“Hope of my hope, gone o’er the swelling ocean!

I weep for thee when night is on the sea:

My bosom bursteth with its deep emotion—

My spirit stretcheth out its arms but finds not thee.

O misery! and then itself within itself retires,

And weeps away a night that has no morn;

And lights forever up fierce funeral pyres—

Dreaming of cypress wreaths, and things forlorn.

“What sea-nymph made thy bed

Beneath the briny waves?

Thetis with golden hair?

Panopea wondrous fair,

Lone virgin of the ocean’s deepest caves,

With filmy garments shred

About thy form,

Mock of the brumal storm?

Ho! mourn with me, ye nymphs, he is no more!

Go sound it, Triton, o’er the humid waters!

Go weep for him again, ye misty daughters!

Re-echo it, ye cliffs, along our shore!

And I myself will take the sad refrain

Of the elegiac strain,

And tune my lyre to a symphonious stream

Floating along with many a moony gleam,

Soft as an angel’s dream,

Over the foamy summit of each wave,

That rolleth o’er his grave.

“Well do I know the day

That bore him hence away!

I watched him from yon cliff, in joy departing:

I, with the tear-drops starting,

Wept that he thus should go.

He, hopeful of the future, saw not wo

In the dim cloud that gathered, and the spray

Leaped joyful up about his seaward way—

Leaped up the vessel’s sides with treacherous kiss;

Deceitful waves, that now in the abyss

Have whelmed my love’s proud form,

Play of the pitiless storm.

“I’ve wept until my tears

Have worn with furrows deep my pallid cheek;

Have gazed until my poor eyes, worn and weak,

Like age’s eyes, seem faded with long years.

Oh! the long, dreary nights I’ve passed alone!

Would Reason from her throne

Might flee, and bear with her this dim, dull grief—

This memory’s haunting tone!

Then might I have relief.

Receive me, ocean! lo, to thee I come!

I, too, will share thy home:

Our bridal bed shall be of pearls and diamonds,

First loved, last loved, and fondly loved forever.

No distance e’er shall sever—”

The voice was hushed; I sped me to the strand.

Only the moonlight fell; and o’er the sand

A fountain gushed, pure as our holiest dreams.

Perchance ’twas she, thus changed; how could I tell?

And gone, as Arethusa once, beneath the deep,

Had sought her lover in his quiet sleep.

* * * * *

THE YEARS OF LOVE.

For Love there’s no oblivion. I have cherished

An idol beautiful, but in this hour,

Hopes that had bloomed for years have wholly perished,

And left me but the fragrance of the flower:

But be the hopes of love like blossoms blighted,

Wherever in the temples of the heart

Hath stood an altar with their splendor lighted,

The glory will not utterly depart;

Still as we enter life’s forgetful haven,

And every form of beauty disappears,

The pictures on the memory engraven

Of early love, win our last smiles and tears;

The inspiration of the first endeavor

After the love of woman dwells forever.

* * * * *

EARLY ENGLISH POETS.

GEORGE HERBERT.

BY JAMES W. WALL.

How few in our day have read the pious verses of George Herbert, “the

sweet singer of The Temple,” as his biographer, old Walton, so loves to

call him—verses overflowing with the sensibilities of a heart

consecrated to pious uses, all aglow with love for humanity, and an

ardent desire to bring it nearer to Him who so freely gave himself for

it.

Sweet George Herbert! Who that has ever read the rich outpourings of

your warm and pious spirit, but has felt how poor and cold in the

comparison were the promptings of his own? Who that has ever pondered

over your verse, radiant with the praises of that sanctuary in whose

hallowed courts you so loved to tread, but has felt the full force of

your own sweet words?

A verse may find him who a sermon flies,

And turn delight into a sacrifice.

George Herbert, the author of “The Temple,” a collection of sacred

poems, was of a most noble, generous, and ancient family. His brother

was the famous Edward Lord Herbert, of Cherbury, who was himself a poet,

but attained higher distinction as a statesman and historian, having

filled, during the reign of James I., the responsible posts of privy

counselor, and ambassador to France; it was while engaged in the duties

of this embassy that he composed his famous history of Henry the Eighth,

so often quoted and referred to by the modern English historian.

The subject of our sketch was born at Montgomery Castle, in Wales, April

3, 1593. He was educated at Westminster school, and being a king’s

scholar, was elected to Trinity College, Cambridge, about the year 1608.

He took both degrees in the Arts, and became a Fellow in the college. In

1619 he was chosen orator for the University, which post he held eight

years. This office he is said to have filled with great honor to himself

and to the University. And this was no wonder, for, to use the quaint

language of his biographer, old Izaak Walton, “he had acquired great

learning, and was blessed with a high fancy, a civil and sharp wit, and

with a natural elegance both in his behaviour, his tongue, and his pew.”

When that royal pedant, King James, published his “Basilicon Doron,” he

sent a copy to the University of Cambridge. Herbert, in his capacity as

orator, was called upon to acknowledge its receipt on behalf of the

institution, which he did in a most elegant manner, by a letter written

in Latin, closing with the following lines:

Quid vaticanam Bodleianamque objicis hospes!

Unicus est nobis Bibliotheca Liber.

The excellence of its Latinity, and the complimentary allusions

plentifully sprinkled through it, so pleased the vanity of the king,

that he inquired of the Earl of Pembroke if he knew the learned scholar

who penned the epistle. His answer was, “That he knew him very well, and

that he was his kinsman; but that he loved him more for his learning and

virtue, than that he was of his name and family.” At which answer the

king smiled, and asked the earl leave that he might love him too, for he

took him to be the jewel of that University.

The complimentary remark of the king, coming to the ears of Herbert, no

doubt first turned his thoughts toward court preferment; for about this

time we find him applying himself to the study of the Italian, French,

and Spanish languages, in which he is said to have attained great

proficiency; and by means of the attainment of which, to use his own

language, “he hoped to secure the place of Secretary of State, as his

predecessor, Sir Francis Nethersole had done.” This, and the love of

court conversation, with the laudable ambition to be something more than

he then was, drew him often from Cambridge to attend his majesty, King

James.

Shortly after this the king visited Cambridge in state, and was received

on behalf of the University by Herbert, in a most elegant oration in

Latin, stuffed full, as the manner of the time then was, of most fulsome

adulation. In his progress he was attended by the great Sir Francis

Bacon, Lord Verulam, and by the learned Dr. Andrews, Bishop of

Winchester; and Herbert, by his learning and suavity, soon captivated

these distinguished men. Bacon seems afterward to have put such value

upon his judgment, that he usually desired his approbation before he

would expose any of his books to be printed, and thought him so worthy

of his friendship, that having translated many of the Prophet David’s

Psalms into English verse, he made George Herbert his Patron, by a

public dedication of them to him as the “best judge of divine poetry.”

In 1620, the king gave Herbert a sinecure, formerly conferred upon Sir

Philip Sydney by Queen Elizabeth, worth some twelve hundred pounds per

annum.

His ambitious views of further court preferment seem never to have been

realized. The character of his mind, perhaps, did not fit him for the

responsible duties of a statesman, or he might have been deficient in

those arts of the courtier, so necessary, and such ready aid to court

preferment. It may be that he had too independent a spirit, and could

not “crook the pregnant hinges of the knee, that thrift might follow

fawning.” But be this as it may, we think, in the sentiment contained in

some verses written by our poet about the period of his leaving the

court and entering holy orders, we have a readier solution for the

sudden relinquishment of his hopes of court preferment. These verses

were written upon the famous saying of Cardinal Wolsey, uttered by that

proud churchman when his spirit was crushed, and the fruits of his

ambition had turned to ashes on his lips. “Oh, that I had served my God

with half the zeal with which I have served my king, he would not thus,

in my old age, have placed me in the power of mine enemies.”

No doubt the wholesome reflections inspired by the contemplation of

those touching words, awakened the sensitive mind of our poet to a full

appreciation of the vanity of all earthly ambition. He discovered in

time, that pleasures springing from honor and grandeur of condition, are

soon faded; that the mind nauseates, and soon begins to feel their

emptiness. In the words of one of England’s most gifted divines, “Those

who are so fond of public honor while they pursue it, how little do they

taste it when they have it? Like lightning it only flashes on the face,

and it is well if it do not hurt the man.”

Without further speculating as to the reasons that induced our poet to

fly from the court circles into the quiet retreat of the pastor’s life,

most certain it is, about the year 1629, we find him renouncing the pomp

and vanities of earthly ambition, and entering into holy orders.

Previous to his induction, we find him using the following language in a

letter to a friend: “I now look back upon my aspiring thoughts, and

think myself more happy than if I had attained what then I so

ambitiously thirsted for; and now I can behold the court with an

impartial eye, and see plainly that it is made up of graced titles, and

flattery, and many other such empty imaginary painted

pleasures—pleasures that are so empty as not to satisfy where they are

enjoyed. But in God and his service is a fullness of all joy and

pleasure, but no satiety.” Of the fervency of his piety we have a most

beautiful exemplification in some of his poems published about this

time, especially in that styled “The Odor,” in which he seems to rejoice

in the thought of the word “Jesus,” and say that the adding of these

words “my master,” to it “seemed to perfume his mind, and leave an

oriental fragrance in his very breath.” Alluding, in another poem, to

his “unforced choice to serve at God’s altar,” he says,

I know the ways of Learning; both the head and pipes

That feed the press, and make it run;

What reason hath from nature borrowed,

Or of itself, like Housewife sheen.

I know the ways of Honor, what maintains

The quick returns of courtesy and wit;

The ways of favor, either party gains

And the best mode of oft retaining it.

I know the ways of pleasure, the sweet strains,

The lullings and the relishes of it;

The proposition of hot blood and brains;

What mirth and musick mean; what love and wit.

Yet through these labyrinths, not my grovelling wit,

But the silk twist let down from heaven to me,

Did both conduct and teach me, how by it

To climb to thee.

In 1630 he was admitted to the priestly office, and was immediately

inducted to the Rectory of Bemerton, near Salisbury. And here it was,

stripping from him the gaudy trappings of a fashionable court, he

clothed himself in the better and more enduring robes of humility and

meekness. It was here, amid the quiet shades of his peaceful parish, he

prepared, for his own use and that of his brethren, a brief manual,

entitled “The Country Parson”—the rich gatherings of his own

experience, and the exemplification of his own ardor in the performance

of the duties of the pastoral office. His sermons, delivered while at

Bemerton, are practical in doctrine, forcible in illustration, and make

directly to the heart. They are just such sermons as we should suppose

the author of The Country Parson would preach. They are many of them

explanatory of the forms and services of the Church of England, urging

their importance and the necessity of their being truly understood.

He usually took his text from the gospel of the day appointed to be

read, and did as consistently declare why the Church did appoint that

portion of Scripture to be that day read; and he shortly made it appear

to them (to use his own words) “that the whole service of the Church was

a reasonable, and therefore an acceptable sacrifice to God—as, namely,

we begin with confession of ourselves to be vile and miserable sinners;

and we begin so because, until we have confessed ourselves to be such,

we are not capable of that mercy which we so much need; but having in

the prayer of our Lord begged pardon for those sins which we have

confessed, and hoping by our public confession and real repentance we

have obtained that pardon—then we dare and do proceed to beg of the

Lord ‘to open our lips, that our mouth may show forth his praise;’ for

till then we are not able and worthy to praise him.”

The church holydays and fasts, and the benefits to be derived from their

observance, were most beautifully illustrated in Herbert’s discourses;

and we venture to say that in the sermons of no clergyman of the Church

of England, or the Episcopal Church of America, can there be found so

practical and so beautiful an exemplification of the excellency of the

Episcopal Church service. The simple parishioners of Bemerton learned to

love the service of their church under the preachings of their sainted

pastor, because its practical usefulness, and its adaptation to their

every spiritual want, was brought forcibly home to the door of their

hearts. The form, they were taught, was as nothing, save as the most

fitting vehicle of their wants and spiritual aspirations. In our age,

where the cold religion of formality is seen struggling for the mastery

over that which is ardent and spiritual; when “the outward and visible

sign” seems to be more thought of than “the inward and spiritual grace;”

when the outward adornments of the sanctuary are held almost in as high

value, and as necessary to salvation, as the inward adornment of the

meek and pious spirit, it is refreshing to read such sermons as those of

Herbert. He was a formalist only so far as form could be made a means to

an end; a means to bring man to a closer contemplation of the love and

the abounding mercies of his God; a means through which he could be made

to praise him in holiness and truth. The form he looked upon as the

fitting vehicle, “the silken twist,” to lead man’s thoughts in fit

expression up to the throne of God. The summum bonum, the all in

religion, he still believed, and so most earnestly taught, consisted in

the free-will offering of the penitent and pious spirit.

In his essay on the duties of the Country Parson, he enjoins upon the

pastor, “to be constant in every good work, setting such an example to

his flock as they may be glad to follow; and by so doing, profit thereby

to their souls’ good.”

And most diligently (if we are to believe the testimony of his

contemporaries) did George Herbert conform himself to the character so

beautifully sketched. In the functions of his humble office he is said

to have led a most pious and blameless life.

The priests of the Levitical ministration, put on the humerus blazing

with jewels, before they took the breastplate of righteousness and

truth; thereby signifying that the priest must be a shining light,

resplendent with good works, before he fed them with righteousness and

truth, the legitimate milk of the word. And in the daily beauty of his

blameless life; in the gentle, dove-like spirit that animated his every

motive; in his daily charities, and his devout ministerings at the

altar, Herbert most beautifully illustrated the doctrines that he

preached. His life was “indeed, a shining light, resplendent with good

works;” and the flock which he so faithfully tended, found through his

guidance spiritual pastures. Quaint old Jeremy Taylor, alluding to the

necessity of the Christian pastor exemplifying in his daily life the

doctrines that he preaches, most beautifully remarks:

“Herod’s doves could never have invited so many strangers to their

dovecots if they had not been besmeared with most fragrant ointment. As

said Dydimus, make your pigeons smell sweet, and they will allure whole

flocks. And, Christian pastor, if your life be excellent, your virtues,

‘like precious ointment, full of fragrance,’ you will soon invite your

charges to run after your precious odors.”

Such, in all things, was the subject of our sketch; his virtues were the

precious ointment, full of fragrance, alluring the quiet flock his

Master had given him to feed.

We have said more of Herbert in his pastoral character than we first

intended, although, perhaps, we have not dwelt upon it too long to give

an illustration of the beautiful simplicity and pious ardor of the man.

It was in the quiet village of Bemerton that Herbert composed his little

volume of poems, styled “The Temple,” of which it was said by a

contemporary, “There was in it the picture of a divine soul in every

page, and the whole book was such a harmony of holy passions, as would

enrich the world with pleasure and piety.”

We do not pretend to claim for these songs any great poetic merit. They

abound with faults, such as were peculiar to most of the minor poets of

that age. The versification is often rough and inharmonious, the words

ill chosen for the rhyme, while conceits far-fetched and unnatural are

most plentifully sprinkled through them. These, however, are faults

peculiar to the versification of the time in which our poet flourished.

The great merit of these songs, most undoubtedly, consists mainly in the

pious ardor and genuine devotional feeling which characterize them. The

reader is attracted at once by the deep and earnest piety they manifest.

There seems to be a consistent effort in the poet’s mind to give

utterance to his devotional feeling in words of earnestness and power,

such words as shall not dishonor the high and noble theme he had chosen

for his subject. It can readily be discovered that they give utterance

to the language of his heart, and that the influence of that heart’s

holiest affections was the happiest inspiration of his verse. If there

is any truth in those sweet lines of Cowper,

The Poet’s lyre to fix his fame,

Should be the Poet’s heart;

Affection lights a brighter flame,

Than ever blazed by art.

then “sweet George Herbert” has made sure his claim to remembrance, and

left something behind him which posterity will not willingly let die.

Wherever deep and holy love for sacred things is esteemed, there the

verses of Herbert will find many ardent admirers. They are the pure and

free-will offerings of a heart consecrated to pious uses, and attuned to

sacred harmonies—the soft breathings of a devotional spirit, that seems

too pure for earth.

When he sings of the church where he so loved to worship, it is with all

the earnest enthusiasm, if not with the inspiration of that noble song

of Solomon, commencing,

“Behold thou art fair, my love, behold thou art fair; thou hast dove’s

eyes within thy locks, thy hair is as a flock of goats that appear from

Mount Gilead. Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is

comely; thy temples are like a piece of pomegranate within thy locks,

thou art all fair, my love, there is no spot within thee.”

And Herbert loved the church, because it was the fold where he could

gather the flock that had been given him to tend. The church on earth

was to him the emblem of the spiritual church “eternal in the heavens.”

His gentle spirit seems all aglow with love, whenever he sings of its

quiet retreats and the rich solemnities of its glorious worship.

The poems, styled “The Temple,” are preceded by a long poem as a

preface, called “The Church Porch,” where he would have the reader

linger before entering the sanctuary. And in the poem the poet takes

occasion to give sage counsel and most excellent advice, the better to

fit the mind for the contemplation of the sacredness of the sanctuary

beyond the porch. He would purify the spirit from the dross of earthly

vices, he would have it “purged of the contaminations of earth,” before

entering the temple, where the divine presence loves to dwell.

And no one who will read the advice embodied in this introductory poem,

but must rise from its perusal with the conviction that it contains a

code of morality, enforced by most excellent precepts. Independent of

its religious tone, it may be said to contain the very best of

principles, enforced by illustrations that carry conviction to the mind

at once. In the rude measure of the time, it holds up virtue in all its

beauty to our approbation, and lays bare all the hideousness of vice. He

seeks not for harmonious verse, as the vehicle of thought, he desires

not to please, but to persuade; not to amuse, but to instruct.

Is lust within, polluting, corrupting, and withering the heart, his

warning is,

Beware of lust; it doth pollute the soul

Whom God in baptism washed with his own blood,

It blots the lesson written in thy soul;

The holy words cannot be understood.

How dare those eyes upon a Bible look,

Much less toward God, “whose lust is all their book.”

Profanity he rebukes in lines like these:

Take not his name who made thy mouth, in vain.

It gets thee nothing, and has no excuse.

Lust and wine plead a pleasure, avarice gain;

But the cheap swearer, through his open sluice,

Lets his soul run for naught.

Remembering in whose sight “lying lips are an abomination,” and the

sacredness of whose sanctuary is polluted by falsehood, he breaks forth

with indignant tone,

Lie not, but let thy heart be true to God,

Thy mouth to it, thy actions to them both.

Cowards tell lies, and those that fear the rod.

The stormy working soul spits lies and froth;

Dare to be true—nothing can need a lie;

A fault which needs it most, grows two thereby.

Extravagance, which is the grateful mother of debt, penury, and want;

which has desolated as many homes, withered as many hearts, and

destroyed as many lives as the sword, he thus rebukes:

Never exceed thy income, youth may make

Even with the year; but age, if it will hit,

Shoots a bow short, and lessens still his stake

As the day lessens, and his life with it.

Thy children, kindred, friends upon thee call,

Before thy journey, fairly past with all.

The dangers that wait on suretyship, and the madness of yielding to its

pressing importunities, are thus set forth:

Yet be not surety, if thou be a father;

Love is a personal debt. I cannot give

My children’s right, nor ought he take it, rather

Both friends should die, than hinder them to live.

Fathers first enter bonds to nature’s ends,

And are her sureties, ere they are friends.

The spirit in which we should enter the hallowed courts of the

sanctuary, is set forth thus:

When once thy foot enters the church, believe

God is more there than thou, for thou art there

Only by his permission. Then beware,

And make thyself all reverence and fear.

Kneeling ne’er spoiled silk stockings; quit thy state,

All equal are within the church’s gate.

Space will not permit us to make further extracts from “The Porch.”

Enough has been given to show its tone and character. The poems called

“The Temple,” thus introduced, are a series of devotional songs upon

sacred subjects, overflowing with ardent feeling, and manifesting the

existence of a piety as fervent as it is rare.

In his verses on Prayer, we have an apt illustration of our author’s

style and devotional ardor.

Prayer, the Church’s banquet, angels age,

God’s breath in man returning to his birth.

The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,

The Christian’s plummet sounding heaven and earth.

The quiet stillness of the Sabbath morn, and the blessings that

accompany it, call forth such verses as the following:

Oh, day most calm, most bright,

The fruit of this, the next world’s bud,

Th’ indorsement of supreme delight,

Writ by a friend, and with his blood;

The couch of time, care’s balm, and bay;

The week were dark, but for thy light,

Thy torch doth show the way.

Sundays the pillars are

On which Heaven’s palace arched lies;

The other days fill up the spare

And hollow room with vanities;

They are the fruitful beds and borders

In God’s rich garden; that is base

Which parts their ranks and orders.

The Sundays of man’s life,

Threaded together on time’s string,

Make bracelets to adorn the wife

Of the eternal glorious king;

On Sundays Heaven’s door stands ope,

Blessings are plentiful and rife—

More plentiful than hope.

In his verses styled “The Odour,” we have an exemplification of the

Poet’s love for his Divine Master, expressed with that fervency which

betokens the sincerity of his adoration.

How sweetly doth my master sound! my master!

As ambergris leaves a rich scent

Unto the taster.

So do these words a sweet content,

An oriental fragrance—my master!

The poem entitled “Christmas,” has considerable merit, the versification

is smoother, and the measure not so irregular as most of his poems,

while at the same time it is characterized by the same warmth of

devotional feeling, that is manifested in all.

The shepherds sing, and shall I silent be?

My God, no hymn for thee?

My soul’s a shepherd, too; a flock it feeds

Of thoughts, and words, and deeds.

The pasture is thy word, the streams thy grace,

Enriching all the place.

Shepherd and flock shall sing, and all my powers

Outsing the daylight hours.

The little poem entitled “Jesu,” although it has neither the merit of

smoothness, or any poetical beauty, is strongly illustrative of the

purely saint-like piety of its author. Dr. Sanderson was enraptured with

this little production, and used to style it, “a gem of rare conceit.”

We see nothing in it, however, to warrant such praise; it certainly has

no poetic merit, and the conceit embodied in it, appears to be rude and

far-fetched.

JESU.

Jesu is in my heart, his sacred name

Is deeply carved there, but th’ other week,

A great affliction broke the little frame,

Ev’n all to pieces; which I went to seek;

And first I found the corner where was I,

After where es, and next where u was graved.

When I had got these parcels, instantly

I sat me down to spell them, and perceived

That to my broken heart, he was I ease you,

And to my whole is Jesu.

Space will not permit us to make further extracts from these poems of

Herbert’s. Those that we have given, illustrate the pious ardor of the

subject of our sketch, while at the same time they give evidence of some

claim to take position with the minor poets of his day. His prose

compositions undoubtedly possess more merit than his poetical, and

clearly entitle him to rank with the best of his contemporaries. The

beautiful simplicity of the character of our poet, has never been

surpassed in any age. His disposition was of the most sweet and engaging

nature, adorned with all the graces of a most saint-like piety. “He

lived like a saint,” says his enthusiastic biographer, old Walton, “and

like a saint did he die.” The Sunday before his death, raising himself

from his bed, he called for his instrument, and having tuned it, played

and sung that verse from his poems, commencing,

The Sundays of man’s life

Threaded together on time’s string,

Make bracelets to adorn the wife

Of the eternal, glorious king.

Like the dying swan,

As death darkened his eye and unplumed his wings,

His sweetest song was the last he sings.

* * * * *

THE GIFT OF A ROSE.

BY GEORGE D. PRENTICE.

I send thee, Mary, a sweet young rose,

That bright with the hues of the sunset glows;

Its beauty, alas! is frail and brief,

It will come to thee with a withered leaf,

But the fervent kiss that my earnest lips

Have left for thee on its crimson tips,

Will not from the fading flower depart,

But come all fresh to thy lip and heart;

For oh, ’tis a breath of the love and trust

That will live when our lips and our hearts are dust.

Mary, dear Mary, pray love this flower,

Let it have for thy heart a spell of power;

For I plucked it fresh from its lovely stalk,

On the blooming edge of that garden walk,

Where we strayed together so deeply blest,

When the sun was low in the golden west,

And murmured our loves in burning words,

With none to hear but the flowers and birds,

And lingered long on the dear, sweet spot,

While our warm hearts kissed, though our lips did not.

Mary, dear Mary, my thoughts still cleave

To each memory sweet of that blessed eve,

To each tone more dear than the sweetest lute,

To each vow we breathed when our lips were mute,

To the wild, deep thrill through each trembling frame,

From fingers warmed with a pulse of flame,

To each gentle tear, to each gentle sob,

To each sigh that told of the heart’s deep throb,

Aye, these memories dwell in this soul of mine—

Oh, Mary dear, do they live in thine?

Mary, dear Mary, I pray thee say,

Do the roses bloom where thy steps now stray?

Do they look at morn on the sky’s soft blue

Through the trembling tears of the early dew?

When I come to thee will they smile to greet

Thy lover’s steps with their perfume sweet?

Will they list at eve to our tender vows?

Will they weave their wreaths for our gentle brows?

And when at last we are doomed to part,

Will they breathe a sigh for each breaking heart?

Mary, dear Mary, I fain would know,

Do thy heart’s sweet flowers keep their fresh young glow?

Are their eyes yet turned on the skies above?

Do they glitter still with the dews of love?

Has no blighting frost, has no bitter blast

Cold, cold o’er their buds and their blossoms past?

If my name is said, are their leaves yet stirred

To the olden thrill at the cherished word?

And say, oh say, will those dear, heart flowers,

Still bloom for me in the Eden bowers?

* * * * *

AH, DO NOT SPEAK SO COLDLY.

Ballad.

WORDS BY

FITZGERALD.

MUSIC BY

BENKERT.

Published by permission of Edward L. Walker, 160 Chestnut Street.

_Publisher and Importer of Music and Musical Instruments._

[Illustration]

Ah! do not speak so coldly,

Cold words my heart will chill;

If I have lov’d too boldly,

Oh! let me worship still?

If

[Illustration]

I have lov’d too boldly,

Oh! let me worship still?

The pure heart loves forever,

To its own likeness true;

And though fate bids us sever

I’ll love I’ll love but you,

And though fate bids us sever

I’ll love I’ll love but you.

SECOND VERSE.

The heart will throb in sorrow

If from its idol torn.

Nor elsewhere joy will borrow,

If love’s return be scorn.

Then do not speak so coldly,

Cold words my heart will chill;

E’en if I’ve lov’d too boldly,

Oh! let me worship still, &c.

* * * * *

TEAL AND TEAL SHOOTING.

BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, AUTHOR OF FRANK FORESTER’S “FIELD SPORTS,” “FISH

AND FISHING,” ETC.

[Illustration: THE GREEN-WINGED TEAL. (_Anas Carolinensis._)

THE BLUE-WINGED TEAL. (_Anas Discors._)]

In this present month, the sport of duck-shooting on the inland streams,

rivers, and lakelets, may be held to commence in earnest, as contrasted

to the pursuit of the same tribes on the outer bays, estuaries, and

surf-banks. About the end of September, and thenceforth through this and

the next ensuing month, according to the variations of the seasons, and

the longer or shorter endurance of that delicious time, the most

delicious and most gorgeous of the whole American year, known throughout

this continent as Indian Summer, the Mallard, and the two beautiful

species which we have placed at the head of this article, begin to make

their appearance on the little lakes of the interior, and in the various

streams and rivers which fall into them, and thence downward to the

Atlantic seaboard.

In the vast northern solitudes of the great lakes of the northwest, in

all the streams of Upper Canada, even to the feeders of Lake Superior,

and throughout the western country so far south as Texas, and northward

to the Columbia and the fur countries, the Blue-Winged Teal breeds,

literally by myriads. Throughout the great lakes, it is abundant in the

early autumn, becoming excessively fat on the seed of the wild rice,

with which the shallows of all those waters are overgrown, and being

deservedly esteemed as one of the best, if not the very best, of the

duck tribe. But it is the first of its race to remove from the wild,

limpid waters, and wood-embosomed rivers of the great west, to the

seaboard tide-waters, taking the inland water-courses on their route,

rarely visiting the actual sea-shores, and proceeding on the occurrence

of the first frosts, for they are singularly susceptible of cold, to the

Southern States, where they swarm, especially in the inundated

rice-fields of Georgia and South Carolina, during the winter months.

The Green-Winged Teal, which is the nearest congener, and frequently the

associate of the Blue-Wing, has a far less extensive range, so far as

regards its breeding-grounds, in as much as it never, so far as has been

satisfactorily shown, has nidificated or produced its young south of the

Great Lakes, nor even there in great numbers, its favorite haunts, for

the purposes of reproduction, being the extreme northern swamps and

wooded morasses almost up to the verge of the arctic circles. It does

not come down on its southward migration, at nearly so early a period of

the autumn as its congener, being less susceptible of cold, and tarrying

on the Great Lakes till the frosts set in with sufficient severity to

prevent its frequenting its favorite haunts with pleasure, or obtaining

its food with facility. It is rarely or never seen in the Middle States

during the summer, but is tolerably abundant during the autumn on all

the marshy lakes and pools, and along the shores of all the reedy rivers

from the great lakes downward to the sea-board, though, like the last

named species, it is purely a fresh-water duck, never frequenting the

sea-shores or salt bays, finding no food thereon with which to gratify

its delicate and fastidious palate, which, eschewing fish, the larvæ of

insects, and the lesser _crustaceæ_, relishes only the seeds of the

various water plants and grasses, the tender leaves of some vegetables,

and more especially the grain of the wild rice, _Zizania panicula

effusa_, which is its favorite article of subsistence, and one to which

may be ascribed the excellence of every bird of air or water which feeds

on it, from the Rice-Bird and the Rail, to the Teal, the Canvas-Back,

and even the large Thick-Billed _Fuligula_, closely allied to the

Scoter, the Velvet Duck, and other uneatable sea-fowl of Lake Huron,

which are scarcely, if at all, inferior to the Red Heads of Chesapeake

Bay, the Gunpowder, or the Potomac. On the Susquehanna and the Delaware,

both these beautiful little ducks were in past years excessively

abundant, so that a good gunner, paddling one of the sharp, swift skiffs

peculiar to those waters, was certain of filling his boat with these

delicious ducks within a few hours’ shooting. Both of these species are

rather tame than otherwise, the blue-winged bird more particularly,

which has a habit, on the lower waters of the Delaware especially, of

congregating on the mud in vast flocks, sunning themselves in the serene

and golden light of a September noon, so careless and easy of approach,

that the gunner is frequently enabled to paddle his skiff within a few

yards of them, and to rake them with close discharges of his heavy

batteries. At times, when the tide is out, and the birds are assembled

on the flats out of gunshot from the water’s edge, the thorough-going

sportsman, reckless of wet feet or muddy breeches, will run his skiff

ashore, several hundred yards above or below the flock, and getting

cautiously overboard, will push it before him over the smooth, slippery

mud-flats, keeping himself carefully concealed under its stern until

within gunshot, which he can sometimes reduce to so little as fifteen or

twenty yards, by this murderous and stealthy method. The Green-Winged

Teal is much less apt to congregate, especially on shore, than the

other, and consequently, affords less sport to the boat-shooter, keeping

for the most part afloat in little companies, or trips, as they are

technically called, very much on the alert, and springing rapidly on the

wing when disturbed. They, and the Blue-Wings also, fly very rapidly,

dodging occasionally on the wing, not unlike to a wild, sharp-flying

Woodcock, and when they alight, darting downward with a short, sudden

twist among the reeds or rushy covert, exactly after the fashion of the

same bird.

The commoner and, in our opinion—where these birds are abundant either

along the courses of winding drains or streamlets, or in large reedy

marshes, with wet soil and occasional pools or splashes—far the more

exciting way of killing them is to go carefully and warily on foot, with

a good medium-sized double-gun, say of eight to ten pounds weight, and a

thoroughly well broke and steady spaniel, to retrieve and occasionally

to flush the birds, which will sometimes, though rarely, lie very hard.

A good sportsman will frequently, thus late in the autumn, when the

mornings are sharp and biting, and the noons warm and hazy, but before

the ice makes, pick up, on favorable ground, his eight or nine couple in

a day’s walking, with a chance of picking up at the same time a few

Snipe, Golden Plovers, Curlew, or Godwit; and this, in our mind, is

equal to slaughtering a boat load by sneaking up in ambush to within

twenty yards of a great company, whistling to make them lift their heads

and ruffle up their loosened plumage, so as to give easy entrance to the

shot, and then pouring into them at half point-blank range, a half pound

of heavy shot.

In the southern States they are commonly taken, says Wilson, “in vast

numbers, in traps placed on the small dry eminences that here and there

rise above the water of the inundated rice fields. These places are

strewed with rice, and by the common contrivance called a figure four,

they are caught alive in hollow traps.” This we, of course, merely

mention as illustrative of the habits of the bird; for, of course, no

sportsman would dream of resorting to so worse than poacher-like a

proceeding. The mode described by the eloquent pioneer of American

natural history, is probably practised, for the most part, by the

negroes for the supply of their masters’ table, and furnishing their own

pockets with a little extra change, and is not used by the planters as a

means of sport or amusement. It must be remembered, also, that Wilson,

than whom there is no writer more to be relied on in matters which he

relates of his own knowledge, and as occurring in his own days, must

often be taken _cum grano salis_, as to the numbers of birds slain in

this way or that within a certain time—things which he records,

probably, on hearsay, and on which—we are sorry to say it—even good

sportsmen, men who on any other subject would scorn to deviate one

hair’s breadth from the truth, will not hesitate to draw a bow as long

and as strong as Munchausen’s. Again, he writes of times when sporting

was but little pursued, otherwise than as a method of procuring superior

food for the table, or for the purpose of destroying noxious vermin and

beasts of prey; when the rules of sportsmanship were little understood

and as little regarded; and, lastly, when game abounded to a degree

literally inconceivable in our day—although we have ourselves seen,

with sorrow, the diminution, amounting in many regions around our large

cities almost to extinction, of all birds and beasts—nay, but even fish

of chase, within the last twenty years. We must be careful therefore not

to charge exaggeration on a writer who, beyond a doubt, faithfully

recorded that which he himself saw and enjoyed in his day; which we

might see likewise and enjoy in our generation, and our children and

grand-children after us, if it were not for the greedy, stupid, selfish,

and brutal pot-hunting propensities of our population, alike rural of

the country and mechanical of the cities, which seems resolutely and of

set purpose bent on the utter annihilation of every species of game,

whether of fur, fin or feather, which is yet found within our

boundaries.

In my opinion, the common error of all American fowlers and duck

shooters, lies, in the first place, in the overloading the gun

altogether, causing it to recoil so much as to be exceedingly

disagreeable and even painful, and in the same degree diminishing the

effect of the discharge; for it must never be forgotten that when a gun

recoils, whatever force is expended on the retrogressive motion of the

breech, that same force is to be deducted from the propulsion of the

charge. In the second place, he erroneously loads with extremely large

and heavy shot, the result of which is, in two respects, inferior to

that of a lighter and higher number. First, as there will be three or

four pellets of No. 4 for every one pellet of A or B in a charge, and,

consequently, as the load is thereby so much the more regularly

distributed, and so much the more likely to strike the object, and that

in several places more, in the ratio of three or four to one, than could

be effected by A’s or B’s. Second, as the flesh will constantly close

over the wound made by a small shot, so as to cause the bleeding to go

on internally to the engorgement of the tissues and suffocation by

hemorrhage; whereas the wound made by the large grain will relieve

itself by copious bleeding, and the bird so injured will oftentimes

recover, after having fallen even to the surface of the water, or lain

flapping, as it were, in the death-struggle on the blood-stained sand or

grassy hassocks. This fact has been well noticed, and several examples

adduced to prove its truth, by Mr. Giraud, in his exceedingly clear and

correct, though, to our taste, far too brief volume on the “Birds of

Long Island.”

For my own use I invariably adopt for all the smaller species of

duck—as the two varieties of Teal, the Summer Duck, the Golden Eye, and

the Buffel-headed Duck, _Anates_, _Carolinensis_, _Discors_, _Sponsa_,

and _Fuligulæ_, _Clanguid_, and _Albeola_—the same shot which is

generally used for the various birds known on our shores and rivers as

bay-snipe, viz: No. 4 or 5—the latter best for the Plovers, the former

for duck, whether in large or small guns. In this relation I may observe

that, on one occasion—the only one, by the way, on which I ever saw a

green-winged teal in the summer season—I killed a couple of these

beautiful birds, right and left, while woodcock shooting, in Orange

County, New York, with No. 8 shot. They sprang quite unexpectedly from

behind a willow bush, on the Wuwayanda creek, and I dropped them both

quite dead, some what to my own astonishment, and to the utter

astounding of Fat Tom, who witnessed it, into the middle of the stream,

respectively at twenty and twenty-five yards distance. Until I recovered

them I supposed that they were young wood ducks, but on examination they

proved to be young green-winged teal, of that season, in their immature

plumage. This must have been in the last week of July or the first of

August—it was many years since, and as at that time I kept no shooting

diary, I unfortunately am unable to verify the exact date. The birds

must, I conclude, have been bred in that vicinity, by what means I

cannot conjecture, unless that the parent birds might have been wounded

in the spring, and disabled from completing their northern migration,

and that this, as is some times the case with the minor birds of

passage, might have superinduced their breeding in that, for them, far

southern region. In corroboration of this I may add that, in the spring

of 1846, a couple of these birds haunted a small reedy island in front

of my house, on the Passaic, to so late a day in summer—the 29th, if I

do not err, of May—that I sedulously avoided disturbing them, in the

hope that they would breed there. This I yet think would have been the

case but for the constant disturbance of that lovely river throughout

the summer by gangs of ruffianly loafers, with whom the neighboring town

of Newark abounds beyond any other town of its size in the known world,

boating upon its silvery surface day and night, and rendering day and

night equally hideous with their howls and blasphemies.

Before proceeding to the description of these birds it is well to

observe that it will be found the better way, in approaching them, as

indeed _all_ wild fowl, to work, if possible, up wind to them; not that

wild fowl have the power, as some pretend, of scenting the odor of the

human enemy on the tainted gale, as is undoubtedly the case with deer

and many other quadrupeds, but that their hearing is exceedingly acute,

and that their heads are pricked up to listen, at the occurrence of the

least unusual sound, and at the next moment—_hey, presto!_—they are

off.

The little cut at the head of this paper, for his spirited and faithful

execution of which the author and artist must be permitted to return his

acknowledgments to his friend, Mr. Brightly, represents a favorite

feeding ground of the various tribes of water fowl, as is indicated by

the large gaggle of geese passing over, from right to left, and the trip

of green-wings alighting to the call of a clamorous drake in the

background. On a rocky spur of the shore, in the right foreground, is a

male Green-Winged Teal, in the act of springing, with his legs already

gathered under him; and, still nearer to the front of the picture, on

the right, a Blue-Winged Drake, swimming on the limpid water, soliciting

his congener, with reverted neck, and the harsh gabble—whence his

name—to take wing and greet the new-comers—it being the object of the

draftsman to give an idea not merely of the markings and form of these

two most beautiful and graceful of the duck tribe, but of their motions,

the character of their flights, and the nature of their feeding grounds

and habitations.

The head of the Green-Winged Teal is of moderate size and compressed;

the bill nearly as long as the head, deeper than broad at the base,

depressed at the tip; neck slender, of moderate length; body full and

depressed; wings rather small, feet short and rather far back.

The plumage is short and blended; that of the hinder head and neck

elongated into a soft filamentous drooping crest. The bill is black;

iris hazel; feet light blue; head and upper part of neck bright chestnut

brown; a broad band of shining rich bottle-green, narrowings from the

eye backward and downward to the nape, margined below with black,

anterior to which is a white line; chin dusky brown. Upper parts and

flanks white, beautifully and closely undulated with narrow lines of

deep gray. Anterior to the wings is a broad transverse lunated white

bar—_this alone distinguishing the American from the European bird_.

The wing coverts, scapulars and quills gray. The speculum bright green

above, blue-black below, margined posteriorly with pure white. Tail

brownish gray, margined with paler brown. Lower part of the neck

undulated, like the back. Breast pale rufous, spotted and banded with

black; white below. Abdomen white, barred with gray. A black patch under

the tail; the lateral tail coverts tawny, the larger black, white-tipped

and margined. Length of male bird, 14¾.24. Female, 13¾.22½.

The description and drawing of this bird are taken, by kind permission,

which the writer gratefully acknowledges, from a fine specimen in the

Academy of Natural Science of this city.

The Blue-Winged Teal is rather larger than the above, the male measuring

16.31½, the female 15.24.

The shape and proportions of this bird closely resemble those of the

latter, but in plumage it widely differs from it. The bill is blueish

black; iris dark hazel; feet dull yellow, webs dusky; upper part of the

head black, a semilunar patch of pure white, margined with black

anterior to the eye; the rest of the head and upper neck deep purplish

gray, with changeable ruddy reflections. The lower hind neck, back,

alula, and upper parts generally, rich chocolate brown, every feather

margined with paler tints, from reddish buff to pale reddish gray, with

black central markings, changing to metallic green in the centres. Upper

wing coverts rich ultra-marine blue, with a metallic lustre; the lower

parts pale reddish orange, shaded on the breast with purplish red, and

thickly spotted with roundish or eliptical black spots; axillary

feathers, lower wing coverts, and a patch on the side of the rump, pure

white; lower tail coverts brownish black.

These, with the exception of the Buffel-Headed Duck, are the two

smallest; with the exception of the Summer Duck, the two loveliest; with

the exception of the Canvas-Back the two best of the duck tribe. Well

met be they, whether on the board or in the field—shot be they with No.

4—eaten roast, underdone, with cayenne and a squeeze of a lemon,

lubricated with red wine, _quantum suff._

* * * * *

THE FINE ARTS.

_Amateur Concerts—Difference between Stage Singing and Chamber

Singing—Effect produced by Stage Acting on the Manners and

Conversation in Private—Origin of the modern florid style of

singing—Conclusion._

Concerts are popular all over the Union, but in no other town are they

so successful and popular as in Philadelphia. We have here all kinds of

these entertainments, Ethiopian Concerts—Donation Concerts—Society

Concerts, such as the Musical Fund and Philharmonic—and pre-eminent

above all others, in point of fashion, Amateur Concerts.

A small, good Opera Troupe, it is true, would be of more service to our

musical taste; for this hearing the works of great masters by bits, as

it were, is not of much benefit; however, so that we have music in some

manner is better than not to have it at all.

The concerts of the past winter were all well attended; but the Amateur

Concerts were the favorites, and were, indeed, very successful. The

amateurs, both ladies and gentlemen, surprised their audiences; and

great praise is due to “_Maestro Perelli_.” We have heard some of them

execute pieces in a manner that would have done credit to a professional

singer. But while we admired, we felt a little disposed to remonstrate,

for one or two old-fashioned reasons.

If they are really amateurs, and are training their voices for private

singing, are they not running a risk of injuring their style by singing

in public?

In the olden times of vocal training, there was always a marked

difference made between public and private singing. So particular were

the old masters that they divided singing into three classes—church

singing, stage singing, and chamber singing.

Church singing required a more simple manner, a more pure and severe

style, than stage singing; but the voice like that intended for the

stage, had to be strong and full, with great volume and power, and the

intonation clear and correct. There was not much difference between the

voices of the church and stage singer; that is, it was not thought that

either style injured the voice for the other, on the contrary, some of

the finest voices the Italian school has produced, have been trained in

church choirs, under the old chapel-masters.

But there was always a marked and decided difference made between stage

singing and chamber singing. For the latter, it is necessary to have a

plain, simple manner, a clear, pure intonation, good articulation, and

great polish. The cadenzas and ornaments should be few, but of the most

exquisite style and finish. Strength and volume of voice are not so much

needed for the chamber singer, as delicacy of articulation and purity of

tone.

Tone, in music as in painting, is mellowed by distance, and the singer

who wishes to produce a pleasing effect in the drawing-room, should bear

this in mind. It is as absurd to present in private a piece of music

executed in the ornamented, operatic style, as it would be to hang in a

cabinet or drawing-room, a large painting fitted for a church, a

gallery, or a theatre; or, to make another comparison, for an orator, a

public speaker, to entertain the guests of his drawing-room, with the

same loud tone, earnest rhetorical manner, and volume of voice, that he

used in the public assembly or town-meeting.

The habit of singing in public will give to the private singer, a manner

and style which may sound very well in the concert-room, or on the stage

where they are mellowed by distance, and softened by an orchestra, but

this same manner and style will appear in private, coarse, violent, and

theatrical. There should be a difference between public and private

singing; both styles are beautiful, and equally effective in their way,

but they should be kept separate.

It is well known that actors and actresses, in dressing for the stage,

are apt to lose that nice, delicate eye for color, which is required to

render a private costume pleasing; they become fond of strong contrasts,

bright colors, and ornaments which appear glaring and wanting in harmony

off the stage. Stage acting also affects the conversation, the tone of

voice, and manner of expression. We were much amused once with the witty

reply of a clever person, when asked why he did not admire a

distinguished actress he had met with in private.

“She is too theatrical,” he said. “First she gives us a dash of tragedy

_à la_ Lady Macbeth, then comes a touch of genteel comedy _à la_ Lady

Teazle, which is very tiresome. One likes such exhibitions well enough

on the stage, but they are quite out of place in one’s drawing-room.”

And thus it is with vocal music, to make it pleasing in society, or what

is better, in one’s home circle, it should be like drawing-room, or home

costume, home manner, conversation, reading—simple, pure, with few

ornaments, and those well chosen.

Though these rules seem severe, they are not confining, for the

chamber-singer is not limited. The music of the great masters can be

produced in private, with great effect, in the same manner as all of us

have, doubtless, heard a good reader give in private circles, scenes

from Shakspeare and other dramatic poets. If the reader should present

to us in his reading, all the starts, the loud tones and energetic

manner required on the stage to produce an illusion, his reading would

create disgust in us, and we would listen unwillingly; but if, on the

contrary, he should read in a quiet manner, but with clear enunciation,

and good emphasis, leaving our imaginations and recollections to make up

the stage illusion, then, his reading would prove effective and

pleasing.

Every vocalist knows that the graces and ornaments of a piece are

entirely independent of the melody. The musical student who has studied

the works of the old composers, will understand this better than the

amateur who has been confined to modern compositions.

In the olden times more stress was laid upon the simple melody. Haydn

used to say,

“Let your _air_ be good, and your composition will be so likewise, and

will assuredly please.”

But in the present day, the air is almost forgotten in the rich

_rifioramenti_, and bewitching _capricci_ of the Italian singer, the

surprising _vocalization_ of the French, and the graces, shakes, and

turns of the English vocalist.

We do not object to these adornments; when properly used, they produce a

pleasing effect—they break up the monotony of the melody; but any one

will see how necessary it is to have these adornments different in

different places. The graces, cadenzas, etc., which would be added to a

piece sung on the stage, should not be used in the drawing-room or in

the church, although the simple melody itself, may from its character do

very well for either place, if sung with appropriate ornaments.

These elaborate, ornamental, vocal passages, which appear in modern

compositions, are not to be found in the old writers. They would have

considered it derogatory to the dignity of their melodies, to have

written out in them the _rifioramenti_ of the singer.

We remember seeing, several years ago, some Italian copies and

manuscripts of compositions by Durante, Trajetta, Paisiello, and other

old Italian masters. They belonged to a singular, remarkable person,

then living in this country, Signor Trajetta, the son of the old Maestro

Trajetta, the master and companion of Sacchini. These compositions were

for the voice, and in looking over them, we were struck with their

bareness and severity. The airs were, many of them, pure, and full of

beautiful melody, but we could readily imagine that it would require a

very severe taste to listen to them without finding them monotonous, and

so we said.

“Ah!” replied Trajetta’s pupil, as wild an enthusiast as his master,

“your taste has been spoiled and vitiated by modern music.”

The present taste for florid execution was caused, it is said, by the

desire of the vocalists to rival the instrumental passages of the Opera.

During the time of Metastasio, the musicians, especially those of the

German school, so famous for instrumentation, overpowered the singers.

The struggle of the singers for the lead, caused Metastasio to make a

remark which would apply very well in this day—that the singers in an

Opera made _vocal concertos_ of their passages.

Agujari turned her voice into a flute, and the capricious, bewitching

Gabrielli, the pet pupil of Porpora, astonished every one by her

wonderful _capricci_ and delicate chromatic passages.

A love for the wonderful displays itself constantly in mixed audiences,

and they are more likely to applaud that which is surprising, rather

than that which is strictly good. This approbation is apt to dull the

taste of the singer who will forget or neglect good old rules, when by

outraging them, they secure applause.

The taste for vocal gracing and adornment has increased to such a degree

that it would be almost impossible to present a composition of an old

master, or even of composers so late as Mozart, without adding to the

adornments of the original composition. Rossini, whose vocal

compositions in some places appear to consist only of connected phrases

of ornaments and gracings, so completely is the melody hidden by the

_cadenzas_, had two styles. His early style was chaste and simple; his

greatest opera, _Tancredi_, was written in this style, and the reader,

if familiar with Rossini’s works, has only to compare this beautiful

opera with one of his last compositions, _Semiramide_, to see the strong

contrast between the two styles of composition. His _L’Italiani in

Algeri_ and _Il Turco in Italia_, operas which contain some of his most

exquisite melodies, belong also to this simple style; but his more

popular operas, _Il Barbiere_, _La Cenerentola_, _Otello_, _La Gazza

Ladra_, _etc._, are in his later style, which is florid, not only in the

vocal parts, but also in the orchestral accompaniments; indeed, he

seemed to have attained the extreme of this florid style, but the

composers of the present time have gone far beyond him; for instance,

Verdi, whose compositions appear to be entirely made up of

_rifioramenti_, and while listening with amazement to the vocal feats

his singers perform, in executing his compositions, a good old-fashioned

lover of music is very apt to wonder if a melody really exists under all

these embellishments.

There is an interesting account given in Stendhal’s Life of Rossini,

relative to his adoption of the florid style in composition. In 1814 he

went to Milan, to superintend the bringing out of his opera,

_L’Aureliano in Palmiro_. The principal tenore, Velluti, a very handsome

man, had a voice of great flexibility. At the first rehearsal, Velluti

sung his part in a manner that delighted the composer; at the second

rehearsal, the singer added some cadenzas, which Rossini applauded even

rapturously; at the third rehearsal, the original melodies of some of

the cavatinas seemed lost amid the luxurious profusion of vocal

ornaments; but at the first public representation of the opera the

singer added so many _fiorituri_, that Rossini exclaimed, “_Non conosco

più la mia musica!_”[7]; however, Velluti’s singing was well received by

the audience, and every vocal feat brought down thunders of applause.

The hint was not lost on Rossini. He observed that his opera had but

little success without Velluti, and he resolved in future to compose in

a different style. He would no longer remain at the mercy of the singer,

but write down in his score a sufficient number of embellishments, not

leaving room for the addition of a single _appogiatura_ by the singer.

We have digressed from the original subject, dear reader, in order to

show that the _rifioramenti_ of a piece are mere additions, and also to

point out to the amateur the propriety of omitting startling and

surprising stage points, when presenting in private fine operatic

passages, and the nice, delicate taste that would be displayed in giving

more of the original melody, avoiding embellishments, using them only

where they seem absolutely necessary to break up the monotony of a

continuous strain, and render it more effective.

We could give our other objection to this public singing of amateurs,

which objection applies more particularly to lady amateurs; but we have

chatted long enough already, and, moreover, our objection is decidedly

too old-fashioned to be talked about in these days, “of rights of men,

women and children;” therefore, we will suffer it to pass unmentioned,

trusting to the force of the one already given to convince you, at least

good reader.

* * * * *

OLD ’76 AND YOUNG ’48.—This is the title of a new picture by WOODVILLE,

received from Dusseldorf for the New York Art Union, which is to be

engraved for one of the future distributions of that association. The

_Mirror_ describes the picture as fully justifying the high opinion

formed of the young artist’s genius, and as placing his name in the

front rank of our American artists. The picture represents a young

soldier just returned from Mexico, travel-stained and wounded; he sits

at a table relating his adventures to his grandfather, “Old ’76,” while

his father and mother, and a group of colored servants, peeping in at

the door, are eagerly listening to the soldier’s rehearsal of his

battles. All the accessories of the picture are purely American, and

help to carry out the story; the portrait of the old man, painted in all

his rosy prime, the bust of Washington, the ornaments on the mantle, all

are in strict keeping; but it is in the individualities of character as

delineated in the countenances and actions of the different personages

that the genius of the artist is displayed; the old man, leaning on his

crutch, shaking his head with a mixed feeling of pride in his grandson’s

achievements, and a recollection of his own acts in the times that tried

men’s souls, is a triumph of the artist; the old fellow seems to be just

at the point of saying “O yes, my boy, all that is very well; you fought

bravely, no doubt, and General Taylor was a good soldier; but it’s

nothing to old ’76, and General Taylor ain’t Washington.” It is a most

successful effort.

* * * * *

MONUMENT TO PEEL.—The proposal to erect a national monument to Sir

Robert Peel, by subscriptions limited to one penny each person, will be

entirely successful.

-----

[7] “I don’t know my own music!”

* * * * *

REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.

_Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy: Delivered at the Royal

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

Sidney Smith, M. A. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 12mo._

Sidney Smith appears, in this volume, as an ethical and metaphysical

philosopher, and certainly ethics and metaphysics were never before made

so clear and so entertaining. Sharp, shrewd, sensible, witty, humorous,

eloquent, discriminating, the author goes on, from topic to topic,

analyzing and laughing, condensing maxims into epigrams, embodying

principles in sarcasms, eliciting jokes from abstractions; and after

making his reader laugh tears into his eyes and pains into his sides,

really leaves him in possession of more metaphysical knowledge than he

would get from Dugald Stewart. The mind of Sidney Smith was so beautiful

and brilliant, that men have done injustice to its depth and exactness.

He was really an accomplished belles-lettres scholar, a close reasoner,

a proficient in the philosophy of politics, morals and mind, as well as

a wit and humorist; and in one of the rarest gifts of reason, justness

and readiness in the conception of premises, he evinced equal force and

fertility. Besides all this, he was an honest, courageous, uncanting,

and disinterested man—loving and possessing goodness and virtue, hating

and denouncing wickedness and vice. His goodness had not the weak

diffusion which characterises the quality in the so-called “good

people;” but will and intellect condensed it into lightning, and

launched it at error and evil. It smiles sweetly, but it also smites

sharply; and no man is more worthy of contemptuous pity than the bigot,

dunce, libertine, professional rascal or knavish politician, who comes

within word-shot of Sidney’s indignation.

There is no part of the present book which will not delight and instruct

the general reader; but the most original portions are those devoted to

practical remarks on mental diseases and to acute observations on minor

topics of the great subject. To all who know Sidney Smith’s writings it

is needless to add, that every idea in the volume is conceived and

stated clearly, and that the author’s ignorance in the higher regions of

his theme never seeks refuge in obscure terms, but is boldly, and some

times exultingly, acknowledged. Many of the great philosophers, and

especially the idealists and skeptics, are rather fleeringly disposed

of. Common sense is Sydney’s test; but common sense is hardly able to

grapple with Aristotle and Descartes, the greatest of metaphysicians;

and they are, therefore, praised for their power and ridiculed for its

perversion. The author’s peculiar felicity in making ludicrous

statements which operate with the force of arguments, is displayed

throughout the volume. “Bishop Berkeley,” he says, “destroyed this world

in one volume octavo, and nothing remained after his time but mind;

which experienced a similar fate from the hand of Mr. Hume, in 1737.”

Nothing could be more felicitous than this statement, considered as a

practical argument against the systems of the idealists and skeptics.

Again he says: “A great philosopher may sit in his study, and deny the

existence of matter; but if he take a walk into the streets he must take

care to leave his theory behind him. Pyrrho said there was no such thing

as pain; and he saw no _proof_ that there were such things as carts and

wagons; and he refused to get out of their way: but Pyrrho had,

fortunately for him, three or four stout slaves, who followed their

master without following his doctrine; and whenever they saw one of

these ideal machines approaching, took him up by the arms and legs, and,

without attempting to controvert his arguments, put him down in a place

of safety.”

The passages on Aristotle are in a similar vein of pleasantry. “Some

writers,” he remarks, “say he was a Jew; others that he got all his

information from a Jew, that he kept an apothecary’s shop, and was an

Atheist; others say, on the contrary, that he did not keep an

apothecary’s shop and that he was a Trinitarian.” Further on he adds,

that Aristotle’s philosophy “had an exclusive monopoly granted to it by

the Parliament of Paris, _who forbad the use of any other in France_;”

and he goes on to compare the great Stagarite with Bacon, to the

manifest disadvantage of the former. After speaking of the triumphs of

the Baconian method, and the indebtedness of mankind to the vast

understanding of its author, he proceeds to remark, that to “the

understanding of Aristotle, equally vast, perhaps, and equally original,

we are indebted for fifteen hundred years of quibbling and ignorance; in

which the earth fell under the tyranny of words, and philosophers

quarreled with one another, like drunken men in dark rooms, _who hate

peace without knowing why they fight, or seeing how to take aim_.” Zeno,

the founder of the sect of the Stoics, is represented as a Cyprus

merchant, who had studied the writings of the most eminent Socratic

philosophers, and who, in the course of his mercantile pursuits,

“freighted a ship for Athens, with a very valuable cargo of Phœnician

purple, which he completely lost by shipwreck, on the coast near the

Piræus. A very acute man, who found himself in a state of sudden and

complete poverty in Athens, would naturally enough think of turning

philosopher, both as by its doctrines it inspired him with some

consolation for the loss of his Phœnician purple, and by its profits

afforded him some chance of subsistence without it.” Socrates, he says,

was the great father and inventor of common sense, “as Ceres was of the

plough and Bacchus of intoxication.” Two thousand years ago, he adds,

“common sense was not invented. If Orpheus, or Linus, or any of those

melodious moralists, sung, in bad verses, such advice as a grand-mamma

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.”

Among the best lectures of the volume, both for sense and brilliancy,

are those on the “Conduct of the Understanding,” the “Faculties of

Animals and Men,” “Habit,” and “Wit and Humor.” In these Sydney Smith

exhibits both his power of rapid analysis and his power of clearly

perceiving the essential points of the subjects he discusses. The

lecture on the “Faculties of Animals and Men,” is a sort of humorous

philosophical poem in prose, the beauty of the humor being as striking

as its laughable quality. He commences with observing that he would do

no injustice to the poor brutes, especially as they have “no professors

to revenge their cause by lecturing on our faculties;” and he is so

perfectly satisfied with the superiority of men to animals, that he sees

no reason why he should not give the latter full credit for what “few

fragments of soul and tatters of understanding they may really possess.”

His settled opinion is, that baboons and blue apes will never rival

mankind in understanding or imagination, though he confesses that he has

sometimes felt a little uneasy at Exeter ’change, “from contrasting the

monkeys with the ’prentice boys who are teasing them;” but a few pages

of Locke, or a few lines of Milton, always restored him to his tranquil

belief in the superiority of man. He then proceeds to give a humorous

statement of the various opinions held by philosophers on the physiology

of brutes, emphasising especially the theory of Père Bougeant, a Jesuit,

that each animal is animated by a separate and distinct devil; “that not

only this was the case with respect to cats, which have long been known

to be very favorite residences of familiar spirits, but that a

particular devil swam with every turbot, grazed with every ox, soared

with every lark, dived with every duck, and was roasted with every

chicken.” Smith then goes on to define and illustrate instinct, with an

analysis as fine as the humor is exquisite. Instinct he considers as an

animal’s unconscious use of means which are subservient to an end, in

contradistinction to reason, which is a conscious use of those means and

a perception of their relation to the end. The examples are all stated

in Smith’s peculiar manner. It would take, he says, “a senior wrangler

at Cambridge ten hours a day, for three years together, to know enough

mathematics for the calculation of these problems, with which not only

every queen bee, but every _under-graduate grub_, is acquainted the

moment it is born.”

The general conclusion of Smith, with regard to insects and animals, is

the common one, that their instincts and faculties all relate to this

world, and that they have, properly speaking, no souls to be saved. But

this position he states, illustrates and defends with more than ordinary

metaphysical acuteness. If the discussion were not so sparklingly

conducted, it would strike the reader as very able analysis and

reasoning; but the mirthful fancy with which the whole is adorned,

satisfies of itself, and seems to claim no additional praise for the

argument it illustrates. The delicious sympathy of the humorist for all

grades of being peeps out on every page, and no insect or animal is

referred to without being lifted into the comic ideal. Thus he remarks

that nature seems on some animals to have bestowed vast attention, “_and

to have sketched out others in a moment, and turned them adrift_. The

house-fly skims about, perches upon a window or a nose, breakfasts and

sups with you, lays his eggs upon your white cotton stockings, runs into

the first hole in the wall when it is cold, and perishes with as much

unconcern as he lives.” Again, in speaking of that superiority of man

over animals which comes from his longevity, he remarks: “I think it is

Helvetius who says he is quite certain we only owe our superiority over

the ourang-outangs to the greater length of life conceded to us; and

that, if our life had been as short as theirs, they would have totally

defeated us in the competition for nuts and ripe blackberries. I can

hardly agree to this extravagant statement; but I think in a life of

twenty years the efforts of the human mind would have been so

considerably lowered, that we might probably have thought Helvetius a

good philosopher, and admired his skeptical absurdities as some of the

greatest efforts of the human understanding. Sir Richard Blackmore would

have been our greatest poet, our wit would have been Dutch, our faith

French, the Hottentots would have given us the model for manners, and

the Turks for government.” He then adds that man’s gregarious nature is

another cause of his superiority over all other animals. “A lion lies

under a hole in the rock, and if any other lion happen to pass by they

fight. Now, whoever gets a habit of lying under a hole in a rock, and

fighting with every gentleman who passes near him, cannot possibly make

any progress.”

The lecture on “Wit and Humor” is, perhaps, the most brilliant of all;

but, though the definitions are keenly stated and the distinctions

nicely drawn, we suppose that even Sidney Smith, fine wit and humorist

as he is, has not settled the matter. It appears to us that the

difficulty consists in considering wit and humor as distinct powers,

instead of viewing them as modifications of other powers. The mental

peculiarities which distinguish wit and humor are qualities equally of

fancy and imagination. The difference is emotional, not intellectual; in

sentiment, not in faculty. A man whose sentiment and feeling of the

ludicrous is predominant, will naturally make his intellectual powers

serve his mirthful tendencies. If he has a lively fancy he will be a

wit; if he has a creative imagination he will be a humorist. We should

say, generally, that wit was fancy and understanding, directed by the

sentiment of mirth; and that humor was imagination and understanding,

directed by the same sentiment. It will be found, we think, in all

ingenious and creative minds, that their peculiar direction depends

altogether on sentiment. Sometimes imagination is exercised in a

department of thought or action so far removed from the fine arts, that

we can hardly recognize the power in its direction. In metaphysics, in

mathematics, in government, war and commerce, we often come in contact

with thinkers of vast imaginations, who still may despise poets and

artists, and be heartily despised by them. If a change in the form and

purpose of imagination thus appears, to many minds, to change its

qualities, and to demand new definitions, we need not wonder at the

popular reluctance to admit wits and humorists into the band of poets,

though fancy and imagination be equally their characteristics.

Although our notice of this delightful volume has extended beyond the

space we can properly allow it, we take leave of its wise and witty

pages with regret, heartily commending it to the leisure hours of every

man who can relish vivid argument and brilliant good sense.

* * * * *

_Confessions of an English Opium Eater, and Suspiria de

Profundis. By Thomas De Quincy, Boston: Wm. D. Ticknor & Co. 1

vol. 12mo._

Thomas de Quincy has been well known during the last twenty years, not

only as the author of “Confessions of an English Opium Eater”, but as a

prominent contributor of able, thoughtful, and eloquent articles to

Blackwood’s Magazine, and other British periodicals. The publishers of

the present volume intend to follow it up with others, containing the

best of his many remarkable historical, biographical, and critical

papers. When completed, the series will constitute a body of thought

which no student’s library can well be without, for the author’s

learning extends over widely separated departments of literature and

science, and in each he has proved himself capable of throwing out those

suggestive thoughts which take root in the reader’s mind, and bear

fruit. A resolute, inquisitive, and reflective student, richly dowered

with understanding and imagination, and exercising great dominion over

the harmonies and subtilties of expression, De Quincy has been prevented

from producing little more than colossal fragments of thought, by the

mastery obtained over his will by opium, and the contemptuousness of

disposition which that habit provokes for calm, orderly, systematic

works. He is dogmatic, negatively as well as positively. It is natural

that a man who obtains glimpses of grand truths and magnificent systems,

through artificial stimulants, should disdain the sober realizations of

consecutive and industrious thought, wanting all that misty magnificence

which clothes things viewed in the waking dreams of the opium eater. But

egotist and dogmatist as he is, he is still a resolute thinker, whose

mind, busy with all the problems of society and philosophy, is

continually startling us with novel thoughts and splendid rhetoric.

In the first part of the “Confessions” there is one passage, describing

a dream inspired by opium, which we cannot resist the temptation to

extract, as it is one of the sublimest in English prose. “The dream,” he

says, “commenced with a music which now I often heard in dreams—a music

of preparation and awakening suspense; a music like the opening of the

Coronation Anthem, and which, like _that_, gave the feeling of a vast

march, of infinite cavalcades filing off, and the tread of innumerable

armies. The morning was come of a mighty day—a day of crisis and of

final hope for human nature, then suffering some mysterious eclipse, and

laboring in some dread extremity. Somewhere, I knew not where—somehow,

I knew not how—by some beings, I knew not whom—a battle, a strife, an

agony, was conducting—was evolved, like a great drama, or piece of

music; with which my sympathy was the more insupportable from my

confusion as to its place, its cause, its nature, and its possible

issue. I, as is usual in dreams, (where we make ourselves central to

every movement,) had the power, and yet had not the power, to decide it.

I had the power, if I could raise myself, to will it; and yet again had

not the power, for the weight of twenty Atlantics was upon me, or the

oppression of inexpiable guilt. ‘Deeper than ever plummet sounded,’ I

lay inactive. Then, like a chorus, the passion deepened. Some greater

interest was at stake; some mightier cause than ever yet the sword had

pleaded, or trumpet had proclaimed. Then came sudden alarms; hurryings

to and fro; trepidations of innumerable fugitives. I knew not whether

from the good cause or the bad, darkness and light, tempest and human

faces, and at last with the sense that all was lost, female forms, and

the features that were worth all the world to me, and but a moment

allowed—and clasped hands, and heart-breaking partings, and

then—everlasting farewells! and, with a sigh such as the caves of hell

sighed when the incestuous mother uttered the abhorred name of death,

the sound was reverberated—everlasting farewells! and again, and yet

again reverberated—everlasting farewells!”

“Suspiria de Profundis,” the conclusion of the Confessions, occupies

about as much space as the original work, and has now, for the first

time, been connected with it in the same volume. The style of the

conclusion is even more majestic, visionary and resounding than the

first portion, and is full of thrilling pictures and Macbeth “sights.”

We hope that this volume will meet with a success so marked, as to

induce the publishers to issue the remaining volumes of De Quincey’s

miscellanies in rapid succession.

* * * * *

_Life and Letters of Thomas Campbell, Edited by William Beattie;

M. D., one of his Executors, New York: Harper & Brothers, 2

vols. 12mo._

Dr. Beattie’s work cannot take a high place in biographical literature,

as far as it is to be judged by his own power of thinking and writing.

He has, properly speaking, no conception of Campbell’s character; and

the passage from one of his statements to the letter or anecdote which

he adduces in its support, will indicate this to the least reflecting

reader. Were it not for the richness of his materials his work would not

be worth reprinting; but it has great value and interest from the number

and variety of the private letters it contains. Campbell’s

correspondence, though it evinces much nervous weakness of mind and a

sensitiveness of vanity easily elated or depressed, has a peculiar

raciness which wins and rewards attention; and, in addition to its own

excellent qualities of wit and fancy, which delight of themselves, it

furnishes much information relating to the literary men of the last

fifty years.

Mr. Irving has written a very pleasing introduction to these volumes,

characteristic equally of his delicacy, his good nature and his

discrimination, and embodying several new anecdotes of Campbell. He says

that Beattie’s life “lays open the springs of all his actions and the

causes of all his contrariety of conduct. We now see the real

difficulties he had to contend with in the earlier part of his literary

career; the worldly cares which pulled his spirit to the earth whenever

it would wing its way to the skies; the domestic affections, tugging at

his heart-strings even in his hours of genial intercourse, and

_converting his very smiles into spasms_; the anxious days and sleepless

nights preying upon his delicate organization, producing that morbid

sensibility and nervous irritability which at times overlaid the real

sweetness and amenity of his nature, and obscured the unbounded

generosity of his heart.” This praise, of course, must be considered due

to the “Letters” rather than the “Life” of Campbell.

Lord Jeffrey, in a letter to Campbell, on the subject of “Gertrude of

Wyoming,” very felicitously indicates the prominent faults of that

exquisite poem, and of Campbell’s general artistic method. “The most

dangerous faults,” he says, “are your faults of diction. There is a good

deal of obscurity in many passages—in others a strained and unnatural

expression—an appearance of labor and hardness; you have hammered the

metal in some places till it had lost all its ductility. These are not

great faults, but they are blemishes; and as dunces will find them

out—noodles will see them when they are pointed to. I wish you had

courage to correct, or rather to avoid them, for with you they are

faults of over-finishing, and not of negligence. I have another fault to

charge you with in private—for which I am more angry with you than for

all the rest. Your timidity, or fastidiousness, or some other knavish

quality, will not let you give your conceptions glowing, and bold, and

powerful, as they present themselves, but you must chasten, and refine,

and soften them, forsooth, till half their nature and grandeur is

chiseled away from them.”

An interesting feature in this biography is the number of poems it

contains not included in any edition of Campbell’s works, and the

original drafts it gives of many of Campbell’s well-known productions.

The “Battle of the Baltic” originally contained twenty-seven stanzas,

and in that shape was enclosed in a letter to Scott. We extract a

specimen of the omitted verses:

Not such a mind possessed

England’s tar;

’Twas the love of nobler game

Set his oaken heart on flame,

For to him ’twas all the same,

Sport or war.

All hands and eyes on watch

As they keep;

By their motion light as wings,

By each step that haughty springs,

You might know them for the kings

Of the deep!

’Twas the Edgar first that smote

Denmark’s line;

As her flag the foremost soared,

Murray stamped his foot on board,

And a hundred cannons roared

At the sign!

This Life of Campbell, and the Life of Southey, now in course of

publication by the same house, are the best literary biographies we have

had since The Life of Mackintosh, edited by his Son. We wish the Harpers

would reprint the latter, as there has been no complete American edition

of it ever published. It contains more matter than any similar work

since Moore’s Life of Byron.

* * * * *

_The National Cook Book. By a Lady of Philadelphia, a Practical

Housewife. Philada.: Robert E. Peterson. 1 vol. 12 mo._

This is, on all sides, admitted to be the very best of the many cook

books that have been issued by the press of late years. The editor, be

she whom she may, understands the art of preparing a delicious meal, of

any material, it seems, and our taste has passed favorable judgment upon

a fruit cake of most inviting look, and of quality the best. A lady, in

whose judgment we have the most unbounded confidence, pronounces this

“the only cook book worthy of a housekeeper’s perusal.”

Next to the intellectual feast, which is spread before the reader of

Graham each month, we suppose, will come a snug breakfast, a glorious

good dinner, or a cozy, palate-inviting supper of birds, with mushrooms.

Now, without Peterson’s Cook Book, the meal cannot be perfection. Of

this we feel convinced.

* * * * *

_The Gallery of Illustrious American Daguerreotypes by Brady.

Engraved by D’Avignon. Edited by C. Edwards Lester, assisted by

an Association of Literary men. 205 Broadway, New York._

We have received the sixth number of this truly national work—the first

and second we have before this noticed. The third, fourth and fifth

numbers the publishers have omitted to send us. As we have before

stated, this is a publication of great merit, and cannot fail to attract

a liberal encouragement both in this country and abroad. The portraits

are executed with wonderful fidelity, and are the best specimens of the

lithographic art we have ever seen. Mr. Brady deserves much praise for

his exact and skillful daguerreotypes, from which D’Avignon has produced

these masterly “counterfeit presentments” of our great national

characters. The selection from our living worthies have been well made.

The publishers have not confined themselves to the faces of our elder

public men long familiar in the print shops, but they have well chosen

alike from the old and the young—those who have been long famous by

past services, and those whose genius and precocious merit have excited

a keen interest and a just pride in the heart of every American. This

number is adorned by a life-like portrait of Col. Fremont; and the

editor, Mr. Lester, has in this, as he has in those numbers which have

preceded it, and which have been sent to us, given a brief and pointed

sketch of the marvelous youth whose adventures in the camp of science

outstrips the wildest tales of romantic daring. A work like this must

prosper.

* * * * *

_The History of the Confessional. By John Henry Hopkins, D. D.,

Bishop of the Diocese of Vermont. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1

vol. 12mo._

Dr. Hopkins is already well known as an Episcopalian writer of much

merit and erudition, and the present work will add considerably to his

reputation. It is acute, learned, and clear, going patiently over the

whole historical ground of the dispute between the Church of England and

the Church of Rome, and singularly candid and dispassionate in its tone

and in its substance. We rarely see, in a controversialist, such decided

opinions, in connection with so much intellectual conscientiousness.

* * * * *

_Doctor Johnson; His Religious Life and his Death. New York:

Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 12mo._

This volume is evidently the production of some individual whose

ambition to write a book was far greater than his ability to write a

good one; the result is a compilation from Boswell’s Life of Johnson,

made up from its most valueless and uninteresting portions, without the

addition of any thing of importance by the compiler. Dr. Johnson, in his

own time, had no power of communicating any of his own intellectual or

moral life to his mental sycophants; and, judging from the present

volume, we should suppose that this power was still wanting in his

writings.

* * * * *

_The Pillars of Hercules; or a Narrative of Travels in Spain and

Morocco, in 1848. By David Urquhart, Esq., M. P. New York:

Harper & Brothers. 2 vols. 12mo._

Of all the volumes of travels lately issued, this appears to us the most

independent and intelligent. The author gives a new view of the social

condition of Spain, and states some facts and opinions calculated to

make us re-examine the notions commonly held of Spanish affairs. He is

an acute observer of men, a scholar, a politician versed in the

practical details of legislation and government, and a man who sees,

feels, and thinks for himself. To those who have read Barrow and Ford

the work will have great attractions.

* * * * *

EDGAR A. POE.—We have on hand several articles, from leading writers of

the country, upon the life and character of Edgar A. Poe, which we will

find room for in the December number, in which we shall give an extra

form, for the purpose of putting before the country these generous

tributes to the dead poet and critic. The causticity of several of them

will not be particularly relished by his immaculate defamers, who busy

themselves in raking up his ashes to expose his defects to the gaze of

the world.

* * * * *

A DESERVED HONOR.—We see that at the late commencement of the Miami

University, Ohio, the degree of LL. D. was conferred upon Professor John

S. Hart, of the Philadelphia High School. It is a compliment very

properly bestowed, and from an Institution which renders the honor of

value.

* * * * *

THE LAST CHANCE.—We desire to impress upon the attention of the

subscribers to “Graham,” that if they desire our elegant Premium Plates,

they should now remit either $3 for one year, or $5 for two years, or

for two copies one year. In either case we furnish each subscriber _thus

sent_, “_Christ Blessing Little Children_,” and “_The First

Prayer_”—two beautiful engravings of large size.

_After the first of November_, the plate will be disposed of, and no

premiums will thereafter be sent from this office.

* * * * *

OUR PARIS FASHIONS.—Every mail brings us congratulations upon the

superior finish and beauty of our Paris Fashion Plates. Our friends have

opened their eyes to the fact, that “Graham” is the only magazine in

America that incurs the expense of _original_ designs. All others are

copies of the French plates, poorly done, and insufferably old. We

should not mention the matter, but that efforts are made to deceive the

magazine public by silly and unfounded boasting. The expense, which is

several hundred dollars _extra_ each month, we cheerfully incur for the

liberal subscribers to this magazine, whose cultivated taste would soon

detect the bold impositions practiced upon others.

* * * * *

[Illustration:

LE FOLLET Paris, boul^{t}. S^{t}. Martin, 69.

Chapeaux M^{lle}. Grafeton, r. de la Paix, 24—Fleurs de Chagot ainé, r.

Richelieu, 73.

Pardessus de la mais^{n}. S^{t}. Arnaud–Dentelles de Violard, r. Choiseul,

4.

The styles of Goods here represented can be had of Mess^{rs}. L. J. Levy &

C^{o}. Philadelphia

and at Stewart’s, New-York.

Graham’s Magazine, 134 Chestnut Street.]

* * * * *

Transcriber’s Notes:

Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained as well as some

spellings peculiar to Graham’s. Punctuation has been corrected without

note. Other errors have been corrected as noted below. For

illustrations, some caption text may be missing or incomplete due to

condition of the originals used for preparation of the ebook.

page 202, and geologial descriptions ==> and geological descriptions

page 203, amidst the minosas ==> amidst the mimosas

page 204, when a bark ascending ==> when a barque ascending

page 212, conquest of of Shivas ==> conquest of Shivas

page 215, His bark stranding ==> His barque stranding

page 216, safe and and sound ==> safe and sound

page 225, there are Bachinalian ==> there are Bacchanalian

page 225, genii and faries ==> genii and fairies

page 226, within many degress ==> within many degrees

page 228, among the lowley ==> among the lowly

page 228, The hundreth psalm ==> The hundredth psalm

page 229, shame to doggrel ==> shame to doggerel

page 230, an argent bark ==> an argent barque

page 231, what commisseration he ==> what commiseration he

page 234, And now its ==> And now it’s

page 236, added: [_To be continued._

page 239, laughed and teazed ==> laughed and teased

page 241, its splendid to be ==> it’s splendid to be

page 241, Blanch Forrester went ==> Blanche Forrester went

page 241, delicious _Scottische_ ==> delicious _Schottische_

page 250, vaticanam Bodleianamgue ==> vaticanam Bodleianamque

page 250, Onicus est nobis ==> Unicus est nobis

page 253, As ambegris leaves ==> As ambergris leaves

page 258, fowl have the the power ==> fowl have the power

page 260, Pasiello, and other ==> Paisiello, and other

page 260, OLD ’76 AND YOUNG ’47. ==> OLD ’76 AND YOUNG ’48.

page 261, near the Piraus ==> near the Piræus

page 263, delight of themselvs ==> delight of themselves