending their hands to him to salute, caused him to 
 be seated before them. These were unprecedented marks of con- 
 descension, to a person of Columbus's rank, in the haughty and 
 ceremonious court of Castile. It was, indeed, the proudest mo- 
 ment in the life of Columbus. He had fully established the truth 
 of his long-contested theory, in the face of argument, sophistry, 
 sneer, skepticism, and contempt. He had achieved this, not by 
 chance, but by calculation, supported through the most adverse 
 circumstances by consummate conduct. The honors paid him, 
 which had hitherto been reserved only for rank, or fortune, or 
 military success, purchased by the blood and tears of thousands, 
 were, in his case, a homage to intellectual power successfully 
 exerted in behalf of the noblest interests of humanity. 
 
 QUEEN ISABELLA. 
 
 Her person was of the middle height, and well proportioned. 
 She had a clear, fresh complexion, with light blue eyes and auburn 
 hair, — a style of beauty exceedingly rare in Spain. Her features 
 were regular, and universally allowed to be uncommonly hand- 
 some. The illusion which attaches to rank, more especially when 
 united with engaging manners, might lead us to suspect some 
 exaggeration in the encomiums so liberally lavished on her. But 
 they would seem to be in a great measure justified by the portraits 
 that remain of her, wMch combine a faultless symmetry of fea- 
 tures with singular sweetness and intelligence of expression. 
 
 Her manners were most gracious and pleasing. They were 
 marked by natural dignity and modest reserve, tempered by an 
 affability which flowed from the kindliness of her disposition. 
 She was the last person to be approached with undue familiarity; 
 yet the respect which she imposed was mingled with the strongest 
 feelings of devotion and love. She showed great tact in accom- 
 modating herself to the peculiar situation and character of those 
 around her. She appeared in arms at the head of her troops, and 
 shrunk from none of the hardships of war. During the reforms 
 
WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. 
 
 439 
 
 introduced into the religious houses, she visited the nunneries in 
 person, taking her needlework with her, and passing the day in 
 the society of the inmates. When travelling in Galicia, she 
 attired herself in the costume of the country, borrowing for that 
 purpose the jewels and other ornaments of the ladies there, and 
 returning them with liberal additions. By this condescending 
 and captivating deportment, as well as by her higher qualities, 
 she gained an ascendency over her turbulent subjects which no 
 king of Spain could ever boast. 
 
 She spoke the Castilian with much elegance and correctness. 
 She had an easy fluency of discourse, which, though generally of 
 a serious complexion, was occasionally seasoned with agreeable 
 sallies, some of which have passed into proverbs. She was tem- 
 perate even to abstemiousness in her diet, seldom or never tasting 
 wine, and so frugal in her table, that the daily expenses for her- 
 self and family did not exceed the moderate sum of forty ducats. 
 She was equally simple and economical in her apparel. On all 
 public occasions,. indeed, she displayed a royal magnificence ; but 
 she had no relish for it in private ; and she freely gave away her 
 clothes and jewels as presents to her friends. Naturally of a 
 sedate, though cheerful temper, she had little taste for the fri- 
 volous amusements which make up so much of a court life ) and, 
 if she encouraged the presence of minstrels and musicians in her 
 palace, it was to wean her young nobility from the coarser and 
 less intellectual pleasures to which they were addicted. 
 
 Among her moral qualities, the most conspicuous, perhaps, was 
 her magnanimity. She betrayed nothing little or selfish in thought 
 or action. Her schemes were vast, and executed in the same 
 noble spirit in which they were conceived. She never employed 
 doubtful agents or sinister measures, but the most direct and open 
 policy. She scorned to avail herself of advantages offered by the 
 perfidy of others. Where she had once given her confidence, she 
 gave her hearty and steady support; and she was scrupulous to 
 redeem any pledge she had made to those who ventured in her 
 cause, however unpopular. She sustained Ximenes in all his 
 obnoxious but salutary reforms. She seconded Columbus in the 
 prosecution of his arduous enterprise, and shielded him from the 
 calumny of his enemies. She did the same good service to her 
 favorite, Gonsalvo de Cordova; and the day of her death was felt, 
 and, as it proved, truly felt, by both, as the last of their good for- 
 tune. Artifice and duplicity were so abhorrent to her character, 
 and so averse from her domestic policy, that, when they appear in 
 the foreign relations of Spain, it is certainly not imputable to her. 
 She was incapable of harboring any petty distrust or latent 
 malice ; and, although stern in the execution and exaction of 
 
440 
 
 WILLIAM IIICKLING PRESCOTT. 
 
 public justice, she made the most generous allowance, and even 
 sometimes advances, to those who had personally injured her. 
 
 But the principle which gave a peculiar coloring to every fea- 
 ture of Isabella's mind was piety. It shone forth from the very 
 depths of her soul with a heavenly radiance, which illuminated 
 her whole character. Fortunately, her earliest years had been 
 passed in the rugged school of adversity, under the eye of a 
 mother who implanted in her serious mind such strong principles 
 of religion as nothing in after-life had power to shake. At an 
 early age, in the flower of youth and beauty, she was introduced 
 to her brother's court; but its blandishments, so dazzling to a 
 young imagination, had no power over hers, for she was sur- 
 rounded by a moral atmosphere of purity, — 
 
 " Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt." 
 
 Such was the decorum of her manners that, though encompassed 
 by false friends and open enemies, not the slightest reproach 
 was breathed on her fair name in this corrupt and calumnious 
 court. 
 
 THE CHARACTER AND FATE OF MONTEZUMA. 
 
 When Montezuma ascended the throne, he was scarcely twenty- 
 three years of age. Young, and ambitious of extending his em- 
 pire, he was continually engaged in war, and is said to have been 
 present himself in nine pitched battles. lie was greatly renowned 
 for his martial prowess, for he belonged to the Quachictin, the 
 highest military order of his nation, and one into which but few 
 even of its sovereigns had been admitted. In later life, he pre- 
 ferred intrigue to violence, as more consonant to his character and 
 priestly education. In this he was as great an adept as any prince 
 of his time, and, by arts not very honorable to himself, succeeded 
 in filching away much of the territory of his royal kinsman of 
 Tezcuco. Severe in the administration of justice, he made im- 
 portant reforms in the arrangement of the tribunals. He intro- 
 duced other innovations in the royal household, creating new 
 offices, introducing a lavish magnificence and forms of courtly eti- 
 quette unknown to his ruder predecessors. He was, in short, most 
 attentive to all that concerned the exterior and pomp of royalty. 
 Stately and decorous, he was careful of his own dignity, and 
 might be said to be as great an " actor of majesty" among the 
 barbarian potentates of the New World, as Louis the Fourteenth 
 was among the polished princes of Europe. 
 
 He was deeply tinctured, moreover, with that spirit of bigotry 
 which threw such a shade over the latter days of the French 
 monarch. He received the Spaniards as the beings predicted by 
 his oracles. The anxious dread, with which he had evaded their 
 
CATHARINE MARIA SEDGWICK. 
 
 441 
 
 proffered visit, was founded on the same feelings which led him 
 so blindly to resign himself to them on their approach. He felt 
 himself rebuked by their superior genius. He at once conceded 
 all that they demanded, — his treasures, his power, even his person. 
 For their sake, he forsook his wonted occupations, his pleasures, 
 his most, familiar habits. He might be said to forego his nature, 
 and, as his subjects asserted, to change his sex and become a 
 woman. If we cannot refuse our contempt for the pusillanimity 
 of the Aztec monarch, it should be mitigated by the consideration 
 that his pusillanimity sprung from his superstition, and that 
 superstition in the savage is the substitute for religious principle 
 in the civilized man. 
 
 It is not easy to contemplate the fate of Montezuma without 
 feelings of the strongest compassion, — to see him thus borne 
 along the tide of events beyond his power to avert or control ; to 
 see him, like some stately tree, the pride of his own Indian 
 forests, towering aloft in the pomp and majesty of its branches, 
 by its very eminence a mark for the thunderbolt, the first victim 
 of the tempest which was to sweep over its native hills ! When 
 the wise king of Tezcuco addressed his royal relative at his 
 coronation, he exclaimed, " Happy the empire, which is now in 
 the meridian of its prosperity, for the sceptre is given to one 
 whom the Almighty has in his keeping j and the nations shall 
 hold him in reverence !" Alas ! the subject of this auspicious 
 invocation lived to see his empire melt away like the winter's 
 wreath j to see a strange race drop, as it were, from the clouds on 
 his land ; to find himself a prisoner in the palace of his fathers, 
 the companion of those who were the enemies of his gods and 
 his people ; to be insulted, reviled, trodden in the dust, by the 
 meanest of his subjects, by those who, a few months previous, 
 had trembled at his glance ; drawing his last breath in the halls 
 of a stranger, — a lonely outcast in the heart of his own capital ! 
 He was the sad victim of destiny, — a destiny as dark and irre- 
 sistible in its march as that which broods over the mythic legends 
 of antiquity ! 
 
 CATHARINE MARIA SEDGWICK. 
 
 This pleasing writer was born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Her father, the 
 Hon. Theodore Sedgwick, — one of the first men in the State, — was at one time 
 Speaker of the House of Representatives, and afterwards Senator in Congress, 
 and at the time of his death (January 24, 1813) was a Judge of the Supreme 
 Court of Massachusetts. 
 
 Miss Sedgwick first appeared as an author in 1822, by the publication of A New 
 England Tale, the success of which was so great as to induce her to continue in a 
 
442 
 
 CATHARINE MARIA SEDGWICK. 
 
 career so auspiciously begun. In 1824, she published Redwood, a Tale, which 
 immediately became very popular. In 1827 appeared Hope Leslie, or Early 
 Times in Massachusetts, in two volumes; in 1830, Clarence, a Tale of Our Own 
 Times; and in 1835, The Linwoods, or Sixty Years Since in America, — the last, 
 and, as many think, the best, of her novels. 1 
 
 In 183G, she struck out into a new path, and gave to the public Home, — the first 
 of an admirable series of stories illustrative of everyday life. This was followed 
 by The Poor Rich Man, and the Rich Poor Man ; 2 Lice, and Let Live; and this, 
 by Means and Ends, or Self- Training. Then appeared two volumes of delightful 
 juvenile tales, — A Love- Token for Children, and Stories for Young Persons. 
 Soon after these appeared a small volume, — Morals 'of Manners, with a sequel of 
 Facts and Fancies. It was introduced into the school-libraries of New York, and 
 exerted a happy influence in educating the manners of the young. The Boy of 
 Mount Rhigi was written by request of a friend, to be read to prisoners in a house 
 of correction, and it was listened to with great interest. 
 
 In 1839, Miss Sedgwick went to Europe, and during the year she was there, 
 wrote her Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home, which, on her return, were 
 published in two volumes. She has also written a Life of Lucrctia M. Davidson, 
 published in the seventh volume of "Sparks's American Biography," and has con- 
 tributed many articles to " The Lady's Book," and other periodicals. Her last- 
 published work is entitled Married or Single. 3 
 
 A SABBATH IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 The observance of the Sabbath began with the Puritans, as it 
 still does with a great portion of their descendants, on Saturday 
 night. At the going down of the sun on Saturday, all temporal 
 
 1 " We think this work the most agreeable that Miss Sedgwick has yet pub- 
 lished. It is written throughout with the same good taste, and quiet, unpretend- 
 ing power, which characterize all her productions, and is superior to most of them 
 in the variety of the characters brought into action, and the interest of the fable." 
 — Xorth American Review, xlii. 160. 
 
 2 "The Poor Rich Man, and the Rich Poor Man is one of those rare productions 
 of wisdom and genius which none can read without delight, and which are 
 adapted to leave deep impressions of duty. If Ave dared to allude to so trite a 
 saying as that which sets ballad-making above law-making, we would say that 
 the writer of works like this and its twin-sister Home has the character and for- 
 tunes of this nation more at her disposal than any of the ambitious politicians of 
 the land. We look, for the safety and progress of society, far more to the opera- 
 tion of strong principle and persuasive truth, wrought quietly into the heart and 
 formed silently into habit, than to any action of government or other external in- 
 stitution." — Christian Examiner, xxi. 398. 
 
 a " It is impossible to speak of her works without a particular regard to their 
 moral and religious character. We know no writer of the class to which sho 
 belongs who has done more to inculcate just religious sentiments. They are 
 never obtruded, nor are they ever suppressed. It is not the religion of ob- 
 servances, nor of professions, nor of articles of faith, but of the heart and life." — 
 Xationa I Portra it- Gallery. 
 
CATHARINE MARIA SEDGWICK. 
 
 443 
 
 affairs were suspended ; and so zealously did our fathers main- 
 tain the letter as well as the spirit of the law, that, according 
 to a vulgar tradition in Connecticut, no beer was brewed in 
 the latter part of the week, lest it should presume to work on 
 Sunday. 
 
 It must be confessed that the tendency of the age is to laxity; 
 and so rapidly is the wholesome strictness of primitive times 
 abating, that, should some antiquary, fifty years hence, in ex- 
 ploring his garret-rubbish, chance to cast his eye on our humble 
 pages, he may be surprised to learn that even now the Sabbath is 
 observed, in the interior of Xew England, with an almost Judaical 
 severity. 
 
 On Saturday afternoon an uncommon bustle is apparent. The 
 great class of procrastinators are hurrying to and fro to complete 
 the lagging business of the week. The good mothers, like Burns's 
 matron, are plying their needles, making " auld claes look amaist 
 as weel's the new;" while the domestics, or help, (we prefer the 
 national descriptive term,) are wielding, with might and main, 
 their brooms and moj)s, to make all tidy for the Sabbath. 
 
 As the day declines, the hum of labor dies away, and, after the 
 sun is set, perfect stillness reigns in every well-ordered household, 
 and not a footfall is heard in the village street. It cannot be 
 denied that even the most scriptural, missing the excitement of 
 their ordinary occupations, anticipate their usual bedtime. The 
 obvious inference from this fact is skilfully avoided by certain in- 
 genious reasoners, who allege that the constitution was originally 
 so organized as to require an extra quantity of sleep on every 
 seventh night. We recommend it to the curious to inquire how 
 this peculiarity was adjusted when the first day of the week was 
 changed from Saturday to Sunday. 
 
 The Sabbath morning is as peaceful as the first hallowed day. 
 Not a human sound is heard without the dwellings, and, but for 
 the lowing of the herds, the crowing of the cocks, and the gossip- 
 ing of the birds, animal life would seem to be extinct, till, at the 
 bidding of the church-going bell, the old and young issue from 
 their habitations, and, with solemn demeanor, bend their mea- 
 sured steps to the meeting-house ; the families of the minister, the 
 squire, the doctor, the merchant, the modest gentry of the village, 
 and the mechanic and laborer, all arrayed in their best, all meet- 
 ing on even ground, and all with that consciousness of inde- 
 pendence and equality which breaks down the pride of the rich, 
 and rescues the poor from servility, envy, and discontent. If a 
 morning salutation is reciprocated, it is in a suppressed voice; 
 and if, perchance, nature, in some reckless urchin, burst forth in 
 laughter, - My dear, you forget it's Sunday," is the ever-ready 
 reproof. 
 
CATHARINE MARIA SEDGWICK. 
 
 Though every face wears a solemn aspect, yet we once chanced 
 to see even a deacon's muscles relax by the wit of a neighbor, and 
 heard him allege, in a half-deprecating, half-laughing voice, " The 
 squire is so droll, that a body must laugh, though it be Sabbath- 
 day." 
 
 The farmer's ample wagon, and the little one-horse vehicle, 
 bring in all who reside at an inconvenient walking distance, — that 
 is to say, in our riding community, half a mile from the church. 
 It is a pleasing sight, to those who love to note the happy pecu- 
 liarities of their own land, to see the farmers' daughters, bloom- 
 ing, intelligent, well bred, pouring out of these homely coaches, 
 with their nice white gowns, prunel shoes, Leghorn hats, fans 
 and parasols, and the spruce young men, with their plaited ruffles, 
 blue coats, and yellow buttons. The whole community meet as 
 one religious family, to offer their devotions at the common altar. 
 If there is an outlaw from the society, — a luckless wight, whose 
 vagrant taste has never been subdued, — he may be seen stealing 
 along the margin of some little brook, far away from the condemn- 
 ing observation and troublesome admonitions of his fellows. 
 
 Towards the close of the day, (or, to borrow a phrase descrip- 
 tive of his feelings who first used it,) " when the Sabbath begins 
 to abate " the children cluster about the windows. Their eyes 
 wander from their catechism to the western sky, and, though it 
 seems to them as if the sun would never disappear, his broad disk 
 does slowly sink behind the mountain ; and, while his last ray still 
 lingers on the eastern summits, merry voices break forth, and the 
 ground resounds with bounding footsteps. The village belle arrays 
 herself for her twilight walk ; the boys gather on " the green 
 the lads and girls throng to the " singing-school j" while some coy 
 maiden lingers at home, awaiting her expected suitor; and all 
 enter upon the pleasures of the evening with as keen a relish as 
 if the day had been a preparatory penance. 
 
 UNCLE PHIL AND HIS INVALID DAUGHTER. 
 
 It was a lovely morning in June when Uncle Phil set forth for 
 New York with his invalid daughter. Ineffable happiness shone 
 through his honest face, and there was a slight flush of hope and 
 expectation on Charlotte's usually pale and tranquil countenance, 
 as she half rebuked Susan's last sanguine expression. 
 
 " You will come home as well as I am : I know you will, 
 Lottie V 
 
 " Not well, — oh, no, Susy, but better, I expect, — I mean, I 
 hope/' 
 
 " Better, then, if you are, — that is to say, a great deal letter, — 
 I shall be satisfied : shaVt you, Harry V 
 
I 
 
 CATHARINE MARIA SEDGWICK. 
 
 445 
 
 " I shall be satisfied that it was best for her to go, if she is any 
 better." 
 
 " I trust we shall all be satisfied with God's will, whatever it 
 may be," said Charlotte, turning her eye, full of gratitude, upon 
 Harry. Harry arranged her cushions as nobody else could to 
 support her weak back : Susan disposed her cloak so that Char- 
 lotte could draw it around her if the air proved too fresh • and 
 then, taking her willow-basket in her hand, the last words were 
 spoken, and they set forth. Uncle Phil was in the happiest of his 
 happy humors. He commended the wagon, — " it was just like 
 sitting at home in a rocking-chair : it is kind o' lucky that you 
 are lame, Lottie, or maybe Mrs. Sibley would not have offered to 
 loan us her wagon. I was dreadful 'fraid we should have to go 
 down the North River. I tell you, Lottie, when I crossed over it 
 once, I was a'most scared to death, — the water went swash, swash, 
 — there was nothing but a plank between me and etarnity ; and I 
 thought in my heart I should have gone down, and nobody would 
 ever have heard of me again. I wonder folks can be so foolish as 
 to go on water when they can travel on solid land ; but I suppose 
 some do !" 
 
 " It is pleasanter," said Charlotte, " to travel at this season, 
 where you can see the beautiful fruits of the earth, as we do now, 
 on all sides of us." Uncle Phil replied, and talked on without 
 disturbing his daughter's quiet and meditation. They travelled 
 slowly, but he was never impatient, and she never wearied, for she 
 was an observer and lover of nature. The earth was clothed with 
 its richest green, — was all green, but of infinitely varied tints. 
 The young corn was shooting forth • the winter-wheat already 
 waved over many a fertile hill-side; the gardens were newly 
 made, and clean, and full of promise j fkrwers, in this month of 
 their abundance, perfumed the woods, and decked the gardens 
 and court-yards; and where nothing else grew, there were lilacs 
 and peonies in plenty. The young lambs were frolicking in the 
 fields, the chickens peeping about the barn-yards, and birds — ■ 
 thousands of them — singing at their work. 
 
 Our travellers were descending a mountain where their view 
 extended over an immense tract of country, for the most part 
 richly cultivated. 
 
 " I declare !" exclaimed Uncle Phil, " how much land there is 
 in the world, and I don't own a foot on't, only our little half-acre 
 lot : it don't seem hardly right." Uncle Phil was no agrarian, 
 and he immediately added, " But, after all, I guess I am better 
 off without it, — it would be a dreadful care." 
 
 " Contentment with godliness is great gain," said Charlotte. 
 
 " You've hit the nail on the head, Lottie : I don't know who 
 should be contented if I a'n't : I always have enough, and every- 
 
 38 
 
446 
 
 CATHARINE MARIA SEDGWICK. 
 
 body is friendly to ine, — and you and Susan are worth a mint of 
 money to me. For all w r hat I said about the land, I really think 
 I have got my full share." 
 
 " We can all have our share in the beauties of God's earth 
 without owning, as you say, a foot of it," rejoined Charlotte. 
 " We must feel it is our Father's. I am sure the richest man in 
 the world cannot take more pleasure in looking at a beautiful 
 prospect than I do, or in breathing this sweet, sweet air. It 
 seems to me, father, as if every thing I look upon was ready to 
 burst forth in a hymn of praise j and there is enough in my heart 
 to make verses of, if I only knew how." 
 
 " That's the mystery, Lottie, how they do it : I can make one 
 line, but I can never get a fellow to it." 
 
 " Well, father, as Susy would say, it's a comfort to have the 
 feeling, though you can't express it." 
 
 Charlotte was right. It is a great comfort and happiness to 
 have the feeling j and happy would it be if those who live in the 
 country were more sensible to the beauties of nature : if they 
 could see something in the glorious forest besides " good wood and 
 timber lots," something in the green valley besides a " warm 
 soil," something in a waterfall besides a " mill-privilege." There 
 is a susceptibility in every human heart to the ever-present and 
 abounding beauties of nature; and whose fault is it that this taste 
 is not awakened and directed ? If the poet and the painter cannot 
 bring down their arts to the level of the poor, are there none to 
 be God's interpreters to them, — to teach them to read the great 
 book of nature ? 
 
 The laboring classes ought not to lose the pleasures that in 
 the country are before them from dawn to twilight, — pleasures 
 that might counterbalance, and often do, the profits of the mer- 
 chant, pent in his city counting-house, and all the honors the 
 lawyer earns between the court-rooms and his office. We only 
 wish that more was made of the privilege of country life; that 
 the farmer's wife would steal some moments from her cares to 
 point out to her children the beauties of nature, whether amid 
 the hills and valleys of our inland country, or on the sublime 
 shores of the ocean. Over the city, too, hangs the vault of 
 heaven, — " thick inlaid" with the witnesses of God's power and 
 goodness : his altars are everywhere. 
 
 The rich man who " lives at home at ease," and goes irritated 
 and fretting through the country because he misses at the taverns 
 the luxuries of his own house, — who finds the tea bad and coffee 
 worse, the food ill cooked and' table ill served, no mattresses, no 
 silver forks, — who is obliged to endure the vulgarity of a common 
 parlor, and, in spite of the inward chafing, give a civil answer to 
 
JOHN GOBHAM PALFREY. 
 
 447 
 
 whatever questions may be put to him, — cannot conceive of the 
 luxuries our travellers enjoyed at the simplest inn. 
 
 Uncle Phil found out the little histories of all the wayfarers he 
 met, and frankly told his own. Charlotte's pale, sweet face 
 attracted general sympathy. Country people have time for little 
 by-the-way kindnesses ; and the landlady, and her daughters, and 
 her domestics, inquired into Charlotte's malady, suggested re- 
 medies, and described similar cases. 
 
 JOHX GORHAM PALFREY. 
 
 John Gorham Palfrey, LL.D., the son of a Boston merchant, was born in 
 that city on the 2d of May, 1796. He was fitted for college at Exeter Aca- 
 demy, graduated at Harvard in 1815, studied theology, and in 1S18 was ordained 
 over the Brattle Street Church, Boston, where he continued till 1S31, when he was 
 appointed Dexter Professor of Sacred Literature in Harvard University. From 
 January, 1836, to October, 1S42, he was the editor of the " Xorth American 
 Review." From 1839 to 1842, he delivered courses of lectures before the Lowell 
 Institute, on the Evidences of Christianity, which were afterwards published in 
 two volumes, octavo. He has also published four volumes of Lectures on the 
 Hebrew Scriptures, and a volume of Sermons, entitled Duties of Private Life. 
 
 Many of the literary, historical, and political discourses which he has from 
 time to time delivered, before the city authorities of Boston on the 4th of July, 
 the Massachusetts Historical Society, &c. &c, have been published. To Sparks's 
 "American Biography" he has contributed one life, — that of his ancestor, William 
 Palfrey. 
 
 In later years Mr. Palfrey has been much in public life, both in the Legislature 
 of his own State and in the Congress of the United States, in which positions he 
 gave ample evidence of his earnest and hearty sympathies for freedom. In 1846, 
 he published in the " Boston Whig" a series of Papers on the Slave Power, which 
 were collected in a pamphlet, and widely circulated. 1 
 
 For a number of years Dr. Palfrey has been laboriously engaged upon A His- 
 tory of New England, of which the first volume appeared early in December, 
 1858, and of which it is praise enough to say that it comes up fully to the high 
 expectations that were entertained of it. Evincing a noble and hearty apprecia- 
 tion of the early settlers of New Eugland, guided by cool, impartial reason, 
 and exhibiting throughout extensive research and a careful collation of facts, he 
 has given us a. work which will doubtless supersede all others upon the same sub- 
 ject, and be the established or classical history of that portion of our country. 
 
 1 " Vigorously and acutely written, embodying a great mass of facts and rea- 
 sonings, some of which will be new to many readers, and all of which deserve 
 the careful consideration of every friend of his country or of humanity."- - 
 Christian Examiner, March, 1847. 
 
448 
 
 JOHN GORHAM PALFREY. 
 
 THE ELEGANT CULTURE AND LEARNING OF THE PURITANS. 
 
 Whatever may have taken place later, the Puritanism of the 
 first forty years of the seventeenth century was not tainted with 
 degrading or ungraceful associations of any sort. The rank, the 
 wealth, the chivalry, the genius, the learning, the accomplish- 
 ments, the social refinements and elegance of the time, were 
 largely represented in its ranks. Not to speak of Scotland, where 
 soon Puritanism had few opponents in the class of the high-born 
 and the educated, the severity of Elizabeth scarcely restrained., in 
 her latter days, its predominance among the most exalted orders 
 of her subjects. The Earls of Leicester, Bedford, Huntingdon, 
 and Warwick, Sir Nicholas Bacon, his greater son, Walsingham, 
 Burleigh, Mildmay, Sadler, Knollys, were specimens of a host of 
 eminent men more or less friendly to or tolerant of it. Through- 
 out the reign of James the First, it controlled the House of Com- 
 mons, composed chiefly of the landed gentry of the kingdom ; 
 and if it had less sway among the Peers, this was partly because 
 the number of lay nobles did not largely exceed that of the 
 Bishops, who were mostly creatures of the crown. The aggregate 
 property of that Puritan House of Commons, whose dissolution 
 has been just now related, was computed to be three times as 
 great as that of the Lords. 1 The statesmen of the first period 
 of that Parliament, which by-and-by dethroned Charles the First, 
 had been bred in the luxury of the landed aristocracy of the 
 realm; while of the nobility, Manchester, Essex, Warwick, 
 Brooke, Fairfax, and others, and of the gentry, a long roll of 
 men of the scarcely inferior position of Hampden and Waller, 
 commanded and officered its armies and fleets. A Puritan was the 
 first Protestant founder of a college at an English University. 
 Among the clergy, representing mainly the scholarship of the 
 country, nothing is more incontrovertible than that the per- 
 manent ascendency of Puritanism was only prevented by the 
 severities of the governments of Elizabeth and her Scottish kins- 
 men under the several administrations of Parker, Whitgift, Ban- 
 croft, and Laud. 
 
 It may be easily believed that none of the guests whom the 
 Earl of Leicester placed at his table by the side of his nephew, 
 Sir Philip Sydney, were clowns. But the supposition of any 
 necessary connection between Puritanism and what is harsh and 
 rude in taste and manners will not even stand the test of an 
 observation of the character of men who figured in its ranks, 
 when the lines came to be most distinctly drawn. The Par- 
 
 1 Hurae, chap. li. 
 
JOHN G OR II AM PALFREY. 449 
 
 liamentary general, Devereux, Earl of Essex, was no strait-laced 
 gospeller, but a man formed with every grace of person, mind, 
 and culture, to be the ornament of a splendid court, the model 
 knight — the idol, as long as he was the comrade, of the royal 
 soldiery — the Bayard of the time. The position of Manchester 
 and Fairfax, of Hollis, Fiennes, and Pierrepont, was by birth- 
 right in the most polished circle of English society. In the me- 
 moirs of the young regicide, Colonel Hutchinson, recorded by his 
 beautiful and gentle wife, we may look at the interior of a Puritan 
 household, and see its graces, divine and human, as they shone 
 with a naturally blended lustre in the most strenuous and most 
 afflicted times. 1 The renown of English learning owes something 
 to the sect which enrolled the names of Selden, Lightfoot, dale, 
 and Owen. 2 Its seriousness and depth of thought had lent their 
 inspiration to the delicate muse of Spenser. Judging between 
 their colleague preachers, Travers and Hooker, 3 the critical Tem- 
 plars awarded the palm of scholarly eloquence to the Puritan. 
 When the Puritan lawyer Whitelock was ambassador to Queen 
 Christina, he kept a magnificent state, which was the admiration 
 of her court, perplexed as they were by his persistent Puritanical 
 testimony against the practice of drinking healths. For his Latin 
 Secretary, the Puritan Protector employed a man at once equal 
 to the foremost of mankind in genius and learning, and skilled in 
 all manly exercises, proficient in the lighter accomplishments 
 beyond any other Englishman of his day, and caressed in his 
 youth, in France and Italy, for eminence in the studies of their 
 fastidious scholars and artists. The king's camp and court at 
 Oxford had not a better swordsman or amateur musician than 
 John Milton, and his portraits exhibit him with locks as flowing 
 as Prince Rupert's. In such trifles as the fashion of apparel, the 
 usage of the best modern society vindicates, in characteristic par- 
 ticulars, the Roundhead judgment and taste of the century before 
 the last. The English gentleman now, as the Puritan gentleman 
 then, dresses plainly in " sad" colors, and puts his lace and em- 
 broidery on his servants. 
 
 1 Colonel Hutchinson could dance admirably well, had skill in fencing, played 
 masterly on the viol, shot excellently in bows and guns, and had great judgment 
 in paintings, graving, sculpture, and all liberal arts. 
 
 2 The learned Owen, the author of An Exposition on the Epistle to the Hebreios, 
 4 vols, folio, and numerous other theological works, and who was said " to carry 
 within his broad forehead the concentrated extract of a thousand folios," was said 
 to be very exact and nice in his personal appearance. 
 
 3 For the rival preaching of these divines, see, under Hooker, Compendium &f 
 English Literature, pa^e 105. 
 
 38* 
 
450 
 
 JOHN GORHAM PALFREY. 
 
 ROGER WILLIAMS. 
 
 There was no question upon dogmas between Williams and 
 those who dismissed him. The sound and generous principle of 
 a perfect freedom of the conscience in religious concerns can 
 therefore scarcely be shown to have been involved in this dispute. 
 At a later period he was prone to capricious changes of religious 
 opinion. But as yet there was no development of this kind. As 
 long as he was in Massachusetts, he was no heretic, tried by the 
 standard of the time and the place. He was not charged with 
 heresy. The questions which he raised, and by raising which he 
 provoked opposition, were questions relating to political rights 
 and to the administration of government. He had made an issue 
 with his rulers and his neighbors upon fundamental points of 
 their power and their property, including their power of self-pro- 
 tection against the tyranny from which they had lately escaped. 
 Unintentionally, but effectually, he had set himself to play into 
 the hands of the king and the archbishop ; and it was not to be 
 thought of by the sagacious patriots of Massachusetts, that, in the 
 great work which they had in hand, they should suffer them- 
 selves to be defeated by such random movements. 
 
 For his busy disaffection, therefore, Williams was punished ; or, 
 rather, he was disabled for the mischief it threatened, by banish- 
 ment from the jurisdiction. He was punished much less severely 
 than the dissenters from the popular will were punished through- 
 out the North American colonies at the time of the final rupture 
 with the mother-country. Virtually, the freemen said to him, 
 " It is not best that you and we should live together, and we can- 
 not agree to it. We have just put ourselves to great loss and 
 trouble for the sake of pursuing our own objects uninterrupted; 
 and we must be allowed to do so. Your liberty, as you under- 
 stand it, and are bent on using it, is not compatible with the 
 security of ours. Since you cannot accommodate yourself to us, 
 go away. The world is wide, and it is as open to you as it was 
 just now to us. We do not wish to harm you; but there is no 
 place for you among us." Banishment is a word of ill sound; 
 but the banishment from one part of New England to another, to 
 which, in the early period of their residence, the settlers con- 
 demned Williams, was a thing widely different from that banish- 
 ment from luxurious Old England to desert New England to 
 which they had just condemned themselves. There was little 
 hardship in leaving unattractive Salem for a residence on the 
 beautiful shore of Narragansett Bay, except as the former had a 
 very short start in the date of its first cultivation. Williams, in- 
 voluntarily separated from Massachusetts, went with his company 
 to Providence the same year that Hooker, and Stone, and their 
 
JOHN GORHAM PALFREY. 
 
 451 
 
 company, self-exiled, went from Massachusetts to Connecticut. 
 If to the former the movement was not optional, it was the same 
 that the latter chose when it was optional ; and it proved advan- 
 tageous for all the parties concerned. 
 
 A GOOD DAUGHTER. 
 
 A good daughter ! — there are other ministries of love more 
 conspicuous than hers, but none in which a gentler, lovelier spirit 
 dwells, and none to which the heart's warm requitals more joy- 
 fully respond. There is no such thing as a comparative estimate 
 of a parent's affection for one or another child. There is little 
 which he needs to covet, to whom the treasure of a good child has 
 been given. But a son's occupations and pleasures carry him more 
 abroad, and he lives more among temptations, which hardly permit 
 the affection, that is following him perhaps over half the globe, 
 to be wholly un mingled with anxiety, till the time when he comes 
 to relinquish the shelter of his father's roof for one of his own ; 
 while a good daughter is the steady light of her parent's house. 
 Her idea is indissolubly connected with that of his happy fireside. 
 She is his morning sunlight and his evening star. The grace, 
 and vivacity, and tenderness of her sex have their place in the 
 mighty sway which she holds over his spirit. The lessons of re- 
 corded wisdom which he reads with her eyes come to his mind 
 with a new cnarm as they blend with the beloved melody of her 
 voice. He scarcely knows weariness which her song does not 
 make him forget, or gloom which is proof against the young 
 brightness of her smile. She is the pride and ornament of his 
 hospitality, and the gentle nurse of his sickness, and the constant 
 agent in those nameless, numberless acts of kindness, which one 
 chiefly cares to have rendered because they are unpretending, but 
 all-expressive proofs of love. And then what a cheerful sharer is 
 she, and what an able lightener, of a mother's cares ! what an ever- 
 present delight and triumph to a mother's affection ! Oh, how 
 little do those daughters know of the power which God has com- 
 mitted to them, and the happiness God w r ould have them enjoy, 
 who do not, every time that a parent's eye rests on them, bring 
 rapture to a parent's heart ! A true love will almost certainly 
 always greet their approaching steps. That they will hardly 
 alienate. But their ambition should be not to have it a love 
 merely w T hich feelings implanted by nature excite, but one made 
 intense and overflowing by approbation of worthy conduct ; and 
 she is strangely blind to her own happiness, as well as undutiful 
 to them to whom she owes the most, in whom the perpetual 
 appeals of parental disinterestedness do not call forth the prompt 
 and full echo of filial devotion. 
 
452 
 
 WILLIAM WARE. 
 
 WILLIAM WARE, 1797—1852. 
 
 William Ware, the son of Rev. Henry Ware, D.D., Hollis Professor of 
 Divinity in Harvard University, was born in Hingbam, Massachusetts, on tbe 3d 
 of August, 1797, and graduated at Cambridge in 1816. When be had finished 
 his theological studies there, and had preached a short time at Northboro', 
 Massachusetts, and Brooklyn, Connecticut, he was settled over the Unitarian 
 congregation in Chambers Street, New York, in December, 1821, where he re- 
 mained about sixteen j-ears. Near the close of this period, he commenced, in 
 the "Knickerbocker Magazine," the publication of those brilliant papers which, 
 in 1830, were published under the title of Zenobia, or the Fall of Palmyra, an 
 Historical Romance, which gave him at once very high rank as a classical scholar 
 and a classic author. In 183S, he published another volume of a similar charac- 
 ter, entitled Probun, or Pome in the Third Century, a sort of sequel to Zcnobia, 
 and now known under the title of •Aurelicm. In 1841, he published Julian, or 
 Scenes in Judea, in which he has described the most striking incidents in our 
 Saviour's life, — the work closing with an account of the crucifixion. 
 
 While these works were in the course of publication, he became the editor of 
 the " Christian Examiner/' having removed to Cambridge, Massachusetts. But 
 ill health obliged him to give up all literary occupation, and he sailed for Europe 
 in 1818. On his return, he gave a series of lectures in Boston, New York, and 
 other places, upon the scenes he had visited, and, in 1851, published Sketches of 
 European Capitals. This was his last work; for his health rapidly declined, and 
 he died on the 19th of February, 1S52.' 
 
 PALMYRA IN ITS GLORY. 
 
 1 was still buried in reflection, when I was aroused by the 
 shout of those who led the caravan, and who had attained the 
 summit of a little rising- ground, saying, " Palmyra ! Palmyra !" 
 I urged forward my steed, and in a moment the most wonderful 
 prospect I ever beheld — no, I cannot except even Rome — burst 
 upon my sight. Flanked by hills of considerable elevation on 
 the east, the city filled the whole plain below as far as the eye 
 could reach, both toward the north and toward the south. This 
 immense plain was all one vast and boundless city. It seemed to 
 me to be larger than Rome. Yet I knew very well that it could 
 
 1 " It was an adventure in literature somewhat bold when the pen of an Occi- 
 dental scholar of the nineteenth century attempted to reproduce not merely the 
 outward manners and institutions, but the inner thoughts and principles of life- 
 in Rome, Palmyra, and Judea in the early ages of the Christian era. How well 
 Mr. Ware succeeded, the great popularity of his works testify. To the strange 
 fascination of ancient and Oriental life, so vividly reproduced, there was added 
 the higher charm of a Christian philosophy, delicately, unobtrusively, and yet 
 with a marked impression interweaving its lessons with the story. His works 
 have passed into the rank of classics, and no longer need the critic's pen to point 
 out their worth." — Neio York Independent. 
 
WILLIAM WARE. 
 
 453 
 
 not be, — that it was not. And it was some time before I under- 
 stood the true character of the scene before me, so as to separate 
 the city from the country, and the country from the city, which 
 here wonderfully interpenetrated each other, and so confound and 
 deceive the observer. For the city proper is so studded with 
 groups of lofty palm-trees, shooting up among its temples and 
 palaces, and, on the other hand, the plain in its immediate 
 vicinity is so thickly adorned with magnificent structures of the 
 purest marble, that it is not easy, nay, it is impossible, at the dis- 
 tance at which I contemplated the whole, to distinguish the line 
 which divided the one from the other. It was all city and all 
 country, all country and all city. Those which lay before me 
 I was ready to believe were the Elysian Fields. I imagined that 
 I saw under my feet the dwellings of purified men and of gods. 
 Certainly they were too glorious for the mere earth-born. There 
 was a central point, however, which chiefly fixed my attention, 
 where the vast Temple of the Sun stretched upwards its thousand 
 columns of polished marble to the heavens, in its matchless 
 beauty, casting into the shade every other work of art of which 
 the world can boast. I have stood before the Parthenon, and 
 have almost worshipped that divine achievement of the immortal 
 Phidias. But it is a toy by the side of this bright crown of the 
 Eastern capital. I have been at Milan, at Ephesus, at Alex- 
 andria, at Antioch ; but in neither of those renowned cities have 
 I beheld anything that I can allow to approach, in united extent, 
 grandeur, and most consummate beauty, this almost more than 
 work of man. On each side of this, the central point, there 
 rose upwards slender pyramids — pointed obelisks — domes of the 
 most graceful proportions, columns, arches, and lofty towers, for 
 number and for form, beyond my power to describe. These build- 
 ings, as well as the walls of the city, being all either of white 
 marble, or of some stone as white, and being everywhere in their 
 whole extent interspersed, as I have already said, with multitudes 
 of overshadowing palm-trees, perfectly filled and satisfied my 
 sense of beauty, and made me feel for the moment as if in such a 
 scene I should love to dwell, and there end my days. 
 
 PALMYRA AFTER ITS CAPTURE AND DESTRUCTION. 
 
 No language which I can use, my Curtius, can give you any 
 just conception of the horrors which met our view on the way to 
 the walls and in the city itself. For more than a mile before we 
 reached the gates, the roads, and the fields on either hand, were 
 strewed with the bodies of those who, in their attempts to escape, 
 had been overtaken by the enemy and slain. Many a group of 
 bodies did we notice, evidently those of a family, the parents and 
 
454 
 
 WILLIAM WARE. 
 
 the children, who, hoping; to reach in company some place of 
 security, had all — and without resistance, apparently — fallen a 
 sacrifice to the relentless fury of their pursuers. Immediately 
 in the vicinity of the walls, and under them, the earth was con- 
 cealed from the eye by the multitudes of the slain, and all objects 
 were stained with the one hue of blood. Upon passing the gates, 
 and entering within those walls which I had been accustomed to 
 regard as embracing in their wide and graceful sweep the most 
 beautiful city in the world, my eye met nought but black and 
 smoking ruins, fallen houses and temples, the streets choked with 
 piles of still blazing timbers and the half-burned bodies of the 
 dead. As I penetrated farther into the heart of the city, and to 
 its better-built and more spacious quarters, I found the destruc- 
 tion to be less, — that the principal streets were standing, and many 
 of the more distinguished structures. But everywhere — in the 
 streets — upon the porticos of private and public dwellings — upon 
 the steps and within the very walls of the temples of every faith 
 — in all places, the most sacred as well as the most common, lay 
 the mangled carcasses of the wretched inhabitants. None, appa- 
 rently, had been spared. The aged were there, with their bald or 
 silvered heads — little children and infants — women, the young, 
 the beautiful, the good, — all were there, slaughtered in every 
 imaginable way, and presenting to the eye spectacles of horror 
 and of grief enough to break the heart and craze the brain. For 
 one could not but go back to the day and the hour when they 
 died, and suffer with these innocent thousands a part of what they 
 suffered, when, the gates of the city giving way, the infuriated 
 soldiery poured in, and, with death written in their faces and 
 clamoring on their tongues, their quiet houses were invaded, and, 
 resisting or unresisting, they all fell together, beneath the mur- 
 derous knives of the savage foe. What shrieks then rent and 
 filled the air — what prayers of agony went up to the gods for life 
 to those whose ears on mercy's side were adders' — what piercing 
 supplications that life might be taken and honor spared! The 
 apartments of the rich and the noble presented the most harrowing 
 spectacles, where the inmates, delicately nurtured and knowing 
 of danger, evil, and wrong only by name and report, had first 
 endured all that nature most abhors, and then there, where their 
 souls had died, were slain by their brutal violators w r ith every 
 circumstance of most demoniac cruelty. 
 
 Oh, miserable condition of humanity ! Why is it that to man 
 have been given passions which he cannot tame, and which sink 
 him below the brute ? Why is it that a few ambitious are per- 
 mitted by the Great Ruler, in" the selfish pursuit of their own 
 aggrandizement, to scatter in ruin, desolation, and death, whole 
 kingdoms, — making misery and destruction the steps by which 
 
JOHN G. C. BRAINARD. 
 
 455 
 
 they mount up to their seats of pride ? gentle doctrine of 
 Christ ! — doctrine of love and of peace, — when shall it be that I 
 and all mankind shall know Thy truth, and the world smile with 
 a new happiness under Thy life-giving reign ! 
 
 JOHN G. C. BRAINARD, 1796—1828. 
 
 Thou art sleeping calmly, Brainard; but the fame denied thee when 
 
 Thy way was with the multitude— the living tide of men — 
 
 Is burning o'er thy sepulchre, — a holy light and strong; 
 
 And gifted ones are kneeling there, to breathe thy words of song, — 
 
 The beautiful and pure of soul. — the lights of Earth's cold bovvers, 
 
 Are twining on thy funeral-stone a coronal of flowers ! 
 
 Ay, freely hath the tear been given, and freely hath gone forth 
 The sigh of grief, that one like thee should pass away from Karth ; 
 Yet those who mourn thee, mourn thee not like those to whom is given — 
 No soothing hope, no blissful thought, of parted friends in Heaven: 
 They feel that thou wast summon'd to the Christian's high reward, — 
 The everlasting joy of those whose trust is in the Lord! — J. G. Whittier. 
 
 John Gardner Calkins Brainard, son of the Honorable J. G. Brainard, 
 one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of Connecticut, was born in New Lon- 
 don, on the 21st of October, 1796, and graduated at Yale College in 1815. On 
 leaving college, he studied law, and commenced the practice of it at Middleton ; 
 but, the profession not being congenial to his tastes, he abandoned it, and, in 1822, 
 undertook the editorial charge of the " Connecticut Mirror," at Hartford, which 
 for five years he enriched with his beautiful poetical productions and chaste and 
 elevated prose compositions. His pieces were extensively copied, often with very 
 high encomium, and the influence his paper exerted over its readers could not but 
 be purifying and elevating. But consumption had marked him for her own ; and 
 in less than five years he returned to his father's house, at New London, where, 
 with calm and Christian resignation, 1 he expired on the 26th of September, 1828. 
 
 In 1825, a volume of his poems was published in New York, mostly made up 
 from the columns of his newspaper. After his death, a second edition appeared, 
 in 1832, enlarged from the firs § t, with the title of Literary Remains, accompanied 
 by a just and feeling memoir by the poet Whittier, a kindred spirit, and one 
 every way calculated to appreciate and illustrate his subject. 2 
 
 1 Just before his death, he remarked, "The plan of salvation in the gospel 
 is all that I wish for: it fills me with wonder and gratitude, and makes the 
 prospect of death not only peaceful but joyful." 
 
 2 The sketch of Brainard's life in Kettell's " Specimens" was written by S. G. 
 Goodrich. In 1842, a beautiful edition of his poems was published at Hartford, 
 by Edward Hopkins, accompanied by a portrait, and by an admirable memoir 
 written by Rev. Royal Robins, of Berlin, Connecticut. 
 
456 
 
 JOHN G. C. BRAINARD. 
 
 THE FALL OF NIAGARA. 1 
 
 The thoughts are strange that crowd into my brain, 
 
 While I look upward to thee. It would seem 
 
 As if God pour'd thee from his "hollow hand," 
 
 And hung his bow upon thine awful front ; 
 
 And spoke in that loud voice, which seem'd to him 
 
 "Who dwelt in Patnios for his Saviour's sake, 
 
 " The sound of many waters;" and had bade 
 
 Thy flood to chronicle the ages back, 
 
 And notch His centuries in the eternal rocks. 
 
 Deep calleth unto deep. And what are we, 
 That hear the question of that voice sublime ? 
 Oh ! what are all the notes that ever rung 
 From war's vain trumpet, by thy thundering side! 
 Yea, what is all the riot man can make 
 In his short life, to thy unceasing roar ! 
 And yet, bold babbler, what art thou to Him, 
 Who drown' d a world, and heap'd the waters far 
 Above its loftiest mountains ? — a light wave, 
 That breaks, and whispers of its Maker's might. 
 
 EPITH ALAMIU M . 
 
 I saw two clouds at morning, 
 
 Tinged with the rising sun ; 
 And in the dawn they floated on, 
 
 And mingled into one : 
 I thought that morning cloud was blest, 
 It moved so sweetly to the west. 
 
 I saw two summer currents, 
 
 Flow smoothly to their meeting, 
 And join their course, with silent force, 
 
 In peace each other greeting: 
 Calm was their course through banks of green, 
 While dimpling eddies play'd between. 
 
 Such be your gentle motion, 
 
 Till life's last pulse shall beat ; 
 Like summer's beam, and summer's stream, 
 
 Float on, in joy, to meet 
 A calmer sea, where storms shall cease — 
 A purer sky, where all is peace. 
 
 1 Be it remembered that this piece was thrown off in the inspiration of the 
 moment, on a cold, stormy evening, when, feeble from disease, he could hardly 
 drag his way to the office of his paper, and when the printer's boy came clamor- 
 ing to him ior "copy." He wrote the first verse, and told the boy to come in 
 fifteen minutes for the rest. He did so, and the poet gave him the second. Of it, 
 as a whole, Jared Sparks, in the twenty-second volume of the "North American 
 Review," thus remarks: — "Among all the tributes of the Muses to that great 
 wonder of nature, we do not remember any so comprehensive and forcible, and 
 at the same time so graphically correct, as this." 
 
JOHN G. C. BRAIN ARD. 
 
 457 
 
 ON A LATE LOSS. 1 
 
 u He shall not lloat upon his watery bier 
 Unwept." 
 
 The breath of air that stirs the harp's soft string, 
 
 Floats on to join the whirlwind and the storm; 
 The drops of dew exhaled from flowers of spring, 
 
 Rise and assume the tempest's threatening form; 
 The first mild beam of morning's glorious sun, 
 
 Ere night, is sporting in the lightning's flash ; 
 And the smooth stream, that flows in quiet on, 
 
 Moves but to aid the overwhelming dash 
 That wave and wind can muster, when the might 
 Of earth, and air, and sea, and sky unite. 
 
 So science whisper" d in thy charmed ear, 
 
 And radiant learning beckon'd thee away. 
 The breeze was music to thee, and the clear 
 
 Beam of thy morning promised a bright day. 
 And they have wreck'd thee! — But there is a shore 
 
 Where storms are hush'd — where tempests never rage — 
 Where angry skies and blackening seas no more 
 
 With gusty strength tneir roaring warfare wage. 
 By thee its peaceful margent shall be trod — 
 Thy home is heaven, and thy friend is God. 
 
 LEATHER STOCKING. 2 
 
 Far away from the hill-side, the lake, and the hamlet, 
 
 The rock, and the brook, and yon meadow so gay ; 
 From the footpath that winds by the side of the streamlet; 
 
 From his hut, and the grave of his friend, far away — 
 He is gone where the footsteps of men never ventured, 
 Where the glooms of the wild-tangled forest are centred, 
 Where no beam of the sun or the sweet moon has entered, 
 No bloodhound has roused up the deer with his bay. 
 
 Light be the heart of the poor lonely wanderer; 
 
 Firm be his step through each wearisome mile — 
 Far from the cruel man, far from the plunderer, 
 
 Far from the track of the mean and the vile. 
 
 1 Alexander Metealf Fisher, Professor of Mathematics in Yale College, anxious 
 to enlarge his knowledge in his favorite science, to which he had devoted his life, 
 sot sail for Europe in the packet-ship Albion, which was lost iu a terrific storm 
 off the coast of Ireland, April 22. 1S22. But, few of the passengers or crew 
 were saved ; and among the lost was the promising and gifted subject of these 
 lines. See the fourth volume of the " New Englander" for a fine memoir of Pro- 
 fessor Fisher, by Professor Denison Olmsted. 
 
 2 These lines refer to the good wishes which Elizabeth, in Mr. Cooper's novel 
 of "The Pioneers," seems to have manifested, in the last chapter, for the welfare 
 of "Leather Stocking," when he signified, at the grave of the Indian, his deter- 
 mination to quit the settlements of men for the unexplored forests of the West, 
 and when, whistling to his dogs, with his rifle on his shoulder, and his pack on 
 his back, he left the village of Temple ton. 
 
 39 
 
458 
 
 JOHN G. C. BRAINARD. 
 
 And when death, with the last of its terrors, assails him, 
 And all but the last throb of memory fails him, 
 He'll think of the friend, fax away, that bewails him, 
 And light up the cold touch of death with a smile. 
 
 And there shall the dew shed its sweetness and lustre ; 
 
 There for his pall shall the oak-leaves be spread — 
 The sweet brier shall bloom, and the wild grape shall cluster ; 
 
 And o'er him the leaves of the ivy be shed, 
 There shall they mix with the fern and the heather; 
 There shall the young eagle shed its first feather ; 
 The wolves, with his wild dogs, shall lie there together, 
 
 And moan o'er the spot where the hunter is laid. 
 
 THE SEA-BIRD'S SONG. 
 
 On the deep is the mariner's danger, 
 
 On the deep is the mariner's death ; 
 Who, to fear of the tempest a stranger, 
 Sees the last bubble burst of his breath? 
 'Tis the sea-bird, sea-bird, sea-bird, 
 
 Lone looker on despair ; 
 The sea-bird, sea-bird, sea-bird, 
 The only witness there. 
 
 "Who watches their course, who so mildly 
 Careen to the kiss of the breeze ? 
 
 Who lists to their shrieks, who so wildly 
 Are clasp'd in the arms of the seas? 
 'Tis the sea-bird, &c. 
 
 "Who hovers on high o'er the lover. 
 And her who has clung to his neck ? 
 
 "Whose wing is the wing that can cover 
 With its shadow the foundering wreck ? 
 'Tis the sea-bird, &c. 
 
 My eye in the light of the billow, 
 My wing on the wake of the wave, . 
 
 I shall take to my breast, for a pillow, 
 The shroud of the fair and the brave. 
 I'm a sea-bird, &c. 
 
 My foot on the iceberg has lighted, 
 
 When hoarse the wild winds veer about ; 
 My eye, when the bark is benighted, 
 Sees the lamp of the light-house go out. 
 I'm the sea-bird, sea-bird, sea-bird, 
 
 Lone looker on despair ; 
 The sea-bird, sea-bird, sea-bird, 
 The only witness there. 
 
ALBERT BARNES. 
 
 459 
 
 ALBERT BARNES. 
 
 Thts eminent theologian was born at Rome, New York, December 1, 1798. He 
 worked with his father in his tannery until he was seventeen years old, when he 
 determined to obtain a collegiate education; and in 1819 he entered the senior 
 class in Hamilton College, and graduated in July, 1820. At college, he was the 
 subject of a revival of religion;" and, feeling it his duty to study theology, he 
 went to Princeton, New Jersey, and entered the Theological Seminary. He 
 was there three years, and was licensed to preach, April 23, 1823, by the Presby- 
 tery of New Brunswick. After preaching at various places, he received a call 
 from ihe First Presbyterian Church in Morristown, New Jersey, and was ordained 
 there, on the 25th of February, 1825. Here his ministry was highly prosperous, 
 and his people became devotedly attached to him. In 1830, he received a call 
 from the First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, which he accepted, and was 
 installed on the 25th of June of that year. 1 
 
 Before leaving Morristown, Mr. Barnes commenced a series of commentaries on 
 the New Testament, designed for Sunday-school teachers and family reading. 
 The volume upon Matthew was published in 1832, and was followed from time to 
 time by like commentaries upon every book of the New Testament. These works 
 are eminently practical, and among the best of the kind in our language. The 
 high estimation in which they are held by the religious world is evinced by the 
 numerous editions which have been published in England as well as in this 
 country. 
 
 In 1835, George Junkin, D.D., preferred against Mr. Barnes, before his Pres- 
 bytery, charges of heresy, based on his commentaries on the Epistle to the 
 Romans. The Presbytery sustained Mr. Barnes, and Dr. Junkin appealed to the 
 Synod of Pennsylvania. The Synod sustained the appeal, and suspended Mr. 
 Barnes from the ministry " until he should give evidence of repentance"! 2 Mr. 
 Barnes, in his turn, appealed to the General Assembly, that met at Pittsburg, in 
 May, 1836; and the Assembly restored him to his clerical functions, by a large 
 majority. 
 
 Before Mr. Barnes had finished his Notes on the New Testament, he began a 
 
 '• Before leaving Morristown, he had preached (February 8, 1829) a sermon, 
 entitled " The Way of Salvation," which was severely reviewed in the " Phila- 
 delphian," by Rev. William M. Engles, accusing the author of " defrauding his 
 readers and hearers of the doctrine of justification," &c. ! The learned and vene- 
 rable James P. Wilson, D.D., whom Mr. Barnes succeeded, replied to this reviewer, 
 fully and ably sustaining the positions of the sermon. 
 
 2 During his suspension, the Rev. George Duffield, D.D., the author of the 
 able work on " Regeneration," was invited to preach for him ; and he did so 
 from this pertinent text : — Isaiah lxvi. 5 : " Hear the word of the Lord, ye that 
 tremble at his word : Your brethren that hated you, and cast you out for my 
 name's sake, said, Let the Lord be glorified : but he shall appear to your joy, and 
 they shall be ashamed." And this declaration of Scripture has been indeed veri- 
 fied. A writer in "The New Englander" for November, 1858, in reviewing Dr. 
 J. P. Thompson's Memoir of Stoddard, makes this pertinent and instructive re- 
 mark : — " The history of the church is full of evidences that clergymen, when 
 contending with one another over the metaphysics of theology, confound small 
 matters with great, and by their recorded decisions expose themselves to the ridi- 
 cule and pity of after-generations." 
 
460 
 
 ALBERT BARNES. 
 
 series of commentaries upon the Old Testament. Isaiah first appeared, in three 
 volumes ; then Job, in two volumes; then Daniel, in one volume; which have 
 given him a still higher reputation for profound and varied scholarship. He has 
 also published an edition of "Butler's Analogy," with an Introduction of rare 
 ability ; a volume of Practical Sermons, richly prized in many a Christian house- 
 hold; and a treatise entitled Episcopacy Tested by Scripture. Another volume of 
 his sermons, entitled The Way of Salvation, has recently been published. 
 
 Mr. Barnes early became interested in the temperance reformation, and his 
 sermon upon that subject is one of the best tracts that have yet appeared. Ho 
 also came out very early, and with decided power, against the crime and curse of 
 slavery, being almost the only one among bis ministerial brethren " faithful found 
 among the faithless," on what has become the great question of the day. In 
 1S3S, when the yells of the mob that burned Pennsylvania Hall had scarce (lied 
 away, he showed his moral courage by preaching a noble sermon on The Su- 
 premacy of the Laics. 1 In lSdfi appeared An Inquiry into the Scriptural Views of 
 Slavery, which was followed by an excellent volume, entitled The Church and 
 Slavery, showing it to be the duty of the whole Christian church to "come out 
 and not touch the unclean thing." More recently be has given us Inquiries and 
 Suggestions in Regard to the Foundation of Faith in the Word of God ; Life at 
 Three-Score, a Sermon delivered in the First Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, 
 November 28, 1853; and The Atonement in its Relations to Law and Government. 2 
 
 It is wonderful how Mr. Barnes, with such laborious pastoral duties, has been 
 able to prepare for the press so many works, and of such depth of learning. The 
 secret lies in — method. He has always been a very early riser, and most of his 
 works have been written while the greater part of his congregation were taking 
 their morning slumbers. 3 So much may be accomplished by devoting a few hours, 
 statedly, every day to one fixed purpose ! What a lesson for every young man ! 
 
 1 On the night of the 17th of May, 1833, that noble structure in Sixth Street, 
 Philadelphia, — Pennsylvania Hall, — erected for the purpose of free discussion, 
 and especially for the free discussion of slavery, was burnt by a mob. To this 
 event Rev. John Pierpont thus alludes, in his spirit-stirring poem, The Tocsin : — 
 
 "Go, then, and build yourselves a hall, 
 
 To prove ye are not slaves, but men! 
 Write ' Freedom' on its towering wall! 
 
 Baptize it in the name of Peun; 
 And give it to her holy cause, 
 Beneath the JEgis of her laws ; — 
 
 "Within let Freedom's anthem swell : — 
 
 And. while your hearts begin to throb 
 And burn within you, — hark! the yell, — 
 
 The torch, — the torrent of the mob! — 
 They're Slavery's troops that round you sweep, 
 And leave your hall a smouldering heap!" 
 
 2 Beautiful editions of Mr. Barnes's recent works, as mentioned above, have 
 been published by Parry & McMillan, Philadelphia. 
 
 3 "All my commentaries on the Scriptures have been written before nine o'clock 
 in the morning. At the very beginning — now more than thirty years ago — I 
 adopted a resolution to stop writing on these Notes when the clock struck nine. 
 This resolution I have invariably adhered to, not unfrequently finishing my 
 morning task in the midst of a paragraph, and sometimes even in the midst of a 
 sentence." — Life at Three-Score. 
 
ALBERT BARNES. 
 
 461 
 
 A MOTHER'S LOVE HOME. 
 
 Many of us — most of us who are advanced beyond the period 
 of childhood — went out from that home to embark on the stormy 
 sea of life. Of the feelings of a father, and of his interest in our 
 welfare, we have never entertained a doubt, and our home was 
 dear because he was there; but there was a peculiarity in the 
 feeling that it was the home of our mother. While she lived 
 there, there was a place that we felt was home. There was one 
 place where we would always be welcome, one place where we 
 would be met with a smile, one place where we would be sure of 
 a friend. The world might be indifferent to us. We might be 
 unsuccessful in our studies or our business. The new friends 
 which we supposed we had made might prove to be false. The 
 honor which we thought we deserved might be withheld from us. 
 We might be chagrined and mortified by seeing a rival outstrip 
 us, and bear away the prize which we sought. But there was a 
 place where no feelings of rivalry were found, and where those 
 whom the world overlooked would be sure of a friendly greeting. 
 Whether pale and wan by study, care, or sickness, or flushed with 
 health and flattering success, we were sure that we should be wel- 
 come there. Though the world was cold towards us, yet there 
 was one who always rejoiced in our success, and always was 
 affected in our reverses ; and there was a place to which we might 
 go back from the storm which began to pelt us, where we might 
 rest, and become encouraged and invigorated for a new conflict. 
 So have I seen a bird, in its first efforts to fly, leave its nest, and 
 stretch its wings, and go forth to the wide world. But the wind 
 blew it back, and the rain began to fall, and the darkness of night 
 began to draw on, and there was no shelter abroad, and it sought 
 its way back to its nest, to take shelter beneath its mother's wings, 
 and to be refreshed for the struggles of a new day ; but then it 
 flew away to think of its nest and its mother no more. But not 
 thus did we leave our home when we bade adieu to it to go forth 
 alone to the manly duties of life. Even amidst the storms that 
 then beat upon us, and the disappointments that we met with, and 
 the coldness of the world, we felt still that there was one there 
 who sympathized in our troubles, as well as rejoiced in our suc- 
 cess, and that, whatever might be abroad, when we entered the 
 door of her dwelling we should be met with a smile. W r e ex- 
 pected that a mother, like the mother of Sisera, as she " looked 
 out at her window," waiting for the coming of her son laden with 
 the spoils of victory, would look out for our coming, and that our 
 return would renew her joy and ours in our earlier days. 
 
 It makes a sad desolation when from such a place a mother is 
 taken away, and when, whatever may be the sorrows or the suc- 
 
 39* 
 
462 
 
 ALBERT BARNES. 
 
 cesses in life, she is to greet the returning son or daughter no 
 more. The home of our childhood may be still lovely. The old 
 family mansion — the green fields — the running stream — the moss- 
 covered well — the trees — the lawn — the rose — the sweet-brier — 
 may be there. Perchance, too, there may be an aged father, with 
 venerable locks, sitting in his loneliness, with every thing to com- 
 mand respect and love ) but she is not there. Her familiar voice is 
 not heard. The mother has been borne forth to sleep by the side 
 of her children who went before her, and the place is not what it 
 was. There may be those there whom we much love, but she is 
 not there. We may have formed new relations in life, tender and 
 strong as they can be ; we may have another home, dear to us as 
 was the home of our childhood, where there is all in affection, 
 kindness, and religion, to make us happy, but that home is not 
 what it was, and it will never be what it was again. It is a 
 loosening of one of the cords which bound us to earth, designed 
 to prepare us for our eternal flight from every thing dear here 
 below, and to teach us that there is no place here that is to be 
 our permanent home. 1 
 
 THE TRAFFIC IN ARDENT SPIRITS. 
 
 Every man is bound to pursue such a business as to render a 
 valuable consideration for that which he receives from others. A 
 man who receives in trade the avails of the industry of others, is 
 under obligation to restore that which will be of real value. He 
 receives the fruit of toil ; he receives that which is of value to 
 himself; and common equity requires that he return a valuable 
 consideration. Thus, the merchant renders to the fanner, in ex- 
 change for the growth of his farm, the productions of other 
 climes; the manufacturer, that which is needful for the clothing 
 or comfort of the agriculturist ; the physician, the result of his 
 professional skill. All these are valuable considerations, which 
 are fair and honorable subjects of exchange. They are a mutual 
 accommodation ; they advance the interest of both parties. But 
 it is not so with the dealer in ardent spirits. He obtains the pro- 
 perty of his fellow-men ; and what does he return ? That which 
 will tend to promote his real welfare ? That which will make 
 him a happier man ? That which will benefit his family ? That 
 which diffuses learning and domestic comfort around his family 
 circle? None of these things. He gives him that which will 
 produce poverty, and want, and cursing, and tears, and death. 
 He asked an egg, and he receives a scorpion. He gives him that 
 
 1 From a sermon delivered but a few weeks after the loss of his own mother. 
 
ALBERT BARNES. 
 
 463 
 
 which is established and well known as a source of no good, but 
 as tending to produce beggary and wretchedness. 
 
 A man is bound to pursue such a course of life as not neces- 
 sarily to increase the burdens and the taxes of the community. 
 The pauperism and crimes of this land grow out of this vice, as 
 an overflowing fountain. Three-fourths of the taxes for prisons, 
 and houses of refuge, and almshouses, would be cut off but for 
 this traffic and the attendant vices. Nine-tenths of the crimes of 
 the country, and of the expenses of litigation for crime, would be 
 prevented by arresting it. Now, we have only to ask our fellow- 
 citizens, what right they have to pursue an employment tending 
 thus to burden the community with taxes, and to endanger the 
 dwellings of their fellow-men, and to send to my door, and to 
 every other man's door, hordes of beggars loathsome to the sight; 
 or to compel the virtuous to seek out their wives and children, 
 amidst the squalidness of poverty, and the cold of winter, and the 
 pinchings of hunger, to supply their wants ? Could impartial 
 justice be done in the world, an end would soon be put to the 
 traffic in ardent spirits. Were every man bound to alleviate all 
 the wretchedness which his business creates, to support all the 
 poor which his traffic causes, an end would soon be made of this 
 employment. 
 
 THE BIBLE versus SLAVERY. THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Of all the abuses ever applied to the Scriptures, the most in- 
 tolerable and monstrous are those which pervert them to the 
 support of American slavery. Sad is it that the mild and 
 benignant enactments of the Hebrew legislator should ever be 
 appealed to, to sanction the wrongs and outrages of the poor 
 African in " this land of freedom;" sad, that the ministers of re- 
 ligion should ever prostitute their high office to give countenance 
 to such a system, by maintaining, or even conceding for a moment, 
 that the Mosaic laws sanction the oppressions and wrongs existing 
 in the United States ! * * * 
 
 The defence of slavery from the Bible is to be, and will soon 
 be, abandoned, and men will wonder that any defence of such a 
 system could have been attempted from the word of God. If the 
 authors of these defences could live a little longer than the ordi- 
 nary term of years allotted to man, they would themselves wonder 
 that they could ever have set up such a defence. Future genera- 
 tions will look upon the defences of slavery drawn from the Bible, 
 as among the most remarkable instances of mistaken interpreta- 
 tion and unfounded reasoning furnished by the perversities of the 
 human mind. * * * 
 
 Let every religious denomination in the land detach itself from 
 
464 
 
 ALBERT BARNES. 
 
 all connection with slavery, without saying a word against others ; 
 let the time come when, in all the mighty denominations of Chris- 
 tians, it can be announced that the evil has ceased with them for- 
 ever ; and let the voice from each denomination be lifted up in 
 kind, but firm and solemn testimony against the system ; with no 
 " mealy" words ; with no attempt at apology; witji no wish to 
 blink it; with no effort to throw the sacred shield of religion 
 over so great an evil; and the work is done. There is no public 
 sentiment in this land, there could be none created, that would 
 resist the power of such testimony. There is no power out of 
 the church that could sustain slavery an hour if it were not sus- 
 tained in it. Not a blow need be struck. Not an unkind word 
 need be uttered. No man's motive need be impugned, no man's 
 proper rights invaded. All that is needful is, for each Chris- 
 tian man, and for every Christian church, to stand up in the 
 sacred majesty of such a solemn testimony, to free themselves 
 from all connection with the evil, and utter a calm and deliberate 
 voice to the world, — and the work will be done. 
 
 war. 
 
 Who has ever told the evils, and the curses, and the crimes of 
 war ? Who can describe the horrors of the carnage of battle ? 
 Who can portray the fiendish passions which reign there ? Who 
 can tell the amount of the treasures wasted, and of the blood that 
 has flowed, and of the tears that have been shed over the slain ? 
 Who can register the crimes which war has originated and sus- 
 tained ? If there is any thing in which earth, more than in any 
 other, resembles hell, it is in its wars. And who, with the heart 
 of a man — of a lover of human happiness — of a hater of carnage 
 and crime — can look but with pity, who can repress his contempt 
 in looking on all the trappings of war — the tinsel — the nodding 
 plumes — even the animating music — designed to cover over 
 the reality of the contemplated murder of fathers, and husbands, 
 and sons ? 
 
 THE GENTLE CHARITIES OF LIFE. 
 
 A man's usefulness in the Christian life depends far more 
 on the kindness of his daily temper, than on great and glo- 
 rious deeds that shall attract the admiration of the world, and 
 that shall send his name down to future times. It is the 
 little rivulet that glides through the meadow, and that runs along- 
 day and night by the farm-house, that is useful, rather than 
 the swollen flood, or the noisy cataract. Niagara excites our 
 wonder, and fills the mind with amazement and awe. We feel 
 that God is there; and it is well to go far to see once at 
 
ALBERT BARNES. 
 
 465 
 
 least how solemn it is to realize that we are in the presence 
 of the Great God, and to see what wonders his hand can do. 
 But one Niagara is enough for a continent — or a world ; while 
 that .same world needs thousands and tens of thousands of silvery 
 fountains, and gently flowing rivulets, that shall water every farm, 
 and every meadow, and every garden, and that shall flow on every 
 day and every night with their gentle and quiet beauty. So with 
 life. We admire the great deeds of Howard's benevolence, and wish 
 that all men were like him. We revere the names of the illus- 
 trious martyrs. We honor the man who will throw himself in the 
 "imminent deadly breach" and save his country, — and such men 
 and such deeds we must have when the occasion calls for them. 
 But all men are not to be useful in this way — any more than all 
 waters are to rush by us in swelling and angry floods. We are to 
 be useful in more limited spheres. We are to cultivate the gentle 
 charities of life. We are by a consistent walk to benefit those 
 around us — though we be in an humble vale, and though, like the 
 gentle rivulet, we may attract little attention, and may soon cease 
 to be remembered on earth. Kindness will always do good. It 
 makes others happy — and that is doing good. It prompts us to 
 seek to benefit others — and that is doing good. It makes others 
 gentle and benignant — and that is doing good. 
 
 Practical Sermons. 
 
 THE VALUE OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 I have seen the value of industry; and as I owe to this, under 
 God, whatever success I have obtained, it seems to me not im- 
 proper to speak of it here, and to recommend the habit to those 
 who are just entering on life. 
 
 I had nothing else to depend on but this. I had no capital 
 when I began life; I had no powerful patronage to help me; 
 I had no natural endowments, as I believe that no man has, 
 that could supply the place of industry ; and it is not improper 
 here to say that all that I have been able to do in this world has 
 been the result of habits of industry which began early in life ; 
 which were commended to me by the example of a venerated 
 father; and which have been, and are, an abiding source of 
 enj oyment. 
 
 Dr. Doddridge, in reference to his own work, the " Paraphrase 
 on the New Testament," said, that its being written at all was 
 owing to the difference between rising at five and at seven o'clock 
 in the morning. A remark similar to this will explain all that I 
 have done. Whatever I have accomplished in the way of com- 
 mentary on the Scriptures is to be traced to the fact of rising at 
 four in the morning, and to the time thus secured which I 
 
466 
 
 ROBERT C. SANDS. 
 
 thought might properly be employed in a work not immediately 
 connected with my pastoral labors. 
 
 In the recollection of the past portions of my life, I refer to 
 these morning hours, — to the stillness and quiet of my room in 
 this house of God when I have been permitted to " prevent the 
 dawning of the morning" in the study of the Bible, while the 
 inhabitants of this great city were slumbering round about me, 
 and before the cares of the day and its direct responsibilities 
 came upon me, — I refer, I say, to these scenes as among the hap- 
 piest portions of my life j and I could not do a better thing in 
 reference to my younger brethren in the ministry, than to com- 
 mend this habit to them as one closely connected with their own 
 personal piety, and their usefulness in the world. ' 
 
 Life at Three-Score. 
 
 ROBERT C. SANDS, 1799—1832. 
 
 Robert C. Sands was born in the city of New York, May 11, 1799. He en- 
 tered the Sophomore class in Columbia College in 1S12, and was graduated, with 
 a high reputation for scholarship, in 1815. He soon after began the study of law 
 in the office of David B. Ogden, entering upon his new course of study with great 
 ardor, and pursuing it with steady zeal. He had formed in college an inti- 
 mate friendship with James Eastburn, afterwards a clergyman of the Protestant 
 Episcopal Church; and in 1817 he commenced, in conjunction with his clerical 
 friend, a romantic poem, founded on the history of Philip, the celebrated Sachem 
 of the Pequods. But Mr. Eastburn's health began to fail early in 1S19, and he 
 died in December of that year, before the work was completed. It was therefore 
 revised, arranged, and completed, with many additions, by Sands, who introduced 
 it with a touching proem, in which the surviving poet mourned, in elevated and 
 feeling strains, the accomplished friend of his youth. The poem was published, 
 under the title of Yamoyden, at New York, in 1820, was received with high 
 commendation, and gave Mr. Sands great literary reputation throughout the 
 United States. 
 
 In 1820, Mr. Sands was admitted to the bar, and opened an office in the city 
 of New York ; but his ardent love of general literature gradually weaned him 
 from his profession. In 1822 and 1823, he wrote many articles for the "Literary 
 Review," a monthly periodical, and in 1824 the "Atlantic Magazine" was 
 established and placed under his charge. He gave it up in six months; but 
 when it became changed to the " New York Review," he was engaged as an 
 editor, and assisted in conducting it till 1827. He had now become an author 
 by profession, and looked to his pen for support, as he had before looked to it for 
 fame or for amusement; and when an offer of a liberal salary was made him 
 as an assistant editor of the " New York Commercial Advertiser," he accepted 
 it, and continued his connection with that journal until his death, which took 
 place on the 17th of December, 1832 ; in the mean time editing and writing a 
 
ROBERT C. SANDS. 
 
 467 
 
 great number of miscellaneous works. A selection from his works was published 
 in 1834, in two volumes, octavo, entitled Writings in Prose and Verse, with a 
 Memoir. 1 
 
 FROM THE PROEM TO YAMOYDEN. 
 
 Go forth, sad fragments of a broken strain, 
 
 The last that either bard shall e'er essay : 
 The hand can ne'er attempt the chords again 
 
 That first awoke them in a happier day : 
 
 Where sweeps the ocean-breeze its desert way, 
 His requiem murmurs o'er the moaning wave ; 
 
 And he who feebly now prolongs the lay 
 Shall ne'er the minstrel's hallow'd honors crave ; 
 His harp lies buried deep in that untimely grave ! 2 
 
 Friend of my youth ! with thee began the love 
 
 Of sacred song ; the wont, in golden dreams, 
 'Mid classic realms of splendors past to rove, 
 
 O'er haunted steep, and by immortal streams ; 
 
 Where the blue wave, with sparkling bosom, gleams 
 Round shores, the mind's eternal heritage, 
 
 Forever lit by memory's twilight beams ; 
 Where the proud dead, that live in storied page, 
 Beckon, with awful port, to glory's earlier age. 
 
 There would we linger oft, entranced, to hear, 
 
 O'er battle-fields, the epic thunders roll; 
 Or list, where tragic wail upon the ear 
 
 Through Argive palaces shrill echoing stole; 
 
 There would we mark, uncurb'd by all control, 
 In central heaven, the Theban eagle's flight; 
 
 Or hold communion with the musing soul 
 Of sage or bard, who sought, 'mid pagan night, 
 In loved Athenian groves, for truth's eternal light. 
 
 ****** 
 Friend of my youth ! with thee began my song, 
 
 And o'er thy bier its latest accents die ; 
 Misled in phantom-peopled realms too long — ■ 
 
 Though not to me the muse averse deny, 
 
 Sometimes, perhaps, her visions to descry — 
 Such thriftless pastime should with youth be o'er ; 
 
 And he who loved with thee his notes to try, 
 But for thy sake such idlesse would deplore — 
 And swears to meditate the thankless muse no more. 
 
 1 " That American literature experienced a great loss in the early death of Sands, 
 will be felt by the reader who makes acquaintance with his well-cultivated, 
 prompt, exuberant genius, which promised, had life been spared, a distinguished 
 career of genial mental activity and productiveness." — Duvckinck. 
 
 A series of interesting papers on the early and unpublished writings of this 
 "true son of genius" may be found in the twenty-first and twenty-second volumes 
 of the " Knickerbocker Magazine." 
 
 2 Mr. Eastburn died December, 1819, on a voyage to Santa Cruz, undertaken 
 to regain his health. 
 
468 
 
 ROBERT C. SANDS. 
 
 ODE TO EVENING. 
 
 Hail ! sober evening ! thee the harass'd brain 
 
 And aching heart with fond orisons greet ; 
 The respite thou of toil ; the balm of pain ; 
 
 To thoughtful mind the hour for musing meet : 
 
 'Tis then the sage, from forth his lone retreat, 
 The rolling universe around espies ; 
 
 'Tis then the bard may hold communion sweet 
 With lovely shapes, unkenn'd by grosser eyes, 
 And quick perception comes of finer mysteries. 
 
 The silent hour of bliss ! when in the west 
 
 Her argent cresset lights the star of love : — 
 The spiritual hour ! when creatures blest 
 
 Unseen return o'er former haunts to rove ; 
 
 While sleep his shadowy mantle spreads above, 
 Sleep, brother of forgetfulness and death, 
 
 Round well-known couch with noiseless tread they rove, 
 In tones of heavenly music comfort breathe, 
 And tell what weal or bale shall chance the moon beneath. 
 
 Hour of devotion ! like a distant sea, 
 
 The world's loud voices faintly murmuring die ; 
 Responsive to the spheral harmony, 
 
 While grateful hymns are borne from earth on high. 
 
 Oh ! who can gaze on yon unsullied sky, 
 And not grow purer from the heavenward view ? 
 
 As those, the Virgin Mother's meek, full eye 
 Who met, if uninspired lore be true, 
 Felt a new birth within, and sin no longer knew. 
 
 Let others hail the oriflamme of morn, 
 
 O'er kindling hills unfurl'd with gorgeous dyes ! 
 
 0, mild, blue Evening ! still to thee I turn, 
 
 With holier thought, and with undazzled eyes ; — 
 Where wealth and power with glare and splendor rise, 
 
 Let fools and slaves disgustful incense burn ! 
 Still Memory's moonlight lustre let me prize ; 
 
 The great, the good, whose course is o'er, discern, 
 
 And, from their glories past, time's mighty lessons learn ! 
 
 From " Yamoyden." 
 
 MONODY ON SAMUEL PATCH. 1 
 " By water shall he die, and take his end." — Shakspeare. 
 
 Toll for Sam Patch ! Sam Patch, who jumps no more, 
 This or the world to come. Sam Patch is dead ! 
 
 The vulgar pathway to the unknown shore 
 Of dark futurity, he would not tread. 
 
 1 Samuel Patch was a boatman on the Erie Canal, in New York. He made 
 himself notorious by leaping from the masts of ships, from the Falls of Niagara, 
 
ROBERT C. SANDS. 
 
 469 
 
 No friends stood sorrowing round his dying bed ; 
 Nor, with decorous woe, sedately stepp'd 
 
 Behind his corpse, and tears by retail shed ; — ■ 
 The mighty river, as it onward swept, 
 In one great, wholesale sob, his body drown'd and kept. 
 
 Toll for Sam Patch ! he scorn'd the common way 
 That leads to fame, up heights of rough ascent, 
 
 And having heard Pope and Longinus say, 
 
 That some great men had risen to falls, he went 
 And jurap'd where wild Passaic's waves had rent 
 
 The antique rocks ; — the air free passage gave, — 
 And graciously the liquid element 
 
 Upbore him, like some sea-god on itB wave ; 
 
 And all the people said that Sam was very brave. 
 
 Fame, the clear spirit that doth to heaven upraise, 
 
 Led Sam to dive into what Byron calls 
 The hell of waters. For the sake of praise, 
 
 He woo'd the bathos down great waterfalls ; 
 
 The dizzy precipice, which the eye appalls 
 Of travellers for pleasure, Samuel found 
 
 Pleasant, as are to women lighted halls 
 Cramm'd full of fools and fiddles ; to the sound 
 Of the eternal roar, he timed his desperate bound. 
 
 Sam was a fool. But the large world of such 
 
 Has thousands, — better taught, alike absurd, 
 And less sublime. Of fame he soon got much, 
 
 Where distant cataracts spout, of him men heard. 
 
 Alas for Sam ! Had he aright preferr'd 
 The kindly element to which he gave 
 
 Himself so fearlessly, we had not heard 
 That it was now his winding-sheet and grave, 
 Nor sung, 'twixt tears and smiles, our requiem for the brave. 
 
 I say, the muse shall quite forget to sound 
 
 The chord whose music is undying, if 
 She do not strike it when Sam Patch is drown'd. 
 
 Leander dived for love. Leucadia's cliff 
 
 The Lesbian Sappho leap'd from in a miff, 
 To punish Phaon ; Icarus went dead, 
 
 Because the wax did not continue stiff ; 
 And, had he minded what his father said, 
 He had not given a name unto his watery bed. 
 
 And Helle's case was all an accident, 
 
 As everybody knows. Why sing of these ? 
 
 and from the Falls in the Genesee River, at Rochester. He did this, as he said, 
 to show " that some things can be done as well as others and hence this, now, 
 proverbial phrase. His last feat was in the summer of 1831, when, in the pre- 
 sence of many thousands, he jumped from above the highest rock over which the 
 water falls in the Genesee, and was lost. He had drank too freely before 
 going upon the scaffold, and lost his balance in descending. The above verses 
 were written a few days after this event. 
 
 . 40 
 
ROBERT C. SANDS. 
 
 Nor -would I rank with Sam that man who went 
 Down into ^Etna's womb — Empedocles 
 I think he call'd himself. Themselves to please, 
 
 Or else unwillingly, they made their springs; 
 For glory in the abstract, Sam made his, 
 
 To prove to all men, commons, lords, and kings, 
 
 That "some things may be done as well as other things." 
 
 And while Niagara prolongs its thunder, 
 
 Though still the rock primeval disappears, 
 And nations change their bounds — the theme of wonder 
 
 Shall Sam go down the cataract of long years; 
 
 And if there be sublimity in tears, 
 Those shall be precious which the adventurer shed 
 
 When his frail star gave way, and waked his fears 
 Lest by the ungenerous crowd it might be said 
 That he was all a hoax, or that his pluck had fled. 
 
 Who would compare the maudlin Alexander, 
 
 Blubbering, because he had no job in hand, 
 Acting the hypocrite, or else the gander, 
 
 With Sam, whose grief we all can understand ? 
 
 His crying was not womanish, nor plann'd 
 For exhibition ; but his heart o'erswell'd 
 
 With its own agony, when he the grand 
 Natural arrangements for a jump beheld, 
 And, measuring the cascade, found not his courage quell' d, 
 
 But, ere he leap'd, he begg'd of those who made 
 
 Money by his dread venture, that if he 
 Should perish, such collection should be paid 
 
 As might be pick'd up from the " company" 
 
 To his mother. This, his last request, shall be — 
 Though she who bore him ne'er his fate should know — 
 
 An iris, glittering o'er his memory, 
 When all the streams have worn their barriers low, 
 And, by the sea drunk up, forever cease to flow. 
 
 Therefore it is considered, that Sam Patch 
 
 Shall never be forgot in prose or rhyme ; 
 His name shall be a portion in the batch 
 
 Of the heroic dough, which baking Time 
 
 Kneads for consuming ages — and the chime 
 Of Fame's old bells, long as they truly ring, 
 
 Shall tell of him : he dived for the sublime, 
 And found it. Thou, who with the eagle's wing, 
 Being a goose, wouldst fly, — dream not of such a thing! 
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON DOANE. 
 
 471 
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON DOANE. 
 
 George Washington Doane, D.D., LL.D., Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal 
 Church of the Diocese of New Jersey, was born in Trenton, New Jersey, on the 
 27th of May, 1799. At the age of nineteen, he graduated at Union College, and 
 soon after commenced the study of theology. He officiated, for four years, as 
 assistant minister in Trinity Church, New York, and, in 1824, was appointed 
 Professor of Belles-Lettres and Oratory in Washington College, Hartford, Con- 
 necticut. This chair he resigned in 1828, and accepted an invitation from Trinity 
 Church, Boston, as an assistant minister. The next year, he was married to Mrs. 
 Eliza Greene Perkins, and, in 1830, was elected the rector of the church in which 
 for two years he had officiated as assistant. On the 31st of October, 1832, he was 
 consecrated Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church of New Jersey, and the 
 next year became rector of St. Mary's Church, Burlington. 
 
 Besides attending to the arduous duties of his official position, Bishop Doanc 
 has interested, himself very much in the cause of education, and has labored assi- 
 duously to promote its best interests. In 1837, he founded St. Mary's Hall, Bur- 
 lington, — a school for young ladies ; and, in 1846, Burlington College, — both of 
 which are highly flourishing. 
 
 Bishop Doane has published no large work upon any one subject; yet his 
 publications have been numerous, consisting mostly of sermons, charges, and 
 literary addresses. In 1824, he published a small volume of poetry, entitled 
 Songs by the Way, chiefly Devotional ; and, from time to time, occasional pieces 
 of singular beauty. Indeed, throughout all his writings, both prose and poetry, 
 there is seen a refined taste and a classic finish, that give him a rank among our 
 purest writers. He died at Burlington, N. J. April 26th, 1859. 
 
 ON AN OLD WEDDING-RING. 
 
 The Device.— Two hearts united. 
 
 The Motto. — Dear love of mine, my heart is thine. 
 
 I like that ring — that ancient ring, 
 
 Of massive form, and virgin gold, 
 As firm, as free from base alloy 
 
 As were the sterling hearts of old. 
 I like it — for it wafts me back, 
 
 Far, far along the stream of time, 
 To other men, and other days, 
 
 The men and days of deeds sublime. 
 
 But most I like it, as it tells 
 
 The tale of well-requited love ; 
 How youthful fondness persevered, 
 
 And youthful faith disdain'd to rove- — 
 How warmly he his suit preferr'd, 
 
 Though she, unpitying, long denied, 
 Till, soften'd and subdued, at last, 
 
 He won his " fair and blooming bride."- 
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON DOANE. 
 
 How, till the appointed clay arrived, 
 
 They blamed the lazy-footed hours — 
 How, then, the white-robed maiden train 
 
 Strew'd their glad way with freshest flowers — 
 And how, before the holy man, 
 
 They stood, in all their youthful pride, 
 And spoke those words, and vow'd those vows, 
 
 Which bind the husband to his bride : 
 
 All this it tells ; the plighted troth— 
 
 The gift of every earthly thing — 
 The hand in hand — the heart in heart — 
 
 For this I like that ancient ring. 
 I like its old and quaint device ; 
 
 "Two blended hearts'' — though time may wear them, 
 No mortal change, no mortal chance, 
 
 " Till death," shall e'er in sunder tear them. 
 
 Year after year, 'neath sun and storm, 
 
 Their hope in heaven, their trust in God, 
 In changeless, heartfelt, holy, love, 
 
 These two the world's rough pathway trod. 
 Age might impair their youthful fires, 
 
 Their strength might fail, 'mid life's bleak weather, 
 Still, hand in hand, they travell'd on — ■ 
 
 Kind souls ! they slumber now together. 
 
 I like its simple poesy, too : 
 
 " Mine own dear love, this heart is thine I" 
 Thine, when the dark storm howls along, 
 
 As when the cloudless sunbeams shine, 
 " This heart is thine, mine own dear love !" 
 
 Thine, and thine only, and forever : 
 Thine, till the springs of life shall fail ; 
 
 Thine, till the cords of life shall sever. 
 
 Remnant of days departed long, 
 
 Emblem of plighted troth unbroken, 
 Pledge of devoted faithfulness, 
 
 Of heartfelt, holy love, the token : 
 What varied feelings round it cling ! — 
 For these, I like that ancient ring. 
 
 THAT SILENT MOON. 
 
 That silent moon, that silent moon, 
 Careering now through cloudless sky, 
 
 Oh, who shall tell what varied scenes 
 Have pass'd beneath her placid eye, 
 
 Since first, to light this wayward earth, 
 
 She walk'd in tranquil beauty forth ! 
 
 How oft has guilt's unhallow'd hand, 
 And superstition's senseless rite, 
 
 And loud, licentious revelry 
 
 Profaned her pure and holy light : 
 
GRENVILLE MELLEN. 
 
 473 
 
 Small sympathy is hers, I ween, 
 
 With sights like these, that virgin queen ! 
 
 But dear to her, in summer eve, 
 By rippling wave, or tufted grove, 
 
 When hand in hand is purely clasp'd, 
 And heart meets heart in holy love, 
 
 To smile in quiet loneliness, 
 
 And hear each whisper'd vow, and bless. 
 
 Dispersed along the world's wide way, 
 When friends are far, and fond ones rove, 
 
 How powerful she to wake the thought, 
 And start the tear for those we love, 
 
 Who watch with us at night's pale noon, 
 
 And gaze upon that silent moon ! 
 
 How powerful, too, to hearts that mourn, 
 The magic of that moonlight sky, 
 
 To bring again the vanish'd scenes — 
 The happy eves of days gone by ; 
 
 Again to bring, 'mid bursting tears, 
 
 The loved, the lost, of other years ! 
 
 And oft she looks, that silent moon, 
 On lonely eyes that wake to weep 
 
 In dungeon dark, or sacred cell, 
 
 Or couch, whence pain has banish'd sleep : 
 
 Oh, softly beams her gentle eye 
 
 On those who mourn, and those who die ! 
 
 But, beam on whomsoe'er she will, 
 And fall where'er her splendors may, 
 
 There's pureness in her chasten'd light, 
 There's comfort in her tranquil ray : 
 
 What power is hers to soothe the heart ! — 
 
 What power the trembling tear to start ! 
 
 The dewy morn let others love, 
 Or bask them in the noontide ray ; 
 
 There's not an hour but has its charm, 
 From dawning light to dying day : — 
 
 But, oh, be mine a fairer boon — 
 
 That silent moon, that silent moon ! 
 
 GRENVILLE MELLEN, 1799—1841. 
 
 ^kenville Mellek, son of the late Chief-Justice Prentiss Mellen, LL.D., of 
 JMla'hh;, was born in the town of Biddeford, in that State, on the 19th of June, 
 IV 5)9, and graduated at Harvard University in 1818. He entered the profession 
 of the law, but, finding it not suited to his feelings, abandoned it for the more con- 
 genial attractions of poetry and general literature. He resided five or six years 
 in Boston, and afterwards in New York. His health had always been rather deli- 
 
 40* 
 
474 
 
 GRENVILLE MELLEN. 
 
 cate, and in 1840, in hopes of deriving advantage from a milder climate, he made 
 a voyage to Cuba. But he was not benefited materially by the change, and, learn- 
 ing, the next spring, of the death of his father, he returned home, and died in New 
 York on the 5th of September, 1841. 
 
 Mr. Mellen wrote for various magazines and periodicals. In 1826, he delivered, 
 at Portland, before the Peace Society of Maine, a poem, entitled The Rest of Em- 
 pires. In 1827, he published Our Chronicle of Twenty-Six, a satire; and in 1829, 
 Glad Talcs and Sad Tales, — a volume in prose, from his contributions to the 
 periodicals. The Martyr's Triumph, Buried Valley, and other Poems, appeared in 
 1834. The first-named poem is founded on the history of Saint Alban, the first 
 Christian martyr in England. In the Buried Valley he describes the terrible 
 avalanche at The Notch in the White Mountains, in 1S26, by which the Willey 
 family was destroyed. 1 
 
 THE MARTYR. 
 
 Not yet, not. yet the martyr dies. He sees 
 
 His triumph on its way. He hears the crash 
 Of the loud thunder round his enemies, 
 
 And dim through tears of blood he sees it dash 
 His dwelling and its idols. Joy to him ! 
 
 The Lord — the Lord hath spoken from the sky ! 
 The loftier glories on his eyeballs swim ! 
 
 He hears the trumpet of Eternity! 
 
 Calling his spirit home — a clarion voice on high ! 
 
 Yet, yet one moment linger ! Who are they 
 
 That sweep far off along the quivering air ? 
 It is God's bright, immortal company — 
 
 The martyr pilgrim and his band are there ! 
 Shadows with golden crowns and sounding lyres, 
 
 And the white royal robes, are issuing out, 
 And beckon upwards through the wreathing fires, 
 
 The blazing pathway compassing about, 
 
 With radiant heads unveird, and anthems joyful shout! 
 
 He sees, he hears ! upon his dying gaze, 
 
 Forth from the throng one bright-hair'd angel near, 
 Stoops his red pinion through the mantling blaze — 
 
 It is the heaven-triumphing wanderer ! 
 "I come — we meet again!" — the martyr cries, 
 
 And smiles of deathless gloiy round him play : 
 Then on that flaming cross he bows — and dies ! 
 
 His ashes eddy on the sinking day, 
 
 While through the roaring oak his spirit wings its way ! 
 
 1 Upon the merits of Grenville Mellen's poetry, a writer in the 22d vol. of the 
 "American Quarterly Review" thus remarks: — " There is in these poems no un- 
 usual sublimity to awaken surprise, no extreme pathos to communicate the luxury 
 of grief, no chivalrous narrative to stir the blood to adventure, no high-painted 
 ardor in love to make us enraptured with beauty. Yet we were charmed ; for we 
 love purity of sentiment, and we found it- j we love amiability of heart, and here 
 we could perceive it in every stanza. The muse of Mellen delights in the beauties, 
 not in the deformities, of nature : she is more inclined to celebrate the virtues than 
 denounce the vices of man." 
 
GRENVILLE MELLEN. 
 
 THE EAGLE. 
 
 OX SEEING AN EAGLE PASS NEAR ME IN AUTUMN TWILIGHT. 
 
 Sail on, thou lone imperial bird, 
 
 Of quenchless eye and tireless wing ; 
 How is thy distant coming heard 
 
 As the night's breezes round thee ring ! 
 Thy course was 'gainst the burning sun 
 
 In his extremest glory ! How ! 
 Is thy unequall'd daring done, 
 
 Thou stoop'st to earth so lowly now ? 
 
 Or hast thou left thy rocking dome, 
 
 Thy roaring crag, thy lightning pine, 
 To find some secret, meaner home, 
 
 Less stormy and unsafe than thine ? 
 Else why thy dusky pinions bend 
 
 So closely to this shadowy world, 
 And round thy searching glances send, 
 
 As wishing thy broad pens were furl'd ? 
 
 Yet lonely is thy shatter'd nest, 
 
 Thy eyry desolate, though high ; 
 And lonely thou, alike, at rest, 
 
 Or soaring in thy upper sky. 
 The golden light that bathes thy plumes, 
 
 On thine interminable flight, 
 Falls cheerless on earth's desert tombs, 
 
 And makes the North's ice-mountains bright. 
 
 So come the eagle-hearted down, 
 
 So come the proud and high to earth, 
 When life's night-gathering tempests frown 
 
 Over their glory and their mirth ; 
 So quails the mind's undying eye, 
 
 That bore unveil'd fame's noontide sun ; 
 So man seeks solitude, to die, 
 
 His high place left, his triumphs done. 
 
 So, round the residence of power, 
 
 A cold and joyless lustre shines, 
 And on life's pinnacles will lower 
 
 Clouds dark as bathes the eagle's pines. 
 But, oh, the mellow light that pours 
 
 From God's pure throne — the light that saves ! 
 It warms the spirit as it soars, 
 
 And sheds deep radiance round our graves. 
 
 CONSCIENCE. 
 
 Voice of the viewless spirit ! that hast rung 
 Through the still chambers of the human heart, 
 
 Since our first parents in sweet Eden sung 
 Their low lament in tears — thou voice, that art 
 
476 
 
 WILLIAM B. O. PEABODY. 
 
 Around us and above us, sounding on 
 
 With a perpetual echo, 'tis on thee, 
 The ministry sublime to wake and warn ! — 
 
 Full of that high and wondrous Deity, 
 That call'd existence out from Chaos' lonely sea ! 
 
 Voice that art heard through every age and clime, 
 
 Commanding like a trumpet every ear 
 That lends no heeding to the sounds of Time, 
 
 Seal'd up, for aye, from cradle to the bier ! 
 That fallest, like a watchman's through the night, 
 
 Round those who sit in joy and those who weep, 
 Yet startling all men with thy tones of might — 
 
 voice, that dwellest in the hallow'd deep 
 Of our own bosom's silence — eloquent in sleep ! 
 
 That comest in the clearness of thy power, 
 
 Amid the crashing battle's wild uproar, 
 Stern as at peaceful midnight's leaden hour ; 
 
 That talkest by the ocean's bellowing shore, 
 When surge meets surge in revelry, and lifts 
 
 Its booming voice above the weltering sea ; 
 That risest loudly "mid the roaring cliff's, 
 
 And o'er the deep-mouth'd thunder goest free, 
 E'en as the silver tones of quiet infancy ! 
 
 Spirit of God ! what sovereignty is thine ! 
 
 Thine is no homage of the bended knee ; 
 Thou hast of vassalage no human sign ; 
 
 Yet monarchs hold no royal rule like thee ! 
 Unlike the crowned idols of our race, 
 
 Thou dost no earthly pomp about thee cast, 
 Thou tireless sentinel of elder days ! — 
 
 Who, who to Conscience doth not bow at last, 
 Old arbiter of Time — the present and the past ! 
 
 Thou wast from God when the green earth was young, 
 
 And man enchanted roved amid its flowers, 
 When faultless woman to his bosom clung, 
 
 Or led him through her paradise of bowers ; 
 Where love's low whispers from the Garden rose, 
 
 And both amid its bloom and beauty bent, 
 In the long luxury of their first repose ! 
 
 When the whole earth was incense, and there went 
 Perpetual praise from altars to the firmament. 
 
 WILLIAM B. 0. PEABODY, 1799—1847. 
 
 William Bourne Oliver Peabody, son of Judge Oliver Peabody, of Exeter, 
 New Hampshire, was born in that town, July 9, 1799, 1 and, after completing his 
 preparatory studies at Phillips Academy, in his native town, he entered Harvard 
 
 1 He had a twin-brother, Oliver William Bourne Peabody: the two fitted for 
 sollegc together at Exeter Academy, and graduated together. Oliver studied law 
 
WILLIAM B. O. PEABODY. 
 
 477 
 
 College, where he graduated in 1816. In 1820, he became the pastor of a Uni- 
 tarian congregation at Springfield, Massachusetts, -where he resided till his death, 
 on the 28th of May, 1817. 1 Besides the faithful discharge of his parochial 
 duties, Mr. Peabody wrote numerous articles for the "North American Review" 
 and the " Christian Examiner," and is the author of many beautiful occasional 
 pieces of poetry, of which none deserves more to be remembered than his 
 
 HYMN OF NATURE. 
 
 God of the earth's extended plains ! 
 
 The dark green fields contented lie : 
 The mountains rise like holy towers, 
 
 Where man might commune with the sky : 
 The tall cliff challenges the storm 
 
 That lowers upon the vale below, 
 Where shaded fountains send their streams, 
 
 With joyous music in their flow. 
 
 God of the dark and heavy deep ! 
 
 The waves lie sleeping on the sands, 
 Till the fierce trumpet of the storm 
 
 Hath summon'd up their thundering bands ; 
 Then the white sails are dash'd like foam, 
 
 Or hurry, trembling, o'er the seas, 
 Till, calm'd by thee, the sinking gale 
 
 Serenely breathes, "Depart in peace." 
 
 God of the forest's solemn shade! 
 
 The grandeur of the lonely tree, 
 That wrestles singly with the gale, 
 
 Lifts up admiring eyes to thee ; 
 But more majestic far they stand, 
 
 When, side by side, their ranks they form, 
 To wave on high their plumes of green, 
 
 And fight their battles with the storm. 
 
 God of the light and viewless air ! 
 
 Where summer breezes sweetly flow, 
 Or, gathering in their angry might, 
 
 The fierce and wintry tempests blow ; 
 All — from the evening's plaintive sigh, 
 
 That hardly lifts the drooping flower, 
 To the wild whirlwind's midnight cry — 
 
 Breathe forth the language of thy power. 
 
 God of the fair and open sky ! 
 How gloriously above us springs 
 
 at first, but afterwards turned his attention more to literature, and assisted Alex- 
 ander H. Everett, in 1831, in the editorship of the "North American Review." 
 Subsequently he studied theologv, settled in Burlington, Vermont, and died 
 July 6, 1848. 
 
 1 Read a discourse delivered at his funeral by Rev. Ezra Stiles Gannett, D.D., 
 and an article in the " Christian Examiner," September, 1S47. 
 
478 
 
 LYDIA MARIA CHILD. 
 
 The tented dome, of heavenly blue, 
 Suspended on the rainbow's rings ! 
 
 Each brilliant star, that sparkles through, 
 Each gilded cloud, that wanders free 
 
 In evening's purple radiance, gives 
 The beauty of its praise to thee. 
 
 God of the rolling orbs above ! 
 
 Thy name is written clearly bright 
 In the warm day's unvarying blaze, 
 
 Or evening's golden shower of light. 
 For every fire that fronts the sun, 
 
 And every spark that walks alone 
 Around the utmost verge of heaven, 
 
 Were kindled at thy burning throne. 
 
 God of the world ! the hour must come, 
 
 And nature's self to dust return ; 
 Her crumbling altars must decay ; 
 
 Her incense-fires shall cease to burn ; 
 But still her grand and lovely scenes 
 
 Have made man's warmest praises flow ; 
 For hearts grow holier as they trace 
 
 The beauty of the world below. 
 
 LYDIA MARIA CHILD. 
 
 Lydia Maria Francis, though born in Massachusetts, spent the early portion 
 of her youth in Maine. While on a visit to her brother, the Rev. Convers Fran- 
 cis, of Watertown, in the latter part of 1S23, she was prompted to write her first 
 work by reading, in the " North American Review," an article on Yamoyden, in 
 which the writer (John G. Palfrey, D.D.) eloquently describes the adaptation of 
 early New England history to the purposes of fiction ; and in less than two 
 months her first work, Hobomok, appeared, — a tale founded upon the early history 
 of New England, which was received with very great favor. The next year 
 appeared the Rebels, a tale of the Revolution. In 1828, she was married to 
 David Lee Child, Esq., a lawyer of Boston, and subsequently the editor of the 
 "National Anti-Slavery Standard." In 1827, she commenced the Juvenile Mis- 
 cellany, a monthly magazine for children. It was an admirable work, and sonic 
 of Mrs. Child's best pieces are to be found in it. She next issued the Frugal 
 Housewife, a work on domestic economy, designed for families of limited means, 
 and a most useful book for all. In 1831 appeared The 3fother's Book, full of 
 excellent counsel for training children; and, in 1832, The Girl's Book. Soon 
 after, she prepared the lives of Madame dc Stael, Madame Roland, Madame 
 Guyon, and Lady Russell, for the Ladies' Family Library, which were followed 
 by the Biography of Good Wives, and The History of the Condition of Women 
 in all Ages, in two volumes. 
 
 The year 1833 is an important era in the history of this accomplished lady, as 
 
LYDIA MARIA CHILD. 
 
 479 
 
 in it she took her stand, nobly and ably, upon the side of the great anti-slavery 
 movement, and published An Appeal for that Class of Americans called Africans, 
 a work of great power, and which produced much sensation. 1 In 1835 appeared 
 Philothea, a classical romance of the days of Pericles and Aspasia. This is the 
 most scholarly and elaborate of her productions, and shows an intimate acquaint- 
 ance with the history and the literature of that most brilliant age. 
 
 In 1841, Mr. and Mrs. Child removed from Boston to New York, and became 
 the editors of the "National Anti-Slavery Standard." In the same year she com- 
 menced a series of letters for the "Boston Courier," which were afterwards 
 republished in two volumes, with the title of Letters from New York ; a pleasant 
 series of descriptions of every-day life in that great city, and abounding with 
 philosophical and thoughtful truth. In 1816, Mrs. Child published a collection 
 of her magazine-stories under the title of Fact and Fiction. Her last work, one 
 of the most elaborate she has undertaken, is entitled The Progress of Religions 
 Ideas, embracing a View of every Form of Belief, from the most Ancient Hindoo 
 Records, to the Complete Establishment of the Papcd Church. 2 
 
 MARIUS. 
 
 SUGGESTED BY A PAINTING BY VANDERLYN, OF MARIUS SEATED AMONG THE 
 RUINS OP CARTHAGE. 
 
 Pillars are fallen at thy feet, 
 
 Fanes quiver in the air, 
 A prostrate city is thy seat — 
 
 And thou alone art there. 
 
 No change comes o'er thy noble brow, 
 
 Though ruin is around thee ; 
 Thine eye-beam burns as proudly now, 
 
 As when the laurel crown'd thee. 
 
 It cannot bend thy lofty soul, 
 
 Though friends and fame depart ; 
 The car of fate may o'er thee roll, 
 
 Nor crush thy Roman heart. 
 
 And Genius hath electric power, 
 Which earth can never tame ; 
 
 1 When this work of Mrs. Child's appeared, Dr. Channing, it is said, was so 
 delighted with it that he at once walked from Boston to Roxbury to see the 
 author, though a stranger to him, and to thank her for it. 
 
 2 Of Mrs. Child's Avritings an English reviewer thus speaks : — " Whatever 
 comes to her from without, whether through the eye or the ear, whether in nature 
 or art, is reflected in her writings with a halo of beauty thrown about it by her 
 own fancy; and, thus presented, it appeals to our sympathies and awakens an 
 interest which carves it upon the memory in letters of gold. But she has yet 
 loftier claims to respect than a poetical nature. She is a philosopher, and, better 
 still, a religious philosopher. Every page presents to us scraps of wisdom, not 
 pedantically put forth, as if to attract admiration, but thrown out by the way, in 
 seeming unconsciousness, and as part of her ordinary thoughts." 
 
480 
 
 LYDIA MARIA CHILD. 
 
 Bright suns may scorch, and dark clouds lower — - 
 Its flash is still the same. 
 
 The dreams we loved in early life 
 
 May melt like mist away ; 
 High thoughts may seem, 'mid passion's strife, 
 
 Like Carthage in decay. 
 
 And proud hopes in the human heart 
 
 May be to ruin hurl'd, 
 Like mouldering monuments of art 
 
 Heap'd on a sleeping world. 
 
 Yet there is something will not die, 
 
 Where life hath once been fair; 
 Some towering thoughts still rear on high, 
 
 Some Roman lingers there ! 
 
 A STREET SCENE. 
 
 The other day, as I came down Broome Street, I saw a street- 
 musician playing near the door of a genteel dwelling. The organ 
 was uncommonly sweet and mellow in its tones, the tunes were 
 slow and plaintive, and I fancied that I saw in the woman's 
 Italian face an expression that indicated sufficient refinement to 
 prefer the tender and the melancholy to the lively u trainer tunes" 
 in vogue with the populace. She looked like one who had suf- 
 fered much, and the sorrowful music seemed her own appropriate 
 voice. A little girl clung to her scanty garments, as if afraid of 
 all things but her mother. As I looked at them, a young lady 
 of pleasing countenance opened the window, and began to sing 
 like a bird, in keeping with the street-organ. Two other young 
 girls came and leaned on her shoulder ; and still she sang on. 
 Blessings on her gentle heart ! It was evidently the spontaneous 
 gush of human love and sympathy. The beauty of the incident 
 attracted attention. A group of gentlemen gradually collected 
 round the organist; and ever as the tune ended, they bowed re- 
 spectfully toward the window, waved their hats, and called out, 
 " More, if you please !" One, whom I knew well for the kindest 
 and truest soul, passed round his hat; hearts were kindled, and 
 the silver fell in freely. In a minute, four or five dollars were 
 collected for the poor woman. She spoke no word of gratitude; 
 but she gave such a look ! " Will you go to the next street, and 
 play to a friend of mine ?" said my kind-hearted friend. She 
 answered, in tones expressing the deepest emotion, " No, sir : 
 God bless you all; God bless you all" (making a courtesy to 
 the young lady, who had stepped back, and stood sheltered by the 
 curtain of the window:) "I will play no more to-day; I will go 
 home, now." The tears trickled down her cheeks, and, as she 
 walked away, she ever and anon wiped her eyes with the corner 
 
LYDIA MARIA CHILD. 
 
 481 
 
 of her shawl. The group of gentlemen lingered a moment to look 
 after her ; then, turning toward the now-closed window, they gave 
 three enthusiastic cheers, and departed, better than they came. 
 The pavement on which they stood had been a church to them ; 
 and for the next hour, at least, their hearts were more than usually 
 prepared for deeds of gentleness and mercy. Why are such scenes 
 so uncommon t Why do we thus repress our sympathies, and 
 chill the genial current of nature, by formal observances and 
 restraints ? 
 
 UNSELFISHNESS. 
 
 found the Battery unoccupied, save by children, whom the 
 weather made as merry as birds. Every thing seemed moving to 
 the vernal tune of 
 
 " Oh, Brignall banks are wild and fair, 
 
 And Greta woods are green." — Scott's Rokeby. 
 
 To one who was chasiug her hoop, I said, smiling, " You are a 
 nice little girl." She stopped, looked up in my face, so rosy and 
 happy, and, laying her hand on her brother's shoulder, exclaimed, 
 earnestly, " And he is a nice little boy, too !" It was a simple, 
 childlike act, but it brought a warm gush into my heart. Bless- 
 ings on all unselfishness ! on all that leads us in love to prefer one 
 another! Here lies the secret of universal harmony; this is the 
 diapason which would bring us all into tune. Only by losing 
 ourselves can we find ourselves. How clearly does the divine 
 voice within us proclaim this, by the hymn of joy it sings, when- 
 ever we witness an unselfish deed or hear an unselfish thought. 
 Blessings on that loving little one ! She made the city seem a 
 garden to me. I kissed my hand to her, as I turned off in quest 
 of the Brooklyn ferry. The sparkling waters swarmed with boats, 
 some of which had taken a big ship by the hand, and were lead- 
 ing her out to sea, as the prattle of childhood often guides wisdom 
 into the deepest and broadest thought. 
 
 POLITENESS. 
 
 In politeness, as in many other things connected with the 
 formation of character, people in general begin outside, when 
 they should begin inside j instead of beginning with the heart, 
 and trusting that to form the manners, they begin with the man- 
 ners, and trust the heart to chance influences. The golden rule 
 contains the very life and soul of politeness. Children may be 
 taught to make a graceful courtesy, or a gentlemanly bow ; but 
 unless they have likewise been taught to abhor what is selfish, and 
 always prefer another's comfort and pleasure to their own, their 
 
 41 
 
482 
 
 LYDIA MARIA CHILD. 
 
 politeness will be entirely artificial, and used only when it is their 
 interest to use it. On the other hand, a truly benevolent, kind- 
 hearted person will always be distinguished for what is called 
 native politeness, though entirely ignorant of the conventional 
 forms of society. 
 
 FLOWERS. 
 
 How the universal heart of man blesses flowers ! They are 
 wreathed round the cradle, the marriage-altar, and the tomb. 
 The Persian in the far East delights in their perfume, and writes 
 his love in nosegays ; while the Indian child of the far West 
 clasps his hands with glee, as he gathers the abundant blossoms, 
 — the illuminated scripture of the prairies. The Cupid of the 
 ancient Hindoos tipped his arrows with flowers ; and orange-buds 
 are the bridal crown with us, a nation of yesterday. Flowers gar- 
 landed the Grecian altar, and they hang in votive wreaths before 
 the Christian shrine. 
 
 All these are appropriate uses. Flowers should deck the brow 
 of the youthful bride ; for they are in themselves a lovely type 
 of marriage. They should twine round the tomb ; for their per- 
 petually renewed beauty is a symbol of the resurrection. They 
 should festoon the altar; for their fragrance and their beauty 
 ascend in perpetual worship before the Most High. 
 
 WHERE IS THE ENEMY i 
 
 I have somewhere read of a regiment ordered to march into a 
 small town, and take it. I think it was in the Tyrol ; but, 
 wherever it was. it chanced that the place was settled by a colony 
 who believed the gospel of Christ, and proved their faith by 
 works. A courier from a neighboring village informed them that 
 troops were advancing to take the town. They quietly answered, 
 " If they will take it, they must." Soldiers soon came riding in, 
 with colors flying, and fifes piping their shrill defiance. They 
 looked round for an enemy, and saw the farmer at his plough, the 
 blacksmith at his anvil, and the women at their churns and spin- 
 ning-wheels. Babies crowed to hear the music, and boys ran out 
 to see the pretty trainers, with feathers and bright buttons, — 
 " the harlequins of the nineteenth century." Of course none of 
 these were in a proper position to be shot at. " Where are your 
 soldiers f" they asked. — " We have none," was the brief reply. — 
 "But we have come to take the town." — "Well, friends, it lies 
 before you." — " But is there nobody here to fight ?" — " No : we 
 are all Christians." 
 
 Here was an emergency altogether unprovided for, — a sort of 
 resistance which no bullet could hit, a fortress perfectly bomb- 
 
GEORGE BANCROFT. 
 
 483 
 
 proof. The commander was perplexed. " If there is nobody to 
 fight with, of course we cannot fight," said he : " it is impossible 
 to take such a town as this." So he ordered the horses' heads to 
 be turned about, and they carried the human animals out of the 
 village as guiltless as they entered, and perchance somewhat 
 wiser. 
 
 This experiment, on a small scale, indicates how easy it would 
 be to dispense with armies and navies, if men only had faith in 
 the religion they profess to believe. 
 
 GEORGE BANCROFT. 
 
 This eminent historian was born at Worcester, Massachusetts, in the year 
 1800. His father, the Rev. Aaron Bancroft, was the minister of a Congregational 
 church, in that town, for more than half a century, and bad a high reputation as 
 a theologian of learning and piety. At the early age of thirteen, Mr. Bancroft 
 entered Harvard College, and was graduated in 1817, with the highest honors of 
 his class. His first inclinations were to study theology; but in the following year 
 he went to Germany, and spent two years at Gottingen, in the study of history 
 and philology, and obtained the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. He then 
 visited, in succession, Berlin, Heidelberg, Italy, France, and London, and re- 
 turned home, in 1822, one of the most accomplished scholars for his age our 
 country had produced. He was at once appointed tutor of Greek in Harvard 
 College; and those who had the benefit of his instructions remember well his zeal, 
 and faithfulness, and varied learning as a teacher. Desirous, however, to intro- 
 duce into our country the system of education that obtained at the German gym- 
 nasia, he established, in conjunction with Joseph G. Cogswell, 1 a school of a high 
 classical character at " Round Hill," Northampton, Massachusetts. Here he pi*e- 
 pared many admirable Latin text-books for schools, much in advance of any 
 thing then used in our country. In 1828, he gave to the public a translation of 
 Heeren's Histories of the States of Antiquity. Before this, he had given some 
 attention to politics, and ranked himself with the Whigs; but he now joined the 
 Democratic party, and was in the high-road to political preferment. 
 
 In 1834, Mr. Bancroft published the first volume of The History of the United 
 States, — a work to which he had long devoted his thoughts and researches. The 
 first and two succeeding volumes of the work, comprising the colonial history of 
 the country, were received with great satisfaction by the public, as being in ad- 
 vance of any thing that had been written on the subject in brilliancy of style, 
 picturesque sketches of character and incident, compass of erudition, and gene- 
 rally fair reasoning. 
 
 In 1838, Mr. Bancroft received from President Van Buren the appointment of 
 Collector of the Port of Boston, which situation he retained till 1811. During 
 
 1 The learned librarian of the Astor Library, New York. 
 
484 
 
 GEORGE BANCROFT. 
 
 this time, he was busily engaged upon the third volume of his history, which was 
 published in 1842. In 1844, he was the "Democratic" candidate for Governor 
 of Massachusetts, but was unsuccessful. At the close of that year, Mr. Polk was 
 elected President, who, early the next year, appointed bim Secretary of the Navy. 
 In 1846, he was appointed Minister-Plenipotentiary to Great Britain, and there 
 represented tbe United States until succeeded by Mr. Abbott Lawrence, in 1849. 
 On his return, this year, to his country, he made New York his place of re- 
 sidence, and resumed more actively the prosecution of his historical labors. The 
 fourth volume of his history appeared in 1852, and comprises a period of fifteen 
 years, — from 174S to 1763. The next year the fifth volume was published, com- 
 prising the years 1763, 1764, and 1765. The sixth volume brings us down to 
 1774, — the verge of the Revolution; and the seventh, published in 1858, enters 
 upon the stirring scenes of the Revolution itself. 1 
 
 CHARACTER OF ROGER, WILLIAMS. 
 
 While the state was thus connecting by the closest bonds the 
 energy of its faith with its form of government, there appeared in 
 its midst one of those clear minds which sometimes bless the world 
 by their power of receiving moral truth in its purest light, and of 
 reducing the just conclusions of their principles to a happy and 
 consistent practice. In February of the first year of the colony, 
 but a few months after the arrival of Winthrop, and before either 
 Cotton or Hooker had embarked for New England, there arrived 
 at Nantasket, after a stormy passage of sixty-six days, " a young 
 minister, godly and zealous, having precious" gifts. It was Roger 
 Williams. He was then but a little more than thirty years of age ; 
 but his mind had already matured a doctrine which secures him 
 an immortality of fame, as its application has given religious peace 
 to the American world. He was a Puritan, and a fugitive from 
 English persecution ; but his wrongs had not clouded his accurate 
 understanding; in the capacious recesses of his mind he had re- 
 volved the nature of intolerance, and he, and he alone, had arrived 
 at the great principle which is its sole effectual remedy. He 
 announced his discovery under the simple proposition of the 
 sanctity of conscience. The civil magistrate should restrain 
 crime, but never control opinion ; should punish guilt, but never 
 violate the freedom of the soul. The doctrine contained within 
 
 1 The "London Monthly Review" thus speaks of Mr. Bancroft : — "He possesses 
 the best qualities of an historian. His diligent research, his earnest } r et tolerant 
 spirit, and the sustained accuracy and dignity of his style, have been nobly 
 brought to bear upon one of the grandest subjects that ever engaged the study of 
 the philosopher, the legislator, or the historian." 
 
GEORGE BANCROFT. 
 
 485 
 
 itself an entire reformation of theological jurisprudence; it would 
 blot from the statute-book the felony of non-conformity ; would 
 quench the fires that persecution had so long kept burning; 
 would repeal every law compelling attendance on public worship; 
 would abolish tithes and all forced contributions to the main- 
 tenance of religion j would give an equal protection to every form 
 of religious faith; and never suffer the authority of the civil 
 government to be enlisted against the mosque of the Mussulman 
 or the altar of the fire-worshipper, against the Jewish synagogue 
 or the Roman cathedral. It is wonderful with what distinctness 
 Roger Williams deduced these inferences from his great prin- 
 ciple; the consistency with which, like Pascal and Edwards, — 
 those bold and profound reasoners on other subjects, — he accepted 
 every fair inference from his doctrines ; and the circumspection 
 with which he repelled every unjust imputation. In the unwaver- 
 ing assertion of his views he never changed his position ; the 
 sanctity of conscience was the great tenet which, with all its con- 
 sequences, he defended, as he first trod the shores of New Eng- 
 land ; and in his extreme old age it was the last pulsation of his 
 heart. But it placed the young emigrant in direct opposition to 
 the whole system on which Massachusetts was founded ; and, 
 gentle and forgiving as was his temper, prompt as he was to con- 
 cede every thing which honesty permitted, he always asserted his 
 belief with temperate firmness and unbending benevolence. 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF THE TEA IN BOSTON HARBOR. 1 
 
 The morning of Thursday, the 16th of December, 1773, dawned 
 apon Boston, — a day by far the most momentous in its annals. 
 Beware, little town ; count the cost, and know well if you dare 
 defy the wrath of G-reat Britain, and if you love exile, and 
 poverty, and death, rather than submission. At ten o'clock, the 
 people of Boston, with at least two thousand men from the 
 country, assembled in the Old South. A report was made that 
 
 1 On the 2Sth day of November. 1773, the ship Dartmouth appeared in Boston 
 Harbor, with one hundred and fourteen chests of tea. The ship was owned by Mr. 
 Roteh, a Quaker merchant. In a few days after, two more tea-ships arrived. 
 They were all put under strict guard by the citizens, acting under the lead of a 
 committee of correspondence, of which Samuel Adams was the controlling spirit. 
 The people of the neighboring towns were organized in a similar manner, and 
 sustained the spirit of Boston. The purpose of the citizens was to have the tea 
 sent back without being landed; but the collector and comptroller refused to give 
 the ships a clearance unless the teas were landed, and Governor Hutchinson also 
 relived his permit, without which they could not pass the "Castle," as the fort at 
 the entrancj of Boston Harbor was called. The ships were also liable to seizure 
 if the teas wore not landed on the twentieth day after their arrival, and the 16th 
 day of December was the eighteenth day after. 
 
 41* 
 
486 
 
 GEORGE BANCROFT. 
 
 Rotch had been refused a clearance from the collector. " Then," 
 said they to him, "protest immediately against the custom-house, 
 and apply to the governor for his pass, so that your vessel may 
 this very day proceed on her voyage to London." 
 
 The governor had stolen away to his country-house at Milton. 
 Bidding Rotch make all haste, the meeting adjourned to three in 
 the afternoon. At that hour Rotch had not returned. It was 
 incidentally voted, as other towns had done, to abstain wholly 
 from the use of tea ; and every town was advised to appoint its 
 committee of inspection, to prevent the detested tea from coming 
 within any of them. Then, since the governor might refuse his 
 pass, the momentous question recurred, whether it be the sense 
 and determination of this body to abide by their former resolu- 
 tions with respect to not suffering the tea to be landed. On this 
 question, Samuel Adams and Young 1 addressed the meeting, 
 which was become far the most numerous ever held in Boston, 
 embracing seven thousand men. There was among them a patriot 
 of fervent feeling; passionately devoted to the liberty of his 
 country ; still y oung, his eye bright, his cheek glowing with 
 hectic fever. He knew that his strength was ebbing. The work 
 of vindicating American freedom must be done soon, or he will be 
 no party to the great achievement. He rises, but it is to restrain ; 
 and, being truly brave and truly resolved, he speaks the language 
 of moderation. " Shouts and hosannas will not terminate the 
 trials of this day, nor popular resolves, harangues, and acclama- 
 tions vanquish our foes. We must be grossly ignorant of the 
 value of the prize for which we contend, of the power combined 
 against us, of the inveterate malice and insatiable revenge which 
 actuate our enemies, public and private, abroad and in our bosom, 
 if we hope that we shall end this controversy without the sharpest 
 conflicts. Let us consider the issue before we advance to those 
 measures which must bring on the most trying and terrible 
 struggle this country ever saw." Thus spoke the younger 
 Quincy. " Now that the hand is to the plough," said others, 
 " there must be no looking back and the whole assembly of 
 seven thousand voted unanimously that the tea should not be 
 landed. 
 
 It had been dark for more than an hour. The church in which 
 they met was dimly lighted j when, at a quarter before six, Rotch 
 appeared, and satisfied the people by relating that the governor 
 had refused him a pass, because his ship was not properly cleared. 
 As soon as he had finished his report, Samuel Adams rose and 
 gave the word, — " This meeting can do nothing more to save the 
 
 1 Dr. Thomas Young, a physician, and afterwards an army-surgeon, was a 
 zealous patriot, and a ieading speaker and writer of the time. 
 
GEORGE BANCROFT. 
 
 487 
 
 country." On the instant, a shout was heard at the porch ; the 
 war-whoop resounded ; a body of men, forty or fifty in number, 
 disguised as Indians, passed by the door, and, encouraged by 
 Samuel Adams, Hancock, and others, repaired to Griffin's Wharf, 
 posted guards to prevent the intrusion of spies, took possession of 
 the three tea-ships, and in about three hours, three hundred and 
 forty chests of tea — being the whole quantity that had been im- 
 ported — were emptied into the bay, without the least injury to 
 other property. " All things were conducted with great order, 
 decency, and perfect submission to government/' The people 
 around, as they looked on, were so still that the noise of breaking 
 open the tea-chests was distinctly heard. A delay of a few hours 
 would have placed the tea under the protection of the admiral at 
 the Castle. After the work was done, the town became as still 
 and calm as if it had been holy time. The men from the country 
 that very night carried back the great news to their villages. 
 
 CHIVALRY AND PURITANISM. 
 
 Historians have loved to eulogize the manners and virtues, the 
 glory and the benefits, of chivalry. Puritanism accomplished for 
 mankind far more. If it had the sectarian crime of intolerance, 
 chivalry had the vices of dissoluteness. The knights were brave 
 from gallantry of spirit ; the Puritans, from the fear of God. The 
 knights were proud of loyalty; the Puritans, of liberty. The 
 knights did homage to monarchs, in whose smile they beheld 
 honor, whose rebuke was the wound of disgrace ; the Puritans, 
 disdaining ceremony, would not bow at the name of Jesus, nor 
 bend the knee to the King of kings. Chivalry delighted in out- 
 ward show, favored pleasure, multiplied amusement, and degraded 
 the human race by an exclusive respect for the privileged classes; 
 Puritanism bridled the passions, commanded the virtues of self- 
 denial, and rescued the name of man from dishonor. The former 
 valued courtesy; the latter, justice. The former adorned society 
 by graceful refinements ; the latter founded national grandeur on 
 universal education. The institutions of chivalry were subverted 
 by the gradually increasing weight, and knowledge, and opulence 
 of the industrious classes; the Puritans, rallying upon those 
 classes, planted in their hearts the undying principles of demo- 
 cratic liberty. 
 
 THE POSITION OF THE PURITANS. 
 
 To the colonists the maintenance of their religious unity 
 seemed essential to their cordial resistance to English attempts 
 at oppression. And why, said they, should we not insist upon 
 
488 
 
 JAMES G. BROOKS. 
 
 this union ? We have come to the outside of the world for the 
 privilege of living by ourselves : why should we open our asylum 
 to those in whom we can repose no confidence ? The world can- 
 not call this persecution. We have been banished to the wilder- 
 ness : is it an injustice to exclude our oppressors, and those whom 
 we dread as their allies, from the place which is to shelter us from 
 their intolerance ? Is it a great cruelty to expel from our abode 
 the enemies of our peace, or even the doubtful friend ? Will any 
 man complain at being driven from among banished men, with 
 whom he has no fellowship ? of being refused admittance to a 
 gloomy place of exile ? The wide continent of America invited 
 colonization ; they claimed their own narrow domains for " the 
 brethren." Their religion was their life : they welcomed none 
 but its adherents j they could not tolerate the scoffer, the infidel, 
 or the dissenter; and the presence of the whole people was re- 
 quired in their congregation. Such was the system inflexibly 
 established and regarded as the only adequate guarantee of the 
 rising liberties of 5lassachusetts. 
 
 JAMES G. BROOKS, 1801—1841. 
 
 James Gordon Brooks, the son of an officer in the Revolutionary army, was 
 born at Red Hook, near New York, on the 3d of September, 1801. He was graduated 
 at Union College, Schenectady, in 1819, and studied law, though he never entered 
 upon its practice. In 1823, he removed to New York, and was for several years 
 editor of the "Morning Courier," — an able and influential paper. In 1828, he 
 was married to Miss Mary Elizabeth Aiken, of Poughkeepsie, who had for many 
 years been a writer of verse for periodicals, under the signature of "Norma;" 
 and the next year a collection of his and his wife's poetry was published, entitled 
 The Rivals of Esfe, and other Poems, b>/ James G. and Mary E. Brooks. In 1831, 
 he went to Winchester, Virginia, where he edited a newspaper for a few years. 
 In 1838, he removed to Rochester, and then to Albany, New York, where he died 
 in 1841. 
 
 Mr. Brooks was quite popular as a poet in his day, and he deserves to bo 
 remembered as the author of the following spirited ode on 
 
 GREECE, 1832. 
 
 Land of the brave! where lie inurn'd 
 
 The shrouded forms of mortal clay, 
 In whom the fire of valor burn'd, 
 
 And blazed upon the battle's fray : 
 Land, where the gallant Spartan few 
 
 Bled at Thermopylas of yore, 
 
JAMES G. BROOKS. 
 
 When death his purple garment threw 
 On Helle's consecrated shore ! 
 
 Land of the Muse ! within thy bowers 
 
 Her soul-entrancing echoes rung, 
 While on their course the rapid hours 
 
 Paused at the melody she sung — 
 Till every grove and every hill, 
 
 And every stream that flow'd along, 
 From morn to night repeated still 
 
 The winning harmony of song. 
 
 Land of dead heroes ! living slaves 
 
 Shall glory gild thy clime no more ? 
 Her banner float above thy waves 
 
 "Where proudly it hath swept before ? 
 Hath not remembrance, then a charm 
 
 To break the fetters and the chain, 
 To bid thy children nerve the arm, 
 
 And strike for freedom once again ? 
 
 No ! coward souls, the light which shone 
 
 On Leuctra's war-empurpled day, 
 The light which beam'd on Marathon 
 
 Hath lost its splendor, ceased to play ; 
 And thou art but a shadow now, 
 
 "With helmet shatter'd — spear in rust — 
 Thy honor but a dream — and thou 
 
 Despised — degraded in the dust ! 
 
 "Where sleeps the spirit that of old 
 
 Dash'd down to earth the Persian plume, 
 "When the loud chant of triumph told 
 
 How fatal was the despot's doom? — 
 The bold three hundred — where are they, 
 
 Who died on battle's gory breast ? 
 Tyrants have trampled on the clay 
 
 Where death hath hush'd them into rest. 
 
 Yet, Ida, yet upon thy hill 
 
 A glory shines of ages fled ; 
 And Fame her light is pouring still, 
 
 Not on the living, but the dead ! 
 But 'tis the dim, sepulchral light, 
 
 Which sheds a faint and feeble ray, 
 As moonbeams on the brow of night, 
 
 When tempests sweep upon their way. 
 
 Greece ! yet awake thee from thy trance, 
 
 Behold, thy banner waves afar ; 
 Behold, the glittering weapons glance 
 
 Along the gleaming front of war ! 
 A gallant chief, of high emprize, 
 
 Is urging foremost in the field, 
 Who calls upon thee to arise 
 
 In might — in majesty reveal'd. 
 
 In vain, in vain the hero calls — 
 In vain he sounds the trumpet loud ! 
 
490 
 
 MARY E. BROOKS. 
 
 His banner totters — see ! it falls 
 In ruin, Freedom's battle-shroud : 
 
 Thy children have no soul to dare 
 Such deeds as glorified their sires ; 
 
 Their valor's but a meteor's glare, 
 
 Which gleams a moment, and expires. 
 
 Lost land ! where Genius made his reign, 
 
 And rear'd his golden arch on high ; 
 Where Science raised her sacred fane, 
 
 Its summits peering to the sky ; 
 Upon thy clime the midnight deep 
 
 Of ignorance hath brooded long, 
 And in the tomb, forgotten, sleep 
 
 The sons of science and of song. 
 
 Thy sun hath set — the evening storm 
 
 Hath pass'd in giant fury by, 
 To blast the beauty of thy form, 
 
 And spread its pall upon the sky ! 
 Gone is thy glory's diadem, 
 
 And freedom never more shall cease 
 To pour her mournful requiem 
 
 O'er blighted, lost, degraded Greece ! 
 
 MARY E. BROOKS. 
 
 Mrs. Mary E. Brooks, the wife of James G. Brooks, was born in New York, 
 in which city she has resided since the death of her husband. Besides her pro- 
 ductions in the volume mentioned in the notice of her husband, she has contributed 
 some beautiful poetry to a number of periodicals, from which we select the follow- 
 ing little gem : — 
 
 WEEP NOT FOR THE DEAD. 
 
 Oh, weep not for the dead ! 
 Rather, oh, rather give the tear 
 To those who darkly linger here, 
 
 When all besides are fled ! 
 Weep for the spirit withering, 
 In its cold, cheerless sorrowing ; 
 Weep for the young and lovely one 
 That ruin darkly revels on, 
 
 But never be a tear-drop shed 
 
 For them, the pure enfranchised dead. 
 
 Oh, weep not for the dead ! 
 No more for them the blighting chill, 
 The thousand shades of earthly ill, 
 
 The thousand thorns we tread ; 
 
MARK HOPKINS. 
 
 491 
 
 Weep for the life-charm early flown, 
 The spirit broken, bleeding, lone ; 
 Weep for the death-pangs of the heart, 
 Ere being from the bosom part ; 
 But never be a tear-drop given 
 
 To those that rest in yon blue heaven. 
 
 MARK HOPKINS. 
 
 Rev. Mark Hopkins, D.D., son of Archibald Hopkins, of Stockbridge, Massa- 
 chusetts, was born on the 4th of February, 1802, and graduated at Williams 
 College in 1821, with the highest honors of his class. He entered at once upon 
 the study of medicine, but the next year was appointed tutor in Williams College, 
 and filled the office for two years, devoting his leisure time to the profession he 
 had chosen. In 1829, the degree of M.D. was conferred upon him by the Pitts- 
 field Medical College, and he went to New York to settle as a physician. The next 
 year, however, he was elected to the Professorship of Rhetoric and Moral Philo- 
 sophy in Williams College, and entered upon the discharge of its duties. In 
 May, 1833, he was licensed to preach. In 1836, Dr. Griffin having resigned the 
 Presidency of Williams College, Dr. Hopkins was elected his successor. He has 
 continued to fill that important post ever since, and with an efficiency and ability 
 that have made him second to no one who ever presided over a New-England 
 college. His peculiar tact in imparting instruction, — his powerful influence over 
 young men, exciting both their reverence and their love, — his dignified yet affable 
 manners, his kind and sympathizing heart, make him peculiarly fitted for the 
 position he occupies. And when to these characteristics is added an intellect of 
 great strength, as well as great breadth of view, combined with a rare fertility 
 of illustration, we can readily conceive what an influence he must exert in giving 
 "form and pressure" to hundreds of minds that are, in their turn, to take a lead- 
 ing part in moulding and directing public opinion. 
 
 Dr. Hopkins's published works are, — Lectures on the' Evidences of Christianity, 
 delivered before the Lowell Institute in 1844; a volume of Miscellaneous Essays 
 and Discourses, in 1847; and a large number of orations, sermons, and addresses, 
 delivered on various occasions. Of the latter, the "Baccalaureates," delivered 
 every year at commencement, to the senior class, deserve especial commendation 
 for their wise counsel, their winning eloquence, and their glowing exhortations to 
 young men to pursue through life " whatsoever things are true, just, pure, lovely, 
 and of good report." 
 
 CHRISTIANITY NOT ORIGINATED BY MAN. 
 
 I would here observe, that the question concerning the origin 
 of Christianity cannot be disposed of by a general reference to the 
 
492 
 
 MARK HOPKINS. 
 
 facility with which mankind are deluded, and the frequency of 
 impostures in the world. To put aside the question of its origin 
 by telling us that mankind are easily deceived, is much the same 
 as it would be to put aside the question about the origin of the 
 Gulf Stream by telling us that water is an element very easily 
 moved in different directions. Certainly, water is a fluctuating 
 and unstable element ; but to say this, is not to account for a broad 
 current in mid-ocean that has been uniform since time began • nor 
 is it any account of a uniform current of thought and feeling, set- 
 ting in one direction for eighteen hundred years, to say that the 
 human mind is fluctuating and unstable ; that man has been often 
 deceived; and that there have been great extravagances in belief. 
 The origin of such a movement is to be investigated, and not to 
 be shrouded in mist. The New Testament gives a full and satis- 
 factory account of it ; and it behooves those who do not receive that 
 account, to substitute some other that shall, at least, be plausible. 
 This they have failed to do. Perhaps no one was more competent 
 to do this, or has been more successful, than Gibbon ; and yet the 
 five causes which he assigns for the spread of Christianity — 
 namely, " the zeal of Christians/' " their doctrine of a future life," 
 " the miraculous powers ascribed to the primitive church," " their 
 pure and austere morals," and " their union" — are obviously 
 effects of that very religion of which they are assigned as the cause. 
 
 To me, when I look at this religion, taking its point of de- 
 parture from the earliest period in the history of the race ; when 
 I see it analogous to nature j when I see it comprising all that 
 natural religion teaches, and introducing a new system in entire 
 harmony with it, but which could not have been deduced from it; 
 when I see it commending itself to the conscience of man, con- 
 taining a perfect code of morals, meeting all his moral wants, and 
 embosoming the only true principles of economical and political 
 science j when I see in it the best possible system of excitement 
 and restraint for all the faculties ; when I see how simple it is in 
 its principle, and yet in how many thousand ways it mingles in 
 with human affairs and modifies them for good, so that it is 
 adapted to become universal ; when I see it giving an account of 
 the termination of all things, worthy of God and consistent with 
 reason ; — to me, when I look at all these things, it no more seems 
 possible that the system of Christianity should have been ori- 
 ginated or sustained by man, than it does that the ocean should 
 have been made by him. • Lowell Lectures. 
 
 FAITH. THE RACE FOR THE YOUNG. 
 
 And now, my beloved friends, in bringing to a close my rela- 
 tions to you as an instructor, what can I wish better for you per- 
 
MARK HOPKINS. 
 
 493 
 
 sonally, or for the world in your relations to it, than that you 
 should take for your actuating and sustaining principle, faith in 
 God ? Without this, you will lack the highest element of happi- 
 ness, and the only adequate ground of support ; life will be with- 
 out dignity, and death without hope. Only by faith can you run 
 that race which is set before you, as before those of old. In this 
 world your courses may be different : you will choose different 
 professions, and diverge widely in your lines of life. To some of 
 you, the race here may be brief. One whom I addressed the last 
 year, as I do you to-day, now sleeps in death. But whatever this 
 may be, and whether longer or shorter, before you all there is set 
 the same race under the moral government of God j to you all is 
 held out the same prize. Why should you not run this race ? 
 Never was there a time in the history of the world when moral 
 heroes were more needed. The world waits for such. The pro- 
 vidence of God has commanded science to labor and prepare the 
 way for such. For them she is laying her iron tracks, and stretch- 
 ing her wires, and bridging the oceans. But where are they ? 
 Who shall breathe into our civil and political relations the breath 
 of a higher life ? Who shall couch the eyes of a paganized 
 science, and of a pantheistic philosophy, that they may see God ? 
 Who shall consecrate to the glory of God the triumphs of science ? 
 Who shall bear the life-boat to the stranded and perishing nations ? 
 Who should do these things, if not you ? — not in your relations 
 to time only, but to eternity and to the universe of God. 
 
 And, as seen in the light of faith, what a race ! what an arena ! 
 what a prize ! 
 
 Gird yourselves, then, for this race \ run it with patience, 
 " looking unto Jesus." The world may not notice or know you, 
 for it knew him not. It may persecute you, for it persecuted 
 him ; but in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength. He will 
 be with you ) he will sustain you j — the great cloud of witnesses will 
 encompass you j they will wait to hail you with acclamation as 
 you shall reach the goal and receive the prize. That goal may 
 you all reach ! — that prize may you all receive ! 
 
 Close of the Baccalaureate for 1850. 
 
 TRUE WORSHIP. 
 
 Would you, then, it may be asked, exclude the imagination and 
 the class of emotions excited by the fine arts from divine worship? 
 I answer, No. But I would have them called forth by the attri- 
 butes, and by the present or the remembered works, of God, 
 rather than by the works of man. If I cannot worship in the 
 broad temple of God's works ; if I cannot, like the Saviour, pray 
 upon a mountain, where, it may be, the starry heavens are above 
 
 42 
 
494 
 
 MARK HOPKINS. 
 
 me and the breathing stillness of nature is around me, or where, 
 it may be, the voice of the tempest is in the top of the great oak. 
 by which I kneel, and its roar is among the hills, while the light- 
 ning writes the name of God on the sky, and the thunder speaks 
 of his majesty; if I cannot stand by the sea-shore and hear the 
 bass of nature's great anthem, yet let no poor work of man come 
 between me and the remembered emotions which such scenes 
 excite in the hour of my worship before the great and holy God, 
 whose hand made all these things. " Where is the house that ye 
 build for me V says God, " and where is the place of my rest V 
 " Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool." Far 
 rather would I find in the simplicity of the place of worship a con- 
 fession of its inadequacy to lead the mind up to God, than to find 
 any beauty of architecture, or any gorgeousness of decoration that 
 would lead me to admire the work of man, and draw the mind 
 from God. 
 
 Here, however, God has left man at liberty ; and much is to be 
 allowed. for the influence of education, and constitutional pecu- 
 liarity, and early associations and impressions. I have no sym- 
 pathy with that state of mind which would prevent worship in a 
 cathedral. God is there. But I would have it forgotten that it 
 is a cathedral, and remembered that God is there. I would so 
 magnify God, and bring his spiritual presence so near, that those 
 things should be indifferent, and that in the cathedral, as well as 
 in the plain church or under the open heaven, men should 
 equally worship God in spirit and in truth. There is, however, 
 great danger that the excitement of what is poetical and imagina- 
 tive in man by architecture and music, 1 considered simply as 
 music, and painting, and statuary, should be substituted and mis- 
 taken for the pure and holy worship of God. 
 
 On this point the simplicity of Puritanism has been regarded 
 as austere. But so has the true worship of God always been re- 
 garded by the many. While, therefore, we find in our Bibles, 
 and in the works of God, the motives and the media of worship, 
 while we are willing and desirous that the fine arts should have 
 their appropriate temples and be cultivated as they ought to be 
 among a refined people, we yet remember that even under the 
 old dispensation, the acceptable worship went up from an altar 
 of unhewn stone; and we think it best accords with the spirit of 
 the New Testament, and is shown by history to be safest, and is 
 most conducive to the worship of God in spirit and in truth, that 
 a chaste simplicity should characterize all the structures and all 
 
 1 "On no account would I say any thing to discourage tbo universal and high 
 cultivation of sacred music. This differs from the other tine arts, because i'.s 
 appropriate office is not impression, but expression. Where it is regarded and 
 admired for its own sake, it obstructs instead of promoting the Avorship of God." 
 
MARK HOPKINS. 
 
 495 
 
 the forms of our religion. We think that the appropriate object 
 of religious services is to cultivate the moral and religious nature, 
 and that there should be no attempt to produce an effect upon the 
 mind by forms, or to blend the emotions appropriate to the fine 
 arts with those higher emotions that belong to the worship of 
 God. 
 
 Perhaps our Puritan ancestors carried their feelings on these 
 points too far ; but we think it can be shown, from the nature of 
 things and from the developments of the times, that they were 
 substantially right; — and we abide in their faith. I would rather 
 have joined in one prayer with the simple pastor and his perse- 
 cuted flock among the glens and fastnesses of the rocks in the 
 highlands of Scotland; I would rather have heard one song of 
 praise rise and float upon those free breezes in the day when the 
 watch was set, and the bloody trooper was abroad, set on by those 
 who worshipped in cathedrals ; I would rather have kneeled upon 
 the beach with the company of the Mayflower when persecution 
 was driving them into the wilderness, than to have listened to all 
 the rituals and Te Deums in every cathedral in Europe. 
 
 ATTRACTIVENESS OF IRREGULAR ACTION. 
 
 If it be inquired how the impression of intellectual power has 
 come to be associated with skepticism and wickedness, an answer 
 may be found, first, in the fields of literature and speculation com- 
 monly entered by the skeptical and licentious. These are those of 
 imagination, wit, ridicule, and transcendental metaphysics. Their 
 object, the last excepted, is not truth, but impression ; and this 
 last is as yet so overrun with strange terms — is so the common 
 ground of truth, falsehood, and nonsense, each aping the pro- 
 found — that it is difficult to say whether it is better as a hunting- 
 ground for truth, or a stalking-ground for vanity, or a hiding-place 
 for falsehood. That there is power in this literature, is not denied; 
 but the power of imagination, wit, assumption, and even of bathos, 
 is not distinguished from that of fair and searching investigation. 
 
 A second answer we find in the effect upon the mind of all irre- 
 gular action, especially when combined with daring or fool-hardi- 
 ness. The utmost power of a horse, exerted in the true line of 
 draught, will excite no attention. Half the power put forth in 
 rearing and plunging will draw a crowd about him. A cheap 
 method of notoriety, the world over, is this rearing and plunging. 
 Sam. Patch, 1 leaping over Genesee Falls, could gather a greater 
 crowd than Daniel Webster. The great powers of nature — those 
 by which she wheels up her sun, and navigates her planets, and 
 
 1 See page 468. 
 
496 
 
 ALBERT G. GREENE. 
 
 lifts vegetation, and circulates her waters, by which she holds her- 
 self in her unity and manifests her diversity — are regular, quiet, 
 within the traces of law, and excite no attention. Here and there 
 the quiet eye of a philosopher expands in permanent wonder ; but 
 from the very fact — the greatest wonder of all — that these forces 
 are so clothed in order and tempered with gentleness, they are to 
 the multitude nothing. Not so with volcanoes and earthquakes, 
 with hurricanes and thunder-storms, with water-spouts and cata- 
 racts. These are irregular manifestations of the great forces that 
 lie back of them. Compared with those forces, they are only as 
 the eddy to the river; only as the opening of the side-valve and 
 the hiss of the steam compared with the force of the engine that 
 is bearing on the long train ; and yet these are the wonders of the 
 world. So with the mind. When it respects order and law, when 
 it seeks the ends and moves in the channels appointed by God, its 
 mightiest and most beneficent movements excite comparatively 
 little attention. But combine now irregularity with audacity ; 
 open a side-valve ; assail the foundations of belief ; make it im- 
 possible 'for God to work a miracle, or to prove it if he should; 
 turn history into a myth ; show your consciousness of power by 
 setting yourself against the race ; flatter the nineteenth century; 
 dethrone God ; — if you make the universe God, yourself being a 
 part of it, so much the better, — do thus, and there will not be 
 wanting those who will despise the plodders, and hail you as 
 " the comino- man." Baccalaureate Address, 1858. 
 
 ALBERT G. GREENE 
 
 Was born in Providence, Rhode Island, February 10, 1802, and was graduated at 
 Brown University in 1820. He studied law, was admitted to the bar, and, after 
 some years of practice, was elected Clerk of the Municipal Court of the city of 
 Providence, and Clerk of the Common Council, which offices he now holds. He 
 has written many beautiful fugitive pieces of poetry, but deserves especial remem- 
 brance for his humorous elegy on 
 
 OLD GRIMES. 1 
 
 Old Grimes is dead — that good old man — 
 
 AVe ne'er shall see him more : — 
 He used to wear a long, black coat 
 
 All button'd down before. 
 
 1 This is not so much an imitation as it is a successful rival of Goldsmith's 
 " Elegy on the Glory of her Sex: Mrs. Mary Blaize :" and, as our literature baa, 
 comparatively, but little humorous poetry, I am glad to enliven my book with 
 what I can find of it that is good. 
 
ALBERT G. GREENE. 
 
 His heart was open as the day, 
 His feelings all were true ; — 
 
 His hair was some inclined to gray, 
 He wore it in a queue. 
 
 "Whene'er he heard the voice of pain, 
 His breast with pity burn'd ; — 
 
 The large, round head upon his cane 
 From ivory was turn'd. 
 
 Kind words he ever had for all; 
 
 He knew no base design : — 
 His eyes were dark and rather small, 
 
 His nose was aquiline. 
 
 He lived at peace with all mankind, 
 In friendship he was true : — 
 
 His coat had pocket-holes behind, 
 His pantaloons were blue. 
 
 Unharm'd, the sin which earth pollutes 
 
 He pass'd securely o'er, — 
 And never wore a pair of boots 
 
 For thirty years or more. 
 
 But good old Grimes is now at rest, 
 Nor fears misfortune's frown: — 
 
 He wore a double-breasted vest, 
 The stripes ran up and down. 
 
 He modest merit sought to find, 
 
 And pay it its desert: — 
 He had no malice in his mind, 
 
 No ruffles on his shirt. 
 
 His neighbors he did not abuse, 
 
 Was sociable and gay : — 
 He wore large buckles on his shoes, 
 
 And changed them every day. 
 
 His knowledge, hid from public gaze, 
 He did not bring to view, — 
 
 Nor make a noise, town-meeting days, 
 As many people do. 
 
 His worldly goods he never threw 
 In trust to fortune's chances, — 
 
 But lived (as all his brothers do) 
 In easy circumstances. 
 
 Thus undisturb'd by anxious cares, 
 His peaceful moments ran ; — 
 
 And everybody said he was 
 A fine old gentleman. 
 
 42* 
 
498 
 
 LEONARD BACON. 
 
 LEONARD BACON. 
 
 Rev. Leonard Bacon, D.D., 1 was born in Detroit, Michigan, on the 19th of 
 February, 1802. His father was for several years a missionary among the In- 
 dians, to whom he was sent by the Missionary Society of Connecticut. He 
 died in 1817, leaving three sons and four daughters. At the age of ten, Dr. 
 Bacon was sent to Hartford, to prepare for college, and, in the fall of 1817, 
 entered the sophomore class in Yale College, where he so distinguished himself as 
 a scholar and writer that a high position was predicted for him in the profession 
 he had chosen, — that of the ministry. In the autumn of 1820, he entered the 
 theological seminary at Andover, Massachusetts, where he prosecuted his studies 
 for four years. Soon after leaving Andover, he was invited by the First Congre- 
 gational Church of New Haven, whose building is known by the name of the 
 " Centre Church," to preach to them. Over this church he was ordained pastor 
 in March, 1S25, when he was but twenty-three years of age; and at this im- 
 portant post he has remained ever since. 
 
 Though Dr. Bacon's life has been a quiet one, and barren of incident, he has 
 filled a large space in the eye of the Christian public, especially of the Congrega- 
 tional Church in New England; and the high estimation in which he is there 
 held is evident from the frequency with which he is invited to deliver addresses 
 before literary societies or sermons at ordinations. He embodies, in a remarkable 
 degree, the distinctive features of New-England character and theology, having 
 the reliance, energy, and adaptation peculiar to its people. He gives his time 
 and energies to the discussion of a great variety of topics, and seldom assumes a 
 position without triumphantly maintaining it. To great firmness and compact- 
 ness of mental structure he adds high polish and purity of style; and occasionally, 
 where the subject demands it, he calls to his aid a playful ridicule and keen sar- 
 casm that set forth the object of them in its true light. It is astonishing how, with 
 such laborious pastoral duties, he accomplishes so much in the field of literature. 2 
 
 1 For a more extended account of this distinguished clergyman, read "Fowler's 
 American Pulpit." 
 
 2 The following are his chief published works : — Select Practical Writings of 
 Richard Baxter, with a Life of the Author, 2 vols. 8vo, New Haven, 1831 ; Manual 
 forYoung Church Members, 18mo, New Haven, 1833; (this is an exposition of the 
 principles of Congregational Church order;) Thirteen Historical Discourses on the 
 Completion of Two Hundred Years from the Beginning of the First Church in New 
 Haven, 8vo, New Haven, 1839. Besides these volumes, about twenty-five of his 
 sermons and addresses have been published, delivered on various public occa- 
 sions, such as ordinations, meetings of temperance societies, literary societies, 
 &c. ; among which are the Phi Beta Kappa at Yale and at Harvard. His first 
 contribution to the " Christian Spectator," on " The Peculiar Characteristics of 
 'he Benevolent Spirit of our Age," was in March, 1822, when he was a student at 
 Andover ; and during every year down to 1838, there was scarcely a number of that 
 celebrated magazine that was not enriched by his pen. To the " New Englander," 
 also, since its commencement in 1843, he has been a constant contributor, and all 
 his papers are marked with an ability, earnestness, and directness that make 
 them among the most readable articles of that able review. He is now one of the 
 editors of the New York " Independent," — one of the most ably conducted reli- 
 gious journals in our country. 
 
LEONARD BACON. 
 
 499 
 
 john Davenport's 1 influence upon new haven. 
 
 If we of this city 2 enjoy, in this respect, any peculiar privileges, 
 — if it is a privilege that any poor man here, with ordinary health 
 in his family, and the ordinary blessing of God upon his industry, 
 may give to his son, without sending him away from home, the 
 best education which the country affords, — if it is a privilege to 
 us to live in a city in which learning, sound and thorough educa- 
 tion, is, equally with commerce and the mechanic arts, a great 
 public interest, — if it is a privilege to us to record among our 
 fellow-citizens some of the brightest names in the learning and 
 science, not of our country only, but of the age, and to be con- 
 versant with such men, and subject to their constant influence in 
 the various relations of society, — if it is a privilege that our 
 young mechanics, in their associations, can receive instruction in 
 popular lectures from the most accomplished teachers, 3 — if, in a 
 word, there is any privilege in having our home at one of the 
 fountains of light for this vast confederacy, — the privilege may be 
 traced to the influence of John Davenport, to the peculiar charac- 
 ter which he, more than any other man, gave to this community 
 in its very beginning. Every one of us is daily enjoying the effects 
 of his wisdom and public spirit. Thus he is to-day our bene- 
 factor; and thus he is to be the benefactor of our posterity 
 through ages to come. How aptly might that beautiful apos- 
 trophe of one of our poets have been addressed to him : — 
 
 " The good begun by thee shall onward flow 
 In many a branching stream, and wider grow ; 
 The seed that in these few and fleeting hours, 
 Thy hands, unsparing and unwearied, sow, 
 Shall deck thy grave with amaranthine flowers, 
 And yield thee fruit divine in heaven's immortal bowers." 
 
 1 This holy and fearless man was not afraid of "preaching politics," nor of 
 counselling his people to give succor to the fugitive from tyranny and oppression. 
 Among those who signed the death-warrant of Charles I., who was found guilty 
 of treason against his people, were Edward Whalley and William Goffe. On the 
 Restoration they fled to this country, and came first to Boston and then to New 
 Haven. On the Sunday after they arrived at the latter place, Mr. Davenport, 
 knowing that they would be pursued by the king's officers, boldly went into the 
 pulpit, and instructed his people in their duties in the matter, from the following 
 text, — a text which was of itself a sermon for the occasion : — " Take counsel, 
 execute judgment ; make thy shadow as the night in the midst of the noonday; 
 hide the outcasts; bewray not him that wandereth : let mine outcasts dwell with 
 tbee, Moab ; be thou a covert to them from the face of the spoiler." Isa. xvi. 3, 4. 
 
 2 New Haven. 
 
 3 This al'udes to the munificence of James Brewster, Esq., of New Haven, 
 whose heart to do good equals his means of doing it, — a rare union in men of 
 wealth, — and who founded with his own means an institute for popular instruction, 
 for the intellectual and moral improvement of the mechanics of the place. 
 
500 
 
 LEONARD BACON. 
 
 THE PRESENT AGE. 
 
 The present age is eminently an age of progress, and therefore 
 of excitement and change. It is an age in which the great art of 
 printing is beginning to manifest its energy in the diffusion of 
 knowledge and the excitement of bold inquiry ; and therefore it 
 is an age when all opinions walk abroad in quest of proselytes. It 
 is an age of liberty, and therefore of the perils incidental to liberty. 
 It is an age of peace and enterprise, and therefore of prosperity, 
 and of all the perils incidental to prosperity. It is an age of great 
 plans and high endeavors for the promotion of human happiness ; 
 and therefore it is an age in which daring but ill-balanced minds 
 are moved to attempt impracticable things, or to aim at practicable 
 ends by impracticable measures. And so long as we have liberty, 
 civil, intellectual, and religious j so long as we have enterprise and 
 prosperity j so long as the public heart is warm with solicitude for 
 human happiness ; so long we must make up our minds to encoun- 
 ter something of error and extravagance ; and our duty is not to 
 complain or despair, but to be thankful that we live in times so 
 auspicious, and to do what we can, in patience and love, to guide 
 the erring and check the extravagant. 
 
 When the car rushes with swift motion, he who looks only 
 downward upon the track, to catch if he can some glimpses of the 
 glowing wheel, or to watch the rocks by the wayside, that seem 
 whirling from their places, soon grows sick and faint. Look 
 up, man ! Look abroad ! The earth is not dissolved, nor yet 
 dissolving. Look on the tranquil heavens and the blue moun- 
 tains. Look on all that fills the range of vision, — the bright, 
 glad river, the smooth meadow, the village spire with the cluster- 
 ing homes around it, and yonder lonely, quiet farmhouse far up 
 among the hills. You are safe ; all is safe ; and the power that 
 carries you is neither earthquake nor tempest, but a power than 
 which the gentlest palfrey that ever bore a timid maiden is not 
 more obedient to the will that guides it. 
 
 What age, since the country was planted, has been more favor- 
 able to happiness or to virtue than the present ? Would you 
 rather have lived in the age of the Kevolution ? If in this age 
 you are frightened, in that age you would have died with terror. 
 Would you rather have lived in the age of the old French wars, 
 when religious enthusiasm and religious contention ran so high 
 that ruin seemed impending ? How would your sensibilities have 
 been tortured in such an age ! Would you rather have lived in 
 those earlier times, when the savage still built his wigwam in the 
 woody valleys, and the wolf prowled on our hills ? Those days, 
 so Arcadian to your fancy, were days of darkness and tribulation. 
 
LEONARD BACON. 
 
 501 
 
 The u temptations in the wilderness" were as real and as terrible 
 as any which your virtue is called to encounter. * * * 
 
 The scheme of Divine Providence is one from the beginning to 
 the end, and is ever in progressive development. Every succeed- 
 ing age helps to unfold the mighty plan. There are, indeed, 
 times of darkness; but even then it is light to faith, and lighter 
 to the eve of God ; and even then there is progress, though to 
 sense and fear all motion seems retrograde. To despond now, is 
 not cowardice merely, but atheism • for now, as the world in its 
 swift progress brings us nearer and nearer to the latter day, faith, 
 instructed by the signs of the times, and looking up in devotion, 
 sees on the blushing sky the promise of the morning. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY IN HISTORY. 
 
 The more we study Christ and the influence of Christianity in 
 history, the deeper, also, and more cheering will be our conviction 
 that Christianity, as one of the forces that control the progress of 
 nations and of the human race, has never demonstrated all its 
 efficacy. In the ages past, the various and complicated moral 
 forces that move the world have been in opposition to its in- 
 fluence, or have acted to corrupt it. Its mission in the world is 
 to work itself free from the corruptions that have soiled its purity 
 and impaired its efficacy, and mingling itself with all that acts on 
 human character, — literature, art, philosophy, education, law, 
 statesmanship, commerce, — -to bring all things into subordination 
 to itself, and to sway all the complicated elements of power for the 
 renovation of the world. 
 
 We, brethren in the commonwealth of letters, all of us, from 
 the most gifted to the humblest, are workers in history. Chris- 
 tianity, if we are true to our position and our nurture, is working- 
 through us upon the destinies of our country and of our race. 
 INot the missionary only who goes forth, in the calm glow of apos- 
 tolic zeal, to labor and to die in barbarous lands for the extension 
 of Christ's empire, — not the theologian only who devotes himself 
 to the learned investigation and the scientific exposition of the 
 Christian faith, — not the preacher and the pastor only, — but all 
 who act in any manner or in any measure on the character and 
 moral destiny of their fellow-men, are privileged to be the organs 
 and the functionaries of Christianity. The senator, whose fear- 
 less voice and vote turn back from the yet uncontaminated soil of 
 his country the polluting and blighting barbarism of slavery, and 
 consecrate that soil eternally to freedom ; the patriot statesman, 
 who, in defiance of the ardor civiuni ^>m*;<2 jubentium, lifts up 
 his voice like a prophet's cry against the barbarous and pagan 
 policy of war and conquest ; the jurist, who, like Granville Sharp. 
 
502 
 
 EDWARD C. PINKNEY. 
 
 by long and patient years of toil, forces the law to recognise at 
 last some disregarded principle of justice ; the teacher, the author, 
 the artist, the physician, and the man of business, who, in their 
 various places of duty and of influence, are serving their genera- 
 tion under the influence of Christian principles; — these all are in 
 their several functions the anointed ministers of Christianity, — ■ 
 " kings and priests to Grod." 
 
 In the all-embracing scheme of the eternal Providence, no act, 
 or effort, or aspiration of goodness shall be in vain. No rain-drop 
 mingles with the ocean or falls upon the desert sand, no particle 
 of dew moistens the loneliest and baldest cliff, but God sees it and 
 saves it for the uses of his own beneficence. The vanished aspira- 
 tions of the youth who fell and was forgotten — whose early pro- 
 mise sparkled for a moment and exhaled — are not wholly lost; 
 he has not lived nor died in vain. 
 
 Let these thoughts cheer us as we labor, and bear us up in our 
 discouragements. 
 
 "Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, 
 Is our destined end or way ; 
 But to act, that each to-morrow 
 Find us farther than to-day. 
 
 " Let us, then, be up and doing, 
 With a heart for any fate; 
 Still achieving, still pursuing, 
 Learn to labor and to wait." 
 
 Phi Beta Kappa Oration. 
 
 EDWARD C. PINKNEY, 1802—1828. 
 
 Edward Coate Pinkney, son of Hon. William Pinkney, 1 of Baltimore, Mary- 
 land, was born in London in October, 1802, bis father being at that time minister 
 at tbe Court of St. James. On the return of the family, he entered "St. Mary'3 
 College" about 1S12, and, at the age of fourteen, was appointed midshipman in the 
 navy. After a varied service of nine years, he resigned his place in the navy, was 
 married, and was admitted to the bar in 1821. But his previous habits of life were 
 not favorable to the steady and earnest pursuit of legal investigations, and his 
 poetic temperament did not suit well with the contentions of the court-room: 
 consequently he had but little success as a lawyer. His health, too, had been for 
 
 1 William Pinkney was a native of Annapolis. — born 1764, died 1822. — Ho 
 was appointed to various European missions by our Government, and held other 
 eminent public stations. His greatest celebrity, however, was attained at the bar, 
 where he was distinguished alike for learning and eloquence. He it was who, in 
 the House of Delegates in Maryland, in 1789, uttered the noble sentiment, — ■ 
 "Sir, by the eternal principles of natural justice, no master in this State has a 
 right to hold his slave for a single hour." 
 
EDWARD C. PINKNEY. 
 
 503 
 
 some time feeble, so that he had hardly the physical powers necessary to attain 
 distinction in any profession. He had been for some years known as a poet to his 
 circle of friends; and in 1825 a small volume appeared, entitled Rodolph, and 
 other Poems. Rodotyh — his longest work — has not much merit; but some of his 
 minor pieces are very beautiful, and richly merit preservation. Had his life been 
 spared, he would doubtless have trodden a higher walk; but he died on the 11th 
 of April, 1828, at the early age of twenty-five. 
 
 ITALY. 
 
 Know'st thou the land which lovers ought to choose ? 
 
 Like blessings there descend the sparkling dews ; 
 
 In gleaming streams the crystal rivers run, 
 
 The purple vintage clusters in the sun ; 
 
 Odors of flowers haunt the balmy breeze, 
 
 Rich fruits hang high upon the verdant trees ; 
 
 And vivid blossoms gem the shady groves, 
 
 Where bright-plumed birds discourse their careless loves. 
 
 Beloved ! — speed we from this sullen strand, 
 
 Until thy light feet press that green shore's yellow sand. 
 
 Look seaward thence, and naught shall meet thine eye 
 
 But fairy isles, like paintings on the sky; 
 
 And, flying fast and free before the gale, 
 
 The gaudy vessel with its glancing sail ; 
 
 And waters glittering in the glare of noon, 
 
 Or touch'd with silver by the stars and moon, 
 
 Or fleck'd with broken lines of crimson light, 
 
 When the far fisher's fire affronts the night. 
 
 Lovely as loved ! toward that smiling shore 
 
 Bear we our household god-s, to fix forever more. 
 
 It looks a dimple on the face of earth, 
 
 The seal of beauty, and the shrine of mirth : 
 
 Nature is delicate and gi-aceful there, 
 
 The place's genius, feminine and fair ; 
 
 The winds are awed, nor dare to breathe aloud; 
 
 The air seems never to have borne a cloud, 
 
 Save where volcanoes send to heaven their curl'd 
 
 And solemn smokes, like altars of the world. 
 
 Thrice beautiful! — to that delightful spot 
 
 Carry our married hearts, and be all pain forgot. 
 
 There Art, too, shows, when Nature's beauty palls, 
 Her sculptured marbles, and her pictured walls ; 
 And there are forms in which they both conspire 
 To whisper themes that know not how to tire ; 
 The speaking ruins in that gentle clime 
 Have but been hallow'd by the hand of Time, 
 And each can mutely prompt some thought of flame: 
 The meanest stone is not without a name. 
 Then come, beloved! — hasten o'er the sea, 
 To build our happy hearth in blooming Italy. 
 
504 
 
 EDWARD C. PINKNEY. 
 
 A HEALTH. 
 
 I fill this cup to one made up of loveliness alone, 
 
 A -woman, of her gentle sex the seeming paragon ; 
 
 To whom the better elements and kindly stars have given 
 
 A form so fair, that, like the air, 'tis less of earth than heaven. 
 
 Her every tone is music's own, like those of morning birds, 
 And something more than melody dwells ever in her words ; 
 The coinage of her heart are they, and from her lips each flows. 
 As one may see the burden'd bee forth issue from the rose. 
 
 Affections are as thoughts to her, the measures of her hours; 
 Her feelings have the fragrance and the freshness of young flowers; 
 And lovely passions, changing oft, so fill her, she appears 
 The image of themselves by turns, — the idol of past years ! 
 
 Of her bright face one glance will trace a picture on the brain, 
 And of her voice in echoing hearts a sound must long remain ; 
 But memory, such as mine of her, so very much endears, 
 When death is nigh, my latest sigh will not be life's, but hers. 
 
 1 fill'd this cup to one made up of loveliness alone, 
 
 A woman, of her gentle sex the seeming paragon, — 
 
 Her health ! and would on earth there stood some more of such a frame, 
 
 That life might be all poetry, and weariness a name. 
 
 A SERENADE. 
 
 Look out upon the stars, my love, 
 
 And shame them with thine eyes, 
 On which, than on the lights above, 
 
 There hang more destinies. 
 Night's beauty is the harmony 
 
 Of blending shades and light ; 
 Then, lady, up, — look out, and be 
 
 A sister to the night ! — 
 
 Sleep not ! — thine image wakes for aye 
 
 Within my watching breast: 
 Sleep not ! — from her soft sleep should fly, 
 
 Who robs all hearts of rest. 
 Nay, lady, from thy slumbers break, 
 
 And make this darkness gay 
 With looks, whose brightness well might make 
 
 Of darker nights a day. 
 
GEORGE P. MORRIS. 
 
 505 
 
 GEORGE P. MORRIS. 
 
 George P. Morris, to -whom the common voice of the country has given the 
 title of The Song-Writer op America, was born in Philadelphia in 1802. Ho 
 early commenced his literary career, and in 1S22 became the editor of "The New 
 York Mirror," which remained under his control till 1843, when pecuniary diffi- 
 culties, occasioned by the storm of financial embarrassment which had but shortly 
 before passed over the country, compelled him to relinquish its publication. 
 During this long period, this periodical was very ably conducted, and became the 
 vehicle of introduction to the public of some of the best writers in the country. 
 In 1844, he established "The New Mirror," in conjunction with his friend N. P. 
 Willis, which was soon after changed into "The Evening Mirror." This, after 
 being continued a year as a daily paper, with great spirit and taste, was sold out, 
 and in November, 1846, these two gifted authors started a weekly paper, called 
 " The Home Journal," which has been continued from year to year, with in- 
 creasing popularity, — a popularity richly deserved, from the taste, elegance, and 
 enterprise with which it is conducted. 
 
 General Morris has published the following works : — The Deserted Bride, and 
 other Poems, 1843; The Whip-poor-will , a Poem; American Melodies; two or 
 three dramas; and, in conjunction with his friend Willis, an admirable book 
 entitled The Prose and Poetry of Europe and America. But it is as a writer 
 of songs, which exert no little influence upon national character and manners, 
 and of a few short pieces which, by their elevated moral sentiment and touching 
 pathos, go right to the heart, that General Morris will hold an enduring place in 
 American literature. 1 
 
 1 " General Morris's fame as ' The Song-Writer of America' belongs to two 
 hemispheres, and is greater now than it has ever been before. 'You ask me,' 
 says a recent letter from an English gentleman, now representing in the House 
 of Commons one of the most ancient of the English boroughs, 'whether I have 
 seen General Morris's last song, "Jenny Marsh of Cherry Valley." You can 
 hardly know, when you put such a question, the place he has built himself in the 
 hearts of all classes here. His many songs and ballads are household words in 
 every home in England, and have a dear old chair by every circle in which 
 kindly friends are gathered; and parents smile with pleasure to see brothers and 
 sisters join their voices in the evening song, and twine closer those loving chords, 
 — the tenderest of the human heart. It is no mean reward to feel that the child 
 of one's brain has a chair in such circles, and that the love for the child passes in 
 hundreds of hearts into love for its unseen parent. After all, what are all the 
 throat-warblings in the world to one such heart-song as " My Mother's Bible" ? 
 It possesses the true test of genius, touching with sympathy the human heart 
 equally in the palace and the cottage.' " 
 
 For a most beautifully-written critical essay upon General Morris's- genius and 
 poems, read "Literary Criticisms, and other Papers, by the late Horace Binney 
 Wallace, Esq., of Philadelphia," — a volume which does the highest credit to the 
 author as a man of pure taste, correct judgment, and finished scholarship. 
 
 * He receives the title ot General from his holding the rank of brigadier-general in the 
 military organization of New York. 
 
 43 
 
GEORGE P. MORRIS. 
 
 LIFE IN THE WEST. 
 
 Ho ! brothers, — come hither and list to my story, — 
 
 Merry and brief will the narrative be : 
 Here, like a monarch, I reign in my glory — 
 
 Master am I, boys, of all that I see. 
 Where once frown'd a forest a garden is smiling, — 
 
 The meadow and moorland are marshes no more ; 
 And there curls the smoke of my cottage, beguiling 
 
 The children who cluster like grapes at the door. 
 Then enter, boys ; cheerly, boys, enter and rest, 
 The land of the heart is the land of the West. 
 Oho, boys ! — oho, boys ! — oho ! 
 
 Talk not of the town, boys, — give me the broad prairie, 
 
 Where man, like the wind, roams impulsive and free ; 
 Behold how its beautiful colors all vary, 
 
 Like those of the clouds, or the deep-rolling sea. 
 A life in the woods, boys, is even as changing ; 
 
 With proud independence we season our cheer, 
 And those who the world are for happiness ranging 
 
 Won't find it at all, if they don't find it here. 
 Then enter, boys ; cheerly, boys, enter and rest ; 
 I'll show you the life, boys, we live in the West. 
 Oho, boys ! — oho, boys ! — oho ! 
 
 Here, brothers, secure from all turmoil and danger, 
 
 We reap what we sow, for the soil is our own ; 
 We spread hospitality's board for the stranger, 
 
 And care not a fig for the king on his throne. 
 We never know want, for we live by our labor, 
 
 And in it contentment and happiness find ; 
 We do what we can for a friend or a neighbor, 
 
 And die, boys, in peace and good will to mankind. 
 Then enter, boys ; cheerly, boys, enter and rest ; 
 You know how we live, boys, and die in the West ! 
 Oho, boys ! — oho, boys ! — oho ! 
 
 WHEN OTHER FRIENDS ARE ROUND THEE. 
 
 When other friends are round thee, 
 
 And other hearts are thine, 
 When other bays have crown'd thee, 
 
 More fresh and green than mine, 
 Then think how sad and lonely 
 
 This doating heart will be, 
 Which, while it throbs, throbs only, 
 
 Beloved one, for thee ! 
 
 Yet do not think I doubt thee, 
 
 I know thy truth remains ; 
 I would not live without thee, 
 
 For all the world contains. 
 
GEORGE P. MORRIS. 
 
 507 
 
 Thou art the star that guides me 
 Along life's changing sea ; 
 
 And whate'er fate betides me, 
 This heart still turns to thee. 
 
 UP WITH THE SIGNAL. 
 
 Up, tip ivith the signal! The land is in sight ! 
 
 We ; ll be happy, if never again, boys, to-night ! 
 
 The cold, cheerless ocean in safety we've pass'd, 
 
 And the warm genial earth glads our vision at last. 
 
 In the land of the stranger true hearts we shall find, 
 
 To soothe us in absence of those left behind. 
 
 Land! — land-ho ! All hearts glow with joy at the sight! 
 
 We'll be happy, if never again, boys, to-night ! 
 
 The signal is leaving! Till morn we'll remain, 
 
 Then part in the hope to meet one day again 
 
 Round the hearthstone of home in the land of our birth, 
 
 The holiest spot on the face of the earth ! 
 
 Dear country ! our thoughts are as constant to thee 
 
 As the steel to the star, or the stream to the sea. 
 
 Ho ! — land-ho ! We near it, — we bound at the sight. 
 
 Then be happy, if never again, boys, to-night ! 
 
 The signal is answered! The foam-sparkles rise 
 
 Like tears from the fountain of joy to the eyes! 
 
 May rain-drops that fall from the storm-clouds of care 
 
 Melt away in the sun-beaming smiles of the fair ! 
 
 One health, as chime gayly the nautical bells, 
 
 To woman — God bless her ! — wherever she dwells ! 
 
 The pilot's on board ! — and, thank Heaven ! all's right ! 
 
 So be happy, if never again, boys, to-night ! 
 
 WOODMAN ; SPARE THAT TREE. 1 
 
 Woodman, spare that tree ! That old familiar tree, 
 
 Touch not a single bough : Whose glory and renown 
 
 In youth it shelter'd me, Are spread o'er land and sea, 
 
 And I'll protect it now. And wouldst thou hack it down? 
 
 'Twas my forefather's hand Woodman, forbear thy stroke ! 
 
 That placed it near his cot ; Cut not its earth-bound ties ; 
 
 There, woodman, let it stand, Oh, spare that aged oak, 
 
 Thy axe shall harm it not. Noav towering to the skies. 
 
 1 "After I had sung the noble ballad of 'Woodman, Spare that Tree,' at 
 Boulogne," says Mr. Henry Russell, the vocalist, "an old gentleman among the 
 audience, who was greatly moved by the simple and touching beauty of the 
 words, rose and said, ' I beg your pardon, Mr. Russell ; but was the tree really 
 spared ?' ' It was,' said I. ' I am very glad to hear it,' said he, as he took his 
 seat amidst the unanimous applause of the whole assembly. I never taw such 
 excitement in a concert-room." 
 
508 
 
 GEORGE DENISON PRENTICE. 
 
 When but an idle boy, 
 
 I sought its grateful shade ; 
 In all t,.eir gushing joy, 
 
 Here, too, my sisters play'd- 
 My mother kiss'd me here; 
 
 My father press'd my hand : 
 Forgive this foolish tear, — 
 
 But let that old oak stand ! 
 
 My heart-strings round thee cling, 
 
 Close as thy bark, old friend ! 
 Here shall the wild-bird sing, 
 
 And still thy branches bend. 
 Old tree ! the storm still brave ! 
 
 And, woodman, leave the spot; 
 While I've a hand to save, 
 
 Thy axe shall harm it not. 
 
 MY MOTHER'S BIBLE. 
 
 This book is all that's left me now ! 
 
 Tears will unbidden start, — 
 With faltering lip and throbbing brow, 
 
 I press it to my heart. 
 For many generations past, 
 
 Here is our family tree ; 
 My mother's hands this Bible clasp'd ; 
 
 She, dying, gave it me. 
 
 Ah ! well do I remember those 
 
 Whose names these records bear, 
 Who round the hearthstone used to close 
 
 After the evening prayer, 
 And speak of what these pages said, 
 
 In tones my heart would thrill ! 
 Though they are with the silent dead, 
 
 Here are they living still ! 
 
 My father read this holy book 
 
 To brothers, sisters dear ; 
 How calm was my poor mother's look, 
 
 Who lean'd God's word to hear! 
 Her angel face — I see it yet ! 
 
 What thronging memories come ! 
 Again that little group is met 
 
 Within the halls of home ! 
 
 Thou truest friend man ever knew, 
 
 Thy constancy I've ti-ied ; 
 Where all were false I found thee true, 
 
 My counsellor and guide. 
 The mines of earth no treasure give 
 
 That could this volume buy : 
 In teaching me the way to live, 
 
 It taught me how to die. 
 
 GEORGE DENTSON PRENTICE, 
 
 The accomplished editor of the "Louisville Journal," was born at Preston, Connec- 
 ticut, December 18, 1802. He was graduated at Brown University, 1823, and then 
 studied law; but he never practised his profession, preferring to devote himself U 
 editorial labors. In 1S2S, he established " The New England Weeidy Review," ut 
 
GEORGE DENISON PRENTICE. 
 
 509 
 
 Hartford, and conducted it for two years, when he resigned it to the poet Whittier, 
 and removed to the West, where he assumed the charge of the " Louisville Jour- 
 nal," which he soon raised to a first-class journal, and which has continued to the 
 present time to maintain its character for solid ability and playful wit united, 
 scarcely second to that of any other journal in the country. 
 
 Mr. Prentice has written some very beautiful poetry for his own journal and for 
 other periodicals ; but his compositions have never been collected in a volume. 
 The following pieces have been much admired : — 
 
 SABBATH EVENING. 
 
 How calmly sinks the parting sun ! 
 
 Yet twilight lingers still ; 
 And beautiful as dream of heaven 
 
 It slumbers on the hill ; 
 Earth sleeps, with all her glorious things, 
 Beneath the Holy Spirit's wings, 
 And, rendering back the hues above, 
 Seems resting in a trance of love. 
 
 Round yonder rocks the forest-trees 
 
 In shadowy groups recline, 
 Like saints at evening bow'd in prayer 
 
 Around their holy shrine ; 
 And through their leaves the night-winds blow, 
 So calm and still, their music low 
 Seems the mysterious voice of prayer, 
 Soft echoed on the evening air. 
 
 And yonder western throng of clouds, 
 
 Retiring from the sky, 
 So calmly move, so softly glow, 
 
 They seem to Fancy's eye 
 Bright creatures of a better sphere, 
 Come down at noon to worship here, 
 And, from their sacrifice of love, 
 Returning to their home above. 
 
 The blue isles of the golden sea, 
 
 The night-arch floating high, 
 The flowers that gaze upon the heavens, 
 
 The bright streams leaping by, 
 Are living with religion, — deep 
 On earth and sea its glories sleep, 
 And mingle with the starlight rays, 
 Like the soft light of parted days. 
 
 The spirit of the holy eve 
 
 Comes through the silent air 
 To feeling's hidden spring, and wakes 
 
 A gush of music there ! 
 And the far depths of ether beam 
 So passing fair, we almost dream 
 That we can rise, and wander through 
 Their open paths of trackless blue. 
 
 43* 
 
510 
 
 RUFUS DAWES. 
 
 Each soul is fill'd with glorious dreams, 
 
 Each pulse is beating wild ; 
 And thought is soaring to the shrine 
 
 Of glory undefiled ! 
 And holy aspirations start, 
 Like blessed angels, from the heart, 
 And bind — for earth's dark ties are riven — 
 Our spirits to the gates of heaven. 
 
 I THINK OF THEE. 
 TO A LADY. 
 
 I think of thee when morning springs 
 From sleep, with plumage bathed in dew, 
 
 And, like a young bird, lifts her wings 
 Of gladness on the welkin blue. 
 
 And when, at noon, the breath of love 
 O'er flower and stream is wandering free, 
 
 And sent in music from the grove, 
 I think of thee, — I think of thee. 
 
 I think of thee, when, soft and wide, 
 The evening spreads her robes of light, 
 
 And, like a young and timid bride, 
 Sits blushing in the arms of night. 
 
 And when the moon's sweet crescent springs 
 In light o'er heaven's deep, waveless sea, 
 
 And stars are forth, like blessed things, 
 I think of thee, — I think of thee. 
 
 I think of thee ; — that eye of flame, 
 Those tresses, falling bright and free, 
 
 That brow, where "Beauty writes her name,'' 
 I think of thee, — I think of thee. 
 
 RUFUS DAWES. 
 
 Rufus Dawes was born in Boston, on the 26th of January, 1803. His father, 
 Thomas Dawes, was a member of the State Convention called to ratify the Con- 
 stitution, and was for 'many years one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of 
 Massachusetts, distinguished for his learning, eloquence, wit,' and spotless in- 
 tegrity. Our poet entered Harvard College in 1820. On leaving it, he entered 
 
 1 He was remarkable not only "for his great reach of mind/* (to use Daniel 
 Webster's words respecting him,) but for his quickness of repartee. He was very 
 short in stature; and one day, standing in State Street, Boston, with six very tall 
 men, among whom were Harrison Gray Otis and Josiah Quiney, Mr. Otis said, 
 " Judge Dawes, how do you feel" (looking down on him at the same time very 
 significantly) "when in the company of such great men as we?" "Just like | 
 fourpence halfpenny among six cents," was his prompt reply. 
 
RUFUS DAWES. 
 
 511 
 
 the office of General William Sullivan as a law-student, and, after completing his 
 studies, was admitted a member of the Suffolk County bar. The profession, how- 
 ever, was not congenial to his feelings, and he has never pursued its practice. 
 Early in 1S28, he published a prospectus of " The Emerald and Baltimore Lite- 
 rary Gazette," of which he was to be the editor, and on the 29th of March of that 
 year appeared the first number. In 1829, he was married to a daughter of Chief- 
 Justice Crunch, of Washington. In 1830, he published The Valley of the Nasha- 
 way, and other Poems ; and in ]S39, Athenia of Damascus; Geraldine; and his 
 miscellaneous poetical writings. In the winter of 1840-41, he delivered a course 
 of literary lectures in Xew York, before the American Institute. He now resides 
 in Washington, D.C. 
 
 SPIRIT OF BEAUTY. 
 
 The Spirit of Beauty unfurls her light, 
 And wheels her course in a joyous flight ; 
 I know her track through the balmy air, 
 By the blossoms that cluster and whiten there ; 
 She leaves the tops of the mountains green, 
 And gems the valley with crystal sheen. 
 
 At morn, I know where she rested at night, 
 For the roses are gushing with dewy delight : 
 Then she mounts again, and round her flings 
 A shower of light from her crimson wings ; 
 Till the spirit is drunk with the music on high, 
 That silently fills it with ecstasy. 
 
 At noon she hies to a cool retreat, 
 
 Where bowering elms over waters meet ; 
 
 She dimples the wave where the green leaves dip, 
 
 As it smilingly curls like a maiden's lip 
 
 When her tremulous bosom would hide, in vain, 
 
 From her lover, the hope that she loves again. 
 
 At eve she hangs o'er the western sky 
 Dark clouds for a glorious canopy, 
 And round the skirts of their deepen'd fold 
 She paints a border of purple and gold, 
 Where the lingering sunbeams love to stay 
 When their god in his glory has pass'd away. 
 
 She hovers around us at twilight hour, 
 
 When her presence is felt with the deepest power ; 
 
 She silvers the landscape, and crowds the stream 
 
 With shadows that flit like a faii-y dream ; 
 
 Then wheeling her flight through the gladden'd air, 
 
 The Spirit of Beauty is everyAvhere. 
 
 SUNRISE, FROM MOUNT WASHINGTON. 
 
 The laughing hours have chased away the night, 
 Plucking the stars out from her diadem: — 
 
512 
 
 RUFUS DAWES. 
 
 And now the blue-eyed Morn, with modest grace, 
 Looks through her half-drawn curtains in the east, 
 Blushing in smiles, and glad as infancy. 
 And see, the foolish Moon, but now so vain 
 Of borrow'd beauty, how she yields her charms, 
 And, pale with envy, steals herself away ! 
 The clouds have put their gorgeous livery on, 
 Attendant on the day : the mountain-tops 
 Have lit their beacons, and the vales below 
 Send up a welcoming : no song of birds, 
 Warbling to charm the air with melody, 
 Floats on the frosty breeze ; yet Nature hath 
 The very soul of music in her looks ! 
 The sunshine and the shade of poetry. 
 
 I stand upon thy lofty pinnacle, 
 Temple of Nature ! and look down with awe 
 On the wide world beneath me, dimly seen ; 
 Around me crowd the giant sons of earth, 
 Fix'd on their old foundations, unsubdued; 
 Firm as when first rebellion bade them rise 
 Unrifted to the Thunderer : now they seem 
 A family of mountains, clustering round 
 Their hoary patriarch, emulously watching 
 To meet the partial glances of the day. 
 Far in the glowing east the flickering light, 
 Mellow'd by distance, with the blue sky blending, 
 Questions the eye with ever-varying forms. 
 
 The sun comes up ! away the shadows fling 
 From the broad hills; and, hurrying to the west, 
 Sport in the sunshine till they die away. 
 The many beauteous mountain-streams leap down, 
 Out-welling from the clouds, and sparkling light 
 Dances along with their perennial flow. 
 And there is beauty in yon river's path, 
 The glad Connecticut ! I know her well, 
 By the white veil she mantles o'er her charms : 
 At times she loiters by a ridge of hills, 
 Sportfully hiding ; then again with glee 
 Out-rushes from her wild-Avood lurking-place. 
 Far as the eye can bound, the ocean-waves, 
 And hills and rivers, mountains, lakes, and woods, 
 And all that hold the faculty entranced, 
 Bathed in a flood of glory, float in air, 
 And sleep in the deep quietude of joy. 
 
 There is an awful stillness in this place, 
 A Presence that forbids to break the spell, 
 Till the heart pour its agony in tears. 
 But I must drink the vision while it lasts ; 
 For even now the curling vapors rise, 
 Wreathing their cloudy coronals, to grace 
 These towering summits — bidding me away ; 
 But often shall my heart turn back again, 
 Thou glorious eminence ! and when oppress'd, 
 And aching with the coldness of the world, 
 Find a sweet resting-place and home with thee. 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 513 
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of the most original writers in our country, was 
 born in Boston in the year 1803, and was graduated at Harvard College in 1S21. 
 On leaving college, he devoted his time to theological studies, and was settled as 
 pastor of the Second Unitarian Church in his native city. But, his views respecting 
 some of the Christian ordinances undergoing a change, he gave up the ministry, 
 and retired to the quiet village of Concord, Mass., devoting himself to his favorite 
 studies, — the nature of man and hi? relations to the universe. 
 
 The following are Mr. Emerson's chief publications: Man Thinking, an oration 
 delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society in 1837; Literary Ethics, an oration; 
 and Nature — an Essay, in 1838; The Dial, a magazine of literature, philosophy, 
 and history, which he commenced in 1840 and cuntinued for four years ; The 
 Method of Nature, Man the Reformer, three lectures on the times, and the first 
 series of his essays, in 1841 ; lectures on the New England Reformers, the Young 
 American, and Negro Emancipation in the West Indies, in 1844; a volume of 
 Poems, in 1846, and the lectures, delivered during his visit to England in 1849, 
 which form the volume called Representative Men. 
 
 Such are Mr. Emerson's principal writings. As an author he never can be 
 popular, for he is too abstruse and too metaphysical, and has too little of human 
 sympathy to reach the heart; while he is at times so quaint or so obscure that 
 one is no little puzzled to find out his meaning. 1 
 
 THE COMPENSATIONS OF CALAMITY. 
 
 We cannot part with our friends. We cannot let our angels 
 go. We do not see that they only go out, that archangels may 
 come in. We are idolaters of the old. We do not believe in the 
 riches of the soul, in its proper eternity and omnipresence. We 
 do not believe there is any force in to-day to rival or recreate that 
 beautiful yesterday. We linger in the ruins of the old tent, where 
 once we had bread and shelter and organs, nor believe that the 
 spirit can feed, cover, and nerve us again. We cannot again find 
 aught so dear, so sweet, so graceful. But we sit and weep in vain. 
 The voice of the Almighty saith, "Up and onward for evermore!" 
 We cannot stay amid the ruins. Neither will we rely on the new; 
 and so we walk ever with reverted eyes, like those monsters who 
 look backwards. 
 
 1 An English critic thus speaks of him: — "Mr. Emerson possesses so many 
 characteristics of genius that his want of universality is the more to be regretted: 
 the leading feature of his mind is intensity; he is deficient in heart-sympathy." 
 Again, "It is better for a man to tell his story as Mr. Irving, Mr. Hawthorne, oi 
 Mr. Longfellow does, than to adopt the style Emersonian, in which thoughts may 
 be buried so deep that common seekers shall be unable to find them." 
 
514 
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 And yet the compensations of calamity are made apparent to 
 the understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a 
 mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth, a loss of friends, 
 seems at the moment unpaid loss, and unpayable. But the sure 
 years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts. The 
 death of a dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing 
 but privation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or 
 genius j for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, 
 terminates an epoch of infancy or of youth which was waiting to 
 be closed; breaks up a wonted occupation, or a household, or style 
 of living, and allows the formation of new ones more friendly to 
 the growth of character. It permits or constrains the formation 
 of new acquaintances, and the reception of new influences that 
 prove of the first importance to the next years j and the man or 
 woman who would have remained a sunny garden-flower, with no 
 room for its roots and too much sunshine for its head, by the fall- 
 ing of the walls and the neglect of the gardener, is made the 
 banian of the forest, yielding shade and fruit to wide neighbor- 
 hoods of men. 
 
 TRAVELLING. 
 
 I have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation of the 
 globe, for the purposes of art, of study, and benevolence, so that 
 the man is first domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope 
 of finding somewhat greater than he knows. He who travels to 
 be amused, or to get somewhat which he does not carry, travels 
 away from himself, and grows old even in youth among old things. 
 In Thebes, in Palmyra, his will and mind have become old and 
 dilapidated as they. He carries ruins to ruins. 
 
 Travelling is a fool's paradise. We owe to our first journeys 
 the discovery that place is nothing. At home I dream that at 
 Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my 
 sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the 
 sea, and at last wake up at Naples, and there beside me is the 
 stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I 
 seek the Vatican and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with 
 sights and suggestions; but I am not intoxicated. My giant goefc 
 with me wherever I go. 
 
 But the rage of travelling is itself only a symptom of a deeper 
 unsoundness affecting the whole intellectual action. The intellect 
 is vagabond, and the universal system of education fosters restless- 
 ness. Our minds travel when our bodies are forced to stay at 
 home. We imitate; and what is imitation but the travelling of 
 the mind? Our houses are built with foreign taste; our shelves 
 are garnished with foreign ornaments; our opinions, our tastes, 
 our whole minds, lean to, and follow the past and the distant as the 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 515 
 
 eyes of a maid follow her mistress. The soul created the arts 
 wherever they have flourished. It was in his own mind that the 
 artist sought his model. It was an application of his own thought 
 to the thing to be done and the conditions to be observed. And 
 why need we copy the Doric or the Gothic model ? Beauty, con- 
 venience, grandeur of thought, and quaint expression are as near 
 to us as to any, and if the American artist will study with hope 
 and love the precise thing to be done by him, considering the 
 climate, the soil, the length of the day, the wants of the people, 
 the habit and form of the government, he will create a house in 
 which all these will find themselves fitted, and taste and sentiment 
 will be satisfied also. 
 
 SELF-RELIANCE. 
 
 Insist on yourself ; never imitate. Your own gift you can pre- 
 sent every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's 
 cultivation ; but of the adopted talent of another you have only 
 an extemporaneous, half possession. That which each can do 
 best, none but his Maker can teach him. No man yet knows 
 what it is, nor can, till that person has exhibited it. Where is 
 the master who could have taught Shakspeare? Where is the 
 master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or 
 Bacon, or Newton? Every great man is a unique. The Seipion- 
 ism of Scipio is precisely that part he could not borrow. If any- 
 body will tell me whom the great man imitates in the original 
 crisis when he performs a great act, I will tell him who else than 
 himself can teach him. Shakspeare will never be made by the 
 study of Shakspeare. Do that which is assigned thee, and thou 
 canst not hope too much or dare too much. 
 
 GOOD-BYE, PROUD WORLD. 
 
 Good-bye, proud world ! I'm going home : 
 Thourt not my friend, and I'm not thine. 
 
 Long through thy weary crowds I roam ; 
 A river-ark on the ocean's brine, 
 
 Long I've been toss'd like the driven foam; 
 
 But now, proud world ! I'm going home. 
 
 Good-bye to Flattery's fawning face ; 
 
 To Grandeur, with his wise grimace; 
 
 To upstart Wealth's averted eye; 
 
 To supple Office, low and high; 
 
 To crowded halls, to court and street; 
 
 To frozen hearts and hasting feet; 
 
 To those who go, and those who come; 
 
 Good-bye, proud world ! I'm going home. 
 
516 
 
 JACOB ABBOTT. 
 
 I am going to my own hearth-stone, 
 Bosom'd in yon green hills alone — 
 A secret nook in a pleasant land, 
 Whose groves the frolic fairies plann'd; 
 Where arches green, the livelong day, 
 Echo the blackbird's roundelay, 
 And vulgar feet have never trod 
 A spot that is sacred to thought and God. 
 
 Oh, when I am safe in my sylvan home, 
 I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome ; 
 And when I am stretch'd beneath the pines, 
 Where the evening star so holy shines, 
 I laugh at the lore and the pride of man, 
 At the sophist schools, and the learned clan ; 
 For what are they all in their high conceit, 
 AVhen man in the bush with God may meet! 
 
 JACOB ABBOTT. 
 
 Jacob Abbott was born in Hallowell, Maine, in 1S03, and, at the age of twelve, 
 entered Bowdoin College. After graduating, he studied theology at Andover, 
 and, on completing his three years' course there, was appointed tutor, and after- 
 wards Professor of Mathematics, in Amherst College, which station he filled with 
 great success. Thence he was called to the pastoral charge of the Elliot Street 
 Congregational Church, Boston. 
 
 His first important literary work — The Young Christian — appeared in Boston 
 in 1825; since which time he has written many works, mostly intended for tho 
 instruction of the young, in which branch of literature he has been remarkably 
 successful. The Young Christian series (comprising The Young Christian, Corner- 
 stone, Wa}j to do Good, Hoary Head, and McDonner) has enjo3 T ed not only a 
 wide circulation in this country, but numerous editions have been issued in Eng- 
 land, Scotland, France, and Germany. 
 
 Besides his literary works, Mr. Abbott was very successful as a teacher in his 
 well-known Mount Vernon School for Young Ladies, in Boston ; and at a later 
 period, when associated with his brother, John S. C. Abbott, in the Houston and 
 Bleecker Street schools, in New York. During the last eight or ten years he has 
 devoted his time entirely to writing, 1 and now resides in New York City. 
 
 INTELLECTUAL IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 The great mass of mankind consider the intellectual powers as 
 susceptible of a certain degree of development in childhood, to 
 
 1 His works have been very numerous, — more than sixty volumes in all, — in- 
 cluding a series of biographies of distinguished characters ; and the Hollo BooJcs. 
 More interesting and instructive works, especially for the young, can hardly else • 
 where be found. 
 
JACOB ABBOTT. 
 
 517 
 
 prepare the individual for the active duties of life. This degree 
 of progress they suppose to be made before the age of twenty is 
 attained, and hence they talk of an education being finished ! 
 Now, if a parent wishes to convey the idea that his daughter has 
 closed her studies at school, or that his son has finished his pre- 
 paratory professional course and is ready to commence practice, 
 there is perhaps no strong objection to his using the common 
 phrase that the education is finished ; but in any general or pro- 
 per use of language, there is no such thing as a finished educa- 
 tion. The most successful student that ever left a school, or took 
 his degree at college, never arrived at a good place to stop in his 
 intellectual course. In fact, the farther he goes the more de- 
 sirous will he feel to go on; and if you wish to find an instance 
 of the greatest eagerness and interest with which the pursuit of 
 knowledge is prosecuted, you will find it undoubtedly in the case 
 of the most accomplished and thorough scholar which the country 
 can furnish, who has spent a long life in study, and who finds 
 that the farther he goes the more and more widely does the 
 boundless field of intelligence open before him. 
 
 Give up, then, at once, all idea of finishing your education. 
 The sole object of the course of discipline at any literary institu- 
 tion in our land is not to finish, but just to show you how to 
 begin; to give you an impulse and a direction upon that course 
 which you ought to pursue with unabated and uninterrupted 
 ardor as long as you have being. * * * 
 
 The objects of study are of several kinds : one is, — to increase 
 our intellectual powers. Every one knows that there is a difference 
 of ability in different minds; but it is not so distinctly understood 
 that every one's abilities may be increased or strengthened by a 
 kind of culture adapted expressly to this purpose, — I mean a cul- 
 ture which is intended not to add to the stock of knowledge, but 
 only to increase intellectual power. Scholars very often ask, 
 when pursuing some difficult study, " What good will it do me to 
 know this ?" But that is not the question. They ought to ask, 
 " What good will it do me to learn it? What effect upon my 
 habits of thinking, and upon my intellectual powers, will be pro- 
 duced by the efforts to examine and to conquer these difficulties V 
 Do not shrink, then, from difficult work in your efforts at intel- 
 lectual improvement. You ought, if you wish to secure the 
 greatest advantage, to have some difficult work, that you may 
 acquire habits of patient research, and increase and strengthen 
 your intellectual powers. 
 
 Another object of study is, — the acquisition of knowledge ; and 
 a moment's reflection will convince any one that the acquisition 
 of knowledge is the duty of all. If there is any thing clearly 
 manifest of G-od's intentions in regard to employment for man, it 
 
518 
 
 JACOB ABBOTT. 
 
 is that he should spend a very considerable portion of his time 
 upon earth in acquiring knowledge, — knowledge, in all the extent 
 and variety in which it is offered to human powers. The whole 
 economy of nature is such as to allure man to the investigation of 
 it, and the whole structure of his mind is so framed as to qualify 
 him exactly for the work. If now a person begins in early life, 
 and even as late as twenty, and makes it a part of his constant aim 
 to acquire knowledge, — endeavoring every day to learn something 
 which he did not know before, or to fix something in the mind 
 which was before not familiar, — he will make an almost insensible 
 but a most rapid and important progress. The field of his intel- 
 lectual vision will widen and extend every year. His powers of 
 mind as well as his attainments will be increased; and as he can 
 see more extensively, so he can act more effectually ever}'' month 
 than he could in the preceding. He thus goes on through life, 
 growing in knowledge and in intellectual and moral power; and 
 if his spiritual progress keeps pace, as it ought to, with his intel- 
 lectual advancement, he is, with the divine assistance and blessing, 
 exalting himself higher and higher in the scale of being, and pre- 
 paring himself for a loftier and wider field of service in the world 
 to come. Young Christian. 
 
 THE THING ESSENTIAL TO HAPPINESS. 
 
 There is one point in connection with the subject of the manage- 
 ment of worldly affairs which ought not to be passed by, and which 
 is yet an indispensable condition of human happiness. I mean 
 the duty of every man to bring his expenses and his pecuniary 
 liabilities fairly within his control. There are some cases of a 
 peculiar character, and some occasional emergencies, perhaps, in 
 the life of every man, which constitute exceptions; but this is 
 the general rule. 
 
 The plentifulness of money depends upon its relation to our ex- 
 penditures. An English nobleman, with an annual income of 
 fifty thousand pounds sterling, may be pressed for money, and be 
 harassed by it to such a degree as to make life a burden ; while 
 an Irish laborer on a railroad in New England, with eighty cents 
 a day, in the dead of winter, may have a plentiful supply, lle- 
 duce, then, your expenditures, and your style of living, and your 
 business too, so far below your pecuniary means, that you may 
 have money in plenty. There is, perhaps, nothing wliich so 
 grinds the human soul, and produces such an insupportable bur- 
 den of wretchedness and despondency, as pecuniary pressure. 
 Nothing more frequently drives men to suicide. And there is, 
 perhaps, no danger to which men in an active and enterprising 
 community are more exposed. Almost all are eagerly reaching 
 
HORACE BUSHNELL. 
 
 519 
 
 forward to a station in life a little above what they can well 
 afford, or struggling to do a business a little more extensive than 
 they have capital or steady credit for; and thus they keep, all 
 through life, just above their means; — and just above, no matter 
 by how small an excess, is inevitable misery. 
 
 Be sure, then, if your aim is happiness, to bring clown, at all 
 hazards, your style of living and your responsibilities of business 
 to such a point that you shall easily be able to reach it. Do this, 
 I say, at all hazards. If you cannot have money enough for your 
 purposes in a house with two rooms, take a house with one. It is 
 your only chance for happiness. For there is such a thing as 
 happiness in a single room, with plain furniture and simple fare ; 
 but there is no such thing as happiness with responsibilities 
 which cannot be met, and debts increasing without any prospect 
 of their discharge. Way to do Good. 
 
 HORACE BUSHNELL. 
 
 Horace Bushnell, D.D., was born in Washington, Litchfield County, Connec- 
 ticut, in 1804, and was graduated at Yale College in 1827. After leaving college, he 
 became the literary editor of the New York Journal of Commerce, and in 1829 was 
 appointed tutor in Yale College. In May, 1838, he was called to be the pastor 
 of the North Congregational Church in Hartford, which position he still retains. 
 
 Dr. Bushnell is a profound and therefore an independent thinker, and has con- 
 sequently been arraigned by some of his clerical brethren as not soundby "ortho- 
 dox," because he does not choose to adopt all the old phraseology. Those who 
 have attacked him, however, on this ground, have had abundant reason to repent 
 of their rashness : for he has vindicated his faith in a manner that has completely 
 silenced his opponents. His writings have been mainly on the subject of theology, 
 though he has occasionally stepped aside into the paths of literature. In 1837 he 
 delivered the Phi Beta Kappa oration at New Haven, On the Principles of National 
 Greatness; in 1848, before the same society, at Cambridge, an oration entitled 
 Work and Play; and in 1849 he addressed the New England Society of New York 
 on The Fathers of New England. His chief theological works are entitled God in 
 Christ ;— Views of Christian Nurture; — and Christ in Theology. He has also contri- 
 buted largely to the "New Englander," and published several occasional sermons, 
 entitled Unconscious Influence, — The Day of Roads, tracing the progress of civili- 
 zation by the character and condition of the great highways, — Barbarism the First 
 Banger, in allusion to emigration ; Religious Music ; and Politics under the Law of 
 God. 
 
 His latest published work — Nature and the Supernatural as together constituting 
 the One System of God — is one of profound thought, and will arrest the attention 
 of all thinking minds. Its starting-point of discussion, its definitions 4 and modes 
 of statement, the breadth of its view, the terseness of its language, and the vigor of 
 its logic, give it a grasp and power over the main issue which no work on kindred 
 
520 
 
 HORACE BUSHNELL. 
 
 themes has shown since Butler wrote his "Analogy." Besides, too, since the 
 "Analogy" was written, the ground in dispute has changed; and Dr. Bushnell 
 goes beyond Butler, in proving not only an analogy of Natural and Revealed 
 religion, but the unity of Nature and the Supernatural in the one system of God. 
 
 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 The drama, as a product of genius, is, within a certain narrow 
 limit, the realization of play. But far less effectively, or more 
 faintly, when it is acted. Then the counterfeit, as it is more 
 remote, is more feeble. In the reading we invent our own 
 sceneries, clothe into form and expression each one of the charac- 
 ters, and play out our own liberty in them as freely, and sometimes 
 as divinely, as they. Whatever reader, therefore, has a soul of 
 true life and fire within him, finds all expectation balked when he 
 becomes an auditor and spectator. The scenery is tawdry and flat, 
 the characters, definitely measured, have lost their infinity, so to 
 speak, and thus their freedom, and what before was play descends 
 to nothing better or more inspired than work. It is called going 
 to the play, but it should rather be called going to the Avork, that 
 is, to see a play worked, (yes, an opera I that is it !) — men and 
 women inspired through their memory, and acting their inspira- 
 tions by rote, panting into love, pumping at the fountains of grief, 
 whipping out the passions into fury, and dying to fulfil the con- 
 tract of the evening, by a forced holding of the breath. And yet 
 this feeble counterfeit of play, which some of us would call only 
 " very tragical mirth," has a power to the multitude. They are 
 moved, thrilled it may be, with a strange delight. It is as if a 
 something in their nature, higher than they themselves know, were 
 quickened into power, — namely, that divine instinct of play, in 
 which the summit of our nature is most clearly revealed. 
 
 In like manner, the passion of our race for war, and the eager 
 admiration yielded to warlike exploits, are resolvable principally 
 into the same fundamental cause. Mere ends and uses do not 
 satisfy us. We must get above prudence and economy, into some- 
 thing that partakes of inspiration, be the cost what it may. Hence 
 war, another and yet more magnificent counterfeit of play. Thus 
 there is a great and lofty virtue that we call courage, (cour-agc,') 
 taking our name from the heart. It is the greatness of a great 
 heart, the repose and confidence of a man whose soul is rested in 
 truth and principle. Such a man has no ends ulterior to his duty, 
 — duty itself is his end. He is in it therefore as in play, lives it 
 as an inspiration. Lifted thus out of mere prudence and contri- 
 vance, he is also lifted above fear. Life to him is the outgoing 
 
HORACE BUSHNELL. 
 
 521 
 
 of his great heart, (he« rt-agr,') action from the heart. And because 
 he now can die without being shaken or perturbed by any of the 
 dastardly feelings that belong to self-seeking and work, because he 
 partakes of the impassibility of his principles, we call him a hero, 
 regarding him as a kind of God, a man who has gone up into the 
 sphere of the divine. 
 
 Then, since courage is a joy so high, a virtue of so great ma- 
 jesty, what could happen but that many will covet both the inter- 
 nal exaltation and the outward repute of it ? Thus comes bravery, 
 which is the counterfeit, or mock virtue. Courage is of the heart, 
 as we have said j bravery is of the will. One is the spontaneous 
 joy and repose of a truly great soul; the other, bravery, is after 
 an end ulterior to itself, and, in that view, is but a form of work, 
 — about the hardest work, too, I fancy, that some men undertake. 
 What can be harder, in fact, than to act a great heart, when one 
 has nothing but a will wherewith to do it ? 
 
 Thus you will see that courage is above danger, bravery in it, 
 doing battle on a level with it. One is secure and tranquil, the 
 other suppresses agitation or conceals it. A right mind fortifies 
 one, shame stimulates the other. Faith is the nerve of one, risk 
 the plague and tremor of the other. For, if I may tell you just 
 here a very important secret, there be many that are called heroes 
 who are yet without courage. They brave danger by their will, 
 when their heart trembles. They make up in violence what they 
 want in tranquillity, and drown the tumult of their fears in the 
 rage of their passions. Enter the heart, and you shall find, too 
 often, a dastard spirit lurking in your hero. Call him still a brave 
 man, if you will; only remember that he lacks courage. 
 
 No, the true hero is the great, wise man of duty, — he whose 
 soul is armed by truth and supported by the smile of God, — he 
 who meets life's perils with a cautious but tranquil spirit, gathers 
 strength by facing its storms, and dies, if he is called to die, as a 
 Christian victor at the post of duty. And if we must have heroes, 
 and wars wherein to make them, there is no so brilliant war as a 
 war with wrong, no hero so fit to be sung as he who has gained 
 the bloodless victory of truth and mercy. 
 
 But if bravery be not the same as courage, still it is a very im- 
 posing and plausible counterfeit. The man himself is told, after 
 the occasion is past, how heroically he bore himself, and when 
 once his nerves have become tranquillized, he begins even to 
 believe it. And since we cannot stay content in the dull, unin- 
 spired world of economy and work, we are as ready to see a hero 
 as he to be one. Nay, we must have our heroes, as I just said, 
 and we are ready to harness ourselves, by the million, to any man 
 who will let us fight him out the name. Thus we find out occa- 
 sions for war, — wrongs to be redressed, revenges to be taken, such 
 
 44* • 
 
522 
 
 HORACE BUSHNELL. 
 
 as we may feign inspiration and play the great heart under. We 
 collect armies, and dress up leaders in gold and high colors, 
 meaning, by the brave look, to inspire some notion of a hero 
 beforehand. Then we set the men in phalanxes and squadrons, 
 where the personality itself is taken away, and a vast impersonal 
 person called an army, a magnanimous and brave monster, is all 
 that remains. The masses of fierce color, the glitter of steel, the 
 dancing plumes, the waving flags, the deep throb of the music 
 lifting every foot, — under these the living acres of men, possessed 
 by the one thought of playing brave to-day, are rolled on to battle. 
 Thunder, fire, dust, blood, groans, — what of these ? — nobody thinks 
 of these, for nobody dares to think till the day is over, and then 
 the world rejoices to behold a new batch of heroes. And this is 
 the devil's play, that we call war. 
 
 LIGHT. 
 
 There are many who will be ready to think that light is a very 
 tame and feeble instrument, because it is noiseless. An earth- 
 quake, for example, is to them a much more vigorous and effective 
 agency. Hear how it comes thundering through the solid founda- 
 tions of nature. It rocks a whole continent. The noblest works 
 of man, cities, monuments, and temples, are in a moment levelled 
 to the ground, or swallowed down the opening gulfs of fire. 
 
 Little do they think that the light of every morning, the soft 
 and silent light, is an agent many times more powerful. But let 
 the light of the morning cease and return no more ; let the hour 
 of morning come, and bring with it no dawn ; the outcries of a 
 horror-stricken world fill the air, and make, as it were, the dark- 
 ness audible. The beasts go wild and frantic at the loss of the sun. 
 The vegetable growths turn pale and die. A chill creeps on, and 
 frosty winds begin to howl across the freezing earth. Colder, yet 
 colder, is the night. The vital blood, at length, of all creatures, 
 stops congealed. 
 
 Down goes the frost to the earth's centre. The heart of the sea 
 is frozen, nay, the earthquakes are themselves frozen in, under 
 their fiery caverns. The very globe itself, too, and all the fellow- 
 planets that have lost their sun, are become mere balls of ice, 
 swinging silent in the darkness. Such is the light which revisits 
 us in the silence of the morning. — It makes no shock or scar. It 
 would not wake an infant in the cradle. And yet it perpetually 
 new-creates the world, rescuing it each morning as a prey from 
 night and chaos. 
 
 So the true Christian is a light, even "the light of the world ;'' 
 and we must not think that because he shines insensibly or silently, 
 as a mere object, he is therefore powerless. The greatest powers 
 
GEORGE W. BETHUNE. 
 
 523 
 
 are ever those which lie back of the little stirs and commotions of 
 nature; and I verily believe that the insensible influences of good 
 men are as much more potent than what I have called their 
 voluntary and active, as the great silent powers of nature are of 
 greater consequence than her little disturbances and tumults. 
 
 GEORGE W. BETHUNE. 
 
 This graceful scholar and eloquent divine was born in New York, on the ISth 
 of March, 1805. He is the only son of Mr. Divie Bethune, 1 a native of Ross- 
 shire, Scotland, who for many years was an eminent merchant in New York, — 
 eminent not only for business qualifications, but for an intelligent, ever-active 
 piety. In 1819, he entered Columbia College, and, three years afterwards, the 
 senior class of Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. During that year (1S22) 
 he was the subject of a revival of religion that took place in the college, and he re- 
 solved to devote his life to the Christian ministry. 2 After graduating, he entered 
 Princeton Theological Seminary, and, in 1827, was settled over the Reformed 
 Dutch Church at Rhinebeck, Dutchess County, New York. In 1830, he removed to 
 Utica, to take charge of the new Reformed Dutch Church, which he gathered and 
 built up; and in 1834, he was called to the First Reformed Dutch Church, Phila- 
 delphia. After laboring in this field two years, a number of his friends in that 
 city determined to build a new house of worship for him ; and in 1837, he was 
 settled over the Third Reformed Dutch Church, worshipping at the corner of 
 Tenth and Filbert Streets. Here he remained twelve years, when he left to take 
 charge of the Reformed Dutch Church on Brooklyn Heights, New York, where 
 he now resides. 
 
 In consequence of his fine scholarship, and his power as a writer and an orator, 
 Dr. Bethune has received many invitations to posts of high honor and trust. 
 The chair of Moral Philosophy at West Point was offered to him by President 
 Polk; and he was elected Chancellor of the University of New York, to succeed 
 
 1 Dr. Bethune's mother, Mrs. Joanna Bethune, was the daughter of the cele- 
 brated Isabella Graham, and inherited much of her mother's spirit of earnest 
 philanthropy. She was very active in founding the Widow's Society and 
 Orphan's Asylum in New York, and was among the first in laying the foundation 
 of many benevolent institutions, such as the Sunday-school, the Society for the 
 Promotion of Industry, <fcc. <tc. 
 
 2 Another subject of that revival was the late Erskine Mason, D.D., for twenty- 
 one years pastor of the Bleecker Street Church, who died May 14, 1851. His 
 sermons were distinguished for great compactness of thought and severe logical 
 arrangement, united to a fervid and often impassioned eloquence, that gave him 
 a very high rank as a pulpit-orator. An octavo volume of his sermons, entitled 
 The Pastor 8 Legacy, has been published siuce his death, prefixed to which is an 
 excellent memoir, by Rev. William Adams, D.D. R,ead also a very discrimi- 
 na'ing and beautifully-written article on his character, by the late Rev. R. S. 
 Starrs Dickinson, for two years assistant pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, 
 Philadelphia, whose early death was a great loss to the Christian church. 
 
524 
 
 GEORGE W. BETHUNE. 
 
 Mr. Frelinghuysen. But these and other honors he declined, feeling it to be his 
 duty to remain in the pulpit as the pastor of a people devotedly attached to him. 
 The following are his chief publications : — The Fruits of the Spirit, a volume of 
 Christian ethical essays, published in 1839 ; Early Lout, Early Saved, on the death 
 and salvation of infants, 1846 5 a volume of Sermons, 1847 ; History of a Penitent, 
 or Guide to an Inquirer, 1847; an edition of Walton's Angler, with copious literary 
 and bibliographical notes, 1848 ; Lays of Love and Faith, icith other Fugitive 
 Poems, 1848 ; The British Female Poets, with biographical and critical notices, 
 1848. 
 
 For twenty years Dr. Bethune has been continually invited to deliver orations 
 and lectures at various colleges, and before societies in different parts of the 
 country; and of these the following have been published: — 1837, On Genius, de- 
 livered at Union College; 1839, Leisure, its Uses and Abuses, before the Mercan- 
 tile Library, and The Age of Pericles, before the Athenian Institute, Phila- 
 delphia ; 1840, an Oration before the literary societies of the University of Penn- 
 sylvania; and the Prospects of Art in the United States, before the Artists' Fund 
 Society, Philadelphia ; 1842, The Eloquence of the Pulpit, at Andover Theological 
 Seminary ; and The Duties of Educated Men, at Dickinson College ; 1845, Dis- 
 course on the Death of Andrew Jackson, Philadelphia; and A Plea for Study, at 
 Yale College ; 1849, The Claims of our Country on its Literary Men, before the 
 Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard College. 
 
 OUR COUNTRY. 
 
 What has God done, what is he doing, what is he about to do, 
 in this land ? He has set it far away to the west, and made it so 
 circumstantially independent, that, if all the rest of the habitable 
 earth were sunk, we should feel no serious curtailment of our 
 comforts. The products of the whole world are, or may soon 
 be, found within our confederate limits. He brought here first 
 the sternest, most religious, most determined representatives of 
 Europe's best blood, best faith, best intellect; men, ay, and 
 women (it is the mother who makes the child) who, because they 
 feared God, feared no created power, — who, bowing before his 
 absolute sovereignty, would kneel to no lord spiritual or temporal 
 on earth, — and who, believing the Bible true, demanded its sanc- 
 tion for all law. To your Pilgrim Fathers the highest place may 
 well be accorded ; but forget not that, about the time of their 
 landing on the Rock, there came to the mouth of the Hudson 
 men of kindred faith and descent, — men equally loving freedom, 
 — men from the sea-washed cradle of modern constitutional free- 
 dom, whose union of free burgher-cities taught us the lesson of 
 confederate independent sovereignties, whose sires were as free, 
 long centuries before Magna Charter, as the English are now, 
 and from whose line of republican princes Britain received the 
 
GEORGE W. BETHUNE. 
 
 525 
 
 boon of religious toleration, — a privilege the States-General had 
 recognised as a primary article of their government when first 
 established ; men of that stock which, when offered their choice 
 of favors from a grateful monarch, asked a University; 1 men whose 
 martyr-sires had baptized their land with their blood ; men who 
 had flooded it with ocean-waves rather than yield it to a bigot- 
 tyrant; men whose virtues were sober as prose, but sublime as 
 poetry; — the men of Holland! Mingled with these, and still 
 farther on, were heroic Huguenots, their fortunes broken, but 
 their spirit unbending to prelate or prelate-ridden king. There 
 were others, (and a dash of cavalier blood told well in battle-field 
 and council;) — but those were the spirits whom God had made 
 the moral substratum of our national character. Here, like Israel 
 in the wilderness, and thousands of miles off from the land of 
 bondage, they were educated for their high calling, until, in the 
 fulness of times, our confederacy with its Constitution was founded. 
 Already there had been a salutary mixture of blood, but not 
 enough to impair the Anglo-Saxon ascendency. The nation grew 
 morally strong from its original elements. The great work was 
 delayed only by a just preparation. Now God is bringing hither 
 the most vigorous scions from all the European stocks, to "make 
 of them all one new MAN ;" not the Saxon, not the German, not 
 the Gaul, not the Helvetian, but the American. Here they 
 will unite as one brotherhood, will have one law, will share one 
 interest. Spread over the vast region from the frigid to the 
 torrid, from Eastern to Western Ocean, every variety of climate 
 giving them choice of pursuit and modification of temperament, 
 the ballot-box fusing together all rivalries, they shall have one 
 national will. What is wanting in one race will be supplied by 
 the characteristic energies of the others ; and what is excessive in 
 either, checked by the counter-action of the rest. Nay, though 
 for a time the newly-come may retain their foreign vernacular, 
 our tongue, so rich in ennobling literature, will be the tongue of 
 the nation, the language of its laws, and the accent of its majesty. 
 Eternal God ! who seest the end with the beginning, thou 
 alone canst tell the ultimate grandeur of this people ! 
 
 Phi Beta Kappa Oration. 
 
 1 After the eventful issue of the siege of Leyden, the Prince of Orange and the 
 States-General, grateful to the heroic defenders of that city, offered them their 
 choice of an Annual Fair or a University. They chose the University; but, 
 struck with the nobleness of the choice, the high authorities granted them both. 
 The University was established in 1575, and became the Alma Mater of Grotius, 
 Scaliger, Boerhaave, and many other renowned men. Seepage 688. 
 
526 
 
 GEORGE W. BETHUNE. 
 
 VICTORY OVER DEATH. 
 
 As the Redeemer is glorified in his flesh, so shall the believer 
 be raised up to glory at the last day. What then to him whose 
 faith can grasp things hoped for and unseen, are all the passing 
 ignominies, and pangs, and insults, which now afflict the follower 
 of the Man of sorrows, the Lord of life and glory ? Every revo- 
 lution of the earth rolls on to that fulness of adoption, " when this 
 mortal shall put on immortality, and this corruption shall put on 
 incorruption, and shall be brought to pass this saying, Death is 
 swallowed up in victory;" when these eyes, now so dim and soon 
 to be closed in dust, shall behold the face of God in righteous- 
 ness ; when these hands, now so weak and stained with sin, shall 
 bear aloft the triumphant palm, and strike the golden harp that 
 seraphs love to listen to; and these voices, now so harsh and 
 tuneless, shall swell in harmony ineffable to the song of Moses 
 and the Lamb, responsive to the Trisagion, the thrice holy of the 
 angels. Yes, beloved Master, we see thee, " who wast made a 
 little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with 
 glory and honor j" and thou hast promised that we shall share thy 
 glory and thy crown ! 
 
 " Thanks be to God ; which giveth us the victory, through our 
 Lord Jesus Christ!" "Us!" And who are included in that 
 sublime and multitudinous plural ? " Not to me only," says the 
 Apostle, " but to all them that love his appearing." Ye shall 
 share it, ancient believers, who, from Adam to Christ, worshipped 
 by figure, and under the shadow ! Ye shall share it, ye prophets, 
 who wondered at the mysterious promises of glory following suf- 
 fering ! Ye shall share it, ye mighty apostles, though ye doubted 
 when ye heard of the broken tomb ! Ye, martyrs, whose howling 
 enemies execrated you, as they slew you by sword, and cross, and 
 famine, and rack, and the wild beast, and flame ! And ye, God's 
 humble poor, whom men despised, but of whom the world was not 
 worthy, God's angels are watching, as they watched the sepulchre 
 in the garden, over your obscure graves, keeping your sacred dust 
 till the morning break, when it shall be crowned with princely 
 splendor ! Yes, thou weak one, who yet hast strength to embrace 
 thy Master's cross ! Thou sorrowing one, whose tears fall like 
 rain, but not without hope, over the grave of thy beloved ! Thou 
 tempted one, who, through much tribulation, art struggling on to 
 the kingdom of God ! Ye all shall be there, and ten thousand 
 times ten thousand more ! Hark ! the trumpet ! The earth 
 groans and rocks herself as if in travail ! They rise, the sheeted 
 dead ; but how lustrously white are their garments ! How 
 dazzling their beautiful holiness ! What a mighty host ! They 
 fill the air; they acclaim hallelujahs; the heavens bend with 
 
GEORGE W. BETHUNE. 
 
 527 
 
 shouts of harmony ; the Lord comes down, and his angels are 
 about him ; and he owns his chosen, and they rise to meet him, 
 and they mingle with cherubim and seraphim, and the shout- 
 ings are like thunders from the throne, — thunderings of joy : — 
 " O Death, where is thy sting ? Grave, where is thy victory ? 
 Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory, through our 
 Lord Jesus Christ I" 
 
 CLING TO THY MOTHER. 
 
 Cling to thy mother ; for she was the first 
 To know thy being, and to feel thy life ; 
 
 The hope of thee through many a pang she nurst ; 
 And when, 'midst anguish like the parting strife, 
 
 Her babe was in her arms, the agony 
 
 Was all forgot, for bliss of loving thee. 
 
 Be gentle to thy mother ; long she bore 
 Thine infant fretfulness and silly youth ; 
 
 Nor rudely scorn the faithful voice that o'er 
 
 Thy cradle pray'd, and taught thy lispings truth. 
 
 Yes, she is old ; yet on thine adult brow 
 
 She looks, and claims thee as her child e'en now. 
 
 Uphold thy mother ; close to her warm heart 
 She canned, fed thee, lull'd thee to thy rest ; — 
 
 Then taught thy tottering limbs their untried art, 
 Exulting in the fledgling from her nest: 
 
 And, now her steps are feeble, be her stay, 
 
 Whose strength was thine in thy most feeble day. 
 
 Cherish thy mother; brief perchance the time 
 May be that she will claim t he care she gave ; 
 
 Past are her hopes of youth, her harvest prime 
 Of joy on earth; her friends are in the grave: 
 
 But for her children, she could lay her head 
 
 Gladly to rest among her precious dead. 
 
 Be tender with thy mother; words unkind, 
 Or light neglect from thee, will give a pang 
 
 To that fond bosom, where thou art enshrined 
 In love unutterable, more than fang 
 
 Of venom'd serpent. 1 Wound not that strong trust, 
 
 As thou wouldst hope for peace when she is dust. 
 
 mother mine ! God grant I ne'er forget, 
 Whatever be my grief, or what my joy, 
 
 The unmeasured, unextinguishable debt 
 
 I owe thy love ; but make my sweet employ 
 
 Ever through thy remaining days to be 
 
 To thee as faithful, as thou wert to me. 
 
 1 " How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is 
 To have a thankless child !" — Lear. 
 
528 
 
 GEORGE W. BETHUNE. 
 
 LIVE TO DO GOOD. 
 
 Live to do good ; but not with thought to win 
 From man return of any kindness done ; 
 
 Remember Him who died on cross for sin, 
 The merciful, the meek, rejected One ; 
 
 When He was slain for crime of doing good, 
 
 Canst thou expect return of gratitude ? 
 
 Do good to all ; but while thou servest best, 
 And at thy greatest cost, nerve thee to bear, 
 
 When thine own heart with anguish is opprest, 
 The cruel taunt, the cold averted air, 
 
 From lips which thou hast taught in hope to pray, 
 
 And eyes whose sorrows thou hast wiped away. 
 
 Still do thou good ; but for His holy sake 
 Who died for thine ; fixing thy purpose ever 
 
 High as His throne no wrath of man can shake; 
 So shall He own thy generous endeavor, 
 
 And take thee to His conqueror's glory up, 
 
 When thou hast shared the Saviour's bitter cup. 
 
 Do naught but good ; for such the noble strife 
 Of virtue is, 'gainst wrong to venture love, 
 
 And for thy foe devote a brother's life, 
 Content to wait the recompense above ; 
 
 Brave for the truth, to fiercest insult meek, 
 
 In mercy strong, in vengeance only weak. 
 
 EARLY LOST, EARLY SAVED. 
 
 Within her downy cradle, there lay a little child, 
 And a group of hovering angels unseen upon her smiled ; 
 When a strife arose among them, a loving, holy strife, 
 Which should shed the richest blessing over the new-born life. 
 
 One breathed upon her features, and the babe in beauty grew, 
 With a cheek like morning's blushes, and an eye of azure hue ; 
 Till every one who saw her was thankful for the sight 
 Of a face so sweet and radiant with ever fresh delight. 
 
 Another gave her accents and a voice as musical 
 As a spring-bird's joyous carol, or a rippling streamlet's fall; 
 Till all who heard her laughing, or her words of childish grace, 
 Loved as much to listen to her, as to look upon her face. 
 
 Another brought from heaven a clear and gentle mind, 
 And within the lovely casket the precious gem enshrined ; 
 Till all who knew her wonder' d that God should be so good 
 As to bless with such a spirit a world so cold and rude. 
 
 Thus did she grow in beauty, in melody, and truth, 
 
 The budding of her childhood just opening into youth ; 
 
 And to our hearts yet dearer, every moment than before, 
 
 She became, though we thought fondly heart could not love her more. 
 
ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH. 
 
 529 
 
 Then out spake another angel, nobler, brighter than the rest, 
 As with strong arm. but tender, lie caught her to his breast: — 
 " Ye have made her all too lovely for a child of mortal race, 
 But no shade of human sorrow shall darken o'er her face : 
 
 "Ye have tuned to gladness only the accents of her tongue, 
 And no wail of human anguish shall from her lips be wrung, 
 Nor shall the soul that shineth so purely from within 
 Her form of earth-born frailty, ever know a sense of sin. 
 
 " Lull'd in my faithful bosom, I will bear her far away, 
 Where there is no sin, nor anguish, nor sorrow, nor decay; 
 And mine a boon more glorious than all your gifts shall be — 
 Lo ! I crown her happy spirit with immortality!" 
 
 Then on his heart our darling yielded up her gentle breath ; 
 
 For the stronger, brighter angel, who loved her best, was Death ! 
 
 ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH. 
 
 This accomplished writer, whose maiden name was Prince, was born in a vil- 
 lage near Portland, Maine, and traces her descent, both on her father's and 
 mother's side, to the early Puritans. She early showed uncommon powers of 
 mind, and before she could write she would compose little stories, and print them 
 in her rude way. At an early age she was married to Mr. Seba Smith, editor of 
 the "Portland Advertiser," who in 1S39 removed to New York. 1 Her first pub- 
 lished book was entitled Riches icithont Wings, written for the young, but interest- 
 ing to readers of all ages. In 1S42, she published a novel, The Western Captive, 
 founded on traditions of Indian life. In 1844 appeared The Sinless Child, and 
 other Poems, which was very favorably received, and passed through several edi- 
 tions. She then turned her attention to tragedy, and published The Roman Tribute, 
 founded on a period in the history of Constantinople when Theodosius saved it 
 from being sacked by paying its price to Attila, the Hun ; and Jacob Leisler, 
 founded upon a dramatic incident in the colonial history of New York in 1680. 
 In 1848 appeared a fanciful prose tale, The Salamander, a Legend for Christinas ; 
 and in 1851, Woman and Her Needs, a volume on the "Woman's Rights" ques- 
 tion, of which Mrs. Smith has been a prominent advocate. Her publication 
 entitled Bertha and Lily, or the Parsonage of Beech Glen, a Romance, is a story of 
 American country-life, which was followed by The Newsboy, being a picture of the 
 life of a too much neglected class. This work was the first public appeal in their 
 behalf, and led to efficient measures for their improvement and relief; and so 
 popular was it that it passed through a dozen editions the first year. Mrs. Smith 
 now resides in New York, still actively employing her useful pen in magazines 
 and other periodicals. 
 
 1 See page 361. 
 45 
 
530 
 
 ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH. 
 
 THE DROWNED MARINER. 
 
 A mariner sat in the shrouds one night, 
 
 The wind Avas piping free ; 
 Now bright, now dimm'd was the moonlight pale, 
 And the phosphor gleam'd in the wake of the whale, 
 
 As it fiounder'd in the sea; 
 The scud was flying athwart the sky, 
 The gathering winds went whistling by, 
 And the wave, as it towcr'd, then fell in spray, 
 Look'd an emerald wall in the moonlight ray. 
 
 The mariner sway'd and rock'd on the mast, 
 
 But the tumult pleased him well : 
 Down the yaAvning wave his eye he cast, 
 And the monsters watch'd as they hurried past, 
 
 Or lightly rose and fell — 
 For their broad, damp fins were under the tide, 
 And they lash'd as they pass'd the vessel's side, 
 And their filmy eyes, all huge and grim, 
 Glared fiercely up, and they glared at him. 
 
 Now freshens the gale, and the brave ship goes 
 
 Like an uncurb'd steed along ; 
 A sheet of flame is the spi-ay she throws, 
 As her gallant prow tke water ploughs, 
 
 But the ship is fleet and strong ; 
 The topsails are reef : d, and the sails are furl'd, 
 And onward she sweeps o ; er the watery world, 
 And dippeth her spars in the surging flood ; 
 But there cometh no chill to the mariner's blood. 
 
 Wildly she rocks, but he swingeth at ease, 
 
 And holds him by the shroud ; 
 And as she careens to the crowding breeze, 
 The gaping deep the mariner sees, 
 
 And the surging heareth loud. 
 Was that a face, looking up at him, 
 With its pallid cheek, and its cold eyes dim? 
 Did it beckon him down ? Did it call his name ? 
 Now rolleth the ship the way whence it came. 
 
 The mariner look'd, and he saw, with dread, 
 
 A face he knew too well ; 
 And the cold eyes glared, the eyes of the dead, 
 And its long hair out on the waves was spread — 
 
 Was there a tale to tell ? 
 The stout ship rock'd with a reeling speed, 
 And the mariner groan*d, as well he need — 
 For ever down, as she plunged on her side, 
 The dead face gleam'd from the briny tide. 
 
 Bethink thee, mariner, well of the past : 
 A voice calls loud for thee : 
 
ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH. 
 
 There's a stifled prayer, the first, the last ; 
 The plunging ship on her beam is cast — 
 
 Oh, where shall thy burial be ? 
 Bethink thee of oaths, that were lightly spoken ; 
 Bethink thee of vows, that were lightly broken ; 
 Bethink thee of all that is dear to thee, 
 For thou art alone on the raging sea. 
 
 Alone in the dark, alone on the wave, 
 
 To buffet the storm alone ; 
 To struggle aghast at thy watery grave, 
 To struggle and feel there is none to save ! 
 
 God shield thee, helpless one! 
 The stout limbs yield, for their strength is past ; 
 The trembling hands on the deep are cast ; 
 The white brow gleams a moment more, 
 Then slowly sinks — the struggle is o'er. 
 
 Down, down where the storm is hush'd to sleep, 
 Where the sea its dirge shall swell ; 
 
 Where the amber-drops for thee shall weep, 
 
 And the rose-lipp'd shell its music keep ; 
 There thou shalt slumber well. 
 
 The gem and the pearl lie heap'd at thy side ; 
 
 They fell from the neck of the beautiful bride, 
 
 From the strong man's hand, from the maiden's brow, 
 
 As they slowly sunk to the wave below. 
 
 A peopled home is the ocean-bed ; 
 
 The mother and child are there : 
 The fervent youth and the hoary head, 
 The maid, with her floating locks outspread, 
 
 The babe, with its silken hair : 
 As the water moveth, they lightly sway, 
 And the tranquil lights on their features play : 
 And there is each cherish'd and beautiful form, 
 Away from decay, and away from the storm. 
 
 THE WIFE. 
 
 All day, like some sweet bird, content to sing 
 
 In its small cage, she moveth to and fro — 
 And ever and anon will upward spring 
 
 To her sweet lips, fresh from the fount below, 
 The murmur' d melody of pleasant thought, 
 
 Unconscious utter'd, gentle-toned and low. 
 Light household duties, evermore inwrought 
 
 With placid fancies of one trusting heart 
 That lives but in her smile, and turns 
 
 From life's cold seeming and the busy mart, 
 With tenderness, that heavenward ever yearns 
 To be refreshed where one pure altar burns. 
 
 Shut out from hence the mockery of life, 
 
 Thus liveth she content, the meek, fond, trusting wife. 
 
532 
 
 CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND. 
 
 CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND. 
 
 Caroline M. Kirkland, whose maiden name was Stansbury, is a native of the 
 city of New York, where her father was a bookseller and publisher. After his 
 death the family removed to the western part of the State, where she was married 
 to Mr. William Kirkland. 1 After residing in Geneva for some years, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Kirkland removed to Detroit, Michigan, where they resided for two years, and for 
 six more in the interior, about sixty miles west of Detroit. This gave our authoress 
 an opportunity to observe Western life and manners; and how well she improved 
 it was soon seen in her New Home, Who'll Follow? or Glimpses of Western Life, by 
 Mrs. Mary Clovers', published in 1839, which made an immediate impression upon 
 the public, by its keen observation and delightful humor. In 1842 appeared 
 Forest Life, soon after which she returned with her husband to New York, where 
 he commenced, in conjunction with Rev. II. W. Bellows, a weekly journal, called 
 the "Christian Inquirer." Early in 1S4G appeared Western Clearings, a collection 
 of tales and sketches illustrative of Western life. After publishing An Essay on the 
 Life and Writings of Spenser, Mrs. Kirkland undertook, in July, 1S47, the editor- 
 ship of the " Union Magazine," which the next year was transferred to Phila- 
 delphia, where it was published under the title of " Sartain's Magazine," edited 
 jointly by Prof. John S. Hart and Mrs. Kirkland. In 1848, she visited Europe, 
 and has recorded her impressions in a work entitled Holidays Abroad, or Europe 
 from the West. In 1853 she published successively The Evening Book, or Fireside 
 Talk on Morals and Manners, with Sketches of Western Life ; Autumn Hours ; and 
 The Home Circle ; and the same year appeared The Book of Home Beauty, a gift 
 for the holidays, containing the portraits of twelve American ladies, — the text of 
 which, however, has no reference to the " portraits," but consists of a story of 
 American society, Avith occasional poetical quotations. Her latest work — Memoirs 
 of Washington — presents a most lifelike and winning picture of the private as well 
 as public life of that great man. The chaste and simple dedication shows its 
 object : — " To all my young friends, known and unknown, and particularly to my 
 own Sons and Daughters, this attempt to introduce Washington to their more 
 intimate knowledge and tenderer regard, and so to make his goodness and patriot- 
 ism irresistibly inspiring to them, is affectionately inscribed." 2 
 
 1 Mr. Kirkland was the son of the Hon. Joseph Kirkland, who lived in Utica, 
 New York. He was at one time a professor in Hamilton College, and is the author 
 of " Letters from Abroad," written after a residence in Europe. He was also a 
 contributor to " The Columbian," and to " Hunt's Merchants' Magazine." He 
 died in October, 1846. 
 
 2 This book may be confidently and warmly commended to all " Young Ame- 
 rica," as giving an impression of Washington's everyday life far more beautiful, 
 because more truthful, thau some works of much higher pretensions. 
 
 "Mrs. Kirkland's writings are all marked by clear common sense, purity of 
 style, and animated thought. Her keen perception of character is brought to 
 bear on the grave as well as humorous side of human nature; on its good points 
 as well as its foibles : and her satire is directed against the false retinements of 
 artificial life as well as the rude angularities of the backwoods." — Duvckinck. 
 
r" / 
 
CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND. 533 
 
 THE AUTHORITY IN A HOUSEHOLD. 
 
 We touched on authority as the basis of household happiness, — 
 a proof how antiquated are our notions. But if the very mention 
 of authority, even in connection with the training of children, give 
 an air of mustiness to our page, how shall we face the reader of 
 to-day, when we avow that we judge no family to be truly and 
 rationally happy, unless the head of it possess absolute authority, 
 in such sense that his known wish is law, his expressed will im- 
 perative? Is this an anti-democratic sentiment? By no means. 
 The ideal family supposes a head who is himself under law, and 
 that of the most stringent and inevitable kind. It supposes him 
 to hold and exercise authority under a deep sense of duty, as being 
 something with which Grod clothed him when he made him hus- 
 band and father, and which he is, therefore, on no occasion or 
 account, at liberty to put olf or set aside as a thing indifferent. 
 This power is necessary to the full development and exercise of 
 that beautiful virtue of obedience, without which the human will 
 must struggle on hopelessly forever, being forbidden by its very 
 constitution to know happiness on any other terms. It is an ill 
 sign of the times, that the old-fashioned promise of obedience in 
 the marriage ceremony is now only a theme for small wit. Those 
 wise fathers who placed it there knew the human heart better than 
 we suppose. They knew that, as surely as man and wife are one, 
 so surely do they thus united become a Cerberus-like monster if 
 they retain more than one head. The old song says : — 
 
 ; ' One of us two must obey: 
 Is it man or woman ? say ?" 
 
 A house in which this question remains undecided is always a 
 pitiable spectacle, for both nature and religion are set aside there. 
 
 We had not dared to touch on this incendiary topic if we had 
 not been sure of such support as admits not of gainsaying. Shak- 
 speare's shrewdness, his knowledge of the human heart, his high 
 ideal of woman as wife and mother, not to speak of his poetic 
 appreciation of the beauty of fitness, render his opinion peculiarly 
 valuable on this ticklish point. Hear him : — 
 
 " Thy husband is thy life, thy lord, thy keeper, 
 Thy head, thy sovereign ; one that cares for thee, 
 And for thy maintenance : commits his body 
 To painful labor both by sea and land, 
 To watch the night in storms, the day in cold, 
 While thou liest warm at home, secure and safe : 
 And craves no other tribute at thy hands 
 Than love, fair looks, and true obedience — 
 Too little payment for so great a debt !" 
 
534 
 
 CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND. 
 
 If now we should in turn read a homily to this supreme head, 
 (which is bound to have ears,) we might perhaps forfeit all the 
 gratitude we suppose ourselves to have earned from him. We 
 should show him such a list of the duties which true headship 
 imposes, that he would be glad to be diminished, and perhaps 
 change places with the least important of his subjects. The pos- 
 session of unquestionable authority almost makes him responsible 
 for the happiness of the household. No sunshine is so cheering 
 as the countenance of a father who is feared as well as loved. A 
 brow clouded with care, a mind too much absorbed by schemes of 
 gain or ambition to be able to unbend itself in the domestic circle, 
 a temper which vacillates between impatience under annoyance, 
 and the decision which puts an end to it, a disposition to indul- 
 gence which has no better foundation than mere indolence, and 
 which is, therefore, sure to be unequal — these are all forbidden to 
 him whose right it is to rule. In short, unless he rule himself, he 
 is obviously unfit to rule anybody else; so that, to assume this 
 high position under law and gospel, is to enter into bonds to be 
 good ! which appears to us a fair offset against the duty of obedi- 
 ence on the other side. 
 
 One reason, certainly, why there is less household feeling than 
 formerly, is that young married people, at present, think it neces- 
 sary to begin life where their fathers left off — with a complete 
 establishment, and not a loop-hole left for those little plans of 
 future addition to domestic comforts or luxuries which give such 
 a pleasant stimulus to economy, and confer so tender a value on 
 the things purchased by means of an especial self-denial in another 
 quarter. Charles Lamb, who was an adept in these gentle philoso- 
 phies, said that after he had the ability to buy a choice book when 
 he chose, the indulgence had, somehow, lost its sweetness, and 
 brought nothing of the relish that used to attend a purchase after 
 he and Mary had been looking and longing, and at last only dared 
 buy upon the strength of days' or weeks' economizing. This is a 
 secret worth learning by those who would get the full flavor of 
 life, and make home the centre of a thousand delightful interests 
 and memories. 
 
 BORROWING "OUT WEST." 
 
 Your true republican, when he finds that you possess any thing 
 which would contribute to his convenience, walks in with, " Are 
 you going to use your horses to-day?" if horses happen to be the 
 thing he needs. 
 
 " Yes, I shall probably want them." 
 
 " Oh, well; if you want them 1 was thinking to get 'em to 
 
 go up north a piece." 
 
CAROLINE M. KIRK. LAND. 
 
 535 
 
 Or, perhaps, the desired article comes within the female de- 
 partment. 
 
 " Mother wants to get some butter : that 'ere butter you bought 
 of Miss Barton this mornin'." 
 
 And away goes your golden store, to be repaid, perhaps, with 
 some cheesy, greasy stuff, brought in a dirty pail, with, " Here's 
 your butter !" 
 
 A girl came in to borrow a " wash-dish," u because we've got 
 company." Presently she came back : " Mother says you've forgot 
 to send a towel." 
 
 " The pen and ink, and a sheet o' paper and a wafer," is no 
 unusual request; and when the pen is returned, you are generally 
 informed that you sent " an awful bad pen." 
 
 I have been frequently reminded of one of Johnson's humorous 
 sketches. A man returning a broken wheelbarrow to a Quaker 
 with, "Here, I've broke your rotten wheelbarrow usin' on't: I 
 wish you'd get it mended right off, 'cause I want to borrow it 
 again this afternoon the Quaker is made to reply, " Friend, it 
 shall be done :" and I wished I possessed more of his spirit. 
 
 HOSPITALITY. 
 
 Like many other virtues, hospitality is practised in its perfec- 
 tion by the poor. If the rich did their share, how would the woes 
 of this world be lightened ! how would the diffusive blessing irra- 
 diate a wider and a wider circle, until the vast confines of society 
 would bask in the reviving ray ! If every forlorn widow whose 
 heart bleeds over the recollection of past happiness made bitter by 
 contrast with present poverty and sorrow, found a comfortable 
 home in the ample establishment of her rich kinsman ; if every 
 young man struggling for a foothold on the slippery soil of life 
 were cheered and aided by the countenance of some neighbor whom 
 fortune had endowed with the power to confer happiness ) if the 
 lovely girls, shrinking and delicate, whom we see every day toiling 
 timidly for a mere pittance to sustain frail life and guard the 
 sacred remnant of gentility, were taken by the hand, invited and 
 encouraged, by ladies who pass them by with a cold nod — but 
 where shall we stop in enumerating the cases in which true, genial 
 hospitality, practised by the rich ungrudgingly, without a selfish 
 drawback — in short, practised as the poor practise it — would prove 
 a fountain of blessedness, almost an antidote to half the keener 
 miseries under which society groans ! 
 
 Yes: the poor — and children — understand hospitality after the 
 pure model of Christ and his apostles. 
 
 The fornix of society are in a high degree inimical to true hos- 
 pitality. Pride has crushed genuine social feeling out of too many 
 
536 
 
 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 hearts, and the consequence is a cold sterility of intercourse, a 
 soul-stifling- ceremoniousness, a sleepless vigilance for self, totally 
 incompatible with that free, flowing, genial intercourse with 
 humanity, so nourishing to all the better feelings. The sacred 
 love of home — that panacea for many of life's ills — suffers with 
 the rest. Few people have homes nowadays. The fine, cheerful, 
 every-day parlor, with its table covered with the implements of 
 real occupation and real amusement — mamma on the sofa, with 
 her needle — grandmamma in her great chair, knitting — pussy 
 winking at the fire between them — is gone. In its place we have 
 two gorgeous rooms, arranged for company, but empty of human 
 life ; tables covered with gaudy, ostentatious, and useless articles 
 — a very mockery of any thing like rational pastime — the light of 
 heaven as cautiously excluded as the delicious music of free, 
 childish voices ; every member of the family wandering in forlorn 
 loneliness, or huddled in some " back room" or " basement/' in 
 which are collected the only means of comfort left them under this 
 miserable arrangement. This is the substitute which hundreds 
 of people accept in place of home ! Shall we look in such places 
 for hospitality ? As soon expect figs from thistles. Invitations 
 there will be occasionally, doubtless, for "society" expects it; but 
 let a country cousin present himself, and see whether he will be 
 put into the state apartments. Let no infirm and indigent relative 
 expect a place under such a roof. Let not even the humble indi- 
 vidual who placed the stepping-stone which led to that fortune ask 
 a share in the abundance which would never have had a beginning 
 but for his timely aid. " We have changed all that I" 
 
 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 This highly-finished and fascinating writer was born in Salem, Massachusetts, 
 about the year 1805. He was educated at Bowdoin College, and was graduate 
 there in 1825, Professor Longfellow being one of his classmates. In 1837 he 
 published the first, and in 1842 the second, volume of his Twice- Told Tales, — so 
 called because they had before appeared in annuals and periodicals. 1 His next 
 
 1 Of the character of these Twice-Told Tales the "Christian Examiner" thus 
 speaks : — " These tales abound with beautiful imagery, sparkling metaphors, novel 
 and brilliant comparisons. They are everywhere full of those bright gems of 
 thought which no reader can ever forget. They have also a high moral tone. It 
 is for this, for their reverence for things sacred, for their many touching lessons 
 concerning faith, Providence, conscience, and duty, for the beautiful morals so 
 often spontaneously conveyed, not with purpose prepense, but from the fulness of 
 the author's own heart, that we are led to notice them in this journal." — xxv. 
 188. Read also an enthusiastic review of them in the "North American Review," 
 xlv. 59. 
 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 537 
 
 publication was The Journal of an African Cruiser, which he prepared and edited 
 from the manuscript of Horatio Bridge, of the United States Navy. In 184.'5, he 
 went to reside in Concord, in the " Old Manse j" and in 1S1G appeared a collec- 
 tion of his papers, which he wrote during his three years' residence there, for 
 several magazines, under the title of Mosses from an Old Manse. The same year 
 he was appointed by the President, Mr. Polk, surveyor in the custom-house at 
 Salem, which post he held for a year, at the same time carefully observing (as it 
 proved, for future use) the scenes and characters with which he was daily con- 
 versant; for, on being dismissed from that post, on a change of administration, 
 he published The Scarlet Letter, in the preface of which he gives some of his 
 custom-house experiences. Soon after, he took up his residence in Lenox, Massa- 
 chusetts; and in 1851 appeared his House with Seven Gables, the scene of which 
 is laid in Salem and connected with its earliest history. Since that, he has pub- 
 lished the following: — True Stories from History and Biography, 1851; The 
 Blithedale Romance, 1S52 ; A Wonder Book for Boys and Girls, 1852; The Snow 
 Image, and other Twice-Told Tales, 1852 ; l Tanylewood Tales for Boys and Girls, 
 1853. 2 
 
 A RILL FROM THE TOWN PUMP. 
 Scene. — The corner of two principal streets. The Town Pump talking through its nose. 
 
 Noon, by the north clock ! Noon, by the east ! High noon, 
 too, by these hot sunbeams, which fall, scarcely aslope, upon my 
 head, and almost make the water bubble and smoke in the trough 
 under my nose. Truly, we public characters have a tough time 
 
 •A new edition of the Twice-Told Tales was published, in 1857, by Ticknor 
 & Fields, in their usual, attractive style. 
 
 2 " Hawthorne wrote numerous articles, which appeared in ' The Token :' occa- 
 sionally an astute critic seemed to see through them, and to discover the soul 
 that was in them ; but in general they passed without notice. Such articles as 
 ' Sights from a Steeple,' ' Sketches beneath an Umbrella,' ' The Wives of the Dead/ 
 'The Prophetic Pictures/ now universally acknowledged to be productions of 
 extraordinary depth, meaning, and power, extorted hardly a word of either praise 
 or blame ; while columns were given to pieces since totally forgotten. I felt 
 annoyed — almost angry, indeed — at this. I wrote several articles in the papers, 
 directing attention to these productions; and, finding no echo of my views, I 
 recollect to have asked John Pickering to read some of them and give me his 
 opinion of them. He did as I requested: his answer was that they displayed a 
 wonderful beauty of style, with a kind of double vision, a sort of second sight, 
 which revealed, beyond the outward forms of life and being, a sort of spirit-world, 
 somewhat as a lake reflects the earth around it and the sky above it; yet he 
 deemed them too mystical to be popular. He was right, no doubt, at that period ; 
 but, ere long, a portion of mankind, a large portion of the reading world, obtained 
 a new sense, — how, or where, or whence, is not easily determined, — which led them 
 to study the mystical, to dive beneath and beyond the senses, and to discern, 
 gather, and cherish gems and pearls of price in the hidden depths of the soul. 
 Hawthorne was, in fact, a kind of Wordsworth in prose, — less kind, less genial 
 toward mankind, but deeper and more philosophical. His fate was similar: at 
 first he was neglected, at last he had worshippers.'' — Goodrich's Recollections, 
 vol. ii. 
 
538 
 
 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 of it ! And, among all the town officers, chosen at March meet- 
 ing, where is he that sustains, for a single year, the burden of such 
 manifold duties as are imposed, in perpetuity, upon the Town 
 Pump ? The title of " town treasurer" is rightfully mine, as 
 guardian of the best treasure that the town has. The overseers 
 of the poor ought to make me their chairman, since I provide 
 bountifully for the pauper, without expense to him that pays 
 taxes. I am at the head of the fire-department, and one of the 
 physicians to the board of health. As a keeper of the peace, all 
 water-drinkers will confess me equal to the constable. 1 perform 
 some of the duties of the town clerk, by promulgating public 
 notices when they are posted on my front. To speak within 
 bounds, I am the chief person of the municipality, and exhibit, 
 moreover, an admirable pattern to my brother officers, by the 
 cool, steady, upright, downright, and impartial discharge of my 
 business, and the constancy with which I stand to my post. 
 Summer or winter, nobody seeks me in vain ; for, all day long, I 
 am seen at the busiest corner, just above the market, stretching 
 out my arms to rich and poor alike ; and at night, I hold a lantern 
 over my head, both to show where I am, and keep people out of 
 the gutters. 
 
 At this sultry noontide, I am cupbearer to the parched popu- 
 lace, for whose benefit an iron goblet is chained to my waist. 
 Like a dramseller on the mall at muster-day, I cry aloud to all 
 and sundry, in my plainest accents, and at the very tiptop of my 
 voice. Here it is, gentlemen ! Here is the good liquor ! Walk 
 up, walk up, gentlemen, walk up, walk up ! Here is the superior 
 stuff! Here is the unadulterated ale of father Adam, — better 
 than Cognac, Hollands, Jamaica, strong beer, or wine of any 
 price ; here it is by the hogshead or the single glass, and not a 
 cent to pay ! Walk up, gentlemen, walk up, and help yourselves ! 
 
 It were a pity if all this outcry should draw no customers. 
 Here they come. A hot day, gentlemen ! Quaff, and away 
 again, so as to keep yourselves in a nice cool sweat. You, my 
 friend, will need another cupful, to wash the dust out of your 
 throat, if it be as thick there as it is on your cow-hide shoes. I 
 see that you have trudged half a score of miles to-day, and, like 
 a wise man, have passed by the taverns, and stopped at the run- 
 ning brooks and well-curbs. Otherwise, betwixt heat without and 
 fire within, you would have been burnt to a cinder, or melted 
 down to nothing at all, in the fashion of a jelly-fish. Drink, and 
 make room for that other fellow, who seeks my aid to quench the 
 fiery fever of last night's potations, which he drained from no cup 
 of mine. Welcome, most rubicund sir ! You and I have been 
 great strangers, hitherto ; nor, to confess the truth, will my nose 
 be anxious for a closer intimacy, till the fumes of your breath be 
 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 539 
 
 a little less potent. Mercy on you, man ! the water absolutely 
 hisses down your red-hot gullet, and is converted quite to steam, 
 in the miniature tophet which you mistake for a stomach. Fill 
 again, and tell me, on the word of an honest toper, did you ever, 
 in cellar, tavern, or any kind of a dram-shop, spend the price of 
 your children's food for a swig half so delicious ? Now, for the 
 first time these ten years, you know the flavor of cold water. Good- 
 by; and, whenever you are thirsty, remember that I keep a con- 
 stant supply, at the old stand. Who next? Oh, my little friend, 
 you are let loose from school, and come hither to scrub your 
 blooming face, and drown the memory of certain taps of the 
 ferule, and other schoolboy troubles, in a draught from the Town 
 Pump. Take it, pure as the current of your young life. Take 
 it, and may your heart and tongue never be scorched with a 
 fiercer thirst than now ! There, my dear child, put down the 
 cup, and yield your place to this elderly gentleman, who treads so 
 tenderly over the paving-stones, that I suspect he is afraid of 
 breaking them. What ! he limps by, without so much as thank- 
 ing me, as if my hospitable offers were meant only for people who 
 have no wine-cellars. Well, well, sir, — no harm done, I hope ! 
 Go draw the cork, tip the decanter; but, when your great toe 
 shall set you a-roaring, it will be no affair of mine. If gentlemen 
 love the pleasant titillation of the gout, it is all one to the Town 
 Pump. This thirsty dog, with his red tongue lolling out, does 
 not scorn my hospitality, but stands on his hind legs and laps 
 eagerly out of the trough. See how lightly he capers away 
 again ! Jowler, did your worship ever have the gout ? * * * 
 
 Your pardon, good people ! I must interrupt my stream of 
 eloquence, and spout forth a stream of water, to replenish the 
 trough for this teamster and his two yoke of oxen, who have come 
 from Topsfield, or somewhere along that way. No part of my 
 business is pleasanter than the watering of cattle. Look ! how 
 rapidly they lower the water-mark on the sides of the trough, till 
 their capacious stomachs are moistened with a gallon or two 
 apiece, and they can afford time to breathe it in, with sighs of 
 calm enjoyment. Now they roll their quiet eyes around the 
 brim of their monstrous drinking-vessel. An ox is your true 
 toper. * * * 
 
 Ahem! Dry work, this speechifying; especially to an unprac- 
 tised orator. I never conceived till now what toil the temperance 
 lecturers undergo for my sake. Hereafter they shall have the 
 business to themselves. Do, some kind Christian, pump a stroke 
 or two, just to wet my whistle. Thank you, sir. My dear hear- 
 ers, when the world shall have been regenerated by my instru- 
 mentality, you will collect your useless vats and liquor-casks into 
 one great pile, and make a bonfire in honor of the Town Pump. 
 
540 
 
 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 And when I shall have decayed, like my predecessors, then, if 
 you revere my memory, let a marble fountain, richly sculptured, 
 take my place upon the spot. Such monuments should be erected 
 everywhere, and inscribed with the names of the distinguished 
 champions of my cause. * * * 
 
 One o'clock ! Nay, then, if the dinner-bell begins to speak, I 
 may as well hold my peace. — Here comes a pretty young girl of 
 my acquaintance, with a large stone pitcher for me to fill. May 
 she draw a husband, while drawing her water, as Rachel did of 
 old ! Hold out your vessel, my dear ! There it is, full to the 
 brim ; so now run home, peeping at your sweet image in the 
 pitcher as you go ; and forget not, in a glass of my own liquor, to 
 drink — " Success to the Town Pump !" 
 
 From Twice-Told Tales. 
 SIGHTS FROM A STEEPLE. 
 
 How various are the situations of the people covered by the 
 roofs beneath me, and how diversified are the events at this mo- 
 ment befalling them ! The new-born, the aged, the dying, the 
 strong in life, and the recent dead, are in the chambers of these 
 many mansions. The full of hope, the happy, the miserable, and 
 the desperate, dwell together within the circle of my glance. In 
 some of the houses over which my eyes roam so coldly, guilt is 
 entering into hearts that are still tenanted by a debased and 
 trodden virtue — guilt is on the very edge of commission, and the 
 impending deed might be averted; guilt is done, and the criminal 
 wonders if it be irrevocable. There are broad thoughts struggling 
 in my mind, and, were I able to give them distinctness, they 
 would make their way in eloquence. Lo ! the rain-drops are 
 descending. 
 
 The clouds, within a little time, have gathered over all the sky, 
 hanging heavily, as if about to drop in one unbroken mass upon 
 the earth. At intervals the lightning flashes from their brooding 
 hearts, quivers, disappears, and then comes the thunder, travelling 
 slowly after its twin-born flame. A strong wind has sprung up, 
 howls through the darkened streets, and raises the dust in dense 
 bodies, to rebel against the approaching storm. All people hurry 
 homeward — all that have a home; while a few lounge by the 
 corners, or trudge on desperately, at their leisure. 
 
 And now the storm lets loose its fury. In every dwelling I 
 perceive the faces of the chambermaids as they shut down the 
 windows, excluding the impetuous shower, and shrinking away 
 from the quick fiery glare. The large drops descend with force 
 upon the slated roofs, and rise again in smoke. There is a rusfo 
 and roar, as of a river through the air, and muddy streams bubble 
 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 541 
 
 majestically along the pavement, whirl their dusky foam into the 
 kennel, and disappear beneath iron grates. Thus did Arethusa 
 sink. I love not my station here aloft, in the midst of the tumult 
 which I am powerless to direct or quell, with the blue lightning 
 wrinkling on my brow, and the thunder muttering its first awful 
 syllables in my ear. I will descend. Yet let me give another 
 glance to the sea, where the foam breaks out in long white lines 
 upon a broad expanse of blackness, or boils up in far distant 
 points, like snowy-mountain-tops in the eddies of a flood j and 
 let me look once more at the green plain, and little hills of the 
 country, over which the giant of the storm is riding in robes of 
 mist, and at the town, whose obscured and desolate streets might 
 beseem a city of the dead ; and turning a single moment to the 
 sky, now gloomy as an author's prospects, I prepare to resume my 
 station on lower earth. But stay ! A little speck of azure has 
 widened in the western heavens j the sunbeams find a passage, 
 and go rejoicing through the tempest; and on yonder darkest 
 cloud, born, like hallowed hopes, of the glory of another world, 
 and the trouble and tears of this, brightens forth the Rainbow ! 
 
 VANITY FAIR. 1 
 
 Being naturally of a serious turn, my attention was directed to 
 the solid advantages derivable from a residence here, rather than 
 to the effervescent pleasures which are the grand object with too 
 many visitants. The Christian reader, if he have had no accounts 
 of the city later than Bunyan's time, will be surprised to hear that 
 almost every street has its church, and that the reverend clergy 
 are nowhere held in higher respect than at Vanity Fair. And 
 well do they deserve such honorable estimation ; for the maxims 
 of wisdom and virtue which fall from their lips, come from as deep 
 a spiritual source, and tend to as lofty a religious aim, as those of 
 the sagest philosophers of old. In justification of this high praise, 
 I need only mention the names of the Rev. Mr. Shallow-deep ; the 
 Rev. Mr. Stumble-at-Truth ; that fine old clerical character, the 
 Rev. Mr. This-to-day, who expects shortly to resign his pulpit to 
 Rev. Mr. That-to-morrow ; together with the Rev. Mr. Bewilder- 
 ment; the Rev. Mr. Clog-the-spirit ; andj last and greatest, the 
 Rev. Dr. Wind-of-doctrine. There is a species of machine here 
 for the wholesale manufacture of individual morality. This excel- 
 lent result is effected by societies for all manner of virtuous pur- 
 poses, with which a man has merely to connect himself, throwing, 
 
 1 This extract is taken from " The Celestial Rail-Road," in the first part of 
 Mouses from an Old Manse, wherein the author describes his journey to the Celes- 
 tial City. It is one of his very best productions, and, as a sequel to Bunyan, and 
 a satire on a bad age, it is inimitable. 
 
 46 
 
542 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 as it were, his quota of virtue into the common stock, and the 
 president and directors will take care that the aggregate amount 
 be well applied. All these, and other wonderful improvements 
 in ethics, religion, and literature, being made plain to my coin- 
 prehension by the ingenious Mr. Smooth-it-away, inspired me with 
 a vast admiration of Vanity Fair. 
 
 It would fill a volume, in an age of pamphlets, were I to record 
 all my observations in this great capital of human business and 
 pleasure. There was an unlimited range of society — the powerful, 
 the wise, the witty, and the famous in every walk of life — princes, 
 presidents, poets, generals, artists, actors, and philanthropists, all 
 making their own market at the Fair, and deeming no price too 
 exorbitant for such commodities as hit their fancy. It was well 
 worth one's while, even if he had no idea of buying or selling, to 
 loiter through the bazaars, and observe the various sorts of traffic 
 that were going forward. 
 
 Some of the purchasers, I thought, made very foolish bargains. 
 For instance, a young man, having inherited a splendid fortune, 
 laid out a considerable portion of it in the purchase of diseases, 
 and finally spent all the rest for a heavy lot of repentance .did a 
 suit of rags. A very pretty girl bartered a heart as clear as 
 crystal, and which seemed her most valuable possession, for another 
 jewel of the same kind, but so worn and defaced as to be utterly 
 worthless. In one shop there were a great many crowns of laurel 
 and myrtle, which soldiers, authors, statesmen, and various other 
 people, pressed eagerly to buy : some purchased these paltry 
 wreaths with their lives ; others by a toilsome servitude of years ; 
 and many sacrificed whatever was most valuable, yet finally slunk 
 away without the crown. There was a sort of stock or scrip, 
 called Conscience, which seemed to be in great demand, and would 
 purchase almost any thing. Indeed, few rich commodities were to 
 be obtained without paying a heavy sum in this particular stock, 
 and a man's business was seldom very lucrative, unless he know- 
 precisely when and how to throw his hoard of Conscience into the 
 market. Yet as this stock was the only thing of permanent value, 
 whoever parted with it was sure to find himself a loser in the long 
 run. Several of the speculations were of a questionable character. 
 Occasionally a member of Congress recruited his pocket by the 
 sale of his constituents; and I was assured that public officers 
 have often sold their country at very moderate prices. Thousands 
 sold their happiness for a whim. Gilded chains were in great 
 demand, and purchased with almost any sacrifice. In truth, those 
 who desired, according to the old adage, to sell any thing valuable 
 for a song, might find customers all over the Fair; and there were 
 innumerable messes of pottage, piping hot, for such as chose to 
 buy them with their birthrights. A few articles, however, could 
 
CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN. 
 
 543 
 
 not be found genuine at Vanity Fair. If a customer wished to 
 renew his stock of youth, the dealers offered him a set* of false 
 teeth and an auburn wig; if he demanded peace of mind, they 
 recommended opium or a brandy -bottle. 
 
 Tracts of land and golden mansions, situate in the Celestial 
 City, were often exchanged, at very disadvantageous rates, for a 
 few years' lease of small, dismal, inconvenient tenements in 
 Vanity Fair. Prince Beelzebub himself took great interest in 
 this sort of traffic, and sometimes condescended to meddle with 
 smaller matters. I once had the pleasure to see him bargaining 
 with a miser for his soul, which, after much ingenious skirmish- 
 ing on both sides, his Highness succeeded in obtaining at about 
 the value of sixpence. The prince remarked, with a smile, that 
 he was a loser by the transaction. 
 
 CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN. 
 
 Charles Fenxo Hoffman 1 is the son of the late distinguished Judge Josiah 
 Ogden Hoffman, of New York, and was born in that city in 1S06. At the age of 
 fifteen he entered Columbia College, after leaving which he studied law with Har- 
 manus Bleeker, of Albany, was admitted to the bar at the age of twenty-one, and 
 began to practise in New York. But his tastes for poetry and general literature 
 were so strong that he soon gave up the law for what was more congenial. He 
 became co-editor, with Mr. Charles King, of the " New York American," a very 
 able daily journal, and published in it a number of brilliaut papers under the 
 signature of a star (*). Travelling in the West in 1833 for his health, he wrote 
 for his paper a series of letters, which were afterwards published under the title 
 of A Winter in the West, and became very popular. In 1S37 appeared his Wild 
 Scenes in the Forest and Prairie, and, shortly after, the romance of the Greyslaer, 
 founded on the famous criminal trial of Beauchamp for the murder of Colonel 
 Sharpe, the Solicitor-General of Kentucky. 
 
 The " 1 Knickerbocker Magazine" commenced in 1833, under the editorship of Mr. 
 Hoffman, a magazine which has ever maintained a high literary character. After- 
 wards he became proprietor of the "American Monthly Magazine," and for one 
 year edited the "New York Mirror." In 1843 appeared The Vigil of Faith, a 
 Legend of the Adirondack Mountains, and other Poems ; and a second volume of 
 poetry, under the title of Borrowed Notes for Home Circulation, was published in 
 1844. In 1846 and 1847, Mr. Hoffman was for eighteen months the editor of the 
 '^Literary World," a paper of a high literary character, and conducted with great 
 
 1 He gets the name of Fenno from his maternal grandfather, John Fenno, of 
 Philadelphia, a political writer of the old Federal party in Washington's admi- 
 nistration. 
 
544 
 
 CHARLES FEN NO HOFFMAN. 
 
 ability. About tbis time a more complete collection of bis lyrical compositions 
 was published under the title of Love's Calendar. 
 
 For many years Mr. Hoffman has written very little. His residence is in the 
 city of New York. 
 
 A MORNING HYMN. 
 
 " Let there be light !" The Eternal spoke ; 
 
 And from the abyss where darkness rode, 
 The earliest dawn of nature broke, 
 
 And light around creation flow'd. 
 The glad earth smiled to see the day, 
 
 The first-born day, come blushing in ; 
 The young day smiled to shed its ray 
 
 Upon a world untouch'd by sin. 
 
 " Let there be light !" O'er heaven and earth, 
 
 The God who first the day-beam pour'd, 
 Utter'd again his fiat forth, 
 
 And shed the gospel's light abroad. 
 And, like the dawn, its cheering rays 
 
 On rich and poor were meant to fall, 
 Inspiring their Redeemer's praise, 
 
 In lowly cot and lordly hall. 
 
 Then come, when in the orient first 
 
 Flushes the signal light for prayer ; 
 Come with the earliest beams that burst 
 
 From God's bright throne of glory there. 
 Come kneel to Him who through the night 
 
 Hath watch'd above thy sleeping soul, 
 To Him whose mercies, like his light, 
 
 Are shed abroad from pole to pole. 
 
 INDIAN SUMMER, 1828. 
 
 Light as love's smiles, the silvery mist at morn 
 Floats in loose flakes along the limpid river ; 
 
 The bluebird's notes upon the soft breeze borne, 
 As high in air he carols, faintly quiver ; 
 
 The weeping birch, like banners idly waving, 
 
 Bends to the stream, its spicy branches laving; 
 Beaded with dew, the witch-elm's tassels shiver; 
 
 The timid rabbit from the furze is peeping, 
 And from the springy spray the squirrel's gayly leaping. 
 
 I love thee, Autumn, for thy scenery ere 
 The blasts of winter chase the varied dyes 
 
 That richly deck the slow-declining year ; 
 I love the splendor of thy sunset skies, 
 
CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN. 
 
 The gorgeous hues that tinge each failing leaf, 
 Lovely as beauty's cheek, as woman's love too, brief: 
 
 I love the note of each wild bird that flies, 
 As on the wind he pours his parting lay 
 And wings his loitering flight to summer climes away. 
 
 0, Nature ! still I fondly turn to thee, 
 
 With feelings fresh as e'er my childhood's were ; — 
 Though wild and passion-toss'd my youth may be, 
 
 Toward thee I still the same devotion bear ; 
 To thee — to thee — though health and hope no more 
 Life's wasted verdure may to me restore — 
 
 I still can, childlike, come as when in prayer 
 I bow'd my head upon a mother's knee, 
 And deem'd the world, like her, all truth and purity. 
 
 WE PARTED IN SADNESS. 
 
 We parted in sadness, but spoke not of parting ; 
 
 We talk'd not of hopes that we both must resign ; 
 I saw not her eyes, and but one tear-drop starting, 
 
 Fell down on her hand as it trembled in mine : 
 Each felt that the past we could never recover, 
 
 Each felt that the future no hope could restore ; 
 She shudder'd at wringing the heart of her lover, 
 
 / dared not to say I must meet her no more. 
 
 Long years have gone by, and the spring-time smiles ever, 
 
 As o'er our young loves it first smiled in their birth, 
 Long years have gone by, yet that parting, oh, never 
 
 Can it be forgotten by either on earth. 
 The note of each wild bird that carols toward heaven, 
 
 Must tell her of swift-winged hopes that were mine, 
 And the dew that steals over each blossom at even, 
 
 Tells me of the tear-drop that wept their decline. 
 
 SPARKLING AND BRIGHT. 
 
 Sparkling ancLbright in liquid light 
 
 Does the wine our goblets gleam in, 
 With hue as red as the rosy bed 
 
 Which a bee would choose to dream in. 
 Then fill to-night, with hearts as light, 
 
 To loves as gay and fleeting 
 As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim, 
 And break on the lips while meeting. 
 
 Oh ! if Mirth might arrest the flight 
 Of Time through Life's dominions, 
 
 We here a while would now beguile 
 The graybeard of his pinions, 
 46* 
 
546 
 
 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 To drink to-night, with hearts as light, 
 
 To loves as gay and fleeting 
 As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim, 
 
 And break on the lips while meeting. 
 
 But since delight can't tempt the wight, 
 
 Nor fond regret delay him, 
 Nor Love himself can hold the elf, 
 Nor sober Friendship stay him, 
 
 We'll drink to-night, with hearts as light, 
 
 To loves as gay and fleeting 
 As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim, 
 And break on the lips while meeting. 
 
 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 William Gilmore Simms, the novelist, historian, and poet, was born in 
 Charleston, South Carolina, on the 17th of April, 1806. It was at first intended 
 that he should study medicine ; but, his inclinations having led him to the law, 
 he devoted himself to the study of that profession, not, however, allowing it to 
 absorb his whole time, for from his earliest years he possessed a strong love for 
 literature and poetry. At the age of eighteen, he published his first volume, en- 
 titled Lyrical and other Poems ; which was followed in the next two years by 
 Early Lays, and The Vision of Cortez and other Pieces; and in 1830 by The Tri- 
 color, or the Three Days of Blood in Paris. 
 
 At the age of twenty-one he was admitted to the bar; but, feeling a deep 
 interest in political matters, he purchased the " Charleston City Gazette," and 
 edited it for many years with great ability. Finally it failed, and by it he lost 
 much of his property. Having now no ties to bind him to Charleston, (his wife 
 and his father both being dead,) he visited the North in 1832, and, making a tem- 
 porary residence in Hingham, Massachusetts, he there prepared for the press his 
 principal poetical work, Atalantis, a Story of the Sea, which was published in New 
 York. It met with a cordial reception, and was spoken of in terms of high praise 
 by some of the leading English journals. In 1837, he brought out his first novel, 
 Martin Faber, which was also favorably received. His other novels are, — Guy 
 Rivers; Yemassee; The Partisan; Mellichampe; Pelayo ; Carl Werner; Richard 
 Hurdis ; Damsel of Darien; Beauchamp; The Kinsman ; Katharine Walton; Con- 
 fession, or the Blind Heart, &c. His principal biographical and historical works 
 consist of Lives of Captain John Smith, General Marion, Chevalier Bayard, and 
 a History of South Carolina. In 1853, he made selections from his poetry, which 
 were published in two beautiful volumes by Redfield, New York. 
 
 The above by no means comprise all Mr. Simms's published volumes : he has 
 written besides a great deal for magazines, reviews, and other periodicals ; and 
 in 1849 he became the editor of the " Southern Quarterly Review," which was re- 
 vived by his influence and contributions. It will thus be seen that he is one of 
 
WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 547 
 
 the most prolific and versatile writers of the day, 1 and whatever comes from his 
 pen is characterized by earnestness and sincerity. "In all that he has written, 
 his excellencies are unborrowed : their merits are the development of original 
 native germs, without any apparent aid from models. His thoughts, his diction, 
 his arrangement, are his own,- he reminds you of no other author; even in the 
 lesser graces of literary execution, he combines language after no pattern set by 
 other authors, however beautiful." 2 
 
 Mr. Simms now resides on his plantation at Midway, a town about seventy 
 miles southwest of Charleston. 
 
 THE MAIDEN AND THE RATTLESNAKE. 3 
 
 a He does not come, — he does not come," she murmured, as 
 she stood contemplating the thick copse spreading before her, and 
 forming the barrier which terminated the beautiful range of oaks 
 which constituted the grove. How beautiful was the green and 
 garniture of that little copse of wood ! The leaves were thick, 
 and the grass around lay folded over and over in bunches, with 
 here and there a wild flower gleaming from its green and making 
 of it a beautiful carpet of the richest and most various texture. 
 A small tree rose from the centre of a clump around which a wild 
 grape gadded luxuriantly j and, with an incoherent sense of what 
 she saw, she lingered before the little cluster, seeming to survey 
 that which, though it seemed to fix her eye, yet failed to fill her 
 thought. Her mind wandered, — her soul was far away ; and the 
 objects in her vision were far other than those which occupied 
 her imagination. Things grew indistinct beneath her eye. The 
 eye rather slept than saw. The musing spirit had given holiday 
 to the ordinary senses, and took no heed of the forms that rose, 
 and floated, or glided away, before them. In this way, the leaf 
 detached made no impression upon the sight that was yet bent 
 upon it; she saw not the bird, though it whirled, untroubled by 
 a fear, in wanton circles around her head, — and the black snake, 
 with the rapidity of an arrow, darted over her path without 
 arousing a single terror in the form that otherwise would have 
 shivered at its mere appearance. And yet, though thus indistinct 
 
 1 In Roorbach's " Bibliotheca Americana" is a list of his works, comprising 
 fifty-three volumes of poetry, fiction, history, and biography. Mr. Simms cannot 
 expect that in this " fast age" all his works can be generally read ; but if he, or 
 if some friend for him, would make a selection from his prose and poetry, to be 
 comprised in five or six volumes, it would be a very choice contribution to our 
 literature, and one which posterity " would not willingly let die." 
 
 2 " Homes of American Authors." 
 
 3 From Yemasaee, a Romance of Carol inn. The heroine, Bess Matthews, is in 
 the woods, waiting the coming of her lover. 
 
548 
 
 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 were all tilings around her to the musing mind of the maiden, her 
 eye was yet singularly fixed, — fastened, as it were, to a single 
 spot, gathered and controlled by a single object, and glazed, appa- 
 rently, beneath a curious fascination. 
 
 Before the maiden rose a little clump of bushes, — bright 
 tangled leaves flaunting wide in glossiest green, with vines trail- 
 ing over them, thickly decked with blue and crimson flowers. 
 Her eye communed vacantly with these ; fastened by a star-like 
 shining glance, — a subtle ray, that shot out from the circle of 
 green leaves, — seeming to be their very eye, — and sending out a 
 fluid lustre that seemed to stream across the space between, and 
 find its way into her own eyes. Very piercing and beautiful was 
 that subtle brightness, of the sweetest, strangest power. And 
 now the leaves quivered and seemed to float away, only to return, 
 and the vines waved and swung around in fantastic mazes, un- 
 folding ever-changing varieties of form and color to her gaze; but 
 the star-like eye was ever steadfast, bright and gorgeous gleaming 
 in their midst, and still fastened, with strange fondness, upon her 
 own. How beautiful, with wondrous intensity, did it gleam, and 
 dilate, growing larger and more lustrous with every ray which it 
 sent forth ! And her own glance became intense, fixed also ; 
 but, with a dreaming sense that conjured up the wildest fancies, 
 terribly beautiful, that took her soul away from her, and wrapt it 
 about as with a spell. She would have fled, she would have 
 flown ; but she had not power to move. The will was wanting to 
 her flight. She felt that she could have bent forward to pluck 
 the gem-like thing from the bosom of the leaf in which it seemed 
 to grow, and which it irradiated with its bright white gleam ; but 
 ever as she aimed to stretch forth her hand and bend forward, she 
 heard a rush of wings and a shrill scream from the tree above her, 
 — such a scream as the mock-bird makes, when, angrily, it raises 
 its dusky crest and flaps its wings furiously against its slender 
 sides. Such a scream seemed like a warning, and, though yet 
 unawakened to full consciousness, it startled her and forbade her 
 effort. More than once, in her survey of this strange object, had 
 she heard that shrill note, and still had it carried to her ear the 
 same note of warning, and to her mind the same vague conscious- 
 ness of an evil presence. But the star-like eye was yet upon her 
 own, — a small, bright eye, quick like that of a bird, now steady 
 in its place and observant seemingly only of hers, now darting 
 forward with all the clustering leaves about it, and shooting up 
 towards her, as if wooing her to seize. At another moment, 
 riveted to the vine which lay around it, it would whirl round and 
 round, dazzlingly bright and beautiful, even as a torch waving 
 hurriedly by night in the hands of some playful boy ; but, in all 
 this time, the glance was never taken from her own : there it 
 
WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 549 
 
 grew, fixed, — a very principle of light, — and such a light, — a 
 subtle, burning, piercing, fascinating gleam, such as gathers in 
 vapor above the old grave, and binds us as we look, — shooting, 
 darting directly into her eye, dazzling her gaze, defeating its 
 sense of discrimination, and confusing strangely that of percep- 
 tion. She felt dizzy; for, as she looked, a cloud of colors, 
 bright, gay, various colors, floated and hung like so much drapery 
 around the single object that had so secured her attention and 
 spellbound her feet. Her limbs felt momently more and more 
 insecure, — her blood grew cold, and she seemed to feel the gradual 
 freeze of vein by vein throughout her person. 
 
 At that moment a rustling was heard in the branches of the 
 tree beside her, and the bird, which had repeatedly uttered a 
 single cry above her, as it were of warning, flew away from his 
 station with a scream more piercing than ever. This movement 
 had the effect, for which it really seemed intended, of bringing 
 back to her a portion of the consciousness she seemed so totally to 
 have been deprived of before. She strove to move from before 
 the beautiful but terrible presence, but for a while she strove in 
 vain. The rich, star-like glance still riveted her own, and the 
 subtle fascination kept her bound. The mental energies, how- 
 ever, with the moment of their greatest trial, now gathered sud- 
 denly to her aid; and, with a desperate effort, but with a feeling 
 still of most annoying uncertainty and dread, she succeeded par- 
 tially in the attempt, and threw her arms backwards, her hands 
 grasping the neighboring tree, feeble, tottering, and depending 
 upon it for that support which her own limbs almost entirely 
 denied her. With her movement, however, came the full de- 
 velopment of the powerful spell and dreadful mystery before her. 
 As her feet receded, though but a single pace, to the tree against 
 which she now rested, the audibly-articulated ring, like that of a 
 watch when wound up with the verge broken, announced the 
 nature of that splendid yet dangerous presence, in the form of the 
 monstrous rattlesnake, now but a few feet before her, lying coiled 
 at the bottom of a beautiful shrub, with which, to her dreaming 
 eye, many of its own glorious hues had become associated. She 
 was at length conscious enough to perceive and to feel all her 
 danger ; but terror had denied her the strength necessary to fly 
 from her dreadful enemy. There still the eye glared beautifully 
 bright and piercing upon her own ; and, seemingly in a spirit of 
 sport, the insidious reptile slowly unwound himself from his coil, 
 but only to gather himself up again into his muscular rings, his 
 great flat head rising in the midst, and slowly nodding, as it were, 
 towards her, the eye still peering deeply into her own ; — the 
 rattle still slightly ringing at intervals, and giving forth that 
 paralyzing sound, which, once heard, is remembered forever. 
 
550 
 
 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 The reptile all this while appeared to be conscious of, and to 
 sport with, while seeking to excite, her terrors. Now, with its 
 flat head, distended mouth, and curving neck, would it dart for- 
 ward its long form towards her, — its fatal teeth, unfolding on 
 either side of its upper jaw, seeming to threaten her with in- 
 stantaneous death, while its powerful eye shot forth glances of 
 that fatal power of fascination, malignantly bright, which, by 
 paralyzing, with a novel form of terror and of beauty, may 
 readily account for the spell it possesses of binding the feet of the 
 timid, and denying to fear even the privilege of flight. Could 
 she have fled ! She felt the necessity ; but the power of her limbs 
 was gone ! and there still it lay, coiling and uncoiling, its arch- 
 ing neck glittering like a ring of brazed copper, bright and lurid; 
 and the dreadful beauty of its eye still fastened, eagerly contem- 
 plating the victim, while the pendulous rattle still rang the death- 
 note, as if to prepare the conscious mind for the fate which is 
 momently approaching to the blow. Meanwhile the stillness be- 
 came death-like with all surrounding objects. The bird had gone 
 with its scream and rush. The breeze was silent. The vines ceased 
 to wave. The leaves faintly quivered on their stems. The ser- 
 pent once more lay still j but the eye was never once turned away 
 from the victim. Its corded muscles are all in coil. They have but 
 to unclasp suddenly, and the dreadful folds will be upon her, its 
 full length, and the fatal teeth will strike, and the deadly venom 
 which they secrete will mingle with the life-blood in her veins. 
 
 The terrified damsel, her full consciousness restored, but not 
 her strength, feels all the danger. She sees that the sport of the 
 terrible reptile is at an end. She cannot now mistake the horrid 
 expression of its eye. She strives to scream, but the voice dies 
 away, a feeble gurgling in her throat. Her tongue is paralyzed ; 
 her lips are sealed; once more she strives for flight, but her 
 limbs refuse their office. She has nothing left of life but its fear- 
 ful consciousness. It is in her despair that, a last effort, she suc- 
 ceeds to scream, a single wild cry, forced from her by the accu- 
 mulated agony; she sinks down upon the grass before her enemy, 
 — her eyes, however, still open, and still looking upon those which 
 he directs forever upon them. She sees him approach, — now ad- 
 vancing, now receding, — now swelling in every part with some- 
 thing of anger, while his neck is arched beautifully like that of 
 a wild horse under the curb ; until, at length, tired as it were of 
 play, like the cat with its victim, she sees the neck growing 
 larger and becoming completely bronzed as about to strike, — the 
 huge jaws unclosing almost directly above her, the long tubulated 
 fang, charged with venom, protruding from the cavernous mouth, 
 — and she sees no more ! Insensibility came to her aid, and she 
 lay almost lifeless under the very folds of the monster. 
 
WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 551 
 
 In that moment the copse parted, — and an arrow, piercing the 
 monster through and through the neck, bore his head forward to 
 the ground, alongside of the maiden, while his spiral extremities, 
 now unfolding in his own agony, were actually, in part, writhing 
 upon her person. The arrow came from the fugitive Occonestoga, 
 who had fortunately reached the spot, in season, on his way to the 
 Block House. He rushed from the copse as the snake fell, and, 
 with a stick, fearlessly approached him where he lay tossing in 
 agony upon the grass. Seeing him advance, the courageous rep- 
 tile made an effort to regain his coil, shaking the fearful rattle 
 violently at every evolution which he took for that purpose ; but 
 the arrow, completely passing through his neck, opposed an un- 
 yielding obstacle to the endeavor ; and, finding it hopeless, and 
 seeing the new enemy about to assault him, with something of the 
 spirit of the white man under like circumstances, he turned despe- 
 rately round, and striking his charged fangs, so that they were 
 riveted in the wound they made, into a susceptible part of his own 
 body, he threw himself over with a single convulsion, and, a mo- 
 ment after, lay dead beside the utterly unconscious maiden. 1 
 
 SONG OF THE ZEPHYR SPIRIT. 
 
 I have come from the deeps where the sea-maiden twines, 
 
 In her bowers of amber, her garlands of shells ; 
 For a captive like thee, in her chamber she pines, 
 
 And weaves for thy coming the subtlest of spells ; 
 She has breathed on the harp-string that sounds in her cave, 
 
 And the strain as it rose hath been murmur'd for thee ; 
 She would win thee from earth for her home in the wave, 
 
 And her couch, in the coral-grove, deep in the sea. 
 
 Thou hast dream'd in thy boyhood of sea-circled bowers, 
 
 Where all may be found that is joyous and bright, — 
 Where life is a frolic through fancies and flowers, 
 
 And the soul lives in dreams of a lasting delight ! 
 Wouldst thou win what thy fancies have taught to thy heart ? 
 
 Wouldst thou dwell with the maiden now pining for thee ? 
 Flee away from the cares of the earth, and depart 
 
 For her mansions of coral, far down in the sea. 
 
 Her charms will beguile thee when noonday is nigh, 
 The song of her nymphs shall persuade thee to sleep, 
 
 She will watch o : er thy couch as the storm hurries by, 
 Nor suffer the sea-snake beside thee to creep ; 
 
 1 " The power of the rattlesnake to fascinate is a frequent faith among the 
 superstitious of the Southern country-people. Of this capacity in reference to 
 birds and insects, frogs, and the smaller reptiles, there is indeed little question. 
 Its power over persons is not so well authenticated, although numberless in- 
 stances of this sort are given by persons of very excellent veracity. The above 
 is almost literally worded after a verbal narrative furnished the author by an old 
 lady, who never dreamed, herself, of doubting the narration.'' 
 
552 
 
 ISAAC M C LELLAN. 
 
 But still, with a charm which is horn of the hours, 
 
 Her love shall implore thee to bliss ever free ; 
 Thou wilt rove with delight through her crystalline bowers, 
 
 And sleep without care in her home of the sea. 
 
 From Atalantis. 
 
 HEART ESSENTIAL TO GENIUS. 
 
 We are not always equal to our fate 
 
 Nor true to our conditions. Doubt and fear 
 Beset the bravest, in their high career, 
 
 At moments when the soul, no more elate 
 AVith expectation, sinks beneath the time. 
 
 The masters have their weakness. <; I would climb," 
 Said Raleigh, gazing on the highest hill, — 
 
 " But that I tremble with the fear to fall." 
 Apt was the answer of the high-soul'd queen : — 
 
 "If thy heart fail thee, never climb at all!" 
 
 The heart! if that be sound, confirms the rest, 
 Crowns genius with his lion will and mien, 
 
 And, from the conscious virtue in the breast, 
 
 To trembling nature gives both strength and will. 
 
 ISAAC M C LELLAN. 
 
 Isaac McLellan is a native of Portland, Maine, and was born on the 21st 
 of May, 1806. In early life, his father, Isaac McLellan, removed to Boston, 
 where for many years he was a prominent merchant, distinguished for his 
 integrity and success in business. The son, after receiving his degree at Bow- 
 doin College, in 1826, returned to Boston, completed a course of legal study, and 
 was admitted to practice in the courts of that city. But the Muses and general 
 literature had more charms for him than clients and briefs, and for many years he 
 contributed, both in prose and poetry, to several magazines and papers published 
 in the city and vicinity, and had the editorial management of two or three of 
 them. About the year 1840, he went abroad, and passed about two years in 
 Europe. On his return, he gave a description of his journeyings, in a series 
 of letters published in the " Boston Daily Courier." Since that period, he has 
 been engaged chiefly in literary pursuits, and now resides in the city of 
 New York. 
 
 Mr. McLellan's published works are, The Fall of the Indian, in 1830; The 
 Year, and other Poems, in 1832; and Mount Auburn, and other Poems, in 1843. 
 Though the Muse of Mr. McLellan aims at no ambitious flight, yet in the middle 
 region of the descriptive and the lyrical in which she delights chiefly to play, she 
 moves with even and graceful wing, bearing such offerings as the following: — 
 
ISAAC M C LELLAN. 
 
 553 
 
 new England's dead. 1 
 
 New England's dead ! New England's dead ! 
 
 On every hill they lie ; 
 On every held of strife made red 
 
 By bloody victory. 
 Each valley, where the battle pour'd 
 
 Its red and awful tide, 
 Beheld the brave New England sword 
 
 With slaughter deeply dyed. 
 Their bones are on the northern hill, 
 
 And on the southern plain, 
 By brook and river, lake and rill, 
 
 And by the roaring main. 
 
 The land is holy where they fought, 
 
 And holy where they fell ; 
 For by their blood that land was bought, 
 
 The land they loved so well. 
 Then glory to that valiant band, 
 The honor'd saviours of the land ! 
 Oh, few and weak their numbers were — 
 
 A handful of brave men ; 
 But to their God they gave their prayer, 
 
 And rush'd to battle then. 
 The God of battles heard their cry, 
 And sent to them the victory. 
 
 They left the ploughshare in the mould, 
 
 Their flocks and herds without a fold, 
 
 The sickle in the unshorn grain, 
 
 The corn, half garner'd, on the plain, 
 
 And muster'd, in their simple dress, 
 
 For wrongs to seek a stern redress, 
 
 To right those wrongs, come weal, come woe, 
 
 To perish, or o'ercome their foe. 
 
 And where are ye, fearless men ? 
 
 And where are ye to-day ? 
 I call: — the hills reply again 
 
 That ye have pass'd away ; 
 That on old Bunker's lonely height, 
 
 In Trenton, and in Monmouth ground, 
 The grass grows green, the harvest bright, 
 
 Above each soldier's mound. 
 
 1 " Mr. President : I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts; she 
 needs none. There she is ; behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her 
 history. The world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is 
 Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and there they will 
 remain forever. The bones of her sons, falling in the great struggle for inde- 
 pendence, now lie mingled with the soil of every State, from New England 
 to Georgia; and there they will remain forever." — Webster's Speech in Reply 
 to Hayne, 1830. 
 
 17 
 
ISAAC M°LELLAN. 
 
 The bugle's wild and warlike blast 
 
 Shall muster them no more ; 
 An army now might thunder past, 
 
 And they heed not its roar. 
 The starry flag, 'neath which they fought, 
 
 In many a bloody day, 
 From their old graves shall rouse them not ; 
 
 For they have pass'd away. 
 
 LINES, 
 
 SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE BY WASHINGTON ALLSTON. 
 
 The tender Twilight with a crimson cheek 
 
 Leans on the breast of Eve. The wayward Wind 
 
 Hath folded her fleet pinions, and gone down 
 
 To slumber by the darken' d woods ; the herds 
 
 Have left their pastures, where the sward grows green 
 
 And lofty by the river's sedgy brink, 
 
 And slow are winding home. Hark, from afar 
 
 Their tinkling bells sound through the dusky glade 
 
 And forest-openings, with a pleasant sound ; 
 
 While answering Echo, from the distant hill, 
 
 Sends back the music of the herdsman's horn. 
 
 How tenderly the trembling light yet plays 
 
 O'er the far-waving foliage ! Day's last blush 
 
 Still lingers on the billowy waste of leaves, 
 
 With a strange beauty — like the yellow flush 
 
 That haunts the ocean, when the day goes by. 
 
 Methinks, whene'er earth's wearying troubles pass 
 
 Like winter shadows o'er the peaceful mind, 
 
 'Twere sweet to turn from life, and pass abroad, 
 
 With solemn footsteps, into Nature's vast 
 
 And happy palaces, and lead a life 
 
 Of peace in some green paradise like this. 
 
 The brazen trumpet and the loud war-drum 
 Ne'er startled these green woods : — the raging sword 
 Hath never gather'd its red harvest here ! 
 The peaceful summer day hath never closed 
 Around this quiet spot, and caught the gleam 
 Of War's rude pomp : — the humble dweller here 
 Hath never left his sickle in the field, 
 To slay his fellow with unholy hand: — 
 The maddening voice of battle, the wild groan, 
 The thrilling murmuring of the dying man, 
 And the shrill shriek of mortal agony, 
 Have never broke its Sabbath solitude. 
 
NATHANIEL P. WILLIS. 
 
 555 
 
 NATHANIEL PARKER WILL.S. 
 
 Nathaniel Parker Willis was born in Portland, Maine, January 20, 1807. 1 
 After being fitted for college at Phillips Academy, Andover, he entered Yale, at 
 sixteen years of age, and soon distinguished himself as a poet of true genius 
 by writing a series of pieces on scriptural subjects, — pieces which have not been 
 surpassed by any thing he has subsequently written, and which gave him at 
 once a wide-spread and enviable reputation. On leaving college, in 1827, he was 
 engaged by S. G. Goodrich (" Peter Parley") to edit " The Legendary" and " The 
 Token." In 1828, he established the "American Monthly Magazine," which he 
 conducted for two years and a half, when it was merged in the " New York 
 Mirror," and Mr. Willis went to Europe, and travelled through Italy, Greece, 
 Asia Minor, Turkey, and England, in which latter country he was married to 
 Mary Leighton Stace, daughter of Commissary- General William Stace, then 
 having charge of the arsenal at Woolwich. The letters he wrote while abroad 
 were first published in the "New York Mirror," under the title of Pencilling* by 
 the Way. In 1835, he published Inklings of Adventure, a series of tales which 
 appeared originally in a London magazine. In 1837, he returned home, and 
 retired to a beautiful place on the Susquehanna, near Owego, New York, which 
 he named Glenmary in compliment to his wife. In 1839, he became one of the 
 editors of the "Corsair," a literary gazette in New York City, and towards the 
 -.lose of that year again went to London, where he published Loitering? of Travel, 
 and two tragedies, Tortesa the Usurer and Bianca Visconti, under the united title 
 of Two Ways of Dying for a Husband. In 1840 appeared an illustrated edition 
 of his poems, and Letters from under a Bridge. In 1843, in conjunction with 
 General George P. Morris, he revived the " New York Mirror," but withdx-ew from 
 it upon the death of his wife in ]844, and again visited England. On his return 
 home the next year, he issued a complete edition of his works, in an imperial 
 octavo of eight hundred pages. In October, 1846, he was married to a daughter 
 of the Hon. Joseph Grinnell, member of Congress from Massachusetts, and re- 
 moved to his present country home of Idlewild. He is now associated with 
 General Morris as editor of the "Home Journal," a weekly literary paper, which 
 is always enriched, more or less, with pieces from his pen, and which is hailed by 
 its numerous readers, every week, as a genial and instructive fireside companion. 
 
 Though Mr. Willis's prose writings are full of beauty and wit, of rich paintings 
 of natural scenery, and delicate and humorous touches of the various phases of 
 social life, it is by his poetry, especially by his sacred poetry, that he will be 
 chiefly known and prized by posterity. There is a tenderness, a pathos, and a 
 richness of description in it which give him a rank among the first of Ame- 
 rican poets. 2 
 
 1 His father was Nathaniel Willis, who, a few years after the birth of Nathaniel, 
 removed to Boston, and projected and edited the "Boston Recorder," the first 
 religious journal established in this country. 
 
 2 " No man has appeared in our literature, endowed with a greater variety 
 
 i 
 
556 
 
 NATHANIEL P. WILLIS. 
 
 HAGAR IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 The morning broke. Light stole upon the clouds 
 With a strange beauty. Earth received again 
 Its garment of a thousand dyes ; and leaves, 
 And delicate blossoms, and the painted flowers, 
 And every thing that bendeth to the dew, 
 And stirreth with the daylight, lifted up 
 Its beauty to the breath of that sweet morn. 
 
 All things are dark to sorrow ; and the light, 
 And loveliness, and fragrant air were sad 
 To the dejected Hagar. The moist earth 
 Was pouring odors from its spicy pores, 
 And the young birds were singing as if life 
 Were a new thing to them ; but, oh ! it came 
 Upon her heart like discord, and she felt 
 How cruelly it tries a broken heart 
 To see a mirth in any thing it loves. 
 She stood at Abraham's tent. Her lips were press ; d 
 Till the blood started ; and the wandering veins 
 Of her transparent forehead were swell'd out, 
 As if her pride would burst them. Her dark eye 
 Was clear and tearless, and the light of heaven, 
 Which made its language legible, shot back 
 From her long lashes, as it had been flame. 
 Her noble boy stood by her, with his hand 
 Clasp'd in her own, and his round, delicate feet, 
 Scarce train'd to balance on the tented floor, 
 Sandall'd for journeying. He had look'd up 
 
 of fine qualities. He possesses an understanding quick, acute, distinguishing 
 even in excess ; enriched by culture, and liberalized and illuminated by much 
 observation. He commands all the resources of passion, at the same time that 
 he is master of the effects of manner. The suggestions of an animated sense arc 
 harmonized by feeling, and are adorned by a finished wit. His taste is nice, but 
 it is not narrow or bigoted, and his sympathies with his reader are intimate and 
 true. His works exhibit a profusion of pointed and just comment on society and 
 life ; they sparkle with delicate and easy humor ; they display a prodigality of 
 fancy, and are fragrant with all the floral charm of sentiment. He possesses 
 surprising saliency of mind, which in his hasty effusions often fatigues, but in 
 his matured compositions is controlled to the just repose of art. But distinct from 
 each of these, and sovereign over them all, is the vivifying and directing energy 
 of a fine poetical talent, — that prophetic faculty in man whose effects are as vast 
 as its processes are mysterious; whose action is a moral enchantment that all 
 feel, but none can fathom. This influence it is which, entering into and impreg- 
 nating all his other faculties, gives force to some, elevation to others, and grace 
 and interest to them all." — Literary Criticisms, by Horace Binney Wallace. 
 
 Read a good review of Willis's writings — prose and poetry — in the "North 
 American Review," xliii. 3S4, in which he is ably defended from the attack in the 
 fifty-fourth volume of the " London Quarterly." This paper was written by 
 Lockhart, who, in condemning Willis for his personalities in his Pencilling* 
 by the Way, forgot that he himself was far more open to the same charge iu 
 his "Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk," in which he makes very free with tbo 
 society at Edinburgh. 
 
NATHANIEL P. WILLIS 
 
 Into his mother's face until he caught 
 
 The spirit there, and his young heart was swelling 
 
 Beneath his dimpled bosom, and his form 
 
 Straighten' d up proudly in his tiny wrath, 
 
 As if his light proportions would have swell'd, 
 
 Had they but match' d his spirit, to the man. 
 
 Why bends the patriarch as he cometh now 
 Upon his staff so wearily ? His beard 
 Is low upon his breast, and his high brow. 
 So written with the converse of his God, 
 Beareth the swollen vein of agony. 
 His lip is quivering, and his wonted step 
 Of vigor is not there ; and, though the morn 
 Is passing fair and beautiful, he breathes 
 Its freshness as it were a pestilence. 
 Oh ! man may bear with suffering : his heart 
 Is a strong thing, and godlike, in the grasp 
 Of pain that wrings mortality ; but tear 
 One chord atfection clings to — part one tie 
 That binds him to a woman's delicate love, — 
 And his great spirit yieldeth like a reed. 
 
 He gave to her the water and the bread, 
 But spoke no word, and trusted not himself 
 To look upon her face, but laid his hand 
 In silent blessing on the fair-hair'd boy, 
 And left her to her lot of loneliness. 
 
 Should Hagar weep ? May slighted woman turn, 
 And, as a vine the oak hath shaken off, 
 Bend lightly to her leaning trust again ? 
 Oh, no ! by all her loveliness, — by all 
 That makes life poetry and beauty, no ! 
 Make her a slave ; steal from her cheek the rose, 
 By needless jealousies ; let the last star 
 Leave her a watcher by your couch of pain ; 
 Wrong her by petulance, suspicion, all 
 That makes her cup a bitterness, yet give 
 One evidence of love, and earth has not 
 An emblem of devotedness like hers. 
 But oh ! estrange her once, — it boots not how, — 
 By wrong or silence, — any thing that tells 
 A change has come upon your tenderness, — 
 And there is not a high thing out of heaven 
 Her pride o'ermastereth not. 
 
 She went her way with a strong step and slow, — 
 Her press'd lip arch'd, and her clear eye undimm'd, 
 As it had been a diamond, and her form 
 Borne proudly up, as if her heart breathed through. 
 Her child kept on in silence, though she press'd 
 His hand till it was pain'd ; for he had caught, 
 As I have said, her spirit, and the seed 
 Of a stern nation had been breathed upon. 
 
 The morning pass'd, and Asia's sun rode up 
 In the clear heaven, and every beam was heat. 
 
 47* 
 
NATHANIEL P. WILLIS. 
 
 The cattle of the hills were in the shade, 
 And the bright plumage of the Orient lay- 
 On beating bosoms in her spicy trees. 
 It was an hour of rest ! but Hagar found 
 No shelter in the wilderness, and on 
 She kept her weary way, until the boy 
 Hung down his head, and open'd his parch'd lips 
 For water ; but she could not give it him. 
 She laid him down beneath the sultry sky — 
 For it was better than the close, hot breath 
 Of the thick pines — and tried to comfort him ; 
 But he was sore athirst, and his blue eyes 
 Were dim and bloodshot, and he could not know 
 Why God denied him water in the wild. 
 She sat a little longer, and he grew 
 Ghastly and faint, as if he would have died. 
 It was too much for her. She lifted him, 
 And bore him further on, and laid his head 
 Beneath the shadow of a desert-shrub ; 
 And, shrouding up her face, she went away, 
 And sat to watch, where he could see her not, 
 Till he should die ; and, watching him, she mourn'd 
 
 " God stay thee in thine agony, my boy : 
 I cannot see thee die ; I cannot brook 
 
 Upon thy brow to look, 
 And see death settle on my cradle-joy. 
 How have I drunk the light of thy blue eye ! 
 
 And could I see thee die ? 
 
 "I did not dream of this when thou wast straying, 
 Like an unbound gazelle, among the flowers ; 
 
 Ofc wiling the soft hours, 
 By the rich gush of water-sources playing, 
 Then sinking weary to thy smiling sleep, 
 
 So beautiful and deep. 
 
 " Oh, no ! and when I watch'd by thee the while, 
 And saw thy bright lip curling in thy dream, 
 
 And thought of the dark stream 
 In my own land of Egypt, the far Nile, 
 How pray'd I that my father's land might be 
 
 An heritage for thee ! 
 
 " And now the grave for its cold breast hath won th 
 And thy white, delicate limbs the earth will press ; 
 
 And, oh ! my last caress 
 Must feel thee cold, for a chill hand is on thee. 
 How can I leave my boy, so pillow'd there 
 
 Upon his clustering hair! : ' 
 
 She stood beside the well her God had given 
 To gush in that deep wilderness, and bathed 
 The forehead of her child until he laugh'd 
 In his reviving happiness, and lisp'd 
 His infant thought of gladness at the sight 
 Of the cool plashing of his mother's hand. 
 
NATHANIEL P. WILLIS. 
 
 SATURDAY AFTERNOON. 
 
 I love to look on a scene like this, 
 
 Of wild and careless play, 
 And persuade myself that I am not old 
 
 And my locks are not yet gray ; 
 For it stirs the blood in an old man's heart, 
 
 And makes his pulses fly, 
 To catch the thrill of a happy voice, 
 
 And the light of a pleasant eye. 
 
 I have walk'd the world for fourscore years ; 
 
 And they say that I am old, 
 That my heart is ripe for the reaper, Death, 
 
 And my years are wellnigh told. 
 It is very true ; it is very true ; 
 
 I'm old, and " I 'bide my time :" 
 But my heart will leap at a scene like this, 
 
 And I half renew my prime. 
 
 Play on, play on ; I am with you there, 
 
 In the midst of your merry ring ; 
 I can feel the thrill of the daring jump, 
 
 And the rush of the breathless swing. 
 I hide with you in the fragrant hay, 
 
 And I whoop the smother'd call, 
 And my feet slip up on the seedy floor, 
 
 And I care not for the fall. 
 
 I am willing to die when my time shall come, 
 
 And I shall be glad to go ; 
 For the world at best is a weary place, 
 
 And my pulse is getting low : 
 But the grave is dark, and the heart will fail 
 
 In treading its gloomy way ; 
 And it wiles my heart from its dreariness 
 
 To see the young so gay. 
 
 THE ANNOYER. 
 
 Love knoweth every form of air, 
 
 And every shape of earth, 
 And comes, unbidden, everywhere, 
 
 Like thought's mysterious birth. 
 The moonlit sea and the sunset sky 
 
 Are written with Love's words, 
 And you hear his voice unceasingly, 
 
 Like song, in the time of birds. 
 
 He peeps into the warrior's heart 
 From the tip of a stooping plume, 
 
 And the serried spears, and the many men, 
 May not deny him room. 
 
 He'll come to his tent in the weary night, 
 And be busy in his dream, 
 
NATHANIEL P. WILLIS. 
 
 And he'll float to his eye in the morning light, 
 Like a fay on a silver beam. 
 
 He hears the sound of the hunter's gun, 
 
 And rides on the echo back, 
 And sighs in his ear like a stirring leaf, 
 
 And flits in his woodland track. 
 The shade of the wood, and the sheen of the river, 
 
 The cloud, and the open sky, — 
 He will haunt them all with his subtle quiver, 
 
 Like the light of your very eye. 
 
 The fisher hangs over the leaning boat, 
 
 And ponders the silver sea, 
 For Love is under the surface hid, 
 
 And a spell of thought has he : 
 He heaves the wave like a bosom sweet, 
 
 And speaks in the ripple low, 
 Till the bait is gone from the crafty line, 
 
 And the hook hangs bare below. 
 
 He blurs the print of the scholars book, 
 
 And intrudes in the maiden's prayer, 
 And profanes the cell of the holy man 
 
 In the shape of a lady fair. 
 In the darkest night, and the bright daylight, 
 
 In earth, and sea, and sky, 
 In every home of human thought, 
 
 Will Love be lurking nigh. 
 
 REVERIE AT GLEN MARY. 
 
 I have enough, God ! My heart to-night 
 Runs over with its fulness of content ; 
 And as I look out on the fragrant stars, 
 And from the beauty of the night take in 
 My priceless portion, — yet myself no more 
 Than in the universe a grain of sand, — 
 I feel His glory who could make a world, 
 Yet in the lost depths of the wilderness 
 Leave not a flower unfinish'd! 
 
 Rich, though poor ! 
 My low-roof 'd cottage is this hour a heaven. 
 Music is in it, — and the song she sings, 
 That sweet-voiced wife of mine, arrests the ear 
 Of my young child awake upon her knee ; 
 And with his calm eye on his master's face, 
 My noble hound lies couchant ; and all here — 
 All in this little home, yet boundless heaven — 
 Are, in such love as I have power to give, 
 Blessed to overflowing. 
 
 Thou, who look'st 
 Upon my brimming heart this tranquil eve, 
 
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 
 
 561 
 
 Knowest its fulness, as thou dost the dew 
 Sent to the hidden violet by Thee ; 
 And, as that flower, from its unseen abode, 
 Sends its sweet breath up, duly, to the sky, 
 Changing its gift to incense, so, God ! 
 May the sweet drops that to my humble cup 
 Find their far way from heaven, send up, to Thee, 
 Fragrance at thy throne welcome ! 
 
 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is the son of Hon. Stephen Longfellow, of 
 Portland, Maine, and was born in that city on the 27th of February, 1807. At 
 the age of fourteen, he entered Bowdoin College, Brunswick, and was graduated 
 there in 1825. Soon after, being offered a professorship of modern languages in 
 his own college, he resolved to prepare himself thoroughly for his new duties, and 
 accordingly left home for Europe, and passed three years and a half in travelling 
 or residing in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Holland, and England. He re- 
 turned in 1829, and entered upon the duties of his office. In 1835, on the resigna- 
 tion of Mr. George Ticknor, he was elected Professor of Modern Languages and 
 Belles-Lettres in Harvard College. Again he went abroad, and passed more than 
 twelve months in Denmark, Sweden, Germany, and Switzerland. On his return 
 to resume the duties of his chair, he took up his residence in the old Cragie 
 House, near Mount Auburn, Cambridge, renowned as having been the head- 
 quarters of Washington when he assumed the command of the American army. 
 Here he has ever since resided, though he resigned his professorship in 1854. 
 
 Mr. Longfellow's literary career began very early. Before leaving college, he 
 wrote a few carefully-finished poems for the " United States Literary Gazette," 
 and while professor at Bowdoin, he contributed some valuable criticisms to the 
 " North American Review." In 1S35 appeared his Outre-Mer, a collection of 
 travelling sketches and miscellaneous essays ; in 1S39, Hyperion, a Romance, and 
 Voices of the Night, his first collection of poems; in 1841, Ballads, and other 
 Poems; in 1842, Poems on Slavery; in 1843, The Spanish Student, a play; in 
 1845, the "Poets and Poetry of Europe," and the Belfry of Bruges ; in 1847, 
 Evangeline; in 1848, Kavanagh, a Tale; in 1849, The Seaside and the Fireside; 
 in 1851, The Golden Legend; in 1855, The Song of Hiawatha; and in 1858, The 
 Courtship of Ililes Standish, 1 of which his publishers 2 sold twenty-five thousand 
 copies in a month from its publication. But it is in hexameter verse, and, though 
 popular for the time from its novelty, it can never obtain a permanent hold of the 
 hearts of the people. 
 
 1 " A charming story, which will do more to throw an attractive, familiar light 
 upon the bleak shores of Plymouth, and the grim-visaged Puritan colonists who 
 landed upon them, than all the New-England Society orations and labored his- 
 torical eulogies that were ever uttered or printed." — New York Evening Post. 
 
 2 Messrs. Ticknor & Fields have published all of Longfellow's works in various 
 beautiful styles, characteristic of their house. 
 
562 HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 
 
 It will thus be seen that Mr. Longfellow is a most prolific writer; and the 
 numerous editions of his works that are called for, show that he is also a very 
 popular one. His genius is as heartily recognised in England as in this country; 
 for every thing from his pen is eagerly caught up and republished there. And 
 his popularity he richly deserves; for his poetry, as well as his prose, is 
 marked by great tenderness of feeling, purity of sentiment, elevation of thought, 
 and deep human interest. His genius is versatile, for he has trodden almost 
 every path of polite literature, and gathered flowers from them all; and if his 
 strength has failed to carry him to the topmost eminence, he has the satisfaction 
 of knowing that many of his writings have become, as they deserve, " household 
 words," and have so touched the heart, that posterity will not willingly let 
 them die. 
 
 A PSALM OF LIFE. 
 
 What the heart of the young man said to the Psalmist. 
 
 Tell me not, in mournful numbers, 
 
 Life is but an empty dream ! 
 For the soul is dead that slumbers, 
 
 And things are not what they seem. 
 
 Life is real ! Life is earnest ! 
 
 And the grave is not its goal ; 
 "Dust thou art, to dust returnest," 
 
 Was not spoken of the soul. 
 
 Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, 
 
 Is our destined end or way ; 
 But to act, that each to-morrow 
 
 Find us farther than to-day. 
 
 Art is long, and Time is fleeting, 
 
 And our hearts, though stout and brave, 
 
 Still, like muffled drums, are beating 
 Funeral marches to the grave. 
 
 In the world's broad field of battle, 
 
 In the bivouac of Life, 
 Be not like dumb, driven cattle ! 
 
 Be a hero in the strife ! 
 
 Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant ! 
 
 Let the dead Past bury its dead ! 
 Act — act in the living Present ! 
 
 Heart within, and God o'erhead ! 
 
 Lives of great men all remind us 
 We can make our lives sublime, 
 
 And, departing, leave behind us 
 Footprints on the sands of time. 
 
 Footprints, that perhaps another, 
 Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 
 
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 
 
 A forlorn and shipwreck' d brother, 
 Seeing, shall take heart again. 
 
 Let us, then, be up and doing, 
 With a heart for any fate ; 
 
 Still achieving, still pursuing, 
 Learn to labor and to wait. 
 
 THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS. 
 
 There is a Reaper, whose name is Death, 
 
 And, with his sickle keen, 
 He reaps the bearded grain at a breath, 
 
 And the flowers that grow between. 
 
 " Shall I have naught that is fair ?" saith he ; 
 
 "Have naught but the bearded grain? 
 Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me, 
 
 I will give them all back again." 
 
 He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes, 
 
 He kiss'd their drooping leaves ; 
 It was for the Lord of Paradise 
 
 He bound them in his sheaves. 
 
 "My Lord has need of these flowerets gay," 
 
 The Reaper said, and smiled ; 
 "Dear tokens of the earth are they, 
 
 Where he once was a child. 
 
 " They shall all bloom in fields of light, 
 
 Transplanted by my care, 
 And saints, upon their garments white, 
 
 These sacred blossoms wear." 
 
 And the mother gave, in tears and pain, 
 
 The flowers she most did love ; 
 She knew she should find them all again 
 
 In the fields of light above. 
 
 Oh, not in cruelty, not in wrath, 
 
 The Reaper came that day ; 
 'Twas an angel visited the green earth, 
 
 And took the flowers away. 
 
 FOOTSTEPS OF ANGELS. 
 
 When the hours of Day are number'd, 
 And the voices of the Night 
 
 Wake the better soul, that slumber d, 
 To a holy, calm delight ; 
 
 Ere the evening lamps are lighted, 
 And, like phantoms grim and tall, 
 
 Shadows from the fitful fire-light 
 Dance upon the parlor-wall ; 
 
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Then the forms of the departed 
 
 Enter at the open door ; 
 The beloved, the true-hearted, 
 
 Come to visit me once more ; 
 
 He, the young and strong, who cherish'd 
 Noble longings for the strife, 
 
 By the road-side fell and perish'd, 
 Weary with the march of life ! 
 
 They, the holy ones and weakly, 
 Who the cross of suffering bore, 
 
 Folded their pale hands so meekly, 
 Spake with us on earth no more ! 
 
 And with them the Being Beauteous, 
 Who unto my youth was given, 
 
 More than all things else to love me, 
 And is now a saint in heaven. 
 
 With a slow and noiseless footstep 
 Comes that messenger divine, 
 
 Takes the vacant chair beside me, 
 Lays her gentle hand in mine. 
 
 And she sits and gazes at me 
 
 With those deep and tender eyes, 
 
 Like the stars, so still and saint-like, 
 Looking downward from the skies. 
 
 Utter'd not, yet comprehended, 
 Is the spirit's voiceless prayer, 
 
 Soft rebukes, in blessings ended, 
 Breathing from her lips of air. 
 
 Oh, though oft depress' d and lonely, 
 
 All my fears are laid aside, 
 If I but remember only 
 
 Such as these have lived and died ! 
 
 THE ARSENAL AT SPRINGFIELD. 
 
 This is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling, 
 Like a huge organ, rise the burnish'd arms ; 
 
 But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing 
 Startles the villagers with strange alarms. 
 
 Ah ! what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary, 
 When the death-angel touches those swift keys ! 
 
 What loud lament and dismal Miserere 
 Will mingle with their awful symphonies ! 
 
 I hear even now the infinite fierce chorus, 
 The cries of agony, the endless groan, 
 
 Which, through the ages that have gone before us, 
 In long reverberations reach our own. 
 
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 
 
 565 
 
 On helm and harness rings the Saxon hammer, 
 
 Through Cimbric forest roars the Norseman's song, 
 
 And loud, amid the universal clamor, 
 
 O'er distant deserts sounds the Tartar gong. 
 
 I hear the Florentine, who from his palace 
 "Wheels out his battle-bell with dreadful din, 
 
 And Aztec priests upon their teocallis 
 
 Beat the wild war-drums made of serpent's skin ; 
 
 The tumult of each sack'd and burning village ; 
 
 The shout that every prayer for mercy drowns ; 
 The soldier's revels in the midst of pillage ; 
 
 The wail of famine in beleaguer'd towns ; 
 
 The bursting shell, the gateway wrench'd asunder, 
 The rattling musketry, the clashing blade ; 
 
 And ever and anon, in tones of thunder, 
 The diapason of the cannonade. 
 
 Is it, man, with such discordant noises, 
 With such accursed instruments as these, 
 
 Thou drownest Nature's sweet and kindly voices, 
 And jarrest the celestial harmonies? 
 
 Were half the power that fills the world with terror, 
 Were half the wealth bestow' d on camps and courts, 
 
 Given to redeem the human mind from error, 
 There were no need of arsenals nor forts : 
 
 The warrior's name would be a name abhorred ! 
 
 And every nation that should lift again 
 Its hand against a brother, on its forehead 
 
 Would wear for evermore the curse of Cain ! 1 
 
 Down the dark future, through long generations, 
 The echoing sounds grow fainter, and then cease ; 
 
 And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations, 
 
 I hear once more the voice of Christ say, " Peace !" 
 
 Peace ! and no longer from its brazen portals 
 The blast of War's great organ shakes the skies! 
 
 But beautiful as songs of the immortals, 
 The holy melodies of love arise. 
 
 MAIDENHOOD. 
 
 Maiden ! with the meek, brown eyes, 
 In whose orbs a shadow lies 
 Like the dusk in evening skies ! 
 
 Would that the ninth and tenth verses of this fine poem might be engraved 
 upon the mind and heart of every man and woman, in both hemispheres, that 
 speaks the English tongue ! 
 
 48 
 
566 
 
 HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Thou -whose locks outshine the sun, 
 Golden tresses, wreathed in one, 
 As the braided streamlets run ! 
 
 Standing, with reluctant feet, 
 Where the brook and river meet, 
 Womanhood and childhood fleet ! 
 
 Gazing, with a timid glance, 
 On the brooklet's swift advance, 
 On the river's broad expanse ! 
 
 Deep and still, that gliding stream 
 Beautiful to thee must seem, 
 As the river of a dream. 
 
 Then why pause with indecision, 
 When bright angels in thy vision 
 Beckon thee to fields Elysian ? 
 
 Seest thou shadows sailing by, 
 As the dove, with startled eye, 
 Sees the falcon's shadow fly? 
 
 Hear'st thou voices on the shore, 
 That our ears perceive no more, 
 Deafen'd by the cataract's roar ? 
 
 thou child of many prayers ! 
 
 Life hath quicksands, — life hath snares! 
 
 Care and age come unawares ! 
 
 Like the swell of some sweet tune, 
 Morning rises into noon, 
 May glides onward into June. 
 
 Childhood is the bough, where slumber'd 
 Birds and blossoms many-number'd ; — 
 Age, that bough with snows encumber'd. 
 
 Gather, then, each flower that grows 
 When the young heart overflows, 
 To embalm that tent of snows. 
 
 Bear a lily in thy hand ; 
 
 Gates of brass cannot withstand 
 
 One touch of that magic wand. 
 
 Bear through sorrow, wrong, and ruth, 
 In thy heart the dew of youth, 
 On thy lips the smile of truth. 
 
 Oh, that dew, like balm, shall steal 
 Into wounds that cannot heal, 
 Even as sleep our eyes doth seal ; 
 
 And that smile, like sunshine, dart. 
 Into many a sunless heart, 
 For a smile of God thou art. 
 
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 
 
 THE WARNING. 
 
 Beware ! The Israelite of old, who tore 
 
 The lion in his path, — when, poor and blind, 
 
 He saw the blessed light of heaven no more, 
 
 Shorn of his noble strength, and forced to grind 
 
 In prison, and, at last, led forth to be 
 
 A pander to Philistine revelry ; 
 
 Upon the pillars of the temple laid 
 
 His desperate hands, and in its overthrow 
 
 Destroy' d himself, and with him those who made 
 A cruel mockery of his sightless woe ; 
 
 The poor blind slave, the scoff and jest of all, 
 
 Expired, and thousands perish'd in the fall ! 
 
 There is a poor, blind Samson in this land, 
 
 Shorn of his strength, and bound in bonds of steel, 
 
 Who may, in some grim revel, raise his hand, 
 And shake the pillars of this commonweal, 
 
 Till the vast temple of our liberties 
 
 A shapeless mass of wreck and rubbish lies. 
 
 EXCELSIOR. 
 
 The shades of night were falling fast, 
 As through an Alpine village pass'd 
 A youth, who bore 'mid snow and ice, 
 A banner with the strange device, 
 Excelsior ! 
 
 His brow was sad ; his eye beneath 
 Flash'd like a falchion from its sheath, 
 And like a silver clarion rung 
 The accents of that unknown tongue, 
 Excelsior ! 
 
 In happy homes he saw the light 
 Of household fires gleam warm and bright ; 
 Above, the spectral glaciers shone, 
 And from his lips escaped a groan, 
 Excelsior ! 
 
 " Try not the pass I" the old man said ; 
 " Dark lowers the tempest overhead ; 
 The roaring torrent is deep and wide !" 
 And loud that clarion voice replied, 
 Excelsior ! 
 
 " Oh, stay,' the maiden said, "and rest 
 Thy weary nead upon this breast !" 
 A tear stood in his bright blue eye, 
 But still he answer'd, with a sigh, 
 Excelsior ! 
 
568 
 
 HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 
 
 " Beware the pine-tree's wither'd branch ! 
 Beware the awful avalanche !" 
 This was the peasant's last good-night ; 
 A voice replied, far up the height, 
 Excelsior ! 
 
 At break of day, as heavenward 
 The pious monks of Saint Bernard 
 Utter'd the oft-repeated prayer, 
 A voice cried through the startled air, 
 Excelsior ! 
 
 A traveller, by the faithful hound, 
 Half buried in the snow was found, 
 Still grasping in his hand of ice 
 That banner with the strange device, 
 Excelsior ! 
 
 There, in the twilight cold and gray, 
 Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay, 
 And from the sky, serene and far, 
 A voice fell, like a falling star, 
 Excelsior ! 
 
 LITERARY FAME. 
 
 Time has a Doomsday-Book, upon whose pages he is continually 
 recording illustrious names. But, as often as a new name is writ- 
 ten there, an old one disappears. Only a few stand in illuminated 
 characters never to be effaced. These are the high nobility of 
 Nature, — Lords of the Public Domain of Thought. Posterity 
 shall never question their titles. But those, whose fame lives 
 only in the indiscreet opinion of unwise men, must soon be as 
 well forgotten as if they had never been. To this great obli- 
 vion must most men come. It is better, therefore, that they 
 should soon make up their minds to this : well knowing that, as 
 their bodies must ere long be resolved into dust again, and their 
 graves tell no tales of them, so must their names likewise be 
 utterly forgotten, and their most cherished thoughts, purposes, 
 and opinions have no longer an individual being among men ; but 
 be resolved and incorporated into the universe of thought. 
 
 Yes, it is better that men should soon make up their mind3 
 to be forgotten, and look about them, or within them, for some 
 higher motive, in what they do, than the approbation of men, 
 which is Fame ; namely, their duty j that they should be con- 
 stantly and quietly at work, each in his sphere, regardless of 
 effects, and leaving their mine to take care of itself. Difficult 
 must this indeed be, in our imperfection ; impossible, perhaps, to 
 achieve it wholly. Yet the resolute, the indomitable will of man 
 can achieve much, — at times even this victory over himself; 
 
GEORGE B. CHEEVER. 
 
 569 
 
 being persuaded that fame comes only when deserved, and then 
 is as inevitable as destiny, for it is destiny. 
 
 It has become a common saying, that men of genius are always 
 in advance of their age; which is true. There is something 
 equally true, yet not so common ; namely, that, of these men of ge- 
 nius, the best and bravest are in advance not only of their own age, 
 but of every age. As the German prose-poet says, every possible 
 future is behind them. We cannot suppose that a period of time 
 will ever arrive, when the world, or any considerable portion of it, 
 shall have come up abreast with these great minds, so as fully to 
 comprehend them. 
 
 And, oh ! how majestically they walk in history ! some like the 
 sun, " with all his travelling glories round him j" others wrapped in 
 gloom, yet glorious as a night with stars. Through the else silent 
 darkness of the past, the spirit hears their slow and solemn foot- 
 steps. Onward they pass, like those hoary elders seen in the 
 sublime vision of an earthly paradise, attendant angels bearing- 
 golden lights before them, and, above and behind, the whole air 
 painted with seven listed colors, as from the trail of pencils ! 
 
 And yet, on earth, these men were not happy, — not all happy, 
 in the outward circumstance of their lives. They were in want, 
 and in pain, and familiar with prison-bars, and the damp, weeping 
 walls of dungeons ! Oh, I have looked with wonder upon those 
 who, in sorrow and privation, and bodily discomfort, and sickness, 
 which is the shadow of death, have worked right on to the accom- 
 plishment of their great purposes • toiling much, enduring much, 
 fulfilling much • — and then, with shattered nerves, and sinews all 
 unstrung, have laid themselves down in the grave, and slept the 
 sleep of death, — and the world talks of them, while they sleep ! 
 
 It would seem, indeed, as if all their sufferings had but sancti- 
 fied them ! As if the death-angel, in passing, had touched them 
 with the hem of his garment, and made them holy ! As if the 
 hand of disease had been stretched out over them only to make 
 the sign of the cross upon their souls ! And as in the sun's 
 eclipse we can behold the great stars shining in the heavens, so 
 in this life-eclipse have these men beheld the lights of the great 
 eternity, burning solemnly and forever ! 
 
 Hyperion. 
 
 GEORGE BARRELL CHEEVER. 
 
 George Barrell Cheeter was born at Hallowell, Maine, on the 17th of 
 April, 1807, was graduated at Bowdoin College in 1825, and studied theology at 
 Andover, Massachusetts. He was licensed to preach in 1830, and in 1832 was 
 ordained pastor of the Howard Street Church, Salem, Massachusetts. He com- 
 
 48* 
 
570 
 
 GEORGE B. CHEEVER. 
 
 menced his ministry with an uncompromising spirit against every thing that 
 hindered the spread of the gospel of Christ, of the ohject of which " gospel" 1 
 he seemed to have a clear understanding. Such a spirit could not long need 
 a subject against which to direct its energies. Accordingly, when the tem- 
 perance reformation began, he was found the foremost and the boldest in 
 the van of those who enlisted in this great moral warfare. In February, 1835, 
 appeared in the " Salem Landmark" a piece entitled Inquire at Amos Giles' 
 Distillery, which quite electrified that quiet community,- for, under the guise 
 of "a dream," it depicted, in the most appalling colors, the hateful, soul- 
 destroying business of distilling and vending intoxicating drinks. Every one 
 immediately or remotely engaged in it meditated revenge against the author, and 
 a prosecution was instituted against him for libel, alleging that under the name 
 of "Deacon Giles" the writer really meant a certain " deacon" long and noto- 
 riously engaged in distilling; who was also "a treasurer of a Bible Society, and 
 had a little counting-room in one corner of the distillery, where he sold Bibles." 
 Mr. Cheever pleaded his own cause; but, to the lasting disgrace of that judiciary, 
 he was condemned, and sentenced to thirty days' imprisonment, — an event to 
 which his children may well look back with pride. 
 
 In 1S36, Mr. Cheever went to Europe, and was absent about two years and a 
 half. On his return he was installed pastor of the Allen Street Church, New 
 York. In 1814, he again visited Europe, and remained there a year. In 1846, 
 he was installed pastor of the " Church of the Puritans," in New York, in which 
 he still remains. 
 
 Mr. Cheever is the author of a great number of works, all excellent in their 
 kind, evincing genius, scholarship, and industry in an eminent degree. 2 But he 
 has what all scholars have not, — ardent philanthropy and pure Christian patriot- 
 ism, taking a deep interest in every thing that pertains to the well-being of his 
 
 1 V>vayyt\iov , " Good will to man." 
 
 2 The following list, I believe, comprises all his works : — American Common- 
 place Book, of Prose, 1828; American Common-place Book of Poetry, 1829; 
 Studies in Poetry, with Biographical Sketches of the Poets, 1830; Selections from 
 Archbishop Leighton, with an Introductory Essay, 1832; God's Hand in America, 
 1841; The Argument fur Punishment by Death, 1842 ; Lectures on Pilgrim's Pro- 
 gress, 1843; Hierarchical Lectures, 1844; Wanderings of a Pilgrim in the Shadoio 
 of Mont Blanc, and the Yungfrau Alp, 1846 j The Journal of the Pilgrims at Ply- 
 mouth, 1848; The Hill Difficulty, and other Allegories, 1849; The Windings of the 
 River of the Water of Life, 1849; Voices of Nature to her Foster -Child, the Soul 
 of Alan, 1852; Reel in a Bottle, or Voyage to the Celestial Country, by an Old Salt, 
 1853 ; Right of the Bible in our Common. Schools, 1854; Lectures on Coicper, 1S56; 
 The. Powers of the World to Come. 1856; God Against Slavery, 1857. 
 
 Dr. Cheever, in earlier years, was a contributor to the " United States Literary 
 Gazette," " The Quarterly Register," " The New Monthly Magazine," and the 
 "North American Review." He has written articles of great ability for "The 
 Biblical Repository," " The New-Englander," " The Bibliotheca Sacra," and 
 " The Quarterly Observer." He was a valuable correspondent of the "New York 
 Observer" when in Europe, and editor of the " New York Evangelist" during 
 1845 and 1846. In 1857, he wrote a series of articles for " The Bibliotheca 
 Sacra," on the Judgment of the Old Testament against Slavery, which evince 
 characteristic argumentation, combined with remarkable philological inves- 
 tigation. 
 
I 
 
 GEORGE B. CHEEVER. 571 
 
 brother man. As in the first years of his ministry Mr. Cheever entered heartily 
 the lists against our wide-spread vice, — intemperance, — over which almost tho 
 whole community were sleeping, so for the past few years his vigorous pen and 
 eloquent preaching have been directed against our great national sin, — slavery. 
 To the columns of the " New York Independent" he has been a regular contri- 
 butor since its establishment in 1849 ; and all his pieces, whether in literature, 
 politics, practical morals, or religion, evince great power and genius, but, above 
 all, the pure Christian patriot. 1 
 
 THE BENEFIT OF GREEK CULTURE. 2 
 
 With the exception of Shakspeare, on whom was bestowed one 
 of the greatest minds God ever gave to man, the sweetest and 
 best of English poetry is that which Greek scholars have written. 
 Every page shows the power of an early familiarity with the 
 treasures of antiquity. Spenser, that romantic and harmonious 
 mind, grew up with Sir Philip Sidney, under the influence of 
 classical studies. A greater than these, and after Shakspeare, 3 
 it may be the greatest of all poets, was one of the profoundest 
 Greek scholars that ever lived. He does not know the true 
 power of Milton's poetry, who is ignorant of Milton's Greek. 
 His genius, it is true, was baptized in a purer fountain : it was 
 familiar with the infinite, the eternal, the religiously sublime, in 
 the poetry of the Bible ; his mind was nourished and moulded 
 more by the sacred writers than by all his other studies put 
 together. Next to these came the orators, poets, and historians 
 
 1 "The fundamental trait of Dr. Cheever's character, which is the key to his 
 preaching, is his sense of RIGHT. He detests compromises ; he abhors oppres- 
 sion ; he magnifies justice; he contends with all systems which bind, or enslave, 
 or deteriorate, whether of governments, or forms, or laws, or institutions. He 
 does not regard expediency or consult consequences. Fear is a feeling utterly 
 unknown to him. He becomes fired with indignation against all Austrias and 
 Judge Jeffries. His fullest sympathies go forth towards the oppressed Bunyans, 
 or the pilloried Baxters, or the exiled Kossuths, or the imprisoned William- 
 sons."* — Fowler's American Pulpit. 
 
 2 " It was not an accident that the New Testament was written in Greek, the 
 language which can best express the highest thoughts and worthiest feelings 
 of the intellect and heart, and which is adapted to be the instrument of education 
 for all nations." Again : " How great has been the honor of the Greek and Latin 
 tongues ! associated together, as they are, in the work of Christian education, and 
 made the instruments for training the minds of the young in the greatest nations 
 of the earth." — Gonybeare and Howson's St. Paul, chap. i. 
 
 3 That is, of course, " after" in point of time; for no one can doubt the supe- 
 riority of Milton over Shakspeare in learning, genius, affluence and grandeur of 
 thought, varied power, and sublimity. 
 
 * He alludes to the imprisonment of Passmore Williamson, of Philadelphia, by Judge 
 Kane, for an alleged contempt of court, — an act so mean, as well as tyrannical and unjust, 
 that it excited conteynpt and indignatio l throughout the land. 
 
572 
 
 GEORGE B. CHEEVER. 
 
 of Greece. He was wont to prepare himself for composition by 
 the perusal of his Hebrew Bible, or of some Greek poet : 
 
 "Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath, 
 That wash thy hallow'd feet, and warbling flow, 
 Nightly I visit : nor sometimes forget 
 Those other tAvo equall'd with me in fate, 
 (So were I equall'd with them in renown !) 
 Blind Thamyris, and blind Moeonides : 
 And Tiresias and Phineas, prophets old. 
 Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move 
 Harmonious numbers." 
 
 He had u unsphered the spirit of Plato," and held companionship 
 with .ZEschylus and Sophocles and Euripides, and in thought and 
 imagination was all fragrant with the richness of Grecian mind : 
 his exquisite language was moulded on those ancient models, not 
 less in its great strength in Paradise Lost, than in the lightness 
 and harmony of the Allegro and Penseroso. Andrew Marvel!, 
 that rare example of virtuous patriotism, one of Milton's most 
 intimate friends, and one of our best prose writers as well as 
 most pleasant poets, grew up under the same kind of discipline. 
 Gray has been called the most learned man in Europe : he was 
 certainly one of the most finished classical scholars. The spirit 
 of the Grecian mind pervades his poetry, so elaborately wrought, 
 so pure in its moral influence, abounding in such rich personifi- 
 cations, such lofty images, and often such sweet thoughts. Collins, 
 too, that child of imagination and tenderness, was a superior Greek 
 scholar, as any man would judge from his exquisite lyrical pro- 
 ductions. And it is worthy of remark that the purest and the 
 most valued of all English poetry should happen to be the pro- 
 duction of minds thus severely disciplined. Indeed, it is prepos- 
 terous to think of becoming a true scholar, even in English lite- 
 rature merely, without a knowledge of Greek. 
 
 BUNYAN IN HIS CELL. 
 
 Now let us enter his little cell. He is sitting at his table to 
 finish by sunlight the day's work, for the livelihood of his dear 
 family, which they have prepared for him. On a little stool, his 
 poor blind child sits by him, and, with that expression of cheerful 
 resignation with which God seals the countenance when he takes 
 away the sight, the daughter turns her face up to her father as if 
 she could see the affectionate expression with which he looks 
 upon her and prattles to her. On the table and in the grated 
 window there are three books, — the Bible, the Concordance, and 
 Bunyan's precious old copy of the Book of Martyrs. And now 
 
GEORGE B. CHEEVER. 
 
 573 
 
 the day is waning, and his dear blind child must go home with 
 the laces he has finished, to her mother. And now Bunyan 
 opens his Bible and reads aloud a portion of Scripture to his little 
 one, and then, encircling her in his arms and clasping her small 
 hands in his, he kneels down on the cold stone floor, and pours 
 out his soul in prayer to God for the salvation of those so inex- 
 pressibly dear to him, and for whom he has been all day working. 
 This done, with a parting kiss he dismisses her to her mother by 
 the rough hands of the gaoler. 
 
 And now it is evening. A rude lamp glimmers darkly on the 
 table, the tagged laces are laid aside, and Bunyan, alone, is busy 
 with his Bible, the Concordance, and his pen, ink, and paper. 
 He writes as though joy did make him write. His pale, worn 
 countenance is lighted with a fire as if reflected from the radiant 
 jasper walls of the Celestial City. He writes, and smiles, and 
 clasps his hands, and looks upward, and blesses God for his good- 
 ness, and then again turns to his writing, and then again becomes 
 so entranced with a passage of Scripture, the glory of which the 
 Holy Spirit lets in upon his soul, that he is forced, as it were, to 
 lay aside all his labors, and give himself to the sweet work of his 
 closing evening devotions. The last you see of him for the night, 
 he is alone, kneeling on the floor of his prison ; he is alone with 
 God. 
 
 RETRIBUTIVE PROVIDENCES. 
 
 God's retributive providence may be invisible as the angel of 
 death, and gradual as the remorseless tide that steals its march for 
 centuries, or the malaria that depopulates cities and makes the 
 very sight of them the dread of the traveller. Sometimes a series 
 of retributive providences is unfolded, no one of which, by itself, 
 excites alarm or surprise, till in the lapse of ages the solemn work 
 is done, the nation has passed from existence, and historians write 
 its epitaph, and philosophize upon the causes of its fall. A linger- 
 ing decay may be far worse than a sudden overthrow ; so that, in 
 such a case, the common lamentation of mankind may be deeper 
 for the degradation that remains than the glory that has departed. 
 A nation dies when the spirit of every thing good and noble dies 
 in it. The name may live when the elements of life and beauty 
 have departed. God may suffer the sins which a nation is cherish- 
 ing to consume its energies, till the gangrene becomes incurable, 
 and then his abused mercies work their own revenge. How 
 solemn, in such a case, are the records and the proofs of the 
 divine indignation; the prediction and the fulfilment seen and 
 read together ! 
 
 I have stood beneath the walls of the Coliseum in Rome, the 
 Parthenon in Athens, and the Temple of Karnak in Egypt; each 
 
574 
 
 GEORGE B. CHEEVER. 
 
 of them the mighty relic of majestic empires, and the symbol of 
 the spirit of the most remarkable ages in the world. The last, 
 carrying you back as in a dream over the waste of four thousand 
 years, might be supposed to owe its superior impressiveness to its 
 vast antiquity; but that is not the secret of the strange and 
 solemn thoughts that crowd into the mind : it is the demonstra- 
 tion of God's wrath fulfilled according to the letter of the Scrip- 
 tures ! No ruins of antiquity are so overwhelming in their in- 
 terest as the gigantic remains of that empire, once the proudest 
 in the world, and now, according to the very letter of the divine 
 prediction, " the basest of the kingdoms." From the deep and 
 grim repose of those sphinxes, obelisks, and columns, — those idols 
 broken at the presence of God, — as the mind wanders back to the 
 four hundred years of Israel's bondage in Egypt, methinks you 
 may hear the wail of that old and awful prophecy, with the linger- 
 ing echo of every successive prediction : — " The nation whom 
 they shall serve will I judge !" Who would have be- 
 lieved it possible, four thousand years ago, amidst the vigor and 
 greatness of the Egyptian kingdom, that, after that vast lapse of 
 time, travellers should come from a world then as new, unpeopled, 
 and undiscovered as the precincts of another planet, to read the 
 proofs of God's veracity in the vestiges at once of such stupen- 
 dous glory and such a stupendous overthrow ! And now, if any 
 man, contemplating the youthful vigor, the energy, the almost 
 indestructible life of our own country, finds it difficult to believe 
 that the indulgence of the same national sin, under infinitely 
 clearer light, may be followed with a yimilar overthrow, let him 
 wander on the banks of the Nile, and think down hours to mo- 
 ments in the silent sanctuaries of its broken temples. 
 
 " STEP TO THE CAPTAIN'S OFFICE AND SETTLE!" 
 
 This old watchword, so often heard by travellers in the early 
 stages of steam-navigation, is now and then ringing in our ears 
 with a very pointed and pertinent application. It is a note that 
 belongs to all the responsibilities of this life for eternity. There 
 is a day of reckoning, a day for the settlement of accounts. All 
 unpaid bills will then have to be paid ; all unbalanced books will 
 have to be settled. There will be no loose memorandums for- 
 gotten • there will be no heedless commissioners for the conve- 
 nience of careless consciences ) there will be no proxies ; there 
 will be no bribed auditors. 
 
 Neither will there be such a thing as a hesitating conscience ; 
 but the inward monitor, so often drugged and silenced on earth, 
 will speak out. There will be no doubt nor question as to the 
 right and the wrong. There will be no vain excuses, nor any 
 
GEORGE B. CHEEVER. 
 
 575 
 
 att(,mpt to make them. There will be no more sophistry, no more 
 considerations of expediency, no more pleading of the laws of men 
 and the customs of society, no more talk about organic sins being- 
 converted into constructive righteousness, or collective and cor- 
 porate frauds releasing men from individual responsibilities. 
 
 When we see a man, a professed Christian, running a race with 
 the worshippers of wealth and fashion, absorbed in the vanities 
 of the world, or endeavoring to serve both God and mammon, 
 we hear the voice, Step to the Ccqrtain's office and settle! 
 
 When we see a man spending his whole time and energies in 
 getting ready to live, but never thinking how he shall learn to die, 
 endeavoring even to forget that he must die, — poor man, he must 
 step to the Captain's office and settle! 
 
 When we see editors and politicians setting power in the place 
 of goodness, and expediency in the place of justice, and law in the 
 place of equity, and custom in the place of right, putting darkness 
 for light, and evil for good, and tyranny for general benevolence, 
 we think of the day when the issuers of such counterfeit money 
 will be brought to light, and their sophistries and lies exposed, — 
 for among, the whole tribe of unprincipled politicians there will be 
 great consternation when the call comes to step to the Captain's 
 office and settle. 
 
 When we see unjust rulers in their pride of power fastening- 
 chains upon the bondmen, oppressing the poor, and playing their 
 pranks of defiant tyranny before high heaven, then also come 
 these words to mind, like a blast from the last trumpet, — Step to 
 the Captain's office and settle! 
 
 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 We speak a language containing vast treasures of religious wis- 
 dom, and vernacular, more or less, over a large portion of the 
 globe, and, for this and other causes, perhaps destined to become 
 an organ of international communication more universal than any 
 other tongue. The students at the missionary seminary at Basle, 
 in Germany, well denominated the English language the mis- 
 sionary language. It might almost be called the language of reli- 
 gion, in reference to the vast treasures of theological science, the 
 mines of religious truth, and, above all, the inestimable works of 
 practical piety, of which it furnishes a key. There is in it a 
 capital of speculative and practical theology, rich and deep enough 
 for the whole world to draw upon. From time to time, God him- 
 self has especially honored it, and prepared it more and more for 
 his glory, by giving to the world, through its medium, such works 
 as the Pilgrim's Progress and the Paradise Lost. It is the lan- 
 guage of Protestantism, the language of civil and religious free- 
 
576 
 
 GEORGE B. CHEEVER. 
 
 dom, the language of commercial enterprise, the language spoken 
 by the greater portion of seamen in the world. It is the language 
 of the two freest, most enterprising, most powerful, and, so far as 
 the appellation can at present be admitted in a national sense, 
 most truly Christian, nations on the globe. 
 
 Taking all these influences into consideration, there is not 
 another language in the world so sacred, so connected with holy 
 associations, and, for the treasures of religion which it embalms, 
 so important to man's highest interests, as the English language. 
 We therefore cannot but regard its increasing prevalence as a 
 great and special indication of the providence of God. The time 
 is not far distant, other causes being supposed to maintain their 
 influence, when this language shall have become an organ for the 
 world's literature ; and in addition to this, if we mistake not, the 
 world's religious book-mart, and most elevated and important 
 literary centre, will be found in America. 
 
 A SLAVE-HOLDING CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 A slave-holding Christianity is a forgery and falsehood, a cor- 
 ruption of religion, a defiance of the living God, a libel upon the 
 gospel, and a perversion of it for the sanction and protection of 
 some of the worst forms of human wickedness and misery. By 
 the testimony of God's word and the verdict of mankind, the 
 climax of oppression, the consummation of its malignity, and the 
 concentration of all its evils, is personal slavery, — the buying and 
 selling of men, the claiming, holding, and making merchandise of 
 human beings as property. The whole family relation, the whole 
 domestic state, is poisoned, is perverted and prostituted by it, and 
 turned into an engine of merchandise and misery. What God 
 meant should be the source and inspiration of happiness, becomes 
 the fountain of sin and woe. God " setteth the solitary in families;" 
 but the independence, the mutual endearment, the sacred relation- 
 ships and obligations of members of the family circle to one another 
 and to God, are elements of holiness and happiness that cannot 
 exist in a slave's household. 
 
 By the nature of slavery, by its remorseless consecration to the 
 owner of all capacities and obligations from birth till death, the 
 sacred names of husband, wife, father, mother, son, daughter, are 
 themselves chattelized, and become merely the exponents of 
 various forces and values in the owner's property. The family 
 relations and affections of slavery, being subjected, in a Christian 
 state and community, to the will, the avarice, the necessities and 
 passions of the slave-holder, are made, just like all things of 
 faculty, capacity, intelligence, force, emotion, and sensibility in 
 the slave, articles of pecuniary worth alone, of barter and sale, 
 
RICHARD HILDRETH. 
 
 577 
 
 with reference to the market value, and for future increase ; and 
 this constitutes a violation of God's arrangements for the good of 
 his creatures, and an anomaly of heaven -defying wickedness, ten 
 thousand times worse than the family chaos of savage life, or the 
 ignorance and cruelty of heathenism. Our iniquity in the sanc- 
 tion and support of slavery is pre-eminently this of the wholesale 
 oppression and sacrifice of children. We become a people of men- 
 stealers in perpetuating this iniquity. 
 
 Address be/ore (he Amcsicafr Missionary Association, May, 1858. 
 
 RICHARD HILDRETH. 
 
 Richard Hildreth", the historian of the United States, was born at Deerfield, 
 Massachusetts, on the 28th of June, 1807. When four years old, his father, the 
 Rev. Hosea Hildreth, was called to preside over the English department of Phil- 
 lips Academy, at Exeter, New Hampshire, and the family removed thither. In 
 1822, he entered Harvard College, where he was distinguished for his high class- 
 rank, as well as for his attainments in general literature. After graduating, he 
 kept a school in Concord, Massachusetts, one year, and then studied law at New- 
 buryport and Boston, and was admitted to the Suffolk bar in 1S30. In 1832, 
 while engaged in his profession, he was one of a small number who founded the 
 "Boston Atlas," for which he furnished the greater part of the editorial articles; 
 at the same time contributing many papers of interest and value to Buckingham's 
 " New England Magazine." 
 
 In consequence of feeble health, Mr. Hildreth went to the South in 1834, and 
 remained there two winters. While there, he wrote the powerful novel Archy 
 Moore, exhibiting a few of the features of slavery in their true light. On his 
 return, it was published anonymously, was republished in England, and received 
 deserved praise from the critics. 1 He did not resume the practice of law, but 
 became again connected Avith the "Boston Atlas," of which, in 1837-38, he was 
 the AVashington correspondent. On his return to Boston in the spring of 1838, 
 he became the chief editor of that paper, and furnished a series of very able 
 articles upon Texas, which were among the first efforts to arouse the North to a 
 true sense of the iniquitous scheme of "Annexation," as it was called. Being 
 strongly in favor of the enactmeut by the Legislature of Massachusetts of a pro- 
 hibitive liquor law, and thus differing from the proprietors of the "Atlas," he 
 retired from that paper at the end of 1839. In 1840, he published Despotism in 
 America, an able work on the moral, political, and social character of slavery. 
 In the same year he published a History of Banks, advocating a system of free 
 
 1 This was republished in 1852, under the titlo of "The White Slave." 
 49 
 
/ 
 
 578 RICHARD HILDRETH. 
 
 banking, with security to bill-holders ; and a translation, from the French of 
 Duniont, of " Bentham's Theory of Legislation." 
 
 Feeble health making another visit to a warmer climate necessary, Mr. Hil- 
 dreth went, in 18-10, to Demerara, (in British Guiana,) where he spent three years, 
 employing his time in editing successively two newspapers in Georgetown, the 
 capital, and in writing his Theory of Morals, which was published in 18-11, soon 
 after his return to Boston. In lSl'J appeared the first volume of the great work 
 on which his fame will chiefly rest, — his History of the United States, of which 
 five more volumes appeared in the course of the three succeeding years, bringing 
 down the narrative to the close of the first term of Mr. Monroe's administration. 1 
 In 1853 appeared his Theory of Politics, one of his ablest and most acute 
 treatises. In 1851, he gave us a new edition of Despotism in America, with a 
 "continuation," such as the significant events that had occurred since the 
 appearance of the first edition enabled him to make. Japan as it Was and as it Is 
 appeared in 1855, when he became a regular contributor to the " New York 
 Tribune," and at the close of the 3-car removed to Xew York, where he now re- 
 sides. His latest work — Atrocious Judges; or, Lives of Judges Infamous as Tools 
 of Tyrants and Instruments of Oppression — was published in 1856. 2 
 
 The following extracts from some of Mr. Hildreth's able works will give a fair 
 idea of his strong, manly style, and his power of description and narration as 
 an historian. The prominent qualities of his mind are courage and honesty; 
 and he is never afraid to speak out the deep convictions of his soul. 
 
 THE MURDER OF THE SOUL. 
 
 There are some people whose sympathies have been excited 
 upon the subject of slavery, who, if they can only be satisfied 
 that the slaves have enough to eat, think it is all very well, and 
 that nothing more is to be said or done. 
 
 If slaves were merely animals, whose only or chief enjoyment 
 consisted in the gratification of their bodily appetites, there would 
 be some show of sense in this conclusion. But, in fact, however 
 crushed and brutified, they are still men j men whose bosoms beat 
 with the same passions as our own ; whose hearts swell with the 
 same aspirations, — the same ardent desire to improve their condi- 
 tion ; the same wishes for what they have not ; the same indiffe- 
 rence towards what they have ; the same restless love of social 
 superiority ; the same greediness of acquisition ; the same desire 
 to know; the same impatience of all external control. 
 
 1 "Hildreth is a historian of most truthful and methodical accuracy. His 
 style is clear, concise, and charming, though without figurative ornament. He 
 makes points like the point of a diamond. His analysis of motives and causes 
 stamps him as a philosopher of the first rank." — Democratic Review, January, 1850. 
 
 2 In the Appendix to this work is the decision of Judge Kane, imprisoning 
 Passmore Williamson for an alleged '' contempt of court." See note on p. 571. 
 
RICHARD HILDRETH. 
 
 579 
 
 The excitement which the singular case of Casper Hauser pro- 
 cruced a few years since in Germany is not yet forgotten. From 
 the representations of that enigmatical personage, it was believed 
 that those from whose custody he declared himself to have es- 
 caped, had endeavored to destroy his intellect, or rather to prevent 
 it from being developed, so as to detain him forever in a state of 
 infantile imbecility. This supposed attempt at what they saw 
 fit to denominate the murder of the soul, gave rise to great 
 discussions among the German jurists; and they soon raised it 
 into a new crime, which they placed at the very head of social 
 enormities. 
 
 It is this very crime, the murder of the soid, which is in the 
 course of continuous and perpetual perpetration throughout the 
 Southern States of the American Union j and that not upon 
 a single individual only, but upon nearly one-half of the entire 
 population. 
 
 Consider the slaves as men, and the course of treatment which 
 custom and the laws prescribe is an artful, deliberate, and well- 
 digested scheme to break their spirit ; to deprive them of courage 
 and of manhood ; to destroy their natural desire for an equal par- 
 ticipation in the benefits of society ; to keep them ignorant, and 
 therefore weak; to reduce them, if possible, to a state of idiocy; 
 to crowd them down to a level with the brutes. 
 
 Despotism in America. 
 
 THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 
 
 The dying embers of the Continental Congress, barely kept 
 alive for some months by the occasional attendance of one or two 
 delegates, as the day approached 1 for the new system to be organ- 
 ized, quietly Avent out, without note or observation. History 
 knows few bodies so remarkable. The Long Parliament of 
 Charles I., and the French National Assembly, are alone to be 
 compared with it. Coming together, in the first instance, a mere 
 collection of consulting delegates, the Continental Congress had 
 boldly seized the reins of power, assumed the leadership of the 
 insurgent States, issued bills of credit, raised armies, declared 
 independence, negotiated foreign treaties, carried the nation 
 through an eight years' war; finally, had extorted from the proud 
 and powerful mother-country an acknowledgment of the sovereign 
 authority so daringly assumed and so indomitably maintained. 
 But this brilliant career had been as short as it was glorious. The 
 decline had commenced even in the midst of the war. Exhausted 
 by such extraordinary efforts, — smitten with the curse of poverty, 
 
 1 March 3, 1789. 
 
580 
 
 RICHARD HILDRETII. 
 
 their paper money first depreciating and then repudiated, over- 
 whelmed with debts which t\\ey could not pay, pensioners on the 
 bounty of France, insulted by mutineers, scouted at by the public 
 creditors, unable to fulfil the treaties they had made, bearded 
 and encroached upon by the State authorities, issuing fruitless 
 requisitions which they had no power to enforce, vainly begging 
 for additional authority which the States refused to grant, thrown 
 more and more into the shade by the very contrast of former 
 power, — the Continental Congress sunk fast into decrepitude and 
 contempt. Feeble is the sentiment of political gratitude ! Debts 
 of that sort* are commonly left for posterity to pay. While all 
 eyes were turned — some with doubt and some with apprehension, 
 but the greater part with hope and confidence — towards the ample 
 authority vested in the new government now about to be organ- 
 ized, not one respectful word seems to have been uttered, not a 
 single reverential regret to have been dropped over the fallen 
 greatness of the exhausted and expiring Continental Congress. 
 
 HAMILTON, WASHINGTON, AND JAY. 
 
 In Hamilton's death the Federalists and the country experienced 
 a loss second only to that of Washington. Hamilton possessed 
 the same rare and lofty qualities, the same just balance of soul, 
 with less, indeed, of Washington's severe simplicity and awe- 
 inspiring presence, but with more of warmth, variety, ornament, 
 and grace. If the Doric in architecture be taken as the sym- 
 bol of Washington's character, Hamilton's belonged to the same 
 grand style as developed in the Corinthian, — if less impressive, 
 more winning. If we add Jay for the Ionic, we have a trio not to 
 be matched, in fact not to be approached, in our history, if, indeed, 
 in any other. Of earth-born Titans, as terrible as great, now 
 angels, and now toads and serpents, there are everywhere enough. 
 Of the serene and benign sons of the celestial gods, how few at 
 any time have walked the earth ! 
 
 JAMES MADISON. 
 
 The political character of the retiring President sprang, natu- 
 rally enough, from his intellectual temperament and personal and 
 party relations. Phlegmatic in his constitution, moderate in all 
 his feelings and passions, he possessed remarkable acuteness, and 
 ingenuity sufficient to invest with the most persuasive plausibility 
 whichsoever side of a question he espoused. But he wanted the 
 decision, the energy, the commanding firmness, necessary in a 
 leader. More a rhetorician than a ruler, he was made only for 
 second places, and therefore never was but second, even when he 
 
RICHARD H1LDRETH. 581 
 
 seemed to be first. A Federalist from natural largeness of views, 
 lie became a Jeffersonian Republican because that became the 
 predominating policy of Virginia,. A peace man in his heart and 
 judgment, he became a war man to secure his re-election to the 
 Presidency, and because that seemed to be the prevailing bias of 
 the Republican party. Having been, in the course of a long- 
 career, on both sides of almost every political question, he made 
 friends among all parties, anxious to avail themselves, whenever 
 they could, of his able support; escaping, thereby, much of that 
 searching criticism, so freely applied, with the unmitigated se- 
 verity of party hatred, to his more decided and consistent com- 
 patriots and rivals. 
 
 Let us, however, do Madison the justice to add, that, as he 
 was among the first, so he was, all things- considered, by far the 
 ablest and most amiable, of that large class of our national states- 
 men, become of late almost the only class, who, instead of devo- 
 tion to the carrying out of any favorite ideas or measures of their 
 own, put up their talents, like mercenary lawyers, as too many of 
 them are, to be sold to the highest bidder ; espousing, on every 
 question, that side which, for the moment, seems to offer the 
 surest road to applause and promotion. 
 
 PAST AND PRESENT POLITICS. 
 
 With the reannexation of Florida to the Anglo-American do- 
 minion, the recognised extension of our western limit to the 
 shores of the Pacific, and the partition of those new acquisitions 
 between slavery and freedom, closed Monroe's first term of office ; 
 and with it a marked era in our history. All the old landmarks 
 of party, uprooted as they had been, first by the embargo and the 
 war with England, and then by peace in Europe, had since, by 
 the bank question, the internal improvement question, and the 
 tariff question, been completely superseded and almost wholly 
 swept away. At the Ithuriel touch of the Missouri discussion, 
 the slave interest, hitherto hardly recognised as a distinct element 
 in our system, had started up, portentous and dilated, disavowing 
 the very fundamental principles of modern democracy, and again 
 threatening, as in the Federal Convention, the dissolution of the 
 Union. It is from this point, already beginning, indeed, to fade 
 away in the distance, that our politics of to-day take their 
 departure. Close of his History. 
 
 49* 
 
582 
 
 JONATHAN LAWRENCE. 
 
 JONATHAN LAWRENCE, 1807—1833. 
 
 This 'young poet of great promise was born in New York in November, 1807, 
 and was graduated at Columbia College in 1823. He entered the profession of 
 the law ; and tbe bigbest expectations were formed of his future eminence, wben 
 be was suddenly removed by death on the 26th of April, 1S33. After his death, 
 his brother collected, and had printed for private circulation, his various writings, 
 consisting of prose essays and poetry, which are distinguished for great beautj 
 and purity of thought and style. Among them is the encouraging direction, in 
 all the trials of life, to 
 
 LOOK ALOFT. 1 
 
 In the tempest of life, when the wave and the gale 
 Are around and. above, if thy footing should fail, 
 If thine eye should grow dim, and thy caution depart, 
 "Look aloft!" and be firm, and be fearless of heart. 
 
 If the friend who embraced in prosperity's glow, 
 With a smile for each joy and a tear for each woe, 
 Should betray thee when sorrows like clouds are array'd, 
 " Look aloft" to the friendship which never shall fade. 
 
 Should the visions which hope spreads in light to thine eye, 
 Like the tints of the rainbow, but brighten to fly, 
 Then turn, and through tears of repentant regret, 
 " Look aloft" to the Sun that is never to set. 
 
 Should they who are dearest, the son of thy heart, 
 The w r ife of thy bosom, in sorrow depart, 
 "Look aloft," from the darkness and dust of the tomb, 
 To that soil where affection is ever in bloom. 
 
 And oh ! when death comes in his terrors, to cast 
 His fears on the future, his pall on the past, 
 In that moment of darkness, with hope in thy heart 
 And a smile in thine eye, "look aloft," — and depart. 
 
 ELIZABETH MARGARET CHANDLER, 1807—1834. 
 
 This lovely poet and prose-writer, the last years of whose short life were de- 
 voted to the cause of humanity, was born at Centre, near Wilmington, Delaware, 
 on the 24th of December, 1807. She had the misfortune to lose both her parents 
 at an early age, when she was placed under the care of her grandmother, Elizabeth 
 Evans, of Philadelphia, and there attended school till she was thirteen or four- 
 teen. At the age of sixteen, she began to write for the press, and her pieces were 
 
 ] This spirited piece was suggested to Mr. Lawrence b}' an anecdote related to 
 him of a ship-boy who, growing dizzy, was about to fall from the rigging, but was 
 saved by the mate's characteristic exclamation, " Look aloft, you lubber I" 
 
ELIZABETH MARGARET CHANDLER. 
 
 583 
 
 extensively copied; but what brought her especially into notice was her poem 
 entitled The Slave Ship, written when she was but eighteen, and which gained for 
 her the prize offered by the publishers of " The Casket," a monthly magazine. 
 Soon after this, she became a frequent contributor to " The Genius of Universal 
 Emancipation," published in Baltimore, and edited by Benjamin Lundy. "It is 
 not enough to say that her productions were chaste, eloquent, and classical. Her 
 language was appropriate, her reasoning clear, her deductions logical, and her 
 conclusions impressive and convincing. Her appeals were tender, persuasive, 
 and heart-reaching; while the strength and cogency of her arguments rendered 
 them incontrovertible. She was the first American female author that ever made 
 the Abolition of Slavery the principal theme of her active exertions." 1 
 
 Miss Chandler continued to reside in Philadelphia till 1830, when she removed 
 with her aunt and brother to Tecumseh, Lenawee County, Michigan, about sixty 
 miles southwest of Detroit. Here, at her home called " Hazlebank," on the banks 
 of the river Raisin, which has been appropriately called "classic ground," she 
 continued to write and labor in the cause of the oppressed, till 1834, when she 
 was attacked by a remittent fever, which terminated in her death on the 2d of 
 November of that year. Never did the grave close over a purer spirit, nor one 
 more fully sensible of a strict accountability for the right employment of every 
 talent. 
 
 THE SLAVE'S APPEAL. 
 
 Christian mother! when thy prayer 
 Trembles on the twilight air, 
 And thou askest God to keep, 
 In their waking and their sleep, 
 Those whose love is more to thee 
 Than the wealth of land or sea, 
 Think of those who wildly mourn 
 For the loved ones from them torn ! 
 
 Christian daughter, sister, wife ! 
 Ye who wear a guarded life, — 
 Ye whose bliss hangs not, like mine, 
 On a tyrant's word or sign, 
 Will ye hear, with careless eye, 
 Of the wild despairing cry 
 Rising up from human hearts, 
 As their latest bliss departs ? 
 
 Blest ones ! whom no hand on earth 
 
 Dares to wrench from home and hearth, 
 
 Ye whose hearts are shelter'd well 
 
 By affection's holy spell, 
 
 Oh, forget not those for whom 
 
 Life is naught but changeless gloom ; 
 
 O'er w T hose days of cheerless sorrow 
 
 Hope may paint no brighter morrow. 
 
 1 Poetical Works and Essays of Elizabeth Margaret Chandler ; with a Memoir 
 of her Life and Character, by Benjamin Lundy. This early pioneer in the cause 
 of freedom — Benjamin Lundy — has never received the attention he deserved. 
 
584 
 
 ELIZABETH MARGARET CHANDLER. 
 
 THE PARTING. 1 
 
 It has been well and beautifully said that there is no medicine 
 for a wounded heart like the sweet influences of Nature. The 
 broad, still, beautiful expansion of a summer landscape, — the 
 stealing in of the sunlight by glimpses among the trees, — the un- 
 expected meeting with a favorite blossom, half hidden among the 
 luxuriant verdure, — the sudden starting of a wild bird almost 
 from beneath your feet, — the play of light and shade upon the 
 surface of the gliding brook, and the ceaseless, glad, musical 
 ripple of its waters, — the gushing melody poured from a thou- 
 sand throats, or the rapid and solitary warble, breaking out 
 suddenly on the stillness, and withdrawn again almost as soon 
 as heard, — the soft, hymn-like murmur of the honey-bees, — 
 and, above all, the majesty of the blue, clear, bending sky ! — 
 from all these steals forth a spirit of calm enjoyment, that 
 mingles silently with the darker thoughts of the heart, and 
 removes their bitterness. 
 
 " If thou ail worn and hard beset 
 With sorrows that thou wouldst forget, — 
 If thou wouldst read a lesson that will keep 
 Thy heart from fainting, and thy soul from sleep, — 
 Go to the woods and hills ! — no tears 
 Dim the sweet look that Nature wears." 2 
 
 Yet there are moods of the soul that even the ministering ten- 
 derness of Nature cannot brighten. There are sorrows which she 
 cannot soothe, and, too often, alas ! darker passions, which all her 
 sweet and balmy influences cannot hush into tranquillity. When 
 the human heart is foul with avarice and the unblest impulses of 
 tyranny, the eloquence of her meek beauty is breathed in vain. 
 The most sublime and lovely scenes of nature have been made 
 the theatre of wrong and violence ; and the stony heart of the 
 oppressor, though surrounded by the broad evidences of omni- 
 potent love, has persisted, unrelenting, in the selfishness of its 
 own device. 
 
 There was all the gloriousness of summer beauty round the 
 little bay, in whose sleeping waters rested a small vessel, almost 
 freighted for her departure. A few human beings, only, were to 
 be added to her cargo, and as her spiry masts caught the first rays 
 of the beaming sunlight, the frequent hoarse and brief command, 
 and the ready response of the seamen, told that they were about 
 
 1 Heart-rending as this " Parting" is, the author assures us in a note that it is 
 hut a description of what, to her own knowledge, had actually occurred. 
 
 2 Longfellow. 
 
ELIZABETH MARGARET CHANDLER. 
 
 585 
 
 to weigh anchor and depart. Among those who approached the 
 shore was a household group, — a mother and her babes, the price 
 of whose limbs lay heaped in the coffers of one who called himself 
 a Christian, and who were now about to be torn from the" husband 
 and the father forever. It was a Christian land; and, perchance, 
 if the bustle of the departing vessel had not drowned its murmur, 
 the voice of praise and prayer to the merciful and just God might 
 have been dimly heard floating off upon the still waters. But 
 there was no one to save those unhappy beings from the grasp 
 of unrighteous tyranny. The husband had been upon the beach 
 since daybreak, pacing the sands with a troubled step, or lying in 
 moody anguish by the w T ater's edge, covering his face from the 
 breaking in of the glorious sunlight, and pleading at times with 
 the omnipotent God, whom, slave as he was, he had learned to 
 worship, for strength to subdue the passionate grief and indig- 
 nation of his heart, and for humility patiently to endure his many 
 wrongs. 
 
 A little fond arm was twined about his neck, and the soft lip 
 of a young child was breathing loving, but half-sorrowful kisses 
 all over his burning forehead. 
 
 " Father ! dear father ! we are going ! will you not come with 
 us ? Look where my mother, and my sisters and brothers, are 
 waiting for you." 
 
 With a shuddering and convulsive groan, the unhappy man 
 arose, and lifted the frighted child to his bosom. 
 
 " Will you not go with us, father ?" repeated the boy j but the 
 slave made him no answer, except by straining him to his bosom 
 with a short bitter laugh, and imprinting one of his sobbing 
 kisses upon his cheek. With a convulsive effort for the mastery, 
 he subdued the workings of his features, and, with a seemingly 
 calm voice and countenance, approached his children. One by 
 one he folded them in his arms, and, breathing over them a 
 prayer and a blessing, gave them up forever. Then once more 
 he strove to- nerve his heart for its severest trial. There was one 
 more parting, — one more sad embrace to be given and returned. 
 There stood the mother of his children, — his own fond and gentle 
 wife, who had been for so many years his heart's dearest blessing ; 
 and who, ere one short hour had passed, was to be to him as 
 if the sea had swallowed her up in its waves, or the dark gloomy 
 earth had hidden her beneath its bosom ! A thousand recol- 
 lections and agonizing feelings came rushing at once upon his 
 heart, and he stood gazing on her, seemingly bewildered and 
 stupefied, motionless as a statue, and with features to which the 
 very intensity of his passion gave the immobility of marble ; 
 till, suddenly flinging up his arms with a wild cry, he dropped 
 
586 MARY S. B. DANA. 
 
 at onpe senseless to the earth, 1 with the blood gushing in torrents 
 from his mouth and nostrils. And the miserable wife, amid 
 the shrieks of her despair, was hurried on board the vessel, and 
 borne away from him, over the calm, sleeping, and beautiful sea ; 
 forever. 
 
 MARY S. B. DANA. 
 
 This lady is the daughter of the late Rev. Dr. Palmer, of Charleston, South 
 Carolina. She is the author of a volume of sweet religious and elegiac poetry, 
 entitled The Parted Family, and other Poems ; also of the Northern Harp; the 
 Southern Harp ; Original Sacred and Moral Songs ; and Temperance Lyre. From 
 The Parted Family I select the following beautiful and instructive piece, which 
 was written soon after she had lost her husband and her only child. 
 
 PASSING UNDER THE ROD. 
 
 I saw the young bride, in her beauty and pride, 
 
 Bedeck'd in her snowy array ; 
 And the bright flush of joy mantled high on her cheek, 
 
 And the future look'd blooming and gay : 
 And with woman's devotion she laid her fond heart 
 
 At the shrine of idolatrous love, 
 And she anchor' d her hopes to this perishing earth, 
 
 By the chain which her tenderness wove. 
 But I saw, when those heartstrings were bleeding and torn, 
 
 And the chain had been sever'd in two, 
 She had changed her white robes for the sables of grief, 
 
 And her bloom for the paleness of woe ! 
 But the Healer was there, pouring balm on her heart, 
 
 And wiping the tears from her eyes, 
 And he strengthen'd the chain he had broken in twain, 
 
 And fasten'd it firm to the skies ! 
 There had whisper'd a voice — 'twas the voice of her God : 
 " I love thee — I love thee — pass under the rod!" 
 
 I saw the young mother in tenderness bend 
 
 O'er the couch of her slumbering boy, 
 And she kiss'd the soft lips as they murmur'd her name, 
 
 While the dreamer lay smiling in joy. 
 Oh, sweet as the rosebud encircled with dew, 
 
 When its fragrance is flung on the air, 
 So fresh and so bright to that mother he seem'd, 
 
 As he lay in his innocence there. 
 
 1 This reminds us of Bryant's touching poem — " The African Chief." 
 
MARY S. B. DANA. 
 
 587 
 
 But I saw when she gazed on the same lovely form, 
 
 Pale as marble, and silent, and cold, 
 But paler and colder her beautiful boy, 
 
 And the tale of her sorrow was told ! 
 But the Healer was there who had stricken her heart, 
 
 And taken her treasure away ; 
 To allure her to heaven, He has placed it on high, 
 
 And the mourner will sweetly obey. 
 There had whisper'd a voice — 'twas the voice of her God : 
 " I love thee — I love thee — pass under the rod.'" 
 
 I saw the fond brother, with glances of love, 
 
 Gazing down on a gentle young girl, 
 And she hung on his arm, and breathed soft in his ear, 
 
 As he played with each graceful curl. 
 Oh, he loved the sweet tones of her silvery voice, 
 
 Let her use it in sadness or glee ; 
 And he twined his arms. round her delicate form, 
 
 As she sat in the eve on his knee. 
 But I saw when he gazed on her death-stricken face, 
 
 And she breathed not a word in his ear, 
 And he clasped bis arms round an icy-cold form, 
 
 And he moisten'd her cheek with a tear. 
 But the Healer was there, and he said to him thus, 
 
 " Grieve not for thy sister's short life," 
 And he gave to his arms still another fair girl, 
 
 And he made her his own cherish'd wife ! 
 There had whisper'd a voice — 'twas the voice of his God : 
 " I love thee — I love thee — pass under the rod .'" 
 
 I saw, too, a father and mother who lean'd 
 
 On the arms of a dear gifted son, 
 And the star in the future grew bright to their gaze, 
 
 As they saw the proud place he had won ; 
 And the fast coming evening of life promised fair, 
 
 And its pathway grew smooth to their feet, 
 And the starlight of love glimmer'd bright at the end, 
 
 And the whispers of fancy were sweet. 
 And I saw them again, bending low o'er the grave, 
 
 Where their hearts' clearest hope had been laid, 
 And the star had gone down in the darkness of night, 
 
 And the joy from their bosoms had fled. 
 But the Healer was there, and his arms were around, 
 
 And he led them with tenderest care ; 
 And he show'd them a star in the bright upper world, 
 
 'Twas their star shining brilliantly there ! 
 They had each heard a voice — 'twas the voice of their God : 
 "I love thee — I love thee — -pass under the red!" 
 
588 
 
 HENRY REED. 
 
 HENRY REED, 1S08— 185-1. 
 
 Professor Henry Reed was born in Philadelphia, on the 11th of July, 1808. 
 After the usual preparatory studies, under that accomplished school-master, Mr. 
 James Ross, he entered the sophomore class in the University of Pennsylvania, 
 in September, 1822, and graduated in 1825. He began to study law with Hon. 
 John Sergeant, and was admitted to practice in the courts of the city and county 
 of Philadelphia in 1829. In September, 1831; he relinquished his profession, on 
 being elected Assistant Professor of English Literature in the University of Penn- 
 sylvania. In November of the same year, he was chosen Assistant Professor 
 of Moral Philosophy, and in 1835 he was elected Professor of Rhetoric and 
 English Literature. He continued in the service of the college for twentj'-three 
 years, discharging his duties with untiring industr3 r , and with such ability and 
 zeal, united to great urbanity of manners, as to secure the warm attachment 
 and profound respect of all who came under his instruction. 
 
 It had long been Professor Reed's earnest wish to visit Europe ; but his pro- 
 fessional duties and other claims had prevented him. Early in 1851, however, 
 leave of absence was granted by the trustees ; and in May he sailed for England. 
 His reputation as a scholar had preceded him, and he was received with the 
 kindest welcome by many of England's most distinguished poets and scholars. 
 He also visited the continent, and returned to England in the latter part of the 
 summer. 
 
 On the 20th of September, he embarked at Liverpool for New York in the 
 steamship Arctic. Seven days afterwards, at noon, a fatal collision occurred, 
 and before sundown every human being left upon the ship — about three hundred 
 in all — had sunk under the waves. When the news of his loss reached Philadel- 
 phia, feelings of intense grief pervaded all hearts which had had even a slight 
 knowledge of him. It was felt that Philadelphia had lost one of her most gifted 
 spirits, — one who was an ornament to the elevated position which he held in 
 the University, and who, had his life been spared, would have resumed his 
 responsible duties with increased zeal, efficiency, and usefulness. 
 
 Professor Reed was married, in 1831, to Elizabeth White Bronson, a grand- 
 daughter of Bishop White. 
 
 Shortly after Professor Reed's death, his brother, William B. Reed, Esq., 
 prepared for publication, with his well-known taste and judgment, his manuscript 
 notes and lectures on English Literature and Poetry, which are among the 
 choicest contributions to American Literature. These are Lectures on English 
 Literature from Chaucer to Tennyson, 1 vol. 12mo; Lectures on the British Poets, 
 2 vols. 12mo; Lectures on English History and Tragic Poetry, as illustrated by 
 Shakspeare, 1 vol. 12ino; and Two Lectures on the History of the American Union; 
 of all of which fine editions have been published by Parry & McMillan, Phila.' 
 
 1 Before he went to England, Professor Reed had prepared editions of the 
 following works: — Alexander Reid's "Dictionary of the English Language:" 
 Graham's " English Synonyms, enriched by Poetical Citations from Shakspeare. 
 Milton, and Wordsworth Wordsworth's Poems, with an appreciative Introduc- 
 tion; Gray's Poems, with anew Memoir; Arnold's " Lectures on Modern His- 
 tory ;" and Lord Mahon's " History of England." 
 
HENRY REED. 
 
 589 
 
 BEST METHOD OF READING. 
 
 It is not ^infrequently thought that the true guidance for habits 
 of reading is to be looked for in prescribed courses of reading, 
 pointing out the books to be read, and the order of proceeding 
 with them. Now, while this external guidance may to a certain 
 extent be useful, I do believe that an elaborately prescribed course 
 of reading would be found neither desirable nor practicable. It 
 does not leave freedom enough to the movements of the reader's 
 own mind ) it does not give free enough scope to choice. Our 
 communion with books, to be intelligent, must be more or less 
 spontaneous. It is not possible to anticipate how or when an in- 
 terest may be awakened in some particular subject or author, and 
 it would be far better to break away from the prescribed list of 
 books, in order to follow out that interest while it is a thoughtful 
 impulse. It would be a sorry tameness of intellect that would 
 not, sooner or later, work its way out of the track of the best of 
 any such prescribed courses. This is the reason, no doubt, why 
 they are so seldom attempted, and why, when attempted, they are 
 so apt to fail. 
 
 It may be asked, however, whether every thing is to be left to 
 chance or caprice ; whether one is to read what accident puts in 
 the way, — what happens to be reviewed or talked about. No ! 
 far from it : there would in this be no more exercise of rational 
 will than in the other process : in truth, the slavery to chance is 
 a worse evil than slavery to authority. So far as the origin of a 
 taste for reading can be traced in the growth of the mind, it will 
 be found, I think, mostly in the mind's own prompting; and the 
 power thus engendered is, like all other powers in our being, to 
 be looked to as something to be cultivated and chastened, and 
 then its disciplined freedom will prove more and more its own 
 safest guide. It will provide itself with more of philosophy than 
 it is aware of in its choice of books, and will the better under- 
 stand its relative virtues. On the other hand, I apprehend that 
 often a taste for reading is quenched by rigid and injudicious pre- 
 scription of books in which the mind takes no interest, can assimi- 
 late nothing to itself, and recognises no progress but what the eye 
 takes count of in the reckoning of pages it has travelled over. It 
 lies on the mind, unpalatable, heavy, undigested food. But re- 
 verse the process j observe or engender the interest as best you 
 may, in the young mind, and then work with that, — expanding, 
 cultivating, chastening it. 
 
 50 
 
590 
 
 HENRY REED. 
 
 POETICAL AND PROSE READING. 
 
 The disproportion usually lies in the other direction, — prose 
 reading to the exclusion of poetry. This is owing chiefly to the 
 want of proper culture ; for although there is certainly a great 
 disparity of imaginative endowment, still the imagination is part 
 of the universal mind of man, and it is a work of education to 
 bring it into action in minds even the least imaginative. It is 
 chiefly to the wilfully unimaginative mind that poetry, with all its 
 w T isdom and all its glory, is a sealed book. It sometimes happens, 
 however, that a mind well gifted with imaginative power loses 
 the capacity to relish poetry simply by the neglect of reading 
 metrical literature. This is a sad mistake, inasmuch as the mere 
 reader of prose cuts himself off from the very highest literary en- 
 joyments; for if the giving of power to the mind be a charac- 
 teristic, the most essential literature is to be found in poetry, 
 especially if it be such as English poetry is, — the embodiment of 
 the very highest wisdom and the deepest feeling of our English 
 race. I hope to show in my next lecture, in treating the subject 
 of our language, how rich a source of enjoyment the study of 
 English verse, considered simply as an organ of expression and 
 harmony, may be made ; but to readers who confine themselves to 
 prose, the metrical form becomes repulsive instead of attractive. 
 It has been well observed by a living writer, who has exercised 
 his powers alike in prose and verse, that there are readers " to 
 whom the poetical form merely and of itself acts as a sort of veil 
 to every meaning which is not habitually met with under that 
 form, and who are puzzled by a passage occurring in a poem, 
 which would be at once plain to them if divested of its cadence 
 and rhythm ; not because it is thereby put into language in any 
 degree more perspicuous, but because prose is the vehicle they 
 are accustomed to for this particular kind of matter; and they 
 will apply their minds to it in prose, and they will refuse their 
 minds to it in verse." 1 
 
 The neglect of poetical reading is increased by the very mis- 
 taken notion that poetry is a mere luxury of the mind, alien from 
 the demands of practical life. — a light and effortless amusement. 
 This is the prejudice and error of ignorance. For look at many 
 of the strong and largely-cultivated minds which we know by 
 biography and their own works, and note how large and precious 
 an element of strength is their studious love of poetry. Where 
 could we find a man of more earnest, energetic, practical cast of 
 character than Arnold ? — eminent as an historian, and in other 
 the gravest departments of thought and learning, active in the 
 
 1 Taylor's Notes from Books,, p. 215. 
 
HENRY REED. 
 
 591 
 
 cause of education, zealous in matters of ecclesiastical, political, 
 or social reform ; right or wrong, always intensely practical and 
 single-hearted in his honest zeal ) a champion for truth, whether 
 in the history of ancient politics or present questions of modern 
 society ; and, with all, never suffering the love of poetry to be ex- 
 tinguished in his heart, or to be crowded out of it, but turning it 
 perpetually to wise uses, bringing the poetic truths of Shakspeare 
 and of Wordsworth to the help of the cause of truth ; his enthu- 
 siasm for the poets breaking forth when he exclaims, " What a 
 treat it would be to teach Shakspeare to a good class of young 
 Greeks in regenerate Athens ; to dwell upon him line by line and 
 word by word, and so to get all his pictures and thoughts leisurely 
 into one's mind, till I verily think one would, after a time, almost 
 give out light in the dark, after having been steeped, as it were, 
 in such an atmosphere of brilliance I" 1 
 
 TRAGIC POETRY. 
 
 Tragic poetry has been well described as " poetry in its deepest 
 earnest." The upper air of poetry is the atmosphere of sorrow. 
 This is a truth attested by every department of art, — the poetry 
 of words, of music, of the canvas, and of marble. It is so, be- 
 cause poetry is a reflection of life ; and when a man weeps, the 
 passions that are stirring within him are mightier than the feel- 
 ings which prompt to cheerfulness or merriment. The smile 
 plays on the countenance ; the laugh is a momentary and noisy 
 impulse ; but the tear rises slowly and silently from the deep 
 places of the heart. It is at once the symbol and the relief of an 
 o'ermastering grief; it is the language of emotions to which 
 words cannot give utterance, — passions whose very might and 
 depth give them a sanctity we instinctively recognise by veiling 
 them from the common gaze. In childhood, indeed, when its 
 little griefs and joys are blended with that absence of self-con- 
 sciousness which is both the bliss and the beauty of its innocence, 
 tears are shed without restraint or disguise ; but when the self- 
 consciousness of manhood has taught us that tears are the ex- 
 pression of emotions too sacred for exposure, the heart will often 
 break rather than violate this instinct of our nature. Tragic 
 poetry, in dramatic, or epic, or what form soever, has its original, 
 its archetype, in the sorrows which float like clouds over the days 
 of human existence. Afflictions travel across the earth on errands 
 mysterious, but merciful, could we but understand them ; and the 
 poet, fashioning the likeness of them in some sad story, teaches 
 the imaginative lesson of their influences upon the heart. 
 
 Arnold's Life, p. 284, (American edition,) in a letter to Mr. Justice Coleridge. 
 
592 
 
 WILLIAM D. GALLAGHER. 
 
 WILLIAM D. GALLAGHER. 
 
 William D. Gallagher, whose name is associated with the literature of the 
 West, was born in Philadelphia in 180S, and in 1S1G migrated with his widowed 
 mother to Cincinnati, and became a printer. In 1831 he was married, and 
 shortly after edited the "Cincinnati Mirror," contributing himself much to its 
 columns. Subsequently he was connected with the "Western Literary Journal 
 and Monthly Review," with the "Western Monthly Magazine," and with the 
 " Hesperian, a Monthly Miscellany of General Literature." In 1S39, the late 
 Charles Hammond offered to share with him the editorship of the " Cincinnati 
 Gazette," with which he continued to be connected till 1849, when he was ap- 
 pointed a clerk in the Treasury Department at Washington. In 1853, he 
 removed to Kentucky, where he now resides, on a farm a few miles from 
 Louisville. 
 
 In 1S35, Mr. Gallagher published a small volume of poems under the title of 
 Erato; and, in the two following years, the second and third parts of the same. 
 In 1811, he edited a volume of choice poetry entitled Selections from the Poetical 
 Literature of the Went; and in 1846, a collection of his own pieces that he 
 esteemed the best, under the simple title of Poems. Of his numerous prose con- 
 tributions to magazines, reviews, &c. he has never made a collection. 
 
 TRUTH AND FREEDOM. 
 
 On the page that is immortal, 
 We the brilliant promise see : — 
 "Ye shall know the truth, my people, 
 And its might shall make you free !' 
 
 For the truth, then, let us battle, 
 
 Whatsoever fate betide; 
 Long the boast that we are freemen 
 
 We have made and published wide. 
 
 He who has the truth, and keeps it, 
 Keeps what not to him belongs, — 
 
 But performs a selfish action, 
 That his fellow-mortal wrongs. 
 
 He who seeks the truth, and trembles 
 At the dangers he must brave, 
 
 Is not fit to be a freeman, — 
 He at best is but a slave. 
 
 He who hears the truth, and places 
 Its high promptings under ban, 
 
 Loud may boast of all that's manly, 
 But can never be a man ! 
 
 Friend, this simple lay who readest, 
 Be not thou like either them, — 
 
WILLIAM D. GALLAGHER. 
 
 593 
 
 But to truth give utmost freedom, 
 And the tide it raises stem. 
 
 Bold in speech and bold in action 
 Be forever ! — Time will test, 
 
 Of the free-soul'd and the slavish, 
 "Which fulfils life's mission best. 
 
 Be thou like the noble ancient, — 
 Scorn the threat that bids thee fear: 
 
 Speak ! — no matter what betide thee ; 
 Let them strike, but make them hear ! 
 
 Be thou like the first apostles, — 
 
 Be thou like heroic Paul : 
 If a free thought seek expression, 
 
 Speak it boldly, — speak it all ! 
 
 Face thine enemies, — accusers; 
 
 Scorn the prison, rack, or rod ; 
 And, if thou hast truth to utter. 
 
 Speak, and leave the rest to God ! 
 
 THE LABORER. 
 
 Stand up — erect ! Thou hast the form 
 
 And likeness of thy God ! — who more ? 
 
 A soul as dauntless mid the storm 
 
 Of daily life, a heart as warm 
 
 And pure, as breast e\er wore. 
 
 What then ? — Thou art as true a man 
 As moves the human mass among ; 
 
 As much a part of the great plan 
 
 That with Creation's dawn began, 
 As any of the throng. 
 
 Who is thine enemy ? the high 
 
 In station, or in wealth the chief? 
 
 The great, who coldly pass thee by, 
 
 With proud step and averted eye ? 
 Nay ! nurse not such belief. 
 
 If true unto thyself thou wast, 
 
 What were the proud one's scorn to thee? 
 A feather, which thou mightest cast 
 Aside, as idly as the blast 
 
 The light leaf from the tree. 
 
 No : — uncurb'd passions, low desires, 
 
 Absence of noble self-respect, 
 Death, in the breast's consuming fires, 
 To that high nature which aspires 
 
 Forever, till thus check'd ; — 
 
 These are thine enemies, — thy worst; 
 They chain thee to thy lowly lot : 
 
 50* 
 
594 
 
 GEORGE S. HILLARD. 
 
 Thy labor and thy life accursed. 
 Oh, stand erect ! and from them burst! 
 And longer suffer not ! 
 
 Thou art thyself thine enemy ! 
 
 The great ! — what better they than thou? 
 As theirs, is not thy will as free ? 
 Has God with equal favors thee 
 
 Neglected to endow? 
 
 True, wealth thou hast not, — 'tis but dust ! 
 
 Nor place, — uncertain as the wind ! 
 But that thou hast which, with thy crust 
 And water, may despise the lust 
 
 Of both, — a noble mind. 
 
 With this, and passions under ban, 
 True faith, and holy trust in God, 
 
 Thou art the peer of any man. 
 
 Look up, then : that thy little span 
 Of life may be well trod ! 
 
 GEORGE ST1LLMAX HILLARD. 
 
 George Stillman Hillard was born at Machias, Maine, on the 22d of 
 September, 1808, and, after a due preparatory course of study at the Boston 
 Latin School, he entered Harvard College in 1824. In 1833, he was admitted to 
 the Suffolk Count} 7 (Boston) Bar, and has ever since been engaged in the practice 
 of his profession in that city. In 1845, he was elected to the Common Council 
 of Boston, and served a year and a half as its President. In 1836, he was a 
 member of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, and was elected to the 
 State Senate in 1850, where he exhibited abilities which elicited warm commen- 
 dation from his friends. But politics is evidently not a field congenial to the 
 tastes and feelings of Mr. Hillard. It is in the higher and purer walks of lite- 
 rature that this polished scholar shows himself to be at home ; and here he has 
 won a fame for refined taste, purity of st}de, and elevation of moral sentiment 
 scarcely second to any one in our country. 
 
 Mr. Hillard's publications are as follows : — Fourth of July Oration before the 
 City Authorities of Boston, 1S35 ; Discourse before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, 
 1843; Connection between Geography and History, 1846 ; Address before the Mer- 
 cantile Library Association of Boston, 1850; Address before the New York Pilgrim 
 Society, 1851; Eulogy on Daniel Webster before the City Authorities of Boston, 
 1S52; Six Months in Italy, ] of which five editions have been published; a series 
 
 1 " The mass of information contained in these two volumes is immense; the 
 criticisms novel, and, in our humble opinion, judicious; the writer's own 
 thoughts and feelings beautifully expressed. * * * Mr. Hillard is evidently 
 a scholar, a man of taste and feeling; something, we should opine, of a poet; 
 and unmistakably a gentleman." — Frazer's 3fagazinc. Of this interesting work, 
 Ticknor & Fields have published the sixth edition, in their usual style of beauty. 
 
GEORGE S. HILLARD. 
 
 595 
 
 of " Class Readers," four in number, for schools, consisting of extracts in prose 
 and verse, with biographical and critical notices of the authors ; l Guizot's 
 "Essay on the Character and Influence of Washington," translated from the 
 French, 1S40; an edition of Spenser, in five volumes, with an Introduction and 
 Notes; "Selections from the Writings of Walter Savage Landor," 1856. He 
 also prepared, in 1844, "A Selection from the Writings of Henry R. Cleveland, 
 with a Memoir." 2 
 
 Mr. Hillard was for some time one of the editors of the " American Jurist," 
 and has contributed valuable articles to the " North American Review," 
 " Christian Examiner," and " New England Magazine." To him also we are 
 indebted for the life of the leader of the first settlers in Virginia— Captaix 
 John Smith — to be found in the second volume of Sparks's " Library of American 
 Biography." 
 
 EXCURSION TO SORRENTO. 3 
 
 On the morning of March 19th, I left Naples for Sorrento, 
 making one of a party of five. The ears took us to Castellamare, 
 a town beautifully situated between the mountains and the sea, 
 much resorted to by the Neapolitans in the heats of summer. A 
 lover of nature could hardly find a spot of more varied attractions. 
 Before him spreads the unrivalled bay, — dotted with sails and un- 
 folding a broad canvas, on which the most glowing colors and the 
 most vivid lights are dashed, — a mirror in which the crimson and 
 gold of morning, the blue of noon, and the orange and yellow- 
 green of sunset behold a lovelier image of themselves, — a gentle 
 and tideless sea, whose waves break upon the shore like caresses, 
 and never like angry blows. Should he ever become weary of 
 waves and languish for woods, he has only to turn his back upon 
 the sea and climb the hills for an hour or two, and he will find 
 himself in the depth of sylvan and mountain solitudes, — in a 
 region of vines, running streams, deep-shadowed valleys, and 
 broad-armed oaks, — where he will hear the ring-dove coo and see 
 the sensitive hare dart across the forest aisles. A great city is 
 within an hour's reach ; and the shadow of Vesuvius hangs over 
 the landscape, keeping the imagination awake by touches of mys- 
 tery and terror. 
 
 From Castellamare to Sorrento, a noble road has within a few 
 years past been constructed between the mountains and the sea, 
 
 1 I consider these among the best reading-books for schools, evincing good 
 taste and judgment in the selections, and just views in the critical notices. 
 
 2 I always regretted that this valuable volume of Essays and Dissertations was 
 only " printed for private distribution," and not published for the general good. 
 
 3 About eighteen miles southeast of Naples. 
 
596 
 
 GEORGE S. HILLARD. 
 
 which in many places are so close together that the width of the 
 road occupies the whole intervening space. On the right, the 
 traveller looks down a cliff of some hundred feet or more upon 
 the bay, whose glossy floor is dappled with patches of green, 
 purple, and blue, — the effect of varying depth, or light and shade, 
 or clusters of rock overgrown with sea-weed scattered over a 
 sandy bottom. 1 The road combined rare elements of beauty ; for 
 it nowhere pursued a monotonous straight line, but followed the 
 windings and turnings of this many-curved shore. Sometimes it 
 was cut through solid ledges of rock ; sometimes it was carried 
 on bridges over deep gorges and chasms, wide at the top and nar- 
 rowing towards the bottom, where a slender stream tripped down 
 to the sea. The sides of these glens were often planted with 
 orange and lemon trees ; and we could look down upon their 
 rounded tops, presenting, with their dark-green foliage, their 
 bright, almost luminous fruit, and their snowy blossoms, the 
 finest combination of colors \ which the vegetable kingdom, in the 
 temperate zone at least, can show. The scenery was in the 
 highest degree grand, beautiful, and picturesque, — with the most 
 animated contrasts and the most abrupt breaks in the line of 
 sight, — yet never savage or scowling. The mountains on the left 
 were not bare and scalped, but shadowed with forests, and thickly 
 overgrown with shrubbery, — such wooded heights as the genius 
 of Greek poetry would have peopled with bearded satyrs and 
 buskined wood-nymphs, and made vocal with the reeds of Pan 
 and the hounds and horn of Artemis. All the space near the 
 road was stamped with the gentle impress of human cultivation. 
 Fruit-trees and vines were thickly planted; garden vegetables 
 were growing in favorable exposures ; and nouses were nestling 
 in the hollows or hanging to the sides of the cliff. Over the 
 whole region there is a smiling expression of wooing and invita- 
 tion, to which the sparkling sea murmured a fitting accompani- 
 ment. No pitiless ice and granite chill or wound the eye ; no 
 funereal cedars and pines darken the mind with their Arctic 
 shadows ; but bloom and verdure, thrown over rounded surfaces, 
 and rich and gay forms of foliage mantling gray cliffs or waving 
 from rocky ledges, give to the face of Nature that mixture of 
 animation and softness which is equally fitted to soothe a wounded 
 spirit or restore an overtasked mind. If one could only forget 
 the existence of such words as " duty" and " progress/' and step 
 
 1 " The colors of the bay of Naples were a constant surprise and delight to ine, 
 from the predominance of blue and purple over the grays and greens of our 
 coast. I was glad to find that my impressions on this point were confirmed 
 by the practised eye of Cooper. There seem to be some elements affecting 
 the color of the sea, not derived from the atmosphere or the reflection of the 
 heavens." 
 
GEORGE S. HILLARD. 
 
 597 
 
 aside from the rushing stream of onward-moving life, and be con- 
 tent with being, merely, and not doing; if these lovely forms 
 could fill all the claims and calls of one's nature, and all that we 
 ask of sympathy and companionship could be found in mountain 
 breezes and breaking waves ; if days passed in communion with 
 nature, in which decay is not hastened by anxious vigils or ambi- 
 tious toils, made up the sum of life, — where could a better retreat 
 be found than along this enchanting coast ? Here are the moun- 
 tains, and there is the sea. Here is a climate of delicious soft- 
 ness, where no sharp extremes of heat and cold put strife between 
 man and nature. Here is a smiling and good-natured population, 
 among whom no question of religion, politics, science, literature, or 
 humanity is ever discussed, and the surface of the placid hours is 
 not ruffled by argument or contradiction. Here a man could hang 
 and ripen, like an orange on the tree, and drop as gently out of 
 life upon the bosom of the earth. There is a fine couplet of 
 Yirgil, which is full of that tenderness and sensibility which form 
 the highest charm of his poetry, as they probably did of his cha- 
 racter, and they came to my mind in driving along this beautiful 
 road : — 
 
 " Hie gelidi fontes ; hie mollia prat a, Lycori; 
 Hie nemus; liic ipso tecum consumerer sevo." 1 
 
 There is something in the musical flow of these lines which 
 seems to express the movement of a quiet life, from which day 
 after day loosens and falls, like leaf after leaf from a tree in a 
 calm day of autumn. But Virgil's air-castle includes a Lycoris; 
 that is, sympathy, affection, and the heart's daily food. With 
 these, fountains, meadows, and groves may be dispensed with ; 
 and without them, they are not much better than a painted 
 panorama. To have something to do, and to do it, is the best 
 appointment for us all. Nature, stern and coy, reserves her most 
 dazzling smiles for those who have earned them by hard work 
 and cheerful sacrifice. Planted on these shores and lapped in 
 pleasurable sensations, man would turn into an indolent dreamer 
 and a soft voluptuary. He is neither a fig nor an orange ; and 
 he thrives best in the sharp air of self-denial and on the rocks 
 of toil. 
 
 Here cooling fountains roll through flowing meads, 
 Here woods, Lycoris, lift their verdant heads, 
 Here could I wear my careless life away, 
 And in thy arms insensibly decay.'' 
 
 Virgil's Bucolics, x. 42, Wkarton'a version. 
 
598 
 
 GEORGE S. HILLARD. 
 
 SPAIN. 
 
 History is ever justifying the ways of God to man, and never 
 more forcibly than in the fortunes of Spain. If the power has 
 been taken away from her, it is because it was abused ; if the 
 sceptre has been wrested from her grasp, it is because it was con- 
 verted into a scourge. To no men it is permitted to do wrong 
 with impunity; least of all to the rulers of the earth. The 
 selfishness of tyranny is punished by the weakness to which it 
 leads, and bigotry extinguishes in time the religious principle 
 from which its power to do mischief is derived. In her present 
 weakness, Spain is reaping the harvest of wrong-doing. If her 
 ships, colonies, and commerce are gone; if agriculture and manu- 
 factures are neglected j if she has no railroads, no active press, 
 no generally-diffused education, — it is because her rulers have 
 been tyrants, her ministers of religion iron-hearted and narrow- 
 minded bigots, and her nobles indolent and profligate courtiers. 
 In her desolate estate insulted humanity is avenged, and the 
 retributive justice which has overtaken her, speaks in a voice 
 of warning to the oppressor and of consolation to his victim. 
 
 And is there hope for Spain ? Will the night pass away and 
 the morning dawn ? To hazard even a conjectural answer to 
 these questions requires far more knowledge of the country than 
 we possess. No traveller has visited Spain without bringing away 
 a strong sense alike of the virtues and the capacities of her 
 people. With God all things are possible; and for mourning 
 Iberia the hour may yet strike, and the man may yet come. Who 
 would not rejoice to see that prostrate form reared again, and the 
 light of hope once more kindling those downcast eyes, — the 
 golden harvest of opportunity again waving over her plains, and 
 the future once more unbarring to the enterprise of her sons its 
 gates of sunrise ? 
 
 BOOKS. 
 
 In that most interesting and instructive book, Boswell's Life 
 of Johnson, an incident is mentioned which I beg leave to quote 
 in illustration of this part of my subject. The Doctor and his 
 biographer were going down the Thames, in a boat, to Green- 
 wich, and the conversation turned upon the benefits of learning, 
 which Dr. Johnson maintained to be of use to all men. " ' And 
 yet/ said Boswell, ( people go through the world very well, and 
 carry on the business of life to good advantage, without learning/ 
 * Why, sir/ replied Dr. Johnson, < that may be true in cases where 
 learning cannot possibly be of any use ; for instance, this boy 
 rows us as well without learning as if he could sing the song of 
 
GEORGE S. HILLARD. 
 
 599 
 
 Orpheus to the Argonauts, who were the first sailors/ He then 
 called to the boy, ' What would you give, my lad, to know about 
 the Argonauts V ' Sir,' said the boy, 1 1 would give what I have/ 
 Johnson was much pleased with this answer, and we gave him a 
 double fare. Dr. Johnson then turning to me, ' Sir,' said he, 
 ' a desire of knowledge is the natural feeling of mankind ; and 
 every human being, whose mind is not debauched, will be willing 
 to give all that he has to get knowledge/ ;; 
 
 For the knowledge that comes from books I would claim no 
 more than it is fairly entitled to. I am well aware that there is 
 no inevitable connection between intellectual cultivation, on the 
 one hand, and individual virtue or social well-being, on the other. 
 " The tree of knowledge is not the tree of life." I admit that 
 genius and learning are sometimes found in combination with 
 gross vices, and not unfrequently with contemptible weaknesses, 
 and that a community at once cultivated and corrupt is no im- 
 possible monster. But it is no overstatement to say that, other 
 things being equal, the man who has the greatest amount of 
 intellectual resources is in the least danger from inferior tempta- 
 tions ; if for no other reason, because he has fewer idle moments. 
 The ruin of most men dates from some vacant hour. Occupation 
 is the armor of the soul, and the train of Idleness is borne up by 
 all the vices. I remember a satirical poem in which the Devil is 
 represented as fishing for men, and adapting his baits to the taste 
 and temperament of his prey ; but the idler, he said, pleased him 
 most, because he bit the naked hook. To a young man away 
 from home, friendless and forlorn in a great city, the hours of 
 peril are those between sunset and bedtime, for the moon and 
 stars see more of evil in a single hour than the sun in his whole 
 day's circuit. The poet's visions of evening are all compact of 
 tender and soothing images. It brings the wanderer to his home, 
 the child to his mother's arms, the ox to his stall, and the weary 
 laborer to his rest. But to the gentle-hearted youth who is 
 thrown upon the rocks of a pitiless city, and stands " homeless 
 amid a thousand homes," the approach of evening brings with it 
 an aching sense of loneliness and desolation which comes down 
 upon the spirit like darkness upon the earth. In this mood, 
 his best impulses become a snare to him, and he is led astray 
 because he is social, affectionate, sympathetic, and warm-hearted. 
 If there be a young man thus circumstanced within the sound 
 of my voice, let me say to him that books are the friends of the 
 friendless, and that a library is the home of the homeless. A 
 taste for reading will always carry you into the best possible com- 
 pany, and enable you to converse with men who will instruct you 
 by their wisdom and charm you by their wit, who will soothe 
 you when . fretted, refresh you when weary, counsel you when 
 
600 
 
 LUCRETIA MARIA DAVIDSON. 
 
 perplexed, and sympathize with you at all times. Evil spirits, 
 in the Middle Ages, were exorcised and driven away by bell, 
 book, and candle ; you want but two of these agents, the book 
 and the candle. 
 
 Address before the Mercantile Library Association. 
 
 LUCRETIA MARIA DAVIDSON, 1808—1825. 
 
 Lucretia Maria Davidson, second daughter of Dr. Oliver Davidson, was 
 born, September 27, 180S, at Plattsburg, on Lake Ckamplain. Her parents were 
 in straitened circumstances, and her mother in feeble health, and from these 
 causes it became necessary that she should devote most of her time to domestic 
 duties. But for these she had no inclination ; and therefore, when her work was 
 done, she retired to enjoy those intellectual and imaginative pursuits in which 
 her whole heart was engaged. Her thirst for knowledge was wonderful ; and 
 before she was twelve years old, she had read Shakspeare, and many of the 
 standard English poets. Though she had no one to direct or advise her, she 
 continued not only to read poetry, but also to write it so as to excite the astonish- 
 ment and admiration of every one. When about twelve years old, a gentleman 
 who was delighted with her verses sent her a bank-note of twenty dollars. Her 
 first joyful thought was that she had now the means of increasing her little stock 
 of books; but, looking towards the sick bed of her mother, who had been confined 
 by illness for many months, tears came into her eyes, and she instantly put the 
 note into her father's hand, saying, " Take it, father : it will buy many comforts 
 for mother. I can do without the books." Such an exhibition of filial love and 
 gratitude endears her to us far more than all her poetry. 
 
 When she had just passed sixteen, a gentleman who was on a visit at Platts- 
 burg, being made acquainted with her history, genius, and limited means, resolved 
 to afford her the benefits of a good education. Accordingly, she was placed at the 
 " Troy Female Seminary," where she had all the advantages for which she had 
 hungered and thirsted. Here her application was incessant, and its effects on her 
 constitution — already somewhat debilitated by previous disease — soon became 
 apparent. On her return home in vacation, she had a serious illness, which left 
 her more feeble than ever, and she gradually declined, till death released her 
 pure spirit from its prison-house on the 27th of August, 1S25. "In our own lan- 
 guage," says the poet Southey, "we can call to mind no instance, except in the 
 cases of Chatterton and Kirke White, of so early, so ardent, and so fatal a pursuit 
 of intellectual advancement." 1 
 
 1 "Let no parent wish for a child of precocious genius, nor rejoice over such a 
 one, without fear and trembling! Great endowments, whether of nature or of 
 fortune, bring with them their full proportion of temptations and dangers ; and, 
 perhaps, in the endowments of nature the danger is greatest, because there is 
 most at stake. It seems, in most cases, as if the seeds of moral and intellectual 
 excellence were not designed to bring forth fruits on earth, but that they are 
 brought into existence, and developed here, only for transportation to a world 
 where there shall be nothing to corrupt or hurt them, nothing to impede their 
 
LUCRETIA MARIA DAVIDSON. 
 
 601 
 
 In person, Miss Davidson was singularly beautiful : sbe had a high, open fore- 
 head, a soft black eye, perfect symmetry of features, a fair complexion, and luxu- 
 riant, dark hair. The prevailing expression of her face was melancholy. 
 
 SONG AT TWILIGHT. 1 
 
 When evening spreads her shades around, 
 And darkness fills the arch of heaven ; 
 
 When not a murmur, not a sound, 
 To Fancy's sportive ear is given; 
 
 When the broad orb of heaven is bright, 
 And looks around with golden eye ; 
 
 When Nature, soften'd by her light, 
 Seems calmly, solemnly to lie; 
 
 Then, when our thoughts are raised above 
 This world, and all this world can give, 
 
 Oh, sister, sing the song I love, 
 And tears of gratitude receive ! 
 
 The song which thrills my bosom's core, 
 And, hovering, trembles half afraid, 
 
 Oh, sister, sing the song once more 
 Which ne'er for mortal ear was made. 
 
 'Twere almost sacrilege to sing 
 
 Those notes amid the glare of day; 
 
 Notes borne by angels' purest wing, 
 And wafted by their breath away. 
 
 When, sleeping in my grass-grown bed, 
 Shouldst thou still linger here above, 
 
 Wilt thou not kneel beside my head, 
 And, sister, sing the song I love? 
 
 THE PROPHECY. 
 
 Let me gaze a while on that marble brow, 
 
 On that full dark eye, on that cheek's warm glow; 
 
 Let me gaze for a moment, that, ere I die, 
 
 I may read thee, maiden, a prophecy. 
 
 That brow may beam in glory a while ; 
 
 That cheek may bloom, and that lip may smile ; 
 
 That full, dark eye may brightly beam 
 
 In life's gay morn, in hope's young dream; 
 
 But clouds shall darken that brow of snow, 
 
 And sorrow blight thy bosom's glow. 
 
 I know by that spirit so haughty and high, 
 
 I know by that brightly-flashing eye, 
 
 growth in goodness, and their progress towards perfection." Head the article in 
 the " Quarterly Review" for November, 1829, by the poet Southey; also " Re- 
 mains," by S. F. B. Morse. 
 
 1 Addressed to her sister, requesting her to sing Moore's "Farewell to his 
 Harp." 
 
 51 
 
602 
 
 LUCRETIA MARIA DAVIDSON. 
 
 That, maiden, there's that within thy breast 
 
 Which hath marked thee out for a soul unbless'd; 
 
 The strife of love with pride shall wring 
 
 Thy youthful bosom's tenderest string; 
 
 And the cup of sorrow, mingled for thee, 
 
 Shall be drain' d to the dregs in agony. 
 
 Yes, maiden, yes, I read in thine eye 
 
 A dark and a doubtful prophecy. 
 
 Thou shalt love, and that love shall be thy curse; 
 
 Thou wilt need no heavier, shalt feel no worse. 
 
 I see the cloud and the tempest near; 
 
 The voice of the troubled tide I hear; 
 
 The torrent of sorrow, the sea of grief, 
 
 The rushing waves of a wretched life ; 
 
 Thy bosom's bark on the surge I see, 
 
 And, maiden, thy loved one is there with thee. 
 
 Not a star in the heavens, not a light on the wave ! 
 
 Maiden, I've gazed on thine early grave. 
 
 "When I am cold, and the hand of Death 
 
 Hath crown'd my brow with an icy wreath ; 
 
 When the dew hangs damp on this motionless lip ; 
 
 When this eye is closed in its long, last sleep, — 
 
 Then, maiden, pause, when thy heart beats high, 
 
 And think on my last, sad prophecy. 
 
 TO MY MOTHER. 1 
 
 thou whose care sustain'd my infant years, 
 And taught my prattling lip each note of love ; 
 
 Whose soothing voice breathed comfort to my fears, 
 And round my brow hope's brightest garland wove; 
 
 To thee my lay is due, the simplest song 
 
 Which Nature gave me at life's opening day ; 
 
 To thee these rude, these untaught strains belong, 
 Whose heart indulgent will not spurn my lay. 
 
 Oh, say, amid this wildei-ness of life, 
 
 What bosom would have throbb'd like thine for me ? 
 Who would have smiled responsive ? — who in grief 
 
 Would e'er have felt, and, feeling, grieved like thee ? 
 
 Who would have guarded, with a falcon eye, 
 Each trembling footstep, or each sport of fear ? 
 
 Who would have mark'd my bosom bounding high, 
 And clasp'd me to her heart, with love's bright tear ? 
 
 Who would have hung around my sleepless couch, 
 And fann'd, with anxious hand, my burning brow ? 
 
 Who would have fondly pressed my fever'd lip, 
 In all the agony of love and woe ? 
 
 None bufe a mother, — none but one like thee, 
 Whose bloom has faded in the midnight watch ; 
 
 1 This was written but a few months before her death. 
 
HANNAH F. GOULD. 
 
 603 
 
 Whose eye, for me, lias lost its witchery ; 
 Whose form has felt disease's mildew touch. 
 
 Yes, thou hast lighted me to health and life, 
 By the bright lustre of thy youthful bloom, — 
 
 Yes, thou hast wept so oft o'er every grief, 
 
 That woe hath traced thy brow with marks of gloom. 
 
 Oh, then, to thee, this rude and simple song, 
 
 Which breathes of thankfulness and love for thee, 
 
 To thee, my mother, shall this lay belong, 
 Whose life is spent in toil and care for me. 
 
 HANNAH FLAGG GOULD. 
 
 Hannah Flagg Gould was born in Lancaster, Vermont; but while yet a 
 child her father removed to Newburyport, Massachusetts. She early wrote for 
 several periodicals, and in 1S32 her poetical pieces were collected in a volume. 
 In 1835 and in 1841, a second and third volume appeared, entitled simply Poems; 
 and in 1846 she collected a volume of her prose compositions, entitled Gathered 
 Leaves. Of her poetry, a writer in the " Christian Examiner" 1 remarks that it is 
 impossible to find fault. It is so sweet and unpretending, so pure in purpose, 
 and so gentle in expression, that criticism is disarmed of all severity, and en- 
 gaged to say nothing of it but good. It is poetry for a sober, quiet, kindly- 
 affectioned Christian heart. It is poetry for a united family circle in their hours 
 of peace and leisure. For such companionship it was made, and into such it 
 will find and has found its way. 
 
 A NAME IN THE SAND. 
 
 Alone I walk'd the ocean strand ; 
 A pearly shell was in my hand : 
 I stoop'd and wrote upon the sand 
 
 My name — the year — the day. 
 As onward from the spot I pass'd, 
 One lingering look behind I cast : 
 A wave came rolling high and fast, 
 
 And wash'd my lines away. 
 
 And so, methought, 'twill shortly be 
 With every mark on earth from me : 
 A wave of dark Oblivion's sea 
 
 Will sweep across the place 
 Where I have trod the sandy shore 
 Of Time, and been to be no more, 
 Of me — my day — the name I bore, 
 
 To leave nor track nor trace. 
 
 i Vol. xiv. p. 320. 
 
604 
 
 HANNAH F. GOULD. 
 
 And yet, with Him who counts the sands, 
 And holds the waters in his hands, 
 I know a lasting record stands, 
 
 Inscribed against my name, 
 Of all this mortal part has wrought; 
 Of all this thinking soul has thought : 
 And from these fleeting moments caught 
 
 For glory or for shame. 
 
 THE PEBBLE AND THE ACORN. 
 
 " I am a Pebble ! and yield to none !" 
 Were the swelling words of a tiny stone ; — 
 " Nor time nor seasons can alter me ; 
 I am abiding, while ages flee. 
 The pelting hail and the drizzling rain 
 Have tried to soften me, long, in vain ; 
 And the tender dew has sought to melt 
 Or touch my heart ; but it was not felt. 
 There's none can tell about my birth, 
 For I'm old as the big, round earth. 
 The children of men arise, and pass 
 Out of the world, like the blades of grass ; 
 And many a foot on me has trod, 
 That's gone from sight, and under the sod. 
 I am a Pebble ! but who art thou, 
 Rattling along from the restless bough !" 
 
 The Acorn was shock'd at this rude salute, 
 And lay for a moment abash'd and mute ; 
 She never before had been so near 
 This gravelly ball, the mundane sphere ; 
 And she felt for a time at a loss to know 
 How to answer a thing so coarse and low. 
 But to give reproof of a nobler sort 
 Than the angry look, or the keen retort, 
 At length she said, in a gentle tone, 
 " Since it has happen'd that I am thrown 
 From the lighter element where I grew, 
 Down to another so hard and new, 
 And beside a personage so august, 
 Abased, I will cover my head with dust, 
 And quickly retire from the sight of one 
 Whom time, nor season, nor storm, nor sun, 
 Nor the gentle dew, nor the grinding heel, 
 Has ever subdued, or made to feel!" 
 And soon in the eai'th she sank away 
 From the comfortless spot where the Pebble lay. 
 
 But it was not long ere the soil was broke 
 By the peering head of an infant oak ! 
 And, as it arose, and its branches spread, 
 The Pebble looked up, and. wondering, said, 
 "A modest Acorn — never to tell 
 What was enclosed in its simple shell ! 
 
HANNAH F. GOULD. 
 
 605 
 
 That the pride of the forest was folded up 
 
 In the narrow space of its little cup ! 
 
 And meekly to sink in the darksome earth, 
 
 Which proves that nothing could hide her worth ! 
 
 And, oh ! how many will tread on me, 
 
 To come and admire the beautiful tree, 
 
 Whose head is towering toward the sky, 
 
 Above such a worthless thing as I! 
 
 Useless and vain, a cumberer here, 
 
 I have been idling from year to year. 
 
 But never from this shall a vaunting word 
 
 From the humbled Pebble again be heard, 
 
 Till something without me or within 
 
 Shall show the purpose for which I've been!" 
 
 The Pebble its vow could not forget, 
 
 And it lies there wrapt in silence yet. 
 
 THE FROST. 
 
 The Frost look'd forth one still clear night, 
 And whisper'd, " Now I shall be out of sight: 
 So, through the valley, and over the height, 
 
 In silence I'll take my way. 
 I will not go on like that blustering train — 
 The Wind and the Snow, the Hail and the Rain — 
 Who make so much bustle and noise in vain ; 
 
 But I'll be as busy as they." 
 
 Then he flew to the mountain and powder'd its crest ; 
 He lit on the trees, and their boughs he drest 
 In diamond beads ; and over the breast 
 
 Of the quivering lake he spread 
 A coat of mail, that it need not fear 
 The downward point of many a spear 
 That he hung on its margin, far and near 
 
 Where a rock could rear its head. 
 
 He went to the windows of those who slept, 
 And over each pane, like a fairy, crept ; 
 Wherever he breathed, wherever he stept, 
 
 By the light of the moon, were seen 
 Most beautiful things : there were flowers and trees ; 
 There were bevies of birds, and swarms of bees ; 
 There were cities, with temples and towers, — and these 
 
 All pictured in silver sheen ! 
 
 But he did one thing that was hardly fair : 
 He peep'd in the cupboaixl, and finding there 
 That all had forgotten for him to prepare — 
 
 " Now, just to set them a-thinking, 
 I'll bite this basket of fruit," said he, 
 " This costly pitcher I'll burst in three ; 
 And the glass of water they've left for me 
 
 Shall 'tchick!' to tell them I'm drinking." 
 51* 
 
G06 
 
 JOHN G. WHITTIER. 
 
 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 
 
 Tnis true poet of freedom and humanity, known and loved in both hemispheres, 
 is of a Quaker family, and was born near Haverhill, Massachusetts, in 1808. 
 Until he was eighteen years of age, he remained at home, passing his time in the 
 district school, in assisting his father on the farm, and writing occasional verses 
 for the "Haverhill Gazette." After spending two years in the Academy at 
 Haverhill, he went to Boston in 1828, and became editor of the "American 
 Manufacturer," a newspaper devoted to the interest of a protective tariff. In 
 1830, he became editor of the "New England "Weekly Review," published at 
 Hartford, and remained connected with it for about two years ; during which 
 period he published a volume of poems and prose sketches, entitled Legends of 
 New England. He then returned home, and soon after was elected by the town 
 of Haverhill a representative to the Legislature of his native State. In 1836, he 
 was elected Secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and defended its 
 principles as editor of the "Pennsylvania Freeman," a weekly paper published in 
 Philadelphia. About this time appeared his longest poem, Mogg Megone, an In- 
 dian story, which takes its name from a leader among the Saco Indians in the 
 bloody war of 1677. 
 
 In 1840, Mr. Whittier removed to Amesburj r , Massachusetts, where all his 
 later publications have been written. In 1845 appeared The Stranger in Lowell, 
 a series of sketches of scenery and character such as that famed manufacturing 
 town might naturally suggest. In 1847, he became corresponding editor of the 
 "National Era," published at Washington, and gave to that paper no small share 
 of its deserved celebrity. The next year, a beautifully-illustrated edition of all 
 his poems, including his Voices of Freedom, was published by Mussey, of Boston. 
 In 1S49 appeared his Leaves from Margaret Smith's Journal, written in the antique 
 style by the fictitious fair journalist, who visits New England in 1678, and writes 
 letters to a gentleman in England, to whom she is to be married, descriptive of 
 the manners and influences of the times. In 1850 appeared his volume Old Por- 
 traits and Modem Sketches, a series of prose essays on Bunyan, Baxter, &c. ; 
 and, in the same year, Songs of Labor, and other Poems, in which he dignifies and 
 renders interesting the mechanic arts by the associations of history and fancy. 
 Since that time he has published Lays of Home, and The Chapel of the Hermits, 
 and other Poems; while he frequently enriches the columns of the "National 
 Era" with some felicitous prose essay, or some soul-stirring poem. Since the 
 establishment of the "Atlantic Monthly" he has contributed to almost every 
 number. 
 
 Though boldness, energy, and strength are Whittier's leading characteristics, 
 and though many of his poems breathe, in soul-stirring language, a defiant tone 
 to the oppressor, and show a hatred of slavery as intense, if possible, as it de- 
 serves, yet many of his prose works and poems are marked by a tenderness, 
 a grace, and a beauty not exceeded by those of any other American writer. Ho 
 thus unites qualities seemingly opposite in a heart every pulsation of which beats 
 warmly for humanity. 
 
JOHN G. WHITTIER. 
 
 PALESTINE. 
 
 Blest land of Judea ! thrice hallow'd of song, 
 Where the holiest of memories pilgrim-like throng ; 
 In the shade of thy palms, by the shores of thy sea, 
 On the hills of thy beauty, my heart is with thee. 
 
 With the eye of a spirit I look on that shore, 
 Where pilgrim and prophet have linger'd before ; 
 With the glide of a spirit I traverse the sod 
 Made bright by the steps of the angels of God. 
 
 Lo, Bethlehem's hill-side before me is seen, 
 With the mountains around and the valleys between ; 
 There rested the shepherds of Judah, and there 
 The song of the angels rose sweet on the air. 
 
 And Bethany's palm-trees in beauty still throw 
 Their shadows at noon on the ruins below ; 
 But where are the sisters who hasten'd to greet 
 The lowly Redeemer, and sit at His feet ? 
 
 I tread where the twelve in their wayfaring trod ; 
 I stand where they stood with the chosen of God, — 
 Where His blessings were heard and His lessons were taught, 
 Where the blind were restored and the healing was wrought. 
 
 Oh, here with His flock the sad Wanderer came, — 
 These hills He toil'd over in grief, are the same, — 
 The founts where He drank by the wayside still flow, 
 And the same airs are blowing which breathed on his brow ! 
 
 And throned on her hills sits Jerusalem yet, 
 But with dust on her forehead, and chains on her feet ; 
 For the crown of her pride to the mocker hath gone, 
 And the holy Shechinah is dark where it shone. 
 
 But wherefore this dream of the earthly abode 
 Of humanity clothed in the brightness of God ? 
 Were my spirit but turned from the outward and dim, 
 It could gaze, even now, on the presence of Him. 
 
 Not in clouds and in terrors, but gentle as when, 
 
 In love and in meekness, He moved among men ; 
 
 And the voice which breathed peace to the waves of the sea, 
 
 In the hush of my spirit would whisper to me ! 
 
 And what if my feet may not tread where He stood, 
 Nor my ears hear the dashing of Galilee's flood, 
 Nor my eyes see the cross which He bow'd him to bear, 
 Nor my knees press Gethsemane's garden of prayer. 
 
 Yet, Loved of the Father, Thy Spirit is near 
 To the meek, and the lowly, and penitent here ; 
 And the voice of thy love is the same even now, 
 As at Bethany's tomb, or on Olivet's brow. 
 
608 
 
 JOHN G. WHITTIER. 
 
 Oh, the outward hath gone ! — but, in glory and power, 
 The Spirit surviveth the things of an hour ; 
 Unchanged, undecaying, its Pentecost flame 
 On the heart's secret altar is burning the same ! 
 
 CLERICAL OPPRESSORS. 
 
 [In the Report of the celebrated pro-slavery meeting in Charleston, South Carolina, on the 
 4th of 9th month, 1835, published in the "Courier" of that city, it is stated, — 4i The CLERGY 
 of all dmominations attended in a body, lending their sanction to the proceedings, and 
 adding by their presence to the impressive character of the scene."] 
 
 Just God ! and these are they 
 Who minister at thine altar, God of Right! 
 Men who their hands with prayer and blessing lay 
 
 On Israel's Ark of light ! 
 
 What ! preach, and kidnap men ? 
 Give thanks, — and rob Thy own afflicted poor ? 
 Talk of Thy glorious liberty, and then 
 
 Bolt hard the captive's door ! 
 
 What ! servants of Thy own 
 Merciful Son, who came to seek and save 
 The homeless and the outcast, — fettering down 
 
 The task'd and plunder'd slave ! 
 
 Pilot and Herod, friends ! 
 Chief priests and rulers, as of old, combine ! 
 Just God and holy ! is that church, which lends 
 
 Strength to the spoiler, Thine ? 
 
 Paid hypocrites, who turn 
 Judgment aside, and rob the Holy Book 
 Of those high words of truth which search and burn 
 
 In warning and rebuke ; 
 
 Feed fat, ye locusts, feed ! 
 And, in your tassell'd pulpits, thank the Lord 
 That, from the toiling bondman's utter need, 
 
 Ye pile your own full board. 
 
 How long, Lord ! how long 
 Shall such a priesthood barter truth away, 
 And, in Thy name, for robbery and wrong 
 
 At Thy own altars pray ? 
 
 Is not Thy hand stretch'd forth 
 Visibly in the heavens, to awe and smite ? 
 Shall not the living God of all the earth, 
 
 And heaven above, do right ? 
 
 Woe, then, to all who grind 
 Their brethren of a common Father down ! 
 To all who plunder from the immortal mind 
 
 Its bright and glorious crown! 
 
 Woe to the priesthood ! woe 
 To those whose hire is with the price of blood, — 
 
JOHN G. WHITTIER. 
 
 609 
 
 Perverting, darkening, changing as they go, 
 The searching truths of God ! 
 
 Their glory and their might 
 Shall perish ; and their very names shall be 
 Vile before all the people, in the light 
 
 Of a world's liberty. 
 
 Oh ! speed the moment on 
 When Wrong shall cease, — and Liberty and Love, 
 And Truth, and Right, throughout the earth be known 
 
 As in their home above. 
 
 ICHABOD I 
 
 So fallen ! so lost ! the light withdrawn 
 
 Which once he wore ! 
 The glory from his gray hairs gone 
 
 For evermore ! 
 
 Revile him not, — the Tempter hath 
 
 A snare for all ! 
 And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath, 
 
 Befit his fall. 
 
 Oh ! dumb be passion's stormy rage, 
 
 When he who might 
 Have lighted up and led his age 
 
 Falls back in night. 
 
 Scorn ! would the angels laugh to mark 
 
 A bright soul driven, 
 Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark, 
 
 From hope and heaven ? 
 
 Let not the land, once proud of him, 
 
 Insult him now, 
 Nor brand with deeper shame his dim 
 
 Dishonor'd brow. 
 
 But let its humbled sons, instead, 
 
 From sea to lake, 
 A long lament, as for the dead, 
 
 In sadness make. 
 
 Of all we loved and honor'd, nought 
 
 Save power remains, — 
 A fallen angel's pride of thought 
 
 Still strong in chains. 
 
 All else is gone ; from those great eyes 
 
 The soul has fled: 
 When faith is lost, when honor dies, 
 
 The man is dead! 
 
 1 These lines, so full of tender regret, deep grief, and touching pathos, were 
 written when the news came of the sad course of Daniel Webster in supporting the 
 ''Compromise Measures," including the " Fugitive Slave Law," in his speech de- 
 livered in the United States Senate, on the 7th of March, 1850. 
 
JOHN G. WHITTIER. 
 
 Then pay the reverence of old days 
 
 To his dead fame ; 
 Walk backward with averted gaze, 
 
 And hide the shame ! 
 
 MAUD MULLER. 
 
 Maud Muller, on a summer's day, 
 Raked the meadow sweet with hay. 
 
 Beneath her torn hat glow'd the wealth 
 Of simple beauty and rustic health. 
 
 Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee 
 The mock-bird echoed from his tree. 
 
 But, when she glanced to the far-off town, 
 White from its hill-slope looking down, 
 
 The sweet song died, and a vague unrest 
 And a nameless longing fill'd her breast, — 
 
 A wish that she hardly dared to own, 
 For something better than she had known. 
 
 The Judge rode slowly down the lane, 
 Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane. 
 
 He drew his bridle in the shade 
 
 Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid ; 
 
 And ask'd a draught from the spring that flow'd 
 Through the meadow across the road. 
 
 She stoop'd where the cool spring bubbled up, 
 And fill'd for him her small tin cup, 
 
 And blush'd as she gave it, looking down 
 On her feet so bare, and her tatter'd gown. 
 
 " Thanks !" said the Judge, " a sweeter draught 
 From a fairer hand was never quaff 'd." 
 
 He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees 
 Of the singing birds and the humming bees ; 
 
 Then talk'd of the haying, and wonder'd whether 
 The cloud in the west would bring foul weather. 
 
 And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown, 
 And her graceful ankles bare and brown ; 
 
 And listen'd, while a pleased surprise 
 Look'd from her long-lash'd hazel eyes. 
 
 At last, like one who for delay 
 Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away. 
 
 Maud Muller look'd and sigh'd : "Ah me! 
 That I the Judge's bride might be ! 
 
 "He would dress me up in silks so fine, 
 And praise and toast me at his wine. 
 
JOHN G. WHITTIER. 
 
 " My father should wear a broadcloth coat ; 
 My brother should sail a painted boat. 
 
 " I'd dress my mother so grand and gay, 
 And the baby should have a new toy each day. 
 
 " And I'd feed the hungry, and clothe the poor, 
 And all should bless me who left our door." 
 
 The Judge look'd back as he climb'd the hill, 
 And saw Maud Muller standing still. 
 
 " A form more fair, a face more sweet, 
 Ne*er hath it been my lot to meet. 
 
 "And her modest answer and graceful air 
 Show her wise and good as she is fair. 
 
 " Would she were mine, and I to-day, 
 Like her, a harv ester of hay : 
 
 " No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, 
 Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues, 
 
 " But low of cattle and song of birds, 
 And health, and quiet, and loving words." 
 
 But he thought of his sisters proud and cold, 
 And his mother vain of her rank and gold. 
 
 So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on, 
 And Maud was left in the field alone. 
 
 But the lawyers smiled that afternoon, 
 When he humm'd in court an old love-tune ; 
 
 And the young girl mused beside the well, 
 Till the rain on the unraked clover fell. 
 
 He wedded a wife of richest dower, 
 Who lived for fashion, as he for power. 
 
 Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow, 
 He watch'd a picture come and go : 
 
 And sweet Maud Muller' s hazel eyes 
 Look'd out in their innocent surprise. 
 
 Oft, when the wine in his glass was red, 
 He long'd for the wayside well instead, 
 
 And closed his eyes on his garnish'd rooms, 
 To dream of meadows and clover-blooms. 
 
 And the proud man sigh'd, with a secret pain : 
 "Ah, that I were free again! 
 
 " Free as when I rode that day, 
 
 Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay." 
 
 She wedded a man unlearn'd and poor, 
 And many children play'd round her door. 
 
 But care, and sorrow, and childbirth pain, 
 Left their traces on heart and brain. 
 
612 
 
 JOHN G. "WHITTIER. 
 
 And oft, "when the summer sun shone hot 
 On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot, 
 
 And she heard the little spring brook fall 
 Over the roadside, through the wall, 
 
 In the shade of the apple-tree again 
 She saw a rider draw his rein, 
 
 And, gazing down "with timid grace, 
 She felt his pleased eyes read her face. 
 
 Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls 
 Stretch'd away into stately halls ; 
 
 The weary wheel to a spinnet turn'd, 
 The tallow candle an astral burn'd, 
 
 And for him who sat by the chimney lug, 
 Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug, 
 
 A manly form at her side she saw, 
 And joy was duty, and loye was law. 
 
 Then she took up her burden of life again, 
 Saying only, "It might have been." 
 
 Alas for maiden, alas for Judge, 
 
 For rich repiner and household drudge ! 
 
 God pity them both, and pity us all, 
 Who vainly the dreams of youth recall. 
 
 For of all sad words of tongue or pen, 
 
 The saddest are these : "It might have been !" 
 
 Ah, well ! for us all some sweet hope lies 
 Deeply buried from human eyes ; 
 
 And, in the hereafter, angels may 
 Roll the stone from its grave away ! 
 
 THE WISH OF TO-DAY. 
 
 I ask not now for gold to gild 
 
 With mocking shine a weary frame ; 
 
 The yearning of the mind is still'd, — 
 I ask not now for Fame. 
 
 A rose-cloud, dimly seen above, 
 
 Melting in heaven's blue depths away, — 
 Oh ! sweet, fond dream of human Love ! 
 
 For thee I may not pray. 
 
 But, bow'd in lowliness of mind, 
 
 I make my humble wishes known, — 
 
 I only ask a will re sign' d, 
 Father, to thine own ! 
 
JOHN G. WHITTIER. 
 
 To-day, beneath thy chastening eye, 
 I crave alone for peace and rest, 
 
 Submissive in thy hand to lie, 
 And feel that it is best. 
 
 A marvel seems the Universe, 
 A miracle our Life and Death ; 
 
 A mystery which I cannot pierce, 
 Around, above, beneath. 
 
 In vain I task my aching brain, 
 In vain the sage's thought I scan ; 
 
 I only feel how weak and vain, 
 How poor and blind, is man.- 
 
 And now my spirit sighs for home, 
 And longs for light whereby to see, 
 
 And, like a weary child, would come, 
 Father, unto Thee ! 
 
 Though oft, like letters traced on sand, 
 My weak resolves have pass ; d away, 
 
 In mercy lend thy helping hand 
 Unto my prayer to-day ! 
 
 VIRTUE ALONE BEAUTIFUL. 
 
 " Handsome is that handsome does, — hold up your hands, 
 girls," is the language of Primrose in the play, when addressing 
 her daughters. The worthy matron was right. Would that all 
 my female readers, who are sorrowing foolishly because they are 
 not in all respects like Dubufe's Eve, or that statue of Venus 
 which enchants the world, could be persuaded to listen to her. 
 What is good-looking, as Horace Smith remarks, but looking 
 good ? Be good, be womanly, be gentle, — generous in your sym- 
 pathies, heedful of the well-being of those around you, and, my 
 word for it, you will not lack kind words or admiration. Loving 
 and pleasant associations will gather about you. Never mind the 
 ugly reflection which your glass may give you. That mirror has 
 no heart. But quite another picture is given you on the retina 
 of human sympathy. There the beauty of holiness, of purity, 
 of that inward grace " which passeth show," rests over it, soften- 
 ing and mellowing its features, just as the full, calm moonlight 
 melts those of a rough landscape into harmonious loveliness. 
 
 " Hold up your heads, girls I repeat after Primrose. Why 
 should you not ? Every mother's daughter of you can be beauti- 
 ful. You can envelop yourselves in an atmosphere of moral and 
 intellectual beauty, through which your otherwise plain faces will 
 look forth like those of angels. Beautiful to Ledyard, stiffening 
 in the cold of a northern winter, seemed the diminutive, smoke- 
 
614 EMMA C. EMBURY. 
 
 stained women of Lapland, who wrapped him in their furs, and 
 ministered to his necessities with kind and gentle words of com- 
 passion. Lovely to the home-sick Park seemed the dark maids 
 of Sigo, as they sung their low and simple songs of welcome 
 beside his bed, and sought to comfort the white stranger who had 
 " no mother to bring him milk, and no wife to grind him corn/' 
 Oh ! talk as you may of beauty, as a thing to be chiselled upon 
 marble or wrought on canvas, — speculate as you may upon its 
 colors and outline, — what is it but an intellectual abstraction after 
 all ? The heart feels a beauty of another kind, — looking through 
 outward environments, it discovers a deeper and more real love- 
 liness. 
 
 This was well understood by the old painters. In their pictures 
 of Mary, the virgin mother, the beauty which melts and subdues 
 the gazer is that of the soul and the affections, — uniting the awe 
 and the mystery of the mother's miraculous allotment with the 
 inexpressible love, the unutterable tenderness, of young maternity, 
 — Heaven's crowning miracle with nature's sweetest and holiest 
 instinct. And their pale Magdalens, holy with the look of sins 
 forgiven, — how the divine beauty of their penitence sinks into the 
 heart ! Do we not feel that the only real deformity is sin, and 
 that goodness evermore hallows and sanctifies its dwelling-place ? 
 
 EMMA C. EMBURY. 
 
 Among American female writers, Emma C. Embury takes no mean rank. She 
 is the daughter of Dr. James R. Manly, an eminent physician of New York, 
 and in 1828 was married to Daniel Embury, a gentleman of wealth, residing in 
 Brooklyn, and much valued for his intellectual and social qualities, — having the 
 taste to appreciate the talents of his gifted wife, and the good sense to encourage 
 and aid her in her literary pursuits. But these pursuits, happily, have never 
 caused her to neglect the duties of a wife or a mother. 
 
 Mrs. Embury's published works are — Guido, and other Poems, by Tan the ; a 
 volume on Female Education ; The Blind Girl, and other Tales; Pictures of 
 Early Life; Glimpses of Home Life, or Causes and Consequences; Nature's 
 Gems, or American Wild Flowers; Love's Token-Flowers; The Waldorf Family, 
 or Grandfather's Legends. All her writings exhibit good sense, true cultivation, 
 and healthy natural feeling, united to much refinement; and it is to be deeply 
 lamented that a protracted illness has deprived her, for many years, of the phy- 
 sical and mental power requisite for literary pursuits, or even for domestic duties. 
 Great nervous debility and paralysis have shattered her vigorous body and her 
 noble mind, and have left only the gentle affections of her nature untouched. 
 
EMMA C. EMBURY. 
 
 615 
 
 THE WIDOW'S WOOER. 
 
 He wooes me with those honey'd words 
 
 That women love to hear, 
 Those gentle flatteries that fall 
 
 So sweet on every ear. 
 He tells me that my face is fair, 
 
 Too fair for grief to shade : 
 My cheek, he says, was never meant 
 
 In sorrow's gloom to fade. 
 
 He stands beside me, when I sing 
 
 The songs of other days, 
 And whispers, in love's thrilling tones, 
 
 The words of heartfelt praise ; 
 And often in my eyes he looks, 
 
 Some answering love to see, — 
 In vain ! he there can only read 
 
 The faith of memory. 
 
 He little knows what thoughts awake 
 
 With every gentle word ; 
 How, by his looks and tones, the founts 
 
 Of tenderness are stirr'd. 
 The visions of my youth return, 
 
 Joys far too bright to last ; 
 And while he speaks of future bliss, 
 
 I think but of the past. 
 
 Like lamps in Eastern sepulchres, 
 
 Amid my heart's deep gloom, 
 Affection sheds its holiest light 
 
 Upon my husband's tomb. 
 And, as those lamps, if brought once more 
 
 To upper air, grow dim, 
 So my soul's love is cold and dead, 
 
 Unless it glow for him. 
 
 OH! TELL ME NOT OF LOFTY FATE. 
 
 Oh ! tell me not of lofty fate, 
 
 Of glory's deathless name ; 
 The bosom love leaves desolate 
 
 Has naught to do with fame. 
 
 Vainly philosophy would soar, — 
 Love's height it may not reach ; 
 
 The heart soon learns a sweeter lore 
 Than ever sage could teach. 
 
 The cup may bear a poison'd draught, 
 
 The altar may be cold ; 
 But yet the chalice may be quaff'd, — 
 
 The shrine sought as of old. 
 
EMMA C. EMBURY. 
 
 Man's sterner nature turns away 
 
 To seek ambition's goal ! 
 Wealth's glittering gifts, and pleasure's ray, 
 
 May charm his weary soul ; 
 
 But woman knows one only dream, — 
 
 That broken, all is o'er ; 
 For on life's dark and sluggish stream 
 
 Hope's sunbeam rests no more. 
 
 THE MAIDEN SAT AT HER BUSY WHEEL. 
 
 The maiden sat at her busy wheel, 
 
 Her heart was light and free, 
 And ever in cheerful song broke forth 
 
 Her bosom's harmless glee : 
 Her song was in mockery of Love, 
 
 And oft I heard her say, 
 " The gather' d rose and the stolen heart 
 
 Can charm but for a day." 
 
 I look'd on the maiden's rosy cheek, 
 
 And her lip so full and bright, 
 And I sigh'd to think that the traitor Love 
 
 Should conquer a heart so light : 
 But she thought not of future days of woe, 
 
 While she caroll'd in tones so gay, — 
 " The gather' d rose and the stolen heart 
 
 Can charm but for a day." 
 
 A year pass'd on, and again I stood 
 
 By the humble cottage door ; 
 The maiden sat at her busy wheel, 
 
 But her look was blithe no more ; 
 The big tear stood in her downcast eye, 
 
 And with sighs I heard her say, 
 " The gather'd rose and the stolen heart 
 
 Can charm but for a day." 
 
 Oh. well I knew what had dimm'd her eye 
 
 And made her cheek so pale : 
 The maid had forgotten her early song, 
 
 While she listen'd to Love's soft tale ; 
 She had tasted the sweets of his poison'd cup, 
 
 It had wasted her life away, — 
 And the stolen heart, like the gather'd rose, 
 
 Had charm'd but for a day. 
 
PARK BENJAMIN. 
 
 617 
 
 PARK BENJAMIN. 
 
 This gentleman is the author of a great number of unclaimed poems ; and 
 some of them, written many years ago, are still " going the rounds of the press," 
 both in this country and in Great Britain. They have never been collected into 
 a volume, as they richly deserve to be, — for they have not only been very popular, 
 but they have received high praise from " mouths of wisest censure." Mr. Ben- 
 jamin has also written largely in prose; and many of his articles have appeared 
 in the " Noi-th American Review," the " New York Review," the " American 
 Monthly," and other prominent magazines. , 
 
 Mr. Benjamin was born in Demerara, South America, in the year 1809. His 
 father was a highly-respected merchant, a native of New England, and his 
 mother an English lady, closely allied to a noble family. Their son Park was 
 sent to this country at a very tender age, under the care of an excellent female 
 guardian. From the age of fourteen until his graduation from college, he 
 resided chiefly in Boston and its vicinity. He studied law under the eminent Mr. 
 Justice Story, and also in the school of Chief-Justice Daggett, in Yale College. 
 He commenced the practice in Boston, but was soon lured away by his love of 
 letters, to which he has with great fidelity devoted himself. He has edited several 
 very successful periodicals : — first, the " New England Magazine," and then, on 
 his removal to New York in 1836, the "American Monthly;" afterwards, in con- 
 nection with Horace Greeley, he conducted the "New-Yorker;" then, with Rufua 
 W. Griswold, the " Brother Jonathan." But the paper with which Mr. Benjamin 
 was longest connected, and which was for years under his sole charge, was " The 
 New >Yorld." This hebdomadal has never been excelled as a repository of the 
 best literature of the day, and for its fair and able criticisms. "Weary of excessive 
 literary toil, notwithstanding its satisfactory results, Mr. Benjamin disposed of 
 his interest in The New World, with the design of spending some years in 
 Europe. 
 
 Our limits permit us to say no more than that since that time this writer has 
 continued his literary pursuits with ardor and success. He has delivered lec- 
 tures in many of our principal towns and cities, which have been universally 
 liked and have won him "golden opinions." He is still by profession a public 
 speaker, resides in New York City, and is constantly invited to deliver poems and 
 addresses before various literary associations. Of the following selections, the 
 sonnet — A Life of Lettered Ease — has never before, we believe, appeared in 
 print. 
 
 THE DEPARTED. 
 
 The departed ! the departed ! 
 
 They visit us in dreams, 
 And they glide above our memories 
 
 Like shadows over streams ; 
 But where the cheerful lights of home 
 
 In constant lustre burn, 
 52* 
 
PARK BENJAMIN. 
 
 The departed, the departed 
 Can never more return ! 
 
 The good, the brave, the beautiful, 
 
 How dreamless is their sleep, 
 Where rolls the dirge-like music 
 
 Of the ever-tossing deep ! 
 Or where the hurrying night-winds 
 
 Pale winter's robes have spread 
 Above their narrow palaces, 
 
 In the cities of the dead ! 
 
 I look around, and feel the awe 
 
 Of one who walks alone 
 Among the wrecks of former days, 
 
 In mournful ruin strown ; 
 I start to hear the stirring sounds 
 
 Among the cypress-trees, 
 For the voice of the departed 
 
 Is borne upon the breeze. 
 
 That solemn voice ! it mingles with 
 
 Each free and careless strain ; 
 I scarce can think earth's minstrelsy 
 
 Will cheer my heart again. 
 The melody of summer waves, 
 
 The thrilling notes of birds, 
 Can never be so dear to me 
 
 As their remember'd words. 
 
 I sometimes dream their pleasant smiles 
 
 Still on me sweetly fall, 
 Their tones of love I faintly hear 
 
 My name in sadness call. 
 I know that they are happy, 
 
 With their angel-plumage on, 
 But my heart is very desolate 
 
 To think that they are gone. 
 
 HOW CHEERY ARE THE MARINERS!" 
 
 How cheery are the mariners, — 
 
 Those lovers of the sea ! 
 Their hearts are like its yesty waves, 
 
 As bounding and as free. 
 They whistle when the storm-bird wheels 
 
 In circles round the mast ; 
 And sing when deep in foam the ship 
 
 Ploughs onward to the blast. 
 
 What care the mariners for gales ? 
 
 There's music in their roar, 
 When wide the berth along the lee. 
 
 And leagues of room before. 
 
PARK BENJAMIN. 
 
 Lefe billows toss to mountain-heights, 
 
 Or sink to chasms low, 
 The vessel stout will ride it out, 
 
 Nor reel beneath the blow. 
 
 With streamers down and canvass furl'd, 
 
 The gallant hull will float 
 Securely, as on inland lake 
 
 A silken-tassell'd boat : 
 And sound asleep some mariners, 
 
 And some with watchful eyes, 
 Will fearless be of dangers dark 
 
 That roll along the skies. 
 
 God keep those cheery mariners ! 
 
 And temper all the gales 
 That sweep against the rocky coast 
 
 To their storm-shatter'd sails ; 
 And men on shore will bless the ship 
 
 That could so guided be, 
 Safe in the hollow of His hand, 
 
 To brave the mighty sea ! 
 
 SPORT. 
 
 To see a fellow of a summer's morning, 
 
 With a large foxhound of a slumberous eye, 
 And a slim gun, go slowly lounging by, 
 
 About to give the feather'd bipeds warning 
 That probably they may be shot hereafter, 
 Excites in me a quiet kind of laughter ; 
 
 For, though I am no lover of the sport 
 Of harmless murder, yet it is to me 
 Almost the funniest thing on earth to see 
 
 A corpulent person, breathing with a snort, 
 
 Go on a shooting-frolic all alone ; 
 
 For well I know that, when he's out of town, 
 He and his dog and gun will all lie down, 
 
 And undestructive sleep till game and light are flown. 
 
 PRESS ON. 
 
 Press on ! there's no such word as fail ! 
 
 Press nobly on ! the goal is near, — 
 Ascend the mountain ! breast the gale ! 
 
 Look upward, onward, — never fear ! 
 Why shouldst thou faint ? Heaven smiles above, 
 
 Though storm and vapor intervene ; 
 That sun shines on, whose name is Love, 
 
 Serenely o'er Life's shadow'd scene. 
 
 Press on ! surmount the rocky steeps, 
 Climb boldly o'er the torrent's arch ; 
 
 He fails alone who feebly creeps ; 
 
 He wins, who dares the hero's march. . 
 
PARK BENJAMIN. 
 
 Be thou a hero ! let thy might 
 Tramp on eternal snows its way, 
 
 And through the ebon walls of night 
 Hew down a passage unto day. 
 
 Press on ! if Fortune play thee false 
 
 To-day, to-morrow she'll be true ; 
 Whom now she sinks she now exalts, 
 
 Taking old gifts and granting new. 
 The wisdom of the present hour 
 
 Makes up for follies past and gone, — 
 To weakness strength succeeds, and power 
 
 From frailty springs, — press on ! press on ! 
 
 Press on ! what though upon the ground 
 
 Thy love has been pour'd out like rain ? 
 That happiness is always found 
 
 The sweetest, which is born of pain. 
 Oft 'mid the forest's deepest glooms, 
 
 A bird sings from some blighted tree, 
 And, in the dreariest desert, blooms 
 
 A never-dying rose for thee. 
 
 Therefore, press on! and reach the goal, 
 
 And gain the prize, and wear the crown ; 
 Faint not ! for to the steadfast soul 
 
 Come wealth and honor and renown. 
 To thine own self be true, and keep 
 
 Thy mind from sloth, thy heart from soil ; 
 Press on ! and thou shalt surely reap 
 
 A heavenly harvest for thy toil ! 
 
 THE SEXTON. 
 
 Nigh to a grave that was newly made, 
 Lean'd a sexton old on his earth-worn spade. 
 His work was done, and he paused to wait 
 The funeral train through the open gate: 
 A relic of bygone days was he, 
 And his locks were white as the foamy sea, — 
 And these words came from his lips so thin : — 
 " I gather them in ! I gather them in ! 
 
 " I gather them in ! for, man and boy, 
 Year after year of grief and joy, 
 I've builded the houses that lie around 
 In every nook of this burial-ground. 
 Mother and daughter, father and son, 
 Come to my solitude one by one, — 
 But, come they strangers or come they kin, 
 I gather them in ! I gather them in ! 
 
 " Many are with me, but still I'm alone ! 
 
 I am king of the dead, — and I make my throne 
 
 On a monument-slab of marble cold. 
 
 And my sceptre of rule is the spade I hold. 
 
ROBERT T. CONRAD. 
 
 621 
 
 Come they from cottage or come they from hall, — 
 Mankind are my subjects, — all, all, all! 
 Let them loiter in pleasure or toilf'ully spin, — 
 I gather them in ! I gather them in ! 
 
 " I gather them in, — and their final rest, 
 
 Is here, down here in the earth's dark breast;" — 
 
 And the sexton ceased, — for the funeral train 
 
 Wound mutely over that solemn plain : 
 
 And I said to my heart, — When time is told, 
 
 A mightier voice than that sexton's old 
 
 Will sound o'er the last trump's dreadful din, — 
 
 " I gather them in ! I gather them in !" 
 
 A LIFE OF LETTERED EASE. 
 
 A life of letter'd ease ! what joy to lead 
 
 A life of intellectual calm and peace : 
 
 Such as a poet in a vale of Greece — 
 Thine, Arcacly — might have enjoy 'd, indeed, 
 Where hour on hour, untouch'd by haste or speed, 
 
 Might lapse serenely like a summer stream ; 
 Where not a single thought of gain or greed 
 
 Could mar the murmurous music of his dream. 
 Oh that such life were mine ! — to hoard, not spend ! — 
 
 The golden moments would like ingots seem, 
 
 Each affluent day with new-found treasure teem, 
 And my large wealth have neither loss nor end. 
 Meet in the markets, merchants, as you please, — 
 Be mine the scholar's life of letter'd ease. 
 
 ROBERT T. CONRAD, 1809—1858. 
 
 Robert T. Conrad, the son of John Conrad, who was for many years an ex- 
 tensive bookseller and publisher in Philadelphia, was born in that city on the 
 10th of June, 1809. He studied law with his uncle, Thomas Kittera, an eminent 
 jurist, and was admitted to practice in 1830. While a student, he wrote his first 
 tragedy, Conrad of Naples, which was quite successful, and is regarded by many 
 as the best of his poems. Shortly after he was admitted to the bar, he connected 
 himself with the press, and shared the editorial duties of some of the leading 
 journals of the city ; but, the labor proving too much for his health, he resumed 
 the practice of his profession in 1834. On the 15th of July, 1836, he was ap- 
 pointed by Governor Ritner Recorder of the Recorder's Court; and on the 27th 
 of March, 1838, with the unanimous recommendation of the bar, he was com- 
 missioned by the same Governor to be a Judge of the Court of Criminal Sessions 
 for the city and county of Philadelphia, — being a higher and more extended juris- 
 diction. Upon the union of the several municipalities of Philadelphia into one 
 great " consolidated" city in 1854, he was elected Mayor by a large majority. On 
 
622 
 
 ROBERT T. CONRAD. 
 
 the resignation of Judge Kelley in 1856, he was appointed by Governor Pollock, 
 on the 30th of November of that year, to fill the vacancy in the Court of Common 
 Pleas and Quarter Sessions. But he did not live long to discharge the duties of 
 this responsible post, as he died on Sunday, June 27, 1858. 
 
 In 1S52, Judge Conrad published Aylmere, or the Bondman of Kent; and other 
 Poems. The tragedy of Aylmere is his principal production, and its merits as an 
 acting play are said to be great. The hero, who assumes the name of Aylmere, is 
 Jack Cade, the celebrated leader of the English peasantry in the insurrection of 
 1150. The other principal poems of our author are, — The Sons of the Wilderness, 
 a meditative poem on the aborigines of our land ; and a series of Sonnets on the 
 Lord's Prayer, marked by great vigor as well as beauty and pathos. 
 
 THE PRIDE OF WORTH. 
 
 There is a joy in worth, 
 A high, mysterious, soul-pervading charm; 
 Which, never daunted, ever bright and warm, 
 
 Mocks at the idle, shadowy ills of earth ; 
 Amid the gloom is bright, and tranquil in the storm. 
 
 It asks, it needs no aid ; 
 It makes the proud and lofty soul its throne : 
 There, in its self-created heaven, alone, 
 
 No fear to shake, no memory to upbraid, 
 It sits a lesser God ; — life, life is all its own ! 
 
 The stoic was not wrong : 
 There is no evil to the virtuous brave ; 
 Or in the battle's rift, or on the wave, 
 
 Worshipp'd or scorn'd, alone or 'mid the throng, 
 He is himself, — a man ! not life's nor fortune's slave. 
 
 Power and wealth and fame 
 Are but as weeds upon life's troubled tide : 
 Give me but these, — a spirit tempest-tried, 
 
 A brow unshrinking, and a soul of flame, 
 The joy of conscious worth, its courage and its pride! 
 
 SONNET. — THY KINGDOM COME ! 
 
 Thy kingdom come ! Speed, angel Avings, that time ! 
 
 Then, known no more the guile of gain, the leer 
 
 Of lewdness, frowning power or pallid fear, 
 The shriek of suffering or the howl of crime, 
 All will be Thine, — all blest ! Thy kingdom come ! 
 
 Then, in Thy arms the sinless earth will rest, 
 
 As smiles the infant on its mother's breast. 
 The dripping bayonet and the kindling drum 
 Unknown, — for not a foe; the thong unknown, — 
 
 For not a slave ; the cells o'er which Despair 
 
 Flaps his black wing and fans the sigh-swollen air, 
 Deserted ! Night will pass and hear no groan ; 
 Glad Day look down, nor see nor guilt nor guile, 
 And all that Thou hast made reflect Thy smile. 
 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
 
 623 
 
 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes, M.D., the poet-physician, is a son of the Rev. 
 Abiel Holmes, D.D., of Cambridge, Massachusetts, author of the " Annals of 
 America." He was born on the 29th of August, 1809, and was graduated at Har- 
 vard University in 1829. He then studied medicine, and in 1833 went to Europe. 
 Returning home in 1835, he commenced the practice of medicine in Boston the 
 following year. In 1838, he was elected Professor of Anatomy and Physiology 
 in the Medical School of Dartmouth College. This professorship he resigned on 
 his marriage in 1840, and, in 1847, he was elected to the chair of Anatomy in 
 Harvard University, vacated by the resignation of Dr. John C. Warren, which he 
 still fills. In 1849, he relinquished practice, and fixed his summer residence in 
 Pittsfield, Berkshire County, Massachusetts. In the winter he resides in Boston. 
 
 Dr. Holmes has written a number of prize medical essays, and has contributed 
 occasionally to medical journals; but he was earlier and better known to the 
 public by his poems, which, by their genuine, easy, and unaffected wit, are un- 
 rivalled in our literature. 1 Within the last year, however, Dr. Holmes has dis- 
 played more fully his wonderful powers in the papers commenced in the " Atlantic 
 Monthly," in November, 1857, entitled The Autocrat of the Breakfast- Table. This 
 series of papers constitutes, in our estimation, one of the most racy, interesting, 
 and brilliant series of magazine-articles ever published either in this country or in 
 England. For wit, pathos, profound philosophical speculation, nice descriptive 
 powers, keen insight into human nature, aptness and force of illustration, united 
 to great wealth of literary, scientific, and artistic knowledge, and all in a style 
 that is a model for the light essay, these papers have given the author a very 
 high rank in American literature. 2 
 
 MY AUNT. 
 
 My aunt ! my dear unmarried aunt ! 
 
 Long years have o'er her flown ; 
 Yet still she strains the aching clasp 
 
 That binds her virgin zone : 
 I know it hurts her, — though she looks 
 
 As cheerful as she can ; 
 Her waist is ampler than her life, 
 
 For life is but a span. 
 
 My aunt, my poor deluded aunt ! 
 
 Her hair is almost gray ; 
 Why will she train that winter curl 
 
 In such a spring-like way ? 
 
 1 A beautiful edition of his poems is published by Ticknor & Fields. 
 
 2 He has begun a series of similar papers in the same magazine for 1859, 
 entitled The Professor at the Breakfast- Table. The first papers — The Autocrat 
 of the Breakfast- Table — have been published in one vol. by Phillips & Sampson. 
 
624 
 
 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
 
 How can she lay her glasses down, 
 
 And say she reads as well, 
 When, through a double convex lens, 
 
 She just makes out to spell ? 
 
 Her father — grandpapa ! forgive 
 
 This erring lip its smiles — 
 Vow'd she should make the finest girl 
 
 Within a hundred miles. 
 He sent her to a stylish school; 
 
 'Twas in her thirteenth June; 
 And with her, as the rules required, 
 
 " Two towels and a spoon." 
 
 They braced my aunt against a board, 
 
 To make her straight and tall ; 
 They laced her up, they starved her down, 
 
 To make her light and small ; 
 They pinclrd her feet, they singed her hair, 
 
 They screw'd it up with pins, — 
 Oh, never mortal suffer'd more 
 
 In penance for her sins. 
 
 So, when my precious aunt was done, 
 
 My grandsire brought her back ; 
 (By daylight, lest some rabid youth 
 
 Might follow on the track;) 
 "Ah!"' said my grandsire, as he shook 
 
 Some powder in his pan, 
 "What could this lovely creature do 
 
 Against a desperate man !" 
 
 Alas ! nor chariot, nor barouche, 
 
 Nor bandit cavalcade 
 Tore from the trembling father's arms 
 
 His all-accomplislrd maid. 
 For her how happy had it been ! 
 
 And Heaven had spared to me 
 To see one sad, ungather'd rose 
 
 On my ancestral tree. 
 
 THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS. 
 
 I wrote some lines once on a time 
 
 In wondrous merry mood, 
 And thought, as usual, men would say 
 
 They were exceeding good. 
 
 They were so queer, so very queer, 
 
 I laugh'd as I would die ; 
 Albeit, in the general way, 
 
 A sober man am I. 
 
 I call'd my servant, and he came: 
 
 How kind it was of him, 
 To mind a slender man like me, 
 
 He of the mighty limb ! 
 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
 
 " These to the printer," I exclaim'd, 
 
 And, in my humorous way, 
 I added, (as a trifling jest,) 
 
 ** There'll be the devil to pay." 
 
 He took the paper, and I watch'd, 
 
 And saw him peep within ; 
 At the first line he read, his face 
 
 Was all upon the grin. 
 
 He read the next ; the grin grew broad, 
 
 And shot from ear to ear ; 
 He read the third ; a chuckling noise 
 
 I now began to hear. 
 
 The fourth ; he broke into a roar; 
 
 The fifth, his waistband split ; 
 The sixth, he burst five buttons off, 
 
 And tumbled in a fit. 
 
 Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye, 
 I watch'd that wretched man, 
 
 And since, I never dare to write 
 As funny as I can. 
 
 THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS. 
 
 This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, 
 
 Sails the unshadow'd main, — ■ 
 
 The venturous bark that flings 
 On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings 
 In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings, 
 
 And coral reefs lie bare, 
 Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. 
 
 Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl ; 
 
 Wreck' d is the ship of pearl ! 
 
 And every chamber'd cell, 
 Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, 
 As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, 
 
 Before thee lies reveaFd, — 
 Its iris'd ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unseal'd ! 
 
 Year after year beheld the silent toil 
 
 That spread his lustrous coil ; 
 
 Still, as the spiral grew, 
 He left the past year's dwelling for the new, 
 Stole with soft step its shining archway through, 
 
 Built up its idle door, 
 Stretch'd in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. 
 
 Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, 
 
 Child of the wandering sea, 
 
 Cast from her lap, forlorn ! 
 From thy dead lips a clearer note is born 
 Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn I 
 53 
 
626 
 
 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
 
 While on mine ear it rings, 
 Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings : — 
 
 Build thee more stately mansions, my soul, 
 
 As the swift seasons roll ! 
 
 Leave thy low-vaulted past ! 
 Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
 Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 
 
 Till thou at length art free, 
 Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! 
 
 THE TWO ARMIES. 
 
 As life's unending column pours, 
 Two marshall'd hosts are seen, — 
 
 Two armies on the trampled shores 
 That Death flows black between. 
 
 One marches to the drum-beat's roll, 
 The wide-mouth'd clarion's bray, 
 
 And bears upon a crimson scroll, 
 " Our glory is to slay." 
 
 One moves in silence by the stream, 
 
 With sad, yet watchful eyes, 
 Calm as the patient planet's gleam 
 
 That walks the clouded skies. 
 
 Along its front no sabres shine, 
 
 No blood-red pennons wave : 
 Its banner bears the single line, 
 
 " Our duty is to save." 
 
 For those no death-bed's lingering shade ; 
 
 At Honor's trumpet-call, 
 With knitted brow and lifted blade, 
 
 In Glory's arms they fall. 
 
 For these no clashing falchions bright, 
 
 No stirring battle-cry ; 
 The bloodless stabber calls by night, — 
 
 Each answers, " Here am I!" 
 
 For those the sculptor's laurell'd bust, 
 
 The builder's marble piles, 
 The anthems pealing o'er their dust 
 
 Through long cathedral aisles. 
 
 For these the blossom-sprinkled turf 
 That floods the lonely graves, 
 
 When Spring rolls in her sea-green surf 
 In flowery-foaming waves. 
 
 Two paths lead upward from below, 
 
 And angels wait above, 
 Who count each burning life-drop's flow, 
 
 Each falling tear of Love. 
 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
 
 627 
 
 Though from the Hero's bleeding breast 
 
 Her pulses Freedom drew, 
 Though the white lilies in her crest 
 
 Sprang from that scarlet dew, — 
 
 While Valor's haughty champions wait 
 
 Till all their scars are shown, 
 Love walks unchallenged through the gate, 
 
 To sit beside the Throne ! 
 
 THE FRONT AND SIDE DOORS. 
 
 Every person's feelings have a front-door and a side-door 
 by which they may be entered. The front-door is on the 
 street. Some keep it always open ; some keep it latched ; some, 
 locked ; some, bolted, — with a chain that will let you peep in, but 
 not get in; and some nail it up, so that nothing can pass its 
 threshold. This front-door leads into a passage which opens into 
 an ante-room, and this into the interior apartments. The side- 
 door opens at once into the sacred chambers. 
 
 There is almost always at least one key to this side-door. This 
 is carried for years hidden in a mother's bosom. Fathers, bro- 
 thers, sisters, and friends, often, but by no means so universally, 
 have duplicates of it. The wedding-ring conveys a right to one ; 
 alas, if none is given with it ! 
 
 Be very careful to whom you trust one of these keys of the side- 
 door. The fact of possessing one renders those even who are 
 dear to you very terrible at times. You can keep the world out 
 from your front-door, or receive visitors only when you are ready 
 for them; but those of your own flesh and blood, or of certain 
 grades of intimacy, can come in at the side-door, if they will, at 
 any hour and in any mood. Some of them have a scale of your 
 whole nervous system, and can play all the gamut of your sensi- 
 bilities in semitones, — touching the naked nerve-pulps as a pianist 
 strikes the keys of his instrument. I am satisfied that there are 
 as great masters of this nerve-playing as Vieuxtemps or Thalberg 
 in their lines of performance. Married life is the school in which 
 the most accomplished artists in this department are found. A 
 delicate woman is the best instrument; she has such a magnificent 
 compass of sensibilities ! From the deep inward moan which 
 follows pressure on the great nerves of right, to the sharp cry as 
 the filaments of taste are struck with a crashing sweep, is a range 
 which no other instrument possesses. A lew exercises on it daily 
 at home fit a man wonderfully for his habitual labors, and refresh 
 him immensely as he returns from them. No stranger can get a 
 great many notes of torture out of a human soul : it takes one that 
 knows it well, — parent, child, brother, sister, intimate. Be very 
 
628 
 
 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
 
 careful to whom you give a side-door key ; too many have them 
 already. 
 
 OLD AGE AND THE PROFESSOR. 
 
 Old Age, this is Mr. Professor ; Mr. Professor, this is Old Age. 
 
 Old Age. — Mr. Professor, I hope to see you well. I have 
 known you for some time, though I think you did not know me. 
 Shall we walk down the street together? 
 
 Professor, (drawing back a little.) — We can talk more quietly, 
 perhaps, in my study. Will you tell me how it is you seem to be 
 acquainted with everybody you are introduced to, though he evi- 
 dently considers you an entire stranger ? 
 
 Old Age. — I make it a rule never to force myself upon a per- 
 son's recognition until I have known him at least Jive years. 
 
 Professor. — Do you mean to say that you have known me so 
 long as that ? 
 
 Old Age. — I do. I left my card on you longer ago than that, 
 but I am afraid you never read it j yet I see you have it with you. 
 Professor. — Where ? 
 
 Old Age. — There, between your eyebrows, — three straight 
 lines running up and down • all the probate courts know that 
 token, — " Old Age, his mark." Put your forefinger on the inner 
 end of one eyebrow, and your middle finger on the inner end of 
 the other eyebrow ; now separate the fingers, and you will smooth 
 out my sign manual ; that's the way you used to look before I left 
 my card on you. 
 
 Professor. — What message do people generally send back when 
 you first call on them ? 
 
 Old Age. — Not at home. Then I leave a card and go. Next 
 year I call ; get the same answer ; leave another card. So for 
 five or six — sometimes ten — years or more. At last, if they don't 
 let me in, I break in through the front door or the windows. 
 
 We talked together in this way some time. Then Old Age 
 said again, — Come, let us walk down the street together, — and 
 offered me a. cane, an eye-glass, a tippet, and a pair of over-shoes. 
 — No, much obliged to you, said I. I don't want those things, 
 and I had a little rather talk with you here, privately, in my study. 
 So I dressed myself up in a jaunty way and walked out alone ; — 
 got a fall, caught a cold, was laid up with a lumbago, and had 
 time to think over this whole matter. 
 
 THE BRAIN. 
 
 Our brains are seventy-year clocks. The Angel of Life winds 
 them up once for all, then closes the case, and gives the key into 
 the hands of the Angel of the Resurrection. 
 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
 
 629 
 
 Tic-tac ! tic-tac ! go the wheels of thought j our will cannot 
 stop them ; they cannot stop themselves ; sleep cannot still them ; 
 madness only makes them go faster ; death alone can break into 
 the case, and, seizing the ever-swinging pendulum, which we call 
 the heart, silence at last the clicking of the terrible escapement 
 we have carried so long beneath our wrinkled foreheads. 
 
 THE SEA-SHORE AND THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 I have lived by the sea-shore and by the mountains. No, I am 
 not going to say which is best. The one where your place is is 
 the best for you. But this difference there is : you can domes- 
 ticate mountains, but the sea is ferae, naturae. You may have a 
 hut, or know the owner of one, on the mountain-side ) you see a 
 light half-way up its ascent in the evening, and you know there is 
 a home, and you might share it. You have noted certain trees, 
 perhaps ; you know the particular zone where the hemlocks look 
 so black in October, when the maples and beeches have faded. 
 All its reliefs and intaglios have electrotyped themselves in the 
 medallions that hang round the walls of your memory's chamber. 
 The sea remembers nothing. It is feline. It licks your feet, — its 
 huge flanks purr very pleasantly for you ; but it will crack your 
 bones and eat you, for all that, and wipe the crimsoned foam from 
 its jaws as if nothing had happened. The mountains give their 
 lost children berries and water ; the sea mocks their thirst and 
 lets them die. The mountains have a grand, stupid, lovable tran- 
 quillity ; the sea has a fascinating, treacherous intelligence. The 
 mountains lie about like huge ruminants, their broad backs awful 
 to look upon, but safe to handle. The sea smooths its silver scales 
 until you cannot see their joints, — but their shining is that of a 
 snake's belly, after all. In deeper suggestiveness I find as great 
 a difference. The mountains dwarf mankind and foreshorten the 
 procession of its long generations. The sea drowns out humanity 
 and time; it has no sympathy with either; for it belongs to 
 eternity, and of that it sings its monotonous song for ever 
 and ever. 
 
 Yet I should love to have a little box by the sea-shore. I 
 should love to gaze out on the wild feline element from a front 
 window of my own, just as I should love to look on a ca^ed 
 panther, and see it stretch its shining length, and then curl over 
 and lap its smooth sides, and by-and-by begin to lash itself into 
 rage, and show its white teeth, and spring at its bars, and howl 
 the cry of its mad, but, to me, harmless fury. 
 
G30 
 
 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
 
 MY LAST WALK WITH THE SCHOOLMISTRESS. 
 
 I can't say just how many walks she and I had taken together 
 before this one. I found the effect of going out every morning 
 was decidedly favorable on her health. Two pleasing dimples, 
 the places for which were just marked when she came, played, 
 shadowy, in her freshening cheeks when she smiled and nodded 
 good-morning to me from the school-house steps. * * * 
 
 The schoolmistress had tried life. Once in a while one meets 
 with a single soul greater than all the living pageant that passes 
 before it. As the pale astronomer sits in his study with sunken 
 eyes and thin fingers, and weighs Uranus or Neptune as in a 
 balance, so there are meek, slight women who have weighed all 
 which this planetary life can offer, and hold it like a bauble in the 
 palm of their slender hands. This was one of them. Fortune 
 had left her, sorrow had baptized her; the routine of labor and 
 the loneliness of almost friendless city-life were before her. Yet, 
 as I looked upon her tranquil face, gradually regaining a cheerful- 
 ness which was often sprightly, as she became interested in the 
 various matters we talked about and places we visited, I saw that 
 eye and lip and every shifting lineament were made for love, — 
 unconscious of their sweet office as yet, and meeting the cold 
 aspect of Duty with the natural graces which were meant for the 
 reward of nothing less than the Great Passion. 
 
 It was on the Common that we were walking. The mall, or 
 boulevard of our Common, you know, has various branches lead- 
 ing from it in different directions. One of these runs downward 
 from opposite J oy Street southward across the whole length of the 
 Common to Boylston Street. We called it the long path, and 
 were fond of it. 
 
 I felt very weak indeed (though of a tolerably robust habit) as 
 we came opposite the head of this path on that morning. I think 
 I tried to speak twice without making myself distinctly audible. 
 At last I got out the question, — Will you take the long path with 
 me ? Certainly, — said the schoolmistress, — with much pleasure. 
 Think, — I said, — before you answer : if you take the long path 
 with me now, I shall interpret it that we are to part no more ! 
 The schoolmistress stepped back with a sudden movement, as if 
 an arrow had struck her. 
 
 *One of the long granite blocks used as seats was hard by, — the 
 one you may still see close by the Gingko-tree. Pray, sit down, 
 — I said. No, no, — she answered, softly, — I will walk the long 
 pa tit with you ! 
 
 The old gentleman who sits opposite met us walking, arm in 
 arm, about the middle of the long path, and said, very charm- 
 ingly, — " Good-morning, my dears !" 
 
ALBERT PIKE. 
 
 G31 
 
 ALBERT PIKE. 
 
 Albert Pike was born in Boston, December 29, 1809. At the age of sixteen, 
 he was admitted to Harvard College, but, not being able to meet its expenses, he 
 became an assistant teacher in a grammar-school at Newburyport, and at the 
 end of the year its principal. In 1831 he was seized with a spirit of adventure, 
 and started in his travels to the West and South, going through New York, Ohio, 
 Kentucky, Tennessee, to St. Louis, — thence to Santa Fe, where he was engaged 
 a year in merchandise, — and thence along the Red River to Little Rock. Here 
 a trifling circumstance caused him to make that place his home ; for, being 
 out of funds, he wrote some pieces of poetry for a newspaper printed there, with 
 which the editor was so much pleased that he invited him to become his partner. 
 The proposition was gladly accepted, and here commenced a new era of his life. 
 The " Arkansas Advocate" was edited by him to the close of the year 1834, when 
 it became his property. Soon after this he studied law, was admitted to the bar, 
 sold his printing-establishment, and devoted himself to his profession. 
 
 Mr. Pike has published a volume entitled Prose Sketches and Poems. Among 
 the latter is a beautiful and spirited piece, for which he deserves to be remem- 
 bered, entitled 
 
 TO THE MOCKING-BIRD. 
 
 Thou glorious mocker of the world ! I hear 
 Thy many voices ringing through the glooms 
 
 Of these green solitudes, — and all the clear, 
 
 Bright joyance of their song enthralls the ear 
 And floods the heart. Over the sphered tombs 
 
 Of vanish'd nations rolls thy music-tide. 
 
 No light from history's starlike page illumes 
 
 The memory of those nations, — they have died. 
 
 None cares for them but thou, and thou mayst sing, 
 Perhaps, o'er me, — as now thy song doth ring 
 
 Over their bones by whom thou once wast deified. 
 
 Thou scorner of all cities ! Thou dost leave 
 
 The world's turmoil and never-ceasing din, 
 Where one from others no existence weaves, 
 Where the old sighs, the young turns gray and grieves, 
 
 Where misery gnaws the maiden's heart within ; 
 And thou dost flee into the broad, green woods, 
 
 And with thy soul of music thou dost win 
 Their heart to harmony, — no jar intrudes 
 
 Upon thy sounding melody. Oh, where, 
 
 Amid the sweet musicians of the air, 
 Is one so dear as thee to these old solitudes ? 
 
 Ha ! what a burst was that ! the iEolian strain 
 Goes floating through the tangled passages 
 
 Of the lone woods, — and now it comes again, — 
 
 A multitudinous melody, — like a rain 
 Of glossy music under echoing trees, 
 
632 
 
 ANNA PEYRE DINNIES. 
 
 Over a ringing lake ; it -wraps the soul 
 With a bright harmony of happiness, — 
 
 Even as a gem is wrapt, when round it roll 
 
 Their waves of brilliant flame, — till we become, 
 E'en with the excess of our deep pleasure, dumb, 
 
 And pant like some swift runner clinging to the goal. 
 
 I would, sweet bird, that I might live with thee, 
 Amid the eloquent grandeur of the shades, 
 
 Alone with nature, — but it may not be ; 
 
 I have to struggle with the tumbling sea 
 Of human life until existence fades 
 
 Into death's darkness. Thou wilt sing and soar 
 
 Through the thick woods and shadow-checker'd glades, 
 
 While naught of sorrow casts a dimness o'er 
 The brilliance of thy heart, — but I must wear, 
 As now, my garmenting of pain and care, — 
 
 As penitents of old their galling sackcloth wore. 
 
 Yet why complain ? — What though fond hopes deferr'd 
 Have overshadow'd Youth's green paths with gloom ! 
 
 Still, joy's rich music is not all unheard, — 
 
 There is a voice sweeter than thine, sweet bird, 
 To welcome me, within my humble home ; — 
 
 There is an eye with love's devotion bright, 
 The darkness of existence to illume ! 
 
 Then why complain ? When death shall cast his blight 
 Over the spirit, then my bones shall rest 
 Beneath these trees, — and from thy swelling breast, 
 
 O'er them thy song shall pour like a rich flood of light. 
 
 ANNA PEYRE DINNIES. 
 
 Anna Peyre Dinnies is the daughter of Judge Shackelford, of Georgetown, 
 South Carolina. When a child, her father removed to Charleston, where she was 
 educated. Eor many years she wrote poetry for various magazines, under the 
 signature of Ifoina. In 1830, she was married to Mr. John C. Dinnies, of St. Louis, 
 Missouri, where she resided for many years. In 1845, her husband removed to 
 New Orleans, where she now lives. In 1846, she published a richly-illustrated 
 volume, entitled The Floral Year. Her pieces celebrating the domestic affections 
 are marked by unusual grace and tenderness. 
 
 THE WIFE. 
 
 " She flung her white arm round him—' Thou art all 
 That this poor heart can cling to.' " 
 
 I could have stemm'd misfortune's tide, 
 
 And borne the rich one's sneer, 
 Have braved the haughty glance of pride, 
 
 Nor shed a single tear. 
 
ANNA PEYRE DINNIES. 
 
 633 
 
 I could have smiled on every blow 
 From Life's full quiver thrown, 
 
 While I might gaze on thee, and know 
 I should not be "alone." 
 
 I could — I think I could — have brook'd, 
 
 E'en for a time, that thou 
 Upon my fading face hadst look'd 
 
 With less of love than now ; 
 For then I should at least have felt 
 
 The sweet hope still my own 
 To win thee back, and, whilst thou dwelt 
 
 On earth, not been "alone." 
 
 But thus to see, from day to day, 
 
 Thy brightening eye and cheek, 
 And watch thy life-sands waste away 
 
 Unnumber'd, slowly, meek ; 
 To meet thy smiles of tenderness, 
 
 And catch the feeble tone 
 Of kindness, ever breathed to bless, 
 
 And feel, I'll be "alone;" 
 
 To mark thy strength each hour decay, 
 
 And yet thy hopes grow stronger, 
 As, fill'd with heavenward trust, they say, 
 
 " Earth may not claim thee longer ;" 
 Nay, dearest, 'tis too much, — this heart 
 
 Must break when thou art gone : 
 It must not be ; we may not part: 
 
 I could not live "alone !" 
 
 TO MY HUSBAND'S FIRST GRAY HAIR. 
 
 " I know thee not, — I loathe thy race ; 
 But in thy lineaments I trace 
 What time shall strengthen, — not efface." 
 
 Giaour. 
 
 Thou strange, unbidden guest ! from whence 
 
 Thus early hast thou come? 
 And wherefore ? Rude intruder, hence ! 
 
 And seek some fitter home ! 
 These rich young locks are all too dear, — 
 Indeed, thou must not linger here ! 
 
 Go ! take thy sober aspect where 
 
 The youthful cheek is fading, 
 Or find some furrow'd brow, which Care 
 
 And Passion have been shading ; 
 And add thy sad, malignant trace, 
 To mar the aged or anguish'd face ! 
 
 Thou wilt not go ? Then answer me, 
 And tell what brought thee hire! 
 
 Not one of all thy tribe I see 
 Beside thyself appear, 
 
634 
 
 WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK. 
 
 And through these bright, and clustering curls 
 Thou shinest, a tiny thread of pearls. 
 
 Thou art a moralist ? ah, well ! 
 
 And cornest from Wisdom's land, 
 A few sage axioms just to tell ? 
 
 Well ! well ! I understand : — 
 Old Truth has sent thee here to bear 
 The maxims which we fain must hear. 
 
 And now, as I observe thee nearer, 
 Thou'rt pretty — very pretty — quite 
 
 As glossy and as fair — nay, fairer — 
 Than these, but not so bright; 
 
 And since thou came Truth's messenger, 
 
 Thou shalt remain, and speak of her. 
 
 She says thou art a herald, sent 
 
 In kind and friendly warning, 
 To mix with locks by Beauty blent, 
 
 (The fair young brow adorning,) 
 And 'midst their wild luxuriance taught 
 To show thyself, and waken thought. 
 
 That thought, which to the dreamer preaches 
 
 A lesson stern as true, 
 That all things pass away, and teaches 
 
 How youth must vanish too ! 
 And thou wert sent to rouse anew 
 This thought, whene'er thou meet'st the view. 
 
 And comes there not a whispering sound, 
 
 A low, faint, murmuring breath, 
 Which, as thou movest, floats around 
 
 Like Echoes in their death ? 
 " Time onward sweeps, youth flies, prepard'' — 
 Such is thine errand, First Gray Hair. 
 
 WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK, 1810—1841. 
 
 Willis Gaylord Clark 1 was born in Otisco, Onondaga County, New York, in 
 the year 1810. His father was an intelligent farmer, and early saw the indica- 
 tions of that poetic talent which manifested itself in many beautiful effusions 
 while he was yet a youth. After completing his scholastic course, when about 
 twenty years of age, he repaired to Philadelphia, where his reputation as a poet 
 had already preceded him, and, under the auspices of his friend, the Rev. Ezra 
 Stiles Ely, D.D., he commenced a weekly miscellany, similar in its design and 
 character to the "Mirror" of New York. He soon found, however, that the 
 
 1 His twin-bi-other, Lewis Gaylord Clark, is the editor of the "Knickerbocker 
 Magazine," to the popularity of which he has largely contributed by his lively 
 and instructive monthly lucubrations, — "The Editor's Table," and " Gossip with 
 Readers and Correspondents." 
 
WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK. 
 
 G35 
 
 profits were disproportioned to the labor, and was induced to abandon it. He 
 then assumed, in conjunction with the Rev. Dr. Brantley, the charge of the 
 " Columbian Star," a religious and literary periodical of a high character. While 
 connected with this, he published numerous fugitive pieces of great merit, which 
 were collected and published in a volunn, under the simple title of Poems. He 
 also wrote for the ""Knickerbocker" an admirable series of papers, called Olla- 
 podiana, which also were published in one volume. 
 
 After being associated a few years with the editor of the " Columbian Star," he 
 was solicited to take charge of the "Philadelphia Gazette," one of the oldest and 
 most respectable daily papers of the city. He ultimately became its proprietor 
 and conducted it with great ability to the time of his death. In 1836, he was 
 married to Anne Poyntell Caldcleugh, a lady of great personal attractions and 
 rare accomplishments. But, of a naturally delicate constitution, she was taken 
 away in the very midst of her youth and happiness. The blow fell with a crush- 
 ing weight upon her husband, and from this time his health gradually declined. 
 He continued, however, to write for his paper until the last day of his life, the 
 12th of June, 1841.' 
 
 MEMORY. 
 
 'Tis sweet to remember ! I would not forego 
 
 The charm which the past o ; er the present can throw, 
 
 For all the gay visions that Fancy may weave 
 
 In her web of illusion, that shines to deceive. 
 
 We know not the future, — the past we have felt, — ■ 
 
 Its cherish'd enjoyments the bosom can melt ; 
 
 Its raptures anew o'er our pulses may roll, 
 
 When thoughts of the morrow fall cold on the soul. 
 
 'Tis sweet to remember ! when storms are abroad, 
 To see in the rainbow the promise of God : 
 The day may be darkened, but, far in the west, 
 In vermilion and gold, sinks the sun to his rest ; 
 With smiles like the morning he passeth away : 
 Thus the beams of delight on the spirit can play, 
 
 1 "Mr. Clark's distinguishing traits are tenderness, pathos, and melody. In 
 style and sentiment he is wholly original; but, if he resemble any writer, it is Mr. 
 Bryant. The same lofty tone of sentiment, the same touches of melting pathos, 
 the same refined sympathies with the beauties and harmonies of nature, and the 
 same melody of style, characterize, in an almost equal degree, these delightful 
 poets. The ordinary tone of Mr. Clark's poetry is gentle, solemn, and tender. 
 His effusions flow in melody from a heart full of the sweetest affections, and upon 
 their surface is mirrored all that is gentle and beautiful in nature, rendered more 
 beautiful by the light of a lofty and religious imagination. He is one of the few 
 writers who have succeeded in making the poetry of relif/ion attractive. Young 
 is sad and austere, Cowper is at times constrained, and Wordsworth is much too 
 dreamy for the mass; but with Clark religion is unaffectedly blended with the 
 simplest and sweetest affections of the heart. His poetry glitters with the dew, 
 not of Castalia, but of heaven. No man, however cold, can resist the winning 
 and natural sweetness and melody of the tone of piety that pervades his poems." 
 — American Quarterly Review, xxii. 462. 
 
 A feeling and beautifully-written memoir of Mr. Clark will be found in the 
 eighteenth volume of the " Knickerbocker." 
 
636 
 
 WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK. 
 
 When in calm reminiscence we gather the flowers 
 Which love scatter'd round us in happier hours. 
 
 'Tis sweet to remember! When friends are unkind, 
 When their coldness and carelessness shadow the mind : 
 Then, to draw back the veil which envelops a land 
 Where delectable prospects in beauty expand ; 
 To smell the green fields, the fresh waters to hear 
 Whose once fairy music enchanted the ear ; 
 To drink in the smiles that delighted us then, 
 To list the fond voices of childhood again, — 
 Oh, this the sad heart, like a reed that is bruised, 
 Binds up, when the banquet of hope is refused. 
 
 ; Tis sweet to remember! And naught can destroy 
 
 The balm-breathing comfort, the glory, the joy, 
 
 Which spring from that fountain, to gladden our way, 
 
 When the changeful and faithless desert or betray. 
 
 I would not forget! — though my thoughts should be dark, 
 
 O'er the ocean of life I look back from my bark, 
 
 And I see the lost Eden, where once I was blest, 
 
 A type and a promise of heavenly rest. 
 
 THE INVITATION. 
 
 "They that seek me early shall find me." 
 
 Come, while the blossoms of thy years are brightest, 
 
 Thou youthful wanderer in a flowery maze, 
 Come, while the restless heart is bounding lightest, 
 
 And joy's pure sunbeams tremble in thy ways ; 
 Come, while sweet thoughts, like summer-buds unfolding, 
 
 AVaken rich feelings in the careless breast, 
 While yet thy hand the ephemeral wreath is holding, 
 
 Come, — and secure interminable rest ! 
 
 Soon will the freshness of thy days be over, 
 
 And thy free buoyancy of soul be flown; 
 Pleasure will fold her wing, and friend and lover 
 
 Will to the embraces of the worm have gone ; 
 Those who now love thee will have pass'd forever, 
 
 Their looks of kindness will be lost to thee ; 
 Thou wilt need balm to heal thy spix-it's fever, 
 
 As thy sick heart broods over years to be ! 
 
 Come, while the morning of thy life is glowing, 
 
 Ere the dim phantoms thou art chasing die ; 
 Ere the gay spell which earth is round thee throwing 
 
 Fades, like the crimson from a sunset sky ; 
 Life hath but shadows, save a promise given, 
 
 Which lights the future with a fadeless ray : 
 Oh, touch the sceptre! — win a hope in heaven! 
 
 Come, turn thy spirit from the world away ! 
 
 Then will the crosses of this brief existence 
 Seem airy nothings to thine ardent soul : — 
 
WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK. 
 
 And, shining brightly in the forward distance, 
 Will of thy patient race appear the goal : 
 
 Home of the weary ! — where, in peace reposing, 
 The spirit lingers in unclouded bliss, 
 
 Though o'er its dust the curtain'd grave is closing, 
 Who would not, early, choose a lot like this ? 
 
 DEATH OF THE FIRST-BORN. 
 
 Young mother, he is gone ! 
 His dimpled cheek no more will touch thy breast; 
 
 No more the music-tone 
 Float from his lips, to thine all fondly press'd ; 
 His smile and happy laugh are lost to thee ; 
 Earth must his mother and his pillow be. 
 
 His was the morning hour, 
 And he had pass'd in beauty from the day, 
 
 A bud, not yet a flower, 
 Torn, in its sweetness, from the parent spray; 
 The death-wind swept him to his soft repose, 
 As frost, in spring-time, blights the early rose. 
 
 Never on earth again 
 Will his rich accents charm thy listening ear, 
 
 Like some iEolian strain, 
 Breathing at eventide serene and clear; 
 His voice is choked in dust, and on his eyes 
 The unbroken seal of peace and silence lies. 
 
 And from thy yearning heart, 
 Whose inmost core was waimi with love for him, 
 
 A gladness must depart, 
 And those kind eyes with many tears be dim; 
 While lonely memories, an unceasing train, 
 Will turn the raptures of the past to pain. 
 
 Yet, mourner, while the day 
 Rolls like the darkness of a funeral by, 
 
 And hope forbids one ray 
 To stream athwart the grief-discolor'd sky, 
 There breaks upon thy sorrow's evening gloom 
 A trembling lustre from beyond the tomb. 
 
 'Tis from the better land ! 
 There, bathed in radiance that around them springs, 
 
 Thy loved one's wings expand ; 
 As with the choiring cherubim he sings, 
 And all the glory of that God can see, 
 Who said, on earth, to children, "Come to me." 
 
 Mother, thy child is bless' d ; 
 And though his presence may be lost to thee, 
 
 And vacant leave thy breast, 
 And miss'd, a sweet load from thy parent knee ; 
 Though tones familiar from thine ear have pass'd, 
 Thou'lt meet thy first-born with his Lord at last. 
 54 
 
C38 
 
 EDGAR ALLEN POE. 
 
 EDGAR ALLEN POE, 1811—1849. 
 
 Edgar Allen Poe was born in Baltimore, in January, 1811, was left an orphan 
 by the death of his parents at Richmond, Virginia, in 1815, and adopted by John 
 Allen, a wealthy merchant of that city. This gentleman indulged his protege in- 
 judiciously, and thus increased his naturally proud and petulant disposition. In 
 1816, Mr. and Mrs. Allen visited England, taking Edgar with them. He re- 
 mained there five years at school, returned in 1822, and soon after entered the 
 University of Virginia, where he was graduated in 1826. After this, he led a 
 wandering, and dissipated life: first he is in Europe for a year; then, returning 
 home, at West Point; then as a common soldier in the army; then in Charles- 
 ton, South Carolina, as editor of the '•Southern Literary Messenger;" till, in 
 1838, he settled in Philadelphia, having married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, and 
 became the chief editor of the " Gentleman's Magazine," and " Graham's Maga- 
 zine. In 1844, he went to New York, and found employment in editing the 
 "Broadway Journal," and in contributing to various other magazines. In 1845 
 appeared his popular poem of The Raven; but he could not, or would not, break 
 through his habits of dissipation, and he was reduced to the greatest poverty; and 
 in the winter of the next year his wife died. 
 
 In August of 1849, he left New York to deliver some lectures in Virginia. On 
 his return, he stopped for a feAV hours in Baltimore. Here he met with acquaint- 
 ances who invited him to drink : all his resolutions and duties were soon forgotten; 
 and such were the effects of his carousing, that he was carried to an hospital ; and 
 there, on the evening of the 7th of October, 1849, he died, at the age of thirty- 
 eight years. 
 
 Mr. Poe is known chiefly for his criticisms, poems, and tales. In his criticisms 
 he has displayed a keen analysis, a clear discrimination : they are sharp and 
 well defined, but unfair. Influenced greatly by fear or favor, they are often ab- 
 surdly contradictory ; and through many of them there run a petty spirit of fault- 
 finding, a burning jealousy, a self-complacent egotism. In his poems he has 
 evinced the same subtlety of analysis, the same distinctness, the same deep know- 
 ledge of the power of words. Their elaboration is minute, their metre exquisite, 
 both in its adaptation and polish; but they do not move the heart, for of feeling 
 there is an essential want. His poetry, as he himself tells us, is the result of cold, 
 mathematical calculation. 
 
 But it is through his tales that Mr. Poe is best known, and in them is displayed 
 the real bent of his genius. Their chief characteristic is a grim horror, — some- 
 times tangible, but usually shadowy and dim. He revelled in faintly sketching 
 scenes of ghastly gloom, in imagining the most impossible plots, and in making 
 them seem real by minute detail. His wild and weird conceptions have great 
 power; but they affect the fears only, rarely the heart; while sometimes his 
 morbid creations are repulsive and shocking; yet, in the path which he had 
 chosen, he is unrivalled. 1 
 
 1 A fine edition of his works, with a memoir by R. W. Griswold, and notices of 
 his life and genius by N. P. Willis and J. R. Lowell, has been published by Red 
 field, New York, in four volumes. Read a good article on Poe and his works in 
 the " North American Review," October, 1856. 
 
EDGAR ALLEN POE. 
 
 639 
 
 THE RAVEN. 1 
 
 Once upon a midnight dreary, while I ponder'd, weak and weary, 
 Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, — 
 While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, 
 As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber-door ; 
 "'Tis some visitor," I mutter'd, "tapping at my chamber-door, — 
 Only this, and nothing more." 
 
 Ah ! distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December, 
 And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. 
 Eagerly I wish'd the morrow ; — vainly I had sought to borrow 
 From my books surcease of sorrow, — sorrow for the lost Lenore, — 
 For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore, — 
 Nameless here for evermore. 
 
 And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain 
 Thrill' d me, — fill'd me with fantastic terrors never felt before ; 
 So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating 
 "'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber-door, — 
 Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber-door : 
 This it is, and nothing more." 
 
 Presently my soul grew stronger ; hesitating then no longer, 
 " Sir," said I, "or madam, truly your forgiveness I implore ; 
 But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, 
 And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber-door, 
 That I scarce was sure I heard you," — here I opcn'd wide the door, — 
 Darkness there, and nothing more. 
 
 Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, 
 Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before ; 
 But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, 
 And the only word there spoken was the whisper'd word, "Lenore!" 
 This I whisper'd, and an echo murmur'd back the word, "Lenore!" — 
 Merely this, and nothing more. 
 
 Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, 
 Soon again I heard a tapping something louder than before. 
 " Surely," said I, — " surely that is something at my window-lattice ; 
 Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore, — 
 Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore ; — 
 'Tis the wind, and nothing more." 
 
 Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, 
 In there stepp'd a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore. 
 Not the least obeisance made he ; not a minute stopp'd or stay'd he ; 
 But, with mien of lord or lady, perch'd above my chamber-door, — 
 Perch'd upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber-door, — 
 Perch'd, and sat, and nothing more. 
 
 1 This poem is generally allowed to be one of the most remarkable examples of 
 a harmony of sentiment with rhythmical expression to be found in any language. 
 While the poet sits musing in his study, endeavoring to win from books " sur- 
 cease of sorrow for the lost Lenore," a raven — the symbol of despair — enters the 
 room and perches upon a bust of Pallas. A colloquy follows between the poet 
 and the bird of ill omen with its haunting croak of " Never more." 
 
640 
 
 EDGAR ALLEN POE. 
 
 Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, 
 
 By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, 
 
 " Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven, 
 
 Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven, wandering from the nightly shore, — 
 
 Tell me what thy lordly name is on the night's Plutonian shore !" 
 
 Quoth the Haven, "Nevermore." 
 
 Much I marvell'd this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, 
 Though its answer little meaning — little relevancy — bore ; 
 For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being 
 Ever yet was bless'd with seeing bird above his chamber-door, — 
 Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber-door, — 
 With such name as " Nevermore." 
 
 But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only 
 That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. 
 Nothing further then he utter'd; — not a feather then he flutter'd ; — 
 Till I scarcely more than mutter'd, " Other friends have flown before— 
 On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before." 
 
 Then the bird said, " Never more." 
 
 Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, 
 " Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store, 
 Caught from some unhappy master, whom unmerciful disaster 
 Follow'd fast and follow'd faster, till his songs one burden bore, — 
 Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore, 
 Of 'Never — never more.' " 
 
 But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling, 
 Straight I wheel'd a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door ; 
 Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking 
 Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore, — 
 What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore 
 Meant in croaking, "Never more." 
 
 This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing 
 To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core ; 
 This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining 
 On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er, 
 But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er 
 She shall press, ah, never more ! 
 
 Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer 
 Swung by seraphim, whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor, 
 "Wretch!" I cried, "thy god hath lent thee — by these angels he hath 
 sent thee 
 
 Respite — respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore ! 
 Quaff, quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!" 
 
 Quoth the Raven, "Never more !" 
 
 " Prophet !" said I, "thing of evil! — prophet still, if bird or devil ! — 
 Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest toss'd thee here ashore, 
 Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted, — 
 On this home by horror haunted, — tell me truly, I implore, — 
 Is there — is there balm in Gilead ? — tell me — tell me, I implore !" 
 
 Quoth the Raven, " Never more." 
 
 " Prophet !" said I, " thing of evil ! — prophet still, if bird or devil ! 
 By that heaven that bends above us — by that God we both adore, 
 
EDGAR ALLEN POE. 
 
 641 
 
 Tell this soul, w.th sorrow laden, if within the distant Aiden 1 
 It shall clasp a sainted maiden, whom the angels name Lenore, — 
 Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels name Lenore!" 
 
 Quoth the Raven, "Never more." 
 
 '•' Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend !" I shrieked, upstarting — 
 " Get thee back into the tempest and the night's Plutonian shore ! 
 Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! 
 Leave my loneliness unbroken ! — quit the bust above my door ! 
 Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door !" 
 
 Quoth the Raven, "Never more." 
 
 And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting, 
 On the pallid bust of Pallas, just above my chamber-door; 
 And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, 
 And the lamp-light, o'er him streaming, throws his shadow on the floor; 
 And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor 
 Shall be lifted — never more ! 
 
 It is difficult to make any selections from Mr. Poe's prose works that will give 
 a correct idea of his manner and style, because his stories to be fully appreciated 
 must be read as a whole. We will venture, however, to make an extract from 
 The Fall of the House of Usher. The narrator has been invited to spend some 
 weeks with the proprietor of the mansion, Roderick Usher, who had been one of 
 his " boon companions in boyhood." AVhile there, a tenderly-beloved sister — his 
 sole companion for long years, Madeline by name, his last relative on earth — died 
 of a severe illness. The following is a part of the story, — the account of 
 
 THE BURIAL OF LADY MADELINE. 
 
 At the request of Usher. I personally aided him in the arrange- 
 ments for the temporary entombment. The body having been 
 encoffined, we two alone bore it to its rest. The vault in which 
 we placed it (and which had been so long unopened that our 
 torches, half smothered in its oppressive atmosphere, gave us 
 little opportunity for investigation) was small, damp, and entirely 
 without means of admission for light; lying, at great depth, im- 
 mediately beneath that portion of the building in which was my 
 own sleeping-apartment. It had been used, apparently, in remote 
 feudal times, for the worst purposes of a donjon-keep, and, in later 
 days, as a place of deposit for powder or some other highly com- 
 bustible substance, as a portion of its floor, and the whole interior 
 of a long archway through which we reached it, were carefully 
 sheathed with copper. The door, of massive iron, had been also 
 similarly protected. Its immense weight caused an unusually 
 sharp grating sound as it moved upon its hinges. 
 
 Having deposited our mournful burden upon tressels within 
 this region of horror, we partially turned aside the yet unscrewed 
 
 The Greek accusative of " Aides/' the same as " Hades." 
 54* 
 
642 
 
 EDGAR ALLEN POE. 
 
 lid of the coffin, and looked upon the face of the tenant. A 
 striking similitude between the brother and sister now first ar- 
 rested my attention ) and Usher, divining, perhaps, my thoughts, 
 murmured out some few words, from which I learned that the 
 deceased and himself had been twins, and that sympathies of a 
 scarcely intelligible nature had always existed between them. 
 Our glances, however, rested not long upon the dead; for we 
 could not regard her unawed. The disease which had thus en- 
 tombed the lady in the maturity of youth had left, as usual in all 
 maladies of a strictly cataleptical character, the mockery of a faint 
 blush upon the bosom and the face, and that suspiciously linger- 
 ing smile upon the lip which is so terrible in death. We replaced 
 and screwed down the lid, and, having secured the door of iron, 
 made our way, with toil, into the scarcely less gloomy apartments 
 of the upper portion of the house. 
 
 And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed, an observable 
 change came over the features of the mental disorder of my friend. 
 His ordinary manner had vanished. His ordinary occupations 
 were neglected or forgotten. He roamed from chamber to cham- 
 ber with hurried, unequal, and objectless step. The pallor of his 
 countenance had assumed, if possible, a more ghastly hue ; but 
 the luminousness of his eye had utterly gone out. The once occa- 
 sional huskiness of his tone was heard no more ) and a tremulous 
 quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually characterized his utter- 
 ance. There were times, indeed, when I thought his unceasingly 
 agitated mind was laboring with some oppressive secret, to divulge 
 which he struggled for the necessary courage. At times, again, I 
 was obliged to resolve all into the mere inexplicable vagaries of 
 madness ; for I beheld him gazing upon vacancy for long hours, 
 in an attitude of the profoundest attention, as if listening to some 
 imaginary sound. It was no wonder that his condition terrified, 
 — that it infected me. I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet cer- 
 tain degrees, the wild influences of his own fantastic yet im- 
 pressive superstitions. 
 
 It was especially upon retiring to bed late at night of the 
 seventh or eighth day after the placing of the. Lady Madeline 
 within the donjon, that I experienced the full power of such feel- 
 ings. Sleep came not near my couch, while the hours waned 
 and waned away. I struggled to reason off the nervousness which 
 had dominion over me. I endeavored to believe that much, if not 
 all, of what I felt, was due to the bewildering influence of the 
 gloomy furniture of the room, — of the dark and tattered draperies 
 which, tortured into motion by the breath of a rising tempest, 
 swayed fitfully to and fro upon the walls, and rustled uneasily 
 about the decorations of the bed. But my efforts were fruitless. 
 An irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded my frame; arid at 
 
EDGAR ALLEN POE. 
 
 643 
 
 length there sat upon my very heart an incubus of utterly cause- 
 less alarm. Shaking this ofi' with a gasp and a struggle, 1 uplifted 
 myself upon the pillows, and, peering earnestly within the intense 
 darkness of the chamber, hearkened — I know not why, except 
 that an instinctive spirit prompted me — to certain low and inde- 
 finite sounds which came, through the pauses of the storm, at 
 long intervals, I knew not whence. Overpowered by an intense 
 sentiment of horror, unaccountable yet unendurable, I threw on my 
 clothes with haste, (for I felt that I should sleep no more during 
 the night,) and endeavored to arouse myself from the pitiable con- 
 dition into which I had fallen, by pacing rapidly to and fro 
 through the apartment. 
 
 I had taken but few turns in this manner, when a light step on 
 an adjoining staircase arrested my attention. I presently recog- 
 nised it as that of Usher. In an instant afterward he rapped, 
 with a gentle touch, at my door, and entered, bearing a lamp. 
 His countenance was, as usual, cadaverously wan ; but, moreover, 
 there was a species of mad hilarity in his eyes, — an evidently re- 
 strained hysteria in his whole demeanor. His air appalled me; 
 but any thing was preferable to the solitude which I had so long 
 endured, and I even welcomed his presence as a relief. 
 
 " And you have not seen it V he said, abruptly, after having 
 stared about him for some moments in silence, — u you have not, 
 
 then, seen it?" " Not hear it? — yes, I hear it, and have heard it. 
 
 Long — long — long — many minutes, many hours, many days, have 
 I heard it, — yet I dared not, — oh, pity me, miserable wretch that 
 I am ! — I dared not — I dared not speak ! We have -put her living 
 in the tomb! Said I not that my senses were acute ? I now tell 
 you that I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin. 
 I heard them — many, many days ago — yet I dared not — 1 dared 
 not speak! And now — to-night — Ethelred — ha! ha! — the rend- 
 ing of her coffin, and the grating of the iron hinges of her prison, 
 and her struggles within the coppered archway of the vault ! Oh, 
 whither shall I fly 1 Will she not be here anon? Madman! 
 1 tell you that she now stands without the door!" 
 
 Here the huge antique panels to which the speaker pointed 
 threw slowly back upon the instant their ponderous and ebony 
 jaws. It was the work of the rushing gust; but then without 
 those doors there did stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of the 
 Lady Madeline of Usher. There was blood upon her white 
 robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every por- 
 tion of her emaciated frame. For a moment she remained 
 trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold ; then, with 
 a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her 
 brother, and, in her violent and now final death-agonies, bore him to 
 the floor a corpse ; and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated. 
 
644 
 
 CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 From that chamber and from that mansion I fled aghast. The 
 storm was still abroad in all its wrath as I found myself crossing 
 the old causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path a wild 
 light, and I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could have 
 issued; for the vast house and its shadows were alone behind me. 
 The radiance was that of the full, setting, and blood-red moon, 
 which now shone vividly through that once barely-discernible 
 fissure of which I have before spoken as extending from the roof 
 of the building, in a zigzag direction, to the base. While I gazed, 
 this fissure rapidly widened, — there came a fierce breath of the 
 whirlwind, — the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my 
 sight, — my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asun- 
 der, — there was a long, tumultuous, shouting sound like the voice 
 of a thousand waters, — and the deep and dank tarn at my feet 
 closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the " House 
 of Usher." 
 
 CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 This distinguished scholar, jurist, statesman, and philanthropist 1 is the son 
 of Charles Pinckney Sumner, for some years sheriff of Suffolk County, and was 
 born in Boston, January 6, 1811. He Avas graduated at Harvard College in 
 1830, and in 1831 commenced his studies at the Cambridge law-school. While 
 yet a student, he wrote several articles for the "American Jurist," which at- 
 tracted attention by their learning and ability ; and thereupon he became the 
 editor of that periodical, which position he occupied for three years. In 1834, 
 he commenced the practice of his profession in Boston; and, having been ap- 
 pointed reporter to the Circuit Court, he published three volumes known as 
 Sumner's Reports. In 1S36, he edited "A Treatise on the Practice of the 
 Courts of Admiralty in Civil Causes of Maritime Jurisdiction, by Andrew 
 Dunlap," adding an "Appendix" equal in extent to the original work. In 
 1837, he visited Europe, where he remained three years, enjoying unusual advan- 
 tages of social intercourse with the most distinguished men of the day. 
 
 On his return from Europe, Mr. Sumner lectured at the Cambridge law- 
 school, and in 1S44 edited an edition of " Vesey's Reports," in twenty volumes, 
 to which he contributed numerous valuable notes and treatises on the points in 
 question. The next year he delivered an Oration on the True Grandeur of Na- 
 tions, before the authorities of the city of Boston, July 4, — taking therein a posi- 
 tion as bold and novel as it was beautiful and truthful. 2 
 
 1 Well and beautifully was it thus written by Edmund Burke's schoolmaster — 
 Abraham Shackleton : " The memory of Edmund Burke's philanthropic virtues 
 will outlive the period when his shining political talents will cease to act. Now 
 fashions of political sentiment will exist; but Philanthropy — IMMORTALE 
 MANET." 
 
 2 It had been customary, "from time immemorial," for the authorities of Bos- 
 ton to appoint some one to deliver an oration before them and the assembled 
 
CHARLES SU3INER. 
 
 645 
 
 From this time forward, Mr. Sutnner took a more prominent part in public 
 affairs. He early opposed the annexation of Texas ; and when the Whig party in 
 Massachusetts, in ISIS, would not act up to its professions against that ini- 
 quitous scheme, he abandoned it. In 1851, he was elected to the Senate of the 
 United States, from Massachusetts, as the successor of Mr. Webster, and soon 
 distinguished himself as one of the ablest and most eloquent, as all acknowledged 
 him the most learned, of that body. On the 26th of August, 1S52, he delivered 
 his masterly and unanswerable speech on the unconstitutionality and wickedness 
 of the " Fugitive Slave Bill." 1 So powerful were his efforts in the cause of free- 
 dom, and so unanswerable his positions, that some of the more violent slave- 
 holding members of the Senate and of the House felt that he must be silenced, 
 and employed one Preston S. Brooks, a member of the House from South Caro- 
 lina, to do the work. On the 22d of May, 1856, he, accompanied by L. M. Keitt, 
 of the same House and from the same State, entered the Senate-chamber, after 
 the adjournment of the Senate, and seeing Mr. Sumner, with no one near him, 
 seated in his arm-chair writing at his desk, (which was fastened to the floor,) 
 approached him with a heavy bludgeon, and, by one severe blow upon the head, 
 stunned him so that he fell upon his desk. In endeavoring to extricate himself 
 from his seat, Mr. Sumner wrenched the desk from its fastenings, and fell sense- 
 less and bleeding upon the floor. His assailant renewed the blows upon the head 
 of his prostrate victim, until, after more than a dozen had been given, he was 
 stopped by some members of the Senate who happened to be present. Mr. 
 Sumner was taken to his lodgings in a carriage, so severely injured that it was 
 thought he could not recover. The news of this high-handed assault upon such a 
 man, and in such a place, ran like lightning through the nation, and aroused the 
 deepest indignation in every breast. For weeks, Mr. Sumner was confined to his 
 room and bed; but he gradually gained strength, and hoped that he might be able 
 to return to the Senate in the December following : this his physicians peremptorily 
 forbade, and he spent the winter in Boston. In the spring of 1857, he went to 
 Europe for his health, receiving there, from all the noblest and most learned 
 wherever he went, the highest marks of attention and respect. He returned in 
 the fall, somewhat improved; but, his former symptoms returning as soon as he 
 began to apply himself to public duties, his physicians urged him to go abroad 
 again, and accordingly he sailed for Europe in the spring of 1858. The accounts 
 received, from time to time, of the state of his health are rather favorable ; yet it 
 is doubtful whether he will be able very soon to resume his seat in the Senate. 2 
 
 citizens and military on the anniversary of our national independence. These 
 orations, though often eloquent and learned, were generally cast in about the 
 same mould, — that of national vanity and military glory. It was left for Charles 
 Sumner to strike out in an entirely new path, and to show, by rare eloquence, 
 learning, and by an array of facts and figures, not to be gainsaid, on the cost, the 
 horrors, and the inefficacy of Avar, that the " True Grandeur of Nations" consists 
 in cultivating the arts of peace. 
 
 1 The following admirable sentiment from Oliver Cromwell was printed on the 
 title-page of this speech: — "If any man thinks that the interests of these nations, 
 and the interests of Christianity, are two separate and distinct things, I wish my 
 soul may never cuter into his secret." 
 
 2 A beautiful edition of his Speeches, Addresses, and Literary Essavs, has been 
 published by Ticknor & Fields, in three volumes. 
 
646 
 
 CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 EXPENSES OF WAR AND EDUCATION COMPARED. 
 
 It appears from the last Report of the Treasurer of Harvard 
 University, that its whole available property, the various accu- 
 mulations of more than two centuries of generosity, amounts to 
 $703,175. 
 
 There now swings idly at her moorings, in this harbor, a ship 
 of the line, the Ohio, carrying ninety guns, finished as late as 
 1836, for 3547,888 ; repaired only two years afterwards, in 1838, 
 for 8223,012 ; with an armament which has cost $53,945 ; making 
 an amount of $834,845, as the actual cost at this moment of that 
 single ship ; more than $100,000 beyond all the available accu- 
 mulations of the richest and most ancient seat of learning in the 
 land ! Choose ye, my fellow-citizens of a Christian state, between 
 the two caskets, — that wherein is the loveliness of knowledge and 
 truth, or that which contains the carrion death. 
 
 Still further let us pursue the comparison. The pay of the 
 captain of a ship like the Ohio is $4,500, when in service; 
 $3,500, when on leave of absence, or off duty. The salary of the 
 President of the Harvard University is $2,205 ; without leave of 
 absence, and never being off duty ! 
 
 If the large endowments of Harvard University are dwarfed by 
 a comparison with the expense of a single ship of the line, how 
 much more must it be so with those of other institutions of learn- 
 ing and beneficence, less favored by the bounty of many genera- 
 tions ! The average cost of a sloop of war is $315,000; more, 
 probably, than all the endowments of those twin stars of learning 
 in the western part of Massachusetts, the colleges at Williams- 
 town and Amherst, and of that single star in the East, the guide 
 to many ingenuous youth, the Seminary at Andover. The yearly 
 cost of a sloop of war in service is above $50,000 ; more than the 
 annual expenditures of these three institutions combined. 
 
 Take all the institutions of learning and beneficence, the pre- 
 cious jewels of the Commonwealth, the schools, colleges, hospitals, 
 and asylums, and the sums by which they have been purchased 
 and preserved are trivial and beggarly, compared with the trea- 
 sures squandered within the borders of Massachusetts in vain 
 preparations for war. There is the Navy Yard at Charlestown, 
 with its stores on hand, all costing $4,741,000 ; the fortifications 
 in the harbors of Massachusetts, in which have been sunk already 
 incalculable sums, and in which it is now proposed to sink 
 $3,853,000 more; and, besides, the Arsenal at Springfield, con- 
 taining, in 1842, 175,118 muskets, valued at $2,999,998, and 
 which is fed by an annual appropriation of about $200,000, but 
 whose highest value will ever be, in the judgment of all lovers of 
 truth, that it inspired a poem which in its influence shall be 
 
CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 mightier than a battle, and shall endure when arsenals and fortifi- 
 cations have crumbled to the earth. 1 
 
 True Grandeur of Xa lions. 
 
 TRUE GLORY. 
 
 Whatever may be the temporary applause of men, or the ex- 
 pressions of public opinion, it may be asserted, without fear of 
 contradiction, that no true and permanent Fame can be founded, 
 except in labors which promote the happiness of mankind. There 
 are not a few who will join with Milton in his admirable judg- 
 ment of martial renown : — 
 
 " They err who count it glorious to subdue 
 By conquest far and wide, to overrun 
 Large countries, and in field great battles win. 
 Great cities by assault. What do these worthies 
 But rob, and spoil, burn, slaughter, and enslave 
 Peaceable nations, neighboring or remote, 
 Made captive, yet deserving freedom more 
 Than those, their conquerors, who leave behind 
 Nothing but ruin, wheresoe'er they rove, 
 And all the flourishing works of peace destroy?" 2 
 
 Well 'does the poet give the palm to moral excellence! But 
 it is from the lips of a successful soldier, cradled in war, the very 
 pink of the false heroism of battle, that we are taught to appre- 
 ciate the literary Fame, which, though less elevated than that 
 derived from disinterested acts of beneficence, is truer and more 
 permanent far than any bloody Glory. I allude to Wolfe, the 
 conqueror of Quebec, who has attracted, perhaps, a larger share 
 of romantic interest than any of the gallant generals in English 
 history. We behold him, yet young in years, at the head of an 
 adventurous expedition, destined to prostrate the French empire 
 in Canada, — guiding and encouraging the firmness of his troops 
 in unaccustomed difficulties, — awakening their personal attach- 
 ment by his kindly suavity, and their ardor by his own example, — 
 climbing the precipitous steeps which conduct to the heights of the 
 strongest fortress on the American continent, — there, under its walls, 
 joining in deadly conflict, — wounded — stretched upon the field — 
 faint with the loss of blood — with sight already dimmed, — his life 
 ebbing fast, — cheered at last by the sudden cry that the enemy is 
 fleeing in all directions, — and then his dying breath mingling 
 with the shouts of victory. An eminent artist has portrayed this 
 scene of death in a much-admired picture. History and poetry 
 have dwelt upon it with peculiar fondness. Such is the Glory 
 
 1 See Longfellow's " Arsenal of Springfield," page 561. 
 - Paradise Regained, Book iii. v. 71. 
 
648 
 
 CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 of arms ! But there is, happily, preserved to us a tradition of 
 this day, which affords a gleam of a truer Glory. As the com- 
 mander floated down the currents of the St. Lawrence in his boat, 
 under cover of the night, in the enforced silence of a military ex- 
 pedition, to effect a landing at an opportune promontory, he was 
 heard to repeat to himself that poem of exquisite charms, — then 
 only recently given to mankind, now familiar as a household word 
 wherever the mother-tongue of Gray is spoken, — the " Elegy in 
 a Country Churchyard. " Strange and unaccustomed prelude to 
 the discord of battle ! And as the ambitious warrior finished the 
 recitation, he said to his companions, in a low but earnest tone, 
 that he " would rather be the author of that poem than take 
 Quebec." And surely he was right. The Glory of that victory 
 is already dying out, like a candle in its socket. The True Glory 
 of the poem still shines with star-bright, immortal beauty. 
 
 Fame and Glory. 
 
 PROGRESS AND REFORM. 
 
 Cultivate a just moderation. Learn to reconcile order with 
 change, stability with Progress. This is a wise conservatism; 
 this is a wise reform. Rightly understanding these terms, who 
 would not be a conservative? Who would not be a reformer? 
 A conservative of all that is good, — a reformer of all that is evil ; 
 a conservative of knowledge, — a reformer of ignorance ; a conser- 
 vative of truths and principles, whose seat is the bosom of God, — 
 a reformer of laws and institutions which are but the wicked or 
 imperfect work of man ; a conservative of that divine order which 
 is found only in movement, — a reformer of those, earthly wrongs 
 and abuses which spring from a violation of the great Law of 
 Human Progress. Blending these two characters in one, let us 
 seek to be, at the same time, Reforming Conservatives and Con- 
 servative Reformers. 
 
 And, finally, let a confidence in the Progress of our race be, 
 under God, our constant faith. Let the sentiment of loyalty, 
 earth-born, which once lavished itself on King or Emperor, give 
 place to that other sentiment, heaven-born, of devotion to Hu- 
 manity. Let Loyalty to one Man be exchanged for Love to Man. 
 And be it our privilege to extend these sacred influences through- 
 out the land. So shall we open to our country new fields of 
 peaceful victories, which shall not want the sympathies and gratu- 
 lations of the good citizen, or the praises of the just historian. 
 Go forth, then, my country, " conquering and to conquer," not by 
 brutish violence ; not by force of arms ; not, oh ! not on dishonest 
 fields of blood; but in the majesty of Peace, of Justice, of Free- 
 dom, by the irresistible might of Christian Institutions. 
 
 Phi Beta Kappa Address at Union College, 1848. 
 
CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 C49 
 
 JUDICIAL TRIBUNALS. 
 
 Let me here say that I hold judges, and especially the Supreme 
 Court of the country, in much respect; but I am too familiar with 
 the history of judicial proceedings to regard them with any super- 
 stitious reverence. Judges are but men, and in all ages have 
 shown a full share of human frailty. Alas ! alas ! the worst 
 crimes of history have been perpetrated under their sanction. 
 The blood of martyrs and of patriots, crying from the ground, 
 summons them to judgment. It was a judicial tribunal which 
 condemned Socrates to drink the fatal hemlock, and which pushed 
 the Saviour barefoot over the pavements of Jerusalem, bending 
 beneath his cross. It was a judicial tribunal which, against the 
 testimony and entreaties of her father, surrendered the fair Vir- 
 ginia as a slave ; which arrested the teachings of the great Apostle 
 to the Gentiles, and sent him in bonds from Judea to Rome j 
 which, in the name of the Old Religion, adjudged the saints and 
 fathers of the Christian church to death, in all its most dreadful 
 forms; and which afterwards, in the name of the New Religion, 
 enforced the tortures of the Inquisition, amidst the shrieks and 
 agonies of its victims, while it compelled Galileo to declare, in 
 solemn denial of the great truth he had disclosed, that the earth 
 did not move round the sun. It was a judicial tribunal which, in 
 France, during the long reign of her monarchs, lent itself to be 
 the instrument of every tyranny, as during the brief reign of 
 terror it did not hesitate to stand forth the un pitying accessary of 
 the unpitying guillotine. Ay, sir, it was a judicial tribunal in 
 England, surrounded by all the forms of law, which sanctioned 
 every despotic caprice of Henry the Eighth, from the unjust 
 divorce of his queen, to the beheading of Sir Thomas More ; 
 which lighted the fires of persecution that glowed at Oxford and 
 Smithfield, over the cinders of Latimer, Ridley, and John Rogers; 
 which, after elaborate argument, upheld the fatal tyranny of ship- 
 money against the patriot resistance of Hampden ; which, in de- 
 fiance of justice and humanit}^, sent Sidney and Russell to the 
 block ; which persistently enforced the laws of Conformity that 
 our Puritan Fathers persistently refused to obey ; and which 
 afterwards, with Jeffries on the bench, crimsoned the pages of 
 English history with massacre and murder — even with the blood 
 of innocent woman. Ay, sir, and it was a judicial tribunal in our 
 country, surrounded by all the forms of law, which hung witches 
 at Salem, — which affirmed the constitutionality of the Stamp Act, 
 while it admonished "jurors and the people" to obey, — and which 
 now, in our day, has lent its sanction to the unutterable atrocity 
 of the Fugitive Slave Bill. 
 
 Speech at Worcester, September, 1854. 
 53 
 
650 ANDREW T. PEABODY. 
 
 ANDREW P. PEABODY. 
 
 Rev. Andrew P. Peabody, D.D., was born in Beverly, Massachusetts, in 1811, 
 and was graduated at Harvard College in 1826. He studied theology at Cambridge 
 divinity-school, and after completing his studies was elected Tutor of Mathema- 
 tics in the college. In 1833, he became the pastor of the South Congregational 
 Church in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in which position he still remains. In 
 January, 1854, the editorship of the "North American Review" was tendered to 
 him, which he accepted, and the duties of which he has ever since discharged with 
 singular tact, judgment, and scholarship, fully sustaining the high reputation of 
 that time-honored journal. 
 
 Mr. Peabody's published volumes are, Lectures on Christian Doctrine, which 
 appeared in 1814, and has passed through numerous editions; and Sermons of 
 Consolation, which appeared in 1847. Besides these, he has edited many volumes 
 to which he has contributed a memoir or other prefix; and has published, or 
 rather permitted to be published, a large number of occasional sermons, addresses, 
 and lectures. His contributions to the " Christian Examiner" and the " North 
 American Review" have been very numerous for the last twenty-five years ; and 
 he has occasionally written for other periodicals. 
 
 THE MIRACLES AND WORK OF JESUS. 
 
 I have spoken of the gladness sent to so many homes and hearts 
 by the miracles of Jesus. Has he ceased to exert this benign 
 agency? Or have outward miracles, having discharged their 
 ministry, yielded place to still " greater works" ? Would you 
 answer this question, go with me to the dwelling of as happy a 
 family as you may find among a thousand. On the lips of the 
 parents is the law of love ; tendernes sand reverence are blended 
 in every look and tone of the children. An unkind word is never 
 heard, a morose countenance never seen there. The father daily 
 stands as priest at his own household altar, and his overflowing 
 gratitude hardly leaves room for supplication. On the Lord's 
 day they go up to the sanctuary together, and not one of them 
 retires when the table of redeeming love is spread. Their whole 
 lives adorn the doctrine of their Saviour; and their home is a 
 radiating place for pious example and holy influence. 
 
 But go back a few years, and what was that family ? The 
 father a self-made maniac, — the slave of brutal appetite. His 
 chief haunt was where they dig graves for men's souls; and 
 when he came to his own house, it was but to curse his family, 
 and to make his home a hell. The children were growing up in 
 ignorance, waywardness, and squalidness, promising only to add 
 to the mass of pauperism and crime. The mother alone trusted 
 
ANDREW P. PEABODY. 
 
 G51 
 
 in God; and her heart would long ago have broken, had she not 
 looked for a rest where the wicked cease from troubling. But the 
 Divine Redeemer visited that family. The mother's prayers were 
 at length heard. The father's heart was touched. The Lord 
 looked upon him, and he wept. His tears flowed from a repent- 
 ance not to be repented of. His Saviour's face shone in upon his 
 darkened and perverted soul, and left its image there. And then 
 father and mother together bore their children to the Redeemer 
 for his blessing, and, in united prayer and effort, consecrated them 
 to his altar and his kingdom. He has accepted the offering, and 
 set his seal on all their hearts. Nor is this a scene by itself. 
 Such are the blessings which Jesus has shed and is shedding 
 abroad in thousands of families all over Christendom. Such are 
 the fountains of compassion that still flow from Him whose love 
 we this morning commemorate. There this day meet in his 
 temple and surround his altar multitudes whom he has ransomed 
 from the lowest degradation and the foulest guilt, cleansed from 
 the most loathsome leprosy, and brought from the most God- 
 defying madness, to sit at his feet, clothed and in their right 
 mind. 
 
 With what portion of our well-being and happiness is not the 
 image of Jesus blended ? What is there that renders our life 
 here blessed, or that lights up the future with promise, which he 
 has not either bestowed, or made more precious and availing ? 
 And the more I meditate on all of blessing and of hope that is 
 given us upon earth, the more do I feel that human life is but an 
 extended commentary on our Saviour's words, — " I and the Father 
 are one m " that the Father and the Son work together in all that 
 gladdens this life, and in all that fits us for a higher and better 
 home j so that he who, by his own negligence or guilt, " hath not 
 the Son, hath not the Father." I feel that no department of the 
 Father's goodness is complete till rays from Tabor and from Cal- 
 vary have rested upon it j that no cup which the Father designs 
 for us is mingled as he would have it, till Jesus has poured into it 
 those waters of which he that drinketh shall thirst no more. 
 
 Sermons of Consolation. 
 
 CUVIER. 
 
 Cuvier has performed for the kingdoms of animated nature the 
 work which Newton wrought for the mechanism of the heavens. 
 His generalizations now seem final and complete. They bind 
 together all tribes of being in one vast and beautiful system, per- 
 vaded by analogies and equivalent provisions ; and reveal, in the 
 structure and adaptations of the animal economy, numberless 
 mysteries of divine wisdom which had been hidden from the 
 
652 
 
 ANDREW P. PEABODY. 
 
 foundation of the world. He reached these sublime results be- 
 cause his religious nature prompted him to look for unity and 
 harmony in the works of God, — to search everywhere for traces 
 of the all-pervading and all-perfect mind, — to seek in the humblest 
 zoophyte the expression of an idea of God, — the not unworthy 
 type of the Infinite Archetype. He wrought in glowing faith. 
 He served at the altar of science as a priest of the Most High. 
 Infidelity went from his presence rebuked and humbled. His 
 soul was kindled, his lips were touched ever more and more with 
 the fire of heaven, as, with waning strength and under the burden 
 of bereavement, he still drew bolder, fuller harmonies, unheard 
 before, from the lyre of universal nature. Says one who was pre- 
 sent at the lecture from which he went home to die, "In the 
 whole of this lecture there was an omnipresence of the Omni- 
 potent and Supreme Cause. The examination of the visible world 
 seemed to touch upon the invisible. The search into creation 
 invoked the presence of the Creator. It seemed as if the veil 
 were to be torn from before us, and science was about to reveal 
 eternal wisdom." 
 
 Phi Beta Kappa Oration, 1845. 
 THE HIGHER LAW. 
 
 In the whole political history of our own country, there has 
 been no sin so atrocious as the repudiation of a higher than 
 human law. It is stark atheism ; for, with the law, this position 
 virtually denies also the providence, of God, and makes men and 
 nations sole arbiters of their own fortunes. But " the Heavens 
 do rule." If there be institutions or measures inconsistent with 
 immutable rectitude, they are fostered only under the ban of a 
 righteous God ; they inwrap the germs of their own harvest of 
 shame, disorder, vice, and wretchedness; nay, their very pros- 
 perity is but the verdure and blossoming which shall mature the 
 apples of Sodom. Oh, how often have our legislators had reason 
 to recall those pregnant words of Jefferson, — sad indeed is it that 
 they should have become almost too trite for repetition, without 
 having worked their way into the national conscience, — " I tremble 
 for my country, when 1 consider that God is just" ! The nations 
 that have passed away, the decaying nations, the convulsed thrones, 
 the smouldering rebellion-fires, of the Old World, reveal the ele- 
 ments of national decline and ruin, and hold out baleful signals 
 over the career on which our republic is hurrying; assuring us, 
 by the experience of all climes and ages, that slavery, the unprin- 
 cipled lust of power and territory, official corruption and venality, 
 aggressive war, partisan legislation, are but " sowing the wind to 
 reap the whirlwind." 
 
ALFRED B. STREET. 
 
 Our statesmen of the " manifest-destiny" type seem to imagine 
 our country necessary to the designs of Providence. So thought 
 the Hebrews, and on far more plausible grounds, of their common- 
 wealth ; but, rather than fulfil to such degenerate descendants the 
 promise made to their great ancestor, " God is able," said the 
 divine Teacher, u of these stones to raise u§> children unto Abra- 
 ham." Our destiny must be evolved, not from the blending of 
 the world's noblest races in our ancestral stock ; not from a posi- 
 tion in which we hold the keys of the world's commerce, and can 
 say to the North, " Give up," and to the South, " Keep not 
 back;" not from our capacity to absorb and assimilate immigrant 
 millions. Destiny is but the concrete of character. God needs 
 no man or nation. He will bring in the reign of everlasting 
 righteousness j and, as a people, we must stand or fall as we 
 accept or spurn that reign. Brethren, scholars, patriots also, I 
 trust, — you whose generous nurture gives you large and enduring 
 influence, — seek for the country of your pride and love, above all 
 things else, her establishment on the eternal right as on the Rock 
 of Ages. Thus shall there be no spot on her fame, no limit to her 
 growth, no waning to her glory. 
 
 Oration at Brown University, August, 1858. 
 
 ALFRED B. STREET 
 
 Is the son of the late General R. S. Street, and was born in Poughkeepsie, Dut- 
 chess County, New York, on the ISth of December, 1811. "When he was quite 
 young, his father removed with his family to Monticello, Sullivan County, then 
 called " the wild country," but very fertile. Its magnificent scenery, deep 
 forests, clear streams, gorges of piled rocks and black shade, its mountains, and 
 its valleys, all tended to call out the faculties of the young poet ; and hence his 
 description of forest life and scenery are so true to nature. He studied law in 
 the office of his father, and, on his admission to the bar, removed to the city of 
 Albany, where he now resides. For a series of years he has held the office of 
 State Librarian, at which post he still continues. In 1817, a A'olume of his fugi- 
 tive poetry, of over three hundred pages, was published by Clark & Austin, and 
 it has passed through several editions. In the following year, his Metrical 
 Romance entitled Frontenac was published by Bentley, of London, and re- 
 published the next season by Scribner & Co., New York. 1 Of late years Mr. S. 
 has written but ver}' little. 
 
 1 Of this poem the "Britannia," a London periodical, says, "Mr. Street is 
 one of the writers of whom his country has reason to be proud. His originality 
 is no less striking than his talent. In dealing with the Romance of North Ame- 
 
 55* 
 
654 
 
 ALFRED B. STREET. 
 
 THE LOST HUNTER. 
 
 Numb'd by the piercing, freezing air, 
 
 And burden'd by his game, 
 The hunter, struggling with despair, 
 
 Dragg'd on his shivering frame ; 
 The rille he had shoulder'd late 
 "Was trail'd along, a weary weight; 
 
 His pouch was void of food ; 
 The hours were speeding in their flight, 
 And soon the long, keen, winter night 
 
 Would wrap the solitude. 
 
 Oft did he stoop a listening ear, 
 
 Sweep round an anxious eye, — 
 No bark or axe-blow could he hear, 
 
 No human trace descry. 
 His sinuous path, by blazes, wound 
 Among trunks group'd in myriads round ; 
 
 Through naked boughs, between 
 Whose tangled architecture, fraught 
 With many a shape grotesquely wrought, 
 
 The hemlock's spire was seen. 
 
 An antler'd dweller of the wild 
 
 Had met his eager gaze, 
 And far his wandering steps beguiled 
 
 Within an unknown maze ; 
 Stream, rock, and run- way he had cross' d, 
 Unheeding, till the marks were lost 
 
 By which he used to roam ; 
 And now deep swamp and wild ravine 
 And rugged mountain were between 
 
 The hunter and his home. 
 
 A dusky haze, which slow had crept 
 
 On high, now darken' d there, 
 And a few snow-flakes fluttering swept 
 
 Athwart the thick, gray air, 
 Faster and faster, till between 
 The trunks and boughs a mottled screen 
 
 Of glimmering motes was spread, 
 That tick'd against each object round 
 With gentle and continuous sound, 
 
 Like brook o'er pebbled bed. 
 
 ricau life at a time when the red man waged war with the European settlers, ho 
 has skilfully preserved that distinctive reality in ideas, habits, and actions cha- 
 racteristic of the Indian tribes, while he has constructed a poem of singular 
 power and beauty. In this respect Fronteuac is entirely different from ' Gertrude 
 of AVyoming,' which presents us only with the ideal portraiture. Mr. Street, has 
 collected all his materials from nature. They are stamped with that impress of 
 truth which is at once visible even to the inexperienced eye, and, like a great, 
 artist, he has exercised his imagination only in forming them into the most 
 ■attractive, picturescme, and beautiful combinations." 
 
ALFRED B. STREET. 
 
 The laurel tufts, that drooping hung 
 
 Close roll'd around their stems, 
 And the sear beech-leaves still that clung, 
 
 Were white with powdering gems. 
 But, hark ! afar a sullen moan 
 Swell'd out to louder, deeper tone, 
 
 As surging near it pass'd, 
 And, bursting with a roar, and shock 
 That made the groaning forest rock, 
 
 On rush'd the winter blast. 
 
 As o'er it whistled, shriek'd, and hiss'd, 
 
 Caught by its swooping wings, 
 The snow was whirl'd to eddying mist, 
 
 Barb'd, as it seem'd, with stings ; 
 And now 'twas swept with lightning flight 
 Above the loftiest hemlock's height, 
 
 Like drifting smoke, and now 
 It hid the air with shooting clouds, 
 And robed the trees with circling shrouds, 
 
 Then dash'd in heaps below. 
 
 Here, plunging in a billowy wreath, 
 
 There, clinging to a limb, 
 The suffering hunter gasp'd for breath, 
 
 Brain reel'd, and eye grew dim ; 
 As though to whelm him in despair, 
 Rapidly changed the blackening air 
 
 To murkiest gloom of night, 
 Till naught was seen around, below, 
 But falling flakes and mantled snow, 
 
 That gleam' d in ghastly white. 
 
 At every blast an icy dart 
 
 Seem'd through his nerves to fly, 
 The blood was freezing to his heart, — 
 
 Thought whisper'd he must die. 
 The thundering tempest echo'd death, 
 He felt it in his tighten'd bi-eath; 
 
 Spoil, rifle dropp'd, and slow 
 As the dread torpor crawling came 
 Along his staggering, stiffening frame, 
 
 He sunk upon the snow. 
 
 Reason forsook her shatter'd throne : — 
 
 He deem'd that summer-hours 
 Again around him brightly shone 
 
 In sunshine, leaves, and flowers ; 
 Again the fresh, green, forest-sod, 
 Rifle in hand, he lightly trod, — 
 
 He heard the deer's low bleat; 
 Or, couch'd within the shadowy nook, 
 He drank the crystal of the brook 
 
 That murmur'd at his feet. 
 
 It changed ; — his cabin roof o'erspread, 
 Rafter, and wall, and chair, 
 
656 
 
 ALFRED B. STREET. 
 
 Gleam'd in the crackling fire, that shed 
 
 Its warmth, and he was there ; 
 His wife had clasp'd his hand, and now 
 Her gentle kiss was on his brow, 
 
 His child was prattling by ; 
 The hound crouch'd, dozing, near the blaze, 
 And through the pane's frost-pictured haze 
 
 He saw the white drifts fly. 
 
 That pass'd ; — before his swimming sight 
 
 Does not a figure bound, 
 And a soft voice, with wild delight, 
 
 Proclaim the lost is found ? 
 No, hunter, no ! 'tis but the streak 
 Of whirling snow, — the tempest's shriek, — 
 
 No human aid is near ! 
 Never again that form will meet 
 Thy clasp'd embrace, — those accents sweet 
 
 Speak music to thine ear. 
 
 Morn broke ; — away the clouds were chased, 
 
 The sky was pure and bright, 
 And on its blue the branches traced 
 
 Their webs of glittering white. 
 Its ivory roof the hemlock stoop'd, 
 The pine its silvery tassel droop'd, 
 
 Down bent the burden'd wood, 
 And, scatter'd round, low points of green, 
 Peering above the snowy scene, 
 
 Told where the thickets stood. 
 
 In a deep hollow, drifted high, 
 
 A wave-like heap was thrown ; 
 Dazzlingly in the sunny sky 
 
 A diamond blaze it shone ; 
 The little snow-bird, chirping sweet, 
 Dotted it o'er with tripping feet ; 
 
 Unsullied, smooth, and fair 
 It seem'd, like other mounds, where trunk 
 And rock amid the wreaths were sunk, 
 
 But, oh ! — the dead was there. 
 
 Spring came with wakening breezes bland, 
 
 Soft suns, and melting rains, 
 And, touch'd by her Ithuriel wand, 
 
 Earth bursts its winter-chains. 
 In a deep nook, where moss and grass 
 And fern-leaves wove a verdant mass 
 
 Some scatter'd bones beside, 
 A mother, kneeling with her child, 
 Told by her tears and wailings wild, 
 
 That there the lost had died. 
 
FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD. 
 
 657 
 
 FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD, 1812—1850. 
 
 Frances Sargent Osgood was the daughter of Joseph Locke, a merchant of 
 Boston, and was born in that city about the year 1812. 1 Her early life was 
 passed principally in Hiugham, a beautiful village on the shores of Massa- 
 chusetts Bay ; and here she early displayed that poetical genius which has given 
 her a place among our best poets for delicate fancy, and ease and naturalness of 
 versification-. Her first printed productions appeared in Mrs. L. M. Child's "Juve- 
 nile Miscellany," when she was about seventeen years of age. Soon after this, 
 she wrote for the "Ladies' Magazine," edited by Mrs. Sarah J. Hale, under the 
 signature of " Florence." In 1835, she was married to Mr. Samuel S. Osgood, an 
 artist of distinction and of cultivated literary taste, who fully appreciated the 
 genius of his wife. Soon after their marriage, they went to London, where Mr. 
 Osgood received great encouragement in the exercise of his art, while his wife 
 published a small volume called The Casket of Fate, and also a collection of her 
 poems, under the title of A Wreath of Wild Flowers from New England, both of 
 which were much admired, and favorably noticed in some of the leading literary 
 journals. 
 
 In 1840, Mr. and Mrs. Osgood returned to the United States, and, after being 
 some time in Boston, took up their residence in New York. Here she wrote con- 
 tinually for the magazines, and edited " The Poetry of Flowers and the Flowers 
 of Poetry," and " The Floral Offering," two richly-illustrated souvenirs. But 
 her health began gradually to decline, and in the winter of 1847—48, she was so 
 much of an invalid as to be confined to the house. Her husband's health, also, 
 was feeble, and he was advised to seek a change of climate. The next year, as 
 his wife's health improved, Mr. Osgood sailed for California, with fine prospects 
 there in the line of his profession. He returned early in 1850, with his fortunes 
 as well as health improved, but just in time to be with his wife in the last few 
 weeks of her life; for, five days after, she breathed her last, on the 12th of May. 
 Her remains were removed to Boston, and laid beside those of her mother and 
 daughter, at Mount Auburn, on Wednesday of the same week. 2 
 
 new England's mountain-child. 
 
 Where foams the fall — a tameless storm — 
 
 Through Nature's wild and rich arcade, 
 Which forest-trees, entwining, form, 
 
 There trips the mountain-maid ! 
 
 1 Mrs. Anna Maria Wells, her half-sister, on her mother's side, was no mean 
 poetess ; and Mr. A. A. Locke, her brother, was a fine writer, both in prose and 
 verse, and a contributor for many years to some of the Boston journals. 
 
 2 Of the character of her poetry Edgar A. Poe thus writes : — " Mrs. Osgood has 
 a rich fancy, — even a rich imagination, — a scrupulous taste, a faultless style, and 
 an ear finely attuned to the delicacies of melody. In that vague and anomalous 
 something which we call grace for want of a more definite term, and which, per- 
 haps, in its supreme development, may be found to comprehend nearly all that is 
 genuine poetry, — in this magical quality — magical because at once so shadowy 
 and so irresistible, — Mrs. Osgood has assuredly no superior in America, if indeed 
 she has any ecpaal under the sun." 
 
658 
 
 FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD. 
 
 She hinds not her luxuriant hair 
 With dazzling gem or costly plume, 
 
 But gayly wreathes a rose-bud there, 
 To match her maiden-bloom. 
 
 She clasps no golden zone of pride 
 Her fair and simple robe around ; 
 
 By flowing ribbon, lightly tied, 
 Its graceful folds are bound. 
 
 And thus attired, — a sportive thing, 
 
 Pure, loving, guileless, bright, and wild, — 
 
 Proud Fashion ! match me, in your ring, 
 New England's mountain-child ! 
 
 She scorns to sell her rich, warm heart 
 For paltry gold, or haughty rank, — 
 
 But gives her love, untaught by art, 
 Confiding, free, and frank ! 
 
 And, once bestow'd, no fortune-change 
 That high and generous faith can alter ; 
 
 Through grief and pain — too pure to range — 
 She will not fly or falter. 
 
 Her foot will bound as light and free 
 
 In lowly hut, as palace-hall ; 
 Her sunny smile as warm will be, — 
 
 For Love to her is all ! 
 
 Hast seen where in our woodland-gloom 
 The rich magnolia proudly smiled ? — ■ 
 
 So brightly doth she bud and bloom, 
 New England's mountain-child ! 
 
 a mother's prayer in illness. 
 
 Yes, take them first, my Father ! Let my doves 
 Fold their white wings in heaven, safe on thy breast, 
 Ere I am calFd away : I dare not leave 
 
 Their young hearts here, their innocent, thoughtless hearts ! 
 Ah, how the shadowy train of future ills 
 Comes sweeping down life's vista as I gaze ! 
 
 My May ! my careless, ardent-temper'd May, 
 My frank and frolic child, in whose blue eyes 
 Wild joy and passionate woe alternate rise; 
 Whose cheek the morning in her soul illumes; 
 Whose little, loving heart a word, a glance, 
 Can sway to grief or glee; who leaves her play, 
 And puts up her sweet mouth and dimpled arms 
 Each moment for a kiss, and softly asks, 
 With her clear, flutelike voice, ''Do you love me?" 
 Ah, let me stay ! ah, let me still be by, 
 To answer her and meet her warm caress ! 
 
FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD. 
 
 For, I away, how oft in this rough world 
 
 That earnest question will be ask'cl in vain ! 
 
 How oft that eager, passionate, petted heart 
 
 Will shrink abash'd and chill'd, to learn at length 
 
 The hateful, withering lesson of distrust ! 
 
 Ah ! let her ne>tle still upon this breast, 
 
 In which each shade that dims her darling face 
 
 Is felt and answer d, as the lake reflects 
 
 The clouds that cross yon smiling heaven ! And thou, 
 
 My modest Ellen. — tender, thoughtful, true; 
 
 Thy soul attuned to all sweet harmonies: 
 
 My pure, proud, noble Ellen ! with thy gifts 
 
 Of genius, grace, and loveliness, half hidden 
 
 'Neath the soft veil of innate modesty, — 
 
 How will the world's wild discord reach thy heart 
 
 To startle and appall ! Thy generous scorn 
 
 Of all things base and mean, — thy quick, keen taste, 
 
 Dainty and delicate, — thy instinctive fear 
 
 Of those unworthy of a soul so pure, — 
 
 Thy rare, unchildlike dignity of mien, 
 
 All — they will all bring pain to thee, my child ! 
 
 And oh, if even their grace and goodness meet 
 
 Cold looks and careless greetings, how will all 
 
 The latent evil yet undisciplined 
 
 In their young, timid souls, forgiveness find ? 
 
 Forgiveness, and forbearance, and soft eludings, 
 
 Which I, their mother, learn'd of Love to give! 
 
 Ah, let me stay ? — albeit my heart is weary, 
 
 Weary and worn, tired of its own sad beat, 
 
 That finds no echo in this busy world, 
 
 Which cannot pause to answer, — tired alike 
 
 Of joy and sorrow, of the day and night, 
 
 Ah, take them first, my Father, and then me ! 
 
 And for their sakes, for their sweet sakes, my Father, 
 
 Let me find rest beside them, at thy feet ! 
 
 LABORARE EST ORARE. 
 
 Pause not to dream of the fut ure before us : 
 Pause not to weep the wild cares that come o'er us ; 
 Hark, how Creation's deep, musical chorus, 
 
 Unintermitting, goes up into heaven! 
 Never the ocean-wave falters in flowing ; 
 Never the little seed stops in its growing; 
 More and more richly the Iloseheart keeps glowing, 
 
 Till from its nourishing stem it is riven. 
 
 " Labor is worship !" — the robin is singing ; 
 "Labor is worship!" — the wild bee is ringing: 
 Listen ! that eloquent whisper, upspringing. 
 
 Speaks to thy soul from out nature's great heart. 
 From the dark cloud flows the life-giving shower; 
 From the rough sod blows the soft-breathing flower; 
 From the small insect, the rich coral bower; 
 
 Only man, in the plan, shrinks from his part. 
 
660 
 
 WILLIAM II. BURLEIGH. 
 
 Labor is life ! — 'Tis the still water faileth ; 
 
 Idleness ever despaireth, bewaileth ; 
 
 Keep the watch wound, for the dark rust assaileth ! 
 
 Flowers droop and die in the stillness of noon. 
 Labor is glory ! — the flying cloud lightens ; 
 Only the waving wing changes and brightens ; 
 Idle hearts only the dark future frightens: 
 
 Play the sweet keys, wouldst thou keep them in tune ! 
 
 Labor is rest, — from the sorrows that greet us ; 
 Rest from all petty vexations that meet us, 
 Rest from sin-promptings that ever entreat us, 
 
 Rest from world-sirens that lure us to ill. 
 Work, — and pure slumbers shall wait on thy pillow ; 
 Work, — thou shalt ride over Care's coming billow ; 
 Lie not down wearied 'neath AVoe's weeping-willow ! 
 
 Work with a stout heart and resolute will! 
 
 Labor is health, — lo ! the husbandman reaping, 
 How through his veins goes the life-current leaping ! 
 How his strong arm in his stalwart pride sweeping, 
 
 True as a sunbeam the swift sickle guides. 
 Labor is wealth, — in the sea the pearl groweth ; 
 Rich the queen's robe from the frail cocoon floweth ; 
 From the fine acorn the strong forest bloweth ; 
 
 Temple and statue the marble block hides. 
 
 Droop not, though shame, sin, and anguish are round thee! 
 Bravely fling off the cold chain that hath bound thee ! 
 Look to yon pure heaven smiling beyond thee ! 
 
 Rest not content in thy darkness, — a clod ! 
 Work — for some good, be it ever so slowly ; 
 Cherish some flower, be it ever so lowly : 
 Labor ! — all labor is noble and holy : 
 
 Let thy great deeds be thy prayer to thy God. 
 
 WILLIAM II. BURLEIGH. 
 
 William Hexry Burleigh was born in Woodstock, Connecticut, on the 2d of 
 February, 1812. In his infancy his parents removed to Plainfield, where his 
 father was principal of an academy until from loss of sight he was compelled to 
 resign his charge. He then retired to a farm, so that the son passed the prin- 
 cipal years of his boyhood in agricultural lahors, with no other means of educa- 
 tion than those which a district school afforded, till he reached his seventeenth 
 year, when he was apprenticed to the printing-business. Since that period, his 
 life has been singularly varied, his time having been divided between the duties 
 of a printer and editor, and a public lecturer. He conducted at one time " The 
 Literary Journal," published at Schenectady. Afterwards, for more than two 
 years, he edited "The Christian Witness," at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and re- 
 
WILLIAM H. BURLEIGH. 
 
 661 
 
 Bigned it to take charge of "The Washington Banner/' published at Alleghany, 
 opposite to Pittsburg. A volume of his poems appeared in Philadelphia in 1840. 
 
 THE TIMES. 
 
 Inaction now is crime. The old earth reels 
 Inebriate with guilt ; and Vice, grown bold, 
 Laughs Innocence to scorn. The thirst for gold 
 Hath made men demons, till the heart that feels 
 The impulse of impartial love, nor kneels 
 In worship foul to Mammon, is contemnd. 
 He who hath kept his purer faith, and stemm'd 
 Corruption's tide, and from the ruffian heels 
 Of impious tramplers rescued perilFd right, 
 Is call'd fanatic, and with scoffs and jeers 
 Maliciously assail'd. The poor man's tears 
 Are unregarded; the oppressor's might 
 
 Revered as law : and he whose righteous way 
 Departs from evil, makes himself a prey. 
 
 THE PILGRIM FATHERS. 
 
 Bold men were they, and true, that pilgrim band, 
 
 Who plough' d with venturous prow the stormy sea, 
 
 Seeking a home for hunted Liberty 
 Amid the ancient forests of a land 
 Wild, gloomy, vast, magnificently grand ! 
 
 Friends, country, hallow'd homes they left, to ue 
 Pilgrims for Christ's sake, to a foreign strand, — 
 
 Beset by peril, worn with toil, yet free! 
 Tireless in zeal, devotion, labor, hope ; 
 
 Constant in faith ; in justice how severe ! 
 
 Though fools deride and bigot-skeptics sneer, 
 Praise tq their names ! If call'd like them to cope, 
 
 In evil times, with dark and evil powers, 
 
 Oh, be their faith, their zeal, their courage, ours ! 
 
 JUNE. 
 
 June, with its roses, — June ! 
 The gladdest month of our capricious year, 
 With its thick foliage and its sunlight clear ; 
 
 And with the drowsy tune 
 Of the bright leaping waters, as they pass 
 Laughingly on amid the springing grass ! 
 
 Earth, at her joyous coming, 
 Smiles as she puts her gayest mantle on ; 
 And Nature greets her with a benison ; 
 
 56 
 
WILLIAM H. BURLEIGH. 
 
 While myriad voices, humming 
 Their welcome song, breathe dreamy music round 
 Till seems the air an element of sound. 
 
 The overarching sky 
 Weareth a softer tint, a lovelier blue, 
 As if the light of heaven were melting through 
 
 Its sapphire home on high ; 
 Hiding the sunshine in their vapory breast, 
 The clouds float on like spirits to their rest. 
 
 A deeper melody, 
 Pour'd by the birds, as o'er their callow young 
 Watchful they hover, to the breeze is flung — 
 
 Gladsome, yet not of glee — 
 Music heart-born, like that which mothers sing 
 Above their cradled infants slumbering. 
 
 On the warm hill-side, where 
 The sunlight, lingers latest, through the grass 
 Peepeth the luscious strawberry! As they pass, 
 
 Young children gambol there, 
 Crushing the gather' d fruit in playful mood, 
 And staining their bright faces with its blood. 
 
 A deeper blush is given 
 To the half-ripen'd cherry, as the sun 
 Day after day pours warmth the trees upon, 
 
 Till the rich pulp is riven ; 
 The truant schoolboy looks with longing eyes, 
 And perils limb and neck to win the prize. 
 
 The farmer, in his field, 
 Draws the rich mould around the tender maize ; 
 While hope, bright-pinion'd, points to coming days, 
 
 When all his toil shall yield 
 An ample harvest, and around his hearth' 
 There shall be laughing eyes and tones of mirth. 
 
 Poised on his rainbow-wing, 
 The butterfly, whose life is but an hour, 
 Hovers coquettishly from flower to flower, 
 
 A gay and happy thing; 
 Born for the sunshine and the summer-day, 
 Soon passing, like the beautiful, away ! 
 
 These are thy pictures, June ! 
 Brightest of summer-months, — thou month of flowers 
 First-born of beauty, whose swift-footed hours 
 
 Dance to the merry tune 
 Of birds, and waters, and the pleasant shout 
 Of childhood on the sunny hills peal'd out. 
 
 I feel it were not wrong 
 To deem thou art a type of heaven's clime, 
 Only that there the clouds and storms of time 
 
 Sweep not the sky along ; 
 The flowers — air — beauty — music — all are thine, 
 But brighter — purer — lovelier — more divine ! 
 
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 
 
 663 
 
 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 
 
 Harriet Elizabeth Beecher, daughter of Rev. Lyman Beecber, D.D., was 
 born at Litchfield, Connecticut, on the 14th of June, 1S12. She was educated at 
 her sister Catharine's school in Hartford, and in the autumn of 1832 removed 
 with her father to Cincinnati, Ohio. Her first publication was the story of 
 Uncle Lot, printed with a different title in Judge Hall's ••Monthly Magazine,'' at 
 Cincinnati, in 1833; in which year also she was married to Rev. Calvin E. 
 Stowe, at that time Professor of Languages and Biblical Literature in Lane 
 Theological Seminary. During her residence in Cincinnati, she became deeply 
 interested in the question of slavery, from seeing many fugitives from the Slave 
 States and hearing from them their tales of suffering. From the date of her 
 first publication, she became a frequent and popular writer in the various periodi- 
 cals in Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Xew York, and Boston. In 1819, a collection 
 of her pieces was published by the Harpers, entitled The Mag Floiccr, which was 
 much enlarged in a new edition published in 1855, — a collection of tales and 
 essays hardly equalled for ease and naturalness of description, touching narra- 
 tive, and elevating moral tone. 
 
 In 1850, Professor Stowe was called to Brunswick College, Maine, and removed 
 thither with his family. The passage of the Fugitive Slave Bill in that year 
 excited Mrs. Stowe to write Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life among the Loichj, which 
 she wrote with almost miraculous rapidity, under a constant pressure of school 
 and family cares, and frail health, — enough of themselves to tax the most vigor- 
 ous intellect to its utmost. This was published in numbers every week, in the 
 " National Era," at Washington ; and in 1S52 it appeared in book-form from tho 
 press of John P. Jewett & Co., of Boston. Its success was wonderful, — such as 
 no other book has ever met with. 1 And richly did it deserve it; for, independent 
 of its being one of the most powerful blows ever aimed at slavery, as well as 
 of its high and pure tone of Christian morality, and its truthfulness through- 
 out to God and humanity, it exhibits such a knowledge of human nature, such 
 powers of description, such heart-stirring pathos, and such richness and beauty 
 of thought and language, as to make it the most remarkable book published in 
 our country. 
 
 In 1S52, Professor Stowe was called to the chair of Biblical Literature in An- 
 
 1 "By the end of November, 1852, 150,000 copies had been sold in America: 
 and in September of that year the London publishers furnished to one house 
 10,000 copies per day for about four weeks. We cannot follow it beyond 1852, 
 but at that time more than a million of copies had been sold in England, — pro- 
 bably ten times as many as have been sold of any other work, except the Bible 
 and Prayer-Book. In France, Uncle Tom still covers the shop-windows of the 
 Boulevards, and one publisher alone, Eustace Basba, has sent out five differ- 
 ent editions in different forms. Before the end of 1S52 it had been translated 
 into Italian. Spanish, Danish, Swedish, Dutch, Flemish, German, Polish, and 
 Magyar. There are two different Dutch translations, and twelve different Ger- 
 man ones; and the Italian translation enjoys the honor of the Pope's prohibi- 
 tion. It has been dramatized in twenty different forms, and acted in every 
 capital in Europe and in the free States of America." — Edinburgh Review, 
 April, 1855. 
 
664 
 
 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 
 
 dover Theological Seminary. As Uncle Tom had been grossly assailed as giving 
 a too dark and a false view of slavery, Mrs. Stowe published the Key to Uncle 
 Tom, consisting of a collection of facts drawn chiefly from Southern authorities, 
 which more than verified all that she had before depicted. Soon after the publi- 
 cation of the Key, Mrs. Stowe, with her husband and her brother, the Rev. 
 Charles Beecher, went to Europe for her health, where she was received every- 
 where with the warmest enthusiasm. On her return, she published Sunny Memo- 
 ries of Foreign Lands, being her observations and reflections on what she saw 
 abroad; and in 1855, Bred, or a Tale of the Dismal Swamp. Though not equal 
 to Uncle Tom's Cabin in the unity of the plot, in the simplicity and naturalness 
 of the story, in deep pathos, or in the absorbing interest it excites in the several 
 characters, it contains, nevertheless, many passages of powerful and beautiful 
 writing, and is in advance of its great prototype in the withering scorn and 
 indignant sarcasm with which it holds up before the world that sham religion 
 that puts " sacrifice" before " mercy" 1 and substitutes mere church-going and 
 outward observances for practical righteousness. 
 
 In the "Atlantic Monthly" for December, 1858, Mrs. Stowe begins a new story, 
 entitled The Minister's Wooing, which has been received with universal favor, and 
 promises to be second only to Uncle Tom, — and that is praise enough. 
 
 EVA'S DEATH. 
 
 Eva, after this, declined rapidly : there was no more any doubt 
 of the event; the fondest hope could not be blinded. Her beau- 
 tiful room was avowedly a sick-room; and Miss Ophelia day and 
 night performed the duties of a nurse, and never did her friends 
 appreciate her value more than in that capacity. With so well- 
 trained a hand and eye, such perfect adroitness and practice in 
 every art which could promote neatness and comfort and keep 
 out of sight every disagreeable incident of sickness, — with such a 
 perfect sense of time, such a clear, untroubled head, such exact 
 accuracy in remembering every prescription and direction of the 
 doctors, — she was every thing to St. Clare. They who had 
 shrugged their shoulders at the little peculiarities and setn esses — 
 so unlike the careless freedom of Southern manners — acknow- 
 ledged that now she was the exact person that was wanted. 
 
 Uncle Tom was much in Eva's room. The child suffered 
 much from nervous restlessness, and it was a relief to her to be 
 carried ; and it was Tom's greatest delight to carry her little 
 frail form in his arms, resting on a pillow, now up and down 
 her room, now out into the veranda; and when the fresh sea- 
 breezes blew from the lake, — and the child felt freshest in the 
 morning, — he would sometimes walk with her under the orange- 
 
 1 Matthew xii. 7. 
 
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 
 
 665 
 
 trees in the garden, or, sitting clown in some of their old seats, 
 sing to her their favorite old hymns. 
 
 Her father often did the same thing; but his frame was slighter, 
 and when he was weary, Eva would say to him, — 
 
 " Oh, papa, let Tom take me. Poor fellow! it pleases him; 
 and you know it's all he can do now, and he wants to do some- 
 thing I" 
 
 " So do I, Eva !" said her father. 
 
 " Well, papa, you can do every thing, and are every thing to 
 me. You read to me, — you sit up nights ; and Tom has only 
 this one thing, and his singing y and I know, too, he does it easier 
 than you can. He carries me so strong !" 
 
 The desire to do something was not confined to Tom. Every 
 servant in the establishment showed the same feeling, and, in 
 their way, did what they could. But the friend who knew most 
 of Eva's own imaginings and foreshadowings was her faithful 
 bearer, Tom. To him she said what she would not disturb her 
 father by saying. To him she imparted those mysterious intima- 
 tions which the soul feels as the cords begin to unbind ere it 
 leaves its clay forever. 
 
 Tom, at last, would not sleep in his room, but lay all night in 
 the outer veranda, ready to rouse at every call. 
 
 " Uncle Tom, what alive have you taken to sleeping anywhere 
 and everywhere, like a dog, for ?" said Miss Ophelia. " I thought 
 you was one of the orderly sort, that liked to lie in bed in a 
 Christian way." 
 
 " I do, Miss Feely," said Tom, mysteriously. " I do ; but 
 
 now " 
 
 "Well, what now?" 
 
 " We mustn't speak loud ; Mas'r St. Clare won't hear on't ; 
 but, Miss Feely, you know there must be somebody watchin' for 
 the bridegroom." 
 
 " What do you mean, Tom ?" 
 
 " You know it says in Scripture, ' At midnight there was a 
 great cry made. Behold, the bridegroom cometh/ That's what 
 I'm spectin' now, every night, Miss Feely ) and I couldn't sleep 
 out o' hearin', no ways." 
 
 " Why, Uncle Tom, what makes you think so ?" 
 
 " Miss Eva she talks to me. The Lord, He sends his messen- 
 ger in the soul. I must be thar, Miss Feely j for when that 
 ar blessed child goes into the kingdom, they'll open the door so 
 wide, we'll all get a look in at the glory, Miss Feely." 
 
 " Uncle Tom, did Miss Eva say she felt more unwell than 
 usual, to-night V 
 
 " No ; but she telled me this morning she was coming nearer, 
 — thar's them that tells it to the child, Miss Feely. It's the 
 
666 
 
 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 
 
 angels, — ' it's the trumpet-sound afore the break o' day/ " said 
 Tom, quoting from a favorite hymn. 
 
 This dialogue passed between Miss Ophelia and Tom, between 
 ten and eleven, one evening, after her arrangements had all 
 been made for the night, when, on going to bolt her outer door, 
 she found Tom stretched along by it, in the outer veranda. 
 
 She was not nervous or impressible ; but the solemn, heartfelt 
 manner struck her. Eva had been unusually bright and cheerful 
 that afternoon, and had sat raised in her bed, and looked over all 
 her little trinkets and precious things, and designated the friends 
 to whom she would have them given • and her manner was more 
 animated, and her voice more natural, than they had known it for 
 weeks. Her father had been in, in the evening, and had said 
 that Eva appeared more like her former self than ever she 
 had done since her sickness ; and when he kissed her for 
 the night, he said to Miss Ophelia, " Cousin, we may keep 
 her with us, after all : she is certainly better and he had 
 retired with a lighter heart in his bosom than he had had there 
 for weeks. 
 
 But at midnight, — strange, mystic hour! — when the veil 
 between the frail present and the eternal future grows thin, — 
 then came the messenger ! 
 
 There was a sound in that chamber, first of one who stepped 
 quickly. It was 3Iiss Ophelia, who had resolved to sit up all 
 night with her little charge, and who at the turn of the night 
 had discerned what experienced nurses significantly call "a 
 change." The outer door was quickly opened, and Tom, who was 
 watching outside, was on the alert in a moment. 
 
 " Go for the doctor, Tom ! lose not a moment," said Miss 
 Ophelia; and, stepping across the room, she rapped at St. Clare's 
 door. 
 
 " Cousin," she said, " I wish you would come." 
 
 Those words fell on his heart like clods upon a coffin. Why did 
 they ? He was up and in the room in an instant, and bending 
 over Eva, who still slept. 
 
 What was it he saw that made his heart stand still ? Why was 
 no word spoken between the two ? Thou canst say, who hast 
 seen that same expression on the face dearest to thee, — that look, 
 indescribable, hopeless, unmistakable, that says to thee that thy 
 beloved is no longer thine. 
 
 On the face of the child, however, there was no ghastly im- 
 print, — only a high and almost sublime expression, — the over- 
 shadowing presence of spiritual natures, the dawning of immortal 
 life in that childish soul. 
 
 They stood there so still, gazing upon her, that even the tick- 
 ing of the watch seemed too loud. In a few moments Tom 
 
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 
 
 667 
 
 returned, with the doctor. He entered, gave one look, and stood 
 silent as the rest. 
 
 " When did this change take place V said he, in a low whisper, 
 to Miss Ophelia. 
 
 " About the turn of the night," was the reply. 
 
 Marie, roused by the entrance of the doctor, appeared, hur- 
 riedly, from the next room. 
 
 " Augustine ! Cousin ! — Oh ! — what !" she hurriedly began. 
 
 " Hush !" said St. Clare, hoarsely; "she is dying !" 
 
 Mammy heard the words, and flew to awaken the servants. The 
 house was soon roused, — lights were seen, footsteps heard, anxious 
 faces thronged the veranda and looked tearfully through the glass 
 doors ; but St. Clare heard and said nothing, — he saw only that 
 look on the face of the little sleeper. 
 
 " Oh, if she would only wake, and speak once more I" he 
 said; and, stooping over her, he spoke in her ear, — "Eva, 
 darling !" 
 
 The large blue eyes unclosed, — a smile passed over her face ; 
 she tried to raise her head, and to speak. 
 " Do you know me, Eva V 
 
 " Dear papa," said the child, with a last effort, throwing her 
 arms about his neck. In a moment they dropped again ; and as 
 St. Clare raised his head, he saw a spasm of mortal agony pass 
 over the face : she struggled for breath, and threw up her little 
 hands. 
 
 " God, this is dreadful !" he said, turning away in agony, 
 and wringing Tom's hand, scarce conscious what he was doing. 
 " Oh, Tom, my boy, it is killing me I" 
 
 Tom had his master's hands between his own, and, with tears 
 streaming down his dark cheeks, looked up for help where he 
 had always been used to look. 
 
 " Pray that this may be cut short !" said St. Clare : " this 
 wrings my heart I" 
 
 " Oh, bless the Lord ! it's over, — it's over, dear master !" said 
 Tom. " Look at her." 
 
 The child lay panting on her pillows, as one exhausted, — the 
 large clear eyes rolled up and fixed. Ah, what said those eyes, 
 that spoke so much of heaven ? Earth was past, and earthly 
 pain ; but so solemn, so mysterious, was the triumphant bright- 
 ness of that face, that it checked even the sobs of sorrow. They 
 pressed around her, in breathless stillness. 
 
 " Eva !" said St. Clare, gently. 
 
 She did not hear. 
 
 " Oh, Eva, tell us what you see ! What is it ?" said her 
 father. 
 
 A bright, a glorious smile passed over her face, and she said, 
 
668 
 
 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 
 
 brokenly, " Oh! love — joy — peace!" gave one sigh, and passed 
 from death unto life ! 
 
 " Farewell, beloved child ! the bright, eternal doors have closed 
 after thee ; we shall see thy sweet face no more. Oh, woe for 
 them who watched thy entrance into heaven, when they shall 
 wake and find only the cold gray sky of daily life, and thou gone 
 forever I" 1 
 
 HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS " OF THE MAMMON OF UNRIGHT- 
 EOUSNESS." 2 
 
 " Papa," said a little boy, " what does this verse mean ? It's 
 in my Sunday-school lesson : — ' Make to yourselves friends of the 
 mammon of unrighteousness, that, when ye fail, they may receive 
 you into everlasting habitations' " 
 
 " You ought to have asked your teacher, my son." 
 
 " But he said he didn't know exactly what it meant. He 
 wanted me to look this week and see if I could find out." 
 
 Mr. H.'s standing resource in all exegetical difficulties was Dr. 
 Scott's Family Bible. Therefore he now got up, and, putting on 
 his spectacles, walked to the glass bookcase and took down a 
 volume of that worthy commentator, and, opening it, read aloud 
 the whole exposition of the passage, together with the practical 
 reflections upon it; and by the time he had done, he found his 
 } r oung auditor fast asleep in his chair. 
 
 " Mother," said he, " this child plays too hard. He can't keep 
 his eyes open evenings. It's time he was in bed." 
 
 " I wasn't asleep, pa," said Master Henry, starting up with that 
 air of injured innocence with which gentlemen of his age gene- 
 rally treat an imputation of this kind. 
 
 1 The following beautiful and touchi 
 Whittier : — 
 
 Dry the tears for holy Eva, 
 With the blessed angels leave her ; 
 Of the form so soft and fair, 
 Give to earth the tender care. 
 
 For the golden locks of Eva 
 Let the sunny South-land give her 
 Flowery pillow of repose — 
 Orange-blooin and budding rose. 
 
 In the better home of Eva 
 Let the shining ones receive her, 
 With the welcome-voiced psalm, 
 Harp of gold, and waving palm ! 
 
 All is light and perfce with Eva; 
 There the darkness cometh never; 
 
 2 This most beautiful and satisfactory 
 mentators have written upon the passage 
 
 g verses are from the pen of our gifted 
 
 Tears are wiped, and fetters fall, 
 And the Lord is all in all. 
 
 Weep no more for happy Eva, 
 Wrong and sin no more shall grieve her; 
 Care and pain and weariness 
 Lost in love so measureless. 
 
 Gentle Eva, loving Eva, 
 Child confessor, true believer, 
 Listener at the Master's knee, 
 " Suffer such to come to me." 
 
 Oh for faith like thiue, sweet Eva, 
 Lighting all the solemn river, 
 And the blessings of the poor 
 Wafting to the heavenly shore ! 
 
 exposition is worth all that the corn- 
 since the days of Calvin. 
 
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 
 
 669 
 
 " Then can you tell me now what the passage means that I have 
 been reading to you V* 
 
 " There's so much of it," said Henry, hopelessly, " I wish you'd 
 just tell me in short order, father." 
 
 " Oh, read it for yourself," said Mr. H., as he pushed the book 
 towards the boy ; for it was to be confessed that he perceived at 
 this moment that he had not himself received any particularly 
 luminous impression, though of course he thought it was owing to 
 his own want of comprehension. 
 
 Mr. H. leaned back in his rocking-chair, and on his own private 
 account began to speculate a little as to what he really should 
 think the verse might mean, supposing he were at all competent 
 to decide upon it. " { Make to yourselves friends of the mammon 
 of unrighteousness/ " says he : " that's money, very clearly. How 
 am I to make friends with it or of it? Receive me into everlast- 
 ing habitations : that's a singular kind of expression. I wonder 
 what it means. Dr. Scott makes some very good remarks about 
 it; but somehow I'm not exactly clear." It must be remarked 
 that this was not an uncommon result of Mr. H.'s critical investi- 
 gations in this quarter. 
 
 Well, thoughts will wander; and as he lay with his head on 
 the back of his rocking-chair and his eyes fixed on the flickering 
 blaze of the coal, visions of his wet tramp in the city, and of the 
 lonely garret he had been visiting, and of the poor woman with 
 the pale, discouraged face, to whom he had carried warmth and 
 comfort, all blended themselves together. He felt, too, a little 
 indefinite creeping chill, and some uneasy sensations in his head 
 like a commencing cold j for he was not a strong man, and it is 
 probable his long, wet walk was likely to cause him some incon- 
 venience in this way. At last he was fast asleep, nodding in 
 his chair. 
 
 He dreamed that he was very sick in bed, that the doctor came 
 and went, and that he grew sicker and sicker. He was going to 
 die. He saw his wife sitting weeping by his pillow, — his chil- 
 dren standing by with pale and frightened faces ; all things in his 
 room began to swim, and waver, and fade j and voices that called 
 his name, and sobs and lamentations that rose around him, seemed 
 far off and distant in his ear. " eternity, eternity ! I am 
 going, — I am going," he thought; and in that hour, strange to 
 tell, not one of all his good deeds seemed good enough to lean 
 on, — all bore some taint or tinge, to his purified eye, of mortal 
 selfishness, and seemed unholy before the All Pure. " I am 
 going," he thought; "there is no time to stay, no time to alter, 
 to balance accounts ; and I know not what I am, but I know, 
 Jesus, what thou art. I have trusted in thee, and shall never 
 
670 
 
 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 
 
 be confounded." And with that last breath of prayer earth 
 was past. 
 
 A soft and solemn breathing, as of music, awakened him. As 
 an infant child not yet fully awake hears the holy warblings of his 
 mother's hymn, and smiles half conscious, so the heaven-born be- 
 came aware of sweet voices and loving faces around him ere yet 
 he fully woke to the new immortal life. 
 
 " Ah, he has come at last ! How long we have waited for 
 him ! Here he is among us. Now forever welcome ! welcome !" 
 said the voices. 
 
 Who shall speak the joy of that latest birth, — the birth from 
 death to life ! — the sweet, calm, inbreathing consciousness of 
 purity and rest, — the certainty that all sin, all weakness and 
 error, are at last gone forever, — the deep, immortal rapture of 
 repose, — felt to be but begun, — never to end ! 
 
 So the eyes of the heaven-born opened on the new heaven and 
 the new earth, and wondered at the crowd of loving faces that 
 thronged about him. Fair, godlike forms of beauty, such as 
 earth never knew, pressed round him with blessings, thanks, and 
 welcome. 
 
 The man spoke not, but he wondered in his heart who they 
 were, and whence it came that they knew him ; and as soon as 
 the inquiry formed itself in his soul, it was read at once by his 
 heavenly friends. " I," said one bright spirit, " was a poor boy 
 whom you found in the streets : you sought me out, you sent me 
 to school, you watched over me, and led me to the house of God ; 
 and now here I am." " And we," said other voices, " are other 
 neglected children whom you redeemed : we also thank you." 
 " And I," said another, '-was a lost, helpless girl : sold to sin and 
 shame, nobody thought I could be saved ; everybody passed me by 
 till you came. You built a home, a refuge for such poor wretches 
 as I, and there I and many like me heard of Jesus; and here we 
 are." " And I," said another, " was once a clerk in your store. 
 I came to the city innocent, but I was betrayed by the tempter. 
 I forgot my mother and my mother's God. I went to the gaming- 
 table and the theatre, and at last I robbed your drawer. You 
 might have justly cast me off ; but you bore with me, you watched 
 over me, you saved me. I am here through you this day." 
 " And I," said another, u was a poor slave-girl, — doomed to be 
 sold on the auction-block to a life of infamy, and the ruin of soul 
 and body. Had you not been willing to give so largely for my 
 ransom, no one had thought to buy me. You stimulated others 
 to give, and I was redeemed. 1 lived a Christian mother to 
 bring my children up for Christ, — they are all here with me to 
 bless you this day, and their children on earth, and their chil- 
 dren's children, are growing up to bless you." " And I," said 
 
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 
 
 671 
 
 another, " was an unbeliever. In the pride of my intellect, I 
 thought I could demonstrate the absurdity of Christianity. I 
 thought I could answer the argument from miracles and pro- 
 phecy; but your patient, self-denying life was an argument I 
 never could answer. When I saw you spending all your time and 
 all your money in efforts for your fellow-men, undiscouraged by 
 ingratitude and careless of praise, then I thought, * There is 
 something divine in that man's life/ and that thought brought 
 me here." 
 
 The man looked around on the gathering congregation, and he 
 saw that there was no one whom he had drawn heavenward that 
 had not also drawn thither myriads of others. In his lifetime he 
 had been scattering seeds of good around from hour to hour, 
 almost unconsciously; and now he saw every seed springing up 
 into a widening forest of immortal beauty and glory. It seemed 
 to him that there was to be no end of the numbers that nocked to 
 claim him as their long-expected soul-friend. His heart was full, 
 and his face became as that of an angel as he looked up to One 
 who seemed nearer than all, and said, " This is thy love for me, 
 unworthy, Jesus ! Of thee, and to thee, and through thee, are 
 all things. Amen." 
 
 Amen ! as with chorus of many waters and mighty thunderings 
 the sound swept onward, and died far off in chiming echoes among 
 the distant stars ; and the man awoke. 
 
 " ONLY A YEAR. ' 1 
 
 One year ago, — a ringing voice, 
 
 A clear blue eye, 
 And clustering curls of sunny hair, 
 
 Too fair to die. 
 
 Only a year, — no voice, no smile, 
 
 No glance of eye, 
 Xo clustering curls of golden hair, 
 
 Fair but to die. 
 
 One year ago, — what loves, what schemes 
 
 Far into life ! 
 What joyous hopes, what high resolves, 
 
 What generous strife : 
 
 The silent picture on the wall, 
 
 The burial-stone, — ■ 
 Of all that beauty, life, and joy, 
 
 Remain alone ! 
 
 1 These tender and beautiful lines refer to the melancholy death, July 9, 3S57, 
 of a son, a student of Dartmouth College, of fine character and promise, who went 
 with some classmates to the Connecticut River to bathe, got beyond his depth, and 
 was drowned. 
 
672 
 
 THOMAS MACKELLAR. 
 
 One year, — one year, — one little year, 
 
 And so much gone ! 
 And yet the even flow of life 
 
 Moves calmly on. 
 
 The grave grows green, the flowers bloom fair, 
 
 Above that head ; 
 No soiTowing tint of leaf or spray 
 
 Says he is dead. 
 
 No pause or hush of merry birds 
 
 That sing above, 
 Tells us how coldly sleeps below 
 
 The form we love. 
 
 "Where hast thou been this year, beloved ? 
 
 What hast thou seen ? 
 What visions fair, what glorious life, 
 
 Where thou hast been ? 
 
 The veil ! the veil ! so thin, so strong ! 
 
 'Twixt us and thee ; 
 The mystic veil ! when shall it fall, 
 
 That we may see '! 
 
 Not dead, not sleeping, not even gone ; 
 
 But present still, 
 And waiting for the coming hour 
 
 Of God*s sweet will. 
 
 Lord of the living and the dead, 
 
 Our Saviour dear ; 
 We lay in silence at thy feet 
 This sad, sad year ! 
 Andover, July 9, 1858. 
 
 THOMAS MACKELLAR. 
 
 This genial printer-poet is of Scotch descent, his father having emigrated to 
 this country in the latter part of the last century. He was born in the city of 
 New York, on the 12th of August, 1812, and was early destined for college; but, 
 his father's fortunes failing, he entered, when fourteen years old, a newspaper 
 printing-office, where he thought he would have good opportunities to indulge 
 his literary tastes. After two years, he entered the estahlishment of J. & J. 
 Harper, where he soon proved, by his intelligence, integrity, and energy, to be an 
 important member of it. Here the passion for writing verse seized him, and he 
 would often drop his composing-stick, and with a type write his couplets on paper, 
 as they occurred to him; but these early pieces have never seen the light. 
 
 In 1833, he removed to Philadelphia, and entered the type-foundry of Lawrence 
 Johnson. In 1834, he was married, and soon after wrote occasionally for the 
 "Journal" of the Sunday-School Union ; then for the "United States Gazette;" 
 and then for Joseph C. Neal's " Gazette," under the signature of " Tarn." During 
 
THOMAS MACKELLAR. 
 
 673 
 
 all this time his post of business was a very arduous one, and most of his pieces 
 were composed while he was walking from his home to the foundry. His first 
 volume — Droppings from the Heart — was published in 1S4L and was very favor- 
 ably noticed. His second publication was Tarn's Fortnight Ramble, issued in 1S47, 
 in which year he was admitted as a partner to an interest in the business of Mr. 
 Johnson. His last hook is entitled Lines for the Gentle and Loving, — a beautifully 
 printed volume, which appeared in 1853. Mr. Mackellar's poetry is pure, simple, 
 elevated, and goes directly to the heart, for the best of all reasons : it comes from 
 the heart. 
 
 life's evening. 
 
 The world to me is growing gray and old, 
 
 My friends are dropping one by one away ; 
 
 Some live in far-off lands — some in the clay 
 Rest quietly, their mortal moments told. 
 
 My sire departed ere his locks were gray ; 
 
 My mother wept, and soon beside him lay ; 
 My elder kin have long since gone — and I 
 
 Am left — a leaf upon an autumn tree, 
 
 Among whose branches chilling breezes steal, 
 The sure precursors of the winter nigh ; 
 
 And when my offspring at our altar kneel 
 To worship God, and sing our morning psalm, 
 
 Their rising stature whispers unto me 
 My life is gently waning to its evening calm. 
 
 SEPTEMBER RAIN. 
 
 Patter — patter — 
 Listen how the rain-drops clatter, 
 Falling on the shingle roof; 
 How they rattle, 
 Like the rifle's click in battle, 
 Or the charger's iron hoof! 
 
 Cool and pleasant 
 Is the evening air at present, 
 
 Gathering freshness from the rain; 
 Languor chasing, 
 Muscle, thew, and sinew bracing, 
 And enlivening the brain. 
 
 Close together 
 Draw the bands of love in weather 
 "When the sky is overcast; 
 Eyeballs glisten — 
 Thankfully we sit and listen 
 To the rain that's coming fast. 
 
 Dropping — dropping 
 Like dissolving diamonds, — popping 
 'Gainst the crystal window-pane, 
 57 
 
THOMAS MACKELLAR. 
 
 As if seeking 
 Entrance-welcome, and bespeaking 
 Our affection for the rain. 
 
 Quick, and quicker 
 Come the droppings, — thick, and thicker 
 Pour the hasty torrents down : 
 Rushing — rushing — 
 From the leaden spouts a-gushing, 
 Cleansing all the streets in town. 
 
 Darkness utter 
 Gathers round ; — we close the shutter ; 
 Snugly sheltered let us keep. 
 Still unceasing 
 Falls the rain ; but oh ! 'tis pleasing 
 'Neath such lullaby to sleep. 
 
 How I love it ! 
 Let the miser money covet — 
 Let the soldier seek the fight ; 
 Give me only, 
 "When I lie awake and lonely, 
 Music made by rain at night. 
 
 PATIENT CONTINUANCE IN WELL-DOING. 
 
 Bear the burden of the present — 
 Let the morrow bear its own : 
 
 If the morning sky be pleasant, 
 "Why the coming night bemoan ? 
 
 If the darken'd heavens lower, 
 "Wrap thy cloak around thy form; 
 
 Though the tempest rise in power, 
 God is mightier than the storm. 
 
 Steadfast faith and hope unshaken 
 Animate the trusting breast ; 
 
 Step by step the journey's taken 
 Nearer to the land of rest. 
 
 All unseen, the Master walketh 
 By the toiling servant's side ; 
 
 Comfortable words he talketh, 
 
 While his hands uphold and guide. 
 
 Grief, nor pain, nor any sorrow 
 Rends thy breast to him unknown ; 
 
 He to-day and He to-morrow 
 Grace sufficient gives his own. 
 
 Holy strivings nerve and strengthen, — 
 Long endurance wins the crown ; 
 
 When the evening shadows lengthen, 
 Thou shalt lay the burden down. 
 
HENRY T. TUCKERMAN. 
 
 675 
 
 HENRY T. TUCKERMAN. 
 
 Henry Theodore Tuckermax, ''one of the most genial and elegant essayists, 
 and a very graceful and pleasing poet," was born in Boston on the 20th of April, 
 1813. After preparing for college, it was deemed necessary for his health that he 
 should relinquish his studies and seek a milder climate. Accordingly, in 1833, 
 he sailed from New York for Havre, and, after a short stay at Paris, went on 
 to Italy, where he remained till the next summer, when he returned home, and 
 gave to the public some of the results of his observations in The Italian Sketch- 
 Book. Again he was obliged to resort to travel for the benefit of his health, and 
 sailed for Gibraltar in the fall of 1837, and passed the winter chiefly in Italy. 
 He returned home the next summer; and in 1845 removed from Boston to New 
 York, where he now resides, except during the summer months, which he passes 
 at Newport, Rhode Island. In 1850, the honorary degree of Master of Arts was 
 conferred upon him by Harvard College. 
 
 Mr. Tuckerman's life is the life of a scholar : literature is his profession, and 
 nobly has he quitted himself in it. Indeed, considering that his health has never 
 been very robust, it is astonishing how much he has done, and how well he has 
 done it. The following are, we believe, his chief works: — Artist Life/ or Sketches 
 of American Painters /' The Italian Sketch- Book ; The Optimist, — a collection of 
 Essays; Rambles and Reveries; Sicily, a Pilgrimage ; Thoughts on the Poets; 
 Characteristics of Literature ; Memorial of Greenough, the Sculptor; Leaves from 
 the Diary of a Dreamer, published anonymously by Pickering, London; Biogra- 
 phical Essays ; and a volume of Poems.' 1 Besides these works, he has been a con- 
 tributor to the " North American Review," " American Quarterly," Graham's, 
 Sartain's, Godey's, and Putnam's Magazines; "Atlantic Monthly,'' ''Christian 
 Examiner," "Methodist Quarterly," " Southern Literary Messenger," and " New 
 Englauder." He has also written a very excellent Sketch of American Literature, 
 as an Appendix to " Shaw's English Literature." 
 
 LEISURE TO BE PROPERLY APPRECIATED. 
 
 A New England merchant, upon leaving' a picture-gallery 
 abroad, was observed by bis companion to be very thoughtful. 
 Presently he exclaimed, " I have been thinking of nothing but 
 making money all my life. How much there is to learn and to 
 
 1 No more interesting and instructive books can be found in our literature than 
 Tuckerman's Thoughts on the Poets. The Optimist. Characteristics of Literature, 
 and Essays Biographical and Critical. The two latter would be excellent books 
 for the higher classes in schools; and the four should be in every district-school 
 library in the land. An English scholar, who is familiar with our literature, thus 
 writes: — ''Henry T. Tuckerman may be described as one of the most imaginative 
 and sympathetic of American critics, and a refined and elegant writer. His 
 essays and reviews show a liberal cultivation of mind and heart." 
 
 2 Of these a beautiful edition has been published by Ticknor & Fields. 
 
676 
 
 HENRY T. TUCKERMAN. 
 
 enjoy in this world ! Henceforth no thought of business shall 
 enter my mind, until I recross the Atlantic. I will study paint- 
 ing, and sculpture, and music : I will commune with nature ; I 
 will ponder the works of departed genius ; I will cultivate the 
 society of the intellectual and the gifted j" — at this point of his 
 harangue, he suddenly left his friend's side, and darted into a 
 shop they were passing, — apologizing, upon resuming the walk, 
 by saying he had merely stopped to inquire the price of tallow ! 
 Leisure with us is still an anomaly. Now, far be it from us to 
 gainsay the advantages of industry, to deny that labor is man's 
 appropriate sphere, or to lament, for a moment, the spectacle of 
 universal activity, and, consequently, of prosperity, around us. 
 Let us only contend that all labor is not obvious and tangible ; 
 that no man who thinks deserves to be called an idler; that the 
 absence of any obvious employment or specific profession does not 
 necessarily make any one amenable to the charge of inactivity. 
 How much of our boasted industry is profitless ; to how many, 
 social ambition or extravagant tastes, instead of necessity, form 
 the true motives of business ; how much of the so-called occupa- 
 tion about us is void of any higher result than that of keeping its 
 votaries out of mischief; how seldom do those who have acquired 
 a competency retire upon it to scenes of domestic improvement ; 
 and with what reluctance do the fortunate yield the arena 
 to the young and penniless, even when age and infirmity warn 
 them to retreat ! It is time we learned, not to underrate business, 
 but to appreciate leisure. 
 
 ENTHUSIASM SYMPATHY. 
 
 Let us recognise the beauty and power of true enthusiasm, 
 and, whatever we may do to enlighten ourselves and others, guard 
 against checking or chilling a single earnest sentiment. For 
 what is the human mind, however enriched with acquisitions or 
 strengthened by exercise, unaccompanied by an ardent and sensi- 
 tive heart ? Its light may illumine, but it cannot inspire. It 
 may shed a cold and moonlight radiance upon the path of life, 
 but it warms no flower into bloom ; it sets free no ice-bound 
 fountains. There are influences which environ humanity too 
 subtle for the dissecting-knife of reason. In our better moments 
 we are clearly conscious of their presence, and if there is any 
 barrier to their blessed agency, it is a formalized intellect. En- 
 thusiasm, too, is the very life of gifted spirits. Ponder the lives 
 of the glorious in art or literature through all ages. What are 
 they but records of toils and sacrifices supported by the earnest 
 hearts of their votaries? Dante composed his immortal poem 
 amid exile and suffering, prompted by the noble ambition of vin- 
 
HENRY T. TUCKER MAN. 
 
 677 
 
 dicating himself to posterity; and the sweetest angel of his para- 
 dise is the object of his early love. The best countenances the 
 old painters have bequeathed to us are those of cherished objects 
 intimately associated with their fame. The face of Raphael's 
 mother blends with the angelic beauty of all his Madonnas. Ti- 
 tian's daughter and the wife of Correggio again and again meet in 
 their works. Well does Foscolo call the fine arts the Children 
 o f Love. Reason is not the only interpreter of life. The foun- 
 tain of action is in the feelings. Religion itself is but a state of 
 the affections. I once met a beautiful peasant-woman in the val- 
 ley of the Arno, and asked the number of her children. " I have 
 three here and two in paradise," she calmly replied, with a tone 
 and manner of touching and grave simplicity. Her faith was of 
 the heart. 
 
 Constant supplies of knowledge to the intellect and the exclu- 
 sive culture of reason may, indeed, make a pedant and logician ; 
 but the probability is these benefits, if such they are, will be 
 gained at the expense of the soul. Sentiment, in its broadest 
 acceptation, is as essential to the true enjoyment and grace of life 
 as mind. Technical information, and that quickness of apprehen- 
 sion which New Englanders call smartness, are not so valuable to 
 a human being as sensibility to the beautiful, and a spontaneous 
 appreciation of the divine influences which fill the realms of vision 
 and of sound, and the world of action and feeling. The tastes, 
 affections, and sentiments are more absolutely the man than his 
 talent or acquirements. And yet it is by and through the latter 
 that we are apt to estimate character, of which they are at best 
 but fragmentary evidences. It is remarkable that in the New 
 Testament allusions to the intellect are so rare, while the " heart" 
 and the " spirit we are of" are ever appealed to. Sympathy is 
 the " golden key" which unlocks the treasures of wisdom ; and 
 this depends upon vividness and warmth of feeling. 
 
 THE POET CAMPBELL. 
 
 If we were to adopt a vernacular poet from the brilliant constel- 
 lation of the last and present century, as representing legitimately 
 natural and popular feeling with true lyric energy, such as finds 
 inevitable response and needs no advocacy or criticism to uphold 
 or elucidate it, we should name Campbell. He wrote from the 
 intensity of his own sympathies with freedom, truth, and love : 
 his expression, therefore, is truly poetic in its spirit; while in 
 rhetorical finish and aptness he had the very best culture, — that 
 of Greek literature. Thus simply furnished with inspiration and 
 with a style both derived from the most genuine sources, — the 
 one from nature and the other from the highest art, — he gave 
 
678 
 
 HENRY T. TUCKERMAN. 
 
 melodious and vigorous utterance, not to a peculiar vein of imagina- 
 tion, like Shelley, nor a mystical attachment to nature, like Words- 
 worth, nor an egotistic personality, like Byron ; but to a love of 
 freedom and truth which political events had caused to glow with 
 unwonted fervor in the bosoms of his noblest contemporaries, and 
 to the native sentiment of domestic and social life, rendered more 
 dear and sacred by their recent unhallowed desecration. It was 
 not by ingenuity, egotism, or artifice that he thus chanted, but 
 honestly, earnestly, from the impulse of youthful ardor and ten- 
 derness moulded by scholarship. 
 
 It is now the fashion to relish verse more intricate, sentiment 
 less defined, ideas of a metaphysical cast, and a rhythm less modu- 
 lated by simple and grand cadences; yet to a manly intellect, to a 
 heart yet alive with fresh, brave, unperverted instincts, the intel- 
 ligible, glowing, and noble tone of Campbell's verse is yet fraught 
 with cheerful augury. It has outlived, in current literature and 
 in individual remembrance, the diffuse metrical tales of Scott and 
 Southey ; finds a more prolonged response, from its general 
 adaptation, than the ever-recurring key-note of Byron; and 
 lingers on the lips and in the hearts of those who only muse over 
 the elaborate pages of those minstrels whose golden ore is either 
 beaten out to intangible thinness, or largely mixed with the alloy 
 of less precious metal. Indeed, nothing evinces a greater want of 
 just appreciation in regard to the art or gift of poetry, than the 
 frequent complaints of such a poet as Campbell because of the 
 limited quantity of his verse. It would be as rational to expect 
 the height of animal spirits, the exquisite sensation of conva- 
 lescence, the rapture of an exalted mood, the perfect content of 
 gratified love, the tension of profound thought, or any other state 
 the very law of which is rarity, to become permanent. Camp- 
 bell's best verse was born of emotion, not from idle reverie or 
 verbal experiment; that emotion was heroic or tender, sympa- 
 thetic or devotional, — the exception to the everyday, the common- 
 place, and the mechanical ; accordingly, in its very nature, it was 
 " like angels' visits," and no more to be summoned at will than 
 the glow of affection or the spirit of prayer. 
 
 MARY. 
 
 What though the name is old and oft repeated, 
 
 What though a thousand beings bear it now ; 
 And true hearts oft the gentle word have greeted, — 
 
 What though 'tis hallow'd by a poet's vow ? 
 We ever love the rose, and yet its blooming 
 
 Is a familiar rapture to the eye ; 
 And yon bright star we hail, although its looming 
 
 Age after age has lit the northern sky. 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 679 
 
 As starry beams o'er troubled billows stealing, 
 
 As garden odors to the desert blown, 
 In bosoms faint a gladsome hope revealing, 
 
 Like patriot music or affection's tone, — 
 Thus, thus, for aye, the name of Mary spoken 
 
 By lips or text, with magic-like control, 
 The course of present thought has quickly broken, 
 
 And stirr'd the fountains of my inmost soul. 
 
 The sweetest tales of human weal and sorrow, 
 
 The fairest trophies of the limner's fame, 
 To my fond fancy, Mary, seem to borrow 
 
 Celestial halos from thy gentle name : 
 The Grecian artist glean'd from many faces, 
 
 And in a perfect whole the parts combined : 
 So have I counted o'er dear woman's graces 
 
 To form the Mary of my ardent mind. 
 
 And marvel not I thus call my ideal, — 
 
 We inly paint as we would have things be, — 
 The fanciful springs ever from the real, 
 
 As Aphrodite rose from out the sea. 
 Who smiled upon me kindly day by day, 
 
 In a far land where I was sad and lone ? 
 Whose presence now is my delight away ? 
 
 Both angels must the same blest title own. 
 
 What spirits round my weary way are flying, 
 
 What fortunes on my future life await, 
 Like the mysterious hymns the winds are sighing, 
 
 Are all unknown, — in trust I bide my fate; 
 But if one blessing I might crave from Heaven, 
 
 'T would be that Mary should my being cheer, 
 Hang o'er me when the chord of life is riven, 
 
 Be my dear household word, and my 'last accent here. 
 
 HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 This very eminent preacher and eloquent lecturer was born in Litchfield, 
 Connecticut, on the 24th of June, 1813. He was graduated at Amherst College in 
 1831, and studied theology at Lane Seminary, Cincinnati, when it was under the 
 direction of his father. He was first settled in the Presbyterian Church at Law- 
 renceburg, Dearborn County, Indiana, in 1837, where he remained two years. 
 Thence he removed to Indianapolis, where he continued till he was called to the 
 new congregation — the Plymouth Church — at Brooklyn, New York, in 1817, 
 where he has since remained, acquiring for himself and giving to his church a 
 position and a fame known throughout the land. It may be safely said, indeed, 
 that as a pulpit and a platform orator he has no superior. Nothing is studied, 
 nothing artificial, about his oratory : all is natural, frank, cordial, hearty, fear- 
 
680 
 
 HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 less. One great secret of his power is, that he feels deeply himself the great 
 truths that he utters, and therefore makes his audience feel them too. 1 
 
 Mr. Beecher was married in 1837 to Miss Bullard, sister of the late Rev. Dr. 
 Bullard, of St. Louis, and of Rev. Asa Bullard, Boston. 
 
 Mr. Beecher's only publications are Letters to Young Men, and Star Papers, or 
 Experiences of Art and Nature. 2 But there have been published for him two very 
 remarkable books, Life Thoughts gathered from the Extemporaneous Discourses of 
 Henry Ward Beecher, by Edna Dean Proctor ; and Notes from Plymouth Pulpit: 
 a Collection of Memorable Passages from the Discourses of Henry Ward Beecher, by 
 Augusta Moore. Few books can be found containing such rich gems of deep 
 thought, brilliant fancy, and devotional feeling. 
 
 It is impossible to do Mr. Beecher justice by any extracts from his sermons or 
 essays. One must hear him preach or lecture to feel his power, or to understand 
 it. The following selections, however, will give some idea of his style, senti- 
 ments, and inexhaustible wealth of thought and illustration. 
 
 THE TRUE OBJECT OF PREACHING. 
 
 A sermon that is dry, cold, dull, soporific, is a pulpit monster, 
 and is just as great a violation of the sanctity of the pulpit, as the 
 other absurd extreme of profane levity. Men may hide or forsake 
 God's living truth by the way of stupid dulness, just as much as 
 by pert imagination. A solemn nothing is just as wicked as a 
 witty nothing. Men confound earnestness with solemnity. A man 
 may be eagerly earnest, and not be very solemn. They may also 
 be awfully solemn, without a particle of earnestness. But solemn- 
 ity has a reputation. A man may be a repeater of endless dis- 
 tinctions, a lecturer in the pulpit of mere philosophical niceties, 
 or he may be a repeater of stale truisms \ he may smother living- 
 truths by conventional forms and phrases, and if he put on a very 
 solemn face, use a very solemn tone, employ very solemn gestures, 
 and roll along his vamped-up sermon with professional solemnity 
 above an audience of sound men j men, at least, soundly asleep, — 
 that will pass for decorous handling of God's truth. The old 
 pharisaism is not dead yet. The difference between Christ and 
 
 1 In 1850, Mr. Beecher made a brief trip to Europe : and the impression he pro- 
 duced is described in the following spirited paragraph in the "British Banner," 
 written by Dr. Campbell: — "Mr. Henry Ward Beecher is by far the most amu- 
 sing and fascinating American it has ever been our lot to meet. He is a mass 
 of naming fire, — restless, fearless, brilliant, — a mixture of the poet, the orator, 
 and the philosopher, such as we have seldom, if ever, found in any other man 
 to the same extent." For a good notice of Mr. Beecher, see " Fowler's American 
 Pulpit." 
 
 2 This is composed of the communications he has given to the " Independent," 
 his signature in that paper being a star(*). He continues to write for it; and his 
 contributions are one of the many attractions of that admirable journal. 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 G81 
 
 His contemporary teachers was, that He spake life-truth in life- 
 forms, with the power of His own life in their utterance. The 
 rabbis spake old orthodoxy, dead as a mummy; — but they spake it 
 very reverendly. They might not do any good, but they never 
 violated professional propriety. Nobody lived, everybody died 
 about them. But, then, their faces were sober, their robes exact, 
 their manner mostly of the Temple and the Altar. They never 
 forgot how to look, nor how to speak guttural solemnities, nor how 
 to maintain professional dignity. They forgot nothing except 
 living truths and living souls. And fifty years of ministration 
 without any fruit in true godliness gave them no pain. It was 
 charged to the account of Divine Sovereignty. 
 
 Nothing can more sharply exhibit the miserable imbecility 
 which has come upon us, than the inability of men to perceive 
 the difference between preaching " politics," ''social reform," &c., 
 and preaching God's truth in such a way that it shall sit in judg- 
 ment upon these things, and every other deed of men, to try 
 them, to explore and analyze them, and to set them forth, as upon 
 the background of eternity, in their moral character, and in their 
 relation to man's duty and God's requirements. 
 
 Shall the whole army of human deeds go roaring along the 
 public thoroughfares, and Christian men be whelmed in the 
 general rush, and no man be found to speak the real moral nature 
 of human conduct ? Is the pulpit too holy, and the Sabbath too 
 sacred, to bring individual courses and 'developments of society to 
 the bar of God's Word for trial ? Those who think so, and are 
 crying out about the desecration of the pulpit with secular themes, 
 are the lineal descendants of those Jews who thought the Sabbath 
 so sacred that our Saviour desecrated it by healing the withered 
 hand. Would to God that the Saviour would visit His Church 
 and heal withered hearts ! 
 
 RELIGION. 
 
 Religion — it is the bread of life. I wish that we appreciated 
 more livingly the force of such expressions. Why ! I remember 
 when I was a boy, I could not wait till I was dressed in the 
 morning, but ran and cut a slice from the loaf, and all round the 
 loaf, too, in order to keep me till breakfast ; and at breakfast — if 
 diligence earned wages, I should have been well paid ; and then 
 I could not wait till dinner, but had to eat again, and again before 
 tea, and then at tea, and lucky if I did not eat again after that. 
 It was bread, bread, all the time, which I ate, and lived on, and 
 got strength from. And so religion is the bread of life. You 
 make it the cake. You put it away in your cupboards, and you 
 never have it but when you have company, and then you cut it up 
 
682 
 
 HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 into little pieces and pass it round on your best plates, instead of 
 treating it as bread, to be used every day and every hour. 
 
 god's forgiveness. 
 
 Every one must come to' Christ and say, "If you will not 
 take me with all my failings, I cannot be saved !" And why 
 does Grod forgive us ? For the same reason that the mother 
 forgives her child, — because she loves it. Just as the sun shines 
 on decaying flowers and shrivelled fruit, because it is his nature 
 — the sun, which never asks a question, but says, " If any thing 
 wants to be shined on, let it hold itself up." And so God says, 
 " I will forgive you, for your repeated transgressions." Do you 
 ask what becomes of them ? What becomes of the hasty words 
 you spoke yesterday to her you love ? "I don't know where 
 they are," says the wife. " I am sure I do not," says the 
 husband. They are gone. They are sunk to the bottom of her 
 heart. No! not to the bottom, for there she keeps her love. 
 There is only one thing that can be annihilated, and that is 
 wrong-doing to one who loves you. 
 
 The following selections are from that remarkable book — Life Thoughts — so 
 full of the richest gems that one hardly knows which to take. 
 
 Parental Indulgence. — I heard a man who had failed in 
 business, and whose furniture was sold at auction, say that when 
 the cradle and the crib and the piano went, tears would come, and 
 he had to leave the house to be a man. Now, there are thousands 
 of men who have lost their pianos, but who have found better 
 music in the sound of their children's voices and footsteps going 
 cheerfully down with them to poverty, than any harmony of 
 chorded instruments. Oh, how blessed is bankruptcy when it 
 saves a man's children ! I see many men who are bringing up their 
 children as I should bring up mine, if, when they were ten years 
 old, I should lay them on a dissecting-table, and cut the sinews 
 of their arms and legs, so that they could neither walk nor use 
 their hands, but only sit still and be fed. Thus rich men put the 
 knife of indolence and luxury to their children's energies, and 
 they grow up fatted, lazy calves, fitted for nothing, at twenty-five, 
 but to drink deep and squander wide ; and the father must be a 
 slave all his life, in order to make beasts of his children. How 
 blessed, then, is the stroke of disaster which sets the children 
 free, and gives them over to the hard but kind bosom of Poverty, 
 who says to them, " Work !" and, working, makes them men ! 
 
HENRY WARD BEECIIER. 
 
 683 
 
 Children. — Every child walks into existence through the 
 golden gate of love ; else it would seem wonderful that the help- 
 less thing should be born. Yet children are not playthings, as 
 we too often seem to think they are, — mere gifts of God to fill up 
 the hours with cheer. They were surely meant to be a pleasure 
 to us, but that is not the final end. Nor were they meant to be 
 cares and burdens alone. To speak of them as if they were 
 shackles and fetters upon our freedom ; always in the way ; 
 "children, children, everywhere," is a shame and a sin. They 
 are to be regarded as a part of our education. Men cannot be 
 developed perfectly who have not been compelled to bring chil- 
 dren up to manhood. You might as well say that a tree is a 
 perfect tree without leaf or blossom, as to say that a man is a 
 man who has gone through life without experiencing the influences 
 that come from bending down and giving one's self up to those 
 who are helpless and little. 
 
 Children make men better citizens. When your own child 
 comes in from the street, and has learned to swear from the 
 boys congregated there, it is a very different thing to you from 
 what it was when you heard the profanity of those boys as you 
 passed them. Now it makes you feel that you are a stockholder 
 in the public morality. Of what use would an engine be to a 
 ship, if it were lying loose in the hull ? It must be fastened 
 to it with bolts and screws, before it can propel the vessel. 
 Now, a childless man is like a loose engine. A man must be 
 bolted and screwed to the community before he can work well 
 for its advancement; and there are no such screws and bolts as 
 children. 
 
 The Twenty-Third Psalm is the nightingale of the psalms. 
 It is small, of a homely feather, singing shyly out of obscurity ; 
 but, oh, it has filled the air of the whole world with melodious 
 joy, greater than the heart can conceive. Blessed be the day on 
 which that psalm was born ! 
 
 What would you say of a pilgrim commissioned of God to travel 
 up and down the earth, singing a strange melody, which, when one 
 heard, caused him to forget whatever sorrow he had ? And so 
 the singing angel goes on his way through all lands, singing in 
 the language of every nation, driving away trouble by the pulses 
 of the air which his tongue moves with divine power. Behold 
 just such an one ! This pilgrim God has sent to speak in every 
 language on the globe. It has charmed more griefs to rest than 
 all the philosophy of the world. It has remanded to their dun- 
 geon more felon thoughts, more black doubts, more thieving sor- 
 rows, than there are sands on the sea-shore. It has comforted the 
 noble host of the poor. It has sung courage to the army of the 
 
684 
 
 HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 disappointed. It has poured balm and consolation into the heart 
 of the sick, of captives in dungeons, of widows in their pinching 
 griefs, of orphans in their loneliness. Dying soldiers have died 
 easier as it was read to them ; ghastly hospitals have been 
 illumined ; it has visited the prisoner and broken his chains, and, 
 like Peter's angel, led him forth in imagination, and sung him 
 back to his home again. It has made the dying Christian slave 
 freer than his master; and consoled those whom, dying, he left 
 behind mourning, not so much that he was gone as because they 
 were left behind, and could not go too. Nor is its work done. 
 It will go singing to your children and my children, and to their 
 children, through all the generations of time ; nor will it fold its 
 wings till the last pilgrim is safe, and time ended ; and then it 
 shall fly back to the bosom of God, whence it issued, and sound 
 on, mingled with all those sounds of celestial joy which make 
 heaven musical forever. 
 
 A Christian Man's Life is laid in the loom of time to a 
 pattern which he does not see, but God does ; and his heart is a 
 shuttle. On one side of the loom is sorrow, and on the other is 
 joy; and the shuttle, struck alternately by each, flies back and 
 forth, carrying the thread, which is white or black, as the pattern 
 needs; and in the end, when God shall lift up the finished gar- 
 ment, and all its changing hues shall glance out, it will then ap- 
 pear that the deep and dark colors were as needful to beauty as 
 the bright and high colors. 
 
 Help the Slave.— Do you ask me whether I would help a 
 slave to gain his freedom? I answer, I would help him with heart, 
 and hand, and voice. I would do for him what I shall wish I had 
 done when, having lost his dusky skin and blossomed into the light 
 of eternity, he and I shall stand before our Master, who will say, 
 " Inasmuch as ye did it unto him, slave as he was, ye did it 
 unto me." 
 
 Everyday Christianity. — As flowers never put on their best 
 clothes for Sunday, but wear their spotless raiment and exhale 
 their odor every day, so let your Christian life, free from stain, 
 ever give forth the fragrance of the love of God. 
 
 The Holy Catholic Church. — Christian brethren, in heaven 
 you are known by the name of Christ. On earth, for convenience' 
 sake, you are known by the name of Presbyterians, Episcopalians, 
 Methodists, Congregationalists, and the like. Let me speak the 
 language of heaven, and call you, simply, Christians. Whoever 
 of you has known the name of Christ, and feels Christ's life beat- 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 G85 
 
 ing within him, is invited to remain, and sit with us at the table 
 of the Lord. 1 
 
 A Man's a Man. — It makes no difference what you call men, 
 — prince, peer, or slave. Man is that name of power which rises 
 above them all, and gives to every one the right to be that which 
 God meant he should be. No law, nor custom, nor opinion, nor 
 prejudice, has the right to say to one man, " You may grow," and 
 to another, " You may not grow," or, " You may grow in ten 
 directions, and not in twenty or to the strong, " You may grow 
 stronger," or to the weak, " You may never become strong." 
 Launched upon the ocean of life, like an innumerable fleet, each 
 man may spread what sails God has given him, whether he be 
 pinnace, sloop, brig, bark, ship, or man-of-war • and no commo- 
 dore or admiral may signal what voyage he shall make or what 
 canvas he shall carry. 
 
 God has given to men the great truths of liberty and equality, 
 which are like mothers' breasts, carrying food for ages. Let us 
 not fear that in our land they shall be overthrown or destroyed. 
 Though we may go through dark times, — rocking times, when we 
 are sea-sick, — yet the day shall come when there shall be no more 
 oppression, but when, all over the world, there shall be a common 
 people, sitting in a commonwealth, having a common Bible, a com- 
 mon God, and common peace and joy in a common brotherhood ! 
 
 Cerberus in America. — The Bible Society is sending its 
 shiploads of Bibles all over the world, — to Greenland and the 
 Morea, to Arabia and Egypt; but it dares not send them to our 
 own people. The colporteur who should leave a Bible in a slave's 
 cabin would go to heaven from the lowest limb of the first tree. 
 It was hell, among the ancients, that was guarded by a hundred- 
 headed dog ; in this country, it is heaven that has the Cerberus. 
 
 Religion and Business. — How hateful is that religion which 
 says, " Business is business, and politics are politics, and religion 
 is religiou" ! Religion is using every thing for God ; but many 
 men dedicate business to the devil, and politics to the devil, and 
 shove religion into the cracks and crevices of time, and make it 
 the hypocritical outcrawling of their leisure and laziness. 
 
 A Christian Life. — A Christian merchant should so act that 
 his customers shall see and know that he is a Christian ; not 
 merely that he conducts his business on great maxims of honesty, 
 but that business itself is subordinate, and instrumental to the 
 
 Invitation to the communion service. 
 58 
 
686 
 
 HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 great purposes of life. Is it so with you ? How far does the 
 difference between you and the worldly man lie in the fact that, 
 on the seventh day, you have a little tabernacle of religious expe- 
 rience into which you run ? Go through the streets and stores 
 of New York : you can pick out the men that are wealthy ; can 
 you pick out the men that are Christians ? What wonder that 
 truth makes such slow advances in the world, with one Christian 
 to tell what is true for two hours on Sunday, and hundreds to 
 deny it all the week by their lives ! 
 
 Hypocrites. — There are many professing Christians who are 
 secretly vexed on account of the charity they have to bestow, and 
 the self-denial they have to use. If, instead of the smooth prayers 
 which they do pray, they should speak out the things which they 
 really feel, they would say, when they go home at night, " Lord, 
 I met a poor wretch of yours to-day, a miserable, unwashed brat, 
 and I gave him sixpence, and I have been sorry for it ever since;" 
 or, " Lord, if I had not signed those articles of faith, I might 
 have gone to the theatre this evening. Your religion deprives 
 me of a great deal of enjoyment; but I mean to stick to it. 
 There's no other way of getting into heaven, I suppose." 
 
 The sooner such men are out of the church the better. 
 
 Giving versus Keeping. — The great ocean is in a constant 
 state of evaporation. It gives back what it receives, and sends up 
 its waters in mists to gather into clouds ; and so there is rain on 
 the fields, and storm on the mountains, and greenness and beauty 
 everywhere. But there are many men who do not believe in 
 evaporation. They get all they can and keep all they get, and so 
 are not fertilizers, but only stagnant, miasmatic pools. 
 
 The elect are whosoever will, and the non-elect whosoever 
 won't. 
 
 Blindness. — It would be a dreadful thing to me to lose my 
 sight ; to see no more the faces of those I love, nor the sweet blue 
 of heaven, nor the myriad stars that gem the sky, nor the dis- 
 solving clouds that pass over it, -nor the battling ships upon the 
 sea, nor the mountains with their changing lines of light and 
 shade, nor the loveliness of flowers, nor the burnished mail of 
 insects. But I should do as other blind men have done before 
 me : I should take God's rod and staff for my guide and comfort, 
 and wait patiently for death to bring better light to nobler eyes. 
 ye who are living in the darkness of sin ! turn before it is too 
 late to the light of holiness, else death will bring to you, not re- 
 creation, but retribution. Earthly blindness can be borne, for it is 
 but for a day; but who could bear to be blind through eternity ? 
 
JOHN LOTIIROP MOTLEY. 
 
 687 
 
 JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY. 
 
 Scarcely any author ever became more suddenly distinguished than John 
 Lothrop Motley. Before the appearance of his great historical work, The Rise 
 of the Dutch Republic, he was, though favorably known, comparatively unknown. 
 That work, from its research, its style, its power, its earnest spirit, its breadth of 
 design and successful execution, placed its author at once in the rank of eminent 
 historians. Published simultaneously in England and America, it was commended 
 with equal warmth in the leading critical journals of both countries ; and, though 
 but three years issued, it has passed through five editions, and amply vindicated 
 the laudations of the critics. 
 
 Mr. Motley was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1814, and was graduated 
 at Harvard College in 1831. Soon afterwards he went to Europe, and spent seve- 
 ral years in Germany, studying its literature and acquiring the large learning of 
 its universities. On his return to the United States in 1835, he applied himself 
 to the study of the law, and was admitted to the Boston bar. In 1836, he was 
 married to Miss Benjamin, a sister of the well-known author, Park Benjamin, and 
 for several years resided in Boston and its vicinity. Having ample means, he did 
 not practise his uncongenial profession, but gave his time and talents to the pur- 
 suits of letters. At this time he wrote several papers for the leading periodicals, 
 and published anonymously two novels, — Morton's Hope, and Merrymount. Early 
 in 1841, during the brief administration of General Harrison, Mr. Webster, who 
 had been long an intimate friend of the father, gave the son, for whom he also 
 cherished a cordial regard, the post of Secretary of Legation to Russia, Colonel 
 Todd being the minister. Here he interested himself in the history of Russia, 
 and wrote for the " North American Review" a leading article on " Peter the 
 Great," which was much admired. But in less than two years he resigned his 
 place and came home. 
 
 In 1851, he again visited Europe, and there resided in various cities, — chiefly 
 Paris and Dresden, — engaged in the accomplishment of his noble historical work, 
 which was published in 1856. He had not been home a year after it was pub- 
 lished, when he resolved to write a second similar work, commencing where the 
 first leaves off; and, not able to obtain the necessary documents in our libraries, 
 he went again to Europe, where he is now (1859) residing with his family in its 
 affluent capitals, — affluent in books and manuscripts, — engaged in writing the 
 new history, which we doubt not will fully sustain his present reputation. 1 
 
 1 Of Motley's History, the " North American Review," July, 1856, thus speaks : 
 — " This is one of the most important contributions to historical literature that 
 have been made in this country. It is characterized throughout by a spirit of 
 great fairness and moderation, indulging in no violent invective or extravagant 
 praise, even where the narrative might furnish a fair excuse for the one or the 
 other ; while at the same time it is neither cold nor heartless. . . . On the con- 
 trary, a genuine sympathy with liberty and a spirit of humanity pervade it, and 
 it is evident that the author rejoices heartily in the successes of the patriots. . . . 
 In short, it is a work that every American may be proud to own as written by his 
 countryman." 
 
688 
 
 JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY. 
 
 THE SIEGE OF LEYDEN. 
 
 Meantime, the besieged city was at its last gasp. The burghers 
 had been in a state of uncertainty for many days ; being aware 
 that the fleet had set forth for their relief, but knowing full well 
 the thousand obstacles which it had to surmount. They had 
 guessed its progress by the illumination from the blazing villages; 
 they had heard its salvos of artillery on its arrival at North Aa; 
 but since then, all had been dark and mournful again, hope and 
 fear, in sickening alternation, distracting every breast. They 
 knew that the wind was unfavorable, and at the dawn of each day 
 every eye was turned wistfully to the vanes of the steeples. So 
 long as the easterly breeze prevailed, they felt, as they anxiously 
 stood on towers and housetops, that they must look in vain for the 
 welcome ocean. Yet, while thus patiently waiting, they were 
 literally starving ; for even the misery endured at Harlem had not 
 reached that depth and intensity of agony to which Leyden was 
 now reduced. Bread, malt-cake, horse-flesh, had entirely disap- 
 peared ; dogs, cats, rats, and other vermin, were esteemed luxuries. 
 A small number of cows, kept as long as possible, for their milk, 
 still remained; but a few were killed from day to day, and distri- 
 buted in minute proportions, hardly sufficient to support life 
 among the famishing population. Starving wretches swarmed 
 daily around the shambles where these cattle were slaughtered, 
 contending for any morsel which might fall, and lapping eagerly 
 the blood as it ran along the pavement; while the hides, chopped 
 and boiled, were greedily devoured. Women and children, all 
 day long, were seen searching gutters and dunghills for morsels 
 of food, which they disputed fiercely with the famishing dogs. 
 The green leaves were stripped from the trees, every living herb 
 was converted into human food ; but these expedients could not 
 avert starvation. The daily mortality was frightful : infants 
 starved to death on the maternal breasts which famine had 
 parched and withered ; mothers dropped dead in the streets, with 
 their dead children in their arms. In many a house the watch- 
 men, in their rounds, found a whole family of corpses, — father, 
 mother, children, side by side ; for a disorder called the plague, 
 naturally engendered of hardship and famine, now came, as if in 
 kindness, to abridge the agony of the people. The pestilence 
 stalked at noonday through the city, and the doomed inhabitants 
 fell like grass beneath its scythe. From six thousand to eight 
 thousand human beings sank before this scourge alone ; yet the 
 people resolutely held out, — women and men mutually encou- 
 raging each other to resist the entrance of their foreign foe, — an 
 evil more horrible than pest or famine. 
 
 Leyden was sublime in its despair. A few murmurs were, « 
 
JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY. 
 
 689 
 
 however, occasionally heard at the steadfastness of the magistrates, 
 and a dead body was placed at the door of the burgomaster, as a 
 silent witness against his inflexibility. A party of the more faint- 
 hearted even assailed the heroic Adrian Van der Werf with 
 threats and reproaches as he passed through the streets. A 
 crowd had gathered around him as he reached a triangular place 
 in the centre of the town, into which many of the principal streets 
 emptied themselves, and upon one side of which stood the church 
 of Saint Pancras. There stood the burgomaster, a tall, haggard, 
 imposing figure, with dark visage and a tranquil but commanding 
 eye. He waved his broad-leaved felt hat for silence, and then 
 exclaimed, in language which has been almost literally preserved, 
 " What would ye, my friends ? Why do ye murmur that we do 
 not break our vows and surrender the city to the Spaniards ? — a 
 fate more horrible than the agony which she now endures. I tell 
 you I have made an oath to hold the city; and may God give me 
 strength to keep my oath ! I can die but once, whether by your 
 hands, the enemy's, or by the hand of God. My own fate is in- 
 different to me ; not so that of the city intrusted to my care. I 
 know that we shall starve if not soon relieved ; but starvation is 
 preferable to the dishonored death which is the only alternative. 
 Your menaces move me not j my life is at your disposal ; here is 
 my sword, plunge it into my breast, and divide my flesh among 
 you. Take my body to appease your hunger, but expect no sur- 
 render so long as I remain alive." * * * 
 
 On the 28th of September, a dove flew into the city, bringing a 
 letter from Admiral Boisot. In this despatch, the position of the 
 fleet at North Aa was described in encouraging terms, and the in- 
 habitants were assured that, in a very few days at furthest, the 
 long-expected relief would enter their gates. The tempest came 
 to their relief. A violent equinoctial gale, on the night of the 
 1st and 2d of October, came storming from the northwest, shift- 
 ing after a few hours full eight points, and then blowing still 
 more violently from the southwest. The waters of the North Sea 
 were piled in vast masses upon the southern coast of Holland, and 
 then dashed furiously landward, the ocean rising over the earth 
 and sweeping with unrestrained power across the ruined dykes. 
 In the course of twenty-four hours, the fleet at North Aa, instead 
 of nine inches, had more than two feet of water. * * * On it 
 went, sweeping over the broad waters which lay between Zoeter- 
 woude and Zwieten ; as they approached some shallows which led 
 into the great mere, the Zealanders dashed into the sea, and with 
 sheer strength shouldered every vessel through. * * * On again 
 the fleet of Boisot still went, and, overcoming every obstacle, 
 entered the city on the morning of the 3d of October. Leyden 
 was relieved. 
 
 58* 
 
690 
 
 RUFUS WILMOT GRISWOLD. 
 
 RUFUS WILMOT GRISWOLD, 1815—1857. 
 
 If any one deserves a place and an honorable mention in these pages, it is 
 Rufus Wilniot Griswold, not only for his learning and literary achievements, 
 which will place him on the level of many of onr best authors, but because he 
 has done more than any other man to make American writers known and 
 honored both at home and abroad. He was born in Benson, Rutland County, 
 Vermont, on the 15th of February, 1815. Much of his early life was spent in 
 voyaging about the world ; and before he was twenty years of age he had seen 
 the most interesting portions of his own country and of Southern and Central 
 Europe. Relinquishing travel, he studied divinity, and was married shortly after 
 he was licensed to preach. But literature had more powerful attractions for him 
 than theology, and he entered the career of a man of letters by profession. He 
 was associated with Horace Greeley in editing " The New-Yorker," and with 
 Park Benjamin and Epes Sargent in '• The Brother Jonathan," and "The New 
 World," enterprises which were eminently successful. In 1842-43 he was editor 
 of " Graham's Magazine," and by the attraction of his name and of the corps 
 of eminent writers' whom he induced to aid him, he gave to the Magazine a 
 richly-deserved popularity, and increased the list of subscribers from seventeen 
 thousand to twenty-nine thousand. 
 
 Besides a number of volumes published anonymously, Dr. Griswold has given 
 us, under his name, a volume of Poems ; another of Sermons ; The Biographical 
 Annual for 1842 ; The Curiosities of American Literature ; A Life of Milton, 
 prefixed to an edition of his prose works published by Rev. Herman Hooker, 
 D.D., 2 Philadelphia, and The Poets and Poetry of England in the Nineteenth 
 Century. But what have given to Rev. Dr. Griswold his richly-merited fame are 
 his works on American Literature, — The Poets and Poetry of America, 1842; The 
 Prose Writers of America, 1846 ; and The Female Poets of America, 1848. These 
 works are of a very high order of merit. The selections show a fine taste and 
 sound judgment, while his criticisms are discriminating and just. 
 
 Dr. Griswold's other works are, A Memoir of Edgar A. Poe, prefixed to his 
 works, 1850; Scenes in the Life of the Saviour by the Poets and Painters; The 
 Sacred Poets of England and America, 1849 ; and The Republican Court, or Ame- 
 rican Society in the Days of Washington. This is a sumptuously-printed and 
 richly-illustrated work, and contains a mass of curious information relative to 
 the early days of the Republic, not to be found elsewhere. 
 
 But his incessant literary labors proved too much for a constitution naturally 
 feeble, and he died in New York, on the 27th of August, 1857, at the early age of 
 forty-two. 
 
 1 Among them were Dana, Allston, Cooper, Bryant, Longfellow, Hoffman, and 
 Willis. 
 
 2 Dr. Hooker is one of our best thinkers and writers, and, besides contributing 
 to many reviews and religious magazines, has written The Portion of the Soitl, 
 published in 1835 ; Popular Infidelity, 1835 ; and The Uses of Adversity, and the 
 Provisions of Consolation, 1846,— all works of great value. 
 
RUFUS WILMOT GRISWOLD. 
 
 691 
 
 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 
 
 I need not dwell upon the necessity of Literature and Art to a 
 people's glory and happiness. History with all her voices joins 
 in one judgment upon this subject. Our legislators, indeed, 
 choose to consider them of no consequence, and while the States 
 are convulsed by claims from the loom and the furnace for pro- 
 tection, the demands of the parents of freedom, the preservers of 
 arts, the dispensers of civility, are treated with silence. But 
 authors and artists have existed and do exist here in spite of such 
 outlawry; and, notwithstanding the obstacles in our condition, 
 and the discouragements of neglect, the Anglo-Saxon race in the 
 United States have done as much in the fields of Investigation, 
 Reflection, Imagination, and Taste, in the present century, as any 
 other twelve millions of people — 'about our average number for 
 this period — in the world. 
 
 Doubtless there are obstacles, great obstacles, to the successful 
 cultivation of letters here ; but they are not so many nor so im- 
 portant as is generally supposed. The chief difficulty is a want 
 of patriotism, mainly proceeding from and perpetuated by the 
 absence of a just law of copyright. There is indeed no lack of 
 that spurious love of country which is ever ready to involve us in 
 aimless and disgraceful war • but there is little genuine and lofty 
 national feeling ; little clear perception of that which really de- 
 serves affection and applause ; little intelligent and earnest effort 
 to foster the good we possess or acquire the good we need. 
 
 It has been the fate of colonists in all ages to consider the 
 people from among whom they made their exodus both morally 
 and intellectually superior to themselves, and the parent state has 
 had thus a kind of spiritual, added to her political sovereignty. 
 The American provinces quarrelled with England, conquered, and 
 became a separate nation ; and we have since had our own Presi- 
 dents and Congresses; but England has continued to do the 
 thinking of a large class here, — of men who have arrogated to 
 themselves the title of critics, — of our sham sort of men, in all 
 departments. We have had no confidence in ourselves ; and men 
 who lack self-reliance are rarely successful. We have not looked 
 into our own hearts. We have not inquired of our own necessi- 
 ties. When we have written, instead of giving a free voice to 
 the spirit within us, we have endeavored to write after some 
 foreign model. We have been so fearful of nothing else as of an 
 Americanism in thought or expression. He has been deemed 
 greatest who has copied some transatlantic author with most suc- 
 cessful servility. The noisiest demagogue who affects to despise 
 England will scarcely open a book which was not written there. 
 And if one of our countrymen wins some reputation among 
 
C92 
 
 RUFUS WILMOT GRISWOLD. 
 
 his fellows, it is generally because he has been first praised 
 abroad. 
 
 The commonly urged barriers to literary advancement supposed 
 to exist in our form of government, the nature of our institutions, 
 the restless and turbulent movements of our democracy, and the 
 want of a wealthy and privileged class among us, deserve little 
 consideration. Tumult and strife, the clashing of great interests 
 and high excitements, are to be regarded rather as aids than as 
 obstacles to intellectual progress. From Athens came the choicest 
 literature and the finest art. Her philosophers, so calm and pro- 
 found, her poets, the dulcet sounds of whose lyres still charm the 
 ears of succeeding ages, wrote amid continual upturnings and 
 overthrows. The best authors of Rome also were senators and 
 soldiers. Milton, the greatest of the prose writers as well as the 
 greatest of the poets of England, lived in the Commonwealth, and 
 participated in all its political and religious controversies. And 
 what repose had blind Maeonides, or Camoens, or Dante, or 
 Tasso? In the literature of Germany and France, too, the 
 noblest works have been produced amid the shocks of contending 
 elements. 
 
 Nor is the absence of a wealthy class, with leisure for such 
 tranquil pursuits, to be much lamented. The privileged classes 
 of all nations have been drones. We have, in the Southern States 
 of this Republic, a large class, with ample fortunes, leisure, and 
 quiet • but they have done comparatively nothing in the fields of 
 intellectual exertion, except when startled into spasmodic activity 
 by conflicts of interest with the North. 
 
 To say truth, most of the circumstances usually set down as 
 barriers to acsthetical cultivation here, are directly or indirectly 
 advantageous. The real obstacles are generally of a transient 
 kind. Many of them are silently disappearing; and the rest 
 would be soon unknown if we had a more enlightened love of 
 country, and the making of our laws were not so commonly con- 
 fided to a sort of men whose intellects are too mean or whose 
 principles are too wicked to admit of their seeing or doing what is 
 just and needful in the premises. That property which is most 
 actual, the only property to which a man's right is positive, un- 
 questionable, indefeasible, exclusive, — his genius, conferred as by 
 letters-patent from the Almighty, — is held to be not his, but the 
 public's, and therefore is not brought into use. 1 Nevertheless, 
 
 1 "All 'arguments' against copyright, as universal and perpetual as the life of 
 a book, are but insults to the common sense. Some of them are ingeniuiis, and 
 may be admired on the same principle that the ingenuity of a picklock is ad- 
 mired. The possession of lands is, by privilege, conceded to the individual for 
 the common benefit. The right of an author rests on altogether different grounds. 
 The intangible and inalienable power by which he works is a direct and special 
 
I 
 
 PHILIP P. COOKE. 693 
 
 much has been accomplished j great advancement has been made 
 against the wind and tide ) and at this time the aspects and pros- 
 pects of our affairs are auspicious of scarcely any thing more 
 than of the successful cultivation of National Literature and 
 National Art. 
 
 ELOQUENCE OF JONATHAN EDWARDS. 
 
 No assertion in regard to Edwards has been more common than 
 the one that he was not eloquent. The mountebank declamation 
 of these latter days has so perverted men's judgments that they 
 cannot understand how a preacher who rested one arm upon a 
 high pulpit, with its diminutive and delicately-moulded hand 
 holding a small manuscript volume all the while close to his eyes, 
 and with the other made slowly his few and only gestures, could 
 be an orator. But he could keep a congregation that had assem- 
 bled to hear a morning sermon ignorant of the approach of noon 
 until through the uncurtained windows of the church the setting- 
 sun's red rays were shining upon its ceiling. One time, when he 
 was discoursing of death and the Judgment, people rose up from 
 their seats, with pallor on their faces, to see Christ descend 
 through the parting heavens. Being requested to preach at En- 
 field, where he was a stranger, and the assembly were so indiffe- 
 rent to religion as to be neglectful of the decency of silence while 
 he prayed, he had not half finished his sermon before the startled 
 sinners, having " already passed through the valley of silence," 
 began to wail and weep so bitterly that he could not go on for 
 their distress. These are triumphs of eloquence not dreamed of 
 by such as deem themselves masters of the art from reading the 
 foolish recipe ascribed to Demosthenes. 
 
 PHILIP PENDLETON COOKE, 1816—1850. 
 
 Philip Pendleton Cooke was born in Martinsburg, Virginia, on the 26th 
 of October, 1816. At the age of fifteen he entered Princeton College, and on 
 graduating pursued the study of law at Winchester, where his father was then 
 residing. Before he was twenty-one he was married, admitted to the bar, and 
 had very fair prospects in his profession. But he did not allow the law to 
 engross all his time, a portion of which he devoted to writing various pieces, 
 both.of criticism and poetry, for the " Southern Literary Messenger" and other 
 
 gift to him, to be used in subjection only to the law of God, who mocks at the 
 petty ranks which men establish, by setting the seal of His nobility and conferring 
 His riches upon whom He will." 
 
694 
 
 PHILIP P. COOKE. 
 
 magazines. In 1847, be published Froissart Ballards x and other Poems, and was 
 engaged in projecting other literary works, when he was suddenly arrested by 
 death on the 20th of January, 1850, at the age of thirty-three. 
 
 Most of what Mr. Cooke wrote and published is beautiful in itself, but is 
 more interesting from the promise it gave of greater achievement; for had he 
 lived he would doubtless have risen to much higher literary distinction. One 
 of his pieces, however, must bo rescued and preserved, — the delicate and beau- 
 tiful love-song of 
 
 FLORENCE VANE. 2 
 
 I loved thee long and dearly, 
 
 Florence Vane ; 
 My life's bright dream, and early, 
 
 Hath come again ; 
 I renew in my fond vision 
 
 My heart's dear pain, 
 My hopes, and thy derision, 
 
 Florence Vane. 
 
 The ruin lone and hoary, 
 
 The ruin old,- 
 Where thou didst hark my story, 
 
 At even told, — 
 That spot — the hues Elysian 
 
 Of sky and plain — 
 I treasure in my vision, 
 
 Florence Vane. 
 
 Thou wast lovelier than the roses 
 
 In their prime ; 
 Thy voice excell'd the closes 
 
 Of sweetest rhyme ; 
 Thy heart was as a river 
 
 Without a main ; 
 Would I had loved thee never, 
 
 Florence Vane ! 
 
 But, fairest, coldest wonder ! 
 
 Thy glorious clay 
 Lieth the green sod under, — 
 
 Alas the day ! 
 And it boots not to remember 
 
 Thy disdain — 
 To quicken love's pale ember, 
 
 Florence Vane. 
 
 1 These are versified transcripts of old Sir John Froissart's Chronicles, and 
 are admirably done. He says in his preface, " The reader may be disposed to 
 undervalue poems professing to be versifications of old stories, on the ground of 
 a want of originality. I ask only, in anticipation of this, that he will recollect 
 the fact that, from Chaucer to Dryden, such appropriations of old story were cus- 
 tomary with the noblest poets of our language." 
 
 2 " One of the daintiest lyrics in the language." — Willis. In the " Southern 
 Literary Messenger" for June, 1858, is an excellent article on Mr. Cooke. 
 
LUCY HOOPER. 
 
 695 
 
 The lilies of the valley 
 
 By young graves weep, 
 The pansies love to dally 
 
 Where maidens sleep ; 
 May their bloom, in beauty vying, 
 
 Never wane 
 Where thine earthly part is lying, 
 
 Florence Vane ! 
 
 LUCY HOOPER, 1816—1841. 
 
 u And thou art gone ! sweet daughter of the lyre, 
 
 Whose strains we hoped to hear thee waken long ; 
 Gone — as thp stars in morning's light expire, 
 
 Gone like the rapture of a passing song; 
 Gone from a circle who thy gifts have cherish'd 
 
 With genial fondness and devoted care, 
 Whose dearest hopes, with thee, have sadly perish'd, 
 
 And now can find no solace but in prayer; 
 Prayer to he like thee, in so meekly bearing 
 
 Both joy and sorrow from thy Maker's hand ; 
 Prayer to put on the white robes thou art wearing, 
 
 And join thy anthem in the better land."— II. T. Tcckekmax. 
 
 Lucy Hooper, the daughter of Mr. Joseph Hooper, a highly respectable mer- 
 chant of Newburyport, Massachusetts, was born in that city on the 4th of Febru- 
 ary, 1816. She very early gave indications of that sweetness of character, that 
 purity of taste, and that brightness of intellect, which were afterwards so beauti- 
 fully developed and harmoniously blended ; and her father took every pains that 
 her native powers should have the benefit of the best training, and her progress 
 in her studies was astonishing. At the age of fourteen, the family removed to 
 Brooklyn, New Y"ork; and here, very soon after, she became an occasional contri- 
 butor to the " Long Island Star." Though anonymous, her pieces were greatly 
 admired and widely copied ; and if they had not the merit of her later produc- 
 tions, every one must be struck with the melody of her versification, as well as the 
 precocious strength and nervousness of her expression. 
 
 Besides her compositions in verse, upon which Miss Hooper's fame chiefly rests, 
 she was the author of many prose articles of a high order of merit. These were 
 collected in a volume, and published in 1840, under the title of Scenes from Heal 
 Life: among them was the prize essay on "Domestic Happiness." 
 
 But, like the Davidsons, Henry Kirke White, and others, her early brilliant 
 career of usefulness was soon to close. Her health from her childhood had been 
 delicate ; but the loss of her devoted father, and other domestic afflictions, affected 
 her very deeply, and accelerated the progress of her fatal malady, — consumption ; 
 and on the morning of the 1st of August, 1841, she gently fell asleep in Jesus. 
 Seldom has the death of any one so young called forth so many testimonies of 
 admiration. 1 What she was, all can read and see; what she would probably have 
 
 1 One of these was a touching piece by J. G. Whittier, and another ^he few sweet 
 lines, by H. T. Tuckerman, placed at the head of this article. 
 
696 
 
 LUCY HOOPER. 
 
 become had she lived to a greater maturity of life and thought, we can imagine 
 from the high promise of her early performance. 1 
 
 OSCEOLA. 2 
 
 [Written upon seeing a picture of the Indian chief Osceola, drawn by Captain Yinton, of 
 the United States Army, representing him as he appeared in the American camp.] 
 
 Not on the battle-field, 
 As when thy thousand warriors joy'd to meet thee, 
 
 Sounding the fierce war-cry, 
 
 Leading them forth to die, — 
 Not thus, not thus we greet thee. 
 
 But in a hostile camp, 
 Lonely amidst thy foes, 
 
 Thine arrows spent, 
 
 Thy brow unbent, — 
 Yet wearing record of thy people's woes. 
 
 Chief! for thy memories now, 
 While the tall palm against this quiet sky 
 
 Her branches waves, 
 
 And the soft river laves 
 The green and flower-crown'd banks it wanders by, 
 
 While in this golden sun 
 The burnish'd rifle gleameth with strange light, 
 
 And sword and spear 
 
 Rest harmless here, 
 Yet flash with startling radiance on the sight ; 
 
 Wake they thy glance of scorn, 
 Thou of the folded arms and aspect stern, — 
 
 1 In 1S42 appeared her Poetical Remains, 12mo, with a beautifully-written me- 
 moir by John Keese; and, in 1848, her Complete Poetical Works, in 8vo. 
 
 2 This was the noble Seminole chief who, in the " Second Seminole War," in 
 1837, being found invincible in open battle, was decoyed, by orders of General 
 Jessup, into a conference, under the white flag of truce held sacred by all nations, 
 and then surrounded by our troops, disarmed, and made a captive, — a transaction 
 which should cover that officer's name with lasting infamy. To this, the follow- 
 ing verse from Pierpont's bold, nervous, and truthful poem, " The Tocsin," 
 alludes-: — 
 
 "At Slavery's beck, the very hands 
 
 Ye lift to Heaven, to swear ye're free, 
 Will break a truce, to seize the lands 
 
 Of Seminole or Cherokee ! 
 Yes, — tear a flag that Tartar hordes 
 Respect, and shield it with their swords."* 
 
 For a true account of the Florida War, read " The Exiles of Florida, or the 
 Crimes committed by our Government against the Maroons, who fled from South 
 Carolina and other Slave States, seeking Protection under Spanish Law," by 
 Joshua R. Giddings, — a painfully-interesting narrative. Too many histories of 
 the United States seem to have been written rather to conceal, than to tell the 
 truth relative to certain transactions and subjects. 
 
 * < ; Bear witness, ghost of the great-hearted, broken-hearted Osceola:" 
 
LUCY HOOPER. 697 
 
 Thou of the deep low tone, 1 
 For whose rich music gone, 
 Kindred and friends alike may vainly yearn ? 
 
 Woe for the trusting hour ! 
 Oh, kingly stag ! no hand hath brought thee down ; 
 
 'Twas with a patriot's heart, 
 
 Where fear usurp'd no part, 
 Thou earnest, a noble offering, and alone ! 
 
 For vain yon army'3 might, 
 While for thy band the wide plain own'd a tree, 
 
 Or the wild vine's tangled shoots 
 
 On the gnaiTcl oak's mossy roots 
 Their trysting-place might be ! 
 
 Woe for thy hapless fate ! 
 Woe for thine evil times and lot, brave chief ! 
 
 Thy sadly closing story, 
 
 Thy short and mournful glory, 
 Thy high but hopeless struggle, brave and brief ! 
 
 Woe for the bitter stain 
 That from our country's banner may not part ! 
 
 Woe for the captive, woe ! 
 
 For burning pains, and slow, 
 Are his who dieth of the fever'd heart. 
 
 Oh ! in that spirit-land, 
 Where never yet the oppressor's foot hath past, 
 
 Chief, by those sparkling streams, 
 
 Whose beauty mocks our dreams, 
 May that high heart have won its rest at last. 
 
 EVENING THOUGHTS. 
 
 Thou quiet moon, above the hill-tops shining, 
 
 How do I revel in thy glances bright, 
 How does my heart, cured of its vain repining, 
 
 Take note of those who wait and watch thy light, — 
 The student o'er his lonely volume bending, 
 
 The pale enthusiast, joying in thy ray, 
 And ever and anon his dim thoughts sending 
 
 Up to the regions of eternal day ! 
 
 Nor these alone, — the pure and radiant eyes 
 
 Of Youth and Hope look up to thee with love ; 
 Would it were thine, — meek dweller of the skies, — 
 
 To save from tears ! but no ! too far above 
 This dim, cold earth thou shinest, richly flinging 
 
 Thy soft light down on all who watch thy beam, 
 And to the heart of Sorrow gently bringing 
 
 The glories pictured in Life's morning stream, 
 
 1 Osceola was remarkable for a soft and flute-like voice. 
 59 
 
698 JOHN G. SAXE. 
 
 As a loved presence back ; oh ! shine to me 
 As to the voyagers on the faithless sea ! 
 
 Joy's beacon-light! I know that trembling Care, 
 
 Warn'd by thy coming, hies him to repose, 
 And on his pillow laid, serenely there 
 
 Forgets his calling, that at day's dull close 
 Meek Age and rosy Childhood sink to rest, 
 
 And Passion lays her fever-dreams aside, 
 And the unquiet thought in every breast 
 
 Loses its selfish fervor and its pride 
 With thoughts of thee, — the while their vigil keeping, 
 The quiet stars hold watch o'er beauty sleeping ! 
 
 But unto me, thou still and solemn light, 
 
 What may'st thou bring? high hope, unwavering trust 
 In Him, who for the watches of the night 
 
 Ordain'd thy coming, and on things of dust 
 Hath pour'd a gift of power, — on wings to rise 
 
 From the low earth and its surrounding gloom 
 To higher spheres, till as the shaded skies 
 
 Are lighted by thy glories, gentle Moon, 
 So are Life's lonely hours and dark despair 
 Cheer'd by the star of faith, the torch of prayer. 
 
 JOHN GODFREY SAXE. 
 
 Joh.v Godfrey Saxe, so widely known as " the witty poet," is the son of Hon. 
 Peter Saxe, and was born in Highgate, Franklin County, Vermont, June 2, 1816. 
 He was graduated at Middleburg College in 1839, studied law, was admitted to 
 the bar in September, 1843, and entered upon the practice of his profession at 
 St. Alban's, having in the mean time entered into " the holy bonds of matrimony" 
 with one of the fair daughters of the Mountain State. All his leisure time he 
 devoted to belles-lettres, which finally fairly won him from the law. In 1846, he 
 delivered a poem before the Alumni of Middleburg College, called Progress, 
 a Satire, which was a most successful performance and won for him a high repu- 
 tation. In 1847 appeared his Rape of the Lock, and in 1848 his Proud Hiss 
 McBride, both of which excited great laughter for their rollicking humor, happy 
 puns, and pungent philosophy combined. 
 
 In 1850, Ticknor & Fields, of Boston, published his first volume of Poems, 
 which soon ran through twelve editions. The same year he removed to Bur- 
 lington, Vermont, and purchased the Sentinel, which he conducted for five years 
 with marked success. Soon after he was elected State's Attorney, and, upon re- 
 tiring from that office, was appointed Deputy-Collector of Customs. Of late years 
 he has devoted his attention almost exclusively to literature, and now makes 
 "lecturing" his sole vocation. So greatly does he excel in humorous and 
 satirical poetry that he is constantly invited to address literary societies and 
 " Institutes," and his readings and recitations are always enthusiastically 
 
JOHN G. SAXE. 
 
 699 
 
 received. The poems New England, The Press, and The Money King have been 
 delivered on such occasions, and are, of course, not in print. He is now pre- 
 paring another volume of poems, which will include all his productions not 
 embraced in the first. We hope it may be as successful. 
 
 11HYME OF THE RAIL. 
 
 Singing through the forests, 
 
 Rattling over ridges, 
 Shooting under arches, 
 
 Rumbling over bridges, 
 Whizzing through the mountains, 
 
 Buzzing o'er the vale, — 
 Bless me ! this is pleasant. 
 
 Riding on the rail ! 
 
 Men of different " stations" 
 
 In the eye of Fame 
 Here are very quickly 
 
 Coming to the same. 
 High and lowly people, 
 
 Birds of every feather, 
 On a common level 
 
 Travelling together ! 
 
 Gentleman in shorts, 
 
 Looming very tall ; 
 Gentleman at large, 
 
 Talking very small ; 
 Gentleman in tights, 
 
 With a loose-ish mien ; 
 Gentleman in gray, 
 
 Looking rather green. 
 
 Gentleman quite old, 
 
 Asking for the news ; 
 Gentleman in black, 
 
 In a fit of blues ; 
 Gentleman in claret, 
 
 Sober as a vicar ; 
 Gentleman in Tweed, 
 
 Dreadfully in liquor ! 
 
 Stranger on the right, 
 Looking very sunny, 
 
 Obviously reading 
 
 Something rather funny. 
 
 Now the smiles are thicker : — 
 Wonder what they mean ? 
 
 Faith, he's got the Knicker- 
 bocker Magazine ! 
 
 Stranger on the left, 
 
 Closing up his peepers, 
 Now he snores amain, 
 
 Like the Seven Sleepers ; 
 At his feet a volume 
 
 Gives the explanation, 
 How the man grew stupid 
 
 From " Association !" 
 
 Ancient maiden lady 
 
 Anxiously remarks 
 That there must be peril 
 
 'Mong so many sparks ; 
 Roguish-looking fellow, 
 
 Turning to the stranger, 
 Says it's his opinion 
 
 She is out of danger. 
 
 Woman with her baby 
 
 Sitting vis-a-vis ; 
 Baby keeps a-squalling, 
 
 Woman looks at me, 
 Asks about the distance, 
 
 Says it's tiresome talking, 
 Noises of the cars 
 
 Are so very shocking ! 
 
 Market-woman careful 
 
 Of the precious casket, 
 Knowing eggs are eggs, 
 
 Tightly holds her basket, 
 Feeling that a smash, 
 
 If it came, would surely 
 Send her eggs to pot 
 
 Rather prematurely ! 
 
 Singing through the forests, 
 
 Rattling over ridges, 
 Shooting under arches, 
 
 Rumbling over bridges, 
 Whizzing through the mountains, 
 
 Buzzing o'er the vale, — 
 Bless me ! this is pleasant, 
 
 Riding on the rail I 
 
JOHN G. SAXE. 
 
 i'm growing old. 
 
 My days pass pleasantly away, 
 
 My nights are bless'd with sweetest sleep ; 
 I feel no symptoms of decay, 
 
 I have no cause to moan and weep; 
 My foes are impotent and shy, 
 
 My friends are neither false nor cold, 
 And yet, of late, I often sigh, — 
 I'm growing old ! 
 
 My growing talk of olden times, 
 My growing thirst for early news, 
 
 My growing apathy for rhymes, 
 My growing love for easy shoes, 
 
 My growing hate of crowds and noise, 
 My growing fear of taking cold, 
 
 All tell me, in the plainest voice, 
 I'm growing old ! 
 
 I'm growing fonder of my staff, 
 I'm growing dimmer in the eyes, 
 
 I'm growing fainter in my laugh, 
 I'm growing deeper in my sighs, 
 
 I'm growing careless of my dress, 
 I'm growing frugal of my gold, 
 
 I'm growing wise, I'm growing — yes — 
 I'm growing old ! 
 
 I see it in my changing taste, 
 
 I see it in my changing hair, 
 I see it in my growing waist, 
 
 I see it in my growing heir; 
 A thousand hints proclaim the truth, 
 
 As plain as truth was ever told, 
 That even in my vaunted youth 
 I'm growing old ! 
 
 Ah me ! my very laurels breathe 
 
 The tale in my reluctant ears ; 
 And every boon the hours bequeath 
 
 But makes me debtor to the years ; 
 E'en flattery's honey'd words declare 
 
 The secret she would fain withhold, 
 And tells me, in " How young you are !" 
 I'm growing old ! 
 
 Thanks for the years whose rapid flight 
 My sombre muse too sadly sings ; 
 
 Thanks for the gleams of golden light 
 That tint the darkness of her wings, — 
 
 The light that beams from out the sky, 
 Those heavenly mansions to unfold, 
 
 Where all are blest, and none may sigh, 
 " I'm growing old !" 
 
ELIZABETH HOWELL. 
 
 701 
 
 ELIZABETH HOWELL. 
 
 The following poem, together with several others of great beauty of sentiment 
 and parity of feeling, was written by a young lady of Philadelphia, a member 
 of the " Society of Friends," — Elizabeth Lloyd, Jr., — the daughter of Isaac 
 Lloyd. She afterwards was married to our late lamented fellow-townsman, 
 Robert Howell, Esq. It is sufficient, in commendation of these lines, to say that 
 they were at first attributed by many journals to Milton himself. 
 
 milton's prayer of patience. 
 
 I am old and blind ! 
 Men point at me as smitten by God's frown; 
 Afflicted and deserted of my kind, 
 
 Yet am I not cast down. 
 
 I am weak, yet strong: 
 I murmur not that I no longer see ; — 
 Poor, old, and helpless, I the more belong, 
 
 Father Supreme ! to Thee. 
 
 All-merciful One ! 
 When men are farthest, then art thou most near ; 
 When friends pass by, my weaknesses to shun, 
 
 Thy chariot I hear. 
 
 Thy glorious face 
 Is leaning towards me, and its holy light 
 Shines in upon my lonely dwelling-place, — 
 
 And there is no more night. 
 
 On my bended knee, 
 I recognise Thy purpose, clearly shown ; 
 My vision Thou hast dimm'd, that I may see 
 
 Thyself— Thyself alone. 
 
 I have naught to fear ; 
 This darkness is the shadow of thy wing ; 
 Beneath it I am almost sacred, — here 
 
 Can come no evil thing. 
 
 Oh ! I seem to stand 
 Trembling, where foot of mortal ne'er hath been, 
 Wrapp'd in that radiance from the sinless land 
 
 Which eye hath never seen. 
 
 Yisions come and go, 
 Shapes of resplendent beauty round me throng ; 
 From angel-lips I seem to hear the flow 
 
 Of soft and holy song. 
 
 In a purer clime, 
 M} r being fills with rapture, — waves of thought 
 Roll in upon my spirit, — strains sublime 
 
 Break over me unsought. 
 
 59* 
 
702 
 
 HORACE B. WALLACE. 
 
 Give me now my lyre ! 
 I feel the stirrings of a gift divine ; 
 Within my bosom glows unearthly lire, 
 
 Lit by no skill of mine. 
 
 HORACE BINNEY WALLACE, 1817— 1S52. 
 
 Horace Binxey Wallace, the youngest son of John Bradford and Susan 
 Wallace, was born in Philadelphia, on the 26th of February, 1817. Parents 
 more competent to develop and discipline the mind no child could have. He 
 appears early to have evinced a love of study and traits of strongly-marked indi- 
 viduality. His preparation for college was chiefly under the teachings of his 
 father, and in his fifteenth year he entered the University of Pennsylvania, where 
 he became at once distinguished in every branch of study, and particularly in the 
 higher mathematics. After passing two years here, he was transferred to Prince- 
 ton College, and had not been there a year before one of its most eminent profes- 
 sors declared that "he was the most extraordinary young man he had ever seen ; 
 excelled in all branches of study, — seemed to know every thing, to read every 
 thing, and to find and measure the wisdom of all he read." 
 
 After graduating in 1S35, he devoted some years to the study of medicine, then 
 to chemistry, and then to law. Of the latter he was master. Having no neces- 
 sity, he had no taste, for the "practice" of the profession, and declined it ; but he 
 ever continued to read, to think, and to write upon it on a large scale. His con- 
 tributions to his profession are, Comments vpon Smith's Selection of Leading Cases 
 in Various Branches of Law ; vpon White and I'udor's Selection of Cases in Equity, 
 and other similar works, which are spoken of by one to whom all may justly 
 defer, as " the fruits of as accomplished a legal mind as any man in any country 
 at his early age has shown. It is almost marvellous that a man of thirty, who 
 had no time or chance to file his opinions and thoughts by the thoughts of other 
 men in bar-discussions, should have attained to so true and uniform and firm an 
 edge, and to so sharp and penetrating a point, in all of them. There is not a note 
 or remark in the whole body that does not show the mind of a lawyer, imbued with 
 the spirit of the science, instinctively perceiving and observing all its limitations, 
 its harmonies, its modulations, its discords, as a cultivated ear perceives, without 
 an effort, what is congruous or incongruous with the harmonies of sound." 1 
 
 Mr. Wallace died at Paris on the 16th of December, 1852. Since then, two 
 volumes have been collected and arranged from his writings, by his surviving 
 brother, John William Wallace, Esq. The duty was done with great care and 
 faithfulness that the author should speak in his own exact words, though all was 
 left by him in an unprepared state and without any thought of publication. 
 They will remain a lasting monument of the author's genius, leaving the world 
 to mourn his early loss, and, in that, the loss of what he might have done. 
 These works are entitled Art and Scenery in Europe, and Literary Criticisms and 
 other Papers. 12 
 
 1 Horace Binney, Esq., of Philadelphia. 
 
 2 Good editions of these have been published by Parry & McMillan, Phila. 
 
HORACE B. WALLACE. 
 
 703 
 
 What we can quote is only a taste of these volumes, filled with the rarest beau- 
 ties of thought and expression. They are hut broken fragments, and indeed 
 such is all he has left; hut, "luminous with beauty, they show how admirable was 
 bis style of man, — all the powers of his mind adjusted, not one unused in its 
 office, but as lights, each reflecting on the other, and making the soul the place 
 of clear vision, radiant with the first elements that enter into the best creations." 
 
 THE ALPS. 
 
 Perhaps no intellectual emotion of our maturer life comes upon 
 us with so much novelty, and strength, and delight, as that shock 
 of surprise and pleasure which we receive from the sight of the 
 snowy pinnacles of the Alps, shooting up into the blue heaven, 
 and standing together in silent mysterious vastness. It provokes 
 not to expression, but sinks upon the stilled heart, with a strange, 
 exquisite feeling, essentially spiritual in its solemnity and depth. 
 Our native and familiar earth is seen expanding into the sublimity 
 of the heavens, and we feel as if our destiny were exalted along 
 with it. The wonder and sensibility of childhood return upon us. 
 Niagara, — the ocean, — cathedrals, — all these, when seen for the 
 first time, touch chords of immortality within our being. But 
 none of them in quickness and fineness and depth of force can be 
 equalled to the aspect of the Alps. Material and moral qualities 
 combine to render it the most awing and ennobling that can pass 
 before living eyes. There is a calming, elevating, consoling influ- 
 ence in the quietness of power, the repose of surpassing magni- 
 ficence, in which these mighty eminences rest, living out their 
 great lives in silent and motionless serenity j and our turbulent 
 and troubled souls are reproved and chastened by the spectacle. 
 
 THE INTERIOR OF ST. PETER'S. 
 
 What a world within Life's open world is the interior of St. 
 Peter's ! — a world of softness, brightness, and richness ! — fusing 
 the sentiments in a refined rapture of tranquillity, — gratifying the 
 imagination with splendors more various, expansive, and exhaust- 
 less than the natural universe from which we pass, — typical of 
 that sphere of spiritual consciousness, which, before the inward- 
 working energies of Faith, arches itself out within man's mortal 
 being. When you push aside the heavy curtain that veils the 
 sanctuary from the [MS. wanting] without, what a shower of high 
 and solemn pleasure is thrown upon your spirit ! A glory of 
 beauty fills all the Tabernacle. The majesty of a Perfection, that 
 seems fragrant of delightfulness, fills it like a Presence. Gran- 
 deur, strength, solidity, — suggestive of the fixed Infinite, — float 
 unsphered within those vaulted spaces, like clouds of lustre. The 
 
704 
 
 HORACE B. WALLACE. 
 
 immensity of the size, — the unlimitable richness of the treasure 
 that has been lavished upon its decoration by the enthusiastic 
 prodigality of the Catholic world through successive centuries, 
 — dwarf Man and the Present, and leave the soul open to senti- 
 ments of God and Eternity. The eye, as it glances along column 
 and archway, meets nothing but variegated marbles and gold. 
 Among the ornaments of the obscure parts of the walls and piers 
 are a multitude of pictures, vast in magnitude, transcendent in 
 merit, — the master-pieces of the world, — the Communion of St. 
 Jerome, — the Burial of St. Petronilla, — the Transfiguration of 
 the Saviour, — not of perishable canvass and oils, but wrought in 
 mosaic, and fit to endure till Time itself shall perish. 
 
 It is the sanctuary of Space and Silence. No throng can crowd 
 these aisles ; no sound of voices or of organs can displace the 
 venerable quiet that broods here. The Pope, who fills the world 
 with all his pompous retinue, fills not St. Peter's ) and the roar 
 of his quired singers, mingling with the sonorous chant of a host 
 of priests and bishops, struggles for an instant against this ocean 
 of stillness, and then is absorbed into it like a faint echo. The 
 mightiest ceremonies of human worship — celebrated by the 
 earth's chief Pontiff, sweeping along in the magnificence of the 
 most imposing array that the existing world can exhibit — seem 
 dwindled into insignificance within this structure. They do not 
 explain to our feelings the uses of the building. As you stand 
 within the gorgeous, celestial dwelling — framed not for man's 
 abode — the holy silence, the mysterious fragrance, the light of 
 ever-burning lamps, suggest to you that it is the home of in- 
 visible spirits, — an outer court of Heaven, — visited, perchance, in 
 the deeper hours of a night that is never dark within its walls, by 
 the all-sacred Awe itself. 
 
 THE CRATER OF VESUVIUS. 
 
 The first thing that I came upon here was the great crater of 
 the eruption of 1794, — now dry and scorious, and black as a 
 bosom in which sensual passion has burnt itself to exhaustion. 
 Though crusted over and closed, it was steaming and smoking 
 through sundry apertures. Traversing it, I arrived at the large 
 crater of 1850, — a still raw and open ulcer of earth. The wind 
 was blowing from us, and the circumstances were favorable for 
 viewing the cavity. It was filled with a dense volume of white 
 gas, which was whirling and rapidly ascending; but the breeze 
 occasionally drove it to the opposite side and disclosed the depths 
 of the frightful chasm. It descended a prodigious distance, in 
 the shape of an inverted, truncated cone, and then terminated in a 
 circular opening. The mysteries of the profound immensity beyond, 
 
HORACE B. WALLACE. 
 
 705 
 
 no human eye might see, no human heart conceive. We hurled 
 some stones into the gulf and listened till they struck below. The 
 guide gravely assured me that ten minutes elapsed before the 
 sound was heard ; I found, by the watch, that the interval was, in 
 reality, something over three quarters of a minute \ — and that 
 seems almost incredibly long. When the vapor, at intervals, so 
 far thinned away that one could see across, as through a vista, the 
 opposite side of the crater, viewed athwart the mist, seemed 
 several miles distant, though in fact but a few hundred feet. The 
 interior of the shelving crater was entirely covered over with a 
 bed of knob-like blossoms of brilliant white, yellow, green, red, 
 brown, — the sulphurous flowers of Hell. I cannot describe this 
 spectacle, for, in impression and appearance, alike, it resembles 
 nothing else that I have seen before or since. It was like Death, 
 — which has no similitudes in life. It was like a vision of the 
 Second Death. As the sun gleamed at times through the 
 white breath that swayed and twisted about the maw of the 
 accursed monstrosity, there seemed to be an activity in the 
 vaulted depth • but it was the activity of shadows in the concave 
 of nothingness. It seemed the emblem of destruction, itself, 
 extinct. There was something about it revoltingly beautiful, dis- 
 gustingly splendid. One while, its circling rim looked like the 
 parched shore of the ever-absorbing and ever-empty sea of anni- 
 hilation. Another while, it seemed like a fetid cancer on the 
 breast of earth, destined one day to consume it. To me it was 
 purely uncomfortable and wholly uninspiring. It seemed to freeze 
 back fancy and sentiment to their sources. It was not terrible, 
 it was merely horrible. It is a thing to see once, but I care not 
 to see such a thing again in this world ; and Jesus grant that I 
 may see nothing like it in the next ! 
 
 WASHINGTON. HAMILTON. 1 
 
 If we compare him with the great men who were his contem- 
 poraries throughout the nation, in an age of extraordinary per- 
 sonages, Washington was unquestionably the first man of the 
 time in ability. Review the correspondence of General Wash- 
 ington, — that sublime monument of intelligence and integrity, — 
 scrutinize the public history and the public men of that era, and 
 you will find that in all the wisdom that was accomplished or 
 was attempted, Washington was before every man in his sug- 
 gestions of the plan, and beyond every one in the extent to which 
 he contributed to its adoption. In the field, all the able generals 
 
 1 These remarks on Washington and Hamilton are wonderfully beautiful, dis- 
 criminating, and just. 
 
706 
 
 HORACE B. WALLACE. 
 
 acknowledged his superiority, and looked up to him with loyalty, 
 reliance, and reverence ; the others, who doubted his ability, or 
 conspired against his sovereignty, illustrated in their own conduct 
 their incapacity to be either his judges or his rivals. In the state, 
 Adams, Jay, Rutledge, Pinckney, Morris, — these are great 
 names ; but there is not one whose wisdom does not veil to his. 
 His superiority was felt by all these persons, and was felt by 
 Washington himself, as a simple matter of fact, as little a subject 
 of question or a cause of vanity as the eminence of his personal 
 stature. His appointment as commander-in-chief was the result 
 of no design on his part, and of no efforts on the part of his 
 friends : it seemed to take place spontaneously. He moved into 
 the position, because there was a vacuum which no other could 
 supply ; in it, he was not sustained by government, by a party, or 
 by connections; he sustained himself; and then he sustained 
 every thing else. He sustained Congress against the army, and 
 the army against the injustice of Congress. The brightest mind 
 among his contemporaries was Hamilton's, — a character which 
 cannot be contemplated without frequent admiration, and constant 
 affection. His talents took the form of genius, which Wash- 
 ington's did not. But active, various, and brilliant as the facul- 
 ties of Hamilton were, whether viewed in the precocity of youth 
 or in the all-accomplished elegance of maturer life, — lightning- 
 quick as his intelligence was to see through every subject that 
 came before it, and vigorous as it was in constructing the argu- 
 mentation by which other minds were to be led, as upon a shapely 
 bridge, over the obscure depths across which his had flashed in a 
 moment, — fertile and sound in schemes,' ready in action, splendid 
 in display, as he was, — nothing is more obvious and certain than 
 that when Mr. JIamilton approached Washington, he came into 
 the presence of one who surpassed him in the extent, in the 
 comprehension, the elevation, the sagacity, the force, and the 
 ponderousness of his mind, as much as he did in the majesty of 
 his aspect and the grandeur of his step. The genius of Hamilton 
 was a flower, which gratifies, surprises, and enchants ; the intelli- 
 gence of Washington was a stately tree, which in the rarity and 
 
 true dignity of its beauty is as superior as it is in its dimensions. 
 
 * # * * * * * 
 
 In moral qualities, the character of Washington is the most 
 truly dignified that was ever presented to the respect and admi- 
 ration of mankind. He was one of the few entirely good men in 
 whom goodness had no touch of weakness. He was one of the 
 few rigorously just men whose justice was not commingled with 
 any of the severity of personal temper. The elevation, and 
 strength, and greatness of his feelings were derived from Nature ; 
 their moderation was the effect of reflection and discipline. His 
 
A. CLEVELAND COXE. 
 
 707 
 
 temper, by nature, was ardent, and inclined to action. His pas- 
 sions were quick, and capable of an intensity of motion which, 
 when it was kindled by either intellectual or moral indignation, 
 amounted almost to fury. But how rarely — how less than rarely 
 — was any thing of this kind exhibited in his public career ! 
 How restrained from all excess which reason could reprove, or 
 virtue condemn, or good taste reject, were these earnest impulses, 
 in the accommodation of his nature to " that great line of duty" 
 which he had set up as the course of his life ! Seen in his public 
 duties, his attitude and character — the one elevated above fami- 
 liarity, the other purged of all littlenesses — present a position and 
 an image almost purely sublime. 
 
 But when viewed in the gentler scenes of domestic and friendly 
 relation, there are traits which give loveliness to dignity, and add 
 grace to veneration j like the leaves and twigs which cluster 
 around the trunk and huge branches of the colossal elm, making 
 that beautiful which else were only grand. His sentiments were 
 quick and delicate; his refinement exquisite. His temper was as 
 remote from plebeian as his principles were opposite to democratic. 
 If his public bearing had something of the solemnity of Puritanism, 
 the sources of his social nature were the spirit and maxims of a 
 cavalier. His demeanor towards all men illustrated, in every con- 
 dition, that " finest sense of justice which the mind can form/' In 
 
 ALL THINGS ADMIRABLE, IN ALL THINGS TO BE IMITATED; IN 
 SOME THINGS SCARCE IMITABLE AND ONLY TO BE ADMIRED. 
 
 A. CLEVELAND COXE. 
 
 A. Cleveland Coxe (who has adopted an older spelling of the family name) 
 is the son of Rev. Samuel H. Cox, D.D., and Abiah Hyde Cleveland, 1 and was 
 
 1 He gets his middle name from his mother, the daughter of Rev. Aaron Cleve- 
 land, (1744-1815,) of Norwich and Hartfoird, Connecticut. He was the son of Rev. 
 Aaron Cleveland, (1719-1757, a graduate at Harvard College in 1735,) and, from 
 his promising talents, was early destined for college. But, his father (rector of the 
 Episcopal Church at Newcastle, Delaware) dying when he was but twelve years old, 
 and leaving nine other children unprovided for, he was apprenticed to a hatter, and, 
 when of age, established himself in business at Norwich. Subsequently (in 1775) 
 he was chosen a representative to the State Legislature, and served in that capa- 
 city for two years. When he was over forty years of age, he experienced a great 
 change in his religious views, and immediately entered upon the study of theo- 
 logy. He was ordained two years afterwards, and preached with great acceptance 
 in various places (part of the time as a missionary in the early settlements of 
 Vermont) until the day of his death, which took place in New Haven in 1S15. 
 He was a man of strong native powers of mind, of a most benevolent temper, and 
 of quick and genial wit and humor, which made him a delightful companion. 
 He wrote a great deal, but was so careless of his productions that but few have 
 
708 
 
 A. CLEVELAND COXE. 
 
 born in Mendham, New Jersey, (where his father was first settled,) May 10, 1818, 
 and graduated at the New York City University, with honorable distinction, in 
 1838. While a student, in 1837, he published Advent, a Mystery; and other Poems. 
 After leaving the University, he entered upon the study of theology, and in 1841 
 was ordained deacon, settled in "Westchester, New York, and was married to 
 Catharine Hyde, of Brooklyn. In 18-12, he accepted the rectorship of St. John's 
 Church, Hartford. In 1851, he went to England, where he received great atten- 
 tions from many eminent scholars and the highest dignitaries of the English 
 Church, the fame of his Christian Ballads having preceded him. On his return 
 home, he remained at Hartford till 1854, when he was elected rector of Grace 
 Church, Baltimore, where he now is. 
 
 Mr. Coxe's principal publications are as follows : — In 1840, Athanasion, 1 and 
 Miscellaneous Poems, and Christian Ballads, the latter of which passed through 
 many editions in England as well as in this country, and, next to Keble's u Chris- 
 tian Year," have probably enjoyed the greatest popularity ever accorded to such 
 a work. In 1844, he published Halloween, and other Poems; and in 1845, Saul, 
 a Mystery. In 1855, he collected and published his Impressions of England, 
 originally contributed for the " New York Church Journal." The book has gone 
 through several editions, and has been very highly and deservedly commended. 
 Besides these larger works, Mr. Coxe has written many valuable articles for the 
 religious periodicals in England and America; such as "Modern English 
 Poetry," and " The Poetry of Cowper," for the " Biblical Repository f* " Devo- 
 tional Poetry," for the "New York Review ;" "Schools in American Literature," 
 and "Writings of Hawthorne," for the "Church Review;" and several articles 
 for "Blackwood's Magazine." He has lately written but little for the press, as 
 he devotes himself most laboriously to his parochial duties. 
 
 THE HEART'S SONG. 
 
 In the silent midnight watches, 
 
 List — thy bosom-door ! 
 How it knocketh, knocketh, knocketh, 
 
 Knocketh evermore ! 
 Say not 'tis thy pulse's beating ; 
 
 'Tis thy heart of sin : 
 'Tis thy Saviour knocks, and crieth, 
 
 Rise, and let me in ! 
 
 been preserved. Before he was twenty years old, he wrote The Philosopher and 
 Boy, which may be found in " The Poets of Connecticut," and which is superior 
 to any American poetry prior to 1780. In 1775, he published a poem against 
 Slavery : it is in blank verse, and consists of about nine hundred lines. He pub- 
 lished also a poem entitled Family Blood, a Burlesque ; and two peace sermons, in 
 1815,. entitled The Life of Man Inviolable, which were reprinted in England. I 
 have felt thus much, at least, to be due to my pious and gifted ancestor, not 
 having given him a regular place in my book, with selections from his poetry. 
 
 1 Of the Athanasion, the late Professor Henry Reed thus wrote: — " There is no 
 word I am in the habit of using more cautiously than the word poetry, no title I 
 apply with more reserve than that of poet; but there cannot be here a moment's 
 hesitation in pronouncing this to be a genuine burst of poetry. I did not think 
 there was among us the power to produce any thing equal to it." 
 
A. CLEVELAND COXE. 
 
 Death comes down with reckless footstep 
 
 To the hall and hut : 
 Think you Death will stand a-knocking 
 
 Where the door is shut ? 
 Jesus waiteth — waiteth — waiteth ; 
 
 But thy door is fast ! 
 Grieved, away thy Saviour goeth : 
 
 Death breaks in at last. 
 
 Then 'tis thine to stand — entreating 
 
 Christ to let thee in : 
 At the gate of heaven beating, 
 
 Wailing for thy sin. 
 Nay, alas ! thou foolish virgin, 
 
 Hast thou then forgot, 
 Jesus waited long to know thee, 
 
 But he knows thee not ! 
 
 THE CHIMES OF ENGLAND. 
 
 The chimes, the chimes of Motherland, 
 
 Of England green and old, 
 That out from fane and ivied tower 
 
 A thousand years have toll'd ; 
 How glorious must their music be 
 
 As breaks the hallow'd day, 
 And calleth with a seraph's voice 
 
 A nation up to pray ! 
 
 Those chimes that tell a thousand tales, 
 
 Sweet tales of olden time ! 
 And ring a thousand memories 
 
 At vesper, and at prime ; 
 At bridal and at burial, 
 
 For cottager and king — 
 Those chimes — those glorious Christian chimes, 
 
 How blessedly they ring ! 
 
 Those chimes, those chimes of Motherland, 
 
 Upon a Christmas morn, 
 Outbreaking, as the angels did, 
 
 For a Redeemer born ; 
 How merrily they call afar, 
 
 To cot and baron's hall, 
 With holly deck'd and mistletoe, 
 
 To keep the festival ! 
 
 The chimes of England, how they peal 
 
 From tower and Gothic pile, 
 Where hymn and swelling anthem fill 
 
 The dim cathedral aisle ; 
 Where windows bathe the holy light 
 
 On priestly heads that falls, 
 And stain the florid tracery 
 
 And banner-dighted walls ! 
 
A. CLEVELAND COXE. 
 
 And then, those East er bells, in Spring I 
 
 Those glorious Easter chimes ; 
 How loyally they hail thee round, 
 
 Old queen of holy times ! 
 From hill to hill, like sentinels, 
 
 Responsively they cry, 
 And sing the rising of the Lord, 
 
 From vale to mountain high. 
 
 I love ye — chimes of Motherland, 
 
 "With all this soul of mine, 
 And bless the Lord that I am sprung 
 
 Of good old English line ! 
 And, like a son, I sing the lay 
 
 That England's gloi-y tells ; 
 For she is lovely to the Lord, 
 
 For you, ye Christian bells! 
 
 And heir of her ancestral fame, 
 
 And happy in my birth, 
 Thee, too, I love, my forest-land, 
 
 The joy of all the earth ; 
 For thine thy mother's voice shall be, 
 
 And here — where God is King, 
 With English chimes, from Christian spires, 
 
 The wilderness shall ring. 
 
 OH, WALK WITH GOD. 
 
 " And Enoch walked with God." 
 
 Oh, walk with God, and thou shalt find 
 
 How he can charm thy way, 
 And lead thee with a quiet mind 
 
 Into his perfect day. 
 His love shall cheer thee, like the dew 
 
 That bathes the drooping flower, 
 That love is every morning new, 
 
 Nor fails at evening's hour. 
 
 Oh, walk with God, and thou with smiles 
 
 Shalt tread the way of tears, 
 His mercy every ill beguiles, 
 
 And softens all our fears. 
 No fire shall harm thee, if, alas ! 
 
 Through fires He bid thee go ; 
 Through waters when thy footsteps pass, 
 
 They shall not overflow. 
 
 Oh, walk with God, while thou on earth 
 
 With pilgrim steps must fare, 
 Content to leave the world its mirth, 
 
 And claim no dwelling there. 
 A stranger, thou must seek a home 
 
 Beyond the fearful tide, 
 And if to Canaan thou wouldst come, 
 
 Oh, who but God can guide ! 
 
A. CLEVELAND COXE. 
 
 711 
 
 Oh, walk with God, and thou shalt go 
 
 Down death's dark vale in light, 
 And find thy faithful walk below 
 
 Hath reach'd to Zion's height ! 
 Oh, walk with God, if thou wouldst see 
 
 Thy pathway thither tend : 
 And, lingering though thy journey be, 
 
 'Tis heaven and home at end ! 
 
 OXFORD BOAT-RACE. 
 
 Going into Christ Church Meadows, in company with several 
 gownsmen, we soon joined a crowd of under-graduates, and others 
 who were seeking the banks of the Isis. The rival boats were 
 still far up the stream ; but here we found their flags displayed 
 upon a staff, one above the other, in the order of their respective 
 merit at the last rowing-match. The flag of Wadham waved 
 triumphant, and the brilliant colors of Balliol, Christ Church, 
 Exeter, &c. fluttered scarce less proudly underneath. What an 
 animated scene those walks and banks exhibited, as the numbers 
 thickened, and the flaunting robes of the young academics began 
 to be seen in dingy contrast with the gayer silks and streamers of 
 the fair ! Even town, as well as gown, had sent forth its repre- 
 sentatives, and you would have said some mighty issue was about 
 to be decided, had you heard their interchange of breathless query 
 and reply. A distant gun announced that the boats had started, 
 and crowds began to gather about a bridge in the neighboring 
 fields, where it was certain they would soon be seen, in all the 
 speed and spirit of the contest. Crossing the little river in a 
 punt, and yielding to the enthusiasm which now filled the hearts 
 and faces of all spectators, away I flew towards the bridge, and 
 had scarcely gained it when the boats appeared, — Wadham still 
 ahead, but hotly pressed by Balliol, which in turn was closely fol- 
 lowed by the crews of divers other colleges, all pulling for dear 
 life, while their friends, on either bank, ran at their side, shout- 
 ing the most inspiriting outcries ! The boats were of the sharpest 
 and narrowest possible build, with out-rigged thole-pins for the 
 oars. The rowers, in proper boat-dress, or rather undress, (close- 
 fitting flannel shirt and drawers,) were lashing the water with 
 inimitable strokes, and " putting their back" into their sport, as 
 if every man was indeed determined to do his duty. "Now, 
 Wadham !" " Now, Balliol !" " Well pulled, Christ Church !" 
 with deafening hurrahs and occasional peals of laughter, made the 
 welkin ring again. I found myself running and shouting with 
 the merriest of them. Several boats were but a few feet apart, 
 and, stroke after stroke, not one gained upon another perceptibly. 
 Where there was the least gain, it was astonishing to see the 
 
712 
 
 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 pluck "with which both winner and loser seemed to start afresh; 
 while redoubled cries of " Now for it, Merton !" " Well done, 
 Corpus !" and even " G-o it, again !" — which I had supposed an 
 Americanism, — were vociferated from the banks. All at once — ■ 
 " a bump !" and the defeated boat fell aside, while the victors 
 pressed on amid roars of applause. The chief interest, however, 
 was, of course, concentrated about " Wadham," the leader, now 
 evidently gained upon by " Balliol." It was indeed most exciting 
 to watch the half-inch losses which the former was experiencing 
 at every stroke. The goal was near ; but the plucky Balliol crew 
 was hot to be distanced. A stroke or two of fresh animation and 
 energy sends their bow an arm's-length forward. " Hurrah, Bal- 
 liol I" — " Once more !" — " A bump I" — " Hurrah-ah-ah I" — and a 
 general cheer from all lungs, with hands waving and caps tossing, 
 and every thing betokening the wildest excitement of spirits, 
 closed the contest; while amid the uproar the string of flags came 
 down from the tall staff, and soon went up again, with several 
 transpositions of the showy colors, — Wadham's little streamer 
 now fluttering paulo-post, but victorious Balliol flaunting proudly 
 over all. It was growing dark; and it was surprising how 
 speedily the crowd dispersed, and how soon all that frenzy of ex- 
 citement had vanished like the bubbles on the river. 
 
 Impressions of England. 
 
 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 This distinguished poet and essayist, the son of Rev. Charles Lowell, D.D., for 
 nearly fifty years pastor of the West Church, Boston, was born at Cambridge, Mas- 
 sachusetts, on the 22d of February, 1819. He was graduated at Harvard College 
 in 1838, and, after studying law, opened an office in Boston. But he soon found 
 the profession not congenial to his tastes; and, as he was not compelled by neces- 
 sity to pursue it as a means of living, he returned to his books and trees at his 
 father's residence, Elmwood, near Mount Auburn, determined on making litera- 
 ture his reliance for fame and fortune. 
 
 In 1841 appeared a collection of his poems, entitled A Year's Life, which gave 
 great promise of future excellence. In 1843, in conjunction with his friend Robert 
 Carter, he commenced the publication of a monthly magazine, called "The 
 Pioneer;" but only three numbers were published. Soon after this, he was mar- 
 ried to Miss Maria White, of Watertown, — a lady of a highly-cultivated mind, of 
 congenial literary tastes, and adorned with every womanly grace and accomplish- 
 ment. In 1841 appeared the Legend of Brittany, Prometheus, and Miscellaneous 
 Poems and Sonnets, which secured the general consent to his admission into the 
 company of men of genius. In 1845, he published his Conversations on some of 
 the Old Poets; and in 1848, another volume of Poems; 'The Vision of Sir Laun- 
 fal; and that unique and remarkable book, A Fable for Critics, containing por- 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 713 
 
 traits of eminent contemporaries, most faithfully and exquisitely drawn.- The 
 same year, he gave to the world, from his prolific and caustic pen, The Bigelow 
 Papers, 2 written in the broad Yankee dialect, no little characterized. It is a keen 
 and well-merited political satire against our Mexican war, and the ascendency so 
 long maintained in our Government by the slave-power. 3 
 
 Since 1848, Mr. Lowell has published no volume, 4 but has written for many re- 
 views and magazines ; 5 and — whatever the publishers may say — common fame 
 will make him the editor of the ablest magazine ever published on this side the 
 water, — " The Atlantic Monthly." 
 
 THE HERITAGE. 
 
 The rich man's son inherits lands, 
 
 And piles of brick, and stone, and gold, 
 
 And he inherits soft, white hands, 
 And tender flesh that fears the cold, 
 Nor dares to wear a garment old ; 
 
 A heritage, it seems to me, 
 
 One scarce would wish to hold in fee. 
 
 1 The fine lines under Washington Irving, page 274, will show what the book 
 is, more elfectually than any criticism. 
 
 2 " The rhymes are as startling and felicitous as any in Hudibras, and the quaint 
 drollery of the illustrations is in admirable keeping with the whole character of 
 the forlorn recruit from Massachusetts." — North American Review, lxviii. 187. 
 
 3 "All at once we have a batch of small satirists — Mr. Bailey at their head — in 
 England, and one really powerful satirist in America, — namely, Mr. J. R. Lowell, 
 — whose Bigelow Papers we most gladly welcome as being not only the best volume 
 of satires since the Anti- Jacobin, but also the first work of real and efficient 
 poetical genius which has reached us from the United States. We have been 
 under the necessity of telling some unpleasant truths about American literature 
 from time to time; and it is with hearty pleasure that we are now able to own 
 that the Britishers have been, for the present, utterly and apparently hopelessly 
 beaten by a Yankee in one important department of poetry. In the United 
 States, social and political evils have a breadth and tangibility which are not at 
 present to be found in the condition of any other civilized country. The 'pecu- 
 liar domestic institution/ the filibustering tendencies of the nation, the tyranny 
 of a vulgar ' public opinion,' and the charlatanism which is the price of political 
 power, are butts for the shafts of the satirist which European poets may well envy 
 Mr. Lowell. We do not pretend to affirm that the evils of European society may 
 not be as great, in their own way, as those which afflict the credit of the United 
 States, — with the exception, of course, of slavery, which makes 'American free- 
 dom' deservedly the laughing-stock of the world ; but what we do say is, that the 
 evils in point have a boldness and simplicity about them which our more sophis- 
 ticated follies have not, and that, a hundred years hence, Mr. Lowell's Yankee 
 satires will be perfectly intelligible to every one." — North British Review. 
 
 4 In 1857, Tieknor & Fields issued a beautiful edition of all his poems, in two 
 volumes. 
 
 5 His reviews and essays have appeared in the "North American Review," 
 " Southern Literary Messenger," " Knickerbocker," " Democratic Review," 
 "Graham's Magazine," "Putnam's Magazine," "Boston Miscellany," and "Na- 
 tional Anti-Slavery Standard." 
 
 60* 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 The rich man's son inherits cares ; 
 
 The bank may break, the factory burn, 
 
 A breath may burst his bubble shares, 
 And soft, white hands could hardly earn 
 A living that would serve his turn ; 
 
 A heritage, it seems to me, 
 
 One scarce would wish to hold in fee. 
 
 The rich man's son inherits wants, 
 His stomach craves for dainty fare ; 
 
 With sated heart he hears the pants 
 Of toiling hinds with brown arms bare, 
 And wearies in his easy chair ; 
 
 A heritage, it seems to me, 
 
 One scarce would wish to hold in fee. 
 
 What doth the poor man's son inherit ? 
 
 Stout muscles and a sinewy heart, 
 A hardy frame, a hardier spirit ; 
 
 King of two hands, he does his part 
 
 In every useful toil and art ; 
 A heritage, it seems to me, 
 A king might wish to hold in fee. 
 
 What doth the poor man's son inherit ? 
 Wishes o'erjoy'd with humble things, 
 
 A rank adjudged by toil- won merit, 
 Content that from employment springs, 
 A heart that in his labor sings ; 
 
 A heritage, it seems to me, 
 
 A king might wish to hold in fee. 
 
 What doth the poor man's son inherit? 
 A patience learn'd of being poor, 
 
 Courage, if sorrow come, to bear it, 
 A fellow-feeling that is sure 
 To make the outcast bless his door ; 
 
 A heritage, it seems to me, 
 
 A king might wish to hold in fee. 
 
 rich man's son ! there is a toil, 
 That with all others level stands ; 
 
 Large charity doth never soil, 
 
 But only whiten, soft, white hands, — 
 This is the best crop from thy lands ; 
 
 A heritage, it seems to me, 
 
 Worth being rich to hold in fee. 
 
 poor man's son ! scorn not thy state ; 
 There is worse weariness than thine, 
 
 In merely being rich and great ; 
 Toil only gives the soul to shine, 
 And makes rest fragrant and benign ; 
 
 A heritage, it seems to me, 
 
 Worth being poor to hold in fee. 
 
 Both, heirs to some six feet of sod, 
 Are equal in the earth at last ; 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 Both, children of the same dear God, 
 Prore title to your heirship vast 
 By record of a well-fill'd past ; 
 A heritage, it seems to me, 
 "Well worth a life to hold in fee. 
 
 ABOVE AND BELOW. 
 I. 
 
 dwellers in the valley-land, 
 
 Who in deep twilight grope and cower, 
 Till the slow mountain^ dial-hand 
 
 Shortens to noon's triumphal hour, — ■ 
 While ye sit idle, do ye think 
 
 The Lord's great work sits idle too ? 
 That light dare not o'erleap the brink 
 
 Of morn, because 'tis dark with you ? 
 
 Though yet your valleys skulk in night, 
 
 In God's ripe fields the day is cried, 
 And reapers, with their sickles bright, 
 
 Troop, singing, down the mountain-side : 
 Come up, and feel what health there is 
 
 In the frank Dawn's delighted eyes, 
 As, bending with a pitying kiss, 
 
 The night-shed tears of Earth she dries ! 
 
 The Lord wants reapers : Oh, mount up 
 
 Before night comes, and says, " Too late 
 Stay not for taking scrip or cup, 
 
 The Master hungers while ye wait : 
 'Tis from these heights alone your eyes 
 
 The advancing spears of day can see, 
 Which o'er the eastern hill-tops rise, 
 
 To break your long captivity. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Lone watcher on the mountain-height ! 
 
 It is right precious to behold 
 The first long surf of climbing light 
 
 Flood all the thirsty east with gold ; 
 But we, who in the shadow sit, 
 
 Know also when the day is nigh, 
 Seeing thy shining forehead lit 
 
 With his inspiring prophecy. 
 
 Thou hast thine office ; we have ours ; 
 
 God lacks not early service here, 
 But what are thine eleventh hours 
 
 He counts with us for morning cheer ; 
 Our day, for Him, is long enough, 
 
 And when He giveth work to do, 
 The bruised reed is amply tough 
 
 To pierce the shield of error through. 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 But not the less do thou aspire 
 
 Light's earlier messages to preach ; 
 Keep back no syllable of fire, — 
 
 Plunge deep the rowels of thy speech ; 
 Yet God deems not thine aeried sight 
 
 More worthy than our twilight dim, — 
 For meek Obedience, too, is Light, 
 
 And following that is finding Him. 
 
 ACT FOR TRUTH. 
 
 The busy world shoves angrily aside 
 
 The man who stands with arms akimbo set, 
 
 Until occasion tells him what to do ; 
 
 And he who waits to have his task mark'd out 
 
 Shall die and leave his errand unfulfill'd. 
 
 Our time is one that calls for earnest deeds : 
 
 Reason and Government, like two broad seas, 
 
 Yearn for each other with outstretched arms 
 
 Across this narrow isthmus of the throne, 
 
 And roll their white surf higher every day. 
 
 One age moves onward, and the next builds up 
 
 Cities and gorgeous palaces, where stood 
 
 The rude log huts of those who tamed the wild, 
 
 Rearing from out the forests they had fell'd 
 
 The goodly framework of a fairer state; 
 
 The builder's trowel and the settler's axe 
 
 Are seldom wielded by the selfsame hand ; 
 
 Ours is the harder task, yet not the less 
 
 Shall we receive the blessing for our toil 
 
 From the choice spirits of the after-time. 
 
 The field lies wide before us, where to reap 
 
 The easy harvest of a deathless name, 
 
 Though with no better sickles than our swords. 
 
 My soul is not a palace of the past, 
 
 "Where outworn creeds, like Rome's gray senate, quake, 
 
 Hearing afar the Vandal's trumpet hoarse, 
 
 That shakes old systems with a thunder-fit. 
 
 The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for change ; 
 
 Then let it come : I have no dread of what 
 
 Is call'd for by the instinct of mankind ; 
 
 Nor think I that God's world will fall apart 
 
 Because we tear a parchment more or less. 
 
 Truth is eternal, but her effluence, 
 
 With endless change, is fitted to the hour ; 
 
 Her mirror is turn'd forward, to reflect 
 
 The promise of the future, not the past. 
 
 He who would win the name of truly great 
 
 Must understand his own age and the next, 
 
 And make the present ready to fulfil 
 
 Its prophecy, and with the future merge 
 
 Gently and peacefully, as wave with wave. 
 
 The future works out great men's destinies; 
 
 The present is enough for common souls, 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 717 
 
 Who, never looking forward, are indeed 
 
 Mere clay wherein the footprints of their age 
 
 Are petrified forever : better those 
 
 Who lead the blind old giant by the hand 
 
 From out the pathless desert where he gropes, 
 
 And set him onward in his darksome way. 
 
 I do not fear to follow out the truth, 
 
 Albeit along the precipice's edge. 
 
 Let us speak plain : there is more force in names 
 
 Than most men dream of ; and a lie may keep 
 
 Its throne a whole age longer if it skulk 
 
 Behind the shield of some fair-seeming name. 
 
 Let us call tyrants tyrants, and maintain 
 
 That only freedom comes by grace of God, 
 
 And all that comes not by his grace must fall ; 
 
 For men in earnest have no time to waste 
 
 In patching fig-leaves for the naked truth. 
 
 ON THE CAPTURE OF CERTAIN FUGITIVE SLAVES NEAR 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
 Look on who will in apathy, and stifle they who can, 
 The sympathies, the hopes, the words, that make man truly man ; 
 Let those whose hearts are dungeon'd up with interest or with ease 
 Consent to hear with quiet pulse of loathsome deeds like these ! 
 
 I first drew in New England's air, and from her hardy breast 
 Suck'd in the tyrant-hating milk that will not let me rest ; 
 And if my words seem treason to the dullard and the tame, 
 'Tis but my Bay-State dialect, — our fathers spake the same ! 
 
 Shame on the costly mockery of piling stone on stone 
 To those who won our liberty, the heroes dead and gone, 
 While we look coldly on, and see law-shielded ruffians slay 
 The men who fain would win their own, the heroes of to-day ! 
 
 Are we pledged to craven silence ? Oh, fling it to the wind, 
 The parchment wall that bars us from the least of human kind, — 
 That makes us cringe and temporize, and dumbly stand at rest, 
 While Pity's burning flood of words is red-hot in the breast ! 
 
 Though we break our fathers' promise, we have nobler duties first ; 
 
 The traitor to Humanity is the traitor most accursed ; 
 
 Man is more than Constitutions ; better rot beneath the sod 
 
 Than be true to Church and State while we are doubly false to God ! 
 
 We owe allegiance to the State; but deeper, truer, more, 
 To the sympathies that God hath set within our spirits' core ; 
 Our country claims our fealty: we grant it so ; but then 
 Before Man made us citizens, great Nature made us men. 
 
 He's true to God who's true to man ; wherever wrong is done, 
 To the humblest and the weakest, 'neath the all-beholding sun, 
 That wrong is also done to us ; and they are slaves most base, 
 Whose love of right is for themselves, and not for all their race. 
 
718 
 
 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 God works for all. Ye cannot hem the hope of being free 
 With parallels of latitude, with mountain-range or sea. 
 Put golden padlocks on Truth's lips, be callous as ye will, 
 From soul to soul, o'er all the world, leaps one electric thrill. 
 
 Chain down your slaves with ignorance, ye cannot keep apart, 
 "With all your craft of tyranny, the human heart from heart : 
 When first the Pilgrims landed on the Bay-State's iron shore, 
 The word went forth that slavery should one day be no more. 
 
 Out from the land of bondage 'tis decreed our slaves shall go, 
 And signs to us are offer d, as erst to Pharaoh ; 
 If we are blind, their exodus, like Israel's of yore, 
 Through a Red Sea is doom'd to be, whose surges are of gore. 
 
 'Tis ours to save our brethren, with peace and love to win 
 Their darken'd hearts from error, ere they harden it to sin ; 
 But if man before his duty with a listless spirit stands, 
 Ere long the Great Avenger takes the work from out his hands. 
 
 TO J. R. GIDDINGS. 1 
 
 Giddings, far rougher names than thine have grown 
 
 Smoother than honey on the lips of men; 
 And thou shalt aye be honorably known 
 
 As one who bravely used his tongue and pen 
 As best befits a freeman, — even for those 
 
 To whom our Law's unblushing front denies 
 A right to plead against the life-long woes 
 
 Which are the Negro's glimpse of Freedom's skies : 
 Fear nothing and hope all things, as the Right 
 
 Alone may do securely ; every hour 
 The thrones of Ignorance and ancient Night 
 
 Lose somewhat of their long-usurped power, 
 And Freedom's lightest word can make them shiver 
 With a base dread that clings to them forever. 
 
 1 Joshua R. Giddings, now (1858) the oldest member of the United States 
 House of Representatives, was born in Athens, Bradford County, Pennsylvania, 
 on the 6th of October, 1795. While in his infancy, his father removed to Canan- 
 daigua, New York, and remained there till 1806, when he-removed to Ashtabula 
 County, Ohio. Having a strong taste for literature, he determined to enter 
 professional life; and by constant labor and self-denying efforts he was enabled 
 to present himself for admission to the bar in 1820. His practice soon became 
 extensive. In a few years, he was elected to the Legislature of his own State, and 
 in 1838 to a seat in the United States House of Representatives. In Februaiy, 
 1838, he made his first anti-slavery speech in Congress. In 1842, he was cen- 
 sured by the House of Representatives for introducing anti-slavery resolutions. 
 He at once resigned, returned home, appealed to his constituents, and in five 
 weeks was returned by an overwhelming majority. There he has remained ever 
 since, — a most vigilant and faithful watchman on the watch-tower of liberty. 
 His Congressional speeches have been published in a handsome volume of 511 
 pages, — a monument to his courage and faithfulness to truth more enduring than 
 granite or marble. In 1S58, he published an historical work of deep interest, and 
 designed to tell, not conceal, the truth, entitled, The Exile* of Florida : or the 
 Crimes committed by our Government against the Maroons, who fled from South 
 Carolina and other Slave States, seeking Protection under Sjjanish Laics. 
 
MARIA LOWELL. 
 
 719 
 
 FREEDOM. 1 
 
 Men ! whose boast it is that ye 
 Come of fathers brave and free, 
 If there breathe on earth a slave, 
 Are ye truly free and brave ? 
 If ye do not feel the chain, 
 When it works a brother's pain, 
 Are ye not base slaves indeed, — 
 Slaves unworthy to be freed ? 
 
 Women ! who shall one day bear 
 Sons to breathe New England air, 
 If ye hear, without a blush, 
 Deeds to make the roused blood rush 
 Like red lava through your veins, 
 For your sisters now in chains, — 
 Answer ! are ye fit to be 
 Mothers of the brave and free ? 
 
 Is true Freedom but to break 
 Fetters for our own dear sake, 
 And, with leathern hearts, forget 
 That we owe mankind a debt ? 
 No ! true freedom is to share 
 All the chains our brothers wear, 
 And, with heart and hand, to be 
 Earnest to make others free ! 
 
 They are slaves who fear to speak 
 
 For the fallen and the weak ; 
 
 They are slaves who will not choose 
 
 Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, 
 
 Rather than in silence shrink 
 
 From the truth they needs must think ; 
 
 They are slaves who dare not be 
 
 In the right with two or three. 
 
 MARIA LOWELL, 1821—1853. 
 
 Maria White, the (laughter of an opulent citizen of Watertown, Massa- 
 chusetts, was born July 8, 1821. In December, 1844, she was married to James 
 Russell Lowell, and died on the 22d of October, 1853. In 1855, her husband 
 had a volume of her poetry privately printed, of the character of which some 
 judgment may be formed from the following beautiful and touching lines 
 addressed to a friend after the loss of a child. 
 
 1 Sung at the Anti-Slavery Picnic in Dedham, on the anniversary of West 
 India Emancipation, August 1, 1843. 
 
MARIA LOWELL. 
 
 THE ALPINE SHEEP. 
 
 When on my ear your loss was knell' d ; 
 
 And tender sympathy upburst, 
 A little spring from memory well'd, 
 
 Which once had quench'd my bitter thirst, 
 
 And I was fain to bear to you 
 
 A portion of its mild relief, 
 That it might be a healing dew, 
 
 To steal some fever from your grief. 
 
 After our child's untroubled breath 
 
 Up to the Father took its way, 
 And on our home the shade of Death 
 
 Like a long twilight haunting lay, 
 
 And friends came round, with us to weep 
 
 Her little spirit's swift remove, 
 The story of the Alpine sheep 
 
 Was told to us by one we love. 
 
 They, in the valley's sheltering care. 
 
 Soon crop the meadow's tender prime, 
 And when the sod grows brown and bare, 
 
 The shepherd strives to make them climb 
 
 To airy shelves of pasture green, 
 
 That hang along the mountain's side, 
 
 Where grass and flowers together lean, 
 
 And down through mists the sunbeams slide. 
 
 But naught can tempt the timid things 
 The steep and rugged path to try, 
 
 Though sweet the shepherd calls and sings, 
 And sear'd below the pastures lie, 
 
 Till in his arms his lambs he takes, 
 
 Along the dizzy verge to go: 
 Then, heedless of the rifts and breaks, 
 
 They follow on o'er rock and snow. 
 
 And in these pastures, lifted fair, 
 More dewy-soft than lowland mead, 
 
 The shepherd drops his tender care, 
 And sheep and lambs together feed. 
 
 This parable, by Nature breathed, 
 Blew on me as the south wind free 
 
 O'er frozen brooks that flow unsheathed 
 From icy thraldom to the sea. 
 
 A blissful vision through the night 
 Would all my happy senses sway 
 
 Of the Good Shepherd on the height, 
 Or climbing up the starry way, 
 
EDWIN P. WHIPPLE. 
 
 721 
 
 Holding our little lamb asleep, 
 
 While, like the murmur of the sea, 
 
 Sounded that voice along the deep, 
 Saying, " Arise and follow me." 
 
 EDWIN P. WHIPPLE. 
 
 This instructive and admired essayist was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, 
 on the 8th of March, 1819. His father, Matthew Whipple, dying while the son 
 was in his infancy, his widow removed to Salem ; and there young Edwin was 
 educated at the English High School. When he was but fourteen years of age, 
 he published articles in the newspaper-press at Salem, and at fifteen became 
 clerk of the Bank of General Interest in that city. When he was eighteen 
 years of age, he went to Boston, where he entered a large banking-house, as 
 clerk, but was soon after appointed Superintendent of the Merchants' Exchange 
 News-Roorn. Such a position would hardly seem compatible with literary 
 pursuits ; and yet but few college-graduates have been as distinguished for 
 articles of beautiful, just, and vigorous criticism, in our best reviews, as Mr. 
 Whipple. But, besides his influence as a writer, he has appeared before the 
 public, in most of our Northern States, as a lecturer of uncommon power and 
 attractiveness, and has often been invited to address the literary societies of 
 various colleges, — Brown, Dartmouth, Amherst, and the New York University. 
 In 1850, the city authorities of Boston elected him to deliver before them the 
 Fourth of July oration. Two collections of his writings have been published by 
 Ticknor & Fields, namely, Essays and Reviews, in two volumes; and Lectures 
 on Subjects connected with Literature and Life ; and it would be hard to find 
 in English or American literature three other volumes more instructive for 
 their matter, or more captivating for their style. 
 
 THE POWER OF WORDS. 
 
 Words are most effective when arranged in that order which is 
 called style. The great secret of a good style, we are told, is to 
 have proper words in proper places. To marshal one's verbal 
 battalions in such order that they may bear at once upon all quar- 
 ters of a subject, is certainly a great art. This is done in different 
 ways. Swift, Temple, Addison, Hume, Gribbon, Johnson, Burke, 
 are all great generals in the discipline of their verbal armies and 
 the conduct of their paper wars. Each has a system of tactics 
 of his own, and excels in the use of some particular weapon. The 
 tread of Johnson's style is heavy and sonorous, resembling that 
 of an elephant or a mail-clad warrior. He is fond of levelling an 
 obstacle by a polysyllabic battering-ram. Burke's words are con- 
 tinually practising the broadsword exercise, and sweeping down 
 
 61 
 
722 
 
 EDWIN P. WHIPPLE. 
 
 adversaries with every stroke. Arbuthnot " plays his weapon 
 like a tongue of flame." Addison draws up his light infantry 
 in orderly array, and marches through sentence after sentence 
 without having his ranks disordered or his line broken. Luther 
 is different. His words are "half battles;" "his smiting idiom- 
 atic phrases seem to cleave into the very heart of the matter." 
 Gibbon's legions are heavily armed, and march with precision and 
 dignity to the music of their own tramp. They are splendidly 
 equipped, but a nice eye can discern a little rust beneath their 
 fine apparel, and there are sutlers in his camp who lie, cog, and 
 talk gross obscenity. Macaulay, brisk, lively, keen, and energetic, 
 runs his thought rapidly through his sentence, and kicks out of 
 the way every word which obstructs his passage. He reins in his 
 steed only when he has reached his goal, and then does it with 
 such celerity that he is nearly thrown backwards by the sudden- 
 ness of his stoppage. Gifford's words are moss-troopers, that way- 
 lay innocent travellers and murder them for hire. Jeffrey is a 
 fine " lance," with a sort of Arab swiftness in his movement, and 
 runs an iron-clad horseman through the eye before he has had 
 time to close his helmet. John Wilson's camp is a disorganized 
 mass, who might do effectual service under better discipline, but 
 who, under his lead, are suffered to carry on a rambling and pre- 
 datory warfare, and disgrace their general by flagitious excesses. 
 Sometimes they steal, sometimes swear, sometimes drink, and 
 sometimes pray. Swift's words are porcupines' quills, which he 
 throws with unerring aim at whoever approaches his lair. All 
 of Ebenezer Elliot's words are gifted with huge fists, to pommel 
 and bruise. Chatham and Mirabeau throw hot shot into their 
 opponents' magazines. Talfourd's forces are orderly and disci- 
 plined, and march to the music of the Dorian flute j those of 
 Keats keep time to the tones of the pipe of Phoebus ; and the 
 hard, harsh-featured battalions of Maginn are always preceded by 
 a brass band. Hallam's word infantry can do much execution 
 when they are not in each others' way. Pope's phrases are either 
 daggers or rapiers. Willis's words are often tipsy with the cham- 
 pagne of the fancy, but even when they reel and stagger they 
 keep the line of grace and beauty, and, though scattered at first 
 by a fierce onset from graver cohorts, soon reunite without wound 
 or loss. John Neal's forces are multitudinous, and fire briskly at 
 every thing. They occupy all the provinces of letters, and are 
 nearly useless from being spread over too much ground. Everett's 
 weapons are ever kept in good order, and shine well in the sun j 
 but they are little calculated for warfare, and rarely kill when 
 they strike. Webster's words are thunderbolts, which sometimes 
 miss the Titans at whom they are hurled, but always leave en- 
 during marks when they strike. Hazlitt's verbal army is some- 
 
EDWIN P. WHIPPLE. 
 
 723 
 
 times drunk and surly, sometimes foaming with passion, some- 
 times cool and malignant, but, drunk or sober, arc ever dangerous 
 to cope with. Some of Tom Moore's words are shining dirt, 
 which he flings with excellent aim. This list might be inde- 
 finitely extended, and arranged with more regard to merit and 
 chronology. My own words, in this connection, might be com- 
 pared to ragged, undisciplined militia, which could be easily 
 routed by a charge of horse, and which are apt to fire into each 
 others' faces. 
 
 WIT AND HUMOR. 
 
 Wit was originally a general name for all the intellectual 
 powers, meaning the faculty which kens, perceives, knows, under- 
 stands j it was gradually narrowed in its signification to express 
 merely the resemblance between ideas ; and lastly, to note that 
 resemblance when it occasioned ludicrous surprise. It marries 
 ideas lying wide apart, by a sudden jerk of the understanding. 
 Humor originally meant moisture, a signification it metaphorically 
 .retains, for it is the very juice of the mind, oozing from the brain, 
 and enriching and fertilizing wherever it falls. Wit exists by 
 antipathy ; humor, by sympathy. Wit laughs at things ; humor 
 laughs with them. Wit lashes external appearances, or cunningly 
 exaggerates single foibles into character ; humor glides into the 
 heart of its object, looks lovingly on the infirmities it detects, and 
 represents the whole man. Wit is abrupt, darting, scornful, and 
 tosses its analogies in your face ; humor is slow and shy, insi- 
 nuating its fun into your heart. Wit is negative, analytical, 
 destructive ; humor is creative. The couplets of Pope are witty, 
 but Sancho Panza is a humorous creation. Wit, when earnest, 
 has the earnestness of passion, seeking to destroy ; humor has the 
 earnestness of affection, and would lift up what is seemingly low, 
 into our charity and love. Wit, bright, rapid, and blasting as the 
 lightning, flashes, strikes, and vanishes in an instant : humor, 
 warm and all-embracing as the sunshine, bathes its objects in a 
 genial and abiding light. Wit implies hatred or contempt of folly * 
 and cr me, produces its effects by brisk shocks of surprise, uses 
 the whip of scorpions and the branding-iron, — stabs, stings, 
 pinches, tortures, goads, teases, corrodes, undermines; humor 
 implies a sure conception of the beautiful, the majestic, and the 
 true, by whose light it surveys and shapes their opposites. It is 
 a humane influence, softening with mirth the ragged inequalities 
 of existence, — promoting tolerant views of life, — bridging over 
 the spaces which separate the lofty from the lowly, the great from 
 the humble. Old Dr. Fuller's remark, that a negro is " the image 
 of God cut in ebony," is humorous; Horace Smith's inversion of 
 it, that the taskmaster is " the image of the devil cut in ivory," 
 
724 
 
 EDWIN P. WHIPPLE. 
 
 is witty. Wit can coexist with fierce and malignant passions; 
 but humor demands good feeling and fellow-feeling, — feeling 
 not merely for what is above us, but for what is around and 
 beneath us. 
 
 THE LITERATURE OF MIRTH. 
 
 The ludicrous side of life, like the serious side, has its litera- 
 ture ; and it is a literature of untold wealth. Mirth is a Proteus, 
 changing its shape and manner with the thousand diversities of 
 individual character, from the most superficial gayety, to the 
 deepest, most earnest humor. Thus, the wit of the airy, feather- 
 brained Farquhar glances and gleams like heat-lightning j that of 
 Milton blasts and burns like the bolt. Let us glance carelessly 
 over this wide field of comic writers, who have drawn new forms 
 of mirthful being from life's ludicrous side, and note, here and 
 there, a wit or humorist. There is the humor of Goethe, like his 
 own summer morning, mirthfully clear j and there is the tough 
 and knotty humor of old Ben Jonson, at times ground down at 
 the edge to a sharp cutting scorn, and occasionally hissing out 
 stinging words, which seem, like his own Mercury's, " steeped in 
 the very brine of conceit, and sparkle like salt in fire." There is 
 the lithe, springy sarcasm, the hilarious badinage, the brilliant, 
 careless disdain, which sparkle and scorch along the glistening 
 page of Holmes. There is the sleepy smile that sometimes lies 
 so benignly on the sweet and serious diction of old Isaak Walton. 
 There is the mirth of Dickens, twinkling now in some ironical 
 insinuation, — and anon winking at you with pleasant malicious- 
 ness, its distended cheeks fat with suppressed glee, — and then, 
 again, coming out in broad gushes of humor, overflowing all 
 banks and bounds of conventional decorum. There is Sydney 
 Smith, — sly, sleek, swift, subtle, — a moment's motion, and the 
 human mouse is in his paw ! There, in a corner, look at that petu- 
 lant little man, his features working with thought and pain, his 
 lips wrinkled with a sardonic smile ; and, see ! the immortal per- 
 sonality has received its last point and polish in that toiling brain, 
 and, in a strait, luminous line, with a twang like Scorn's own 
 arrow, hisses through the air the unerring shaft of Pope, — to 
 
 "Dash the proud gamester from his gilded car, 
 And bare the base heart that lurks beneath a star." 
 
 There, moving gracefully through that carpeted parlor, mark that 
 dapper, diminutive Irish gentleman. The moment you look at 
 him, your eyes are dazzled with the whizzing rockets and hissing- 
 wheels, streaking the air with a million sparks, from the pyro- 
 
EDWIN T. WHIPPLE. 
 
 725 
 
 technic brain of Anacreon Moore. Again, cast your eyes from 
 that blinding glare and glitter to the soft and beautiful brilliancy, 
 the winning grace, the bland banter, the gliding wit, the diffusive 
 humor, which make you in love with all mankind, in the charm- 
 ing pages of Washington Irving. 
 
 Let us now turn to the benevolent mirth of Addison and Steele, 
 whose glory it was to redeem polite literature from moral depra- 
 vity, by showing that wit could chime merrily in with the voice 
 of virtue, and who smoothly laughed away many a vice of the 
 national character, by that humor which tenderly touches the 
 sensitive point with an evanescent grace and genial glee. And 
 here let us not forget Goldsmith, whose delicious mirth is of that 
 rare quality which lies too deep for laughter ; which melts softly 
 into the mind, suffusing it with inexpressible delight, and sending 
 the soul dancing joyously into the eyes to utter its merriment in 
 liquid glances, passing all the expression of tone. And here, 
 though we cannot do him justice, let us remember the name of 
 Nathaniel Hawthorne, deserving a place second to none in that 
 band of humorists, whose beautiful depth of cheerful feeling is the 
 very poetry of mirth. In ease, grace, delicate sharpness of satire, 
 in a felicity of touch which often surpasses the felicity of Addi- 
 son, in a subtlety of insight which often reaches farther than the 
 subtlety of Steele, — the humor of Hawthorne presents traits so 
 fine as to be almost too excellent for popularity, as, to every one 
 who has attempted their criticism, they are too refined for state- 
 ment. The brilliant atoms flit, hover, and glance before our 
 minds, but the subtle sources of their ethereal light lie beyond 
 our analysis, — 
 
 "And no speed of ours avails 
 To hunt upon their shining trails." 
 
 And now let us breathe a benison on these our mirthful bene- 
 factors, these fine revellers among human weaknesses, these stern, 
 keen satirists of human depravity. Wherever Humor smiles 
 away the fretting thoughts of care, or supplies that antidote which 
 cleanses 
 
 " the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff 
 That weighs upon the heart/' — 
 
 wherever Wit riddles folly, abases pride, or stings iniquity, — 
 there glides the cheerful spirit, or glitters the flashing thought, 
 of these bright enemies of stupidity and gloom. Thanks to them, 
 hearty thanks, for teaching us that the ludicrous side of life is its 
 wicked side, no less than its foolish ; that in a lying world there 
 is still no mercy for falsehood j that Guilt, however high it may 
 lift its brazen front, is never beyond the lightnings of scorn • and 
 
726 
 
 JOSIAH G. HOLLAND. 
 
 that the lesson they teach agrees with the lesson taught by all 
 experience, that life in harmony with reason is the only life safe 
 from laughter ; that life in harmony with virtue is the only life 
 safe from contempt. 
 
 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND, 
 
 The author of Timothy TiteomVa Letters, whose fame has suddenly hecome so 
 wide-spread, was born in Belchertown, Massachusetts, July 21, 1819. When he 
 had partially completed his studies preparatory to entering college, his health 
 became enfeebled by too severe application, and he concluded, after a period of re- 
 laxation, to study medicine, which he did, in the mean time engaging in teaching 
 as a means of support. In 1845, he took his degree of M.D., at the Berkshire 
 Medical College, Pittslield, Massachusetts, aud removed to Springfield to practise 
 his profession, and shortly afterwards was married to Elizabeth L. Chapin, of 
 that city. But, his practice for the first two years not being adequate to his 
 wants, he accepted the offer of a situation as teacher of a private school at Rich- 
 mond, Virginia. After being there three months, he received the appointment 
 of Superintendent of Public Schools in Yicksburg, Mississippi, which he accepted. 
 While there, he wrote frequently for the press; but, after discharging the duties 
 of his office to great satisfaction for a year and a half, he received the offer of the 
 editorial department of the " Springfield Republican," which he accepted, and at 
 that post ho has remained ever since, discharging its duties with such singular 
 tact and ability, that that journal is without precedent or parallel in our land as 
 a successful country paper. 
 
 In 1854, Dr. Holland wrote for the "Republican," in successive numbers, the 
 history of the four western counties of Massachusetts, which was afterwards 
 published in two volumes. In 1857 appeared The Bay Path, a novel founded on 
 th« colonial history of his previous work, which was well received here, and 
 warmly commended in the London "Athenaeum." But the work which has given 
 Dr. Holland most fame, and which we rejoice to know has put "more money in 
 his purse," (having gone through nine editions in twelve weeks,) is the volume 
 entitled Timothy Titcomb's Letters to Young People, published in 1S58. These 
 Letters first appeared in the "Republican," under the signature of Timothy 
 Titcomb, and attracted universal attention for their beauty of style, purity of 
 English, and sound common sense. The advice contained in them is excellent, 
 entirely practical, sufficiently minute, aud eminently judicious, — intended to make, 
 not angels, but useful and happy men and women,- and they richly deserve all 
 the popularity they have received. The same year, outside of his laborious 
 editorial duties, be wrote Bitter Sweet, which was published by Scribner. It 
 is a sort of pastoral poem, unique in its structure, and has been well received. 
 The scene of this poem is a New England Thanksgiving, at which the gathered 
 family, after the bountiful repast and the pleasantries of the evening, talk far 
 
JOSIAH G. HOLLAND. 
 
 727 
 
 into the night upon questions of theology, in connection with their personal 
 experiences of the joys and sorrows of life. 1 
 
 THE TRUE TRACK. 
 
 Gro with me, if you please, to the next station-house, and look 
 off upon that line of railroad. It is as straight as an arrow. Out 
 run the iron lines, glittering in the sun, — out, as far as we can 
 see, until, converging almost to a single thread, they pierce the 
 sky. What were those rails laid in that way for ? It is a road, 
 is it ? Try your cart or your coach there. The axletrees are too 
 narrow, and you go bumping along upon the sleepers. Try a 
 wheelbarrow. You cannot keep it on the rail. But that road 
 was made for something. Now go with me to the locomotive- 
 shop. What is this ? We are told it is a locomotive. What is 
 a locomotive ? Why, it is a carriage moved by steam. But it is 
 very heavy. The wheels would sink into a common road to the 
 axle. That locomotive can never run on a common road j and the 
 man is a fool who built it. Strange that men will waste time and 
 money in that way ! But stop a moment. Why wouldn't those 
 wheels just fit those rails ? We measure them, and then we go to 
 the track and measure its gauge. That solves the difficulty. Those 
 rails were intended for the locomotive, and the locomotive for 
 the rails. They are good for nothing apart. The locomotive is 
 not even safe anywhere else. If it should get off, after it is once 
 on, it would run into rocks and stumps, and bury itself in sands 
 or swamps beyond recovery. 
 
 Young man, you are a locomotive. You are a thing that goes 
 by a power planted inside of you. You are made to go. In fact, 
 considered as a machine, you are very far superior to a loco- 
 motive. The maker of the locomotive is man j your maker is 
 man's Maker. You are as different from a horse, or an ox, or a 
 camel, as a locomotive is different from a wheelbarrow, a cart, or a 
 coach. Xow, do you suppose that the being who made you — 
 manufactured your machine, and put into it the motive power — 
 did not make a special road for you to run upon ? My idea of 
 religion is that it is a railroad for a human locomotive, and that 
 just so sure as it undertakes to run upon a road adapted only to 
 animal power, will it bury its wheels in the sand, dash itself 
 among rocks, and come to inevitable wreck. If you don't believe 
 this, try the other thing. Here are forty roads : suppose you choose 
 
 1 "We mean it as very high praise when we say that Bitter Sweet is one 
 of the few books that have fouud the secret of drawing up and assimilating the 
 juices of this New World of ours." — Atlantic Monthly, May, 1859. 
 
728 
 
 JOSTAH G. HOLLAND. 
 
 one of them, and see where you come out. Here is the dram- 
 shop road. Try it. Follow it, and see how long it will be before 
 you come to a stump and a smash-up. Here is the road of 
 sensual pleasure. You are just as sure to bury your wheels in the 
 dirt as you try it. Your machine is too heavy for that track alto- 
 gether. Here is the winding, uncertain path of frivolity. There 
 are morasses on each side of it, and, with the headway that you 
 are under, you will be sure, sooner or later, to pitch into one of 
 them. Here is the road of philosophy, but it runs through a 
 country from which the light of Heaven is shut out; and while 
 you may be able to keep your machine right side up, it will only 
 be by feeling your way along in a clumsy, comfortless kind of 
 style, and with no certainty of ever arriving at the heavenly sta- 
 tion-house. Here is the road of skepticism. That is covered 
 with fog, and a fence runs across it within ten rods. Don't you 
 see that your machine was never intended to run on those roads ? 
 Don't you know that it never was, and don't you know that the 
 only track under heaven upon which it can run safely is the reli- 
 gious track ? Don't you know that just as long as you keep your 
 wheels on that track, wreck is impossible ? Don't you know that 
 it is the only track on which wreck is not certain ? I know it, 
 if you don't; and I tell you that on that track, which God has 
 laid down expressly for your soul to run upon, your soul will find 
 free play for all its wheels, and an unobstructed and happy pro- 
 gress. It is straight and narrow, but it is safe and solid, and fur- 
 nishes the only direct route to the heavenly city. Now, if God 
 made your soul, and made religion for it, you are a fool if you 
 refuse to place yourself on the track. You cannot prosper any- 
 where else, and your machine will not run anywhere else. 
 
 USEFULNESS HEALTH HAPPINESS. 
 
 There is no better relief to study than the regular performance 
 of special duties in the house. To feel that one is really doing 
 something every day, that the house is the tidier for one's efforts, 
 and the comfort of the family enhanced, is the surest warrant of 
 content and cheerfulness. There is something about this habit 
 of daily work — this regular performance of duty — which tends to 
 regulate the passions, to give calmness and vigor to the mind, to 
 impart a healthy tone to the body, and to diminish the desire for 
 life in the street and for resort to gossiping companions. 
 
 Were I as rich as Croesus, my girls should have something to 
 do regularly, just as soon as they should become old enough to do 
 any thing. They should, in the first place, make their own bed 
 and take care of their own room. They should dress each other. 
 They should sweep a portion of the house. They should learn, 
 
JOSIAH G. HOLLAND. 
 
 729 
 
 above all things, to help themselves, and thus to be independent 
 in all circumstances. xV woman, helpless from any other cause 
 than sickness, is essentially a nuisance. There is nothing womanly 
 and ladylike in helplessness. My policy would be, as girls grow 
 up, to assign to them special duties, first in one part of the house, 
 then in another, until they should become acquainted with all 
 housewifely offices ; and I should have an object in this beyond 
 the simple acquisition of a knowledge of housewifery. It should 
 be for the acquisition of habits of physical industry, — of habits 
 that conduce to the health of body and mind, — of habits that give 
 them an insight into the nature of labor, and inspire within them 
 a genuine sympathy with those whose lot it is to labor. 
 
 All young mind is uneasy if it be good for any thing. There 
 is not the genuine human stuff in a girl who is habitually and by 
 nature passive, placid, and inactive. The body and the mind 
 must both be in motion. If this tendency to activity be left to 
 run loose, — undirected into channels of usefulness, — a spoiled 
 child is the result. A girl growing up to womanhood is, when 
 unemployed, habitually uneasy. The mind aches and chafes be- 
 cause it wants action, for a motive. Now, a mind in this con- 
 dition is not benefited by the command to stay at home, or the 
 withdrawal from companions. It must be set to work. This 
 vital energy that is struggling to find relief in demonstration 
 should be so directed that habits may be formed, — habits of in- 
 dustry that obviate the wish for change and unnecessary play, and 
 form a regular drain upon it. Otherwise, the mind becomes dissi- 
 pated, the will irresolute, and confinement irksome. Girls will 
 never be happy, except in the company of their playmates, unless 
 home becomes to them a scene of regular duty and personal 
 usefulness. 
 
 There is another obvious advantage to be derived from the 
 habit of engaging daily upon special household duties. The 
 imagination of girls is apt to become active to an unhealthy de- 
 gree when no corrective is employed. False views of life are 
 engendered, and labor is regarded as menial. Ease comes to be 
 looked upon as a supremely desirable thing; so that when the 
 real, inevitable cares of life come, there is no preparation for 
 them, and weak complainings or ill-natured discontent are the 
 result. 
 
 And here I am naturally introduced to another subject. Young 
 women, the glory of your life is to do something and to be some- 
 thing. You very possibly may have formed the idea that ease 
 and personal enjoyment are the ends of your life. This is a ter- 
 rible mistake. Development in the broadest sense and in the 
 highest direction is the end of your life. You may possibly find 
 ease with it, and a great deal of precious personal enjoyment, or 
 
730 
 
 ALICE GARY. 
 
 your life may be one long experience of self-denial. If you wish 
 to be something more than the pet and plaything of a man, if you 
 would rise above the position of a pretty toy or the ornamental 
 fixture of an establishment, you have got a work to do. You 
 have got a position to maintain in society ; you have got the poor 
 and the sick to visit ■ you may possibly have a family to rear and 
 train ; you have got to take a load of care upon your shoulders 
 and bear it through life. You have got a character to sustain ; 
 and I hope that you will have the heart of a husband to cheer 
 and strengthen. Ease is not for you. Selfish enjoyment is not 
 for you. The world is to be made better by you. You have got 
 to suffer and to work ; and if there be a spark of the true fire in 
 you, your hearts will respond to these words. 
 
 ALICE CARY. 
 
 Alice Cary, descended from Huguenot and Puritan ancestry, was born in 
 Hamilton County, Ohio, in April, 1820. Her ancestors, soon after the Revolu- 
 tionary war, emigrated from Connecticut to the Northwestern Territory, locating 
 in the " Clovernook," which she has characterized with great beauty and 
 originality. Here she passed all the years of her life up to 1850. When about 
 eighteen years old, she gave to the press, at Cincinnati, a small volume of her 
 poems, which were warmly commended, not only for what they were, but for 
 what they promised. 
 
 At the suggestion of many friends, she left her Western home for New York 
 City in 1850, and was soon followed by her sister Phoebe, who is a few years 
 younger, where they both have since dwelt. In 1850, the first volume of the 
 poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary was issued in Philadelphia, which was well re- 
 ceived ; and from this time the sisters became prominent contributors to some of 
 the leading magazines and journals of the country. In 1851, Alice published the 
 first series of her "Clovernook" papers, 1 which gave her at once a position as a 
 prose-writer. In 1852 appeared Hagar, a Story of To-Day ; in 1853, a second 
 series of " Clovernook" papers ; and in the same year, Lyra, and other Poems. In 
 185L Ticknor & Co., of Boston, brought out Clovernook Children, a juvenile, 
 which was warmly received, and at once became the favorite of the young folks. 
 In 1855, Miss Cary prepared a complete edition of her poems for the press, which 
 was issued in the fall of that year. It contained The Maiden of Tlascala, a poem 
 of a more elaborate if not of a more ambitious character than any she had here- 
 tofore given to the public, and added not a little to her already high reputa- 
 tion. In 1856 appeared her Married, not Mated, which embodies many of the 
 
 1 Eutitled Clovernook, or Jiecolleciions of our Neighborhood in the West, pub, 
 Hshed by Redtield, New York. 
 
ALICE CARY. 
 
 731 
 
 excellencies of Clovernooh, 1 the characters being drawn with wonderful fidelity 
 and force. 
 
 Since the issue of her last volume of poems, Miss Cary has given many fugi- 
 tive pieces of great beauty to various periodicals. 
 
 LIGHT AND LOVE. 
 
 Light waits for us in heaven. Inspiring thought ! 
 
 That, when the darkness all is overpast, 
 The beauty which the Lamb of God has bought 
 
 Shall flow about our saved souls at last, 
 And wrap them from all night-time and all Avoe : — 
 The Spirit and the Word assure us so. 
 
 Love lives for us in heaven. Oh, not so sweet 
 Is the May dew which mountain-flowers enclose, 
 
 Nor golden raining of the winnow'd wheat, 
 Nor blushing out of the brown earth, of rose, 
 
 Or whitest lily, as, beyond time's wars, 
 
 The silvery rising of these two twin-stars. 
 
 HARVEST-TIME. 
 
 God's blessing on the reapers ! all day long 
 A quiet sense of peace my spirit rills, 
 
 As whistled fragments of untutor'd song 
 Blend with the rush of sickles on the hills: 
 
 And the blue wild-flowers and green brier-leaves 
 
 Are brightly tangled with the yellow sheaves. 
 
 Where straight and even the new furrows lie, 
 The cornstalks in their rising beauty stand; 
 
 Heaven's loving smile upon man's industry 
 Makes beautiful with plenty the wide land. 
 
 The barns, press'd out with the sweet hay, I see, 
 
 And feel how more than good God is to me ! 
 
 In the cool thicket the red-robin sings, 
 And merrily before the mower's scythe 
 
 Chirps the green grasshopper, while slowly swings, 
 In the scarce-swaying air, the willow lithe ; 
 
 And clouds sail softly through the upper calms, 
 
 White as the fleeces of the unshorn lambs. 
 
 Outstretch'd beneath the venerable trees, 
 
 Conning his long, hard task, the schoolboy lies, 
 
 And, like a fickle wooer, the light breeze 
 
 Kisses his brow ; then, scarcely sighing, flies ; 
 
 1 "We do not hesitate to predict for these sketches a wide popularity. They 
 bear the true stamp of genius, — simple, natural, truthful, — and evince a keen sense 
 of the humor and pathos, of the comedy and tragedy, of life in the country." — 
 J. G. Whittiee. 
 
732 
 
 ALICE CARY. 
 
 And all about him pinks and lilies stand, 
 Painting with beauty the wide pasture-land. 
 
 Oh, there are moments when we half forget 
 The rough, harsh grating of the file of Time ; 
 
 And I believe that angels come down yet 
 And walk with us, as in the Eden clime ; 
 
 Binding the heart away from woe and strife, 
 
 With leaves of healing from the Tree of Life. 
 
 And they are most unworthy who behold 
 The bountiful provisions of God's care, 
 
 When reapers sing among the harvest-gold, 
 And the mown meadow scents the quiet air, 
 
 And yet who never say, with all their heart, 
 
 How good, my Father, oh, how good thou art! 
 
 THE BROKEN HOUSEHOLD. 
 
 Vainly, vainly memory seeks, 
 Round our father's knee, 
 
 Laughing eyes and rosy cheeks 
 Where they used to be : 
 
 Of the circle once so wide 
 
 Three are wanderers, t hree have died. 
 
 Golden-hair'd and dewy-eyed, 
 
 Prattling all the day, 
 Was the baby first that died: 
 
 Oh ! 'twas hard to lay 
 Dimpled hand and cheek of snow 
 In the grave so dark and low ! 
 
 Smiling back on all who smiled, 
 Ne'er by sorrow thrall'd, 
 
 Half a woman, half a child, 
 Was the next one call'd : 
 
 Then a grave more deep and wide 
 
 Made they by the baby's side. 
 
 When or where the other died 
 
 Only heaven can tell ; 
 Treading manhood's path of pride 
 
 Was he when he fell ; 
 Haply thistles, blue and red, 
 Bloom about his lonely bed. 
 
 I am for the living three 
 
 Only left to pray ; 
 Two are on the stormy sea ; — 
 
 Farther still than they 
 Wanders one, his young heart dim,- 
 Oftenest, most, I pray for him. 
 
 Whatsoe'er they do or dare, 
 
 Wheresoe'er they roam, 
 Have them, Father, in thy care, 
 
 Guide them safely home, — 
 Home, Father, in the sky, 
 Where none wander and none die. 
 
 WHAT IS LIFE? 
 
 Oh, what is life ! at best a narrow bound, 
 
 Where each that lives some baffled hope survives, — 
 
 A search for something, never to be found, 
 Records the history of the gi'eatest lives. 
 
 There is a haven for each weary bark, 
 
 A port where they who rest are free from sin ; 
 
 But we, like children trembling in the dark, 
 Drive on and on, afraid to enter in. 
 
PHCEBE CARY. 733 
 
 PHCEBE CARY. 
 
 Phcebe Cary was born in Hamilton County, Ohio, in the year 1825. In 1854, 
 she published a volume of her collected writings, entitled Poems and Parodies} 
 Her fortunes have been linked with her sister's, and both now reside in the city 
 of New York, enriching, from time to time, the columns of various periodicals 
 with their poetical effusions. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN WOMAN. 
 
 Oh, beautiful as morning in those hours 
 When, as her pathway lies along the hills, 
 
 Her golden fingers wake the dewy flowers, 
 And softly touch the waters of the rills, 
 
 Was she who walk'd more faintly day by day 
 
 Till silently she perish'd by the way. 
 
 It was not hers to know that perfect heaven 
 Of passionate love return'd by love as deep ; 
 
 Not hers to sing the cradle-song at even, 
 Watching the beauty of her babe asleep ; 
 
 "Mother and brethren/' — these she had not known, 
 
 Save such as do the Father's will alone. 
 
 Yet found she something still for which to live, — 
 Hearths desolate, where angel-like she came, 
 
 1 I do not like "parodies," especially if written on any thing serious and beau- 
 tiful. They may be good as parodies, — as a merchant of worthless moral charac- 
 ter is "good" commercially if he can pay his notes, — but they are often the mark 
 of a frivolous mind, and leave behind associations of which one would be glad to 
 divest themselves. But one of them, by that singular law of association, — con- 
 trast, — reminds me of the following exquisite gem by 
 
 JAMES ALDRICH. 
 
 Mr. Aldrich, (1810 — 1856,) who lived and died in New York, was much beloved 
 for his social qualities and admired for his talents and culture. Though engaged 
 in mercantile pursuits, he was a warm lover and friend of polite letters and the 
 fine arts, and was for a season an associate with Park Benjamin in the conduct 
 of a literary journal. He wrote several graceful, touching, and finished poems, 
 of which the following, at least, deserves perpetual remembrance : — 
 
 A DEATH-BED. 
 
 Her suffering ended with the day ; 
 
 Yet lived she at its close, 
 And breathed the long, long night away 
 
 In statue-like repose. 
 
 But when the sun, in all his state, 
 
 Illumed the eastern skies, 
 She pass'd through Glory's morning-gate, 
 
 And walk'd in Paradise ! 
 
 62 
 
734 
 
 AMELIA B. WELBY. 
 
 And "little ones" to whom her hand could give 
 
 A cup of water in her Master's name ; 
 And breaking hearts to bind away from death, 
 With the soft hand of pitying love and faith. 
 
 She never won the voice of popular praise ; 
 
 But, counting earthly triumph as but dross, 
 Seeking to keep her Saviour's perfect ways, 
 
 Bearing in the still path his blessed cross, 
 She made her life, while with us here she trod, 
 A consecration to the will of God ! 
 
 And she hath lived and labor'd not in vain: 
 
 Through the deep prison-cells her accents thrill, 
 
 And the sad slave leans idly on his chain, 
 And hears the music of her singing still ; 
 
 "While little children, with their innocent praise, 
 
 Keep freshly in men's hearts her Christian ways. 
 
 And what a beautiful lesson she made known, — 
 The whiteness of her soul sin could not dim ; 
 
 Ready to lay down on God's altar-stone 
 The dearest treasure of her life for him. 
 
 Her flame of sacrifice never, never waned, 
 
 How could she live and die so self-sustain'd ? 
 
 For friends supported not her parting soul. 
 
 And whisper'd words of comfort, kind and sweet, 
 When treading onward to that final goal, 
 
 Where the still bridegroom waited for her feet ; 
 Alone she walk'd, yet with a fearless tread, 
 Down to Death's chamber, and his bridal bed! 
 
 AMELIA B. WELBY, 1821—1852. 
 
 TO AMELIA AVE L BY. 
 
 Darling of all hearts that listen 
 To your warble wild and true! 
 
 As a lovely star doth glisten 
 In the far West, — so do you ! 
 
 Are you sure you are a mortal ? 
 
 Or a Peri in disguise, 
 Watching till the heavenly portal 
 
 Lets you into Paradise? 
 
 Whiling all the weary hours 
 With the songs you used to sing 
 
 In those bright aerial bowers 
 Where the rainbow dips its wing 
 
 Peri! no! — all woman-feeling 
 Pleads in that impassion'd lay; 
 
 Yet 'tis woman proudly stealing 
 Some fond angel's harp away ; 
 
 Mingling, with divine emotion 
 Holy as a seraph's thought, 
 
 Human love and warm devotion, 
 Into rarest pathos wrought. 
 
 Sweep again the silver chords! 
 
 Pour the soul of music there! 
 Write, for your heart's tune, the tuords, 
 
 All our hearts will play the air! 
 
 Trances Sauge.xt Osgood. 
 
 This sweet poetess, whose maiden name was Coppuck, was born in the small 
 town of St. Michael's, Maryland, in 1821. At the age of fourteen, her father re- 
 moved to Lexington, and afterwards to Louisville, Kentucky, where, in 1838, she 
 was married to Mr. George B. Welby, a merchant of that city. She died in 1852. 
 
AMELIA B. WELBY. 
 
 735 
 
 Mrs. Welby early wrote for the "Louisville Journal," under the signature of 
 "Amelia;" and in 1844, a collection of her poems was published, in a small 
 volume, at Boston. In 1850, a beautiful edition was published by Applcton 
 & Co., entitled Poems, by Amelia; a New and Enlarged Edition; illustrated with 
 Original Designs by Weir. 1 
 
 THE RAINBOW. 
 
 I sometimes have thoughts, in my loneliest hours, 
 That lie on my heart like the dew on the flowers, 
 Of a ramble I took one bright afternoon 
 When my heart was as light as a blossom in June ; 
 The green earth was moist with the late-fallen showers, 
 The breeze flutter'd down and blew open the flowers, 
 While a single white cloud, to its haven of rest, 
 On the white wing of Peace, floated off in the west. 
 
 As I threw back my tresses to catch the cool breeze, 
 That scatter'd the rain-drops and dimpled the seas, 
 Far up the blue sky a fair rainbow unroll'd 
 Its soft-tinted pinions of purple and gold. 
 'Twas born in a moment, yet, quick as its birth, 
 It had stretch'd to the uttermost ends of the earth, 
 And, fair as an angel, it floated as free, 
 With a wing on the earth and a wing on the sea. 
 
 How calm was the ocean ! how gentle its swell ! 
 
 Like a woman's soft bosom it rose and it fell ; 
 
 While its light sparkling waves, stealing laughingly o'er, 
 
 When they saw the fair rainbow, knelt down on the shore. 
 
 No sweet hymn ascended, no murmur of prayer, 
 
 Yet I felt that the spirit of worship was there, 
 
 And bent my young head, in devotion and love, 
 
 'Neath the form of the angel that floated above. 
 
 How wide was the sweep of its beautiful wings ! 
 How boundless its circle, how radiant its rings ! 
 If I look'd on the sky, 'twas suspended in air ; 
 If I look'd on the ocean, the rainbow was there ; 
 Thus forming a girdle, as brilliant and whole 
 As the thoughts of the rainbow that circled my soul. 
 Like the wing of the Deity, calmly unfurl'd, 
 It bent from the cloud and encircled the world. 
 
 There are moments, I think, when the spirit receives 
 Whole volumes of thought on its unwritten leaves, 
 When the folds of the heart in a moment unclose, 
 Like the innermost leaves from the heart of a rose. 
 And thus, when the rainbow had pass'd from the sky, 
 The thoughts it awoke were too deep to pass by ; 
 
 1 "Mrs. Welby has nearly all the imagination of Maria del Occidente, (Maria 
 Brooks,) with a more refined taste; and nearly all the passion of Mrs. Norton, 
 with a nicer ear and (what is sui'prising) equal art. Very few American poets 
 are at all comparable with her in the true poetic qualities. As for our poetesses, 
 (an absurd but necessary word,) few of them approach her." — Edgar A. Poe. 
 
AMELIA B. WELBY. 
 
 It left my full soul, like tlie wing of a dove, 
 
 All fluttering with pleasure and fluttering with love. 
 
 I know that each moment of rapture or pain 
 But shortens the links in life's mystical chain ; 
 I know that my form, like that bow from the wave, 
 Must pass from the earth, and lie cold in the grave ; 
 Yet, oh ! when Death's shadows my bosom encloud, 
 "When I shrink at the thought of the coffin and shroud, 
 May Hope, like the rainbow, my spirit enfold 
 In her beautiful pinions of pui-ple and gold ! 
 
 THE OLD MAID. 
 
 Why sits she thus in solitude ? her heart 
 
 Seems melting in her eye's delicious blue, — 
 And as it heaves, her ripe lips lie apart, 
 
 As if to let its heavy throbbings through ; 
 In her dark eye a depth of softness swells, 
 
 Deeper than that her careless girlhood wore 
 And her cheek crimsons Avith the hue that tells 
 
 The rich, fair fruit is ripen'd to the core. 
 
 It is her thirtieth birthday ! with a sigh 
 
 Her soul hath turn'd from youth's luxuriant bowers, 
 And her heart taken up the last sweet tie 
 
 That measured out its links of golden hours ! 
 She feels her inmost soul within her stir 
 
 With thoughts too Avild and passionate to speak; 
 Yet her full heart — its own interpreter — 
 
 Translates itself in silence on her cheek. 
 
 Joy's opening buds, affection's glowing flowers, 
 
 Once lightly sprang within her beaming track ; 
 Oh, life was beautiful in those lost hours, 
 
 And yet she does not wish to wander back! 
 No ! she but loves in loneliness to think 
 
 On pleasures past, though never more to be: 
 Hope links her to the future, — but the link 
 
 That binds her to the past is memory ! 
 
 From her lone path she never turns aside, 
 
 Though passionate worshippers before her fall , 
 Like some pure planet in her lonely pride, 
 
 She seems to soar and beam above them all ! 
 Not that her heart is cold ! — emotions new 
 
 And fresh as flowers are with her heart-strings knit: 
 And sweetly mournful pleasures wander through 
 
 Her virgin soul, and softly ruffle it. 
 
 For she hath lived with heart and soul alive 
 To all that makes life beautiful and fair; 
 
 Sweet Thoughts, like honey-bees, have made their hive 
 Of her soft bosom-cell, and cluster there; 
 
 Yet life is not to her what it hath been : 
 
 Her soul hath learn'd to look beyond its gloss, — 
 
AMELIA B. WELBT. 
 
 737 
 
 And now she hovers like a star between 
 
 Her deeds of love, — her Saviour on the cross ! 
 
 Beneath the cares of earth she does not bow, 
 
 Though she hath ofttimes drain'd its bitter cup, 
 But ever wanders on with heavenward brow, 
 
 And eyes whose lovely lids are lifted up ! 
 She feels that in that lovelier, happier sphere, 
 
 Her bosom yet will, birdlike, find its mate. 
 And all the joys it found so blissful here 
 
 Within that spirit-realm perpetuate. 
 
 Yet, sometimes o'er her trembling heart-strings thrill 
 
 Soft sighs, for raptures it hath ne'er enjoy'd, — 
 And then she dreams of love, and strives to fill 
 
 With wild and passionate thoughts the craving void. 
 And thus she wanders on, — half sad, half blest, — 
 
 Without a mate for the pure, lonely heart 
 That, yearning, throbs within her virgin breast, 
 
 Never to find its lovely counterpart ! 
 
 ON SEEING AN INFANT SLEEPING UPON ITS MOTHER'S BOSOM. 
 
 It lay upon its mother's breast, a thing 
 
 Bright as a clew-drop when it first descends, 
 Or as the plumage of an angel's wing 
 
 Where every tint of rainbow-beauty blends ; 
 It had soft violet eyes, that, 'neath each lid 
 
 Half closed upon them, like bright waters shone, 
 While its small dimpled hands were slyly hid 
 
 In the warm bosom that it nestled on. 
 
 There was a beam in that young mother's eye 
 
 Lit by the feelings that she could not speak, 
 As from her lips a plaintive lullaby 
 
 Stirr'd the bright tresses on her infant's cheek, 
 While now and then with melting heart she press'd 
 
 Soft kisses o'er its red and smiling lips, — 
 Lips, sweet as rose-buds in fresh beauty dress'd 
 
 Ere the young murmuring bee their honey sips. 
 
 It was a fragrant eve ; the sky was full 
 
 Of burning stars, that tremulously clear 
 Shone on those lovely ones, while the low lull 
 
 Of falling waters fell upon the ear; 
 And the new moon, like a pure shell of pearl 
 
 Encircled by the blue waves of the deep, 
 Lay 'mid the fleecy clouds that love to curl 
 
 Around the stars when they their vigils keep. 
 
 My heart grew softer as I gazed upon 
 
 That youthful mother as she soothed to rest 
 With a low song her loved and cherish'd one, — 
 
 The bud of promise on her gentle breast ; 
 
 62* 
 
738 
 
 THOMAS B. READ. 
 
 For 'tis a sight that angel ones above 
 
 May stoop to gaze on from their bowers of bliss, 
 When Innocence upon the breast of Love 
 
 Is cradled, in a sinful world like this. 
 
 THOMAS BUCHANAN READ. 
 
 Thomas Buchanan Read was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, in 1822. 
 At the age of fourteen he removed to Cincinnati, where, from visiting the studio 
 of Clevinger, he became ambitious to be a sculptor. He had made considerable 
 proficiency in the art, when his master left for Europe. But the love of the beau- 
 tiful was too strong in him to be repressed by such an occurrence, and he resolved 
 to be a painter; and so successful was he in his first efforts that he concluded to go 
 to the East, where he could have better advantages; and accordingly, in 1841 he 
 removed to Boston, where he remained five years in the practice of his profession. 
 
 Up to this time Mr. Read, though he had frequently written fugitive verses, 
 had published but little ; but now he began to contribute to the leading periodi- 
 cals, and soon became a favorite with readers. Most of his best poems appeared 
 first in " Graham's Magazine." In 1846, he removed to Philadelphia, and in 
 1850 sailed for Europe, and spent a year in Italy, pursuing his studies as an 
 artist. On his return home, he visited England, where he was engaged to paint 
 a number of portraits, and, while doing so, published a volume of poems, which 
 attracted much notice, and was warmly commended by the London press. Of 
 The Closing Scene, the " North British Review" said, " It is an addition to the 
 permanent stock of poetry in the English language." 
 
 In 1S52, Mr. Read returned home, and passed the following winter in Cincin- 
 nati. The next year he went abroad the second time, accompanied by his family, 
 and settled in Florence, enjoying the intercourse of a delightful society of artists 
 and men of letters; and subsecpuently spent two years in Rome. In 1858, he re- 
 turned to Philadelphia with some of the richest specimens of art, — the creations 
 of his own genius, — all of which were engaged at prices that show that our 
 countrymen know how to appreciate and reward true merit. 
 
 Mr. Read's first collection of Poems was printed in Boston in 1847. In 1848 
 he published, in Philadelphia, Lays and Ballads, and in 1853 appeared The 
 Pilgrims of the Great St. Bernard, — a prose romance. His more recent publica- 
 tions are Sylvia; or the Last Shepherd, — an Eclogue: and other Poem-s ; The 
 House big the Sea, — a Poem ; and The New Pastoral. 1 ' The last consists of a series 
 of sketches of rustic and domestic life, mostly of primitive simplicity, and so 
 truthful as to be not less valuable as history than attractive as poetry. 
 
 1 Beautiful editions of the last three poems have been published by Parry «fc 
 McMillan. His Selection from the " Female Poets of America, with Biogra- 
 phical Notices," should be noticed, — an elegant book published by E. H. Butler 
 & Co., which has reached the seventh edition. 
 
THOMAS B. READ. 
 
 THE CLOSING SCENE. 
 
 Within this sober realm of leafless trees, 
 The russet year inhaled the dreamy air, 
 
 Like some tann'd reaper in his hour of ease, 
 When all the fields are lying brown and bare. 
 
 The gray barns, looking from their hazy hills 
 O'er the dim waters widening in the vales, 
 
 Sent down the air a greeting to the mills, 
 On the dull thunder of alternate flails. 
 
 All sights were mellow'd, and all sounds subdued, 
 The hills seem'd farther, and the streams sang low ; 
 
 As in a dream, the distant woodman hew'd 
 His winter log with many a muffled blow. 
 
 The embattled forests, erewhile arm'd in gold, 
 Their banners bright with every martial hue, 
 
 Now stood, like some sad beaten host of old, 
 Withdrawn afar in Time's remotest blue. 
 
 On slumberous wings the vulture tried his flight ; 
 
 The dove scarce heard his sighing mate's complaint ; 
 And, like a star slow drowning in the light, 
 
 The village church-vane seem'd to pale and faint. 
 
 The sentinel cock upon the hill-side crew, — 
 Crew thrice, and all was stiller than before, — 
 
 Silent till some replying wanderer blew 
 
 His alien horn, and then was heard no more. 
 
 Where erst the jay within the elm's tall crest 
 
 Made garrulous trouble round the unfledged young; 
 
 And where the oriole hung her swaying nest 
 By every light wind like a censer swung ; 
 
 Where sang the noisy masons of the eves, 
 
 The busy swallows circling ever near, 
 Foreboding, as the rustic mind believes, 
 
 An early harvest and a plenteous year ; 
 
 Where every bird which charm'd the vernal feast 
 Shook the sweet slumber from its wings at morn, 
 
 To warn the reapers of the rosy east, 
 
 All now was songless, empty, and forlorn. 
 
 Alone from out the stubble piped the quail, 
 
 And croak'd the crow through all the dreary gloom; 
 
 Alone the pheasant, drumming in the vale, 
 Made echo to the distant cottage-loom. 
 
 There was no bud, no bloom, upon the bowers ; 
 
 The spiders wove their thin shrouds night by night ; 
 The thistle-down, the only ghost of flowers, 
 
 Sail'd slowly by — pass'd noiseless out of sight. 
 
THOMAS B. READ. 
 
 Amid all this, — in this most cheerless air, 
 
 And where the woodbine sheds upon the porch 
 
 Its crimson leaves, as if the year stood there, 
 Firing the floor with his inverted torch, — 
 
 Amid all this, the centre of the scene, 
 
 The white-hair'd matron, with monotonous tread, 
 
 Plied her swift wheel, and with her joyless mien 
 Sat like a Fate, and watch'd the flying thread. 
 
 She had known Sorrow. He had walk'd with her, 
 Oft supp'd, and broke with her the ashen crust, 
 
 And in the dead leaves still she heard the stir 
 Of his black mantle trailing in the dust. 
 
 While yet her cheek was bright with summer bloom, 
 Her country summon'd, and she gave her all, 
 
 And twice war bow'd to her his sable plume ; 
 He gave the swords to rest upon the wall. 
 
 Re-gave the swords, — but not the hand that drew, 
 And struck for liberty the dying blow ; 
 
 Nor him who, to his sire and country true, 
 Fell 'mid the ranks of the invading foe. 
 
 Long, but not loud, the droning wheel went on, 
 Like the low murmurs of a hive at noon ; 
 
 Long, but not loud, the memory of the gone 
 
 Breathed through her lips a sad and tremulous tune. 
 
 At last the thread was snapp'd, her head was bow'd : 
 Life droop'd the distaff through his hands serene ; 
 
 And loving neighbors smoothed her careful shroud, 
 While Death and Winter closed the autumn scene. 
 
 THE DESERTED ROAD. 
 
 Ancient road, that wind'st deserted 
 Through the level of the vale, 
 
 Sweeping toward the crowded market 
 Like a stream without a sail ; 
 
 Standing by thee, I look backward, 
 And, as in the light of dreams, 
 
 See the years descend and vanish, 
 Like thy whitely tented teams. 
 
 Here I stroll along the village 
 As in youth's departed morn ; 
 
 But I miss the crowded coaches, 
 And the driver's bugle-hoim, — 
 
 Miss the crowd of jovial teamsters 
 Filling buckets at the wells, 
 
 With their wains from Conestoga, 
 And their orchestras of bells. 
 
THOMAS B. READ. 
 
 To the mossy way-side tavern 
 Comes the noisy throng no more, 
 
 And the faded sign, complaining, 
 Swings, unnoticed, at the door ; 
 
 While the old, decrepit tollman, 
 Waiting for the few who pass, 
 
 Reads the melancholy story 
 In the thickly-springing grass. 
 
 Ancient highway, thou art vanquish'd ; 
 
 The usurper of the vale 
 Rolls, in fiery, iron rattle, 
 
 Exultations on the gale. 
 
 Thou art vanquish'd and neglected ; 
 
 But the good which thou hast done, 
 Though by man it be forgotten, 
 
 Shall be deathless as the sun. 
 
 Though neglected, gray, and grassy, 
 Still I pray that my decline 
 
 May be through as vernal valleys 
 And as blest a calm as thine. 
 
 THE EMIGRANTS. 
 
 At length the long leave-taking is all o'er ; 
 
 The train descends ; and lo, the happy vale 
 
 Is closed from sight beyond the mournful hill, 
 
 And all the West, before the onward troop, 
 
 Lies in the far unknown. As goes a bride, 
 
 With pain and joy alternate in her breast, 
 
 To find a home within the alien walls 
 
 Of him who hath enticed her hence, — her heart 
 
 More hoping than misgiving, — so, to-day, 
 
 Departed the slow train ; and now the miles, 
 
 Gliding beneath with gradual but sure pace, 
 
 Bring them at last to unfamiliar scenes. 
 
 Thoughtful they hold their onward, plodding course, 
 
 Each in his own reflection wrapt ; for now, 
 
 With every step, some ancient tie is broke, 
 
 Some dream relinquish'd, or some friend given up : 
 
 While old associations spring, self-call'd, 
 
 Even as tears, unbidden. Thus, a while, 
 
 They keep the silent tenor of their way ; 
 
 Till, like a sudden, unexpected bird, 
 
 Which from the still fields soars into the air, 
 
 Flooding the noon with melody, up swells 
 
 The gladsome voice of Arthur into song, 
 
 Cheering the drooping line. 
 
742 
 
 MARGARET MILLER DAVIDSON. 
 
 Arthur's song. 
 
 Bid adieu to the homestead, adieu to the vab, 
 
 Though the memory recalls them, give grief to the gale: 
 
 There the hearths are unlighted, the embers are black, 
 
 Where the feet of the onward shall never turn back. 
 
 For as -well might the stream that comes down from the mount, 
 
 Glancing up, heave the sigh to return to its fount ; 
 
 Yet the lordly Ohio feels joy in his breast 
 
 As he follows the sun, onward, into the West. 
 
 Oh, to roam, like the rivers, through empires of woods, 
 AVhere the king of the eagles in majesty broods; 
 Or to ride the wild horse o'er the boundless domain, 
 And to drag the wild butfalo down to the plain; 
 There to chase the fleet stag, and to track the huge bear, 
 And to face the lithe panther at bay in his lair, 
 Are a joy which alone cheers the pioneer's breast ; 
 For the only true hunting- ground lies in the West! 
 
 Leave the tears to the maiden, the fears to the child, 
 While the future stands beckoning afar in the wild ; 
 For there Freedom, more fair, walks the primeval land, 
 AVhere the wild deer all court the caress of her hand. 
 There the deep forests fall, and the old shadows fly, 
 And the palace and temple leap into the sky. 
 Oh, the East holds no place where the onward can rest, 
 And alone there is room in the land of the West ! 
 
 New Pastoral. 
 
 MARGARET MILLER DAVIDSON, 1823—1838. 
 
 Margaret Miller Davidson, the sister of Lucretia, 1 and quite as remark- 
 able for precocity of intellect, was born at Plattsburg, New York, on the 26th 
 of March, 1823. Like her sister, she was of delicate and feeble frame from her 
 infancy, and, like her, she had an early passion for knowledge. Her mother 
 rather restrained than incited her; but, before she could even read well, she 
 would talk in the language of poetry, — of " the pale, cold moon," of the stars 
 "that shone like the eyes of angels," &c. At six years old, she was so far 
 advanced in literature and intelligence as to be the companion of her mother 
 when confined to her room by protracted illness. She read not only well, but 
 elegantly : her love of reading amounted to a passion, and her intelligence sur- 
 passed belief. Strangers viewed with astonishment a child, not seven years old, 
 reading with enthusiastic delight Thomson's " Seasons," the " Pleasures of Hope," 
 Cowper's " Task," and even Milton, and marking with taste and discrimination 
 the passages that struck her. But the Bible was her daily study, over which she 
 
 1 See p. 600. 
 
MARGARET MILLER DAVIDSON. 
 
 743 
 
 did not hurry as a task, but would spend an hour or two in commenting with her 
 mother on the contents of the chapter she had read. 
 
 In 1833, when she was ten years old, she had a severe attack of scarlet fever, 
 from which she recovered but slowly; and ber father, thinking that the climate 
 and situation of Saratoga would benefit her, removed thither in that year. But 
 she showed her love for the wilder scenes of her " Native Lake" in the following 
 sweet verses — remarkable for one so young — on the charms of 
 
 LAKE CHAMPLAIN. 
 
 Thy verdant banks, thy lucid stream, 
 Lit by the sun's resplendent beam, 
 Reflect each bending tree so light 
 Upon thy bounding bosom bright : 
 Could I but see thee once again, 
 My own, my beautiful Champlain ! 
 
 The little isles that deck thy breast, 
 
 And calmly on thy bosom rest, 
 
 How often, in my childish glee, 
 
 I've sported round them bright and free ! 
 
 Could I but see thee once again, 
 
 My own, my beautiful Champlain ! 
 
 How oft I've watch'd the freshening shower 
 
 Bending the summer tree and flower, 
 
 And felt my little heart beat high 
 
 As the bright rainbow gi*aced the sky ! 
 
 Could I but see thee once again, 
 
 My own, my beautiful Champlain ! 
 
 And shall I never see thee more, 
 
 My native lake, my much-loved shore ? 
 
 And must I bid a long adieu, 
 
 My dear, my infant home, to you ? 
 
 Shall I not see thee once again, 
 
 My own, my beautiful Champlain ? 
 
 In 1834, she was again seized by illness, — a liver-complaint, which by sym- 
 pathy affected her lungs, and confined her to her room for four months. On her 
 recovery, her genius, which had seemed to lie dormant in sickness, broke forth 
 with a brilliancy that astonished her friends ; and she poured out, in rapid suc- 
 cession, some of her best pieces. But her health was evidently declining. The 
 death of a beloved brother, in 1835, affected her deeply; and, with short and 
 transient gleams of health amid dark and dismal prospects, this amiable and 
 gifted child slept, as she herself trusted, in the arms of her Redeemer, on the 
 25th of November, 1838, aged fifteen years and eight months. 1 
 
 1 Read an article in the u London Quarterly Review," by the poet Southey, 
 vol. lxix. p. 91. In commenting upon Washington Irving's charming Memoir 
 of this wonderful child, the " Democratic Review" for July, 1811, thus remarks: 
 ■ — " This is a record, by one of the finest writers of the age, of one of the most 
 remarkable prodigies that the poetical literature of any country has produced." 
 
744 
 
 MARGARET MILLER DAVIDSON. 
 
 In 1833, while on a visit to New York, she expressed, in the following beautiful 
 lines, her 
 
 YEARNINGS FOR HOME. 
 
 I would fly from the city, would fly from its care, 
 
 To my own native plants and my flowerets so fair ! 
 
 To the cool grassy shade, and the rivulet bright 
 
 "Which reflects the pale moon on its bosom of light. 
 
 Again would I view the old mansion so dear 
 
 "Where I sported, a babe, without sorrow or fear. 
 
 I would leave this great city, so brilliant and gay, 
 
 For a peep at my home on this pure summer-day. 
 
 I have friends whom I love, and would leave with regret, 
 
 But the love of my home, oh, 'tis tenderer yet! 
 
 There a sister reposes, unconscious, in death, — 
 
 'Twas there she first drew, and there yielded, her breath ; 
 
 A father I love is away from me now, — 
 
 Oh, could I but print a sweet kiss on his brow, 
 
 Or smooth the gray locks to my fond heart so dear, 
 
 How quickly would vanish each trace of a tear ! 
 
 Attentive I listen to pleasure's gay call ; 
 
 But my own darling Home, it is dearer than all. 
 
 TO HER MOTHER. 1 
 
 mother ! would the power were mine 
 To wake the strain thou lovest to hear, 
 
 And breathe each trembling new-born thought 
 Within thy fondly listening ear, 
 
 As when, in days of health and glee, 
 
 My hopes and fancies wander'd free. 
 
 But, mother ! now a shade hath pass'd 
 Athwart my brightest visions here; 
 
 A cloud of darkest gloom hath wrapp'd 
 The remnant of my brief career : 
 
 No song, no echo can I win; 
 
 The sparkling fount hath dried within. 
 
 The torch of earthly hope burns dim, 
 
 And fancy spreads her wings no more ; 
 And oh, how vain and trivial seem 
 
 The pleasures that I prized before \ 
 My soul, with trembling steps and slow, 
 
 Is struggling on through doubt and strife ; 
 Oh, may it prove, as time rolls on, 
 
 The pathway to eternal life! 
 Then, when my cares and fears are o'er, 
 I'll sing thee as in "days of yore." 
 
 This was the last poem she ever wrote. 
 
GEORGE IT. BOKER. 
 
 745 
 
 I said that Hope had pass'd from earth, — 
 'Twas but to fold her wings in heaven, 
 
 To whisper of the soul's new birth, 
 Of sinners saved and sins forgiven : 
 
 When mine are wash'd in tears away, 
 
 Then shall my spirit swell the lay. 
 
 When God shall guide my soul above 
 By the soft chords of heavenly love, — 
 When the vain cares of earth depart, 
 And tuneful voices swell my heart, 
 Then shall each word, each note I raise, 
 Burst forth in pealing hymns of praise ; 
 And all not offer'd at his shrine, 
 Dear mother, I will place on thine. 
 
 GEORGE H. BOKER. 
 
 The following is the dedication to "Songs of Summer: 
 
 TO GEORGE H. BOKER. 
 
 Not mine the tragic poet's art, 
 His empire of the human heart : 
 That world is shut from me, 
 But you possess the key. 
 
 I see you in your wide domain, 
 Surrounded by a stately train, 
 That lived and died of yore : 
 But now they die no more ! 
 
 The Moor Calaynos : Anne Boleyn : 
 The Guzman and the cruel queen ; 
 And that unhappy pair 
 That float in hell's murk air ! 
 
 Anon your bitter Fool appears, 
 Masking in mirth his cynic sneers ; 
 We hear his bells, and smile, 
 But long to weep the while. 
 
 A narrower range to me belongs, 
 A little land of summer songs, 
 A realm of thought apart 
 From all that wrings the heart. 
 
 To win you to my small estate, 
 Old friend, I greet you at the gate, 
 And from its fairest bower 
 Bring you this simple flower. 
 
 Richard Henry Stoddard. 
 
 George Henry Boker was horn in the city of Philadelphia in 1824, and was 
 graduated at Princeton College in 1841. After travelling some time in Europe 
 for literary improvement, he returned home " to devote a life of opulent leisure to 
 the cultivation of letters and to the enjoyment of the liberal arts and of society." 
 In 1847 appeared his first publication, under the title of The Lesson of Life, and 
 other Poems ; and the next year, Calaynos, a Tragedy, which was well received. 
 The scene is laid in Spain, and the plot is designed to illustrate the hostile feeling 
 between the Spanish and Moorish races. His next production was Anne Boleyn, 
 a Tragedy, which shows more maturity of thought than Calaynos, and a finer vein 
 of poetical feeling. These were followed by The Betrothal, Francesca da Rimini, 
 and other plays. In 1856 appeared a collection of his dramatic and miscellaneous 
 poems, in two beautiful volumes, from the press of Ticknor & Fields. 1 
 
 1 "The glow of his images is chastened by a noble simplicity, keeping them 
 within the line of human sympathy and natural expression. He has followed the 
 masters of dramatic writing with rare judgment. He also excels many gifted 
 
74b 
 
 GEORGE H. BOKER. 
 
 ODE TO A MOUNTAIN OAK. 
 
 Proud mountain giant, whose majestic face, 
 From thy high watch-tower on the steadfast rock, 
 Looks calmly o'er the trees that throng thy base, 
 How long hast thou withstood the tempest's shock 
 How long hast thou look'd down on yonder vale 
 
 Sleeping in sun before thee ; 
 Or bent thy ruffled brow, to let the gale 
 
 Steer its white, drifting sails just o'er thee ? 
 
 Strong link 'twixt vanish'd ages ! 
 
 Thou hast a sage and reverend look ; 
 
 As if life's struggle, through its varied stages, 
 
 Were stamp'd on thee, as in a book. 
 Thou hast no voice to tell what thou hast seen, 
 Save a low moaning in thy troubled leaves ; 
 And canst but point thy scars, and shake thy head, 
 With solemn warning, in the sunbeam's sheen; 
 And show how Time the mightiest thing bereaves, 
 By the sere leaves that rot upon thy bed. 
 
 poets of his class in a quality essential to an acted play, — spirit. His language 
 also rises often to the highest point of energy, pathos, and beauty." — H. T. 
 
 TuCKEItMAN. 
 
 Mr. Boker's Ballad of Sir Jolin Fran/din is a beautiful production, — a happy 
 imitation of the ancient ballad, — but too long for insertion here. It reminds 
 me, however, of the graceful " Ballad of the Tempest," by 
 
 JAMES T. FIELDS. 
 
 Mr. Fields was born at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1820, and is a partner 
 of the well-known publishing-house of Ticknor & Fields, Boston, — a house that 
 never published an inferior book, nor any book in an inferior manner.* Mr. 
 Fields has won considerable reputation as a poet, by the volume of his poetical 
 productions published in 1849, and by two volumes privately printed for friends 
 in 1854 and 1858. 
 
 BALLAD OF THE TEMPEST. 
 
 We were crowded in the cabin, As thus we sat in darkness, 
 
 Not a soul would dare to sleep, — Each one busy in his prayers, — 
 
 It was midnight on the waters, "We are lost!" the captain shouted, 
 
 And a storm was on the deep. As he stagger'd down the stairs. 
 
 'Tis a fearful thing in winter But his little daughter whisper'd, 
 
 To be shatter'd in the blast, As she took his icy hand, 
 
 And to hear the rattling trumpet "Isn't God upon the ocean, 
 
 Thunder, " Cut away the mast !" Just the same as on the land ?" 
 
 So we shudder'd there in silence, — Then we kiss'd the little maiden, 
 
 For the stoutest held his breath, And we spoke in better cheer, 
 
 While the hungry sea was roaring, And we anchor'd safe in harbor 
 
 And the breakers talk'd with Death. When the morn was shining clear. 
 
 * Their recent " Household Edition of the Waverley Novels" — the best published in this 
 country— is highly creditable to their judgment and taste. 
 
GEORGE H. BOKER. 
 
 Type of long-suffering power ! 
 
 Even in my gayest hour 
 Thou'dst still my tongue, and send my spirit far, 
 To wander in a labyrinth of thought ; 
 For thou hast waged with Time unceasing war, 
 And out of pain hast strength and beauty brought. 
 Thou amidst storms and tempests hadst thy birth, 
 Upon these bleak and scantly-sheltering rocks, 
 Nor much save storm and wrath hast known on earth ; 
 Yet nobly hast thou bode the fiercest shocks 
 That Circumstance can pour on patient Worth. 
 
 I see thee springing, in the vernal time, 
 A sapling weak, from out the barren stone, 
 To dance with May upon the mountain-peak; 
 Pale leaves put forth to greet the genial clime, 
 And roots shot down life's sustenance to seek, 
 While mere existence was a joy alone, — 
 
 Oh, thou wert happy then ! 
 On Summer's heat thy tinkling leaflets fed, 
 Each fibre toughen'd, and a little crown 
 Of green upon thy modest brow was spread, 
 To catch the rain, and shake it gently down 
 
 But then came Autumn, when 
 Thy dry and tatter' d leaves fell dead ; 
 
 And sadly on the gale 
 
 Thou drop'dst them one by one, — 
 Drop'dst them, with a low, sad wail, 
 
 On the cold, unfeeling stone. 
 Next Winter seized thee in his iron grasp, 
 
 And shook thy bruised and straining form ; 
 Or lock'd thee in his icicles' cold clasp, 
 And piled upon thy head the shorn cloud's snowy fleece 
 Wert thou not joyful, in this bitter storm, 
 That the green honors, which erst deck'd thy head, 
 Sage Autumn's 'slow decay, had mildly shed? 
 Else, with their weight, they'd given thy ills increase, 
 And dragg'd thee helpless from thy uptorn bed. 
 
 Year after v ear, in kind or adverse fate, 
 
 Thy branches stretch'd, and thy young twigs put forth, 
 
 Nor changed thy nature with the season's date: 
 
 Whether thou wrestled'st with the gusty north, 
 
 Or beat the driving rain to glittering froth, 
 
 Or shook the snow-storm from thy arms of might, 
 
 Or drank the balmy dews on summer's night ; — 
 
 Laughing in sunshine, writhing in the storm, 
 
 Yet wert thou still the same ! 
 Summer spread forth thy towering form, 
 And Winter strengthen'd thy great frame. 
 
 Achieving thy destiny 
 
 On went'st thou sturdily, 
 Shaking thy green flags in triumph and jubilee ! 
 
 From thy secure and sheltering branch 
 
 The wild bird pours her glad and fearless lay, 
 
GEORGE H. BOKER. 
 
 That, with the sunbeams, falls upon the vale, 
 Adding fresh brightness to the smile of day. 
 'Neath those broad boughs the youth has told love's tale 
 And thou hast seen his hardy features blanch, 
 Heard his snared heart beat like a prison'd bird, 
 Fluttering with fear, before the fowler laid ; 
 While his bold figure shook at every word, — 
 The strong man trembling at a timid maid ! 
 And thou hast smiled upon their children's play ; 
 Seen them grow old, and gray, and pass away. 
 Heard the low prattle of the thoughtless child, 
 Age's cold wisdom, and the lessons mild 
 Which patient mothers to their offspring say ; — 
 Yet art thou still the same ! 
 
 Man may decay ; 
 Race after race may pass away ; 
 The great may perish, and their very fame 
 
 Rot day by day, — 
 Rot noteless with their once inspired clay : 
 
 Still, as at their birth, 
 Thou stretchest thy long arms above the earth, — ■ 
 
 Type of unbending Will ! 
 Type of majestic, self-sustaining Power! 
 Elate in sunshine, firm when tempests lower, 
 May thy calm strength my wavering spirit fill ! 
 
 Oh, let me learn from thee, 
 
 Thou proud and steadfast tree, 
 To bear unmurmuring what stern Time may send ; 
 Nor 'neath life's ruthless tempests bend : 
 
 But calmly stand like thee, 
 
 Though wrath and storm shake me, 
 Though vernal hopes in yellow Autumn end, 
 And, strong in Truth, work out my destiny. 
 Type of long-suffering Power ! 
 
 Type of unbending Will ! 
 Strong in the tempest's hour, 
 
 Bright when the storm is still; 
 Rising from every contest with an unbroken heart, 
 Strengthen'd by every struggle, emblem of might thou art 
 Sign of what man can compass, spite of an adverse state, 
 Still, from thv rocky summit, teach us to war with Fate ! 
 
 TO ENGLAND. 
 I. 
 
 Lear and Cordelia ! 'twas an ancient tale 
 
 Before thy Shakspeare gave it deathless fame : 
 The times have changed, the moral is the same 
 
 So like an outcast, dowerless, and pale, 
 
 Thy daughter went ; and in a foreign gale 
 
 Spread her young banner, till its sway became 
 A wonder to the nations. Days of shame 
 
 Are close upon thee: prophets raise their wail. 
 
GEORGE II. BOKER. 
 
 When the rude Cossack with an outstretch'd hand 
 Points his long spear across the narrow sea, — 
 "Lo! there is England !" when thy destiny 
 Storms on thy straw-crown'd head, and thou dost stand 
 Weak, helpless, mad, a by-word in the land, — 
 God grant thy daughter a Cordelia be ! 
 
 1852. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Stand, thou great bulwark of man's liberty ! 
 
 Thou rock of shelter, rising from the wave, 
 
 Sole refuge to the overwearied brave 
 Who plann'd, arose, and battled to be free, 
 Fell undeterr'd, then sadly turn'd to thee ; — 
 
 Saved the free spirit from their country's grave, 
 
 To rise again, and animate the slave, 
 When God shall ripen all things. Britons, ye 
 Who guard the sacred outpost, not in vain 
 
 Hold your proud peril ! Freemen undefiled, 
 
 Keep watch and ward ! Let battlements be piled 
 Around your cliffs ; fleets marshall'd, till the main 
 Sink under them ; and if your courage wane, 
 
 Through force or fraud, look westward to your child ! 
 
 1853. 
 
 in. 
 
 At length the tempest from the North has burst, 
 
 The threaten'd storm, by sages seen of old; 
 
 And into jarring anarchy is rolFd 
 Harmonious peace, so long and fondly nursed 
 By watchful nations. Tyranny accursed 
 
 Has broken bounds, — the wolf makes towards the fold. 
 
 Up ! ere your priceless liberties be sold 
 Into degrading slavery ! The worst 
 That can befall you is the brunt of war, 
 
 Dealt on a shield that oft has felt the weight 
 
 Of foeman's blows. — Up ! ere it be too late ! 
 For God has squandered all his precious store 
 Of right and mercy, if the time's so sore 
 
 That slaves can bring you to their own base state. 
 
 1854. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Far from the Baltic to the Euxine's strand, 
 
 Peals the vast clamor of commencing war ; 
 
 And we, England, on another shore, 
 Like brothers bound, with wistful faces stand, — 
 With shouts of cheer, with wavings of the hand, — 
 
 With eager throbbings of the heart, to pour 
 
 Our warlike files amid the battle's war, 
 And nerve the terrors of thy lifted brand. 
 Old wrongs have vanish'd in thy evil hours ; 
 
 The blood that fell between us, in the fight, 
 
 Has dried away before a heavenly light. 
 We'll strew thy paths of victory with flowers, 
 Weep o'er thy woes, and cry, with all our powers, 
 
 Thy cause is God's, because thy cause is right! 
 
 63* 1854. 
 
750 
 
 SARA JANE LIPPINCOTT. 
 
 SARA JANE LIPPINCOTT. 
 
 This gifted writer, who has won such an enviable reputation around the hearth- 
 stones of this country, under the name of "Grace Greenwood," was born in 
 Pompey, Onondaga County, New York. Her maiden name was Sara Jane 
 Clarke, which was changed by her marriage with Mr. Leander K. Lippincott, of 
 Philadelphia, in October, 1853; but the appellation by which she will be best 
 known in American literature will be that under which she made her first appear- 
 ance as an author, — " Grace Greenwood." 
 
 While she was a school-girl, her parents removed to Rochester, where she en- 
 joyed the excellent educational advantages of that place. In 1843, she removed 
 with her parents to New Brighton, Pennsylvania, where she resided until her 
 marriage. Soon after her removal thither, she appeared as an authoress, under 
 the signature of " Grace Greemvood," in the columns of the "New York Mirror," 
 then under the editorial care of George P. Morris and N. P. Willis. Among her 
 poetical pieces which attracted most admiration were Ariadne, The Horseback 
 Ride, and Pygmalion. These were succeeded by various prose compositions, some 
 of which appeared in "The National Era," published in Washington. In con- 
 nection with her other literary labors, she was the editor of " The Lady's Book" 
 for a year. 1 Her first volume, entitled Greenwood Leaves, was published in 1850. 
 In 1851, she published a volume of Poems, and an admirable juvenile story-book, 
 called History of my Pets. A second scries of Greenwood Leaves was issued the 
 following year: and also another juvenile work, called Recollections of my Child- 
 hood. In the spring of 1852, she visited Europe, and spent fifteen months in 
 England and on the Continent. Soon after her return, she published a record 
 of her travels, entitled Haps and Mishaps of a Tour in Europe. In October, 
 1853, she entered upon the editorship of "The Little Pilgrim," a monthly maga- 
 zine for children, published in Philadelphia by Mr. Leander K. Lippincott, to 
 whom about this time she was married. In the fall of 1855, she published Merrie 
 England, the first of a series of books of foreign travel for children. In the spring 
 of 1856, a volume, entitled A Forest Tragedy, and other Tales, appeared; and in 
 the fall of 1857, Stories and Legends of History and Travel, being the second of 
 the series mentioned above. 
 
 It will thus be seen that Mrs. Lippincott's life is any thing but an idle one; 
 and we rejoice that she is thus keeping her talent bright by use, charming all her 
 readers, both old and young, by her fine thoughts, expressed in a style of great 
 ease, simplicity, and beauty. 
 
 THE HORSEBACK RIDE. 
 
 When troubled in spirit, when weary of life, 
 When I faint 'neath its burdens, and shrink from its strife, 
 When its fruits, turn'd to ashes, are mocking my taste, 
 And its fairest scene seems but a desolate waste, 
 
 1 Sep some account of this in a note on page 427. 
 
SARA JANE LIPPINCOTT. 
 
 751 
 
 Then come ye not near me, my sad heart to cheer, 
 With friendship's soft accents, or sympathy's tear. 
 No pity I ask, and no counsel I need, 
 But bring me, oh, bring me my gallant young steed, 
 With his high arched neck, and his nostril spread wide, 
 His eye full of fire, and his step full of pride ! 
 As I spring to his back, as I seize the strong rein, 
 The strength to my spirit returneth again ! 
 The bonds are all broken that fetter'd my mind, 
 And my cares borne away on the wings of the wind ; 
 My pride lifts its head, for a season bow'd down. 
 And the queen in my nature now puts on her crown ! 
 
 Now we're off — like the winds to the plains whence they came ; 
 And the rapture of motion is thrilling my frame ! 
 On, on speeds my courser, scarce printing the sod, 
 Scarce crushing a daisy to mark where he trod ! 
 On, on like a deer, when the hound's early bay 
 Awakes the wild echoes, away, and away ! 
 Still faster, still farther, he leaps at my cheer, 
 Till the rush of the startled air whirrs in my ear ! 
 Now 'long a clear rivulet lieth his track, — 
 See his glancing hoofs tossing the white pebbles back ! 
 Now a glen, dark as midnight — what matter ? — we'll down, 
 Though shadows are round us, and rocks o'er us frown ; 
 The thick branches shake, as we're hurrying through, 
 And deck us with spangles of silvery dew ! 
 
 What a wild thought of triumph, that this girlish hand 
 Such a steed in the might of his strength may command! 
 What a glorious creature ! Ah ! glance at him now, 
 As I check him a while on this green hillock's brow ; 
 How he tosses his mane, with a shrill, joyous neigh, 
 And paws the firm earth in his proud, stately play ! 
 Hurrah! off" again, dashing on as in ire, 
 Till the long, flinty pathway is flashing with fire ! 
 Ho ! a ditch ! — Shall we pause ? No ; the bold leap we dare, 
 Like a swift-winged arrow we rush through the air ! 
 Oh, not all the pleasures that poets may praise, 
 Not the wildering waltz in the ball-room's blaze, 
 Nor the chivalrous joust, nor the daring race, 
 Nor the swift regatta, nor merry chase, 
 Nor the sail, high heaving waters o'er, 
 Nor the rural dance on the moonlight shore, 
 Can the wild and thrilling joy exceed 
 Of a fearless leap on a fiery steed ! 
 
 THE ARMY OF REFORM. 
 
 Yes, ye are few, — and they were few 
 Who, daring storm and sea, 
 
 Once raised upon old Plymouth rock 
 "The anthem of the free." 
 
SARA JANE LIPPINCOTT. 
 
 And they were few at Lexington, 
 
 To battle, or to die, — 
 That lightning-flash, that thunder-peal, 
 
 That told the storm was nigh. 
 
 And they were few, who dauntless stood 
 
 Upon old Bunker's height, 
 And waged with Britain's strength and pri< 
 
 The fierce, unequal fight. 
 
 And they were few, who, all unawed 
 
 By kingly " rights divine," 
 The Declaration, rebel scroll, 
 
 Untrembling dared to sign. 
 
 Yes, ye are few, for one proud glance 
 
 Can take in all your band, 
 As now against a countless host, 
 
 Firm, true, and calm, ye stand. 
 
 Unmoved by Folly's idiot laugh, 
 Hate's curse, or Envy's frown, — 
 
 Wearing your rights as royal robes, 
 Your manhood as a crown, — 
 
 With eyes whose gaze, unveil'd by mists, 
 
 Still rises clearer, higher, — 
 With stainless hands, and lips that Truth 
 
 Hath touch'd with living fire, — 
 
 With one high hope, that ever shines 
 
 Before you as a star, — 
 One prayer of faith, one fount of strength, 
 
 A glorious few ye are ! 
 
 Ye dare not fear, ye cannot fail, 
 
 Your destiny ye bind 
 To that sublime, eternal law 
 
 That rules the march of mind. 
 
 See yon bold eagle toward the sun 
 
 Now rising free and strong, 
 And see yon mighty river roll 
 
 Its sounding tide along : 
 
 Ah ! yet near earth the eagle tires, 
 
 Lost in the sea, the river; 
 But naught can stay the human mind, — 
 
 'Tis upward, onward, ever! 
 
 It yet shall tread the starlit paths, 
 
 By highest angels trod, 
 And pause but at the farthest world 
 
 In the universe of God. 
 
SARA JANE LIPPINCOTT. 
 
 'Tis said that Persia's baffled king, 
 
 In mad, tyrannic pride, 
 Cast fetters on the Hellespont, 
 
 To curb its swelling tide : 
 
 But freedom's own true spirit heaves 
 
 The bosom of the main ; 
 It toss'd those fetters to the skies, 
 
 And bounded on again ! 
 
 The scorn of each succeeding age 
 
 On Xerxes' head was hurl'd, 
 And o'er that foolish deed has peal'd 
 
 The long laugh of a world. 
 
 Thus, thus, defeat, and scorn, and shame, 
 
 Is his, who strives to bind 
 The restless, leaping waves of thought, 
 
 The free tide of the mind. 
 
 THE POET OF TO-DAY. 
 
 What siren joy from thy high trust hath won thee, 
 
 Poet of to-day ? — thou still unheard, 
 Though struggling nations cast their eyes upon thee, 
 
 And the roused world is waiting for thy word ! 
 
 Why lingerest thou amid the summer places, 
 The gardens of romance, the haunt of dreams, 
 
 'Mid verdurous shadows, lit by fairy faces, 
 And fitful playing of soft, golden gleams ? 
 
 Arouse ! look up, to where above thee tower 
 Regions of being grander, freer, higher, 
 
 Where God reveals his presence and his power, 
 E'en as of old, in thunders and in fire. 
 
 Ah, when the soul of ancient song was blending 
 With the rapt bard's in his immortal strains, 
 
 'Twas like the wine drunk on Olympus, sending 
 Divine intoxication through the veins. 
 
 It brought strange, charmed words, and magic singing, 
 And forms of beauty burning on the sight, — 
 
 Young loves their flight through airs ambrosial winging 
 And dark-brow'd heroes arming for the fight, — 
 
 The trumpet's "golden cry," the shield's quick flashing 
 The dance of banners and the rush of war. — 
 
 Death-showers of arrows and the spear's sharp clashing 
 The homeward rolling of the victor's car! 
 
 But, ah ! in all that song's heroic story, 
 
 Had sad Humanity one briefest part ? 
 Sounds through the clang of words, the storm, the glory 
 
 One sharp, strong cry from out her bleeding heart ? 
 
■ 
 
EDITH MAY. 
 
 And at her feet a lion and a lamb 
 Couch'd, side by side. Irresolute spring hath gone 
 And summer comes like Psyche, zephyr-borne 
 To her sweet land of pleasures. 
 
 She is here ! 
 Amid the distant vales she tarried long, 
 But she hath come, oh joy ! — for I have heard 
 Her many-chorded harp the livelong day 
 Sounding from plains and meadows, where, of late, 
 Rattled the hail's sharp arrows, and where came 
 The wild north wind careering like a steed 
 Unconscious of the rein. She hath gone forth 
 Into the forest, and its poised leaves 
 Are platform'd for the zephyr's dancing feet. 
 Under its green pavilions she hath rear'd 
 Most beautiful things ; the spring's pale orphans lie 
 Shelter'd upon her breast ; the bird's loud song 
 At morn out soars his pinion, and when waves 
 Put on night's silver harness, the still air 
 Is musical with soft tones. She hath baptized 
 Earth with her joyful weeping. She hath bless'd 
 All that do rest beneath the wing of Heaven, 
 And all that hail its smile. Her ministry 
 Is typical of love. She hath disdain'd 
 No gentle office, but doth bend to twine 
 The grape's light tendrils and to pluck apart 
 The heart-leaves of the rose. She doth not pass 
 Unmindful the bruised vine, nor scorn to lift 
 The trodden weed ; and when her lowlier children 
 Faint by the wayside like worn passengers, 
 She is a gentle mother, all night long 
 Bathing their pale brows with her healing dews. 
 The hours are spendthrifts of her wealth ; the days 
 Are dower'd Avith her beauty. 
 
 THE COLORING OF HAPPINESS. 
 
 My heart is full of prayer and praise to-day, 
 So beautiful the whole world seems to me ! 
 I know the morn has dawn'd as is its wont, 
 I know the breeze comes on no lighter wing, 
 I know the brook chimed yesterday that same 
 Melodious call to my unanswering thought ; 
 But I look forth with new-created eyes, 
 And soul and sense seem link'd and thrill alike, 
 And things familiar have unusual grown, 
 Taking my spirit with a fair surprise! 
 But yesterday, and life seemed tented round 
 With idle sadness. Not a bird sang out 
 But with a mournful meaning; not a cloud — 
 And there were many — but in flitting past 
 Trail'd somewhat of its darkness o'er my heart, 
 And loitering, half becalm'd, unfreighted all, 
 Went by the Heaven-bound hours. 
 
756 
 
 EDITH MAY. 
 
 But, oh! to-day 
 Lie all harmonious and lovely things 
 Close to my spirit, and a while it seems 
 As if the blue sky were enough of Heaven ! 
 My thoughts are like tense chords that give their music 
 At a chance breath ; a thousand delicate hands 
 Are harping on my soul ! no sight, no sound, 
 But stirs me to the keenest sense of pleasure, — 
 Be it no more than the wind's cautious tread, 
 The swaying of a shadow, or a bough, 
 Or a dove's flight across the silent sky. 
 
 Oh, in this sunbright sabbath of the heart, 
 
 How many a prayer puts on the guise of thought, 
 
 An angel unconfess'd ! Its rapid feet, 
 
 That leave no print on memory's sands, tread not 
 
 Less surely their bright path than choral hymns 
 
 And litanies. I know the praise of worlds, 
 
 And the soul's unvoiced homage, both arise 
 
 Distinctly to His ear who holds all nature 
 
 Pavilion'd by His presence ; who has fashion'd 
 
 With an impartial care, alike the star 
 
 That keeps unpiloted its airy circle, 
 
 And the sun-quicken'd germ, or the poor moss 
 
 The building swallow plucks to line her nest. 
 
 A POET'S LOVE. 
 
 The stag leaps free in the forest's heart, 
 
 But thy step is lighter, my love, my bride ! 
 Light as the quick-footed breezes that part 
 
 The plumy ferns on the mountain's side ; 
 Swift as the zephyrs that come and pass 
 O'er the waveless lake and the billowy grass. 
 I hear thy voice where the white wave gleams, 
 In the one-toned bells of the rippled streams, 
 In the silvery boughs of the aspen-tree, 
 
 In the wind that stirreth the shadowy pine, 
 In the shell that moans for the distant sea, 
 
 Never was voice so sweet as thine ! 
 Never a sound through the even dim 
 Came half so soft as thy vesper hymn. 
 
 I have follow'd fast, from the lark's low nest, 
 
 Thy breezy step to the mountain crest. 
 
 The livelong day I have wander'd on, 
 
 Till the stars were up, and the twilight gone, 
 
 Ever unwearied where thou hast roved, 
 
 Fairest, and purest, and best-beloved ! 
 
 I have felt thy kiss in the leafy aisle, 
 
 And thy breath astir in my floating hair ; 
 I have met the light of thy haunting smile 
 
 In the deep still woods, and the sunny air ; 
 For thou lookest down from the bending skies, 
 And the earth is glad with thy laughing eyes. 
 
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 
 
 757 
 
 When my heart is sad, and my pulse beats low, 
 Whose touch so light on my aching brow ? 
 Who cometh in dreams to my midnight sleep ? 
 
 Who bendeth over my noonday rest ? 
 Who singeth me songs in the forest deep, 
 
 Laying my head to her gentle breast? 
 When life grows dim to my weary eye, 
 When joy departeth, and sorrow is nigh, 
 Who, 'neath the track of the stars, save thee, 
 Speaketh or singeth of hope to me ? 
 
 There comes a time when the morn shall rise, 
 
 Yet charm no smile to thy filmed eyes. 
 
 There comes a time when thou liest low 
 
 With the roses dead on thy frozen brow, 
 
 With a pall hung over thy tranced rest, 
 
 And the pulse asleep in thy silent breast. 
 
 There shall come a dirge through the valleys drear, 
 
 And a white-robed priest to thine icy bier. 
 
 His lips are cold, but his dim eyes weep, 
 
 And he maketh thy gi-ave where the snow falls deep 
 
 Woe is me, when I watch and pray 
 
 For the lightest sound of thy coming foot, 
 For the softest note of thy summer lay, 
 
 For the faintest chord of thy vine-strung lute ! 
 Woe is me, when the storms sweep by 
 And the mocking winds are my sole reply ! 
 
 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 
 
 This brilliant and fascinating writer, and graceful and eloquent orator, is the 
 son of George Curtis, of Providence, Rhode Island, and was born in that city in 
 1824. At six years of age, he was placed at a school near Boston, and after 
 being there five years, he returned to Providence, where he pursued his studies 
 till he was fifteen, when his father removed to New York. Here he entered a 
 large mercantile house; but, after remaining in it a year, he returned to his 
 studies for two years, when, at eighteen, he joined the celebrated Association at 
 Brook Farm, West Roxbury, Massachusetts. Here he remained a year and a half, 
 and then, after spending the winter in New York, being still enamored of the 
 country, he went to Concord, Massachusetts, and lived in a farmer's family, 
 working hard a portion of every day upon the farm, enjoying the society of 
 Emerson, Hawthorne, and others of kindred literary tastes, and perfecting 
 himself in various literary accomplishments. 
 
 In 1846, Mr. Curtis sailed for Europe, and after visiting, with a scholar's eye, 
 all the Southern countries, went to Berlin, to pursue his studies, and, in 184S, 
 matriculated at the University. After this, he travelled through Italy again, 
 visited Sicily, Malta, and the East, and returned home in the summer of 1850. 
 In the autumn of that year, he published the Nile Xotcs of a Howndji, a great 
 part of which was written on the Nile. In 1852, The Hoicadji in Syria appeared, 
 
 64 
 
758 
 
 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 
 
 and also Lotus-Fating, a Summer Hook; and the same year be became connected 
 with " Putnam's Magazine," and wrote that series of brilliant satiric sketches 
 of society called The Potiphar Papers, which were afterwards collected and 
 published in a volume. 
 
 In the winter of 1853, Mr. Curtis entered the field as a lecturer, and was 
 invited to lecture in different parts of the country. His success was all that his 
 most ardent friends could desire; for, to a most graceful and finished style, a 
 pure taste, and a fine fancy, he adds a gracefulness of delivery that gives to all 
 his public efforts a charm that captivates his audience. In 1854, he delivered 
 a poem before a literary society at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. 
 In 1856, he took a very active part in the " Fremont campaign," speaking con- 
 stantly, through the summer, with great effect. Those who had the good for- 
 tune to hear any of these addresses will not soon forget them, uniting as they 
 did the soundest argument to a chaste and brilliant oratory. In August of 
 that year, he delivered an oration before the literary societies of Wesleyan 
 University, Middletown, Connecticut, on The Duty of the American Scholar to 
 Politics and the Times. 
 
 In the spring of 1856, Mr. Curtis did what it is never wise for a scholar to 
 do, — risked all his means in mercantile business. In November of the same 
 year, he was married to the daughter of Francis G. Shaw, eldest son of the 
 late Robert G. Shaw, of Boston. In the spring of 1857, the house with which 
 he was connected became embarrassed, and he was obliged to take an active part 
 in the management of its affairs. But it was too late : the ship was too leaky ; 
 and in August, just at the beginning of the crisis, she went down with all on 
 board. He lost his all ; but, like Milton, he 
 
 " did not bate 
 One jot of heart or hope," 
 
 but is now nobly recovering himself with his pen and living voice. 
 
 JERUSALEM OR ROME ? 
 
 To any young man, or to any man in whose mind the glow of 
 poetic feeling has not yet died into "the light of common day/' the 
 first view of a famous city is one of the memorable epochs of life. 
 Even if you go directly from common-place New York to com- 
 mon-sense London, you will awake in the night with a hushed 
 feeling of awe at being in Shakspeare's city, and Milton's, and 
 Cromwell's. More agreeable to your mood is the heavy moulding 
 of the banqueting-room of Whitehall than the crystal splendors 
 of the palace in the park. Because over the former the dusk of 
 historical distance is already stealing, removing it into the roman- 
 tic and ideal realm. 
 
 But more profound, because farther removed from the criticism 
 of contemporary experience, is the interest of the Italian cities. 
 They represent characteristic epochs of human history. Home, 
 
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 
 
 759 
 
 Florence, Venice, are not names merely, but ideas. They were 
 the capitals of power that in various ways and degrees ruled the 
 world. 
 
 Deeper still is the feeling that hallows the cities beyond Italy, 
 — for beyond Italy are. Athens and Jerusalem. 
 
 Rome, Athens, and Jerusalem, — the physical, the intellectual, 
 and the moral, do we long doubt which is the greatest ? 
 
 The Art of Greece is still supreme. The Empire of Rome has 
 never been rivalled. But the spirit which has inspired Art with 
 a sentiment profoundcr than the Greek, — the Faith which has 
 held sway subtler and more universal than the Roman, — are they 
 not the spirit and the faith that make Jerusalem, El Khuds, or 
 the holy, because they were best illustrated and taught by a life 
 whose influence commenced there ? 
 
 More cognate to ready sympathy, more appealing to the sensu- 
 ous imagination, is the pomp of Imperial Rome, as, with camp-fires 
 burning from the Baltic to the Euxine, and from farthest Eu- 
 phrates to the Pillars of Hercules, its gorgeous confusion of bar- 
 baric splendor and Grecian elegance gleams athwart the past. 
 
 Fascinated by that splendor, as by auroral fires streaming 
 through the sky, — recognising the forms of its law, its society, 
 and its speech inherent in his own, — marking over all historic 
 lands and submerged in African solitudes the foot-prints of its 
 triumphant march, the young student, revering in Rome the 
 might of his own human genius, going out to possess the earth, 
 reaches the gates of its metropolis with an ardor that merges in 
 romance. 
 
 Hence were hurled the thunderbolts that shook the world, and 
 whose vibrations tremble yet. Hither comes the poet, the philo- 
 sopher, the statesman, the scholar • and in no city of the world 
 was there ever assembled so much human genius in every kind, 
 and in every time, as in Rome. 
 
 Yet against the claims of its superb Italian rival, what has the 
 Syrian city to show ? 
 
 Not Solomon in all his glory j for Hadrian was more magni- 
 ficent, if less wise. Nor the visible career of the Jews, whose 
 empire was greatest under Solomon, but was then only a part of a 
 later Roman province. Jerusalem does not rival Rome with the 
 imperial pomp of its recollections, nor by its artistic achievements, 
 — for its only notable remains are part of the foundation of Solo- 
 mon's Temple, while the most imposing ruins of Syria are the 
 Roman relics of Palmyra and Baalbec. Nay, Rome came from 
 Italy, and, scattering the Jews, destroyed Jerusalem. 
 
 To the myriads of men who throng whole centuries of history, 
 — as Xerxes' army the plains of Greece, — headed by the eagle 
 and asserting Rome, Jerusalem opposes a single figure, bearing a 
 
760 
 
 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 
 
 palm-branch, and riding upon an ass into the golden gate of the 
 city. That palm is the magic wand which shall wave the dis- 
 cordant world into harmony j that golden gate is the symbol of the 
 way which only he can enter who knows the magic of the palm. 
 That single figure is the most eminent in history. The highest 
 hope of Art is to reveal his beauty, — the sublimest strains of Lite- 
 rature are the prophecies and records of his career, — the struggle 
 of Society is to plant itself upon the truth he taught. 
 
 In the vision of the Past, as upon an infinite battle-field, that 
 single figure meets the might of Borne, and the skill of Greece, 
 and the wit of Egypt, and the flame of their glory is paled before 
 his glance. He rode in at the golden gate, and was crucified 
 between thieves. But it is the victim which consecrates the city. 
 In vain the heroism of the Republic and the purple splendor of 
 the Emperor would distract imagination and give a deeper charm 
 to Rome. The cold auroral fires stream anew to the zenith, as we 
 sit in the starlight at the tent-door. But a planet burns through 
 them brighter than they ; and we no longer discuss which city we 
 approach with the profoundest interest. 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 1 
 
 Do you ask me our duty as scholars ? Gentlemen, thought, 
 which the scholar represents, is life and liberty. There is no 
 intellectual or moral life without liberty. Therefore, as a man 
 must breathe and see before he can study, the scholar must have 
 liberty, first of all; and as the American scholar is a man and has 
 a voice in his own government, so his interest in political affairs 
 must precede all others. He must build his house before he can 
 live in it. He must be a perpetual inspiration of freedom in 
 politics. He must recognise that the intelligent exercise of poli- 
 tical rights, which is a privilege in a monarchy, is a duty in a 
 republic. If it clash with his ease, his retirement, his taste, 
 his study, let it clash, but let him do his duty. The course 
 of events is iucessant, and when the good deed is slighted, the 
 bad deed is done. 
 
 Scholars, you would like to loiter in the pleasant paths of study. 
 Every man loves his ease, — loves to please his taste. But into 
 how many homes along this lovely valley came the news of Lex- 
 ington and Bunker Hill, eighty years ago, and young men like us, 
 studious, fond of leisure, young lovers, young husbands, young 
 brothers, and sons, knew that they must forsake the wooded hill- 
 
 1 From an oration delivered on Tuesday, August 5, 1S5G, before the Literary- 
 Societies of Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut. 
 
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 
 
 701 
 
 side, the river-meadows, golden with harvest, the twilight walk 
 along the river, the summer Sunday in the old church, parents, 
 wife, child, mistress, and go away to uncertain war. Putnam 
 heard the call at his plough, and turned to go, without waiting. 
 Wooster heard it, and obeyed. 
 
 Not less lovely in those days was this peaceful valley, not less 
 soft this summer air. Life was dear, and love as beautiful, to 
 those young men as it is to us, who stand upon their graves. But, 
 because they were so dear and beautiful, «those men went out, 
 bravely to fight for them and fall. Through these very streets 
 they marched, who never returned. They fell, and were buried; 
 but they can never die. Not sweeter are the flowers that make 
 your valley fair, not greener are the pines that give your river its 
 name, than the memory of the brave men who died for freedom. 
 A.nd yet no victim of those days, sleeping under the green sod 
 of Connecticut, is more truly a martyr of Liberty than every 
 murdered man whose bones lie bleaching in this summer sun upon 
 the silent plains of Kansas. 
 
 Gentlemen, while we read history, we make history. Because 
 our fathers fought in this great cause, we must not hope to escape 
 fighting. Because, two thousand years ago, Leonidas stood 
 against Xerxes, we must not suppose that Xerxes was slain, nor, 
 thank God, that Leonidas is not immortal. Every great crisis of 
 human history is a pass of Thermopylae, and there is always a 
 Leonidas and his three hundred to die in it, if they cannot con- 
 quer. And so long as Liberty has one martyr, so long as one 
 drop of blood is poured out for her, so long from that single drop 
 of bloody sweat of the agony of humanity shall spring hosts as 
 countless as the forest-leaves, and mighty as the sea. 
 
 Brothers ! the call has come to us. I bring it to you in these 
 calm retreats. I summon you to the great fight of Freedom. 
 I call upon you to say, with your voices, whenever the occasion 
 offers, and with your votes, when the day comes, that upon 
 these fertile fields of Kansas, in the very heart of the continent, 
 the upas-tree of slavery, dripping death-dews upon national 
 prosperity and upon free labor, shall never be planted. I call 
 upon you to plant there the palm of peace, the vine and the 
 olive of a Christian civilization. I call upon you to determine 
 whether this great experiment of human freedom, which has 
 been the scorn of despotism, shall, by its failure, be also our 
 sin and shame. I call upon you to defend the hope of the 
 world. 
 
 The voices of our brothers who are bleeding, no less than of our 
 fathers who bled, summon us to this battle. Shall the children 
 of unborn generations, clustering over that vast Western empire, 
 rise up and call us blessed, or cursed ? Here are our Marathon 
 
 64* 
 
762 
 
 RICHARD H. STODDARD. 
 
 and Lexington ; here are our heroic fields. The hearts of all 
 good men beat with us. The fight is fierce — the issue is with 
 God. But God is good. 
 
 RICHARD HENRY STODDARD. 
 
 Richard Henry Stoddard was born in Hingham, Massachusetts, on the 2d 
 of July, 1825. His father, who was a sea-captain, sailed for Gottenburg when 
 our author was about a year old, and the vessel was never after heard of. In 
 1835, his mother, who had married again, removed to New York, where he has 
 resided ever since. When he was old enough to do any thing for himself, he 
 went into a lawyer's office and copied law-papers ; but, not liking this, he after- 
 wards went into an iron-foundry, where he worked six years in learning the trade 
 of an iron-moulder. Here he began to write verses, and, soon after the " Union 
 Magazine" (afterwards Sartain's) was started, he became, in 1847, a contributor 
 to it. He now commenced his literary career, publishing, in 1848, a small volume 
 of poetry, entitled Footprints, and writing for various magazines, — the " Knicker- 
 bocker," "Putnam's Monthly," " Graham's," and the "International." In the 
 fall of 1851, a second volume was brought out by Ticknor & Fields, entitled 
 simply Poems, which consisted of his contributions to the above-mentioned 
 magazines. About this time he was appointed to a situation in the New York 
 Custom-House, and in the next year (1852) he gave to the public a volume 
 of very sweet poetic prose, entitled Adventures in Fairy-Land, and in the autumn 
 of the same year he was married to Miss Elizabeth D. Barston, of Mattapoi- 
 sett, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, herself a poetess of very decided merit. 
 In 1856 appeared Songs of Summer, 1 in which are some short pieces of exquisite 
 beauty. 
 
 Mr. Stoddard is still in the Custom-House in New York, — a location, one 
 would think, not very near Parnassus; yet he continues to devote his leisure 
 moments to poetry and general literature, — with what success the following 
 beautiful pieces show. 
 
 HYMN TO THE BEAUTIFUL. 
 
 My heart is full of tenderness and tears, 
 
 And tears are in mine eyes, I know not why ; 
 With all my grief, content to live for years, 
 
 Or even this hour to die. 
 My youth is gone, but that I heed not now ; 
 
 My love is dead, or worse than dead can be ; 
 My friends drop off like blossoms from a bough, 
 But nothing troubles me, 
 
 1 See his Dedication to Songs of Summer, under George H. Boker, p. 745. 
 
RICHARD H. STODDARD. 
 
 Only the golden flush of sunset lies 
 Within my heart like fire, like dew within my eyes ! 
 
 Spirit of Beauty ! whatsoe'er thou art, 
 I see thy skirts afar, and feel thy power; 
 It is thy presence fills this charmed hour 
 And fills my charmed heart ; 
 Nor mine alone, but myriads feel thee now, 
 That know not what they feel, nor why they bow : 
 Thou canst not be forgot, 
 For all men worship thee, and know i£ not ; 
 Nor men alone, but babes with wondrous eyes, 
 New-comers on the earth, and strangers from the skies ! 
 
 We hold the keys of heaven within our hands, 
 The gift and heirloom of a former state, 
 And lie in infancy at heaven's gate, 
 Transfigured in the light that streams along the lands 
 Around our pillows golden ladders rise, 
 And up and down the skies, 
 With winged sandals shod, 
 The angels come and go, the messengers of God ! 
 Nor do they, fading from us, e'er depart, — 
 It is the childish heart ; 
 We walk as heretofore, 
 Adown their shining ranks, but see them never more ! 
 Not heaven is gone, but we are blind with tears, 
 Groping our way along the downward slope of years ! 
 
 From earliest infancy my heart was thine ; 
 With childish feet I trod thy temple-aisles ; 
 Not knowing tears, I worshipp'd thee with smiles, 
 Or if I ever wept, it was with joy divine ! 
 By day and night, on land, and sea, and air, — 
 
 I saw thee everywhere ! 
 A voice of greeting from the wind was sent ; 
 
 The mists enfolded me with soft white arms ; 
 The birds did sing to lap me in content, 
 The rivers wove their charms, 
 And every little daisy in the grass 
 Did look up in my face, and smile to see me pass ! 
 
 Not long can Nature satisfy the mind, 
 
 Nor outward fancies feed its inner flame; 
 
 We feel a growing want we cannot name, 
 And long for something sweet, but undefined ; 
 The wants of Beauty other wants create, 
 Which overflow on others soon or late ; 
 For all that worship thee must ease the heart, 
 
 By Love, or Song, or Art : 
 Divinest Melancholy walks with thee, 
 
 Her thin white cheek forever lean'd on thine ; 
 And Music leads her sister Poesy, 
 
 In exultation shouting songs divine ! 
 But on thy breast Love lies, — immortal child ! — 
 Begot of thine own longings deep and wild : 
 
RICHARD H. STODDARD. 
 
 The more we worship him, the more we grow 
 Into thy perfect image here below, 
 For here below, as in the spheres above, 
 All Love is Beauty, and all Beauty, Love ! 
 
 Not from the things around us do we draw 
 
 Thy light within ; within the light is born ; 
 
 The growing rays of some forgotten morn, 
 And added canons of eternal law. 
 The painter's picture, the rapt poet's song, 
 
 The sculpture's statue, never saw the Day ; 
 
 Not shaped and moulded after aught of clay, 
 Whose crowning work still does its spirit wrong ; 
 Hue after hue divinest pictures groAV, 
 
 Line after line immortal songs arise, 
 And limb by limb, out-starting stern and slow, 
 
 The statue wakes with wonder in its eyes ! 
 And in the master's mind 
 Sound after sound is born, and dies like wind, 
 That echoes through a range of ocean-caves, 
 And straight is gone to weave its spell upon the waves 1 
 The mystery is thine, 
 For thine the more mysterious human heart, 
 The Temple of all wisdom, Beauty's shrine, 
 The oracle of Art! 
 
 Earth is thine outer court, and Life a breath ; 
 Why should we fear to die, and leave the earth ? 
 Not thine alone the lesser key of Birth, — 
 But all the keys of Death ; 
 And all the worlds, with all that they contain 
 
 Of Life, and Death, and Time, are thine alone ; 
 The universe is girdled with a chain, 
 
 And hung below the throne 
 Where Thou dost sit, the universe to bless, — 
 Thou sovereign smile of God, eternal loveliness ! 
 
 THE TWO BRIDES. 
 
 I saw two maidens at the kirk, 
 And both were fair and sweet ; 
 
 One in her wedding-robe, 
 
 And one in her winding-sheet. 
 
 The choristers sang the hymn, 
 The sacred rites were read, 
 
 And one for life to Life 
 
 And one to Death was wed. 
 
 They were borne to their bridal beds, 
 In loveliness and bloom, — 
 
 One in a merry castle, 
 The other a solemn tomb. 
 
BAYARD TAYLOR. 
 
 765 
 
 One on the morrow woke 
 In a world of sin and pain ; 
 
 But the other was happier far, 
 And never woke again ! 
 
 BIRDS. 
 
 Birds are singing round my window, 
 Tunes the sweetest ever heard, 
 
 And I hang my cage there daily, 
 But I never catch a bird. 
 
 So with thoughts my brain is peopled, 
 And they sing there all day long ; 
 
 But they will not fold their pinions 
 In the little cage of song ! 
 
 THE SKY. 
 
 The sky is a drinking-cup, We drink that wine all day, 
 
 That was overturn'd of old, Till the last drop is drain'd up, 
 
 And it pours in the eyes of men And are lighted off to bed 
 
 Its wine of airy gold ! By the jewels in the cup ! 
 
 THE SEA. 
 
 [the lover.] 
 
 You stoop'd and pick'd a wreathed sheik 
 
 Beside the shining sea : 
 " This little shell, when I am gone, 
 
 Will whisper still of me." 
 I kiss'd your hands, upon the sands, 
 
 For you were kind to me ! 
 
 I hold the shell against my ear, 
 
 And hear its hollow roar : 
 It speaks to me about the sea, 
 
 But speaks of you no more. 
 I pace the sands, and wring my hands, 
 
 For you are kind no more ! 
 
 BAYARD TAYLOR. 
 
 Bayard Taylor, whose ancestors emigrated with William Penn, was born in 
 Kennet Square, Chester County, Pennsylvania, on the 11th of January, 1825. 
 At the age of seventeen, he became an apprentice in a printing-office at West 
 Chester, devoting his leisure time assiduously to the study of Latin and French, 
 and writing poetry for the " New York Mirror" and for " Graham's Magazine." 
 These effusions were collected and published in 1S44, in a volume called Ximencu 
 
766 
 
 BAYARD TAYLOR. 
 
 With the proceeds of this, and some advances made to him by the proprietors of 
 two or three leading journals in consideration of letters to be furnished, he com- 
 menced that year a series of travels which, continued up to the present time, has 
 made him the greatest traveller, for his years, that ever lived. Having passed 
 two years in Great Britain, Germanj r , France, Switzerland, and Italy, he returned 
 home, and published an account of his travels, under the title of Views Afoot, 
 which was very favorably received. He settled in New York, and in 1848 be- 
 came connected with the " Tribune" as a permanent contributor, and, shortly 
 after, published Rhymes of Travel. In 1849, he visited California, and returned 
 by way of Mexico, giving an account of his travels in the "Tribune," of which he 
 had now become an associate editor. 
 
 In 1851, he set out upon his Eastern tour, by the way of England, Germany, 
 and Italy, and reached Cairo in November. Thence he went to Central Africa, 
 and, after penetrating to the negro kingdoms of the Whjte Nile, returned to Cairo 
 by April. Thence he went north through Palestine and Asia Minor to Constan- 
 tinople, and, after visiting some of the islands of the Mediterranean, returned to 
 England through Germany. In October, 1852, he started from England, by the 
 overland route, for Bombay, and, after a tour of more than two thousand miles in 
 the interior of India, reached Calcutta on the 22d of February. Thence he em- 
 barked for Hong-Kong; and when Commodore Perry's squadron arrived at 
 Shanghai, he entered the naval service in order to accompany it to the Loo-Choo 
 and the Japan Islands, which he explored ; then returned to Canton, and thence 
 took passage for New York, where he arrived in December, 1853, having been 
 absent two years and travelled more than fifty thousand miles. His graphic and 
 entertaining history of this great journey is given in three works, — A Journey to 
 Central Africa; The Lands of the Saracen; and India, China, and Japan. In 
 July, 1S56, he started on a fourth journey, during which he visited Sweden, Lap- 
 land, Norway, Dalmatia, Greece, Crete, and Russia. In November, 1S57, he pub- 
 lished Northern Travel in London and New York simultaneously, and returned 
 home in October, 1858. 1 
 
 THE BISON-TRACK. 
 
 Strike the tent! the sun has risen; not a cloud has ribb'd the dawn, 
 And the frosted prairie brightens to the westward, far and wan: 
 Prime afresh the trusty rifle, — sharpen well the hunting-spear, — 
 For the frozen sod is trembling, and a noise of hoofs I hear ! 
 
 Fiercely stamp the tether'd horses, as they snuff the morning's fire, 
 And their flashing heads are tossing, Avith a neigh of keen desire; 
 Strike the tent, — the saddles wait us ! let the bridle-reins be slack, 
 For the prairie's distant thunder has betray'd the bison's track! 
 
 See ! a dusky line approaches ; hark ! the onward-surging roar, 
 Like the din of wintry breakers on a sounding wall of shore ! 
 
 1 In 1854, his Poems of the Orient, and in 1855, his Poems of Home and Travel, 
 were published by Ticknor & Fields. 
 
BAYARD TAYLOR. 
 
 7G7 
 
 Dust and sand behind them whirling, snort the foremost of the van, 
 And the stubborn horns are striking through the crowded caravan. 
 
 Now the storm is down upon us, — let the madden'd horses go! 
 We shall ride the living whirlwind, though a hundred leagues it blow ! 
 Though the surgy manes should thicken, and the red eyes' angry glare 
 Lighten round us as we gallop through the sand and rushing air ! 
 
 Myriad hoofs will scar the prairie, in our wild, resistless race, 
 And a sound, like mighty waters, thunder down the desert space : 
 Yet the rein may not be tighten'd, nor the rider's eye look back, — 
 Death to him whose speed should slacken, on the madden'd bison's track ! 
 
 Now the trampling herds are threaded, and the chase is close and warm 
 For the giant bull that gallops in the edges of the storm : 
 Hurl your lassoes swift and fearless, swing your rifles as we run ! 
 Ha ! the dust is red behind him : shout, my brothers, he is won ! 
 
 Look not on him as he staggers, — 'tis the last shot he will need ; 
 More shall fall, among his fellows, ere we run the bold stampede, — 
 Ere we stem the swarthy breakers, — while the wolves, a hungry pack, 
 Howl around each grim-eyed carcass, on the bloody bison-track ! 
 
 LIFE ON THE NILE. 
 
 " The life thou seek'st 
 
 Thou'lt find beside the eternal Nile." — Moore's Alciphron. 
 
 The Nile is the Paradise of travel. I thought I had already 
 fathomed all the depths of enjoyment which the traveller's rest- 
 less life could reach, — enjoyment more varied and exciting, but 
 far less serene and enduring, than that of a quiet home ; but here 
 I have reached a fountain too pure and powerful to be exhausted. 
 I never before experienced such a thorough deliverance from all 
 the petty annoyances of travel in other lands, such perfect con- 
 tentment of spirit, such entire abandonment to the best influences 
 of nature. Every day opens with a jubilate, and closes with a 
 thanksgiving. If such a balm and blessing as this life has been 
 to me, thus far, can be felt twice in one's existence, there must be 
 another Nile somewhere in the world. 
 
 Other travellers undoubtedly make other experiences and take 
 away other impressions. I can even conceive circumstances which 
 would almost destroy the pleasure of the journey. The same ex- 
 quisitely-sensitive temperament, which in our case has not been 
 disturbed by a single untoward incident, might easily be kept in 
 a state of constant derangement by an unsympathetic companion, 
 a cheating dragoman, or a fractious crew. There are also many 
 trifling desagremcns, inseparable from life in Egypt, which some 
 would consider a source of annoyance; but, as we find fewer than 
 we were prepared to meet, we are not troubled thereby. * * * 
 
 Our manner of life is simple, and might even be called mono- 
 tonous; but we have never found the greatest variety of landscape 
 
768 
 
 BAYARD TAYLOR. 
 
 and incident so thoroughly enjoyable. The scenery of the Nile, 
 thus far, scarcely changes from day to day, in its forms and 
 colors, but only in their disposition with regard to each other. 
 The shores are either palm-groves, fields of cane and dourra, 
 young wheat, or patches of bare sand blown out from the desert. 
 The villages are all the same agglomerations of mud walls, the 
 tombs of the Moslem saints are the same white ovens, and every 
 individual camel and buffalo resembles its neighbor in picturesque 
 ugliness. The Arabian and Libyan Mountains, now sweeping so 
 far into the foreground that their yellow cliffs overhang the Nile, 
 now receding into the violet haze of the horizon, exhibit little 
 difference of height, hue, or geological formation. Every new 
 scene is the turn of a kaleidoscope, in which the same objects are 
 grouped in other relations, yet always characterized by the most 
 perfect harmony. These slight yet ever-renewing changes are to 
 us a source of endless delight. Either from the pure atmosphere, 
 the healthy life we lead, or the accordant tone of our spirits, we 
 find ourselves unusually sensitive to all the slightest touches, the 
 most minute rays, of that grace and harmony which bathes every 
 landscape in cloudless sunshine. The various groupings of the 
 palms, the shifting of the blue evening shadows on the rose-hued 
 mountain-walls, the green of the wheat and sugar-cane, the wind- 
 ings of the great river, the alternations of wind and calm, — each 
 of these is enough to content us, and to give every day a different 
 charm from that which went before. We meet contrary winds, 
 calms, and sand-banks, without losing our patience ; and even our 
 excitement in the swiftness and grace with which our vessel scuds 
 before the north wind, is mingled with a regret that our journey 
 is drawing so much the more swiftly to its close. A portion of 
 the old Egyptian repose seems to be infused into our natures; and 
 lately, when I saw my face in a mirror, I thought I perceived in 
 its features something of the patience and resignation of the 
 sphinx. * * * 
 
 My friend, the Howadji, 1 in whose " Nile-Notes" the Egyptian 
 atmosphere is so perfectly reproduced, says that " conscience falls 
 asleep on the Nile." If by this he means that artificial quality 
 which bigots and sectarians call conscience, I quite agree with 
 him, and do not blame the Nile for its soporific powers. But that 
 simple faculty of the soul, native to all men, which acts best when 
 it acts unconsciously, and leads our passions and desires into right 
 paths without seeming to lead them, is vastly strengthened by this 
 quiet and healthy life. There is a cathedral-like solemnity in the 
 air of Egypt : one feels the presence of the altar, and is a better 
 man without his will. To those rendered misanthropic by disap- 
 
 1 George W. Curtis. 
 
BAYARD TAYLOR. 
 
 769 
 
 pointed ambition, mistrustful by betrayed confidence, despairing 
 by unassuageable sorrow, let me repeat the motto which heads 
 this chapter. Central Africa. 
 
 VISIT TO THE SHILLOOK NEGROES. 
 
 We sailed nearly all night with a steady north wind, which 
 towards morning became so strong that the men were obliged to 
 take in sail and let us scud under bare poles. We had passed the 
 frontier of Egyptian Soudan soon after sunset, and were then deep 
 in the negro kingdom of the Shillooks. The scenery had changed 
 considerably since the evening. The forests were taller and more 
 dense, and the river more thickly studded with islands, the soil 
 of which was entirely concealed by the luxuriant girdle of shrubs 
 and water-plants in which they lay imbedded. 
 
 All the rich animal world of this region was awake and stirring 
 before the sun. The wild fowls left their roosts; the zikzaks 
 flew twittering over the waves, calling up their mates, the sleepy 
 crocodiles; the herons stretched their wings against the wind; 
 the monkeys leaped and chattered in the woods, and at last whole 
 herds of hippopotami, sporting near the shore, came up spouting 
 water from their nostrils, in a manner precisely similar to the 
 grampus. Soon after sunrise, the rais observed some Shillooks in 
 the distance, who were sinking their canoes in the river, after 
 which they hastily retreated into the woods. We ran along beside 
 the embowering shores, till we reached the place. The canoes 
 were carefully concealed, and some pieces of drift-wood thrown 
 over the spot, as if left there by the river. The rais climbed to 
 the mast-head and called to the people, assuring them that there 
 was no danger ; but, though we peered sharply into the thickets, 
 we could find no signs of any human being. The river here 
 turned to the south, disclosing other and richer groups of islands, 
 stretching beyond one another far into the distance. Directly 
 on our left was the northern point of the island of Aba, our des- 
 tination. As the island is six or eight miles in length, I deter- 
 mined to make the most of my bargain, and so told the rais that 
 he must take me to its farther end, and to the villages of the 
 Shillooks, whom I had come to see. * * * 
 
 At last, on rounding one of the coves of Aba, we came upon a 
 flock of sheep, feeding along the shore. The ra'is finally descried 
 the huts of the village at a distance, near the extremity of the 
 island. We returned to the vessel, and were about putting off in 
 order to proceed thither, when a large body of men, armed with 
 spears, appeared in the forest, coming towards us at a quick pace 
 The rais, who had already had some intercourse with these people 
 and knew something of their habits, advanced alone to meet them. 
 
 65 
 
770 
 
 BAYARD TAYLOR. 
 
 1 could see, through the trees, that a consultation was held ; and 
 shortly, though with some signs of doubt and hesitation, about a 
 dozen of the savages advanced to within a short distance of the 
 vessel, while the others sat down on the ground, still holding the 
 spears in their hands. The rais now returned to the water's 
 edge, and said that the Shillooks had come with the intention 
 of lighting, but he had informed them that this was a visit from 
 the sultan's son, who came to see them as a friend, and would 
 then return to his father's country. Thereupon they consented 
 to speak with me, and I might venture to go on shore. I landed 
 again, with Achmet, and walked up with the rais to the spot 
 where the men were seated. The shekh of the island, a tall, 
 handsome man, rose to greet me, by touching the palm of his 
 right hand to mine and then raising it to his forehead. I made 
 a like salutation, after which he sat down. The vizier, (as he 
 called himself,) an old man excessively black in complexion, then 
 advanced, and the other warriors in succession, till all had saluted 
 me * * * While these things were transpiring, a number of other 
 Shillooks had arrived, so that there were now upwards of fifty. 
 All were armed, — the most of them with iron-pointed spears, some 
 with clubs, and some with long poles having knobs of hard wood 
 on the end. They were all tall, strong, stately people, not more 
 than two or three under six feet in height, while the most of them 
 were three or four inches over that standard. * * * 
 
 The Shillooks have not the appearance of men who are naturally 
 malicious. The selfish impudence with which they demand pre- 
 sents is common to all savage tribes. But the Turks, and even the 
 European merchants who take part in the annual trading expe- 
 ditions up the river, have dealt with them in such a shameful 
 manner that they are now mistrustful of all strangers, and hence 
 it is unsafe to venture among them. I attribute the friendly cha- 
 racter of my interview with them as much to good luck as to good 
 management. The rais afterwards informed me that if the shekh 
 had not been satisfied with the dress I gave him, he would cer- 
 tainly have attempted to plunder the vessel. He stated that the 
 Shillooks are in the habit of going down the river as far as the 
 country of the Hassaniyehs, sinking their boats and concealing 
 themselves in the woods in the daytime, while by night they ven- 
 ture into the villages and rob the people of their dourra, for which 
 they have a great fondness. They cultivate nothing themselves, 
 and their only employment is the chase of the elephant, hippopo- 
 tamus, and other wild beasts. All the region east of the river 
 abounds with herds of elephants and giraffes \ but I was not for- 
 tunate enough to get sight of them. 
 
 Here is the true land of the lotus; and the Shillooks, if not the 
 lotojj/iagoi of the Greeks, are, with the exception of the Chinese, 
 
BAYARD TAYLOR. 
 
 771 
 
 the only modern eaters of the plant. I was too late to see it in 
 blossom, and there were but few specimens of it among these 
 islands ; but not far beyond Aba it appears in great profusion, 
 and both the seeds and roots are eaten by the natives. Dr. 
 Knoblecher, who ate it frequently during his voyage, informed 
 me that the root resembles the potato in consistence and taste, 
 with a strong flavor of celery. These islands arc inhabited only 
 by the hunters and fishers of the tribe, who abandon them in 
 summer, when they are completely covered by the inundation. 
 At lat. 12°, or about thirty miles south of Aba, both banks of the 
 river are cultivated, and thence, for upwards of two hundred 
 miles, the villages are crowded so close to each other all along the 
 shores, that they almost form two continuous towns, fronting each 
 other. This part of the White Nile is the most thickly popu- 
 lated region in Africa, and perhaps in the world, China alone 
 excepted. The number of the Shillooks is estimated at between 
 two and three millions, or equal to the population of all Egypt. 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 THE MIDNIGHT SUN. 1 
 
 As we crossed the mouth of the Ulvsfjord 2 that evening, we 
 had an open sea horizon toward the north, a clear sky, and so 
 much sunshine at eleven o'clock that it was evident the Polar day 
 had dawned upon us at last. The illumination of the shores was 
 unearthly in its glory, and the wonderful effects of the orange sun- 
 light, playing upon the dark hues of the island cliffs, can neither 
 be told nor painted. The sun hung low between Fugloe, 3 rising 
 
 1 Mr. Taylor is now in the province of Finnmark, the northernmost province 
 of Norway, crossed in ahout the centre by lat. 70° North, and long. 22° East. 
 
 2 Fjord, or much better Fiord, (pronounced Fe-ord.) is a Norwegian word, sig- 
 nifying "bay or estuary," and forms a part of numerous names in the North of 
 Europe. Ulvs-tiord is a bay to the east of the island of Tromsoe, (lat. 70°, long. 
 19° East.) which has on its western side a seaport also of the same name. 
 
 3 Fugloe, or Fugelb'e, and Arnoe, are small islands to the north of the island 
 of Troinsba. Two defects in most of Mr. Taylor's books of travels are, want of 
 sufficient dates, that we may know tchen he was at the places mentioned ; and 
 of careful topography, that we may know exactly irhere to locate him. And here 
 I would speak in high commendation of the Gazetteer, by J. Thomas, M.D.. and 
 T. Baldwin, published by J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia, of 21S2 royal 
 octavo pages. It is an honor to our country; aud I have seldom consulted it but 
 with entire satisfaction. 
 
 I am also here remindedof another valuable work, thefirst volume of which has 
 just been published by Childs & Peterson, — A Critical Dictionary of English 
 Literature, and British and American Authors, Living and Deceased, from the 
 Earliest Accounts to the Middle of the Nineteenth Century, containing Thirty Thou- 
 sand Biographies and Literary Notices, with Forty Indexes of Subject*, by S. Austin 
 AUibone. It is a royal octavo volume of 100j pages, in double columns, and a 
 marvel of industry and research ; and when the second volume is published, it will 
 be altogether tbe most complete work of the kind known in our language, and 
 almost indispensable in every household where literature is loved and cultivated. 
 
772 
 
 BAYARD TAYLOR. 
 
 like a double dome from the sea, and the tall mountains of Arnde, 
 both of which islands resembled immense masses of transparent 
 purple glass, gradually melting into crimson fire at their bases. 
 The glassy, leaden-colored sea was powdered with a golden 
 bloom, and the tremendous precipices at the mouth of the Lyn- 
 gen Fjord, behind us, were steeped in a dark-red, mellow flush, 
 and touched with pencilling^ of pure, rose-colored light, until 
 their naked ribs seemed to be clothed in imperial velvet. As we 
 turned into the Fjord and ran southward along their bases, a 
 waterfall, struck by the sun, fell in fiery orange foam down the 
 red walls, and the blue ice-pillars of a beautiful glacier filled up 
 the ravine beyond it. We were all on deck j and all faces, excited 
 by the divine splendor of the scene and tinged by the same 
 wonderful aureole, shone as if transfigured. In my whole life I 
 have never seen a spectacle so unearthly beautiful. 
 
 Our course brought the sun rapidly toward the ruby cliffs of 
 Arnoe, and it was evident that he would soon be hidden from 
 sight. It was not yet half-past eleven, and an enthusiastic 
 passenger begged the captain to stop the vessel until midnight. 
 " Why/' said the latter, "it is midnight now, or very near it : 
 you have Drontheim time, which is almost forty minutes in 
 arrears." True enough, the real time lacked but five minutes 
 of midnight, and those of us who had sharp eyes and strong ima- 
 ginations saw the sun make his last dip and rise a little, before he 
 vanished in a blaze of glory behind Arnoe. I turned away with 
 my eyes full of dazzling spheres of crimson and gold, which 
 danced before me wherever I looked; and it was a long time 
 before they were blotted out by the semi-oblivion of a daylight 
 sleep. 
 
 Northern Travel. 
 
INDEX TO SUBJECTS, 
 
 AND TO 
 
 NAMES INCIDENTALLY MENTIONED IN THE VOLUME. 
 
 [For the Authors in the "Work, see Alpha 
 
 Page ! 
 
 Abbot, Dr. Benjamin, the instructor of 
 
 Webster... 258 Buckminster 283 j 
 
 Sparks 332 E.Everett 394 
 
 Palfrey 447 W. B. 0. Peabody ... 476 
 
 Above and Below, by J. B. Lowell 715 
 
 Active and Inactive Learning 285 
 
 Act for Truth, by J. R. Lowell 717 
 
 Actors, their character 47 
 
 Adams, Charles Francis 57 
 
 Adams, John, Jefferson's opinion of. 56 
 
 Adams and Liberty 202 
 
 Adams, Mrs. John, letter of. 56 
 
 Adams, Phineas, founder of the Monthly 
 
 Anthology 217 
 
 Adams, Samuel 55 
 
 Adams, Rev. William 523 
 
 Adams, J. Q.. character of, by Quiucy 185 
 
 by William Jay 329 
 
 Adversity, gain of 342 
 
 Affliction, blessings of. 86 
 
 Age of Benevolence, by Wilcox 374 
 
 Age, Privileges of 342 
 
 Agriculture, Washington on 54 
 
 Airs of Palestine 292 
 
 Album, verses for 180 
 
 Alexander, J. Addison, D.D 190 
 
 Alexander, James W., D.D 190 
 
 remarks on Dr. Witherspoon 45 
 
 Alhambra by Moonlight 279 
 
 Algiers, White Slavery in 117 
 
 Allen, Ethan, life of 333 
 
 Allen, Paul, editor of Portfolio 157 
 
 Allibone's, S. Austin, Critical Dictionary 
 
 of English Literature 275, 771 
 
 Allston, W., Lines on his Picture 554 
 
 Alnwick Castle 407 
 
 Alpine Flowers 340 
 
 Alpine Sheep 720 
 
 Alps, description of, by H. B. Wallace 7 )3 
 
 65 
 
 betical List, ox the Twenty-Second Page.] 
 
 Page 
 
 Alsop, Eichaid 94 
 
 A Man's a Man, by Beecher 685 
 
 America, Farewell to 115 
 
 America to Great Britain 231 
 
 American Almanac 333 
 
 American Dictionary of the English Lan- 
 guage 140 
 
 American First Class Book 292 
 
 American Flag 404 
 
 American Journal of Science 233 
 
 American Liberty, dangers of. 131 
 
 American Literature, claims on 346 
 
 by Griswold 690 
 
 American Mechanic 190 
 
 American Melodies 505 
 
 American Revolution, cause of. 221 
 
 American Scholar, duty of. 760 
 
 Ames, Seth, life of his father. 132 
 
 Andre, Major, Hamilton's character of.... 127 
 
 Angels, Footsteps of. 563 
 
 Annals of the American Pulpit 423 
 
 Annoyer, the, by Willis 559 
 
 Anthology, Monthly, account of. 217 
 
 Appeal to Young Men 208 
 
 Application of Geological Evidence 236 
 
 Ardent Spirits, Dr. Rush upon 79 
 
 sin of trafficking in... 207, 462 
 
 Armies, the Two, by Holmes 626 
 
 Arnold, Benedict, life of. 333 
 
 Ariel, Wreck of, by Cooper 319 
 
 Arsenal at Springfield 564 
 
 Art and Scenery in Europe 702 
 
 Arthur Clenning, a novel, by Flint 237 
 
 Arthur Mervyn, — Brown's 177 
 
 Arthur's Song 742 
 
 Artist Life, by Tuckerman 675 
 
 Atalantis. a Story of the Sea 546 
 
 Athanasion, by A. C. Coxe 70S 
 
 Athenia of Damascus 511 
 
 * 773 
 
774 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 
 Athens, Liberty to, by Percival 414 
 
 Atlantic Monthly 713 
 
 Atrocious Judges 578 
 
 Aunt, .My, by Holmes 123 
 
 Authority in a Household 533 
 
 Austin, James T 372 
 
 Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table 623 
 
 Aylmere, by K. T. Conrad 622 
 
 Backwoodsman, Paulding's 212 
 
 Bakewell's Geology. Silliman's ed 234 
 
 Bald Eagle, Wilson's description of. 146 
 
 Baldwin, T., bis Gazetteer 771 
 
 Baltimore Convention In 1852 260 
 
 Bancroft, George, on Franklin 37 
 
 remarks on Prescott 437 
 
 Banks, Sif Joseph 98 
 
 Barnes, Daniel II 254 
 
 Bartram, William, his garden 144 
 
 Battle, Evening after a 107 
 
 Battle-Field, by Bryant 385 
 
 Battle-Field, not on the 297 
 
 Beautiful, Hymn to the, by Stoddard 762 
 
 Beauty, spirit of. 511 
 
 Belle, the 91 
 
 Belle and Bt-au of the Indian 240 
 
 Bellows, Henry W., Character of Gian- 
 ni ng 242 
 
 Benevolence, by Allston 232 
 
 Bethune, Joanna 523 
 
 Bible as a School-Book 82 
 
 Bible, Dr. Alexander's remarks on 189 
 
 Bible, its value, by J. Q. Adams 155 
 
 Bible versus Slavery 463 
 
 Biblical Repertory 190 
 
 Biblical Researches, by Robinson 391 
 
 Biddle, E. C. & J 373 
 
 Biddle, Nicholas, editor of Portfolio 157 
 
 Bigclow Papers, by Lowell 713 
 
 Biuney, Horace, remarks on Wallace 702 
 
 Eulogy on Marshall 121 
 
 Biography of Good Wives 478 
 
 Birds of America, by Audubon 254 
 
 Birds, by R. II. Stoddard 765 
 
 Bison Track, by Bayard Taylor 766 
 
 Bitter-Sweet, a poem by Holland 726 
 
 Blair, John 69 
 
 Blanchard & Lea 373 
 
 Blannerhasset 197 
 
 Blindness, by II. W. Beecher 686 
 
 Blind Preacher, who he was 193 
 
 Boardman, Henry A., D.D 190 
 
 Boat Race at Oxford 711 
 
 Body versus the Soul 336 
 
 Bolca, Mount, Fossil Fishes of. 235 
 
 Page 
 
 Bookbinding, J. B. Nicholson on 374 
 
 Books, Channing on 245 
 
 Books, remarks on, by Hillard 598 
 
 Borrowing out West 534 
 
 Boston Athenaeum, history of. 182, 217 
 
 Boston in 1S24. by Goodrich 372 
 
 Bounties of I'rovidence 399 
 
 Bowduin, James 55 
 
 Bowen, Francis, editor of the North Ame- 
 rican Review 218 
 
 Bracebridge Hall 275 
 
 Brain, the, by Holmes 628 
 
 Braiuerd. Rev. David 29 
 
 Brewster, James 499 
 
 Brides, the Two, by Stoddard 764 
 
 British Spy, by Wirt 192 
 
 Broken Household 732 
 
 Brotherhood of Man, by Washington 52 
 
 Brothers, the, by Sprague 356 
 
 Brown, C. B., Prescott's remarks on 178 
 
 Brown, Nicholas 430 
 
 Buccaneer, Dana's 304 
 
 Bucket, the Old Oaken 299 
 
 Bunker Hill Monument, by Webster 266 
 
 Bunyan in his Cell, by Cheever 572 
 
 Buried Valley, by Mellen 474 
 
 Burke's philanthropy 644 
 
 Burns. Halleck's lines on 410 
 
 Burr, Rev. Aaron 30 
 
 Burr, Aaron, trial of, and his character... 124 
 
 Burr and Blannerhasset 197 
 
 Butler, E. II. & Co 373 
 
 Butterfly on a Child's Grave 339 
 
 Calaynos, a Tragedy 745 
 
 Caldwell, Dr. Charles, editor of Portfolio... 157 
 
 on Ames's eloquence 131 
 
 Campbell, Thomas, — Tuckerman's re- 
 marks on 677 
 
 Canaan, Conquest of, by Dwight 102 
 
 Canada, Silliman's travels in 234 
 
 Capture of Fugitive Slaves, lines on, by 
 
 Lowell 717 
 
 Carey, Matthew 3C5 
 
 Carey & Lea 373 
 
 Carlisle, David 225 
 
 Carr, Dabney 192 
 
 Carr, Dr. Frank 192 
 
 Cedars of Lebanon 393 
 
 Celestial Railroad, by Hawthorne 541 
 
 Cerberus in America, by II. W. Beecher... 685 
 
 Chalmers's opinion of Edwards 30 
 
 Champlain, Lake, by M. M. Davidson 743 
 
 Channing, Edward T., editor of North 
 American Review 218 
 
INDEX. 
 
 775 
 
 Page 
 
 Cheever, George B., on Dana's poems 304, 307 
 
 on "Wilcox 374 
 
 Chemistry of Prof. B. Sillimau, Jr 234 
 
 Child, Death of My 290 
 
 Children, by II. W. Beecher 6S3 
 
 Child reu, what .are they ? 3S3 
 
 Childs & Peterson 771 
 
 Chimes of England 703 
 
 Chivalry and Puritanism 4S7 
 
 Choosing a Profession 362 
 
 Christian Life, by II. W. Beecher 6S5 
 
 Christian Man's Life, by II. W. Beecher... CS4 
 
 Christian Woman, by Phcebe Gary 733 
 
 Christianity in History 501 
 
 Christianity not of Man 491 
 
 Christianity the Great Emancipator 247 
 
 Christian's Magazine 166 
 
 City of David, description of, by Ilillhouse 326 
 
 Claims of Literature on America 346 
 
 Clara Howard, by C. B. Brown 177 
 
 Clark, Lewis Gaylord 034 
 
 Classical Learning, Judge Story on 271 
 
 Classical Themes for Music 293 
 
 Clay, Henry, Channiug's letters to 242 
 
 Clerical Oppressors 608 
 
 Cleveland, Henry R 595 
 
 Cleveland, Rev. Aaron, his life and works 707 
 Cling to thy Mother, by G. W. Bethune... 527 
 
 Clockwork of the Skies 397 
 
 Closing Scene, by T. B. Read 739 
 
 Clovernook, by Alice Cary 730 
 
 Cogswell. Joseph G 4S3 
 
 Coleman, William, facts on Hamilton's 
 
 death 125 
 
 College Examination, specimen of. 60 
 
 Colonization Society, Wm. Jay on 32S 
 
 Columbiad. Barlow's 117 
 
 Columbus Discovering Land 276 
 
 Columbus, living's life of 275 
 
 Columbus's Return 437 
 
 Commentaries on the Constitution 271 
 
 Commerce and Trade 367 
 
 Common Sense 196 
 
 Compensations of Calamity 513 
 
 "Compromise Measures'' 260 
 
 Conqueror's Grave 381 
 
 Conscience, verses on, by Mellen 475 
 
 ■ its power, by D. Webster 267 
 
 Consolation, A. P. Peabody's sermons on.. C50 
 
 Constitution, American, its excellence 69 
 
 Constitution, Hamilton on 126 
 
 Constitution, its Anti-Slavery Character.. 71 
 
 Consumption, lines on, by Percival 410 
 
 Contentment, by Mrs. Sigourney 340 
 
 Continental Congress 579 j 
 
 Pagb 
 
 Conybearc and Uowson's St. Paul 571 
 
 Coppee, Prof. Henry 374 
 
 Cooper's works, list of 315 
 
 Coral Insect, by Mrs. Sigourney 341 
 
 Corner-Stone, by Jacob Abbott 516 
 
 Country, Our, by G. W. Bethune 524 
 
 Country Pleasures 44G 
 
 Cowpei thwait & Co 373 
 
 Creole Letter, Daniel Webster's 259 
 
 Crime Revealed by Conscience 267 
 
 Crocker and Brewster 373 
 
 Cruse, Peter II., Life of Wirt 191 
 
 Culprit Fay 401 
 
 Curiosities of American Literature 090 
 
 "Curiosity," by Charles Sprague 352 
 
 Curtis, Benjamin R 372 
 
 Curtis, Charles P 372 
 
 Cushing, Thomas 55 
 
 Cushing, William C9 
 
 Cuvier, by A. P. Peabody 651 
 
 Dana, Prof. James D 234 
 
 Dana, Richard Henry, Jr 229 
 
 Dane, Nathan, author of the Ordinance of 
 
 17S7 73 
 
 founder of a Law Professorship. 270 
 
 Dangers to our Republic 272 
 
 Daughter, Character of a Good 451 
 
 Davenport, John, influence on New Haven 499 
 
 Dawes, Thomas, anecdote of. 510 
 
 "Day in melting purple dying"' 422 
 
 Days of my Youth 101 
 
 Death of Sin and the Life of Holiness 30S 
 
 Death, the Great Leveller 266 
 
 Death, Victory over 526 
 
 Deathbed, by James Aldrich 733 
 
 Decalogue for Practical Life 77 
 
 Deinetria, by Ilillhouse 324 
 
 Dermot McMorrogh, by J. Q. Adams 156 
 
 Departed, the, by Park Benjamin 617 
 
 Deserted Bride 505 
 
 Deserted Road 740 
 
 Desires, Moderation in S5 
 
 Despotism in America 577 
 
 Dexter, Franklin 372 
 
 Dexter, Samuel : 25S 
 
 Dial, the, a periodical 513 
 
 Dickinson, Rev. R. S. Storrs 523 
 
 Dobson's Encyclopedia 373 
 
 Doing Good, True Happiness 376 
 
 Don Quixote, George Tickuor on 349 
 
 Doors, the. Front and Side 627 
 
 Downing, Major Jack 361 
 
 Dream, a, by Prof. Frisbie 291 
 
 Dred, by Mrs. Stowe 664 
 
776 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 
 Duelling, Dr. Dwight's remarks on 103 
 
 Duellist unfit for Office 209 
 
 Dulheld, Rev. George 459 
 
 Dunglisnn. Prof. B 373 
 
 Dutchman. li ving's Portrait of. 281 
 
 Dwight, Timothy, account of, by S. G. 
 
 Goodrich 103 
 
 letter to Wolcott 1C9 
 
 Goodrich's remarks on 369 
 
 Dying Counsel of Jefferson 77 
 
 Dying Indian 109 
 
 Dying Raven, by R. II. Dana 304 
 
 Eagle, the, lines on, by G. Mellen 475 
 
 Early Lost, Early Saved, by G. \Y. Beth une 528 
 
 East and West One 210 
 
 East Hampton, History of. 20G 
 
 Eastburn, James 466 
 
 Edinburgh Encyclopedia 373 
 
 Educational Profession, Dignity of. 245 
 
 Educational Profession, remarks on 193 
 
 Edwards, Jonathan, Griswold's account 
 
 of his eloquence 693 
 
 Edwards, Timothy 25 
 
 Elect, the, views of, by H. W. Beecher 686 
 
 Ellery, William 241 
 
 Elliott, Samuel A 331 
 
 Ellsworth, Chief-Justice 120 
 
 Eloquence, True Nature of. 265 
 
 Embargo Liberty 184 
 
 Emerson, William 217 
 
 Emigrants, the, by T. B. Head 741 
 
 Employment Essential to Health 86 
 
 Encyclopedia Americana 373 
 
 Enemy, Where is the 4S2 
 
 England. Boker's sonnets to 74S, 749 
 
 England, A. II. Everett on 345 
 
 England, remarks on, by Webster 264 
 
 Engles, William M 459 
 
 English Language, by G. B. Cheever 575 
 
 Enthusiasm — Sympathy, by Tuckerman.. 676 
 Entrance into Philadelphia, Franklin's.... 33 
 
 Epithalamium 456 
 
 Erato, by Gallagher 592 
 
 Eva's Death, Whittier's Lines on 66S 
 
 described by Mrs. Stowe 604 
 
 Evening, Ode to, by Sands 468 
 
 Evening Post, New York 378 
 
 Evening Thoughts, by Lucy Hooper 697 
 
 Evening Wind, by Bryant 384 
 
 Everett, Alexander H., ed. N. Amer. Rev. 218 
 Everett, Edward, ed. N. Amer. Review.... 21S 
 Everett, Edward, remarks on Buck- 
 minster 286 
 
 Every Man Great 249 
 
 Page 
 
 Everyday Christianity, by H. W. Beecher 684 
 
 Every one Makes his own Fortune 199 
 
 Evidences of Religion, by Yerplanck 250 
 
 Evil, why permitted 32 
 
 Excebior, by Longfellow 5G7 
 
 Exiles of Florida, by J. R. Giddings... 696, 718 
 Expenses of War and Education 046 
 
 Fable for Critics, by Lowell 712 
 
 Factions, Political 138 
 
 Faith— the Race for the Young 492 
 
 Family Blood, a burlesque poem 708 
 
 Family Meeting, by Charles Sprague 357 
 
 Farewell to America 115 
 
 Fashion and Ruin 208 
 
 Federalist, writers of. 99, 124 
 
 Federalists and Republicans 204 
 
 Federalists, who and what they were 204 
 
 Female Education, Dr. Rush on 79 
 
 Females, Influence of on Society 219 
 
 Female Poets of America, by Griswold.... C90 
 
 Fenno, John 543 
 
 Ferdinand and Isabella 436 
 
 Filial Affection 277 
 
 First-Born, Death of, by W. G. Clark 637 
 
 Fisher, Professor, Biaincrd's lines on 457 
 
 Flag, American 404 
 
 Flanders's Life of Marshall 121 
 
 Fletcher, Richard 372 
 
 Flora's Dictionary, by Mrs. Wirt 192 
 
 Florence Yane, by P. P. Cook 694 
 
 Florida War, Giddings's History of. 696 
 
 Flowers, by L. M. Child 482 
 
 Footsteps of Angels 563 
 
 Fop's Decline 90 
 
 Foresters, the, by Alexander Wilson 144 
 
 Fortitude, Norton's Hues on 303 
 
 Fourth of July 58, 59 
 
 Fowler's American Pulpit 498, 571 
 
 Francis Berrian, a novel, by Flint 237 
 
 Francis, Dr. J. W 109 
 
 Franklin's Entrance into Philadelphia.... 33 
 
 Free Blacks, Franklin's paper on 37 
 
 Freedom, Antiquity of, by Bryant 386 
 
 Freedom. Barlow's lines on 119 
 
 Freedom, by J. R. Lowell 719 
 
 Freedom, lines on, by Wilcox 375 
 
 Freedom, Dr. Channing's devotion to 242 
 
 Freedom of the Will 31 
 
 Free Schools 272 
 
 Freeman's Journal 108 
 
 Freneau. Philip, bis attacks on Wash- 
 ington 109 
 
 Froissart's Ballads 694 
 
 Frontenac, by A.B. Street 653 
 
INDEX. 
 
 777 
 
 Page 
 
 Frost, the, by II. F. Gould 605 
 
 Fruits of the Spirit, by Bethune 524 
 
 Fugitive Slave Bill 260 
 
 Fugitive Slaves, Capture of, by Lowell 717 
 
 Galaxy, New England 225 
 
 Gallery of Famous Poets 374 
 
 Gannett, Ezra S 477 
 
 Genet, the defamer of Washington 73 
 
 Genius of Universal Emancipation 583 
 
 Gentle Charities of Life 464 
 
 Genuineness of the Gospels 300 
 
 Geological Evidence, Nature of. 234 
 
 George Mason, a novel by Flint 237 
 
 Gethsemane 406 
 
 Gibbon, Edward, on the Teacher's Office... 245 
 
 Giddings, J. 11., his life and works 718 
 
 Sonnet to, by Lowell 718 
 
 Giles's, Amos, Distillery 570 
 
 Oilman, Samuel, criticism on Percival 414 
 
 Girl's Book, by Mrs. Child 478 
 
 Giving versus Keeping 686 
 
 Glory, True, by Charles Sumner 647 
 
 God in Christ, by Bushnell 519 
 
 God's Forgiveness, views of, by Beecher... 682 
 
 God's Goodness in Creation 105 
 
 Goddard, William G 430 
 
 Godey, Louis A 427 
 
 Goffe, the Regicide 106 
 
 Good bye, Proud World 515 
 
 Goodrich, Samuel G., remarks on Frank- 
 lin's life 35 
 
 on Webster 261 
 
 on Cooper 316 
 
 on Hawthorne 537 
 
 Goodrich's, Chauncey A., Memoir of Noah 
 
 Webster 140 
 
 Gospel, Consolations of 189 
 
 Gospel for the Poor 169 
 
 Gospel Ministry, the True 433 
 
 Gospel of Liberty and Peace 152 
 
 Gospels, Genuineness of. 300 
 
 Gotham, Three Wise Men of. 212 
 
 Gould & Lincoln 373 
 
 Government of God desirable 206 
 
 Grace Greenwood 750 
 
 Graham, Isabella 523 
 
 Grahame, James, memoir of, by Josiah 
 
 Quincy 182 
 
 Granger, James N 430 
 
 Grave, the, by Washington Irving 280 
 
 Greece, remarks on, by Ames 138 
 
 Greece, ode to, by Brooks 488 
 
 Greek Culture, benefit of. 571 
 
 Greene, Gen., Hamilton's character of. 128 
 
 I'AOK 
 
 Greene, Geo. W.'s, life of Gen. Greene 128 
 
 Greenfield Hill, by Dwight 102 
 
 Greenwood Leaves 750 
 
 Gieyslaer, by Hoffman... 543 
 
 Grigg, John, his enterpr se 373 
 
 Grindstone, Franklin's 43 
 
 Griscom, Professor 85 
 
 Guido, and other poems, by Embury 614 
 
 Guizot's opinion of Hamilton 124 
 
 Gurney's West Indies, Changing on 242 
 
 Guy Rivers, by Simms 546 
 
 Hadad,by Hillhouse 324 
 
 Hadad's Description of Jerusalem 326 
 
 Hagar in the Wilderness 556 
 
 Hail, Columbia 170 
 
 Halleck, Fitz-Greene, lines on Drake 400 
 
 lines on Hillhouse 323 
 
 Hall, John, D.D 190 
 
 Hall, John E 158 
 
 Hall, Harrison, publisher of the Portfolio 157 
 Hamilton, Alex., character of, by Ames... 136 
 
 death of, by Mason 165 
 
 Mason's character of. 168 
 
 Washington, Jay, by Hildreth... 580 
 
 character of, by II. B. Wallace... 705 
 
 Hamilton, John C. life of his father 125 
 
 Happiness, the coloring of 755 
 
 Happiness in Doing Good.. 376 
 
 Happiness, what is essential to 518 
 
 Harper & Brothers 372 
 
 Harper's Magazine on the Teacher's Office 254 
 
 Harrison, Robert 69 
 
 Hartford Convention, 141 
 
 Harvard University, history of 182 
 
 Harvest Time, by Alice Cary 731 
 
 Hasty Pudding 118 
 
 Haven, Nathaniel Appleton 349 
 
 Hazlett's opinion of Edwards 30 
 
 Heart's Song, by A. C. Coxe 708 
 
 Health, a song, by Pinkney 504 
 
 Heart Essential to Genius 552 
 
 Heavens before the Dawn 398 
 
 Help the Slave, by II. W. Beecher C84 
 
 Henry, Patrick, Witt's life of. 192 
 
 Hercules, Choice of, by Adams 57 
 
 Heritage, the, by J. R. Lowell 713 
 
 Hiawatha, by Longfellow 561 
 
 "Higher law," remarks on, by Win, Jay.. 331 
 
 by Peabody... 652 
 
 Higginson, Stephen 218 
 
 Hillard, G. S., remarks on Cooper 316 
 
 on Halleck's poetry 408 
 
 on Marshall 121 
 
 Historical Causes and Effects 204 
 
778 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 
 "Hoboniok," by L. M. Child 478 
 
 Hodge, Professor 190 
 
 Holidays Abroad 532 
 
 Holy Catholic Church, by Beecher 6S4 
 
 Home 461 
 
 Home, Sweet Home 360 
 
 Home, Love of, by Webster 264 
 
 Home, the Light of. 427 
 
 Home, Yearnings for, by Miss Davidson... 744 
 
 Honeysuckle, the Wild Ill 
 
 Hooker, Rev. Herman, D.D 690 
 
 Hooper, Lucy, Tuckerman's lines on 695 
 
 Hopkins, Samuel 94 
 
 Horseback Ride 750 
 
 Hospitality 535 
 
 Hour-Glass, by J. Q. Adams 156 
 
 House with Seven Gables 537 
 
 How Cheery are the Mariners 618 
 
 Howadji in Syria 757 
 
 Humility, by Allston 233 
 
 Humming-Bird, the 255 
 
 Humphreys, David 94 
 
 Hunt, Rev. James, the instructor of Wirt 191 
 
 Hunter, the Lost, by Street 654 
 
 Husband's First Gray Hair 633 
 
 Husband and Wife's Grave 306 
 
 Hutchinson, Col., his accomplishments.... 449 
 
 Hymn, Dedication, by Pierpont 295 
 
 Hyperion 561 
 
 Hypocrites, by H. W. Beecher 686 
 
 I'm Growing Old, by Saxe 700 
 
 Ice Trade, founder of 218 
 
 Ichabod, by Whittier 609 
 
 Idle Man, Dana's 304 
 
 Iliad and the Bible 431 
 
 I love thy Kingdom, Lord 107 
 
 Immortality, Dana's lines on 307 
 
 Inchiquin's Letters 103, 211 
 
 Independent, New York 571 
 
 Indian Beau and Belle 240 
 
 Indian Mounds 237 
 
 Indian Summer, 182S 544 
 
 Individual Greatnes3 249 
 
 Industry and Independence 238 
 
 Industry, value of. 465 
 
 Infamous Judges, by Hildreth 578 
 
 Infant, lines on the death of an, by Mrs. 
 
 Sigourney 340 
 
 Infant, lines on the death of an, by Mrs. 
 
 Peters 115 
 
 Infant Sleeping on its Mother's Bosom.... 737 
 
 Ingersoll, Charles J 211 
 
 "Inklings of Adventure" 555 
 
 Innocent, Guilt of Punishing the 432 
 
 Page 
 
 Intellectual Improvement 516 
 
 Intemperance, Dr. Beecher upon 207 
 
 Invitation, the, by W. G. Clark 636 
 
 Irregular Action, Attractiveness of. 495 
 
 Isabella, Queen 438 
 
 I See Thee Still, by Charles Sprague 359 
 
 Italy, lines on, by Pinkney 503 
 
 " It Snows," by Mrs. Hale 428 
 
 I Think of Thee 510 
 
 Jack and Gill criticized 160 
 
 Jackson, Charles 372 
 
 Japan as it Was and Is 578 
 
 Jay, John 69, 328 
 
 . Ycrplanck's Eulogy on 251 
 
 Jay's Treaty, debate on 132 
 
 Jay, William, opinion of Webster 260 
 
 Jefferson's enmity to Washington 109 
 
 Jersey Chronicle 109 
 
 Jerusalem or Rome, by G. W. Curtis 758 
 
 John Bull and Brother Jonathan 215 
 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, upon Teachers, 283 
 
 Johnson and Milton compared 246 
 
 Jokely, by Paulding 211 
 
 Judicial Tribunals, by Sumner 649 
 
 " Julian," by William Ware 452 
 
 June, by William II. Burleigh C61 
 
 Junkin, George, D.D 459 
 
 Justice, remarks on, by Webster 266 
 
 Juvenile books, Mrs. Sigourney's 337 
 
 Kane, Judge 571 
 
 Keese, Johu, Memoir of Lucy Hooper 696 
 
 Kegs, Battle of, by Hopkinson 66 
 
 Kennedy's, John P., various works 191 
 
 life of William Wirt 191 
 
 Kindness, Power of 196 
 
 King, Charles 73 
 
 King. Rufus 73 
 
 Kirkland, Dr. J. T., Life of Ames 132 
 
 Kirkland, John T 218 
 
 Knickerbocker Magazine 634 
 
 Knickerbocker's History of New York 274 
 
 " Laborare est Orare" 659 
 
 Laborer, the. by Gallagher 593 
 
 Lady's Book, the 427 
 
 Lafayette, his visit in 1S24 226 
 
 Language, Origin of. 142 
 
 Lawrence, Amos 152 
 
 Laws, Limits to 1S2 
 
 Lawsuit, Modern Specimen of. T5 
 
 Lay Preacher, Dennie's 157 
 
 Lays of Love and Faith 524 
 
 Learning, Active and Inactive 2S5 
 
INDEX. 
 
 779 
 
 Page 
 
 Leather Stocking 457 
 
 Leavitt, Joshua 151 
 
 Ledyard, John, anecdote of, by Sparks 333 
 
 Lee, Charles, life of. 333 
 
 Lee, Eliza Buckminster 283 
 
 Lee, Richard Henry 55 
 
 Leisure to be Properly Appreciated 675 
 
 Letters from Under a Bridge 555 
 
 Letters on the Eastern States 219 
 
 Letters to Young Men, by Beecher 680 
 
 Letters to Mothers 337 
 
 Leyden, Siege of, by Motley 688 
 
 Liberty and Union 269 
 
 Liberty to Athens 414 
 
 Liberty, Blessings of, by Ledyard 97 
 
 License Laws 294 
 
 Life's Evening, by T. Mackellar 673 
 
 Life, by F. 8. Key 224 
 
 Life in the West 506 
 
 Life of Lettered Ease 621 
 
 Life Thoughts, by H. W. Beecher 680 
 
 Life, what is it ? by Alice Gary 732 
 
 Light and Love, by Alice Cary 731 
 
 Light, by Dr. Bushnell 522 
 
 Lindsay & Blakiston 373, 771 
 
 Lines on a Picture by Allston 554 
 
 Lippincott & Co., J. B 373 
 
 Literary Criticisms, by Wallace 702 
 
 Literary Fame, by Longfellow 568 
 
 Literary Magazine 177 
 
 Little, Brown & Co 373 
 
 Live to do Good, by Bethune 528 
 
 Livy and Tacitus, Frisbie on 289 
 
 Locke, A. A 657 
 
 Logic 62 
 
 Look Aloft, by Lawrence 5S2 
 
 Lord, with glowing heart, &c 224 
 
 Loring, Edward G 372 
 
 Lotteries, Evils of 227 
 
 Love, Confiding, by Maria Brooks 421 
 
 Lovejoy, Owen P 242 
 
 Lowell, James Russell, lines on Channing 241 
 
 lines on Irving 274 
 
 Lundy, Benjamin 583 
 
 Lyrical and other poems, by Siinnis 546 
 
 Mackintosh's opinion of Edwards 30 
 
 McFingal, a poem 89 
 
 character of 92 
 
 Dr. Dwight's opinion of. 93 
 
 Madeline, Burial of, by Poc 041 
 
 Madison, James, remarks on, by Hildreth 5S0 
 
 Maiden and the Rattlesnake 547 
 
 Maidenhood, by Longfellow 565 
 
 Maiden sat at her Busy Wheel 616 
 
 Pagk 
 
 Mammon of Unrighteousness 668 
 
 Man as Man 249 
 
 Man, remarks on, by Beecher 685 
 
 Man the Subject of Social Science 366 
 
 Man Thinking 513 
 
 Manual of Useful Studies 140 
 
 Marco Bozzaris 408 
 
 Margaret Smith's Journal 606 
 
 Marquette, Father, life of. 333 
 
 Mariner, the Drowned 530 
 
 Marius, lines on, by Mrs. Child 479 
 
 Marriage, by Maria Brooks 422 
 
 Married or Single 442 
 
 Married not Mated 730 
 
 Martyr, the, by Mellen 474 
 
 " Mary," by II. T. Tuckerman 678 
 
 Mason & Brother 373 
 
 Mason, Jeremiah 258 
 
 Mason, John M., Goodrich's description of 166 
 
 on Hamilton's death 125 
 
 Mason. Erskine, D.D 523 
 
 Massachusetts, Webster on 268 
 
 Maud Muller, by Whittier... 610 
 
 Mayflower, by Mrs. Stowe 663 
 
 Mayflower, Pilgrims of. 395 
 
 May to April 112 
 
 Mellen, Catharine Saltonstall 287 
 
 Mellichampe, by Simms 546 
 
 Memory, by Willis G. Clark 635 
 
 Mercury, the American ; 117 
 
 Metaphysics 60 
 
 Mexican War, Jay's history of 328 
 
 Midnight Sun, Taylor's description of 771 
 
 Miles Standish, Courtship of. 561 
 
 Miller's character of Edwards 30 
 
 Milton and Johnson compared 246 
 
 Milton's lines on Peace 6i7 
 
 Milton's Prayer of Patience 701 
 
 Minister's Wooing 661 
 
 Miracles and Work of Jesus 650 
 
 Mirth, Literature of, by Whipple 724 
 
 Missions, Objects of, by Wayland 430 
 
 Mistake versus Blunder 65 
 
 Mitchell"s Geographies 373 
 
 Mocking-Bird, by Pike 631 
 
 the, by Audubon 256 
 
 Wilde's lines on the 314 
 
 Wilson's account of. 148 
 
 Moderation in One's Desires 85 
 
 "Moina," Mrs. Dinnies' signatvue 632 
 
 Monarchy, Aristocracy, Republic 70 
 
 Money, Principles that Regulate 4S 
 
 Montezuma, diameter and Fate of. 440 
 
 Moon, verses on, by G. W. Doane 472 
 
 Moore, Augusta 680 
 
780 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 
 Morals and Literature, reciprocal in- 
 
 fluence of. 287 
 
 Moral Taste 290 
 
 Morning Hymn, by S. J. Smith 180 
 
 by Hoffman 544 
 
 Morning, by Maria Brooks 421 
 
 Morning, the, by Webster 264 
 
 Mosses from an Old Manse 537 
 
 Mother and Son, by Dana 309 
 
 Mother in the Snow-Storm 361 
 
 Mother, lines to, by M. M. Davidson 744 
 
 Mother, L. M. Davidson's lines to her 602 
 
 Mother's Bible 508 
 
 Mother's Book, by Mrs. Child 478 
 
 Mother's Love, by Albert Barnes 461 
 
 Mother's Prayer in Illness 658 
 
 Mountain Oak, ode to, by Boker 746 
 
 Mountains and Sea-Shore 629 
 
 Mount Auburn, and other Poems 552 
 
 Mun roe & Co., James 362 
 
 Murderer's Creek 212 
 
 Murder of the Soul 578 
 
 Music, Themes for, by Pierpont 293 
 
 My Child 296 
 
 My Life is like the Summer Bose 314 
 
 My Mothers Bible 50S 
 
 Naples, Bay of. 596 
 
 National Bank, necessity of 125 
 
 National Faith, obligations of. 132 
 
 National Feeling 226 
 
 Nature, pleasure in contemplating 145 
 
 Nature and the Supernatural 519 
 
 Nature, Hymn to, by Peabody 477 
 
 Nautilus, the Chambered 625 
 
 Nebraska Bill, remonstrance against 395 
 
 Negro Bace, character of. 248 
 
 Neutral Nations, rights of 140 
 
 New England, by J. Quincy 184 
 
 New England Magazine 225 
 
 New England, Palfrey's history of. 447 
 
 New England's Mountain-Child 657 
 
 New England's Dead 553 
 
 New Home, who'll follow 532 
 
 New Pastoral, by Bead 73S 
 
 Newsboy, by Elizabeth O. Smith 529 
 
 Newspaper Literature, specimens 225 
 
 Newspaper Press, Ames on the 135 
 
 New World, conducted by Benjamin 617 
 
 Niagara, Falls of, by Brainard 456 
 
 Niagara, Mrs. Sigourney's lines on 33S 
 
 Nicholson, James B., on Bookbinding 374 
 
 Night, Dennie's remarks on 158 
 
 Night, lines on, by Percival 417 
 
 Nile, Life on the, by Taylor. 767 
 
 Page 
 
 Nile Notes, by Curtis 757 
 
 Nisbet, Dr. Charles, anecdote of. 46 
 
 President of Dickinson College... 79 
 
 North American Beview, account of. 218 
 
 Northeastern boundary 259 
 
 Northwood, by Mrs. Hale 427 
 
 Norton, Andrews, remarks on, by Buck- 
 minster 283 
 
 on Frisbie 287 
 
 Notch of the White Mountains 104 
 
 Notes from Plymouth Pulpit 680 
 
 Notes on Virginia, Jefferson's 72 
 
 North British Beview on J. B. Lowell 713 
 
 " Oh, Walk with God," by A. C. Coxe 710 
 
 Ohio, Shores of the 239 
 
 Oh, Tell me not of Lofty Fate 615 
 
 Old Age and the Professor 628 
 
 Old Bachelor, by Wirt 192 
 
 "Old Grimes" 496 
 
 Old Maid, the, by Mrs. Welby 736 
 
 Old Oaken Bucket 299 
 
 Olmsted, Prof. Denison 457 
 
 " Only a Year," by Mrs. Stowe 671 
 
 Optimist, the, by Tuckerman 675 
 
 Ord's, George, Life of Wilson 145 
 
 Ordinance of 1787 73 
 
 Ormond, by C. B. Brown 172 
 
 Ornithological Biography 255 
 
 Ornithology, Wilson's 145 
 
 Osborn, Prof. H. S., work on Palestine 391 
 
 Osceola, by Lucy Hooper 696 
 
 Osgood, Frances Sargent, lines on Mrs. 
 
 Welby 734 
 
 Otis, H. G 372 
 
 Otis, James, character of. 220 
 
 Our Country in 1920 262 
 
 "Our Country, right or wrong" 329 
 
 Outcast, and other Poems 369 
 
 Oxford Boat-Bace 711 
 
 Paine, Thos., the defamer of Washington.. 73 
 
 Palestine, by Whittier 607 
 
 Palestine, Past and Present, by H. S. Os- 
 born 391 
 
 Palfrey, John Gorham, ed. N. Amer. Bev. 218 
 
 Palmyra, Fall of 453 
 
 Palmyra in its Glory 452 
 
 Panther, Perilous Encounter with 175 
 
 Paradise Begained 647 
 
 Parental Indulgence, by Beecher 682 
 
 Parker, B. E 192 
 
 Parley's Miscellanies 369 
 
 Parsons. Thcophilus 372 
 
 Parting, the, by E. M. Chandler 584 
 
INDEX. 
 
 781 
 
 Page 
 
 Passing Under the Rod, by Mrs. Dana 586 
 
 Past Meridian 337 
 
 Past, Present, and Future 365 
 
 Past, the, by Bryant 382 
 
 Patch, Samuel, Monody on 4G8 
 
 Patient Continuance in Well-Doing 674 
 
 Patrick Henry, Wirt's life 192 
 
 Patriotism 134 
 
 Patriotism, views on, by 'William Jay 329 
 
 Pawson & Nicholson, bookbinders. 374 
 
 Peabody, Andrew P., ed. X. Amer. Rev... 218 
 Peabody, William B. 0., Life of Wilson... 115 
 
 Peabody, Oliver W. B 476 
 
 Pebble and the Acorn, by Miss Gould C04 
 
 "Peace, be Still" 179 
 
 Peace, Franklin's view of. 38 
 
 Peace, lines on, by Freneau Ill 
 
 Peace, Prospect of. Ill 
 
 Peaceful Rest, hour of 406 
 
 Pencillings by the Way 555 
 
 Pennsylvania Gazette.. 35 
 
 Pennsylvania Hall, Pierpont's lines on 
 
 the Burning of. 460 
 
 People, the Source of Power 69 
 
 Percy's Masque, by Hillhouse 324 
 
 Permission of Evil 32 
 
 Persecution. Parable against 42 
 
 Personal Memoirs, by Buckingham 225 
 
 Pestilence of 1798, by C. B. Brown 172 
 
 Pestilential Diseases, X. Webster on 140 
 
 Peter Parley 369 
 
 Petition, Right of, assailed 150 
 
 Philadelphia Publishers 373 
 
 Phillips, Sampson & Co 373 
 
 Phillips, Willard 372 
 
 Philosopher and Boy, a poem 708 
 
 Philothea, by Mrs. Child 479 
 
 Pierpont, John, lines on the Burning of 
 
 Pennsylvania Hall 460 
 
 Pilgrim Fathers, by W. H. Burleigh 661 
 
 Pinkney, William 502 
 
 Plough, Loom, and Anvil 365 
 
 Poems of Religion and Society, by J. Q. 
 
 Adams 156 
 
 Poets and Poetry of America, by Griswold 690 
 
 Poets and Poetry of England 690 
 
 Poet of To-Day 753 
 
 Poet's Love, by Edith May 756 
 
 Poetical and Prose Reading 590 
 
 Poetry, its Purifying Influence 243 
 
 Politeness, by L. 31. Child 481 
 
 Political Atheism 207 
 
 Political Duties, remarks on 139 
 
 Political Factions, Ames's remarks on 138 
 
 Politics and Religion 167 
 
 Pack 
 
 Politics, Past and Present 581 
 
 Polyanthos 225 
 
 Poor Richard's Almanac 35 
 
 Poor-Rich Man 442 
 
 Portfolio, an account of. 157 
 
 Portion of the Soul, by Dr. Hooker 690 
 
 Potiphar Papers, by Curtis 758 
 
 Potomac, Passage of. 75 
 
 Prayer, Seasons of, by II. Ware, Jr 364 
 
 Preaching, the True Object of. 680 
 
 Prescott, "William 372 
 
 Prescott, William II., on C. B. Brown 178 
 
 Present Age, by Dr. Bacon 500 
 
 Press On, by Park Benjamin 619 
 
 Pride of Worth, by R. T. Conrad 622 
 
 Priesthood and Clergy Unknown to Chris- 
 tianity 430 
 
 Priestley, Dr., on Ames's eloquence 131 
 
 Princeton Review 190 
 
 Private Life, pleasures of. 53 
 
 Privileges of Age 342 
 
 Proctor, Edna Dean 6S0 
 
 Proem to Yamoyden 467 
 
 Profession, choosing a 362 
 
 Professor at the Breakfast-Table 623 
 
 Progress and Reform, by Sumner 648 
 
 Progress of Dulness 90 
 
 Progress, a Satire, by Saxe 698 
 
 Prometheus, by Percival... 419 
 
 Prophecy, the, by L. M. Davidson 601 
 
 Prose-Writers of America, by Griswold.... 690 
 
 Proud, Robert 172 
 
 Providence, Bounties of. 399 
 
 Providence Ruling Nations 52 
 
 Psalm of Life 562 
 
 Pulaski. Count, life of... 333 
 
 Puritan's Daughter, by Paulding 212 
 
 Puritans, Elegant Culture of. 448 
 
 Puritans, Position of, by Bancroft 487 
 
 Putnam & Co., booksellers 373 
 
 Quincy, Josiah, life of J. Q. Adams... 152, 182 
 Quincy, Josiah, Jr 372 
 
 Rainbow, the, by Mrs. Welby 735 
 
 Ramsey, David. Dr. Rush's commenda- 
 tion of. 87 
 
 Randall's life of Jefferson 74 
 
 Randolph, John, remarks on, by Wilde... 313 
 
 Raven, the, by Poe 639 
 
 Reading, best method of. .'. 589 
 
 Reaper and the Flowers 563 
 
 Reason in Religion 187 
 
 Reciprocal Influence of Morals and Lite- 
 rature 287 
 
 66 
 
782 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Recollections of a Lifetime 
 
 Redemption, work of, Edwards's. 
 
 Red Rover, Cooper's 
 
 Redwood 
 
 Rees's Encyclopedia 
 
 Page 
 . 369 
 . 28 
 . 315 
 . 442 
 .. 373 
 
 Reform, Army of 751 
 
 Reformers 302 
 
 Religion and Business, by H. W. Beecher CS5 
 
 Religion. Power of, on the Mind 85 
 
 Religion, remarks on, by II. W. Beecher.. GS1 
 
 Religious Experience 25 
 
 Religious Feelings, Edwards's 25 
 
 Republican Court, by Griswold 690 
 
 Republican Party of 1S00 74 
 
 Republic. Dangers that threaten our 272 
 
 Representative Men 513 
 
 Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards 20 
 
 Responsibilities of our Country 99 
 
 Retributive Providences 573 
 
 Reverie at Glenmary 560 
 
 Revival in New England 28 
 
 Revolution, American, Sparks on 335 
 
 Rhyme of the Rail (99 
 
 Rhymes of Travel 760 
 
 Ribault, John, life of. 333 
 
 Riches without Wings 529 
 
 Ridiculous, Height of, by Holmes C24 
 
 Rights of Man 74 
 
 Rill from the Town-Pump 537 
 
 Road, the Deserted, by Read 740 
 
 Robins, Rev. Chandler 3C2 
 
 Robbins, Rev. Royal 455 
 
 Robbins, Ed. W, on Percival 414 
 
 Rodolpb, and other Poems 503 
 
 Rollo Books, by Abbott 516 
 
 Round Hill School 4S3 
 
 Rural Districts of our Country 371 
 
 Russell, Henry, the vocalist 507 
 
 Russell. Major Benjamin 203 
 
 Rutledge, John 69 
 
 Sabbath Evening 509 
 
 Sabbath in New England 442 
 
 Sachem's Wood, by Hillhonse 324 
 
 Saint Peter's, Wallace's description of. 703 
 
 Salle, (De la,) life of 333 
 
 Salmagundi 274 
 
 Salmagundi, by Irving and Paulding 211 
 
 Sam Patch 468 
 
 Sand, a Name in, by Miss Gould 603 
 
 Sargent, Winthrop 218 
 
 Saturday Afternoon 559 
 
 Savage, J 218 
 
 Scarlet Letter, by Hawthorne 537 
 
 Scene from Hadad 324 
 
 Pagb 
 
 Scene of Death, from the Buccaneer 305 
 
 Schoolmaster, the 252 
 
 Schoolmistress, my Last Walk with 630 
 
 Schrocder, J. F 49 
 
 Schuyler, General 123 
 
 Science and Poetry 362 
 
 Sea, lines on the, by Stoddard 765 
 
 Sea-Bird's Song 458 
 
 Sea-Shore and the Mountains 629 
 
 Self-Reliance 515 
 
 September, lines on, by Wilcox 374 
 
 September Rain, by MackcUar 673 
 
 Serenade, a song, by Pinkney 504 
 
 Sewall, Dr., lines on the death of. 114 
 
 Seward, Wm. H., extract from his life of 
 
 Adams 152 
 
 life of J. Q. Adams 151, 152 
 
 Sexton, the, by Park Benjamin 620 
 
 Shakspcare Ode 353 
 
 Sharp, Granville 501 
 
 Shaw, Wm. Smith 217 
 
 Shepherds. Song of, by Pierpont 293 
 
 Sherman, Roger 56 
 
 Shillook Negroes, account of. 769 
 
 Sickness, Uses of. 284 
 
 Sights from a Steeple 540 
 
 Sigourncy, Charles 337 
 
 Silliman, Benjamin, Jr 234 
 
 Sinai, Plain before, by Robinson 391 
 
 Sinai, Top of. .'392 
 
 Skies, Clockwork of. 397 
 
 Sky. the, by R. H. Stoddard 765 
 
 Slaveholding Christianity 576 
 
 Slave Power, Palfrey's pamphlet on 447 
 
 Slave-Ship, the 583 
 
 Slave's Appeal 583 
 
 Slavery, views of, by Franklin 44 
 
 Washington 53 
 
 Jefferson 76 
 
 the action of the 
 
 Government in 
 behalf of, by Jay 328 
 
 Francis Wayland... 432 
 
 Albert Barnes 463 
 
 G. B. Cheever 576 
 
 Richard Hildreth... 578 
 
 Smith, Capt. John, Hillard's life of. 595 
 
 Smith, Jeremiah 258 
 
 Smith, Margaret, her Journal 606 
 
 Snow, description of, by Mrs. Hale 428 
 
 Social Science, Man the Subject of. 3C6 
 
 Soldiers of the Revolution, address to 2C3 
 
 Songs of Summer 7C2 
 
 Sorrento, Excursion to 595 
 
 Soul, Murder of the 578 
 
INDEX. 
 
 783 
 
 Page 
 
 South Caroliaa, Ramsey's History of. 87 
 
 Southey's remarks on Lucretia Davidson. 600 
 
 Spain, view of, by Hillard 598 
 
 Spanish Literature, Ticknor on 348 
 
 Sparkling and Bright, by Hoffman 545 
 
 Sparks, Jared, as ed. of N. Anier. Rev 218 
 
 Spenser, Mrs. Kirkland's life of, &c 532 
 
 Spirit of Beauty 511 
 
 Spirit of the Pilgrims 207 
 
 Sport, by Park Benjamin 619 
 
 Spring, Address of the Sylph of. 230 
 
 Squire Bull and his Son 215 
 
 Stage, Bad Example of. 40 
 
 Star-Spangled Banner 222 
 
 Star Papers, by II. W. Beecher 680 
 
 Step to the Captain's Office and Settle 574 
 
 Stewart, Dugald, in praise of Edwards 30 
 
 Stoddard, Richard Henry, lines on Boker 745 
 
 Stoddard, Solomon 25 
 
 Story, Joseph, Eulogy on Marshall 120 
 
 St. Peter's, interior of, by II. B. Wallace.. 703 
 
 Street Scene, by Mrs. Child 480 
 
 Strong, Caleb, Governor of Massachusetts 141 
 
 Study, Love of, by Percival 418 
 
 Summer, by Edith May 754 
 
 Summer Shower, Scene after a 302 
 
 Sunrise from Mount Washington 511 
 
 Swallows, the Two, by Sprague 358 
 
 Sylphs of the Seasons 229 
 
 Sympathy — Enthusiasm 676 
 
 Tacitus and Livy, Frisbie on 289 
 
 Taney, Chief- Justice 222 
 
 Tappan, William B., lines on Franklin 33 
 
 Tartars and Russians 95 
 
 Tartars, Physiognomy of. 96 
 
 Tasso, Wilde's remarks on 312 
 
 Taste, Moral 290 
 
 Tea, Destruction of, at Boston 4S5 
 
 Teacher's Profession, its character 245 
 
 Office, from Harper's Magazine.. 254 
 
 Tempest, Ballad of the 746 
 
 Thacher, S. C 218 
 
 Thacher, Peter 218 
 
 Thanatopsis 379 
 
 Theatre, its Character 46, 47 
 
 There is an Hour of Peaceful Rest 406 
 
 The World is Bright before Thee 413 
 
 Thomas, Dr. J.'s, Gazetteer 771 
 
 Thompson, Rev. J. P 459 
 
 Thoughts on the Poets, by Tnckerman.... 675 
 
 Thy Kingdom Come, by Conrad 622 
 
 Ticknor & Fields 373, 561 
 
 Times, the, by Wm. II. Burleigh 681 
 
 Timothy Titcomb's Letters 726 
 
 Page 
 
 Tobacco, its evil effects 81 
 
 Tocsin, a Poem by Pierpont 460, 696 
 
 Token, the, by S. G. Goodrich 3C9 
 
 Tragic Poetry 591 
 
 Travelling 5i4 
 
 True Grandeur of Nations 644 
 
 True Track, the, by J. G. Holland 727 
 
 Truth, by Allston 233 
 
 Truth and Freedom, by Gallagher 592 
 
 Tnckerman, Henry T., lines on Allston.... 22S 
 
 on Allston's character 229 
 
 on Halleck's poetry 408 
 
 on Lucy Hooper 695 
 
 remarks on Hillhouse 324 
 
 on Bryant's poetry 378 
 
 Tucker, Judge, of Virginia 192 
 
 Tudor, Frederick, established the ice trade 218 
 
 Tudor, Wm., as ed. of N. Amer. Rev 218 
 
 Twenty-Third Psalm, remarks by Beecher 683 
 
 Twice-Told Tales, by Hawthorne 536 
 
 Twilight, Song at, by Davidson 601 
 
 Uncle Phil and his Daughter 444 
 
 Uncle Tom's Cabin 663 
 
 Union, an Appeal for the 100 
 
 Unitarian Miscellany 332 
 
 Unselfishness, by L. M. Child 481 
 
 Up with the Signal 507 
 
 Usefulness and Virtue combined 425 
 
 Usher, Fall of the House of, by Poe 641 
 
 Usefulness, Health, Happiness 728 
 
 Valedictory, Washington's 50 
 
 Valley of the Nashaway 511 
 
 Vanity Fair, by Hawthorne 541 
 
 Van Vechten, Rev. Jacob 166 
 
 Vesuvius, Crater of, by H. B. Wallace 704 
 
 Views Afoot 766 
 
 Vigil of Faith, by Hoffman 543 
 
 Virtue and Happiness 54 
 
 Virtue alone Beautiful, by Whittier 613 
 
 Virtue Crowned with Usefulness 425 
 
 Vision of Sir Launfal 712 
 
 Voices of Freedom, by Whittier 606 
 
 Voltaire and Wilberforce 424 
 
 Waddell, Rev. Jas., the "Blind Preacher" 193 
 
 | Walk, my Last, with the Schoolmistress.. 630 
 
 | Wallace, Horace B., remarks on Morris... 505 
 
 I remarks on Willis 55b 
 
 Wallace, John William 702 
 
 Walton's Angler, Bethune's edition 524 
 
 War and Education, expenses of. 646 
 
 War, Rev. Albert Barnes on 464 
 
 War, views of, by Franklin 38 
 
784 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 
 War, views of, by Washington 55 
 
 War of 1S12, J. Quincy on 181 
 
 Warning, the 567 
 
 Warrior Chief and Trader 367 
 
 Washington, George, his administration, 
 
 by Sullivan 206 
 
 as a civilian, by Ames 134 
 
 . character of, by II. B. Wallace... 705 
 
 his assailants 74 
 
 letter to Phillis Wheatley 113 
 
 Marshall's character of. 121 
 
 Mrs. Kirkland's life of. 532 
 
 resigning his commission 88 
 
 ■ valedictory counsels 50 
 
 Water-Fowl, by Bryant 380 
 
 Way to do Good 516 
 
 Wealth, Paternal, how to be employed 327 
 
 Wealth, Way to, by Franklin 38 
 
 Webster, Daniel, remarks on, by Wilde... 313 
 
 opinion of Hamilton 124 
 
 Wedding-Ring, lines on 471 
 
 Weep not for the Dead 490 
 
 Wells, William 218 
 
 We Parted in Sadness, by Hoffman 545 
 
 West, Benjamin, Esq 157 
 
 West, Life in the, by Morris 506 
 
 Western Captive, by Mrs. Smith 529 
 
 Western Clearings 532 
 
 Whale, Capture of, by Cooper 316 
 
 What is Life 732 
 
 Wheatley, Mrs. John, her benevolence.... 113 
 
 When other Friends are Round thee 506 
 
 Whipple's Criticism on Neal 387 
 
 Whisper to a Bride 337 
 
 Whistle, Franklin's 41 
 
 White, Joseph, Murder of 267 
 
 Whitewashing 63 
 
 Whittier's lines on Brainard 455 
 
 on the death of Eva 66S 
 
 Why should we Sigh? 407 
 
 Widow at her Daughter's Bridal 338 
 
 Widow's Wooer 615 
 
 Wieland, by C. B. Brown 172 
 
 Wife, the, by Elizabeth O. Smith 531 
 
 Wife, the, by Auna P. Dinnies 632 
 
 Page 
 
 Wilberforce and Voltaire 424 
 
 Wilkes's Exploring Expedition 373 
 
 W'illard, Prof. Sidney 218 
 
 Will, Freedom of. 31 
 
 Williams College 491 
 
 Williamson, Passmore 571 
 
 Williams, Roger, character of, by Bancroft 484 
 
 Palfrey's account of 450 
 
 Willing, Thomas 68 
 
 Willis, Nathaniel 555 
 
 Wilson, Rev. James P 459 
 
 Winged Worshippers, by Sprague 358 
 
 Winter in the West, by Hoffman 543 
 
 Wirt, Mrs. Elizabeth 192 
 
 Wirt, William, remarks on Marshall 121 
 
 Wise and Good, influence of 301 
 
 Wish of To-Day, by Whittier 612 
 
 Wit and Humor, by E. P. Whipple 723 
 
 Woman and her Needs, by E. O. Smith.... 529 
 
 Woman, Ledyard's Eulogium on 97 
 
 Woman's Record, by Mrs. Hale 427 
 
 Woodbridge, Hon. William 93 
 
 Woodman, Spare that Tree 507 
 
 Wood, Prof. George B 373 
 
 Wood-Thrush, the 257 
 
 Worcester, J. E., LL.D., notice of his great 
 
 Dictionary 140 
 
 Words, Power of, by E. P. W r hipplc 721 
 
 Work and Play, by Dr. Bushnell 520 
 
 Worship, True 493 
 
 Wreath of Wild Flowers 657 
 
 Wyatt, William E - 332 
 
 Yamoyden 466 
 
 Yearnings for Home 744 
 
 Yemassee, by Simms 546 
 
 Young American, A. EL Everett's lines... 347 
 
 Young Christian, by Abbott 516 
 
 Young, Dr. Thomas 486 
 
 Young, Temptations of. 284 
 
 Youth, Wirt's interest in 201 
 
 Zenobia, by William Ware 452 
 
 Zephyr Spirit, Song of, by Simms 551 
 
 Zophiel, by Mrs. Brooks 420 
 
 THE END. 
 
 STEREOTYPED BY L. JOHNSON & CO. 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
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