aass_ Book. WASHINGTON AND HIS GENERALS : OR, LEGENDS OF THE REVOLUTION. BY GEORGE LIPPARD, AUTHOR OF LADYE ANNABEL, THE QUAKER CITY, BLANCHE OF BRANDYWINE, HERBERT TRACY, THE NAZARENE, OR, THE LAST OF THE WASHINGTONS, ETC. WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR, BY REV. C. CHAUNCEY BURR. .,,-. L f CPr.v. V'^^ t C PHILADELPHIA : G. B. Z I E B E R AND CO, 1847. / ExTEHKD according to Act of Congresi, in the year 1817, by GEOROE MPPARD, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Printed by King Sc Baird, No. 9 George St. Fhiladelpliia. DEDICATION. TO ANDREW M'MAKIN, ESQ. Allow me, sir, to inscribe witli your name, tliis book of Washington and his Generals, as ilhistrated in the Legends of the Revohition. To you, as Editor and Proprietor of the first literary jourml in the country — a journal which numbering its readers by hundrels of thousanls, lias hitliorto stood alone ui its proud devotion to the American Past — do I witli sincere feelings of respect for your heart and intellect, dedicate these Legends of the camp, the council, and the field. I am induced to make this Dedication, by a feeling of simple justice to myself and you. Your paper lias always been, not only the family paper of the Union, but the Journal of Revolutionary Romance and History. As t!ie Editor, you liave ever been untiring in your efforts, to preserve in its columns, t!ie legends of our battle- fields, the chronicles of our early struggles for freedom, the memories of our illu.s- trions dead. Your name therefore, by a smcere impulse of justice, I inscribe at the head of these traditions, trusting that you will excuse the liberty I have taken, on account of the feeling by which it is dictated. There are otlier reasons whicli enter into the Spirit of this Dedication. Last summer, when my good name as a citizen, my lienor as an author, was attacked in the most licentious manner, by a band of obscene libellers — some of wliom liave since made their humble and fawning apologies to mo — you did not count the cost, nor falter for a moment, but came out for me like a Man, and in the columns of your paper, whipped the whole pack into tlieir native obscurity. Tliis is strong language. The occasion demands it. The men who have made me the object of their slander, ever since I published a line, are no less merciless in their dealings witli the unfortunate, than they are servile and truckling to tlie rich and powerful. They would stab you in tlie back to-day, and lick the dust from your shoes to-morrow. Now, that I have surmounted tlieir accumulated falsehoods — as much by your honestly rendered aid, as by the voice of the Press throughout the land — I scorn the humbly offered fi-iendsliip of tliese men, as much as I ever scorned their petty animosity. My earnest prayer will ever be — let creatures \\lie these, born of the atmosphere of malignity, and nurtured by the breath of falsehood, always remain my enemies. When they become my friends, I will confess myself utterly un- worthy the respect of one honest man. This work entitled, " Washington and his Generals, as illustrated in the Le- gends of the Revoluion," may be described in one word, as an earnest attempt to embody the scenes of the Past, in a series of Historical pictures. It is now four (3) 5v DEDICATION. years, siiicp I first attempted this style of writlnfr ; witli a sincere feeling of f;rati- tiide to tlie I'ublic ami the Press, who have marked my labours witli an approbation too empliatic to be iiiistaljen, I can honestly record tlic fact, tliat my attempts have been emincnlly siuTcsst'iil. Son)e portion of these Icfjends, were delivered in tlic f)rm of Historical lectures, before tJie William Wirt Institute, confessedly one of the lirst literary institutions in the land. To the gentlemen of that institution, I shall over remain grateful, not only for the success of these legends, but tor tlie uniform kindness and courtesy, which marked their intercourse with me. It would be, perhaps, invidious to select any one of tlieir body for public notice, but I cannot lot this occasion pass, without expressing my sincere regard for S. Snyder Leidy, Esq., whose intellect was always dee)>ly interested in tlie annals of our Revolution. I shall always clierish among the best memories of my life, my connection with tlie William Wirt Institute. Other portions of this work were delivered before the Institute of the Revolution : Messrs. JeflVics and Dickson, of tliat association, will ever be remembered for their kind endeavors in my behalf Nor can I in lliis dedication, be so forgetful of truth and gratitude, as to omit the name of A. Henry Diller, Esq., who for live years, has been my unswerving friend, and to whom I stand indebted for the flattering success df my illustrations of tlie Revolution. la conclusion, I may state without the imputation of vanity, that these Histori- cal pictures, their pnrpase and their style, beauties and defects, are the results of my endeavors for five years past, to delineate in nil its tiil!nes.s, "the time^ tliat tried men's souls." Not only W'asliington and his Generals, have I attempted to delineate in these Legends, but it has been my purixise, to picture the scenes that went before the Revolution, togelJier with tlie heroic deeds of the Authors, Soldiers, and Statesmen of '7(5; the patriotism of tlie humblest freeman, has been as dear to me, for tJie purposes of illustration, as the moral grandeur of Washington, or the chivalric daring of I a Fayette. Some of the brightest gleams of jxietry and romance, that illumine our history, or the history of any other land and age, I have endeavored to embody, in those (xiges of tlio present work, which relate to the deeds of the Hero- Women of the Revolution. ^^■ith these iiitmductory remarks, I submit to the public, ond at the same thnc, deat else opposes him, tingle again. Not any genius will ever be silenced by tlie clamor of the fool, who would ])ut it in strait-jackets, make it say mass, subscribe to thirty-nine articles, read dicipUnes and confessions of faith, and work all day long in tlie dull tread-mill of the schools : never. It will leave all creed mongers and lilliput-s like so many cliattcring skeletons, to dig away in the scum and spawn of a thousand years, that lie rotting upon the dead bosom of the past : a mystic hand writing gleams there upon liio solid dome of heaven ; genius will go on to translate tlie fire-ciphers; dig who will after the grave clothes of the dead yesterday.s. His task is not to write immoral books neither : but to hold up in the face of the world, a picture of what life is. If gross and sensual men can see in this picture only tlic gross cliaraeters there, whoso fault is that ! Would you have a painter who is sent to sketch pamlcnionium, steal a picture of paradise, and call that the metropolis of hell ! The devils might enjoy the compliment of seeing their faces in paradise ; hut what would the angels say ! Nay what would the critics Bay of the skill and truth of such a painter. Why then by a vanity and fiilsehood not less ridiculous do you wish the novelist, who paints a great, proud, corrupt, mammon-worshipping city to give you a picture only of saints and apostles ? Kis own soul would smite him in the tiicc evermore when he had prostituted his pen to such lying. Such writers are plenty enough who truckle to the vanity of fops and wealth-mongers. Their books are plenty enough t(xi, on their publishers shelves, where they lie in mould and cob-webs, looked into only by tlic moths that • INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. vii eat them. "No fiilso man ever got a deliverance eloquent enough to captivate a single heart. His tliought-s arc niuHled lilic a dead bell, and instead of tlie clear distinct vibrations wliicli make tlie lieavens ring, there is but the dumb underbreatli which every body Imovvs to be artiticial and unnatural." Words witli souls in them is what wo want : words that go out like cannon balls agahist all falsity in cliurch or state. Rigid, unsparing, outspeakmg truth- fulness — rougli and rugged as a nortlicrn land-scape — that is what we want. Your novelists who would feed us on sugar-plums ; or , amuse us by a harmless cock- robin and puss-in-boots literature, may tor auglit wo know have a mission to the nurseries, with the cats and cradles ; but not any mission to manhood. Neither in literature, nor in jwlitics, nor in morals, nor in philosophy, nor m religion did such writers ever eflcct a revolution for good or evil. For revolutions we want Lutliors, who will throw tlioir ink-stands at tlie devil's head, and go to Leipzig though it rain Duke Georges for nine days continually. And these true earnest khid of men are the only records tliat Time leaves behind him. But your great mass, of what are called " moral writers," your pious pretenders, and f;ishion-\vorshi])pers, your effeminate eulogizers of genteel fools, and scheming bigots — these will perish and rot away, like the flies of the summer shambles. Not thus will it be with the men, who, with words of tire, have depicted your sins : cry out as you will against them, brand tliem witli whatever anathema — tlieir \s ritings are the coin and currency of truth, stamped witli its image and superscription, so that tlioy will last forever. What has the sneer of the- critics done against the " (iuakor City !" twenty editions answer. It is better to ask what has the " Quaki.'r City" done to the critics ? Let a paragrapli or two from the J^ok itself answer. " Devil Bug was silent. Tlie .shouts of the revelers in tlie adjoining cellar grew more loud and uproarious, yet he heeded tliem not. Deep in tlie heart of tliis monster, like a ilowor blooming liom the very corruption of the grave, the memory of tliat fair young girl, wlio eigliteen years ago, had sought the slielter of Monk- Ilall, lay hidden, fast entwined around the life-cords of his deformed soul. "Oil, tell us, ye who in the hours of infancy have laid upon a mother's bosom, who have basked m a father's smile, wlio have had wealth to bring you comfort, luxury, and a home — wlio have sunned in tlie light of religion, as you grew to- wards manhood, and been warmed into intellectual life by the blessing of education ; Oh, tell us, ye who with all those gifts and mercies flung around you by the hand of God, have after all refused his laws, and rotted in your very lives, with the foul pollution of libertinism and lust; tell us, who shall find most mercy at the bar of avenguig justice — you, with your prostituted talents, gathering round your guilty souls, so many witnesses of your utter degradation — or Devil-Bug, door-keeper of Monk-Hall, in all his monstrous deformity of body and intellect, yet with one re- deeming memory, gleaming like a star from tlie chaos of his mind !" * * * "And this is tlie great Quaker City, which every Sunday lifts its demure face to Yiil INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. * Heaven, and, with church-burning, Girard-CoUege, and Bank-robbery, hanging around its skirts, tells Almighty God, that it has sent missionaries to the isles of the sea, to the Ilindty), the Turk, and llie Hottentot; that it feels for tlio spiritual wants of the far-off nations to an cxtont lliat cannot be measured by words, while it has not one single throb of pity fur tiic poor, who starve, rot, and die, within its very eye-sijiht !" That is plaiii talk enough. Tlicre is a kind of heroism, we may say soldierly bravery in such writing, that makes cowards tremble again. Hypocrites will not like it, neither. What should cowards, hypocrites and bigots do but hate a book that continually thunders in their cars such words as those — "Bribery sits on the judicial bench, and a licentious mob administers justice with tlie knife and the torch. In the pulpit crouchosgrim Superstition, preaching a God, whose mercy is one incarnate threat, whose beneficence is written on the grave-stone of a wrecked world !" Or, if you will, let us hear Luke Harvey rail a little — "Justice in the Quaker City ! Suppose the Almighty God should hold a court one day, and try the justice of the Quaker City, by his impartial law ! What a band of witnesses would come thronging to that solemn bar; come into court, old Stephen Girard, come into court with your \\\\l ii\ hand — that will which bniiueuthcd your enormous wealth to the white male orphans of the past, the present ol' generations yet unborn ; come into court and te.stiry ! What say you of Quaker City justice ? Is your College built 1 Has a single orphan been clothed, or educated at your expense, or with your mo- ney ! Come into court, widows and orphans, beggared by the hands of bank di- rectors — come into court ia your rags and misery ; come and testify : What think you of justice, as she holds the scales in Philadelphia ! Come into court Religion, and point to your churches in ruins ! Come into court, Humanity, and point to the blackened ashes of the Asylum, the School-house and tlie Hall !" There are some crumbs that will be lound hard eating enough for the seducer also. "In some old txxik of mysticism and superstition, I have read this wild legend, which mingling as it does the terrible with the grotesque, has still its meaning and its moral. "In the sky, far, far above the earth — so tlie legend runs — there hangs an Awful Bell, invisible to mortal eye, which angel hands alone may toll, which is never tolled save when the Unpardonable sin is committed on earth, and then its judg- ment peal rings out like the blast of the archanijors trumpet, breaking on tlie ear of the Criminal, and on his ear alone, with a sound that freezes his blood with horror. Tiio peal of the bell, hung in the azure de|)ths of space, announces to tlie Guilty one, that he is an outcast from God's mercy forever tliat his Crime can never be pnrdoned ; while the throne of theEternal endures; that in the hour of Death, his soul will be darkened by the hopeless prospect of an eternity of wo ; INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. ix wo without limit, despair without hope ; the torture of the never-dying worm, and the unquenchable flame, forever, and forever. "Reader 1 Did the sound of the judgment bell, pealing with one awful toll, from the invisible air, break over the soul of the Libertine, as ui darluiess and in silence, he stood shuddering over the victim of his Crime 1 "If in the books of the Last Day tliere should he found written down but Orie unpardonable crime, that crime will be Imown as the foul wrong, accomplished in the gaudy Rose Chamber of Monk-hall, by the wretch who now stood trembling in the darlaiess of the place, while his victim lay senseless at his feet." No doubt a large book, crowded full of this kind of sentiment, will be found very immoral to the moral feelings of the common knaves, and libertines of a great city. No doubt that the more refined sensualists, the Dr. Pynes and patent gos- pelers, in their libidinous taste, will pass by all these scorchuig rebukes, and fasten on the voluptuous picture of Dora Livingston's bosom. No doubt the hypocrite, the swindler, the monied knave, the Catholic-hater, the heathen-saver, and the despiser of the poor at home, will find enough to condemn in these pages. No doubt that fat and festered profligacy in the senate, the bench, the pulpit and the bar will cry out under the terrible lash of indignant and insulted genius pleading with the injured masses to arise and resent their wrongs. The work of genius would indeed go for naught if profligacy did not cry out. But why need good honest men take up the bigot's watch-word of alarm ! JMr. Lippard has never once aimed his envenomed shaft at any good brave man, in any profession or post of life. There is indeed somewhat of idolatry in the extravagant worship which he pays, both in his writings and private life, to all true great men. His Bcorn has been directed at none but the cunning knaves, who have smuggled them- selves into professions and posts of honor, very much as lizards may crawl into the lion's den, and set up to be lions too. These have found poor mercy at his hands. Lot us make room in this place for one more extract. "The State House clock had just struck eight, when amid, the gay crowds that thronged Ciiesnut Street, might be discerned one poor wan-faced man, who strode Badly up and down the pavement in front of a jeweller's window. The night was bitter cold, but a tattered round-about and patched trowse'rs, constituted his scanty apparel. He had not been shaven for several days, and a thick beard gave a wild appearance to his lank jaws and compressed lips. Ills face was pale as a mort- cloth, but his eye shone with that clear wild light that once seen can never be forgotten. There was Famine in the unnatural glea,m of that eye. His much- worn hat was thrown back from his pale forehead, and there, in the lines of that frovming brow you might read the full volume of wrong and want, which the op- pressors of this world write on the faces of the poor. "Up and down the cold pavement he strode. He looked fi-om side to side for a X INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. glance of pity. Tliere was no humanity in the eyes that met liis gazi\ Fashion- o'lo Dumcs going to the Opera, Merchiints in broad-cloth rolurnini^ from the countiii^i^-house, Bank Directors hurrying to their homes, godly preachers wending to tiieir Churches, tlieir fuce.i full of sobriety and their liearts burninjj with enmity to tlie Popo of Rome : These nil were there, on that crowded |)avcnient. But pity tor the Poor man, « lio with Famine written on. his forehead and blazing from his eyes, strode up and down, in front of the Jeweller's gaudy win low ? Not one BoliUiry throb ! " No br(>!ul, no fire," muttered the Mechanic aa he looked to the sky with a dark scowl on his brow. " No bread, no fire for two whole days. I can bear it, but God ! My child, my child '.'' Witii the tattered cull' of his coat sleeve, he wipeti away a salt tear from his clieek. " God I" ho fiercely muttered between his set teeth. " Is there a God ! Is lie just ! Then why have tliese people fine clothes and warm homes, when I, /, with honest hanils, have no bread to cat, no fire to warm me ]" Your pardon, [lious people, your pardon tor tlie blasphemy of this starving wretch ! Starvation you know is a grim sceptic, a very Infidel, a doubter and a Bcofl'or ! " Two days without broad or fire !" he nnittered and strode wearily along tlie street. Suddenly a hall-muttered cry of delight escaped from his lips. A splendid carriage, drawn by two blood horses, witli a coat of arms gleaming on ita panels, met his gaze. It was the work of an instant for the Mechanic to spring up behind this carriage, while a siniling-laced elderly gentleman sat alone by himself with- in. And away tlie horses dashed, until tliey reached a large mansion u» one of the most aristocratic story. In the dull jjopuliir idea ol" iiistoiy, tliis book is not merely a history. It is something more. It is a series of battle pictures ; with uU tlie Irutli of history in thoni, wliero the heroes are made living, present and visible to our senses. Here we do not merely turn over the dead dry facts of Ctener.il Wash- ington's battles, as if coldly digging them out of their tomb — but we see the living general as ho moves round over the tiehl of glory. We almost hear tlie word of his coinmaml. Wo are cpiite sure tliat we see tlie smoke rolling up from tlie field of battle, and hear tlie dreadful roar of the cannon, as it spouts its deatli- flame in the tlicc of the living and llie dead. Throiigli all we see dashing on the wild figure of mad Anthony Wayne, followed with tlic broken battle-cry of Pu- laski ; until along the line, and over the field, tlio images of dcatli and terror are only hidden from our view by Uic sliroud of smoke and flame. Tliero is not a relic of tlio Revolution, in tlie sliapo of an old man or woman, within a good hundred miles of the scene, which has not been visited by Jlr. Lippard, and their old memories sounded to tl>e bottom, until the last arxl smallest fact should be brought up. Not an inch of ground, on tlic old battle-fields, that he has not explored. Hardly an old revolutionary neu-sjxiixjr has Ikimi allowed to rest in peace ; that too must bo dug from its garret-grave, and stript of its cob-web shroud, to satisfy this insatiate iiuiiger lor revolutionary crumbs. At last all that survives, eitlier of fact or Ivgcnd, of those battles and battle men, is brought to light : painted before us, so tliat we can look upon every feature of the perilous times. Painted indeed. Of all the American authors, poets of novelists — Lippard comes nearest to tlio painter. So perfect and powerfiil are his descriptions. Wliat a magnificent picture might be made of liis "Sunset upon the Battlefield." " It was sunset upon the field of battle — solemn and quiet sunset. The rich, golden light fell over tlie grassy lawn, over tlic venerable fiibric of Chew's house, INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xvii antl over the trees scattered along the field, turning tlieir autiunnal foliage to quivering gold. "The scene was full of the spirit of desolation, steeped in death, and crimsoned in blood. Tiie green lawn — with the soil turned up by the cannon vvlieels, by the tramp of war steeds, by the rush of the foernen — was all heaped with ghastly piles of dead, whose cold upturned faces shone with a terrible lustre in the last beams of the declining sun. "There were senseless carcasses, with the arms rent from the shattered body, with the eyes scooped from the hollow sockets, with foreheads severed by the sword thrust, with Jiair dabbled in blood, with sunken jaws fallen on the gory chest ; there was all the iiorror, all the bloodshed, all tlie butchery of war, without a single gleam of its romance or chivalry. "Here a plaid-kilted Highlander, a dark-coated Hanoverian, were huddled together in the ghastliness of sudden death ; each with that fearful red wound denting the forehead, each with that same repulsive expression of convulsive pain, while their unclosed eyes, cold, dead, and lustreless, glared on the blue heavens with the glassy look of death. "Yonder, at the foot of a giant elm, an old Continental, sunk down in the grasp of death. His head is sunken on his breast, his white hair all blood-bedabbled, hia blue hunting shirt spotted with clotted drops of purple. The sunburnt hand ex- tended, grasps the unfailing rifle — the old warrior is merry even m death, for his lip wears a cold and unmoving smile. "A little farther on a peasant boy bites the sod, with his sunburnt face half buried in the blood-soddened earth, his rustic attire of linsey tinted by the last beams of the declining sun; one arm convulsively gathered under his head, the long brown hair all stiffened with blood, while the other grasps the well-used fow- ling piece, with which he rushed to the field, fought bravely, and died like a hero. The fowling piece is with him in death ; the fowling piece — compani-on of many a boyish ramble beside the Wissahikon, many a hunting excursion on the wild and dreamy hills that frown around that rivulot^is now beside him, but the hand that encloses its stock Ls colder than the iron of its rusted tube." In this there is no work left fur the imagination of the finest artist. Let him use his mechanical skill in light and shadow ; the picture is made for him. So also in the legend of General Agnew. "The last I)eams of the sun trembled over the high forehead of General Agnew, as, with his back turned to the grave-yard wall, he gazed upon the prospect, and his eye lit up with a sudden brilliancy, when the quick and piercing report of a rifle broke on the air, and echoed around the scene. "A small cloud of light blue smoke wound upward from the grave-yard wall, a ghastly smile overspread the face of Agnew, he looked wildly round for a single instant, and then fell hea\'ily to the dust of the road-side, a — lifeless corse. xviii INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. "His {jallant steed of ebon darkness of skin, lowered his proud crest, and tlirust his nostrils in liis muster's liice, his larfje eyes dilating', as he snuffed llie scent of blood upon tlie air ; and at the very moment tliat same wild and ghastly fiice ap- peared once more above the stones of tlic grave-yard wall, and a shriek of triumph, wilder and ghastlier Uion the face, orose shrieking above tlie graves. "That rifle shot, pealing from tlie grave-yard wall, was the last shot of tlie batlle-ose. I have seen it in winter, when tliere was snow upon tlie graves, and the sleigh- bells tinkled ui the street. Then calmly and tenderly upon the white tombstones, played and lingered the cold moon. "In summer, too, when the leaves were on the trees, and the grass upon the sod, when the chirp of tlie cricket and katy-did broke shrilly over the graves through the silence of night. In early spring, when there was scarce a blade of grass to struggle against the north wind, and late in fall when November baptizes you with her cloud of gloom, I have been there. "And in winter and sunmier, in tall and spring, in calm or storm, in sickness or healtli, in every change of this great play, called life, does my heart go out to that graveyard, as though part of it was already there. "Nor do I love it the less, because on every blade of grass, in every flower, that wildly blooms there, you find written : — " This soil is sacred from creeds. Here rests the Indian and the white man ; here sleep in one sod, the Catholic, Presby- terian, Quaker, Methodist, Lutheran, Mennonist, Deist, Infidel. Here, creeds forgotten, all are men and woman again, and not one but is a simple child of God. " This graveyard was established by men of all creeds, more than a century ago. May that day bo darkness, when creeds shall enter this rude gate. BeUer had that man never been born, who shall dare pollute this soil with the earthly clamor of sect. But on the man, who shall repair this wall, or keep this graveyard sacred from the hoofs of improvement, who shall do his best to keep our old grave- yard what it is, on that man, be tlie blessuigs of God; may his daughters be virtu- ous and beautiful, his sons gifted and brave. In his last hour, may tlic voices of angels sing hymns to his passing soul. If tliere was but one flower in the world, I would plant it on that man's grave." I know not how we shall keep back our hearts from the utmost love of the man who could write tliis " Old time Graveyard." It is what we all feel ; but cannot utter it thus. It breatlies such a loving, longing spirit — it seems as though some holy tear had found an utterance, and spoken to our licarts, as they speak to them- selves in moments of purest sadness. It is a great fort of Lippard's, this speaking to our hearts. With the deepest insight into the imnost workings of the human soul, he has also a passionate sense of the beautiful ; joined with tlie loftiest enthusiasm, the strongest imagination, and tlie keenest relish for whatsoever things are true. A necessity is upon him, to be a writer of the finest house-hold sentiments. ^ Another necessity is njxin him too. His thoughts again take fire-wings, and rush ofi' into gloom and space — now dipping their pinions in the blood of battles. xxiv INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. now wheeling through cliaos and black night, now shouting a cry of horror to the skies — now iiioltinij iiito tears again on some high rock tliat overlooks tlic mighty field of tlio world. In all tliis there is no affectation. He is still true to his nature, wliicli is cr.pa- ble of entering into all these extremes of sentiment and passion. He does not force his thoughts: his thoughts force hiin.— So there is \iu\c fillagne work in his writings — small use enough of ginger-hread and sugar-candy words. His severity is dreadful : it wouid split " tlic gnarled oak." If he thunders it is no blast of a tin trumpet; but Jove's most dreadlul anger. He does not make earth-quakes and tempests by " breaking flower-pots," and tireing torpedoes : it is not his way. His sneer is a terrible caustic — frighiful as the wrinkluig of Jupi- ter's brow : and, again, it flows off in a vein of o.\truvagant heedless levity, after the fashion, tlie Frenchman Rabelais. . Take it all iu all, this book is, perhaps, the best work Lippard has written. Though I doubt if we may say as much when his " Nazarene" is finished. From what has already appeared of the " Nazarene," and from what I know of the au- thor's plan in the completion of it, I shall look to that as his greatest work. Already it is freer of the faults of careless impetuous Genius than his i)re\ious books. I saklfauUs: it were as well said merits. That wild, heedless, reckless dashing oji, seen so often in the works of the freshest highest order of genius, would indeed be a mtrit to the tame dull perfection of less gifted minds. Tliese faviti, as we call them, to their " sm(Xjth round periods," would be like souls to a pile of dead bodies. It is not worth our while, though, to spend much time in talking oF faults in the style of a man of Lippard's genius. What has he to do with style, whose great heai't is already a furnace of fire-tlioughts, seethmg and simmering with cinotions for which he can find no utterance. Style indeed : that is a thing tlir pedants, word-mongers, sentence-makers to talk about In this re- spect however our author is fast getting above all honest criticism. Five years hence, life and health prospering him, it will not be a very safe thing for any scribbler to meddle with h't»/