[From the London Athenaeum.]

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

The great philosophical poet of our age, William Wordsworth, died at

Rydal Mount, in Westmoreland--among his native lakes and hills--on the

23d of April, in the eighty-first year of his age. Those who are curious

in the accidents of birth and death, observable in the biographies of

celebrated men, have thought it worthy of notice that the day of

Wordsworth's death was the anniversary of Shakspeare's birth.

William Wordsworth was born at Cockermouth, in Cumberland, on the 7th of

April, 1770, and educated at Hawkeshead Grammar School, and at St.

John's College, Cambridge. He was designed by his parents for the

Church--but poetry and new prospects turned him into another path. His

pursuit through life was poetry, and his profession that of Stamp

Distributor for the Government in the counties of Cumberland and

Westmoreland: to which office he was appointed by the joint interest, as

we have heard, of his friend, Sir George Beaumont, and his patron, Lord

Lonsdale.

Mr. Wordsworth made his first appearance as a poet in the year 1793, by

the publication of a thin quarto volume entitled "An Evening Walk--an

Epistle in Verse, addressed to a young Lady from the Lakes of the North

of England, by W. Wordsworth, B.A., of St. John's College, Cambridge."

Printed at London, and published by Johnson in St. Paul's Church-yard

from whose shop seven years before had appeared "The Task" of Cowper. In

the same year he published "Descriptive Sketches in Verse, taken during

a Pedestrian Tour in the Italian, Grison, Swiss and Savoyard Alps."

What was thought of these poems by a few youthful admirers may be

gathered from the account given by Coleridge in his "Biographia

Literaria." "During the last year of my residence at Cambridge, 1794, I

became acquainted with Mr. Wordsworth's first publication, entitled

'Descriptive Sketches;' and seldom, if ever, was the emergence of an

original poetic genius above the literary horizon more evidently

announced." The two poets, then personally unknown to each other, first

became acquainted in the summer of 1796, at Nether Stowey, in

Somersetshire. Coleridge was then in his twenty-fourth year, and

Wordsworth in his twenty-sixth. A congeniality of pursuit soon ripened

into intimacy; and in September, 1798, the two poets, accompanied by

Miss Wordsworth, made a tour in Germany.

Wordsworth's next publication was the first volume of his "Lyrical

Ballads," published in the summer of 1798 by Mr. Joseph Cottle, of

Bristol, who purchased the copyright for thirty guineas. It made no way

with the public, and Cottle was a loser by the bargain. So little,

indeed, was thought of the volume, that when Cottle's copyrights were

transferred to the Messrs. Longman, the "Lyrical Ballads" was thrown in

as a valueless volume, in the mercantile idea of the term. The copyright

was afterward returned to Cottle; and by him transferred to the great

poet, who lived to see it of real money value in the market of

successful publications.

Disappointed but not disheartened by the very indifferent success of his

"Lyrical Ballads," years elapsed before Mr. Wordsworth again appeared as

a poet. But he was not idle. He was every year maturing his own

principles of poetry and making good the remark of Coleridge, that to

admire on principle is the only way to imitate without loss of

originality. In the very year which witnessed the failure of his

"Lyrical Ballads," he wrote his "Peter Bell," the most strongly

condemned of all his poems. The publication of this when his name was

better known (for he kept it by him till, he says, it nearly survived

its _minority_) brought a shower of contemptuous criticisms on his

head.

Wordsworth married in the year 1803 Miss Mary Hutchinson of Penrith, and

settled among his beloved Lakes--first at Grasmere, and afterward at

Rydal Mount. Southey's subsequent retirement to the same beautiful

country, and Coleridge's visits to his brother poets, originated the

name of the Lake School of Poetry--"the school of whining and

hypochondriacal poets that haunt the Lakes"--by which the opponents of

their principles and the admirers of the _Edinburgh Review_

distinguished the three great poets whose names have long been and will

still continue to be connected.

Wordsworth's fame increasing, slowly, it is true, but securely, he put

forth in 1807 two volumes of his poems. They were reviewed by Byron,

then a young man of nineteen, and as yet not even a poet in print, in

the _Monthly Literary Recreations_ for the August of that year. "The

poems before us," says the reviewer, "are by the author of 'Lyrical

Ballads,' a collection which has not undeservedly met with a

considerable share of public applause. The characteristics of Mr.

Wordsworth's muse are, simple and flowing, though occasionally

inharmonious verse, strong and sometimes irresistible appeals to the

feelings, with unexceptionable sentiments. Though the present work may

not equal his former efforts, many of the poems possess a native

elegance, natural and unaffected, totally devoid of the tinsel

embellishments and abstract hyperboles of several contemporary

sonneteers. 'The Song at the feasting of Brougham Castle,' 'The Seven

Sisters,' 'The Affliction of Margaret ----, of ----,' possess all the

beauties and few of the defects of this writer. The pieces least worthy

of the author are those entitled 'Moods of My Own Mind.' We certainly

wish these moods had been less frequent." Such is a sample of Byron's

criticism--and of the criticising indeed till very recently of a large

class of people misled by the caustic notices of the _Edinburgh Review_,

the pungent satires of Byron, and the admirable parody of the poet's

occasional style contained in the "Rejected Addresses."

His next publication was "The Excursion, being a portion of The

Recluse," printed in quarto in the autumn of 1814. The critics were hard

upon it. "This will never do," was the memorable opening of the review

in the _Edinburgh_. Men who thought for themselves thought highly of the

poem--but few dared to speak out. Jeffrey boasted wherever he went that

he had _crushed_ it in its birth. "_He_ crush 'The Excursion!'" said

Southey, "tell him he might as easily crush Skiddaw." What Coleridge

often wished, that the first two books of "The Excursion" had been

published separately under the name of "The Deserted Cottage" was a

happy idea--and one, if it had been carried into execution, that would

have removed many of the trivial objections made at the time to its

unfinished character.

While "The Excursion" was still dividing the critics much in the same

way that Davenant's "Gondibert" divided them in the reign of Charles the

Second, "Peter Bell" appeared, to throw among them yet greater

difference of opinion. The author was evidently aware that the poem,

from the novelty of its construction, and the still greater novelty of

its hero, required some protection, and this protection he sought behind

the name of Southey: with which he tells us in the Dedication, his own

had often appeared "both for good and evil." The deriders of the poet

laughed still louder than before--his admirers too were at first

somewhat amazed--and the only consolation which the poet obtained was

from a sonnet of his own, in imitation of Milton's sonnet, beginning:

A book was writ of late called "Tetrachordon."

This sonnet runs as follows--

A book came forth of late, called "Peter Bell;"

Not negligent the style;--the matter?--good

As aught that song records of Robin Hood;

Or Roy, renowned through many a Scottish dell;

But some (who brook these hackneyed themes full wet

Nor heat at Tam O'Shanter's name their blood)

Waxed wrath, and with foul claws, a harpy brood

On Bard and Hero clamorously fell.

Heed not, wild Rover once through heath and glen.

Who mad'st at length the better life thy choice.

Heed not such onset! Nay, if praise of men

To thee appear not an unmeaning voice,

Lift up that gray-haired forehead and rejoice

In the just tribute of thy poet's pen.

Lamb in thanking the poet for his strange but clever poem, asked "Where

was 'The Wagoner?'" of which he retained a pleasant remembrance from

hearing Wordsworth read it in MS. when first written in 1806. Pleased

with the remembrance of the friendly essayist, the poet determined on

sending "The Wagoner" to press--and in 1815 the poem appeared with a

dedication to his old friend who had thought so favorably of it. Another

publication of this period which found still greater favor with many of

his admirers, was "The White Doe of Rylstone;" founded on a tradition

connected with the beautiful scenery that surrounds Bolton Priory, and

on a ballad in Percy's collection called "The Rising of the North."

His next poem of consequence in the history of his mind is "The River

Duddon," described in a noble series of sonnets, and containing some of

his very finest poetry. The poem is dedicated to his brother, the Rev.

Dr. Wordsworth, and appeared in 1820. The subject seems to have been

suggested by Coleridge; who, among his many unfulfilled intentions,

designed writing "The Brook," a poem which in his hands would surely

have been a masterly performance.

The "Duddon" did much for the extension of Wordsworth's fame; and the

public began to call, in consequence, for a fresh edition of his poems.

The sneers of Byron, so frequent in his "Don Juan," such as,

Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope,

Thou shalt not set up Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey,

Because the first is crazed beyond all hope,

The second drunk, the third so quaint and mouthey;

and again in another place,

"Peddlers" and "Boats" and "Wagons." Oh! ye shades

Of Pope and Dryden, are we come to this?

and somewhat further on,

The little boatman and his Peter Bell

Can sneer at him who drew Achitophel,

fell comparatively harmless. The public had now found out (what was

known only to a few before) that amid much novelty of construction and

connected with some very homely heroes, there was a rich vein of the

very noblest poetry throughout the whole of Wordsworth's works, such as

was not to be found elsewhere in the whole body of English poetry. The

author felt at the same time the truth of his own remark, that no really

great poet had ever obtained an immediate reputation, or any popular

recognition commensurate to his merits.

Wordsworth's last publication of importance was his "Yarrow Revisited,

and other Poems," published in 1835. The new volume, however, rather

sustained than added to his reputation. Some of the finer poems are

additions to his Memorials of a Tour in Scotland, which have always

ranked among the most delightful of his works.

In the same year Mr. Wordsworth received a pension of L300 a year from

Sir Robert Peel's government, and permission to resign his office of

Stamp Distributor in favor of his son. The remaining fifteen years of

his life were therefore even less diversified by events of moment than

any fifteen years previous had been. He seems henceforth to have

surrendered himself wholly to the muse--and to contemplations suitable

to his own habits of mind and to the lovely country in which he lived.

This course of life, however, was varied by a tour to Italy in company

with his friend, Mr. Crabb Robinson. The result of his visit, as far as

poetry is concerned, was not remarkable.

On Southey's death Mr. Wordsworth was appointed Poet Laureate: an

appropriate appointment, if such an office was to be retained at

all--for the laurel dignified by the brows of Ben Johnson, Davenant,

Dryden, Tom Warton, and Southey, had been sullied and degraded by

appearing on the unworthy temples of Tate, Eusden, Whitehead, and Pye.

Once, and once only, did Wordsworth sing in discharge of his office--on

the occasion of Her Majesty's visit to the University of Cambridge.

There is more obscurity, however, than poetry in what he wrote. Indeed,

the Ode in question must be looked on as another addition to the

numerous examples that we possess of how poor a figure the Muse

invariably makes when the occasion of her appearance is such as the poet

himself would not have selected for a voluntary invocation.

If Wordsworth was unfortunate--as he certainly was--in not finding any

recognition of his merits till his hair was gray, he was luckier than

other poets similarly situated have been in living to, a good old age,

and in the full enjoyment of the amplest fame which his youthful dreams

had ever pictured. His admirers have perhaps carried their idolatry too

far: but there can be no doubt of the high position which he must always

hold among British Poets. His style is simple, unaffected, and

vigorous--his blank verse manly and idiomatic--his sentiments both noble

and pathetic--and his images poetic and appropriate. His sonnets are

among the finest in the language: Milton's scarcely finer. "I think,"

says Coleridge, "that Wordsworth possessed more of the genius of a great

philosophic poet than any man I ever knew, or, as I believe, has existed

in England since Milton; but it seems to me that he ought never to have

abandoned the contemplative position which is peculiarly--perhaps I

might say exclusively--fitted for him. His proper title is _Spectator ab

extra_."

Mr. Wordsworth's works are rich in quotations suitable to the various

phases of human life; and his name will be remembered not by his "Peter

Bell," or his "Idiot Boy," or even his "Wagoner," but by his

"Excursion," his "Laodamia," his "Tintern Abbey," some twenty of his

sonnets, his "Daisy," and his "Yarrow _Un_visited." The lineaments of

his face will be perpetuated by Chantrey's noble bust; not by the

pictures of it, which in too many cases justify the description that he

gave of one of them in our hearing: "It is the head of a drover, or a

common juryman, or a writer in the _Edinburgh Review_, or a speaker in

the House of Commons: ... as for the head of a poet, it is no such

thing."

THE MOTHER'S FIRST DUTY.

I would wish every mother to pay attention to the difference between a

course of action, adopted in compliance with _the authority_, and

between a conduct pursued _for the sake of another_.

The first proceeds from reasoning; the second flows from affection. The

first may be abandoned, when the immediate cause may have ceased to

exist; the latter will be permanent, as it did not depend upon

circumstances, or accidental considerations, but is founded in a moral

and constant principle.

In the case now before us, if the infant does not disappoint the hope of

the mother, it will be a proof, first of affection, secondly, of

confidence.

Of affection--for the earliest, and the most innocent wish to please, is

that of the infant to please the mother. If it be questioned, whether

that wish can at all exist in one so little advanced in development. I

would again, as I do upon almost all occasions, appeal to the experience

of mothers.

It is a proof, also, of confidence. Whenever an infant has been

neglected; when the necessary attention has not been paid to its wants;

and when, instead of the smile of kindness, it has been treated with the

frown of severity; it will be difficult to restore it to that quiet and

amiable disposition, in which it will wait for the gratification of its

desires without impatience, and enjoy it without greediness.

If affection and confidence have once gained ground in the heart, it

will be the first duty of the mother to do every thing in her power to

encourage, to strengthen, and to elevate this principle.--_Pestalozzi._

PHYSICAL EDUCATION.

The revival of gymnastics is, in my opinion, the most important step

that has been done in that direction. The great merit of the gymnastic

art is not the facility with which certain exercises are performed, or

the qualification which they may give for certain exertions that require

much energy and dexterity; though an attainment of that sort is by no

means to be despised. But the greatest advantage resulting from a

practice of these exercises, is the natural progress which is observed

in the arrangement of them, beginning with those which, while they are

easy in themselves, yet lead as a preparatory practice to others which

are more complicated and more difficult. There is not, perhaps, any art

in which it may be so clearly shown, that energies which appeared to be

wanting, are to be produced, as it were, or at least are to be

developed, by no other means than practice alone. This might afford a

most useful hint to all those who are engaged in teaching any object of

instruction, and who meet with difficulties in bringing their pupils to

that proficiency which they had expected. Let them recommence on a new

plan, in which the exercises shall be differently arranged, and the

subjects brought forward in a manner that will admit of the natural

progress from the easier to the more difficult. When talent is wanting

altogether, I know that it can not be imparted by any system of

education. But I have been taught by experience to consider the cases,

in which talents of any kind are absolutely wanting, but very few. And

in most cases, I have had the satisfaction to find, that a faculty which

had been quite given over, instead of being developed, had been

obstructed rather in its agency by a variety of exercises which tended

to perplex or to deter from further exertion.

And here I would attend to a prejudice, which is common enough,

concerning the use of gymnastics; it is frequently said, that they may

be very good for those who are strong enough; but that those who are

suffering from weakness of constitution would be altogether unequal to,

and even endangered by, a practice of gymnastics.

Now, I will venture to say, that this rests merely upon a

misunderstanding of the first principles of gymnastics: the exercises

not only vary in proportion to the strength of individuals; but

exercises may be, and have been devised, for those also who were

decidedly suffering. And I have consulted the authority of the first

physicians, who declared, that in cases which had come under their

personal observation, individuals affected with pulmonary complaints, if

these had not already proceeded too far, had been materially relieved

and benefited by a constant practice of the few and simple exercises,

which the system in such cases proposes.

And for this very reason, that exercises may be devised for every age,

and for every degree of bodily strength, however reduced, I consider it

to be essential, that mothers should make themselves acquainted with

the principles of gymnastics, in order that, among the elementary and

preparatory exercises, they may be able to select those which, according

to circumstances, will be most likely to suit and benefit their

children.

If the physical advantage of gymnastics is great and incontrovertible, I

would contend, that the moral advantage resulting from them is as

valuable. I would again appeal to your own observation. You have seen a

number of schools in Germany and Switzerland, of which gymnastics formed

a leading feature; and I recollect that in our conversations on the

subject, you made the remark, which exactly agrees with my own

experience, that gymnastics, well conducted, essentially contribute to

render children not only cheerful and healthy, which, for moral

education, are two all-important points, but also to promote among them

a certain spirit of union, and a brotherly feeling, which is most

gratifying to the observer: habits of industry, openness and frankness

of character, personal courage, and a manly conduct in suffering pain,

are also among the natural and constant consequences of an early and a

continued practice of exercises on the gymnastic system.--_Pestalozzi._

MARRIED MEN.--So good was he, that I now take the opportunity of making

a confession which I have often had upon my lips, but have hesitated to

make from the fear of drawing upon myself the hatred of every married

woman. But now I will run the risk--so now for it--some time or other,

people must unburden their hearts. I confess, then, that I never find,

and never have found a man more lovable, more captivating than when he

is a married man; that is to say, a good married man. A man is never so

handsome, never so perfect in my eyes as when he is married, as when he

is a husband, and the father of a family, supporting, in his manly arms,

wife and children, and the whole domestic circle, which, in his entrance

into the married state, closes around him and constitutes a part of his

home and his world. He is not merely ennobled by this position, but he

is actually _beautified_ by it. Then he appears to me as the crown of

creation; and it is only such a man as this who is dangerous to me, and

with whom I am inclined to fall in love. But then propriety forbids it.

And Moses, and all European legislators declare it to be sinful, and all

married women would consider it a sacred duty to stone me.

Nevertheless, I can not prevent the thing. It is so, and it can not be

otherwise, and my only hope of appeasing those who are excited against

me is in my further confession, that no love affects me so pleasantly;

the contemplation of no happiness makes me so happy, as that between

married people. It is amazing to myself, because it seems to me, that I

living unmarried, or mateless, have with that happiness little to do.

But it is so, and it always was so.--_Miss Bremer._

[From the London Examiner.]

SIDNEY SMITH ON MORAL PHILOSOPHY.

_Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy_; delivered at the Royal

Institution, in the years 1804, 1805, and 1806. By the late Rev.

Sydney Smith, M.A. Longman and Co.

How difficult it is to discover the merits of a manuscript appears from

the history of this book. Lord Jeffrey, consulted as to the expediency

of its publication, while it yet existed but in pen and ink, gave a

decidedly adverse opinion. But some hundred copies having been printed

for private distribution, and a copy reaching Lord Jeffrey, he hastened,

with his accustomed candor and sweetness of disposition, to retract his

hostile verdict, after reading the book in print; and (only three days

before he was attacked by the illness which terminated his valuable

life) thus wrote to Sydney Smith's widow:

"I am now satisfied that in what I then said, I did great and grievous

injustice to the merit of these lectures, and was quite wrong in

dissuading their publication, or concluding they would add nothing to

the reputation of the author; on the contrary, my firm impression is,

that, with a few exceptions, they will do him as much credit as any

thing he ever wrote, and produce, on the whole, a stronger impression of

the force and vivacity of his intellect, as well as a _truer_ and more

engaging view of his character, than most of what the world has yet seen

of his writings."

One practical application of this anecdote is to enforce the importance

of calligraphical studies upon authors. A hieroglyphical hand is the

false medium excluding British authors from the public; In general we

should say that there is no class of men whose education in this respect

is so deplorably imperfect, or to whom "only six lessons" would so often

be priceless.

We must confess that the book before us has taken us by surprise,

notwithstanding our affectionate esteem and admiration for its writer.

It has raised our estimate of the power and range of his intellect, of

his insight into human character, of his well-balanced judgment, of his

tolerance and charity undebased by compromise with the vicious or mean,

of the vigorous play of his thoughts, of the sustained beauty of his

style, of his eloquence as well as his humor, and of his profundity no

less than of his wit. Hurriedly composed and unrevised though the

lectures obviously are, fragmentary as the condition is in which they

have been preserved, they are an invaluable addition to English

literature.

Their delivery is associated with the first outbreak of a fashion

ridiculed by Lord Byron in his _Beppo_ and his _Blues_. The poet's

satirical touches notwithstanding, we think that those lectures at the

Royal Institution were even more wanted by their fashionable auditors at

the time, than the similar prelections at Mechanics' Institutes which

came in vogue for less fashionable auditors some few years later. Had it

only been possible to insure the services of a series of Sydney Smiths,

the Institution might have gone on lecturing to the present day to the

unspeakable advantage of all parties concerned. What innumerable

fopperies in literature, in politics, in religion, we might thus have

escaped, it is not easy to conjecture!

The "Elementary Sketches" were delivered soon after the commencement of

Sydney's metropolitan career, and bear strong marks of his recent

residence in Edinburgh. In their general outline they closely

approximate to the course delivered from the moral philosophy chairs of

Scotch Universities. The division of the subject is the same; the

authorities most frequently and panegyrically cited are the same; the

principles and opinions set forth are in the main the same. Sydney

Smith's moral philosophy belongs undeniably to the Scotch school--to the

school of Reid, Stewart, and Adam Smith. But his "sketches" do not the

less indicate an original thinker, a master in the science taught, and

one who can suggest to the great men we have named almost as much as he

receives from them.

The book is an excellent illustration of what could be gained by

engrafting the Edinburgh philosophy on a full-grown healthy English

intellect. The habits of English society, and the classical tastes

imbibed at an English University, preserved Sydney Smith from that touch

of pedantry which characterized the thinkers of the Scotch universities,

trained in a provincial sphere, and trammeled by the Calvinistic logic

even after they had freed themselves from the Calvinistic theology.

Without disparaging the Edinburgh school of literature, the fact must be

admitted that its most prominent ornaments have generally had the

advantage of a "foreign" education. Hume and Black studied in France;

Adam Smith was the member of an English university; Jeffrey had become

familiar with Oxford, though he did not stay there; Homer was caught

young, and civilized at Hackney; and Mackintosh and Brougham, thoroughly

Scotch-bred, expanded amazingly when transplanted to the south. It may

be a national weakness, but it occurs to us that Sydney Smith, who was

southern born as well as bred, is still more free from narrownesses and

angularities than any of them.

The healthy and genial nature of the man accounts for his most

characteristic excellencies, but this book exhibits much we had not

looked for. The lectures on the passions evince a power of comprehending

and sympathizing with what is great in the emotional part of human

nature for which we were not prepared. The lectures on the conduct of

the understanding, and on habit, show that the writer had studied

profoundly and successfully the discipline of the mind and character.

The lectures on the beautiful are pervaded by a healthy and unaffected

appreciation of the loveliness of external nature. And combined with

these high qualities, is that incessant play of witty and humorous fancy

(perhaps the only certain safeguard against sentimental and systematic

excesses, and, when duly restrained by the judgment and moral sense,

the best corrective of hasty philosophizing), so peculiar to Sydney

Smith. Much of all that we have mentioned is indeed and undoubtedly

attributable to the original constitution of Smith's mind; but for much

he was also, beyond all question, indebted to the greater freedom of

thought and conversation which (as compared with the Scotch) has always

characterized literary and social opinion in England.

The topics discussed in the lectures naturally resolve themselves into,

and are arranged in, three divisions. We have an analysis of the

thinking faculties, or the powers of perception, conception, and

reasoning; an analysis of the powers of taste, or of what Schiller and

other Germans designate the _aesthetical_ part of our nature; and an

exposition of the "active powers of the mind," as they are designated in

the nomenclature of the school of Reid, the appetites, passions, and

will. All these themes are discussed with constant reference to a

practical application of the knowledge conveyed. Every thing is treated

in subordination to the establishment of rules for the right conduct of

the understanding, and the formation of good habits. These practical

lessons for the strengthening of the reason, and the regulation of the

emotions and imagination, constitute what, in the language of Sydney

Smith, and the school to which he belongs, is called "Moral Philosophy."

Apart from any particular school, the impression of the author left by

the perusal of his lectures is that he was a man of considerable reading

in books, but far more deeply read in the minds of those he encountered

in society. It is in this extensive knowledge of the world, confirming

and maturing the judgments suggested by his wisely-balanced powers of

feeling and humor, that the superiority of Smith over the rest of his

school consists. He knows men not merely as they are represented in

books, but as they actually are; he knows them not only as they exist in

a provincial sphere, narrowed by petty interests and trammeled by

pedantic opinion, but as they exist in the freest community of the

world, where boundless ambition and enterprise find full scope.

It appears to us that Sidney Smith is most perfectly at home--most

entirely in his element--when discussing the "active powers" of man, or

those impulses in which originate the practical business of life.

Scarcely, if at all, secondary in point of excellence to his remarks on

these topics, are those which he makes on the sublime and beautiful (a

fact for which many will not be prepared), and on wit and humor (which

every body will have expected). The least conclusive and satisfactory of

his discussions are those which relate to the intellectual powers, or

the anatomy of mind. With reference to this part of the course, however,

it must be kept in remembrance that here, more than in the other two

departments, he was fettered by the necessity of being popular in his

language, and brief and striking in his illustrations, in order to keep

within the range of the understandings and intellects of his auditory.

These earlier lectures, too, survive in a more fragmentary and

dilapidated condition than the rest. And after all, even where we seem

to miss a sufficiently extensive and intimate acquaintance with the

greatest and best writers on the subjects handled, or a sufficiently

subtle and precise phraseology, we always find the redeeming qualities

of lively and original conception, of witty and forcible illustration,

and of sound manly sense most felicitously expressed.

In the general tone and tendency of the lectures there is something

Socratic. There is the pervading common sense and practical turn of mind

which characterized the Greek philosopher. There is the liberal

tolerance, and the moral intrepidity. There is the amusement always

insinuating or enforcing instruction. There is the conversational tone,

and adaptation to the tastes and habits of the social circle. We feel

that we are listening to a man who moves habitually in what is called

the best society, who can relish and add a finishing grace to the

pleasures of those portions of the community, but who retains

unsophisticated his estimate of higher and more important matters, and

whose incessant aim is to engraft a better and worthier tone of thought

and aspiration upon the predominating frivolity of his associates.

Nothing can be more graceful or charming than the way in which Sydney

accommodates himself to the habitual language and thoughts of his

brilliant auditory; nothing more manly or strengthening than the sound

practical lessons he reads to them. Such a manual should now be

invaluable to our aristocracy. Let them thoroughly embue themselves with

its precepts, and do their best to act as largely as possible upon its

suggestions. They can have no better chance of maintaining their

position in the front of English society.

To appreciate the book as a whole--and its purpose, thought, and

sentiment impart to it a unity of the highest kind--it must be not only

read but studied. A few citations, however, gleaned here and there at

random, may convey some notion of the characteristic beauties and

felicities of thought and expression which are scattered through every

page of it.

SOCRATES.

Socrates was, in truth, not very fond of subtle and refined

speculations; and upon the intellectual part of our nature, little or

nothing of his opinions is recorded. If we may infer any thing from the

clearness and simplicity of his opinions on moral subjects, and from the

bent which his genius had received for the useful and the practical, he

would certainly have laid a strong foundation for rational metaphysics.

The slight sketch I have given of his moral doctrines contains nothing

very new or very brilliant, but comprehends those moral doctrines which

every person of education has been accustomed to hear from his

childhood; but two thousand years ago they were great discoveries, two

thousand years since, common sense was not invented. If Orpheus, or

Linus, or any of those melodious moralists, sung, in bad verses, such

advice as a grandmamma would now give to a child of six years old, he

was thought to be inspired by the gods, and statues and altars were

erected to his memory. In Hesiod there is a very grave exhortation to

mankind to wash their faces: and I have discovered a very strong analogy

between the precepts of Pythagoras and Mrs. Trimmer; both think that a

son ought to obey his father, and both are clear that a good man is

better than a bad one. Therefore, to measure aright this extraordinary

man, we must remember the period at which he lived; that he was the

first who called the attention of mankind from the pernicious subtleties

which engaged and perplexed their wandering understandings to the

practical rules of life; he was the great father and inventor of common

sense, as Ceres was of the plow, and Bacchus of intoxication. First, he

taught his contemporaries that they did not know what they pretended to

know; then he showed them that they knew nothing; then he told them what

they ought to know. Lastly, to sum the praise of Socrates, remember that

two thousand years ago, while men were worshiping the stones on which

they trod, and the insects which crawled beneath their feet; two

thousand years ago, with the bowl of poison in his hand, Socrates said,

"I am persuaded that my death, which is now just coming, will conduct me

into the presence of the gods, who are the most righteous governors, and

into the society of just and good men; and I derive confidence from the

hope that something of man remains after death, and that the condition

of good men will then be much better than that of the bad." Soon after

this he covered himself up with his cloak and expired.

PLATO.

Of all the disciples of Socrates, Plato, though he calls himself the

least, was certainly the most celebrated. As long as philosophy

continued to be studied among the Greeks and Romans, his doctrines were

taught, and his name revered. Even to the present day his writings give

a tinge to the language and speculations of philosophy and theology. Of

the majestic beauty of Plato's style, it is almost impossible to convey

an adequate idea. He keeps the understanding up to a high pitch of

enthusiasm longer than any existing writer; and, in reading Plato, zeal

and animation seem rather to be the regular feelings than the casual

effervescence of the mind. He appears almost disdaining the mutability

and imperfection of the earth on which he treads, to be drawing down

fire from heaven, and to be seeking among the gods above, for the

permanent, the beautiful, and the grand! In contrasting the vigor and

the magnitude of his conceptions with the extravagance of his

philosophical tenets, it is almost impossible to avoid wishing that he

had confined himself to the practice of eloquence; and, in this way

giving range and expansion to the mind which was struggling within him,

had become one of those famous orators who

"Wielded at will that fierce democratic,

Shook th' arsenal, and fulmin'd over Greece

To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne."

After having said so much of his language, I am afraid I must proceed to

his philosophy; observing always, that, in stating it, I do not always

pretend to understand it, and do not even engage to defend it. In

comparing the very few marks of sobriety and discretion with the

splendor of his genius, I have often exclaimed as Prince Henry did about

Falstaff's bill, "Oh, monstrous! but one half-pennyworth of bread to

this intolerable deal of sack!"

DR. REID.

In answer to these metaphysical lunacies, Dr. Reid has contended that,

for all reasoning, there must be some first principles from whence such

reasoning originates, and which must _necessarily_ be incapable of proof

or they would not be _first principles_; and that facts so irresistibly

ingrafted upon human belief as the existence of mind and matter, must be

assumed for truths, and reasoned upon as such. All that these skeptics

have said of the outer and the inner world may, with equal justice, be

applied to every other radical truth. Who can prove his own personal

identity? A man may think himself a clergyman, and believe he has

preached for these ten years last past; but I defy him to offer any sort

of _proof_ that he has not been a fishmonger all the time ... ever doubt

that all reasoning _must_ end in arbitrary belief; that we must, at

last, come to that point where the only reply can be, "I _am so_--this

belief is the constitution of my nature--God willed it." I grant that

this reasoning is a ready asylum for ignorance and imbecility, and that

it affords too easy a relief from the pain of rendering a reason: but

the most unwearied vigor of human talents must at last end there; the

wisdom of ages can get no further; here, after all, the Porch, the

Garden, the Academy, the Lyceum, must close their labors.

Much as we are indebted to Dr. Reid for preaching up this doctrine, he

has certainly executed it very badly; and nothing can be more imperfect

than the table of first principles which he has given us--an enumeration

of which is still a desideratum of the highest importance. The skeptics

may then call the philosophy of the human mind merely hypothetical; but

if it be so, all other knowledge must, of course, be hypothetical also;

and if it be so, and all is erroneous, it will do quite as well as

reality, if we keep up a certain proportion in our errors: for there

_may_ be no such things as lunar tables, no sea, and no ships; but, by

falling into one of these errors after the other, we avoid shipwreck,

or, what is the same thing, as it gives the same pain, the idea of

shipwreck. So with the philosophy of the human mind: I may have no

memory, and no imagination--they may be mistakes; but if I cultivate

them both, I derive honor and respect from my fellow-creatures, which

may be mistakes also; but they harmonize so well together, that they are

quite as good as realities. The only evil of errors is, that they are

never supported by consequences; if they were, they would be as good as

realities. Great merit is given to Dr. Reid for his destruction of what

is called the ideal system, but I confess I can not see the important

consequences to which it has yet led.

PUNS.

I have mentioned puns. They are, I believe, what I have denominated

them--the wit of words. They are exactly the same to words which wit is

to ideas, and consist in the sudden discovery of relations in language.

A pun, to be perfect in its kind, should contain two distinct meanings;

the one common and obvious; the other, more remote; and in the notice

which the mind takes of the relation between these two sets of words,

and in the surprise which that relation excites, the pleasure of a pun

consists. Miss Hamilton, in her book on Education, mentions the instance

of a boy so very neglectful, that he could never be brought to read the

word _patriarchs_; but whenever he met with it he always pronounced it

_partridges_. A friend of the writer observed to her, that it could

hardly be considered as a mere piece of negligence, for it appeared to

him that the boy, in calling them partridges, was _making game_ of the

patriarchs. Now, here are two distinct meanings contained in the same

phrase; for to make game of the patriarchs is to laugh at them; or to

make game of them is, by a very extravagant and laughable sort of

ignorance of words, to rank them among pheasants, partridges, and other

such delicacies, which the law takes under its protection and calls

_game_; and the whole pleasure derived from this pun consists in the

sudden discovery that two such different meanings are referable to one

form of expression. I have very little to say about puns; they are in

very bad repute, and so they _ought to_ be. The wit of language is so

miserably inferior to the wit of ideas, that it is very deservedly

driven out of good company. Sometimes, indeed, a pun makes its

appearance which seems for a moment to redeem its species; but we must

not be deceived by them; it is a radically bad race of wit. By

unremitting persecution, it has been at last got under, and driven into

cloisters--from whence it must never again be suffered to emerge into

the light of the world.

IMPORTANCE OF BEING ABLE TO DESPISE RIDICULE.

I know of no principle which it is of more importance to fix in the

minds of young people than that of the most determined resistance to the

encroachment of ridicule. Give up to the world, and to the ridicule with

which the world enforces its dominion, every trifling question of manner

and appearance; it is to toss courage and firmness to the winds, to

combat with the mass upon such subjects as these. But learn from the

earliest days to insure your principles against the perils of ridicule:

you can no more exercise your reason, if you live in the constant dread

of laughter, than you can enjoy your life, if you are in the constant

terror of death. If you think it right to differ from the times, and to

make a stand for any valuable point of morals, do it, however rustic,

however antiquated, however pedantic it may appear--do it, not for

insolence, but _seriously_ and _grandly_--as a man who wore a soul of

his own in his bosom, and did not wait till it was breathed into him by

the breath of fashion. Let men call you mean, if you know you are just;

hypocritical, if you are honestly religious; pusillanimous, if you feel

that you are firm: resistance soon converts unprincipled wit into

sincere respect; and no after-time can tear from you those feelings

which every man carries within him who has made a noble and successful

exertion in a virtuous cause.

BULLS AND CHARADES.

A bull--which must by no means be passed over in this recapitulation of

the family of wit and humor--a bull is exactly the counterpart of a

witticism: for as wit discovers real relations that are not apparent,

bulls admit apparent relations that are not real. The pleasure arising

from bulls, proceeds from our surprise at suddenly discovering two

things to be dissimilar in which a resemblance might have been

suspected. The same doctrine will apply to wit and bulls in action.

Practical wit discovers connection or relation between actions, in which

duller understandings discover none; and practical bulls originate from

an apparent relation between two actions which more correct

understandings immediately perceive to have none at all. In the late

rebellion in Ireland, the rebels, who had conceived a high degree of

indignation against some great banker, passed a resolution that they

would burn his notes; which they accordingly did, with great assiduity;

forgetting, that in burning his notes they were destroying his debts,

and that for every note which went into the flames, a correspondent

value went into the banker's pocket. A gentleman, in speaking of a

nobleman's wife of great rank and fortune, lamented very much that she

had no children. A medical gentleman who was present observed, that to

have no children was a great misfortune, but he thought he had remarked

it was _hereditary_ in some families. Take any instance of this branch

of the ridiculous, and you will always find an apparent relation of

ideas leading to a complete inconsistency.

I shall say nothing of charades, and such sort of unpardonable trumpery:

if charades are made at all, they should be made without benefit of

clergy, the offender should instantly be hurried off to execution, and

be cut off in the middle of his dullness, without being allowed to

explain to the executioner why his first is like his second, or what is

the resemblance between his fourth and his ninth.

WIT AND PROFESSED WITS.

I wish, after all I have said about wit and humor, I could satisfy

myself of their good effects upon the character and disposition; but I

am convinced the probable tendency of both is, to corrupt the

understanding and the heart. I am not speaking of wit where it is kept

down by more serious qualities of mind, and thrown into the background

of the picture; but where it stands out boldly and emphatically, and is

evidently the master quality in any particular mind. Professed wits,

though they are generally courted for the amusement they afford, are

seldom respected for the qualities they possess. The habit of seeing

things in a witty point of view, increases, and makes incursions from

its own proper regions, upon principles and opinions which are ever held

sacred by the wise and good. A witty man is a dramatic performer: in

process of time, he can no more exist without applause than he can exist

without air; if his audience be small, or if they are inattentive, or if

a new wit defrauds him of any portion of his admiration, it is all over

with him--he sickens, and is extinguished. The applauses of the theatre

on which he performs are so essential to him, that he must obtain them

at the expense of decency, friendship, and good feeling. It must always

be _probable_, too, that a _mere_ wit is a person of light and frivolous

understanding. His business is not to discover relations of ideas that

are _useful_, and have a real influence upon life, but to discover the

more trifling relations which are only amusing; he never looks at things

with the naked eye of common sense, but is always gazing at the world

through a Claude Lorraine glass--discovering a thousand appearances

which are created only by the instrument of inspection, and covering

every object with factitious and unnatural colors. In short, the

character of a _mere_ wit it is impossible to consider as very amiable,

very respectable, or very safe. So far the world, in judging of wit

where it has swallowed up all other qualities, judge aright; but I doubt

if they are sufficiently indulgent to this faculty where it exists in a

lesser degree, and as one out of many other ingredients of the

understanding. There is an association in men's minds between dullness

and wisdom, amusement and folly, which has a very powerful influence in

decision upon character, and is not overcome without considerable

difficulty. The reason is, that the _outward_ signs of a dull man and a

wise man are the same, and so are the outward signs of a frivolous man

and a witty man; and we are not to expect that the majority will be

disposed to look to much _more_ than the outward sign. I believe the

fact to be, that wit is very seldom the _only_ eminent quality which

resides in the mind of any man; it is commonly accompanied by many other

talents of every description, and ought to be considered as a strong

evidence of a fertile and superior understanding. Almost all the great

poets, orators, and statesmen of all times, have been witty, Caesar,

Alexander, Aristotle, Descartes, and Lord Bacon, were witty men; so were

Cicero, Shakspeare, Demosthenes, Boileau, Pope, Dryden, Fontenelle,

Jonson, Waller, Cowley, Solon, Socrates, Dr. Johnson, and almost every

man who has made a distinguished figure in the House of Commons. I have

talked of the _danger_ of wit: I do not mean by that to enter into

commonplace declamation against faculties because they _are_ dangerous;

wit is dangerous, eloquence is dangerous, a talent for observation is

dangerous, _every_ thing is dangerous that has efficacy and vigor for

its characteristics: nothing is safe but mediocrity. The business is, in

conducting the understanding well, to risk something; to aim at uniting

things that are commonly incompatible. The meaning of an extraordinary

man is, that he is _eight_ men, not one man; that he has as much wit as

if he had no sense, and as much sense as if he had no wit; that his

conduct is as judicious as if he were the dullest of human beings, and

his imagination as brilliant as if he were irretrievably ruined. But

when wit is combined with sense and information; when it is softened by

benevolence, and restrained by strong principle; when it is in the hands

of a man who can use it and despise it, who can be witty and something

much _better_ than witty, who loves honor, justice, decency,

good-nature, morality, and religion, ten thousand times better than wit;

wit is _then_ a beautiful and delightful part of our nature. There is no

more interesting spectacle than to see the effects of wit upon the

different characters of men; than to observe it expanding caution,

relaxing dignity, unfreezing coldness--teaching age, and care, and pain

to smile--extorting reluctant gleams of pleasure from melancholy, and

charming even the pangs of grief. It is pleasant to observe how it

penetrates through the coldness and awkwardness of society, gradually

bringing men nearer together, and, like the combined force of wine and

oil, giving every man a glad heart and a shining countenance. Genuine

and innocent wit like this, is surely the _flavor of the mind_! Man

could direct his ways by plain reason, and support his life by tasteless

food; but God has given us wit, and flavor, and brightness, and

laughter, and perfumes, to enliven the days of man's pilgrimage, and to

"charm his pained steps over the burning marl."

INFLUENCE OF ASSOCIATION.

I remember once seeing an advertisement in the papers, with which I was

much struck; and which I will take the liberty of reading: "Lost, in the

Temple Coffee-house, and supposed to be taken away by mistake, an oaken

stick, which has supported its master not only over the greatest part of

Europe, but has been his companion in his journeys over the inhospitable

deserts of Africa: whoever will restore it to the waiter, will confer a

very serious obligation on the advertiser; or, if that be any object,

shall receive a recompense very much above the value of the article

restored." Now, here is a man, who buys a sixpenny stick, because it is

useful; and, totally forgetting the trifling causes which first made his

stick of any consequence, speaks of it with warmth and affection; calls

it his companion; and would hardly have changed it, perhaps, for the

gold stick which is carried before the king. But the best and the

strongest example of this, and of the customary progress of association,

is in the passion of avarice. A child only loves a guinea because it

shines; and, as it is equally splendid, he loves a gilt button as well.

In after-life, he begins to love wealth, because it affords him the

comforts of existence; and then loves it so well, that he denies himself

the common comforts of life to increase it. The uniting idea is so

totally forgotten, that it is completely sacrificed to the ideas which

it unites. Two friends unite against the person to whose introduction

they are indebted for their knowledge of each other; exclude him their

society, and ruin him by their combination.

INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF ENJOYMENT.

Mankind are always happier for having been happy; so that if you make

them happy now, you make them happy twenty years hence, by the memory of

it. A childhood passed with a due mixture of rational indulgence, under

fond and wise parents, diffuses over the whole of life a feeling of calm

pleasure; and, in extreme old age, is the very last remembrance which

time can erase from the mind of man. No enjoyment, however

inconsiderable, is confined to the present moment. A man is the happier

for life, from having made once an agreeable tour, or lived for any

length of time with pleasant people, or enjoyed any considerable

interval of innocent pleasure: and it is most probably the recollection

of their past pleasures, which contributes to render old men so

inattentive to the scenes before them; and carries them back to a world

that is past, and to scenes never to be renewed again.

HAPPINESS AS A MORAL AGENT.

That virtue gives happiness we all know; but if it be true that

happiness contributes to virtue, the principle furnishes us with some

sort of excuse for the errors and excesses of able young man, at the

bottom of life, fretting with impatience under their obscurity, and

hatching a thousand chimeras of being neglected and overlooked by the

world. The natural cure for these errors is the sunshine of prosperity:

as they get happier, they get better, and learn, from the respect which

they receive from others, to respect themselves. "Whenever," says Mr.

Lancaster (in his book just published), "I met with a boy particularly

mischievous, I made him a monitor: I never knew this fail." The _cause_

for the promotion, and the kind of encouragement it must occasion, I

confess appear rather singular, but of the _effect_, I have no sort of

doubt.

POWER OF HABIT.

Habit uniformly and constantly strengthens all our active exertions:

whatever we do often, we become more and more apt to do. A snuff-taker

begins with a pinch of snuff per day, and ends with a pound or two every

month. Swearing begins in anger; it ends by mingling itself with

ordinary conversation. Such-like instances are of too common notoriety

to need that they be adduced; but, as I before observed, at the very

time that the tendency to do the thing is every day increasing, the

pleasure resulting from it is, by the blunted sensibility of the bodily

organ, diminished, and the desire is irresistible, though the

gratification is nothing. There is rather an entertaining example of

this in Fielding's "Life of Jonathan Wild," in that scene where he is

represented as playing at cards with the count, a professed gambler.

"Such," says Mr. Fielding, "was the power of habit over the minds of

these illustrious persons, that Mr. Wild could not keep his hands out of

the count's pockets, though he knew they were empty; nor could the count

abstain from palming a card, though he was well aware Mr. Wild had no

money to pay him."

THE USE OF THE PASSIONS.

The passions are in morals, what motion is in physics; they create,

preserve, and animate, and without them all would be silence and death.

Avarice guides men across the deserts of the ocean; pride covers the

earth with trophies, and mausoleums, and pyramids; love turns men from

their savage rudeness; ambition shakes the very foundations of kingdoms.

By the love of glory, weak nations swell into magnitude and strength.

Whatever there is of terrible, whatever there is of beautiful in human

events, all that shakes the soul to and fro, and is remembered while

thought and flesh cling together, all these have their origin from the

passions. As it is only in storms, and when their coming waters are

driven up into the air, that we catch a sight of the depths of the sea,

it is only in the season of perturbation that we have a glimpse of the

real internal nature of man. It is then only that the might of these

eruptions, shaking his frame, dissipates all the feeble coverings of

opinion, and rends in pieces that cobweb vail with which fashion hides

the feelings of the heart. It is then only that Nature speaks her

genuine feelings; and, as at the last night of Troy, when Venus

illumined the darkness, AEneas saw the gods themselves at work, so may

we, when the blaze of passion is flung upon man's nature, mark in him

the signs of a celestial origin, and tremble at the invisible agents of

God!

Look at great men in critical and perilous moments, when every cold and

little spirit is extinguished: their passions always bring them out

harmless, and at the very moment when they _seem_ to perish, they emerge

into greater glory. Alexander in the midst of his mutinous soldiers;

Frederick of Prussia, combating against the armies of three kingdoms;

Cortes, breaking in pieces the Mexican empire: their passions led all

these great men to fix their attention strongly upon the objects of

their desires; they saw them under aspects unknown to, and unseen by

common men, and which enabled them to conceive and execute those hardy

enterprises, deemed rash and foolish, till their wisdom was established

by their success. It is, in fact, the great passions alone which enable

men to distinguish between what is difficult and what is impossible; a

distinction always confounded by merely _sensible_ men, who do not even

_suspect_ the existence of those means which men of genius employ to

effect their object. It is only passion which gives a man that high

enthusiasm for his country, and makes him regard it as the only object

worthy of human attention; an enthusiasm which to common eyes appears

madness and extravagance, but which always creates fresh powers of mind,

and commonly insures their ultimate success. In fact, it is only the

great passions which, tearing us away from the seductions of indolence,

endow us with that continuity of attention, to which alone superiority

of mind is attached. It is to their passions alone, under the providence

of God, that nations must trust, when perils gather thick about them,

and their last moments seem to be at hand. The history of the world

shows us that men are not to be counted by their numbers, but by the

fire and vigor of their passions; by their deep sense of injury; by

their memory of past glory; by their eagerness for fresh fame; by their

clear and steady resolution of ceasing to live, or of achieving a

particular object, which, when it is _once_ formed, strikes off a load

of manacles and chains, and gives free space to all heavenly and heroic

feelings. All great and extraordinary actions come from the heart. There

are seasons in human affairs, when qualities fit enough to conduct the

common business of life, are feeble and useless, and when men must trust

to emotion for that safety which reason at such times can never give.

These are the feelings which led the ten thousand over the Carduchian

mountains; these are the feelings by which a handful of Greeks broke in

pieces the power of Persia: they have, by turns, humbled Austria,

reduced Spain; and in the fens of the Dutch, and on the mountains of the

Swiss, defended the happiness, and revenged the oppressions of man! God

calls all the passions out in their keenness and vigor for the present

safety of mankind. Anger, and revenge, and the heroic mind, and a

readiness to suffer; all the secret strength, all the invisible array of

the feelings, all that nature has reserved for the great scenes of the

world. For the usual hopes and the common aids of man are all gone!

Kings have perished, armies are subdued, nations mouldered away! Nothing

remains, under God, but those passions which have often proved the best

ministers of His vengeance, and the surest protectors of the world.

In that, and similar passages, a sustained feeling and expression not

ordinarily associated with Sydney Smith, impresses the reader with its

unaffected eloquence and emotion. We close the book reluctantly, for we

leave many things unquoted that had the most forcibly impressed us. In

the two chapters on the conduct of the understanding, there are most

masterly disquisitions on labor and study as connected with the

manifestations of genius; on the importance of men adhering to the

particular line of their powers or talents, and on the tendency of all

varieties of human accomplishment to the same great object of exalting

and gladdening life. We would also particularly mention a happy and

noble recommendation of the uses of classical study at the close of the

chapter on the sublime.

YOUNG POET'S PLAINT.

God, release our dying sister!

Beauteous blight hath sadly kiss'd her

Whiter than the wild, white roses,

Famine in her face discloses

Mute submission, patience holy,

Passing fair! but passing slowly.

Though she said, "You know I'm dying."

In her heart green trees are sighing;

Not of them hath pain bereft her,

In the city, where we left her:

"Bring," she said, "a hedgeside blossom!"

Love shall lay it on her bosom.

ELLIOTT.

ALEXANDER AFTER THE RETREAT FROM LUTZEN.--"The Emperor of Russia passed

the night of the battle at Pegau, whither his britcka containing his

papers and camp-bed had been brought; and, after having been twenty-four

hours on horseback, Lord Cathcart and his staff found the bare floor of

a cottage so comfortable a couch, without even the luxury of straw, that

no one seemed in a hurry to rise when we were informed soon after

daylight, that his imperial majesty was about to mount and depart, and

that the enemy were approaching to dislodge us. The emperor slowly rode

some miles toward the rear, along the Altenburg road, conversing with

Lord Cathcart about the battle: he laid great stress upon the report of

the commandant of artillery as to the want of ammunition, which he

assigned as the principal reason for not renewing the action; he spoke

of the result as a victory gained on our side; and it was afterward the

fashion in the army to consider it as such, though not perhaps a victory

so important in its consequences, or so decisive as could have been

wished. At length the emperor observed that he did not like to be seen

riding, fast to the rear, and that it was now necessary for him to go to

Dresden with all expedition, and prepare for ulterior operations: he

then entered his little traveling-carriage, which was drawn by relays of

Cossack horses, and proceeded by Altenburg to Penig."--_Cathcart._

[From the Dublin University Magazine.]

SONNETS FROM THE ITALIAN.

UPON THE DEATH OF THE REDEEMER.

BY MINZONI.

When, in that last, loud wail, the Son of God

Rent open graves and shook the mountain's steep--

Adam, affrighted from his world-long sleep,

Raised up his head; then stark and upright stood:

With fear and wonder filled, he moved around

His troubled eyes--then asked, with throbbing heart,

Who was that awful One who hung apart,

Gore-stained and lifeless, on the curst tree bound.

Soon as he learned, his penitent hand defiled

His shriveled brow and bloodless cheeks, and tore

The hoary locks that streamed his shoulders o'er.

Turning to Eve, in lamentation wild,

He cried, 'till Calvary echoed to the cry--

"WOMAN! FOR THEE I'VE GIVEN MY LORD TO DIE!"

TWO SONNETS ON JUDAS.

BY MONTI.

I.

Down on the Temple-floor the traitor flung

The infamous bribe for which he sold the Lord,

Then in despair rushed forth, and with a cord,

From out the tree, his reprobate body hung.

Pent in his throat, the struggling spirit poured

A mingled sound of rage and wildest grief,

And Christ it cursed, and its own sin in chief,

Which glutted hell with triumphs so abhorred.

Forth with a howl at last the spirit fled.

Then Justice bore it to the holy mount,

And dipping there her finger in the fount

Of Christ's all-sacred blood, the sentence dread

Wrote on its brow of everlasting woe,

Then, loathing, plunged it into hell below.

II.

Down into hell that wretched soul she flung,

When lo! a mighty earthquake shook the ground;

The mountain reeled. The wind swept fierce around

The black and strangled body where it hung.

From Calvary at eve, the angels wending,

On slow, hushed wing, their holy vigil o'er,

Saw it afar, and swift their white wings, blending

With trembling fear, their pure eyes spread before.

Meanwhile fiends pluck the corse down in the gloom,

And on their burning shoulders, as a bier,

Convey the burden to its nameless doom.

Cursing and howling, downward thus they steer

Their hell-ward course, and in its depths restore

The wandering soul to its damned corse once more.

SONNET UPON JUDAS.

BY GIANNI.

Spent with the struggles of his mad despair,

Judas hung gasping from the fatal tree;

Then swift the tempter-fiend sprang on him there,

Flapping his flame-red wings exultingly.

With griping claws he clutched the noose that bound

The traitor's throat, and hurled him down below,

Where hell's hot depths, incessant bubbling glow

His burning flesh and crackling bones around:

There, mid the gloomy shades, asunder riven

By storm and lurid flame, was SATAN seen;

Relaxing his stern brow, with hideous grin.

Within his dusky arms the wretch he caught,

And with smutched lips, fuliginous and hot,

_Repaid the kiss which he to Christ had given._

THE CHARACTER OF BURNS.

BY EBENEZER ELLIOTT.

Perhaps no falsehood has been more frequently repeated, than that men of

genius are less fortunate and less virtuous than other men; but the

obvious truth, that they who attempt little are less liable to failure

than they who attempt much, will account for the proverbial good luck of

fools. In our estimate of the sorrows and failings of literary men, we

forget that sorrow is the common lot; we forget, too, that the

misfortunes and the errors of men of genius are recorded; and that,

although their virtues may be utterly forgotten, their minutest faults

will be sure to find zealous historians. And this is as it should be.

Let the dead instruct us. But slanderers blame, in individuals, what

belongs to the species. "We women," says Clytemnestra in Eschylus, when

meditating the murder of her husband, and in reply to an attendant who

was praising the gentleness of the sex, "We women are--what we are." So

is it with us all. Then let every fault of men of genius be known; but

let not hypocrisy come with a sponge, and wipe away their virtues.

Of the misfortunes of Cowper we have all heard, and certainly he was

unfortunate, for he was liable to fits of insanity. But it might be said

of him, that he was tended through life by weeping angels. Warm-hearted

friends watched and guarded him with intense and unwearied solicitude;

the kindest hearted of the softer sex, the best of the best, seems to

have been born only to anticipate his wants. A glance at the world, will

show us that his fate, though sad, was not saddest; for how many madmen

are there, and how many men still more unfortunate than madmen, who have

no living-creature to aid, or soothe, or pity them! Think of

Milton--"blind among enemies!"

But the saddest incident in the life of Cowper remains to be told. In

his latter days, he was pensioned by the crown--a misfortune which I can

forgive to him, but not to destiny. It is consoling to think, that he

was not long conscious of his degradation after the cruel kindness was

inflicted on him. But why did not his friends, if weary of sustaining

their kinsman stricken by the arrows of the Almighty, suffer him to

perish in a _beggars'_ mad-house? Would he had died in a ditch rather

than this shadow had darkened over his grave! Burns was more fortunate

in his death than Cowper: he lived self-supported to the end. Glorious

hearted Burns! Noble, but unfortunate Cowper!

Burns was one of the few poets fit to be seen. It has been asserted that

genius is a disease--the malady of physical inferiority. It is certain

that we have heard of Pope, the hunchback: of Scott and Byron, the

cripples: of the epileptic Julius Caesar, who, it is said, never planned

a great battle without going into fits; and of Napoleon, whom a few

years of trouble killed: where Cobbett (a man of talent, not of genius)

would have melted St. Helena, rather than have given up the ghost with a

full belly. If Pope could have leaped over five-barred gates, he

probably would not have written his inimitable sofa-and-lap-dog poetry;

but it does not follow that he would not have written the "Essay on

Man;" and they who assert that genius is a physical disease, should

remember that, as true critics are more rare than true poets, we having

only one in our language, William Hazlitt, so, very tall and complete

men are as rare as genius itself, a fact well known to persons who have

the appointment of constables. And if it is undeniable that God wastes

nothing, and that we, therefore, perhaps seldom find a gigantic body

combined with a soul of AEolian tones; it is equally undeniable, that

Burns was an exception to the rule--a man of genius, tall, strong, and

handsome, as any man that could be picked out of a thousand at a country

fair.

But he was unfortunate, we are told. Unfortunate! He was a tow-heckler

who cleared six hundred pounds by the sale of his poems: of which sum he

left two hundred pounds behind him, in the hands of his brother Gilbert:

two facts which prove that he could neither be so unfortunate, nor so

imprudent, as we are told he was. If he had been a mere tow-heckler, I

suspect he would never have possessed six hundred shillings.

But he _was_ imprudent, it is said. Now, he is a wise man who has done

one act that influences beneficially his whole life. Burns did three

such acts--he wrote poetry--he published it; and, despairing of his

farm, he became an exciseman. It is true he did one imprudent act; and,

I hope, the young persons around me will be warned by it; he took a

farm, without thoroughly understanding the business of farming.

It does not appear that he wasted or lost any capital, except what he

threw away on his farm. He was unlucky, but not imprudent in giving it

up when he did. Had he held it a little longer, the Bank Restriction Act

would have enriched him at the expense of his landlord; but Burns was an

honest man, and, therefore, alike incapable of desiring and foreseeing

that enormous villainy.

But he was neglected, we are told. Neglected! No strong man in good

health _can_ be neglected, if he is true to himself. For the benefit of

the young, I wish we had a correct account of the number of persons who

fail of success, in a thousand that resolutely strive to do well. I do

not think it exceeds one per cent. By whom was Burns neglected?

Certainly not by the people of Scotland: for they paid him the highest

compliment that can be paid to an author: they bought his book! Oh, but

he ought to have been pensioned. Pensioned! Can not we think of poets

without thinking of pensions? _Are_ they such poor creatures, that they

can not earn an honest living? Let us hear no more of such degrading and

insolent nonsense.

But he was a drunkard, it is said. I do not mean to exculpate him when I

say that he was probably no worse, in that respect, than his neighbors;

for he _was_ worse if he was not better than they, the balance being

against him; and his Almighty Father would not fail to say to him, "What

didst thou with the lent talent?" But drunkenness, in his time, was the

vice of his country--it is so still; and if the traditions of Dumfries

are to be depended on, there are allurements which Burns was much less

able to resist than those of the bottle; and the supposition of his

frequent indulgence in the crimes to which those allurements lead, is

incompatible with that of his habitual drunkenness.

OF DELAYS.--Fortune is like the market where, many times, if you can

stay a little, the price will fall; and again, it is sometimes like the

Sibyl's offer, who at first offereth the commodity at full, then

consumeth part and part, and still holdeth up the price.... There is

surely no greater wisdom than well to time the beginnings and onsets of

things. Dangers are no more light if they once seem light: and more

dangers have deceived men than forced them. Nay, it were better to meet

some dangers half-way, though they come nothing near, than to keep too

long a watch upon their approaches; for if a man watch too long, it is

odds he will fall asleep. On the other side, to be deceived with too

long shadows--as some have been, when the moon was low and shone on

their enemies, and so to shoot off before the time--or to teach dangers

to come on, by an over-early buckling toward them, is another extreme.

The ripeness or unripeness of the occasion must ever be well weighed;

and, generally, it is good to commit the beginnings of all great actions

to Argus with his hundred eyes, and the ends to Briareus with his

hundred hands; first to watch, and then to speed.--_Lord Bacon._

[From the London Examiner.]

THE PARIS ELECTION.

All Paris is absorbed in the contest between the stationer Leclerc and

Eugene Sue the novelist. Strange it is that the party which pretends to

superior intelligence and refinement, should have put forward as their

candidate merely a specimen of constabulary violence, an honest

policemen, in fact; while the party accused of consisting of the mere

dregs of society has selected for its representative one of the most

refined and searching intellects of the day. If ever a man became a

Socialist from conviction, it has been Sue; for his writings clearly

show the progress and the changes of his mind. From depicting high

society and influences he acquired a disgust for them; by diving among

the vulgar, he discovered virtues whose existence he did not suspect.

And though the conclusions he has drawn are erroneous, they would seem

to be sincere.

It is remarkable indeed to observe how all the great literary geniuses

of the day in France have taken the popular side. We know how boldly

Lamartine plunged into it. Victor Hugo has taken the same part, and

Eugene Sue. Alexandre Dumas, though in the employ of Louis Philippe in

1830, soon flung aside court livery and conservatism. Emile de Girardin,

another man of first rate literary ability, is decidedly Socialist.

Beranger, as far as age will permit him, is a stern republican. When a

cause thus attracts and absorbs all the floating talent of a country,

there is a vitality and respectability in it, more than we are at

present inclined to allow to French democratic parties.

That the intellect, that is, the entire working intelligence of the

country, has labored on the Democratic, and, we fear even on the

Socialist side, is too evident from the fact that the opinions of the

latter have gained ground, and not retrograded even in the provinces,

where property is subdivided, and where there are few of the indigent

classes. In no place is property more generally possessed that in the

South of France; and there the results of the last two years have been

certainly to strengthen democratic ideas, and to make monarchic ones

decline. There is no mistaking, indeed, in what direction the current of

ideas has set.

The Conservatives, or Monarchists, or the old political class, whatever

one pleases to call them, begin to perceive that they are beaten in the

intellectual, the argumentative struggle. They therefore make an appeal

to arms. This is evident in all their acts, arguments, and movements.

Their efforts are directed to crush the press, proscribe and imprison

writers, and abolish meetings and speeches, except those delivered in

their own clubs. They give the universities over to the Jesuits, and

elect for the Assembly no longer orators, but stout soldiers.

Changarnier is the Alpha, and Leclerc the Omega of such a party.

Strategy is its policy. It meditates no question of political economy or

of trade, but bethinks it how streets are best defended, and how towns

are fortified against themselves. A War Minister, a Tax Minister, and a

Police Minister--these form the head Cabinet of France. As to foreign

policy, trade policy, and the other paraphernalia of government, all

this is as much a sham and a humbug, as an assembly must be of which the

majority is marshaled and instructed in a club, before it dares proceed

to its duties of legislation.

The entire tendency is to change an intellectual and argumentative into

a physical struggle. What events may occur, and what fortune prevail in

a war of this kind, it is utterly impossible to foretell. For, after

all, the results of war depend infinitely upon chance, and still more on

the talent of the leader which either party may choose to give itself.

Nor is it always the one which conquers first that maintains its

ascendency to the last. A war of this kind in France would evidently

have many soldiers enlisted on either side, and soldiers in that country

make excellent officers. The Conservatives seem to think that the strife

will be decided, as of old, in the streets of Paris; and they look to

the field of battle, and prepare for it, with a forethought and a

vigilance as sanguinary and destructive as it is determined. We doubt,

however, whether any quantity of street-fighting in the metropolis can

decide a quarrel which becomes every day more embittered and more

universal. Socialism will not be put down in a night, nor yet in three

days; no nor, we fear, even in a campaign.

Looking on the future in this light, it appears to us of trifling moment

whether M. Leclerc or M. Sue carry the Paris election. Some thousand

voters, more or less, on this side or on that, is no decision. The

terrible fact is, the almost equal division of French society into two

camps, either of which makes too formidable a minority to put up with

defeat and its consequences, without one day or other taking up arms to

advance fresh pretensions and defend new claims.

MRS. HEMANS.--She reminds us of a poet just named, and whom she

passionately admired, namely, Shelley. Like him, drooping, fragile, a

reed shaken by the wind, a mighty mind, in sooth, too powerful for the

tremulous reed on which it discoursed its music--like him, the victim of

exquisite nervous organization--like him, verse flowed on and from her,

and the sweet sound often overpowered the meaning, kissing it, as it

were, to death; like him she was melancholy, but the sadness of both was

musical, tearful, active, not stony, silent and motionless, still less

misanthropical and disdainful; like him she was gentle, playful, they

could both run about their prison garden, and dally with the dark chains

which they knew bound them to death. Mrs. Hemans was not indeed a

_Vates_, she has never reached his heights, nor sounded his depths, yet

they are, to our thought, so strikingly alike as to seem brother and

sister, in one beautiful but delicate and dying family.--_Gilfillan._

THE POPE AT HOME AGAIN.

The Pope has returned to Rome, but the Papacy is not reinstated. The

past can not be recalled. When Pius the Ninth abandoned the territorial

seat of the Papal power, he relinquished the post that preserved to that

power its place of command throughout many parts of Europe. It was the

"Pope _of Rome_" to whom the many did homage, and the Pope could only be

deemed to be "_of_ Rome" so long as he was _at_ Rome: for there can be

no doubt that a great part of the spiritual influence possessed by the

Sovereign Pontiff has been indissolubly connected with the temporal

sovereignty and territorial abode of the Pontificate. Even after his

dispossession, for a time, no doubt, heart might have been kept up among

his more refined and cultivated followers; but the most faithful peoples

have always demanded a tangible standard or beacon of their faith--a

pillar of fire or a visible church. When Pius left Rome, the rock became

tenantless; the mansion of St. Peter was vacant; a Pope in lodgings was

no Pope of Europe. And so it was felt.

But the bodily restoration of Pius the Ninth to the capital of his

states is not the restoration of the Pope to his spiritual throne. That

can no more be effected. The riddle has been read, in these terrible

days of reading and writing--so different from the days when a Papal

rustication at Avignon disturbed the Catholic world, and verily shook

the Papacy to its foundations even then. Some accounts describe the

Pope's return as a triumph, and relate how the Romans submitted

themselves in obedient ecstasy to his blessing: it is not true--it is

not in the nature of things. It is easy to get up an array of popular

feeling, as in a theatre, which shall make a show--a frontage of

delight; easy to hire twelve beggars that their feet may be washed. Mr.

Anderson of Drury Lane can furnish any amount of popular feeling or

pious awe at a shilling a head; and the managers know these things in

Rome, where labor is much cheaper than with us. Pius returned to Rome

under cover of the French bayonets, to find a people cowed and

sulky--contrasting their traditions with the presence of the Gaul,

remembering in bitterness the days before the Papacy, and imputing this

crowning finish of their disgrace to the Pope forced back upon them.

Even were the people for a moment pleased to see the well-meaning and

most unfortunate old man, the days of his inscrutable power are over.

Nothing can again be inscrutable that he can hold. While he was away,

the tongue of Rome was let loose, and can he make the ear of Rome forget

what it heard in those days of license? Can he undo the knowledge which

men then attained of each other, and their suppressed ideas? Assuredly

not. When he left the keys of St. Peter in his flight, men unlocked the

door of the sanctuary, and found out his secret--that it was bare.

Political bondage to them will be, not the renewal of pious ignorance,

but the rebinding of limbs that have learned to be free.

Nay, were Rome to resume her subjection, the past has been too much

broken up elsewhere for a quiet return to the old regime, even in Italy.

The ecclesiastical courts have been abolished in Piedmont, and the

Sardinian states henceforth stand in point of free discussion on a level

with Germany, if not with France. The Pope will be fain to permit more

in Genoa or Turin than the eating of eggs during Lent--to permit a

canvassing of Papal authority fatal to its existence. But in Tuscany,

for many generations, a spirit of free discussion has existed among the

educated classes: the reforming spirit of Ricci has never died in the

capital of Tuscany, and the memory of Leopold protected the freedom of

thought: a sudden and a new value has been given to that prepared state

of the Tuscan mind by the existence of free institutions in Piedmont.

Giusti will no longer need to traverse the frontier of Italy in search

of a printer. With free discussion in two of the Italian states, Milan

will not be deaf, nor Naples without a whisper. Italy _must_ sooner or

later get to know her own mind, and then the Bishop of Rome will have to

devise a new position for himself.

Abroad, in Catholic Europe, there is the same disruption between the

past and the future. The Archbishop of Cologne exposed, in his rashness,

the waning sanctity of the Church; the Neo-Catholics have exposed its

frangible condition. Sectarian distinctions are torn to pieces in

Hungary by the temporal conflicts, and the dormant spirit of a national

Protestantism survives in sullen hatred to alien rule. Austria proper is

pledged to any course of political expediency which may defer the evil

day of Imperial accountability, and will probably, in waxing

indifferency, see fit to put Lombardy on a spiritual par with Piedmont.

France is precarious in her allegiance. Two countries alone remain in

unaltered relation to the See of Rome--Spain, the most bigoted of the

children of Rome; and Ireland, the most faithful. But Ireland is

impotent. And to this day Spain asserts, and preserves, the _national_

independence which she has retained throughout the most arrogant days of

Romish supremacy, throughout the tyrant regime of Torquemada. Even court

intrigue dares not prostitute the _nationality_ of Spain to Roman

influence. Rome is the talk of the world, and the return of Pius to the

Vatican can not restore the silent submission of the faithful. He is but

to be counted among the "fashionable arrivals."--_London Spectator._

CIVIL LIBERTY DEFINED.--This is not the liberty which we can hope, that

no grievance ever should arise in the commonwealth; that let no man in

this world expect; but when complaints are freely heard, deeply

considered, and speedily reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil

liberty attained that wise men look for.--_John Milton._

[From the London Examiner.]

THE AUSTRALIAN COLONIES.

The Jutland and Sleswick pirates, who fourteen centuries ago performed

the great achievement of conquering and colonizing Britain, have since,

in the persons of their descendants, achieved the still greater feat of

colonizing and settling, while they are in a fair way of conquering and

occupying, a whole continent, to the destruction or absorption of every

other race. The Anglo-Saxon population of America, in fact, constitutes,

at this moment, a people more numerous and mighty than any European

nation of the period when their emigration commenced. The very same

people is now engaged in achieving another great, although not equally

great enterprise, the colonization of another continent, Australia; and

the Australian colonies, within sixty years of their first foundation,

are already calling loudly for self and responsible government, which

is, by more than a century, sooner than the American Colonies made a

similar claim. We have not the least doubt but that it will be to the

mutual and permanent advantage of both parties, that these demands of

the Colonists, which are in no respect unreasonable, should be liberally

and readily granted.

The better to understand our position in relation to them, let us

compare the two continents alluded to. America has a greater extent of

territory, and therefore more room for expansion than Australia. Its

natural products are more valuable, its soil is more fertile, and its

climates more varied and propitious to vegetation. Its greatest

superiority over Australia, however, consists in its magnificent water

communication--its great rivers, its splendid lakes, its navigable

estuaries, and its commodious harbors. Finally, it possesses the vast

advantage of being only one-sixth part of the distance that Australia is

from the civilization and markets of Europe.

Let us now see what Australia is. It is said to contain three millions

of square miles. But of this we take it that about one-half, or all of

it that lies north of the twenty-fifth degree of south latitude, is

unfit for our use as Europeans, and, most probably, for the profitable

use of any people, on account of the comparative sterility of the land,

or, what in such a situation is equivalent to sterility, the drought of

the climate. But for these great and, we fear, insuperable

disadvantages, the tropical portion of Australia might have been peopled

from industrious and teeming China, which, with the help of steam

navigation, is at an easy distance. Notwithstanding this serious

deduction from its available area, Australia has extent enough for the

abode of a great people, as what remains is equal to near twenty

Britains, or above seven countries as large as France!

The absence of good water communication is the greatest defect of

Australia. It has not one great river which at once penetrates deeply

into the country and communicates by a navigable course with the sea.

The best of its rivers are not equal to those of the fourth or fifth

order in America, and it has no lake at all of commercial value. Another

almost equally great disadvantage is frequent and long-continued

droughts, even of its southern parts, which, however, as strength and

wealth increase, may in time be, at least, mitigated by the erection of

great works of irrigation, such as those on which the existence of whole

populations depend in the warmer regions of Asia.

In salubrity of climate Australia has a great superiority, not only over

America, but over every other country. For the rearing of sheep and the

production of fine wool, it may be said to possess almost a natural

monopoly; and in this respect, it will soon become as necessary to us,

and probably as important, as America is for the growth of cotton. Its

adaptation for pastoral husbandry is such, indeed, that we have often

thought, had it been settled by Tartars or Arabs, or even by

Anglo-Saxons of the time of Hengist and Horsa, that it would have been

now thinly inhabited by nomade hordes, mere shepherds and robbers, if

there was any one to rob. One immense advantage Australia possesses over

America, which must not be omitted--the total absence of a servile

population and an alien race. In America the bondsmen form a fourth part

of the whole population, and in Australia little more than one sixtieth,

speedily to vanish all together.

If the comparison between America and Australia have reference to the

facility of achieving and maintaining independence, all the advantages

are unquestionably on the side of Australia. It is at least six times as

far away from Europe; and a military force sufficient to have even a

chance of coercing the colonists could not get at them in less than four

months, while the voyage would force it to run the gauntlet of the

equator and both tropics. When it reached its destination, supposing its

landing to be unopposed, it would have to march every step to seek the

insurgents, for there is neither river nor estuary to transport it into

the interior of the country. The colonists, rifle in hand, and driving

their flocks and herds before them to the privation of the invader,

would of course take to the bush, and do so with impunity, being without

tents or equipage, or risk of starvation, having a wholesome sky over

their heads, and abundant food in their cattle. With a thorough

knowledge of localities, the colonial riflemen, under such

circumstances, would be more than a match for regular troops, and could

pick off soldiers with more ease than they bring down the kangaroo or

opossum.

We should look, however, to the number and character of the Australian

population. In 1828 the total colonial population of Australia was

53,000, of whom a large proportion were convicts. In 1848 it was

300,000, of which the convicts were but 6000. In the two years since,

37,000 emigrants have proceeded thither, and the total population at

this moment can not be less than 350,000. It has, therefore, been

multiplied in twenty-two years' time by near seven-fold; and if it

should go on at this rate of increase, in the year 1872 it will amount

to close on two millions and a half, which is a greater population than

that of the old American colonies at the declaration of independence,

and after an existence of 175 years. Such a population, or the one half

of it, would, from numbers, position, and resources, be unconquerable.

Such is a true picture, we conceive, of the position in which we stand

in relation to our Australian colonies. Meanwhile, the colonists are

loyal, affectionate, and devoted, and (the result of absence and

distance) with really warmer feelings toward the mother country than

those they left behind them. It will be the part of wisdom on our side

to keep them in this temper. They demand nothing that is

unreasonable--nothing that it is not equally for their advantage and

ours that we should promptly and freely concede. They ask for

responsible government, and doing so they ask for no more than what is

possessed by their fellow-citizens. They ought to have perfect power

over their own resources and their own expenditure; but, in justice and

fairness, they ought also to defray their own military charges; and,

seeing they have neither within nor without any enemy that can cope with

a company of light infantry, the cost ought not to be oppressive to

them.

The Australian colonies are, at present, governed in a fashion to

produce discontent and recalcitration. They are, consequently, both

troublesome and expensive. The nation absolutely gains nothing by them

that it would not gain, and even in a higher degree, were they

self-governed, or, for that matter, were they even independent. Thus,

emigration to them would go on at least in the same degree as it does

now. It does so go on, to the self-governed colony of Canada, and to the

country which was once colonies, and this after a virtual separation of

three quarters of a century.

In like manner will our commercial intercourse with the Australian

colonies proceed under self-government. In 1828, the whole exports of

Australia amounted only to the paltry sum of L181,000, and in 1845, the

last for which there is a return, they had come to L2,187,633, or in

seventeen years' time, had been increased by above fourteen-fold, a

rapidity of progress to which there is no parallel. At this ratio, of

course, they can not be expected to proceed in future; for the

Australians, having coal, iron, and wool in abundance, will soon learn

to make coarse fabrics for themselves. The finer they will long receive

from us, as America, after its long separation, still does. But that the

Australian Colonies, under any circumstances, are destined to become one

of the greatest marts of British commerce, may be considered as a matter

of certainty. The only good market in the world, for the wool, the

tallow, the train oil, and the copper ore of Australia, is England; and

to England they must come, even if Australia were independent to-morrow;

and they must be paid for, too, in British manufactures. Independence

has never kept the tobacco of America from finding its best market in

England, nor has it prevented American cotton from becoming the greatest

of the raw materials imported by England.

A common lineage, a common language, common manners, customs, laws, and

institutions, bind us and our Australian brethren together, and will

continue to do so, perhaps longer than the British Constitution itself

will last. They form, in fact, a permanent bond of union; whereas the

influence of patronage, and the trickeries of Conservative legislation,

do but provoke and hasten the separation which they are foolishly framed

to prevent.

[From the Dublin University Magazine.]

JEWISH VENERATION.

The veneration of the Jew for the law is displayed by the grossest

superstition, a copy of the Torah or Decalogue being carefully soldered

into a narrow tin case, and hung over the entrance to their chambers, as

old crones with us nail a horse-shoe to a door; it is even believed to

avail as an amulet or charm capable of averting evil, or curing the most

obstinate disease. "Ah," said a bed-ridden old Hebrew woman to me, as I

visited the mission hospital in Jerusalem, "what can the doctors do for

me? If I could only touch the Torah I should be made whole." Not exactly

comprehending what she meant, I handed her a little tin-cased copy of

the Ten Commandments; she grasped it in her emaciated hands, which

trembled with anxiety, and her eyes were lit up with a transient gleam

of joy. "Are you made whole?" I inquired; she made no answer, fell back

on her pillow, let drop the Torah, and turned from me with a sigh.

Sitting one evening with an intelligent German Jew, who used often to

pay me a visit at my lodgings, the conversation turned on Jewish

religious rites and ceremonies. Alluding to the day of atonement, he

assured me that on that day the Jews believe that ministers are

appointed in heaven for the ensuing year: a minister over angels; one

over the stars; one over earth; the winds, trees, plants, birds, beasts,

fishes, men, and so forth.

That, on that day also, the good and evil deeds of every son of Abraham

are actually summed up, and the balance struck for or against each,

individually. Where the evil deeds preponderate, such individuals are

brought in as in debt to the law; and ten days after the day of

atonement, summonses are issued to call the defaulters before God. When

these are served, the party summoned to appear is visited either with

sudden death or a rapid and violent disease which must terminate

speedily in death. "But can not the divine wrath be appeased?" said I.

"Not appeased," said my informant; "_the decree must be evaded_." "How

so?" "Thus," he replied. "When a Jew is struck with sudden sickness

about this time, if he apprehends that his call is come, he sends

immediately for twelve elders of his people; they demand his name; he

tells them, for example, my name is Isaac; they answer, thy name shall

no more be Isaac, but Jacob shall thy name be called. Then kneeling

round the sick roan, they pray for him in these words: O God, thy

servant, Isaac, has not good deeds to exceed the evil, and a summons

against him has gone forth; but this pious man before thee, is named

Jacob, and not Isaac. There is a flaw in the indictment; the name in the

angel's summons is not correct, therefore, thy servant Jacob can not be

called on to appear." "After all," said I, "suppose this Jacob dies."

"Then," replied my companion, "_the Almighty is unjust_; the summons was

irregular, and its execution not according to law."

Does not this appear incredible? Another anecdote, and I have done.

On the same occasion we were speaking about vows, and the obligation of

fulfilling them. "As to paying your vow," said my Jewish friend, "we

consider it performed, if the vow be observed to the letter." He then

gave me the following rather ludicrous illustration as a case in point:

There was in his native village a wealthy Jew, who was seized with a

dangerous illness. Seeing death approach, despite of his physician's

skill, he bethought him of vowing a vow; so he solemnly promised, that

if God would restore him to health, he, on his part, on his recovery,

would sell a certain fat beast in his stall, and devote the proceeds to

the Lord.

The man recovered, and in due time appeared before the door of the

synagogue, driving before him a goodly ox, and carrying under one arm a

large, black Spanish cock. The people were coming out of the synagogue,

and several Jewish butchers, after artistically examining the fine, fat

beast, asked our convalescent what might be the price of the ox. "This

ox," replied the owner, "I value at _two shillings_ (I substitute

English money); but the cock," he added, ostentatiously exhibiting

chanticleer, "I estimate at _twenty pounds_." The butchers laughed at

him; they thought he was in joke. However, as he gravely persisted that

he was in earnest, one of them, taking him at his word, put down two

shillings for the ox. "Softly, my good friend," rejoined the seller, "_I

have made a vow not to sell the ox without the cock_; you must buy both,

or be content with neither." Great was the surprise of the bystanders,

who could not conceive what perversity possessed their wealthy neighbor.

But the cock being value for two shillings, and the ox for twenty

pounds, the bargain was concluded, and the money paid.

Our worthy Jew now walks up to the Rabbi, cash in hand. "This," said he,

handing the two shillings, "I devote to the service of the synagogue,

being the price of the ox, which I had vowed; and this, placing the

twenty pounds in his own bosom, is lawfully mine own, for is it not the

price of the cock?" "And what did your neighbors say of the transaction?

Did they not think this rich man an arrant rogue?" "Rogue!" said my

friend, repeating my last words with some amazement, "they considered

him a pious and a _clever_ man." Sharp enough, thought I; but delicate

about exposing my ignorance, I judiciously held my peace.

[From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.]

THE MODERN ARGONAUTS.

I.

You have heard the ancient story,

How the gallant sons of Greece,

Long ago, with Jason ventured

For the fated Golden Fleece;

How they traversed distant regions,

How they trod on hostile shores;

How they vexed the hoary Ocean

With the smiting of their oars;--

Listen, then, and you shall hear another wondrous tale,

Of a second Argo steering before a prosperous gale!

II.

From the southward came a rumor,

Over sea and over land;

From the blue Ionian islands,

And the old Hellenic strand,

That the sons of Agamemnon,

To their faith no longer true,

Had confiscated the carpets

Of a black and bearded Jew!

Helen's rape, compared to this, was but an idle toy,

Deeper guilt was that of Athens than the crime of haughty Troy.

III.

And the rumor, winged by Ate,

To the lofty chamber ran,

Where great Palmerston was sitting

In the midst of his Divan:

Like Saturnius triumphant,

In his high Olympian hall,

Unregarded by the mighty,

But detested by the small;

Overturning constitutions--setting nations by the ears,

With divers sapient plenipos, like Minto and his peers.

IV.

With his fist the proud dictator

Smote the table that it rang--

From the crystal vase before him

The blood-red wine upsprang!

"Is my sword a wreath of rushes,

Or an idle plume my pen,

That they dare to lay a finger

On the meanest of my men?

No amount of circumcision can annul the Briton's right--

Are they mad, these lords of Athens, for I know they can not fight?

V.

"Had the wrong been done by others,

By the cold and haughty Czar,

I had trembled ere I opened

All the thunders of my war.

But I care not for the yelping

Of these fangless curs of Greece--

Soon and sorely will I tax them

For the merchant's plundered Fleece.

From the earth his furniture for wrath and vengeance cries--

Ho, Eddisbury! take thy pen, and straightway write to Wyse!"

VI.

Joyfully the bells are ringing

In the old Athenian town,

Gayly to Piraeus harbor

Stream the merry people down;

For they see the fleet of Britain

Proudly steering to their shore,

Underneath the Christian banner

That they knew so well of yore,

When the guns at Navarino thundered o'er the sea,

And the Angel of the North proclaimed that Greece again was free.

VII.

Hark!--a signal gun--another!

On the deck a man appears

Stately as the Ocean-shaker--

"Ye Athenians, lend your ears!

Thomas Wyse am I, a herald

Come to parley with the Greek;

Palmerston hath sent me hither,

In his awful name I speak--

Ye have done a deed of folly--one that ye shall sorely rue!

Wherefore did ye lay a finger on the carpets of the Jew?

VIII.

"Don Pacifico of Malta!

Dull indeed were Britain's ear,

If the wrongs of such a hero

Tamely she could choose to hear!

Don Pacifico of Malta!

Knight-commander of the Fleece--

For his sake I hurl defiance

At the haughty towns of Greece.

Look to it--For by my head! since Xerxes crossed the strait,

Ye never saw an enemy so vengeful at your gate.

IX.

"Therefore now, restore the carpets,

With a forfeit twenty-fold;

And a goodly tribute offer

Of your treasure and your gold

Sapienza and the islet

Cervi, ye shall likewise cede,

So the mighty gods have spoken,

Thus hath Palmerston decreed!

Ere the sunset, let an answer issue from your monarch's lips;

In the mean time, I have orders to arrest your merchants' ships."

X.