The year '35, rich as may be its promise of social and political good,

has so far done little for the cause of letters. The seductions of

political distinction, or the more substantial attractions of the

lucrative professions, have turned from the paths of literature all

whom genius and education have fitted to attain a high degree of

intellectual rank; while in the peculiar department of romance, the

master spirits, those who ruled the realms of fiction with undisputed

sway, have retired from the scenes of their glory, and left their

neglected wands to be played with by the puny arms of dwarfish

successors. COOPER[1] has sheltered himself from the furious storm,

which an injudicious and silly political pamphlet raised about his

head, in some quiet nook in his own native state; while IRVING, the

elegant, but over-nice, the gentle but languid IRVING, has abandoned

romance for reality, to favor the world with sketches of Indian

manners and scenery. PAULDING and Miss SEDGEWICK have ceased for a

time, to inflict their stories of humor and love, upon the proprietors

of circulating libraries, and provincial book-sellers. But the press

has not ceased: others have been found to succeed to, if not to fill

the places of those, whose genius the sanction of the world had

approved, and whose names ranked high in our infant literature. Who

are the new comers? Do they write as men having authority--the

authority of heaven-stamped genius, to claim to be heard for

themselves, and their cause?--or are they but raw, brawling braggarts,

who have broken into the sacred circle, rioting like buffoons, {479}

disgracing what they could not honor? Are they menials of the mind,

underlings of the intellect, who have filled the rich banqueting hall

just abandoned by their superiors, sitting in squalid rags on the

splendid seats of genius, and gulping down the dregs of the deserted

wine, and the scraps of the half consumed feast--boors rioting in the

sumptuous apartments of their lords? Are they men, who, by a vigorous

and educated intellect, and the patient study of the works of the

great writers of romance, have fitted themselves to pour forth words

of burning eloquence, of bitter satire, of side-shaking humor, and

irresistible pathos? Are they artists, who, by the curious and

intricate construction of their fable, know how to excite and sustain

the deepest interest, ever urging upon the heart some tender

affection, some exalted feeling of honor and chivalry?

[Footnote 1: Since this sentence was penned, we have noticed the

advertisement of a new (satirical?) novel, (The Mannikins,) from the

pen of this gentleman, to be published during the summer.]

At a period when the crowd of novels issued almost daily from the

press, threatens serious injury to the literature of the age, not only

by withdrawing men of high natural capacities from the arduous study

of graver and more important subjects, but by throwing before the

public such a mass of matter, that unless they be neglected, (which

from their seductive character is not likely to be the case,) nothing

else can be read, it is of the highest importance, that an elevated

standard should be fixed by which to measure these productions. The

popular objection so often urged against this species of literature,

is not without some foundation in truth; and the only mistake made by

those who have brought it forward, consists in applying to the

species, that which is true only in individual cases. The influence of

these fictitious histories, from the rude form of the early romance,

down to the brilliant productions of the best writers of the present

century, has been, however, on the whole, advantageous to general

literature, and of the most humanizing effect upon society. Nothing

could betray more silly ignorance, than to contrast this class of

authors with those who have chosen higher and more essentially

important subjects; and because law, and philosophy, and mathematics,

may be in themselves, of a deeper interest and more universal value,

to regret the time and talent devoted to this elegant and refining

department of letters, as so much labor and opportunity thrown away.

So far from being wasted, we question, if even the most brilliant

discoveries in science, have contributed as much to the comfort and

enjoyment of society. It would be difficult to calculate the actual

amount of moral good, that may have been effected by the constant

holding up to the young and ardent, but plastic mind, the bright and

winning examples of female loveliness and manly virtue, that abound in

these popular and ever attractive volumes. And those who underrate

their powerful influence, know little of the actual workings of the

human heart--of the secret influences that direct, for good or for

evil, the wayward thoughtfulness of the young. The whole class of

romances, then, viewed as a means of forming individual character,

must assume in the eyes of the moralist and statesman, an importance

far beyond their intrinsic value, as literary works; and it is the

forgetting of the ulterior and vastly more interesting purpose which

they serve, in the general economy of society, that has misled many

virtuous and even able men, to undervalue and despise the whole

species as frivolous and worthless. A proper regard to their

influence, exerted in this way, must lie at the bottom of all sound

criticism, or the labors of the reviewer degenerate at once far below

the flippancy of the most trashy of the works he reads but to condemn.

The novel is only valuable as illustrating some peculiarities,

defects, or excellencies of character--passages of historical

interest, or the manners and customs of a class; and its success must

depend on the ability with which it is adapted to the end desired to

be accomplished. It is only the more unthinking class of writers, who

mistaking the means for the end, have lost sight of all _object_ in

the composition of their tales. Don Quixotte was not written as a mere

record of amusing absurdities; its purpose was to put down the

injurious and ridiculous follies, which the wit of Cervantes happily

lashed out of Spain. And it will be found that no work has obtained an

extensive and lasting popularity, that did not recommend itself by

something beyond the mere detail of the story, and the humor of the

dialogue. But to return from this long digression.

* * * * *

THE INSURGENTS. We commence with these volumes as decidedly superior,

in point of ability and interest, to other works on our table, from

the pens of American writers. They are the production of one who has

written before, who knows his own strength, and has fallen, (if we may

use the expression,) into the regular gait of authorship--he is broken

to the press. An outline of the plot, will the better enable those who

may not have perused the work itself, to comprehend the justice of the

scenes, and to understand the excellencies or defects of the various

characters that figure on the stage. The story is laid in

Massachusetts, at the period of the insurrectionary movements, among

the inhabitants of some of the interior counties, during the

administration of Governor Bowdoin, and immediately after the close of

the revolutionary war. _Col. Eustace_, an officer of the revolutionary

army, a generous but careless manager of his own affairs, has after

several years of arduous service, and in consequence of ill health,

retired to an estate fast falling to ruin, under the thriftless

conduct of the open-handed thoughtless veteran. _Henry Eustace_, his

eldest son, had served for two years as an adjutant to his father, and

returned after the close of the war, full of ardent aspirations, and

without any regular profession, to his paternal home. _Elizabeth

Eustace_, is the only daughter of the old Colonel, and as the

propriety of the novel requires, a lovely and interesting girl. _Tom

Eustace_, a younger brother, plays a subaltern part in the

developement of the story. _Frank Talbot_, an officer but a few years

the senior of Henry Eustace, succeeds to the Colonelcy, vacant by the

retirement of the elder Eustace; and after the disbanding of the army,

returns to his residence in the village, near the estate of Col.

Eustace, and is soon deeply immersed in professional business as a

lawyer, and in the political duties of a representative of his native

town, in the General Court, the title by which the Legislature of

Massachusetts was then distinguished. Frank too, has a sister, _Mary_,

somewhat the senior of Elizabeth, and distinguished from her by a

reserved manner and studious habit, but little characteristic of her

age and sex. The concluding portion of the second chapter, discovers

the secret attachment, which Elizabeth Eustace already bore the young

legislator, and drops the reader a hint {480} of what the after pages

of the work more fully disclose.

The great sacrifices of property, incident to a war of seven years,

and the heavy imposts which the necessities of the state government

impelled it to levy on those who were already deeply involved, stirred

up among that class of the people, a spirit of sullen discontent; and

the legislature was already the arena on which the relief, or popular

party on the one hand, and the creditors on the other, had arrayed

themselves in fierce opposition. Talbot, who is represented as

"devoured by an ambition for political power and distinction," with an

active restless spirit, determined to disregard all principle,

whenever a more conscientious course might interfere with the

gratification of his political aspirations, embraced the side of the

malcontents, and was now on a visit to his constituents, for the

purpose of rousing them up to more active remonstrance against the

measures of the creditors' or government party, already supposed to

have secured a majority in the lower house of the State Legislature.

Henry Eustace, at this time, visits his friend, and consults with him

on the choice of a profession. Medicine, to which he at first

inclined, is soon abandoned, for the more attractive employment of

politics; and fascinated by the popular eloquence of Talbot, whose

enthusiasm had already enflamed the ardent blood of Henry, he becomes

one of the most violent of the partizans of the party to which Talbot

was then attached. While on this visit to the neighborhood, Talbot

engages himself to Elizabeth Eustace. His talents and influence had

already attracted the attention of the friends of the government, and

they resolve to tempt him to desertion from his present associates, by

the offer of electing him, by their support, to the Senate, to which

he already aspired, but with little hope of success, from the votes of

his own party. Having espoused the popular cause, from motives of

personal interest, he as readily abandons it, when more seductive

offers are held out by the opposite party. The baseness of Talbot, who

seizes the first opportunity to betray the cause he had formerly

supported, is an unexpected blow to Eustace, and severs the friendship

that before existed between them. The latter assumes the secret

command of the conspirators, while Talbot devotes all his energy and

abilities to the service of his new friends of the government; and

every day widens the difference between them. A large portion of the

two volumes is taken up with descriptions of the various marchings and

counter-marchings of the insurgents and the militia, in the course of

which Talbot and Eustace engage in single combat; the latter strikes

the sword from his adversary's hand, and spares him his life. The

story then goes on, without any thing of importance occurring, until

the conflict between the two parties in the Legislature, is decided in

favor of the government, by the passage of a law for the suspension of

the _habeas corpus_ act. The hatred between Talbot and Eustace had

already become of the most rancorous and malignant character, and the

arrest of the latter, who had been once saved by the sister of Talbot,

is now effected by her brother at the head of a party of soldiers.

Thus deprived of their chief support, in the person of Eustace, the

insurgents are soon dispersed, not however without a skirmish, in

which they are put to flight, in a way at once ludicrous and

conclusive. The first fire disperses them, never to recover. Elizabeth

Eustace and Mary Talbot, in the mean time, manage to bring about a

reconciliation between the two hostile brothers, to whom they had been

respectively engaged, and a double marriage consummates the happiness

of this quartette, and concludes the second and last volume of the

"Insurgents." So much for the story, which though simple enough in the

detail, is liable to the serious objection, that must ever lie against

that division of interest, the necessary consequence of introducing a

double set of characters into a plot, that should be single and

simple. The unities of the drama are not more essential to the

perfection of pieces designed for theatrical representation, than is

the preservation of an individual and prominent interest in the hero

of a novel. The narrow compass of a couple of duodecimos, is not more

than sufficient for the painting of one chief character, with the

sketches of the minor _personæ_, necessary to sustain the interest of

a plot. An attempt at double teaming a novel, with two sets of heroes,

invariably results in destroying that prominence of interest, which a

closer adherence to the legitimate form of the fable, naturally and

necessarily insures; and no more striking illustration of our position

could be found, than in the volumes before us. The characters of

Eustace and Talbot, neither contrast with effect, nor harmonize in the

general management of the plot; and the awkward and unnatural

reconciliation, which is finally brought about, to say nothing of the

perplexities into which the cross-loves of the four, plunge the

writer, is the best evidence that this double-plotting has injured the

effect of the story, by rendering it necessary to force a conclusion.

As the fidelity to nature, in the character of the principal actors,

must always be one of the highest sources of interest to a critical

reader, we shall notice very briefly, the manner in which the author

of the "Insurgents" has succeeded in the _personnel_ of his

descriptions. The old Colonel, the father of Henry Eustace, is exactly

such a personage as every reader may have met with--brave, generous,

careless, and ignorant, he is, perhaps, a very correct picture of the

better part of the _ancien regime_ of our colonial and revolutionary

times. Without any striking peculiarities of character, and playing

but a subaltern part in the story, he only appears as a piece of the

family furniture, brought into play, by the casual location of the

scene. The reader has no cause to regret the slightness of the

acquaintance. The Colonel's second son, Tom, is but an appendage to

the story. Henry, one of the heroes, begins in the army, a mischief

loving, rule breaking, but active and gallant youth; and in the

progress of the story, becomes an eloquent, restless, rebellious

demagogue--stirring up insurrection among the people--defending in the

Legislature, with consummate ability, their pretended wrongs and

actual treason; and upon one occasion, displaying in the field, the

chivalrous courage of his hot and impatient years. He is, however,

always honorable and sincere. His treason is infatuation, and his

_demagogueism_ (if we may coin a much wanted word,) the frenzy of

passion and thoughtlessness. Talbot, on the contrary, is bold and

eloquent; a brave soldier, and an accomplished advocate; but a cunning

and unprincipled politician, who, in the beginning of his career,

espouses the cause of the malcontents, as the only means of securing

the representation of his native village in the Legislature, and as

quickly {481} abandons it, when a higher office is promised him by the

friends of the government, as the price of his desertion. Dr. Talbot,

a country physician "of long practice and high repute," is an abrupt,

rough, but good natured disciple of Esculapius, and seems to have been

intended for no other purpose, than to enable the author to discharge

his wit at the expense of some of the ill mannered admirers of the

surly blackguardism of the Abernethy school of medical gentility. Of

the two heroines, Mary Talbot is a thoughtful, reserved, bright eyed

_blue_; Elizabeth Eustace is younger, and prettier, but more entirely

the child of nature. Neither of them, however, say or act any thing

that can distinguish them from the common _materiel_ of all

novel-women, and serve rather the necessities of the plot, than the

illustration of any of the more touching or exalted beauties of female

character. Of the _Dii minorum gentium_--the lower order of character,

Zeek Morehouse, a worthless understrapper about the old Colonel's

domestic establishment--Hezekiah Brindle, another domestic, who, when

fortune had abandoned the standard of the Insurgents, with the most

simple hearted treachery, "'lists for a private" in the adverse

army--Deacon Hopkins, a thin visaged, flint hearted knave, the usurer

of the parish--Captain Moses Bliss, the inn keeper, one of those pert,

low rogues, so often found in village taverns--Captain Shays, the

leader of the insurgents, and the very impersonation of the spirit of

the militia service--Mrs. Appleton and Mrs. Shattuck, specimens of the

virago, are all rather amusing examples of Yankee low life, and afford

occasion for much characteristic, if not very interesting dialogue.

The other characters brought out in the developement of the story,

scarcely deserve to be noticed, serving as they only do, like soldiers

drafted from the cobbler's stalls and tailors benches, for the use of

the stage, to help the author through the necessities of his plot.

The conduct of the story, is in some respects extremely, and very

often unnecessarily, faulty. The introduction of Zeek Morehouse, in

the second chapter, is a bungling expedient to beat out the author's

_materiel_, over a larger surface for the publisher: and the whole

scene in the kitchen, and afterwards in the presence of the Colonel's

family, is low and dull. The Doctor (Talbot,) is always an unnecessary

personage, and we hardly think there is any thing about him, to

compensate the delay in the story which his presence occasions. The

affair of "Mary Gibbs's misfortune," is awkwardly brought in, and

unsatisfactorily disposed of. We are sorry for the misconduct of

Eustace, and rather vexed at the facile forgiveness with which his

mistress overlooks it; while the silence of the novelist gives a

venial character to one of the most crying offences against individual

happiness and social order. Osborne, and his adventures, from the

commencement, through his trial and mock punishment, down to the

period of the marriage with Miss Warren, form an episode that only

swells the volume, without helping on the story, or affording the

author any opportunity (that he had not before,) for remark, or the

illustration of character. He is nothing but the shadow of Eustace, in

point of character; and Miss Warren, as a sketch of a flirting

fashionable, is not worth the pains taken to introduce her to the

reader. The capital defect of the plot, however, is in the conclusion.

The bitter contempt which Eustace must have felt, (and which he seizes

every opportunity to express,) for the baseness of Talbot, in

betraying the cause of the popular party, and the rancorous hatred

which his subsequent violent persecution of him, had engendered in the

breast of Eustace, (see vol. 2, p. 266-7,) to say nothing of the

cordial detestation with which Talbot returned his ill will, (see vol.

2, p. 268,) renders the reconciliation, effected without any sort of

explanation, apology, or clearing up of the guilt of either, unnatural

and disgusting. Eustace _knew_ the baseness of Talbot, and the latter

(a bearded man, and a soldier,) had just declared that he would sooner

follow his sister to the grave, than see her united to his enemy; and

yet, presto! the author having finished out his second volume, the

traitor and his bitter foe, shake hands, and enter at once into an

exchange of sisters by a double marriage! In this particular, the

story is contrived with great want of skill.

The author seems to have been aware of the propriety and good taste of

preserving historical correctness in a novel, founded on scenes in

real life; but he does not comprehend, to its full extent, the spirit

of that sound canon. So far as the progress of the story, in the

movements of the insurgents, is concerned, the _events_ are in strict

keeping with Bradford's account of the insurrections in Massachusetts.

But this was but a small part of the duty of the novelist; and he has

violated all the rest. The open rebellion of the greater part of the

population of several counties, threatened the most serious and

alarming evil; perhaps the total overthrow of the government of the

state; and the spirit of the people had become sullen and gloomy. In

the "Insurgents," however, the whole affair is treated with ridicule,

and the reader of the novel is left with an impression that the

insurrection was of a character, compared with which, the adventures

of Don Quixotte and his squire, were serious and important! Shays, who

was the head of the malcontents, and commander in chief of the

disorderly forces that were arranged against the government, is

painted in the novel, as a despicably ignorant and silly creature.

Now, such would not have been the character of a man, elected to head

a band of desperate insurgents, upon the point of engagement with the

forces of a powerful commonwealth! We may add, that the whole body of

the relief party, with the exception of Eustace, and his friend

Osborne, are described as frivolous gasconading clowns. In this

respect, then, there has been a gross falsification of history, and

the extremely literal adherence of the author, to historical

correctness in _events_, renders this striking variation the more

apparent, and the more to be lamented.

The moral of the "Insurgents," is defective. The treachery of Talbot,

and the indignant virtue of Eustace, are rewarded with the same final

happiness; and the unfortunate Mary Gibbs does not even suggest to the

author a word of censure, upon her guilty seducer. We should have been

glad to have made such extracts from the work, as would have enabled

our readers to judge for themselves of its merit; but there are few,

if any passages, in either volume, of very striking interest, and any

partial quotation would rather have misled, than corrected their

judgment.

Men of humor are always, in some degree, men of genius; wits are

rarely so, although a man of genius may, amongst other gifts, possess

wit, as Shakspeare.

_Coleridge's Table Talk_.

{482}

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

LETTERS ON THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

By a young Scotchman now no more.

_Boston, 1832_.

DEAR HENRY,--You have requested me to give you some information

concerning the science and literature of the United States, which have

been so often the subjects of ridicule and derision in the critical

reviews and other literary journals of our country. I take great

pleasure in complying with this request, as far as my limited

opportunities have enabled me to judge of their condition. I have read

almost every American work of any merit I could obtain, and mingled

with some of their men of science and letters, for the purpose of

being directed in my researches, and of acquiring from personal

observation, a better knowledge of their living authors.

In science, perhaps, for so young and growing a nation, its progress

has been as steady and rapid as could reasonably have been expected.

In the exact and physical sciences, there are some who, though they

have not greatly enlarged their circle, are nevertheless profoundly

versed in them, and who would not be ranked below the best in Europe.

In chemistry, mineralogy, and botany, several have acquired great

distinction, and these sciences are becoming daily more popular and

more generally cultivated. Many of the young of both sexes attend

occasional and regular lectures on each, but especially on the first

and last, and it is not rare to meet with females conversant to a

certain degree with both. In the northern cities, public lectures are

delivered on various branches of science, which are attended by both

sexes. There are at present several scientific journals published in

the United States, which are said to be pretty generally patronized,

and two or three scientific associations, whose transactions have been

given to the public. Of the former, the most meritorious

are--Silliman's Journal of Science, the Franklin Quarterly Journal,

Chapman's and some other medical journals, and two or three law

journals. Of the philosophical transactions I can say but little. I

have merely glanced over those of the American Philosophical Society,

the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Literary and

Philosophical Society of New York, but that glance has not impressed

me very favorably with the genius or learning of their members. Some

few papers are indeed valuable, and exhibit considerable research and

erudition, but they appear to be deficient in originality, depth and

lucidness. I have, however, never been very partial to these

associations. The amount of their contributions to science or

literature has never been so great as to render their formation

desirable in my eye, and certainly they are not to be compared with

the individual labors of those great luminaries who have shed such

radiance over the paths of science. Scientific men here have published

from time to time the result of their labors in the different physical

sciences, to the cultivation of which they have devoted a large

portion of their lives. The botanical works of Bigelow, Nutall,

Barton, Eaton and Elliott, the works on American birds by Wilson,

Bonaparte and Audubon, that on mineralogy by Cleveland--on entomology

by Say, and on natural history by Goodman, are highly creditable to

the country in which they were produced. Law and medical lectures are

frequently published, and law reports are numerous. I believe every

State has its reporter, and every year brings forth a volume or two of

decisions. Jurisprudence appears to be in this country a more

complicated science than in Europe. The student has not only to make

himself acquainted with the elements and principles of English law,

maritime, civil and criminal, but he has to acquire a knowledge of the

laws of the particular state in which he practices, and to know what

the courts of the different states have decided, where he does not

practice. Law is a favorite science, if indeed it can be called a

science, among the Americans. There is scarcely a youth who has

received the most ordinary education, that does not undertake to study

and practice, or attempt to practice it. In a government of laws like

this, law will be a desirable object of attainment, and hence almost

every citizen is more or less conversant with the laws by which he is

governed. The medical science too, is very extensively cultivated, and

this profession has produced several distinguished men, of whom the

nation has reason to feel proud. But metaphysical science is almost

entirely neglected, which is a matter of surprise when we consider the

very inquisitive and refining character of the American mind. Men

here, however, have no time for mere abstract speculation; and though

many of them refine and subtilize, and split hairs on constitutional

questions, they are not very anxious to analyze or investigate mere

abstractions, or to attempt to elicit light from the darkness of

metaphysical obscurity.--One of the most extensively informed

scientific men this country has produced, was Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell

of New York, who died during the summer of 1831. He had devoted his

life to the cultivation of science, especially the physical sciences,

in all of which he was well skilled; but, in consequence of that

vanity which sometimes accompanies great attainments, he often became

an object of ridicule to his countrymen, who seemed more inclined to

depreciate than to exalt his real merits.

Of the literature of America you are almost as well informed as

myself. I have looked into most of the native productions of this

country with an impartial eye, and am sorry to say that its literature

does not rank so high as one might be led to suppose from the

intelligence of its people and the nature of its political

institutions. Literature does not receive that encouragement and

patronage under this Republic, which are calculated to give it a

vigorous growth or a permanent and healthy existence. There is not

much individual wealth, and few can afford, if they had the

inclination, to purchase the productions of native authors. There is,

however, another cause which operates to the disadvantage of American

literature, and will continue to do so, until some measure be adopted

to remedy the evil; it is the cheapness and facility with which the

productions of the British press can be republished is this country.

The American author has to struggle against many disadvantages,

especially when young, unknown and inexperienced. British works of

established reputation can be obtained at little or no expense, and

reprinted in this country, while the native writer is often obliged to

publish the productions of his mind at his own cost, or give them to

any one that will undertake to put them to the press. Few can afford

{483} to write for mere fame, and no great inducement is offered to

write for any thing else. Hence there are but few, if any,

professional authors in the United States. For a long time too, the

people of this country were disposed to underrate their own literary

powers, and many believed that none but the works of the British press

were worthy of perusal or patronage. This prejudice is, however, now

beginning to wear away, especially since the critics of our country

have been forced to acknowledge the genius and literary excellence of

some of the native writers of America. But still when the extent,

population, age, and comparative refinement of the United States are

considered, it must be a matter of surprise that so few authors of

distinction are to be found within its widely extended limits. May not

this very extent be prejudicial to the cause of American letters? The

expense of transportation from one portion of the Union to the other

is so considerable, that the publisher finds it safer and more

profitable to confine his sales to a limited and convenient range,

than to spread his books over an almost boundless surface, from which

but few satisfactory returns are ever made. The Americans, though not

a nation of shop-keepers, as ours has been denominated, are

nevertheless a money making and thrifty people, and almost all are

engaged in some lucrative kind of business or occupation, which

affords them but little leisure for either literary pursuits, or the

cultivation of a taste for the fine arts; and though most of them are

readers, their reading is generally confined to newspapers, and the

political productions of the day. In the latter I do not think they

have made any very great progress since the period of the revolution.

In force and perspicuity of style, felicity of illustration and

logical power, the authors of the Federalist have not since been

surpassed. This is a work written in periodical numbers by Hamilton,

Madison and Jay, recommending and enforcing with great ability and

eloquence, the adoption of the constitution which now exists. It is a

work which every man should read who wishes to understand the

principles of this great charter of American liberty, and the motives,

feelings and views of its framers and supporters.

In the walks of romance the most distinguished writers of this country

are the late Charles B. Brown of Philadelphia, and J. Fenimore Cooper

of New York, both men of unquestionable genius. The novels or romances

of the former having been recently republished in England, you have no

doubt seen them, and those of the latter, but few who read at all have

not read. Miss Sedgewick has also written some popular novels and

ranks deservedly high among the few literati of her country; and Mr.

Paulding has lately published some tales which have been well received

and possess a good deal of merit. I can scarcely class Washington

Irving among the romance writers of this country. Most of his tales

were written abroad, and I do not think that novel writing is his

forte. He has excelled in the other walks of literature so greatly

that he need not covet the fame of a writer of fictitious history.

Brown unfortunately belonged to the _satanic_ school of our countryman

Godwin, and all his _dramatis personæ_, plots, incidents and pictures

partake of the gloom and ferocity of that school; but Brown was

unquestionably a man of genius, and capable of giving lustre to the

literary reputation of his country. Godwin was his model, as Scott

seems to be that of Cooper. Brown's picture of the yellow fever in

Philadelphia cannot be surpassed in accuracy of coloring and intensity

of interest, and it may very justly be classed with the description of

the plague at Athens by Thucydides, and that of the same terrible pest

at Florence by Boccacio. In detached scenes Brown is very powerful,

but he never appears inclined to complete what he begins, or to

present a perfect whole. He sometimes breaks off abruptly, or hastens

too precipitately to a close. He delights in gloom and the more

ferocious and uncontrollable workings of the human passions. His

object is to excite terror and not tenderness--to raise up storms and

tempests, and not to breathe over the scene a quietness and repose

calculated to soothe and tranquillize. His novels like those of his

model, are now but seldom read, and he is rapidly sinking into

oblivion.

The _dramatic_ romance of Scott and Cooper is now preferred to all

others, and has caused Brown's novels to be cast aside. Cooper's rise

to fame was as rapid as it was deserved. He had been for some years an

officer in the American Navy, where he acquired a knowledge of all the

minutiæ of nautical life, which was of great service to him in the

composition of some of his tales. These are justly considered as his

best. They display a perfect intimacy with sea life, and his

characters, incidents and sentiments are such as belong to the

"mountain wave," and are always in admirable keeping. His dialogues,

though sometimes tedious and unnecessarily prolonged are on the whole

dramatic, and serve not only to develope character but to excite the

interest of the reader. His descriptions, though at times graphic and

striking, are rather too minute for effect. The unities of time and

action are well preserved, and his plots, though very simple in their

construction, are usually wrought up with great power, and often

produce the most intense and thrilling interest. Of his female

characters, generally two in number, but little can be said; they are

Siamese twins, but with different dispositions and styles of beauty,

and play the respective parts assigned to them in the drama with

proper decency and effect. His sketches of American scenery and his

delineations of savage life and character are admirable. There is in

the former perhaps too much detail, and in the latter too high

coloring for nature; but they are unequalled, and display the vigor of

Cooper's genius and the strength of his conceptions. His style is

easy, perspicuous and fluent. In short, he is a writer of whom any

country might justly feel proud. Were I to attempt a parallel between

the American Novelist and the "Northern Magician," I should say that

Scott has more varied powers and a finer poetical mind, but in the

management of their plots, intensity of interest, and the description

of natural scenery, they are not very unequal. The Scotch romancer has

greater acquirements and a more minute and intimate acquaintance with

the history, manners and customs of past ages, but in all that

appertains to sea life Cooper is superior, and does not fall short of

his model in the ability with which he works up his incidents and

developes his plots. This, you will think, is saying a great deal for

a Scotchman, but such is my unbiassed opinion and the impression left

upon my mind, after a careful perusal of the productions of both of

these eminent writers of fictitious history.

{484}

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

OBSERVATIONS

On the National Importance of Mineral Possessions, and the Cultivation

of Geological Inquiry.

The importance of the metallic ores and other mineral substances,

considered as instrumental in the advancement of national prosperity,

is obvious to every one. In announcing that a certain country

possesses extensive and skilfully worked mines, either of coal, of

iron, copper, tin, lead, or other of the numerous ores, we at once

proclaim her wealth in terms that all must understand. They are

readily perceived to be essential to the prosecution of the various

arts and manufactures that flourish in the present age, and to form a

fruitful source of wealth to the country in which they happen to

abound.

The facility, however, with which one nation can procure these from

another, owing to the free intercourse and system of exchange

subsisting between them, which thus enables a country, barren itself

in mineral treasures, to attain a respectable rank among the wealthy

nations of the earth, occasions us to assign to the possession of them

within our own soil, an importance infinitely less than is due. We are

disposed to consider them too much in the light of mere articles of

export, and valuable, chiefly as commodities of exchange: or, if we do

not bestow too much consequence on their exchangeable value, we at

least allow too little to their intrinsic worth. Yet, when we assign

to the products of the mineral kingdom their proper rank in the scale

of national blessings, they take their place beside that of a fertile

soil, or a salubrious climate,--blessings we may still enjoy, though

we adopt the exclusive and selfish policy of ancient Egypt, or of

modern China. In short, we should value these mineral productions, not

as we value one of our great staple commodities, tobacco, on account

of its nominal price, but on their own account--not by the gain

derived from parting with, but that derived from keeping them. Nor

should we confine our solicitude to procuring now, on the easiest

terms, the means of supplying our immediate wants; but with a more

comprehensive view, look forward and provide for the period, when the

growing wants of the unborn millions destined to people our almost

boundless territory, will create a demand for these substances, in

quantities which either foreign nations, with comparatively exhausted

mines, will be unable to supply, or to purchase which, we must

appropriate that produce (the produce of a large portion of the

surface of the soil,) which should be devoted to the more legitimate

purpose of furnishing to its inhabitants the means of subsistence and

employment.

We are apt too to forget, that were it possible, with or without the

intervention of war, for a people to be cut off from all intercourse

with other nations, and to be destitute themselves of mineral

resources, that their very existence, at least as a civilized people,

would be next to impossible. That the different degrees of refinement

attained by the human race in different periods of antiquity, are

marked with a precision sufficiently distinct, by their acquaintance

with the metals, and the uses to which they are susceptible of being

applied: and, that nearer our own times, the aboriginal inhabitants of

our own continent were found existing in a higher or lower stage of

progress towards civilization, in proportion to their knowledge or

their ignorance of these substances.

To trace a little further, the connection of mineral wealth with

national prosperity, we may observe, that the wants of a people may be

said to be mainly supplied, when they are provided with food, clothing

and habitation, and they are better or worse supplied, according to

the nature and abundance of the materials they possess for the

fabrication of these, and the perfection of the instruments they may

have, proper for fashioning them into convenient forms. The nation

which can command for its subsistence, in greatest profusion, the

varied vegetable and animal productions, of whatever clime, that

constitute the necessaries and luxuries of life; whose well stored

magazines of merchandize furnish, for its apparel, the finest fabrics

and the richest stuffs; and which can boast, for its places of

dwelling, the most commodious, splendid and durable edifices, with the

various conveniences that necessarily keep pace with improvements in

these, may be said, physically considered, to have well nigh attained

the pinnacle of prosperity. Let us observe in what manner the mineral

substances to which we have alluded, contribute to accomplish this

end. Let us suppose man rude and barbarous, for the first time, to be

presented with that best of gifts--iron; and for the sake of

proceeding, let us anticipate the slow progress of events, and give it

to him in the form into which he would soon convert it--that of the

simplest implements. Instantly his habits are changed: his wandering

mode of life is abandoned: his abode becomes fixed, and he himself

devoted to labor. In a little time, the rugged face of nature is made

to assume a softened and a brightened aspect, and to smile upon him

with a novel beauty. The ample and ancient forest, his former range,

falls with continued crash, day after day, beneath the repeated stroke

of his axe: on all sides, broad and sunny plains open around him: the

broken soil heaved up to the influence of the atmosphere by his

plough, or stirred with his hoe, begins to yield in abundance the

fruits of the earth; the prostrate timber rent asunder by his wedge,

and hewed, sawed, or chiseled into appropriate shapes, furnishes

materials of building: these, arranged and secured by means of pins or

nails of the same material, rise in orderly succession one above

another, till there is erected for his habitation a comfortable and

commodious dwelling:--while the surrounding fields, now that he has

ample food in store for their support, are overspread with the flocks

he has domesticated, to provide for his use unfailing supplies of

clothing and subsistence. Already he has made himself acquainted with

the rudiments of agriculture, architecture and manufactures, and has

laid the foundation of the useful arts.

Compare his condition now, with that in which he existed before his

acquaintance with the uses of iron: contrast the savage of the forest

with the cultivator of the field--the scanty and precarious sustenance

of the one, with the regular and abundant subsistence of the

other--the covering of skin, with the garment of wool--the hut, with

the commodious dwelling--the hardships attendant on one mode of life,

with the numerous conveniences that follow as a necessary train to the

other; and from this rough-drawn and very imperfect outline, there may

be formed some slight idea of the revolution {485} effected in the

condition of man, even by a limited acquaintance with the simpler uses

of this single, though most important of all the mineral substances.

It is scarcely necessary to direct the reader's attention to the

accession to the comforts, the conveniences, the elegancies of life,

or to the vast acquisitions to the power of man, which, in successive

periods of time, have been gained by a more extended and familiar

acquaintance with the various properties of iron, and the innumerable

purposes to which, with increased advantage, human ingenuity has

discovered it to be applicable. It is sufficient to turn the eye on

some great and populous city--the seat of busy manufactures;--on a

Sheffield, a Manchester, or a Birmingham,--those nurseries of the

arts, and workshops of the world: to view its immense establishments

in active operation, and look on the tens of thousands of the

industrious they maintain and employ. It is sufficient to hear the

eternal din and incessant roar of stupendous machinery, laboring in

the service of man, in obedience to laws and impulses he has given to

it;--to see its multifarious and complicated parts performing each its

allotted movement;--swinging heavily, with measured time, and force,

or shooting to and fro with regulated rapidity; revolving slowly, and

lazily around, or flying with inconceivable velocity, and whirling

smoothly, each in its proper sphere,--moving, all in harmonious

cooperation, to effect some beneficial end, with a precision

unerring--as if impressed with the intelligence and volition of

animated being. It is sufficient, to be convinced of the great

acquisition we have in iron, to witness the wondrous effects of the

steam-engine,--that giant machine, which performs to our hands the

labor of countless hosts; which enables us to penetrate into the

secret recesses of the solid earth, and to master the ocean, and the

very elements themselves. "It rows, it pumps, it excavates, it

carries, it draws, it lifts, it hammers, it spins, it weaves, it

prints;"--that masterpiece of human skill, which, in the language of

the celebrated Doctor Black, is the most valuable present ever made by

philosophy to the arts.

Again, when we behold materials of every known description, in the

rude state in which nature presents them, before they have been

subjected to the first elementary process in their manufacture, and

look upon them, after they have undergone the various mechanical

operations to which they are successively submitted, and are produced

in a finished state, of every form and fashion that can minister to

the wants, or gratify the caprice of man, we almost doubt their

identity, and are at a loss which most to admire, the utility of the

substance by means of which so wonderful a change has been effected,

or the sagacity of him, who moulds and constructs it into complicated

machines, to which he gives motion and almost life, to work out his

own advantage. And, lastly, when there is displayed before us the

endless variety of manufactured goods and wares;---of instruments, and

implements, and utensils;--of machines, and engines, and mechanical

contrivances to abridge human labor; when we gaze on the immense

fleets that wait to receive them, in an hundred ports of some great

manufacturing country, or survey the seas whitened with the sails, and

heaving beneath the burthens of whole navies, busied in transporting

them to distant and expectant nations, and even piloted in their

course, through the wide and trackless waste of waters, with unerring

accuracy, by a property peculiar to iron,--we turn from the

contemplation more fully persuaded of the extent to which we are

indebted to this single metal, to which in truth, if we except the

spontaneous productions of nature, (of little comparative value

unwrought,) we owe every thing we possess.

We are enabled, perhaps, by this review, hasty though it has been, of

the numerous and varied uses of iron, better to estimate its real

worth, and we do not hesitate to assign to it, an importance among the

elements of national prosperity of the highest order, and to consider

it, what truly it is, the most valuable of all acquisitions. We look

upon the country rich in the possession of its ores, with feelings of

rivalry, and are prompted to emulate her in acquiring this true

species of substantial wealth. Our national ambition is excited to

grasp at this mighty instrument of power, and our energies should be

roused into ceaseless activity, until, by untiring assiduity in

surveying and exploring our own tempting regions, guided by the lights

borrowed from geological science, we succeed in enlarging our mineral

domain to at least an equal extent.

Before proceeding to the consideration of any other of the substances

we have proposed to treat of, it may not be improper, here, to annex

(more in the form of notes) a few facts illustrative of the history of

the very interesting mineral which has occupied our attention in the

preceding remarks.

Of all the metals, iron is the most widely and universally

distributed, being confined to no particular formation as its

repository, but discoverable in every class of rocks, from the oldest

granite to the newest alluvial deposit. It is also the most abundant

of the metallic ores: whole mountains composed of it occurring in the

northern parts of the globe. As instances of the great masses in which

it is found, it may be mentioned, that the sparry iron ore found in

the floetz limestone in Stiria, has been worked to an immense extent

and with great profit, for more than twelve hundred years: and, that

the Rio mountain in the island of Elba, five hundred feet in height

and three miles in circumference, known at an early day to the Romans,

(in which mines are still wrought,) is wholly composed of specular

iron ore. Though this metal, as we have stated, exists in every kind

of rock and soil, it has been remarked, that the dark oxides or its

richest ores are confined exclusively to primitive rocks. The ores are

generally, it has also been observed, of a purer quality, and more

abundant in northern regions. What are denominated iron-stones, or the

ores containing a larger proportion of earthy matter, are found in the

secondary strata, and exist commonly in great abundance in those

accompanying coal.

Although iron was known in the remotest ages, and was in use among

some particular nations even at a time anterior to the deluge,

according to Moses, (Gen. iv. 22) we are not to presume it was in

general use:

"Him Tubal nam'd, the Vulcan of old times

The sword and falchion their invention claim;

And the first smith was the first murderer's son."

Nor must we forget, that the useful arts, and among them the art of

working metals, were lost to the {486} generality of mankind, in

consequence of that universal calamity. Gold, silver and copper seem

to be the metals of which the knowledge and uses were earliest

recovered after that period; owing, no doubt, to their being oftener

found on the surface of the earth, or in the beds of streams--to their

more frequent occurrence in the metallic state, and to the greater

ease with which they are separated from their ores. Copper, though

greatly inferior to iron, yet possesses considerable tenacity, and

sufficient hardness to furnish a substitute in the construction of

cutting instruments, and either pure, or alloyed with tin to increase

its hardness, constituted the materials of which were formed the

swords, hatchets, and artist's tools of many ancient nations. The arms

and tools of the American nations were similarly made, and by means of

this awkward substitute, the Mexicans and Peruvians made considerable

advances in manufactures and the arts--greater perhaps than any other

people unacquainted with the use of iron. The inconvenience

experienced by these nations from their ignorance of this metal, and

the awkward expedients to which in consequence they had recourse,

afford an important lesson in teaching us what estimate to make of the

value of a substance, which, its very requisiteness to every common

purpose of life so familiarizes us with, as to cause us daily to pass

by with little or no notice. The evils which we are taught would

inevitably follow its loss, make a deeper impression of its

importance, than all the advantages, manifold though they be, which in

heedless enjoyment, we are continually deriving from its possession.

With no better substitute for iron tools in cutting stone, than the

sharp edged fragments of flint,--without carriages, or machines of any

kind,--how tedious and laborious must have been the work of separating

from the quarry, of shaping, of transporting to a distance, and

elevating to a proper height, the huge blocks of stone with which the

Mexicans and Peruvians contrived to erect their temples and other

public edifices!--structures that have commanded the admiration of

more modern nations. What toil and what time must have been expended

in the operation of dividing a single block, by means of continued

rubbing of one rock against another! What pains and what efforts of

ingenuity must it have cost the artizans of Montezuma, without the aid

of nails, to form the ceilings of his palace, by an arrangement of the

planks so artificial, as mutually to sustain each other! With what

eagerness the Peruvian would have accepted nails of iron, to fasten

together the pieces of timber he employed in building, and have laid

aside as worthless, the cords of hemp his necessities compelled him to

apply to that purpose! What an acquisition would have been even a

common needle, in the place of the thorn, to which, in the fashioning

of their cotton garments, they were obliged to have recourse!

Iron differs from the metals we have mentioned as earliest known, by

its occurring rarely in a metallic state, and being then most

difficult of fusion: its uses were in consequence a later discovery.

The methods, besides, of disengaging it from the ores in which it is

usually found in nature, are far from being obvious, consisting of

various processes,--such as pounding, roasting, smelting in contact

with charcoal, to render it fusible; requiring too, additional

heatings and hammerings to render it malleable, and a still more

complicated process to convert it into steel. Yet it was in use, as

has been remarked, in very remote ages: Moses, in Deuteronomy, makes

frequent mention of it. He speaks of mines of iron, and alludes to

furnaces for melting it; and from the circumstance of swords, knives,

axes, and tools for cutting stone, constructed of that metal, being

mentioned by the same authority, we are entitled to conclude that the

art of tempering and converting it into steel was also known. The mode

of tempering it was certainly known to the Greeks as early as the days

of Homer; for that poet borrows from the art some of his similes. Thus

in the Oddyssey:

And as, when arm'rers temper in the ford

The keen-edged pole-axe, or the shining sword,

The red hot metal hisses in the lake,

So in his eye-ball hiss'd the plunging stake.

It is by its conversion into steel, that we are furnished with a

material retentive of an edge, and adapted to cutting the hardest

substances, and are enabled to fabricate that most important class of

implements, edge-tools, all of which, from the ponderous pit saw to

the finest lancet, are formed in part with this metal.

It was not, however, until very late in modern times, that we may be

said to have acquired absolute dominion over this individual of the

mineral kingdom, so as to be able at command, to press it into

service, whatever may be its locality, in relation to the surface of

the earth or its interior. For, before the improvements made in the

steam-engine by the discoveries of Watts, we were limited in the power

of availing ourselves of the known existence of iron, however abundant

in any particular spot, by the necessity of the concurrence of a

stream of water in the same location with that of the metal, as a

means of impelling the machinery for producing the blast requisite in

the operation of smelting. Since those improvements, steam power may

be employed wherever the ore and fuel is found in sufficient

quantities to authorize the erection of furnaces; and the manufacture

of iron has in consequence, especially in Great Britain, risen into

great importance. The annual produce of smelted ore in that kingdom,

is estimated now to be about seven hundred thousand tons.

We cannot avoid suggesting here, to the owners and workers of coal

property in Virginia, the propriety of investigating the strata

through which they necessarily pass in their mining operations, with

reference to the discovery of argillaceous iron-stone, with more

minuteness than hitherto they have done--if indeed, (which we are

inclined to doubt,) their attention has been in any degree directed to

such examination. It is from this species of iron-stone, accompanying

coal-strata, that Great Britain derives at least nineteen twentieths

of the metals which she possesses in such abundance, and to which, in

connection with its convenient location in the immediate vicinity of

the fuel necessary in its reduction, she owes her towering eminence as

a manufacturing country. The coal formation of Virginia contains the

same clays, shales, sandstones and slates, and these are characterized

by the same vegetable impressions that mark the series in other

countries. And may we not reasonably ask, why should we hastily

conclude this usual concomitant of the coal strata in England,

Scotland, France and Germany, to be wanting here; or rather, why may

not we hope to find it equally abundant in our own coal district. We

are induced to {487} urge this suggestion the more, from the

circumstance, that this species of ore presents in its external

characters, so little indicative of its metallic nature or chemical

composition, that but for its greater weight, it might well escape the

notice of an inexperienced or unobservant eye, unless arrested by some

such hope as we have been induced to hold out. Even in England, where

from its great abundance it might have been expected to be generally

better known, instances have occurred in some districts, of its being

wastefully misapplied, through ignorance, to the common purpose of

mending the roads. The immense benefits that would result from success

attending a research directed to this object, as well to the city of

Richmond, as to a few fortunate individuals, are too obvious to

require comment. It is sufficient to remark, that it would prove an

abundant source of individual wealth, and would, in connection with

her other great advantages and increasing facilities of

transportation, be the means of elevating the metropolis of Virginia

to an exalted rank in the class of large cities, and enable her to vie

in importance with the proudest seat of manufactures, or the most

extensive emporium of commerce.

It was our intention, as our title announces, to have passed rapidly

on, and glanced at the history, uses, and national importance of coal,

and some of the most valuable of the other mineral substances, as well

as to have pointed out in a short series of remarks, some of the

advantages to be derived from the cultivation and pursuit of

mineralogical and geological inquiries in connection with this

subject; but we have loitered on the way, and the contracting limits

of our paper admonish us to hasten to a close. We may at another time,

if leisure permit, and if on reflection, we deem our endeavors at all

likely to attract attention to subjects which have too long been

almost universally neglected, again resume, after our own fashion, a

subject which under better management, could not fail to prove

interesting as well as instructive.

GAMMA.

_Henrico, April 28th, 1835_.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

LETTERS FROM A SISTER.

LETTER ELEVENTH.

Malmaison, Tomb of the Ex-Empress Josephine--Engine for Conveying

Water to Versailles and St. Cloud--St. Germain en Laye--Nanterre--St.

Geneviéve.

PARIS, ----.

_Dear Jane:_

Although quite fatigued, I cannot retire to rest ere I have rendered

my dear sister an account of to-day's excursion to St. Germain and to

Malmaison the favorite residence of the late Ex-Empress Josephine. We

took an early breakfast, and sat off by ten o'clock; the Danvilles in

their carriage, accompanied by Sigismund, and we in a remise, or, as

it is termed in England, a glass coach. We soon alighted at Malmaison,

it being only two leagues from Paris, and spent more than an hour in

walking over the house and grounds, and thinking of poor Josephine. A

great deal of the furniture yet remains as she left it; even her music

books are kept as she arranged them. The room she occupied as her

chamber, is exceedingly beautiful. It is circular, lined with cloth of

crimson and gold, and surrounded by mirrors inserted in the walls and

doors. The bed is supported by golden swans, and the coverlid and

curtains are of silver lama. In the library we saw the writing table

and inkstand of Napoleon. The first bears evident marks of his

penknife; which, while meditating, he used to strike into the wood.

The domestic who conducted us through the apartments, spoke of the

Ex-Empress with great affection; and so did the gardener, a West India

negro, whose ebony visage was a novel spectacle to us. They said she

was beloved by all the household and neighborhood, for her affability

and kindness. The green house is filled with gay and choice flowers

and shrubs; and it is melancholy to reflect that these the frailest

productions of nature, have outlived their lovely mistress, and still

blossom and flourish and shed their fragrance around, while she, like

a shadow has passed away! After following awhile the windings of a

stream that meanders through the garden, we found ourselves at the

threshold of a pretty little temple dedicated to Cupid. The

mischievous urchin himself, treading upon roses, is placed in the

centre, and on the pedestal beneath him, this vindictive couplet is

inscribed:

Il l'est, le fut, ou le doit être,

Qui que ce soit, voici ton Maitre.

We quitted the shades of Malmaison with regret, and proceeded to the

neighboring village of Ruelle to visit the tomb of Josephine in the

church there, where her ashes repose. The monument is of white marble,

and was erected to her memory by Eugene Beauharnais, her son. On its

summit she is represented clad in a folding robe with a diadem on her

head, and kneeling before an open breviary. It is a handsome tribute

of filial love.

Near Ruelle is a chateau that once belonged to Cardinal Richelieu, and

since then to Marshal Massena, whose widow still inhabits it.[1] Being

informed that the family were absent and that it was customary for

strangers to visit this sojourn of those distinguished men, we drove

there; and, alighting from our carriages, were demanding permission of

a person in the yard to see the mansion and its grounds, when a lady

suddenly made her appearance, and we had the mortification to find

that we were intruding on the privacy of Madame Massena herself. We

immediately explained our mistake, and would have come away but she

insisted on our entering, and was so polite that we could not refuse.

The chateau is very plain, and furnished with corresponding

simplicity. In front of it is a limpid sheet of water, and behind it a

pleasant garden, where we wandered awhile and then took leave,

gratified with our adventure, awkward as it was at the commencement.

[Footnote 1: This lady is since dead. She died soon afterwards.]

Retracing our steps a short distance, we continued our ride to Saint

Germain en Laye, and observed on our left a stupendous steam engine

which, on inquiry, we found is used for supplying the fountains of

Versailles and Saint Cloud with water from the Seine, and has

succeeded the famous machine of Marly. This machine had become so

decayed in some parts before its removal, that it occasioned the death

of several persons who were examining its construction--and heedlessly

stepped on an old board, which giving way they {488} were precipitated

into the river and drowned, or crushed to death by the wheels. Saint

Germain en Laye derives its name from the extensive forest adjoining

it, which is considered the finest in France, and has ever been the

favorite hunting ground of the French monarchs. While partaking of the

pleasures of the chase they inhabited the spacious palace, that still

exists and is at present a barracks for soldiers. That abject king

James the Second, resided in it twelve years, supported by the

munificence of Louis le grand, and finally closed his earthly career

in this noble retreat. He was buried in the adjoining church, and his

heart is enshrined in a paltry looking altar, before which a lamp is

constantly burning, and upon which is an inscription informing the

reader why it was erected. But what renders the palace at Saint

Germain peculiarly interesting, is its having been the residence of

the Duchess de la Vallière; and in the ceiling of one of the rooms

appropriated to her use there is a trap door, through which it is

supposed her enamored sovereign descended when he visited her

clandestinely. On the left of the castle is a terrace one mile in

length, and bordering an acclivity that overhangs the Seine, and is

highly cultivated in vineyards and fruit trees. This terrace is much

frequented by persons who resort there, for the purpose of enjoying

fresh air and a fine prospect. Some go in carriages, but the usual

mode of conveyance is by a donkey, and this we chose. The streets of

the town are wide and the houses generally large; which might be

expected, as court festivities were so often held here; and

now-a-days, many of the Parisian gentry pass the summer months here.

We finished the day by dining at a neat auberge, (inn) with a garden

teeming with flowers just in front of our parlor. Returning home we

passed through the village of Nanterre, (the birthplace of St.

Geneviéve) and stopped an instant to buy some of the cakes for which

it is renowned; they are merely buns, and we did not think them

deserving of their fame. _Nanterre beer_ and _Nanterre sausages_ are

also held in great estimation, but of these we did not taste, being

quite satisfied with our trial of the cakes. I imagine you know the

history of St. Geneviéve; though lest you should not, I will tell you

in a few words that she was a shepherdess, whose virtues and piety

caused her to be canonized after her death, and made the patron saint

of Paris. There is a lovely picture of her at the Louvre, by Pierre

Guerin, representing her turning a spindle while guarding her flock.

Good night.

LEONTINE.

* * * * *

LETTER TWELFTH.

Lafayette and his Family--Sévres Manufactory--Palace of St.

Cloud--Madame de Genlis--Savoyards--Ballet of Mars and Venus.

Paris, -----.

_Dear Jane:_--

We have formed acquaintance with some delightful characters since I

wrote to you a few days since. We have been introduced to the good and

brave General Lafayette and his family! On Wednesday he came with his

son, Mr. George Lafayette, to see Mr. Danville, and the latter

presented us to them. The print you have seen of this distinguished

patriarch, is a correct likeness; and his manners are as benevolent as

his countenance. He has a soirée on every Wednesday night, and we have

gladly accepted the kind and pressing invitation he gave each of us to

attend them. The ladies of the family, consisting of his daughters,

his grand-daughters, and daughter-in-law Madame G. Lafayette, have

also called, and we find them very amiable and pleasing. We have

likewise had an introduction to Madame de Genlis, for which we are

indebted to Mrs. Danville; who, rightly conjecturing it would be

gratifying to us to know this celebrated lady, and being well

acquainted with her, requested her permission to present us to her.

This was readily granted, and this morning appointed for the visit.

Accordingly, after an early ride to the Sévres manufactory of

porcelain and the palace of Saint Cloud, the most splendid of all the

king's habitations, we repaired to her residence. On arriving we were

conducted up stairs by a tidy looking _femme de chambre_ and ushered

through a small bed-room, plainly furnished, into an apartment that,

from the variety of its contents, might be compared to Noah's ark.

Besides the usual appendages of a parlor, it contained a piano, a

harp, a guitar, a folding screen, and several tables loaded with

books, papers, baskets and boxes, &c. We found the venerable authoress

seated in an arm chair, near the window. Her regular and delicate

features and fair skin, still indicate former beauty. Her nose is

aquiline, and her eyes clear blue; as they are weak, she is obliged to

wear a green shade to protect them from the light, but has never yet

found it necessary to use spectacles: this is astonishing, for she

will be eighty-two on the 25th of next January! She wore a black silk

gown, and a simple muslin cap; and when Mrs. Danville introduced us

she offered her hand to each, and as soon as we were seated entered

into conversation with a degree of vivacity that quite surprised us;

we were still more so, at her vanity. She talked a great deal about

her own works, and in their praise! We asked her if she continued to

play on the harp. "Oh oui! très bien!" she replied. "And on the piano

and the guitar, Madame?" "Oh, oui, tout, tout, très bien!" She told us

she often practised on the harp and composed in prose at the same

time; and that while reciting verses aloud in a distinct voice and

with strict attention to punctuation and emphasis, she could read a

page from any author and then recount to you in regular rotation,

every idea therein expressed; and this proved, she said, that the mind

is capable of two operations at once. Papa observed that Charles the

Twelfth of Sweden, proved it a century ago, when he played chess while

dictating letters to different persons. She did not notice this

remark, but proceeded to extol a novel she wrote some years since,

entitled "Alfred the Great." She considers it one of her best

productions, and gave it to a physician who attended her during a

dangerous illness and declined being paid for his services. She said

she thought she could not compliment him more, than by making him a

present of her work; that he seemed delighted with it, and declared he

would have it published immediately, but that much to her regret he

had not kept his promise. Alfred is her favorite hero, and she

expressed her wonder that he is not often made the subject of a

romance. She informed us that she always retires to bed at half past

ten o'clock and rises at seven, and is careful to eat very moderately.

Her faculties {489} continue perfect, and she knows fifty-two trades;

such as sewing, knitting, spinning, embroidering, making baskets,

weaving purses, &c. &c. We saw on the chimney-piece a snuff box that

Mademoiselle d'Orleans, her _ci-devant_ pupil, had sent to her. On the

lid she had painted a harp entwined with a garland of flowers, and

below it this sentence was written: "C'est votre ouvrage." Having sat

with her two hours we took leave, and had quitted the room, when she

called us back to show us with what ease she could rise from her chair

without resting her hands on the arms of it to aid herself, as old

people are commonly obliged to do. She has invited us to call on her

whenever we can, and was so polite as to say she felt quite flattered

by our visit.

On reaching home we found Mr. Danville and Leonora much diverted at

the exploit of a monkey that had climbed in at the window, and ere

they perceived it, twitched from Leonora's hand a bunch of raisins she

was eating. It was the property of a little Savoyard, who had taught

it a variety of tricks in order to gain a few sous by their

exhibition. The Boulevard abounds with these little wanderers, and

their marmosets.

This evening we are going to a fête at the Tivoli Garden; the _New_

Tivoli as it is called; the old one (which I am told was far

handsomer) has been converted into ground for building. We have seen

the Ballet of Mars and Venus, at the grand opera; nothing can be more

beautiful and splendid than it is! Leaving it for your imagination to

fancy, I subscribe myself your affectionate

LEONTINE.

* * * * *

LETTER THIRTEENTH.

Fête at Tivoli--The Catacombs--Cemetery of Montmartre--Abattoirs--Lady

Morgan--Mrs. Opie--A Quaker Meeting.

Paris, ----.

_Dear Jane:_

We were much entertained at Tivoli. The garden was brightly

illuminated, and all sorts of amusements went on; and what a variety

of these the French have, and with what zest they partake of them! We

did our part very well too. We swung, we rode on wooden horses, we

sailed in ships, looked at a cosmorama, witnessed a phantasmagoria,

rope dancing and fire works, a play performed by puppets, and some

metamorphoses of little paste board figures, that were quite

wonderful; for instance:--a tiny lion was changed, as if by magic,

into a cupid driving a car drawn by swans, a young lady into a basket

of flowers, a butterfly into a beau, &c. &c. These transfigurations, I

think, must be produced in the following manner: Two different objects

are painted on a bit of pasteboard, one on the back and the other on

the front of it; the pasteboard is then folded into the shape of one

of them, and threads, too fine to be visible at a moderate distance,

attached to it; after exhibiting the first figure a sufficient time,

the threads are pulled and the pasteboard adroitly turned round and

thrown open, thus displaying the second figure, to the form of which

its edges are trimmed. As no person was visible, the threads were

undoubtedly passed through the scenes of the miniature stage into the

hand of the skilful operator,--for skilful he or she was who conducted

the business. When tired of strolling we entered a fine café, situated

in the centre of the garden, and refreshed ourselves with ice creams;

afterwards, attracted by the sound of music, we repaired to an open

space, where an orchestra was erected and a band of musicians were

playing quadrilles for a party of beaux and belles, who danced away

merrily, not on the _turf_ but in the sand; they were, however, so

inspired by the tones of violins and clarionets, that they moved along

as if on a board floor.

You will wonder, perhaps, how we sailed in ships without the aid of

wind or tide! I will tell you. Two poles, with a little ship suspended

by a rope from each end, were placed crosswise on a pivot, and turned

as rapidly as you chose, carrying you round and round in the air, with

an undulating motion, not dissimilar to that of a vessel at sea, and

so unpleasant to our feelings that we soon _disembarked_. This

diversion is termed "les Espagnolettes." The wooden horses are

arranged in like manner, except that they are firmly fixed on the ends

of the poles, and consequently, in riding on them you do not

experience the sickening, waving motion. The machine for swinging, is

denominated a "Balancoir." This also consists of a couple of beams

placed athwart each other, with chairs attached to their ends, which

are thrown alternately up and down. Several parties, as they glided

round on the wooden horses, amused themselves by trying to pass a

stick through a large ring which was held towards them by a woman

mounted on a bench. Whenever a ring was caught and borne off, it was

instantly replaced by another, until one of the competitors had

obtained _five_ and thus won the game. I must now change my theme and

inform you of our disappointment as respects seeing the catacombs.

They are closed at present by order of the government--I _believe_ on

account of the danger there is in visiting them. We have been to the

"cemetery of Montmartre," or "Field of Repose," as it is likewise

styled. It is of much older date than "Pére la Chaise," but not so

extensive, nor does it contain such handsome monuments; there are

however some shady, melancholy dells and moss covered tombs, that

render it peculiarly interesting. Vestris the celebrated dancer and

Very the chief of Restaurateurs, are buried there. From the cemetery

we proceeded to the "Abattoir," or "Slaughter-house of Montmartre;" an

establishment of this kind is erected in every department of the city.

Within them the butchers exercise their sanguinary functions, and the

expense of them is defrayed by taxes on the animals that are killed.

They are kept in the neatest order and composed of numerous buildings,

each of which is appropriated to a particular branch of the business.

In one the poor animals are knocked in the head; and there is a

receptacle for the blood, which trickles into it through furrows made

in the floor: in a second the carcase is skinned: in a third

quartered: in a fourth the entrails are separated and cleansed: in a

fifth the fat is boiled in an immense kettle. There are besides

spacious tables, where the unconscious victims are sheltered and amply

supplied with food and straw, while awaiting their fate. It made me

quite sad to behold them eating and reposing so calmly, and then to

think of their bloody destiny! The "Abattoirs" are liberally watered

and often washed, and therefore no disagreeable odour is perceptible

about them. I wish our butchers would follow the example of their

French brethren as regards these places!

We had the gratification of meeting with Lady Morgan last night at

Madame B----'s. Mamma had a {490} great deal of conversation with her

and found her extremely affable and agreeable. You know we were told

she was ugly--we do not think her so, but she certainly dresses too

girlishly, rouges too highly and seems too desirous of admiration.

This cannot be said of Mrs. Opie, to whom we were also introduced. She

was as plain in her attire as a dark grey silk gown and a white muslin

kerchief and cap could make her. In her manners she is unaffected, in

her conversation animated and intelligent. Her countenance is open and

expressive of her lively mind. The moment we beheld her we recognized

her as a lady we had seen at a quaker meeting which we attended from

motives of curiosity on Sunday. A quaker meeting in Paris! you will

exclaim. Even so my dear, for what is there on the face of the earth

(that depends not on _soil_ or _climate_) which may not be found in

this bustling capital? The meeting was held in a house in the Champs

Elysèes, belonging to a quaker family with whom Mr. D. was acquainted,

and who gave him a cheerful permission to bring with him whenever he

wished it, any friends desirous of going there. We were shewn into a

neat parlor, where about twenty persons were sitting in solemn

silence, and for nearly an hour not a sound was heard, save the

occasional sneezes of an old lady who had a violent cold in her head.

At length however the spirit moved a dark eyed gentleman and he gave

us a tolerable sermon. I conclude with love from all of us to

yourself, aunt M. and Albert, and to our relations and friends in the

vicinity of Morven Lodge. I have not always room for affectionate

messages, or be assured they would always be inserted.

LEONTINE.

* * * * *

LETTER FOURTEENTH.

Soirée at General Lafayette's--Benjamin Constant--Messrs. Perrier,

Laffitte and Ternaux, &c.--"Conservatory of Arts and

Trades"--Diorama--Georama--Neorama--"Royal Printing

Office"--Manufactory of Plate Glass--Hospital of the Quinze

Vingts--Castle of Vincennes--Fountain of the Elephant--Franconi's

Circus--The Duchess of Berri's children.

PARIS, ----.

_Dear Jane:_

Another busy week of pleasure and amusement has glided by since you

have heard from us, and two evenings of it have been spent at two

delightful soirées. The first at Madame de N----'s, the second at the

gallant old General Lafayette's, in the rue d'Anjou; where he has a

suite of small and neat apartments illuminated for the reception of

his expected guests on every Tuesday evening. We made our debut there

about 9 o'clock and found them crowded. Among the throng were many

celebrated and interesting personages, for the worthy and enlightened

of all nations seem ever ready to do homage to the virtuous patriarch

of Lagrange. At his soirées the greatest ease prevails--the

refreshments are simple and plentiful, and in compliment to the

Americans and English, tea is always served, a custom not practised

among the French. We again saw Sir Charles and Lady Morgan and Mrs.

Opie, with whom by the bye we have exchanged visits. Then there was

the orator Benjamin Constant, a pale, thin man, with light blue eyes

and snowy hair, looking as if he were far on his passage to the next

world. He was environed by a crowd of gentlemen, to whom he was

speaking very earnestly with a great deal of gesture. Not far from him

we observed other stars of the Chamber of Deputies, and these were

Messieurs Casimir Perrier, Laffitte and Ternaux, whose countenances

bespeak their noble minds. Monsieur Ternaux has introduced here and

carries on the manufacture of cashmere shawls, and they not only equal

those of India in tints and texture, but surpass them in the beauty

and richness of the borders. To him also is attributed the discovery

of the art of stamping patterns in relief on cloth table covers, &c.

In the next room, we saw Mr. Cooper, the American novelist, and his

lady--the two Miss P----'s, cousins of Lord Byron and Mr. and Mrs.

----. She is the daughter of Gen. Bertrand, and a beautiful creature

she is. The lovely countess d'A---- was sitting near her. She is the

sister of Madame George Lafayette, and is an intelligent and

fascinating woman. She called here yesterday with Madame Lasteyrie and

her daughters.

It is now time to speak of some of the curiosities of Paris to which

we have recently been devoting our mornings. I believe the

"conservatory of arts and trades" stands first on the list. It is also

termed the "museum of industry," and is a collection of all sorts of

machines and models, patterns and specimens of things that French

genius and labor have produced; for the government obliges every

Frenchman to deposit here a sample or model of whatever he improves or

invents, and to accompany it with an account of its manufacture or

construction. Besides several halls exhibiting machines and models,

there are others filled with specimens of porcelain, glass, stone

ware, lace, silks, ribbons, tapestry, colored and stamped paper,

scissors, knives, fans, watches, clocks, lamps and a thousand other

articles. One of the halls contains a number of _miniature_ buildings,

representing sundry manufactories. They are open in front, and display

in different apartments the various processes of each business and the

implements required in it, not omitting the most trifling tool.

Another hall contains a library of 10,000 volumes, written in almost

every language, and treating on subjects connected with the purport of

the establishment--and professors of geometry and natural philosophy

give lectures there to such pupils as are recommended by the minister

of the interior. Would it not be shameful if the French nation did not

rapidly progress in the arts and sciences, when the government is so

liberal in encouraging them, by affording those persons who possess

talents every advantage gratuitously, so that the poor may rise as

well as the rich, if blessed with abilities? Among the patterns of

tapestry is one concerning which a droll story is related, viz. that

Vaucanson, a skilful mechanic, being offended with the inhabitants of

Lyons for undervaluing some looms he had invented, tied an ass to one

of them and made him execute the piece of embroidery from which this

specimen was cut, and which excelled any _they_ had ever done.

We have also visited the Diorama, the Georama and the Neorama, the

royal printing office, the manufactory of plate glass and the hospital

of the "Quinze Vingts." A diorama you have seen. A georama is a

panoramic representation of the earth with its divisions of land and

water; the spectator standing in the centre. A neorama is a painting

so ingeniously designed and arranged, as to produce the illusion of

{491} your being within whatever building it represents. The one we

saw is a picture of the interior of St. Peter's at Rome, and Mr.

Dorval who has been there says it is an exact copy. The royal printing

office is an establishment of great magnitude. There is a vast

collection of types and several hundred presses. We were informed that

Pope Pius VII visited this office during his sojourn in Paris, and

that while he was there the Lord's prayer was printed in no less than

150 languages and presented to him. At the plate glass manufactory we

beheld mirrors of wonderful magnitude. The plates are cast at

Cherbourg and at St. Gobin, (a castle in the department of Aisne) and

sent here to be quick-silvered and polished. Eight hundred workmen are

constantly employed in the business. The French are indebted to the

great Colbert for this establishment; prior to its foundation plate

glass could only be had by sending for it to Venice. Having satisfied

our curiosity here, we proceeded to the hospital of the "Quinze

Vingts," founded by St. Louis in 1220 for the maintenance of 300

blind--a larger number is now admitted. It was customary in the age of

St. Louis to count by twenties, and there being 15 twenties in 300

this institution derived its appellation from having that number of

pensioners. We were pleased with the neatness and comfort that

reigned, and arrived there just in time to hear a class of the blind

sing and play; for those who evince a talent for music are instructed

in it. The women were the vocalists and the men performed on various

instruments. Even the leader was sightless! They kept time very well

and we enjoyed their concert exceedingly, though the distorted faces

some made while singing were horrible. They are taught a variety of

trades, and not only reading but the art of printing, and we saw a man

arrange the types and print several words with both skill and

quickness. The types were extremely large and made of wood, and no ink

was used in the operation, but the letters pressed on the paper, so as

to leave the traces of them perceptible to the slightest touch.

On Wednesday we went to the castle of Vincennes, a gothic fortress,

about three miles from the city. It contains the state prisons and an

armory. A note to the commandant, from Mr. Warden, the American

Ex-Consul and a kind friend of the Danvilles, gained us admission, and

we spent two hours in examining the castle within whose gloomy

turrets, nobles and monarchs have sighed in captivity. The celebrated

Mirabeau was a prisoner there during four years, and there wrote his

letters between Gabriel and Sophie. The duke d'Enghien was shot in a

moat of this castle--the spot where the execution took place is

designated by a willow tree and a black column, bearing this

inscription, "Here he fell." In the chapel is a handsome mausoleum

enclosing his ashes. Returning from Vincennes we stopped on the _Place

de la Bastille_ (once occupied by that terrific building) to view the

model of the fountain of the Elephant. It is of plaster, and 72 feet

high! A tower on the animal's back is to serve as a reservoir for the

water which is to flow from the proboscis, and one of the legs is to

contain the stair case leading to the tower. The whole mass is to be

of bronze, but it is doubtful if this grand fountain will ever be

made; it was one of Napoleon's gigantic designs, which adversity and

death prevented his accomplishing. Last night we witnessed the wonder

of an Elephant acting a part in a play at the Cirque Olympique, a

theatre of the same description as that of Astley's in London. The

house was crowded almost to suffocation, and the docile and

astonishing creature excited universal admiration by her performance.

She is called "Mam'selle Dyjeck," is a native of the island of Ceylon,

and was purchased from some Indian jugglers by Monsieur Huguet her

present owner. She is so attached to him that she shews evident

distress if he is long absent from her, and extreme delight when he

returns. If he be fatigued or indisposed, it is said that she even

undresses him, puts him to bed and watches by him while he rests.

Travellers I know are expected to exaggerate, but I assure you I am

not availing myself of the privilege in the present instance. The play

was entitled "l'Elephant du roi de Siam," and was written expressly to

exhibit the address and sagacity of M'lle Dyjeck, who really acted

throughout as if she were a human being. At the close of the

performance the audience vociferated for her re-appearance, and after

a few moments elapsed the curtain was raised and the _royal lady_ came

forth proudly tossing her trunk. She advanced to the edge of the stage

and made three courtesies, retreating all the while, and looking round

on the spectators as she rose, until she had sufficiently receded, she

walked off amidst a roar of applause. It was quite an inspiring scene.

The Duchess of Berri and her suite were present.

Apropos--Madame F. lately gave us a most interesting account of her

Highness' children, the little Duke of Bordeaux and M'lle Louise. She

says they are both remarkably amiable and _le petit Duc_ holds a levee

daily, is dressed _en militaire_ and assumes all the airs of a grown

gentleman. He is so proud of his sword, that the severest penalty his

tutor can inflict, when he misbehaves, is to deprive him of it. He is

a pretty boy--we have often met him taking an airing in his coach and

four, surrounded by gens d'armes, for the Bourbons are so unpopular

that for fear of his sharing the fate of his father, he is always

strongly guarded whenever he appears in public. He pays dearly for his

lineage, poor little fellow! and I never see him without thinking

sorrowfully of the probability of his perishing by the ruthless hand

of an assassin. But mercy! what a packet. Have patience dearest! with

your

LEONTINE.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

LINES

In recollection of Thomas H. White, who died at Richmond, Va. October

7, 1832, aged 19 years.

Was it a dream? It has pass'd away

As vanish dreams at the rising day,--

That graceful form, from the Saco's side,

That loved the leap of its dashing tide,

And watched full long, in the mild Moon's ray,

The rainbow tints of the rising spray.

Fair was that form; and the feature's glow,

True to the pulse of the Heart's warm flow,

Heighten'd at thought of those friends afar,

Who the aspect watched of his rising star;

With fervent prayer that that star might shed

Benignant influence upon his head.

With heart as joyous, and foot as light

As the wild young roe, he scaled the height-- {492}

The crystal sought in its mountain-bed,

And the fragrant wild flowers gathered;

Nature he loved in her freakish mood--

And sought her, deep in her solitude.

* * * * *

He is not now where the rapids play,

Or moonlight tinctures the rising spray;

Nor like the roe on the craggy height,

With heart as gay, and a foot as light;--

Did he hear the howl of the frost-god nigh,

And fly like the Birds to his native sky?

His native sky?--Ah! it brightly glows--

It cheers the bird and it scents the rose;

It wakes all nature to songs of joy--

_But it smiles all vainly on thee, sweet Boy!_

They laid, who loved thee, all lone and deep,

On the James' green shore, in thy last, long sleep!

Yes! 'twas a dream of Life's dreamy day!

Beautiful, fleeting, and vain as they!

Dreams of the heart, the mind, the eye,

Belov'd, how dearly!--how soon to fly!

They fade, they vanish, e'er dawns the morrow,

And the heart is left to its night of sorrow.

ELIZA.

_Saco, Maine_.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

TO SPRING.[1]

Not since the world's first blushing Spring

Hath warmer, truer offering

Than mine, by minstrel, muse, or maid,

Been on thy rose-wreathed altar laid.

May-flower, the first in Flora's band,

I've snatch'd from thy half-open'd hand,

And help'd the little Daisy shake

From her bright head the light snow-flake;

I've watch'd thee while thy crayon spread

The first tint on the Violet's head,

And wrapt with pleasure, scan'd the grace

Thy light touch threw o'er Nature's face--

But more I love thee for thy promise bright,

That Man shall spring, revived from Death's cold, wintry night.

ELIZA.

_Saco, Maine._

[Footnote 1: On the warm banks of the James, this Apostrophe to Spring

may probably appear altogether too late for the season, but on the

banks of the Saco, where a good fire is still necessary to comfort,

and the May-flower, the most daring of our wild flowers, is just

putting forth its blossom in token of _approaching_ Spring, it is

quite early enough.]

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

SPRING.

Rude Winter's surly storms are gone--

Spring, in her joy, is passing on:

Beneath her light and magic tread,

Each flow'ret lifts its gentle head:

Streamlets, so long in fetters bound,

Leap with a glad, reviving sound:

Valleys and hills, so long unseen,

Glow with a rich and silv'ry green:

The Robin's wild and thrilling note,

The silence of the grove, has broke:

The Bee, for months, in bondage held,

Wakes her hum in the wonted field:

The Horse and Ox their stalls forsake,

In leaping streams, their thirst to slake;--

To seek, on mountain-side and plain,

The feast, that Nature spreads again.

Nymph, with the sweetly-laughing eye!

Where dost thou dwell, when o'er the sky,

The murky storms of Winter scowl,

And through the leafless valleys howl;--

That thou, the moment they are gone,

Doth, lovely still, come tripping on?

Go on, upon thy blooming way!

I know thou wilt not, canst not, stay;

But oft, as on your course you wind,

Oh! cast a "ling'ring look behind!"

ROY.

_Lovingston, April 1, 1835_.

For the Southern Literary Messenger

TO A. L. B.

Author of "_Trust Not_," in the Messenger for February.

Scorn not the love of the gentle one!

Turn not away from the heart's devotion!

Still to its shrine may'st thou be won,

And thy bosom be stirr'd with its gentle emotion.

Spurn not that treasure! its worth is untold;

Bright gems are hid in its deep recesses;--

Fear not that her bosom shall grow cold,

When the light is gone from her wavy tresses.

There's a fountain of feeling pure and bright,

Which the glance of her eye is so gently revealing;

Like the twilight dawn of the Summer's light,

On the longing sight of the weary stealing.

Trust to the love thou hast falsely disdain'd,

So shall the trusted deceive thee never;

Forget the scorn thou hast falsely claim'd,

And the star of thy breast shall be bright forever.

Then come to "the hall of wine and song,"

Where the spirit of beauty reposes,

And truth shall be crown'd by the shining throng,

With a garland of myrtle and roses!

S. W. W.

_Raleigh, N. C._

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

SPRING.

To see thy tiny songsters rear

With wondrous skill, their home of love;

And hear each praise the other's care

In songs, that might be breathed above.

To watch the modest flowret's growth,

The spotless type of love on earth

Which nightly droops, as though 'twere loath

To quit the breast that gave it birth;

Or lay me down beside some brook,

Where I may muse the livelong day,

And drop my oft neglected book,

To dream of others far away.

Such is the joy, the quiet bliss,

Of holding converse sweet with thee,

And wooing, still, thy favoring kiss

Midst nature's wilds, in fancy free.

But I must bide within my room,

Content to breathe, alone, thy air,

And feel that it is double gloom,

Because thou art so lovely, there.

A PRISONER.

{493}

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

MR. T. W. WHITE.

_Dear Sir:_--You have been so kind as to solicit something from my pen

for your interesting periodical. With great pleasure I transmit the

enclosed sheets, in the hope that you may find them suitable to the

Messenger.

The subject I consider as particularly congenial with this delightful

season, which has been truly said to constitute the "great jubilee of

nature;" awakening our sympathy with young life, and drawing our

attention to the promise and hazards of the vegetable creation, amid

the cheerful labors of agriculture.

Nunc omnis ager, nunc omnis parturit arbos;

Nunc frondent sylvæ, nunc _formosissimus annus_.

But I am sure that my subject has an interest, independent of the

delightful associations of the season at which I write, and that most

of your readers will be ever ready to exclaim in the gallant strain of

the _sweet_ Irish Bard,

Oh woman! whose form and whose soul

Are the spell and the light of each path we pursue!

Whether sunn'd in the tropics, or chill'd at the pole,

If woman be there, there is happiness too!

What I have written in this first number of my Dissertation, has

reference principally to what may be termed the _sentimental_ portion

of our nature. I must therefore beg of your readers, to suspend all

judgment as to the partiality or impartiality of the execution, until

I have drawn the whole picture. I am yet to compare the sexes

together, in relation to the intellectual powers.

I am, sir, with high respect,

Your obedient servant,

Z. X. W.

_May 12, 1835_.

* * * * *

DISSERTATION

On the Characteristic Differences between the Sexes, and on the

Position and Influence of Woman in Society.

NO. I.

When we survey with a philosophic eye the varied and complicated works

of nature, there is nothing upon which the mind rests with more

pleasure, than the contemplation of the harmony, the order, and the

unity of design, manifested throughout. The physical philosopher

points to the centripetal and centrifugal forces, to the annual and

diurnal revolutions of the earth, to the periodical return of the

seasons, the regular succession of day and night, to the laws of

cohesion and repulsion, and shows with pride the wondrous harmony

which exists in all the departments of the physical world, all working

and conspiring to one great end. The political economist delights to

look to the nations of the earth, composed of vast multitudes of

individuals; to scan the great variety of occupations which the

endless division of labor has generated, and to see how the almost

countless millions of inhabitants, although each one is busily and

selfishly engaged in the pursuit only of his own little narrow

schemes, are nevertheless, when we embrace the grand whole, working,

in as perfect harmony and accord, as if the spirit of unbounded wisdom

and universal philanthropy guided every head and touched every

heart.--While to the common observer, the great volume of the human

mind is uninteresting, with its pages confused and scattered like the

sybil leaves of antiquity, it becomes to the metaphysician who can

arrange and interpret it, a source of knowledge, of pleasure, and of

gratitude. He beholds the nice lineaments of feelings and

passions--observes the operations of our various intellectual powers

and faculties. He sees a beautiful harmony and unity of design in the

whole Ideal Republic; and finds with wonder and astonishment, that all

our passions, instincts and faculties are so nicely arranged in

relation to each other, that, like the bodies in our planetary system,

not one could be struck from existence without endangering the harmony

of the whole. Thus shall we find, look where we will, through the wide

range of nature's works, part corresponding to part, power to power,

mind to mind, and to matter too; and the whole moving forward with

that beautiful harmonious action, which at once demonstrates the

illimitable wisdom of the designer,--his benevolence and his

consistency. Among all these beautiful adaptations in the universe,

there is not one perhaps, which presents itself to the mind under a

more engaging, a more interesting aspect, than the relations of the

_sexes_. To increase and multiply, seems to be the great law of

animated creation; and the attractions by which the sexes are brought

together for the fulfilment of this universal law, are so many, so

complicate, and yet so beautiful and delightful, while shedding their

benign influence over the rugged journey through life, that it is

impossible to contemplate them, without an immediate acknowledgment of

their sublime harmony, and of the benevolent design of him who ordered

and established them. My mind of late has been more than usually

engaged in the contemplation of this subject; and to amuse my leisure

hours, I have determined to throw together, however loosely, some

thoughts on the constitutional differences between the sexes--to point

out the effects which those differences have produced upon their

moral, social and political characters--to show that the position of

woman in society is not an accidental one, but results from the law of

nature; and that the benign and powerful influence which she exerts

over the destiny of man, is due principally to that very state of

things which woman is so apt to condemn. From this investigation, we

cannot fail to see that a constant amelioration in her condition is

calculated to enlarge and diversify the pleasures of the whole human

family, while it urges forward with irresistible power, the march of

civilization.

{494} Whether there be any original natural differences between the

sexes, in a moral and intellectual point of view, is a question

extremely difficult to determine. Education has commenced, long before

children have arrived at that age and growth of intellect, which will

enable them to manifest with certainty their passions, propensities,

tastes, and mental powers. The wide intellectual and moral differences

existing among individuals similarly situated and similarly educated,

lead us to conclude that they have different original capacities and

dispositions. But so different is the education of the sexes--so

different is their position in society, that we cannot say with

certainty, whether their moral and intellectual differences are due

wholly to education, or partly to nature. The discussion of this

question I shall waive, as not being of much importance to the view

which I propose to take of the subject, and shall proceed to show how

the education of the two sexes is calculated to produce the

differences which we observe among them, and how their relative

positions in society are the results of the force of circumstances,

and not of accident, as some have most ingeniously contended; and this

I hope to be enabled to show, even upon the supposition of perfect

_intellectual equality_ between the sexes at birth.

Before entering upon this subject, it is proper to state, that I use

the word _education_ in its most extended sense,--to mean not only the

moral and intellectual discipline which we derive from our parents and

teachers, but to include the influence of physical organization, of

the physical circumstances by which we are surrounded, of opinion--in

fine, all those influences which are extraneous to the mind itself,

but capable of forming and directing it. There is both a physical and

moral education, to which we are constantly subjected, from birth to

manhood, entirely independent of professed teachers, which perhaps

exercises the greatest sway in the formation of our characters. Most

persons are apt to forget, in the calculation of character, the effect

of physical circumstances; but these must never be lost sight of.

Physics govern morals, to a certain extent, all over the world. It is

impossible to withdraw ourselves wholly from the influence of physical

causes. In the beautiful language of Mr. Allison, "Wander where we

will, trees wave, rivers flow, mountains ascend, clouds darken, or

winds animate the face of heaven; and over the whole scenery, the sun

sheds the cheerfulness of his morning, the splendor of his noonday, or

the tenderness of his evening light;--there is not one of these

features of scenery, which is not fitted to waken us to moral emotion;

to lead us, when once the key of our imagination is struck, to trains

of fascinating and endless imagery; and in the indulgence of them, to

make our bosoms either glow with conceptions of mental excellence, or

melt in the dreams of moral good. Even upon the man of the most

uncultivated taste, the scenes of nature have some inexplicable charm:

there is not a chord perhaps of the human heart, which may not be

awakened by their influence." Again, let us wander where we will, and

in vain shall we attempt to escape the moral influences which are

exerted around us. Opinions, manners, customs, fashions, &c. exercise

a silent, but potent sway, from which none can hope to be exempt. We

sometimes indulge the wish of flying from our native land, to escape

these influences in a foreign clime. How vain the wish! Go where we

will, the mighty spell is still laid over us--the enchantment is still

unbroken--and as long as man's nature remains unchanged, so long must

he be subject to the guidance and direction of that mighty physical

and moral machinery, which if ever at work around him, silently

developing and forming his character. These causes, in their all

pervading influences, may almost be considered as emblematical of the

omnipresence of the Divinity. In our remarks then, upon the

distinctive characteristics of the sexes, it is proper to commence

first with the operation of physical causes; and among these, without

doubt the difference of physical organization exercises the most

powerful influence--perhaps so powerful as to be itself sufficient to

account for all the characteristic differences between man and woman.

Of course, the remarks which follow, apply to the entire sexes, and

not to individual cases; for the individual female will frequently be

found to have all the masculine traits of character more perfectly

developed than the individual man. Few men, for example, can be

compared with an Edgeworth or De Stael in point of intellect--and few

have shown more persevering courage and masculine heroism, than Queen

Margaret of England, or Joan d'Arc of France; but these are specimens

from which we can draw no just conclusions concerning the entire sex.

_Physical Differences between the Sexes, and their Immediate Effects_.

What then is the difference in physical organization? "Woman," says

Voltaire, "is in general less strong than man; smaller and less

capable of lasting labor. Her blood is more aqueous; her flesh less

firm; her hair longer; her limbs more rounded; her arms less muscular;

her mouth smaller; her hips more prominent, and her abdomen larger.

These physical points distinguish woman all over the earth, and of all

races, from Lapland unto the coast of Guinea, and from America to

China."[1] The physiologists all agree in the main points of

difference here asserted. They say that woman differs from man in the

whole of {495} her lower stature--in the delicacy of her

organization--in the predominance of her lymphatic and cellular

system, which softens down the projections of the muscles, and gives

to all her limbs those rounded and graceful forms, of which we see in

the Venus de Medicis the inimitable model. "In woman, sensibility is

also more exquisite; and, with less strength, her mobility is greater.

The female skeleton even, is easily distinguished from that of the

male, by striking differences. The asperities of the bones are less

prominent; the clavicle is less curved; the chest shorter, but more

expanded; the sternum shorter, but wider; the pelvis more

capacious,"[2] &c. Comparing the sexes together then, all over the

world, man appears to be decidedly the stronger and better formed for

war, for hard and persevering labor; woman for retirement, for the

mild and less laborious occupations. The camp, the field, the woods,

and the sea seem to be the natural theatres for the display of man's

powers. Woman fills with peculiar grace, all the domestic occupations

and sedentary employments. In fact, the same amount of exercise is not

necessary to the preservation of her health, as for that of man. Hence

she is more naturally sedentary and quiet, and perhaps less

industrious. Her labor, in a purely politico-economical light, is

universally considered less valuable. The severer labors of cutting,

mauling, ditching, carpentry, masonry, &c. are performed by men. The

management of children, sewing, knitting, washing, &c. are performed

most frequently by women. The working in lace, Rousseau considered an

occupation particularly suited to a delicate modest female. He never

could exercise the slightest patience towards men tailors. The needle

and sword ought not to be managed by the same hands. In his _Emile_,

he says, "If I were sovereign, I would not permit sewing and the

occupations of the needle to any but women and lame men."

[Footnote 1: See Phil. Dic. Vol. 6, Art. Woman.]

[Footnote 2: Richerand's Physiology. Chapman and Goodman's Edition: p.

381.]

Occupation produces a mighty influence on character. Women in all

countries will talk about their dresses and domestic matters: Men talk

of war, politics, horse-racing, field sports, and the labors of the

farm. At a very early period of life, we find the boy delighting in

his top, his bow and arrows, and his mimic wagon or cart. The girl

finds most pleasure in dolls, in pretty dresses and glittering toys,

which amuse her without much exertion on her part. "With what a

languid yawn," says Mary Woolstoncraft in her Rights of Woman, "have I

seen an admirable poem thrown down, that a man of true taste returns

to again and again with rapture; and whilst melody has almost

suspended respiration, a lady has asked me where I bought my gown."

And whilst the men converse about business, politics or literature,

"how naturally," says Swift, "do women apply their hands to each

other's lappets and ruffles." The learned lady whom I have just

referred to, might have saved herself a great deal of vexation and

pretended mortification, if she had only reflected, that difference in

occupation between the sexes is due principally to difference in

physical organization; and that the conversation of men and women will

always run more or less upon their occupations. Our very dreams are

but too frequently dictated by the occupations which engage us. Queen

Mab gallops

"Through lover's brains, and then they dream of love;

On courtier's knees, that dream on court'sies straight;

O'er lawyer's fingers, who straight dream on fees.

And sometimes comes she with a tithe pig's tail,

Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep--

Then dreams he of another benefice:

Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,

And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats;

Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades;

Of healths five fathoms deep: and then anon

Drums in his ear--at which he starts and wakes;

And being thus frighten'd, swears a prayer or two,

And sleeps again."

_Relative Position of the Sexes in Society_.

The relative position of the sexes in the social and political world,

may certainly be looked upon as the result of organization. The

greater physical strength of man, enables him to occupy the foreground

in the picture. He leaves the domestic scenes; he plunges into the

turmoil and bustle of an active, selfish world; in his journey through

life, he has to encounter innumerable difficulties, hardships and

labors which constantly beset him. His mind must be nerved against

them. Hence courage and boldness are his attributes. It is his

province, undismayed, to stand against the rude shocks of the world;

to meet with a lion's heart, the dangers which threaten him. He is the

shield of woman, destined by nature to guard and protect her. Her

inferior strength and sedentary habits confine her within the domestic

circle; she is kept aloof from the bustle and storm of active life;

she is not familiarized to the out of door dangers and hardships of a

cold and scuffling world: timidity and modesty are her attributes. In

the great strife which is constantly going forward around her, there

are powers engaged which her inferior physical strength prevents her

from encountering. She must rely upon the strength of others; man must

be engaged in her cause. How is he to be drawn over to her side? Not

by menace--not by force; for weakness cannot, by such means, be

expected to triumph over might. No! It must be by conformity to that

character which circumstances demand for the sphere in which she

moves; by the exhibition of those qualities which delight and

fascinate--which are calculated to win over to her side the proud lord

of creation, and to make him an humble suppliant at her shrine. Grace,

modesty and loveliness are the charms which constitute her power. By

these, she creates the magic {496} spell that subdues to her will the

more mighty physical powers by which she is surrounded. Her attributes

are rather of a passive than active character. Her power is more

emblematical of that of divinity: it subdues without an effort, and

almost creates by mere volition;--whilst man must wind his way through

the difficult and intricate mazes of philosophy; with pain and toil,

tracing effects to their causes, and unravelling the deep mysteries of

nature--storing his mind with useful knowledge, and exercising,

training and perfecting his intellectual powers, whilst he cultivates

his strength and hardens and matures his courage; all with a view of

enabling him to assert his rights, and exercise a greater sway over

those around him. Woman we behold dependant and weak; but out of that

very weakness and dependance springs an irresistible power. She may

pursue her studies too--not however with a view of triumphing in the

senate chamber--not with a view to forensic display--not with a view

of leading armies to combat, or of enabling her to bring into more

formidable action the physical power which nature has conferred on

her. No! It is but the better to perfect all those feminine graces,

all those fascinating attributes, which render her the centre of

attraction, and which delight and charm all those who breathe the

atmosphere in which she moves; and, in the language of Mr. Burke,

would make ten thousand swords leap from their scabbards to avenge the

insult that might be offered to her. By her very meekness and beauty

does she subdue all around her. The Grecian poet of old has told us

where her power lies.

"To woman what does nature give?

Beauty she gives instead of darts;

Beauty instead of shields imparts:

Nor can the fire nor sword oppose

The fair, victorious where she goes."

We must recollect, however, that it is beauty of mind, of grace, of

accomplishment; and not beauty of person alone, which constitutes her

power. When the beautiful mother of mankind is described by the

matchless poet, he mentions not one _purely_ physical trait of beauty.

"Grace was in all her steps; heaven in her eye:

In all her gestures dignity and love."

When Juno too, tries the old and successful cheat of love with her

imperial husband, the poet of antiquity makes her borrow the beauties

of mind, rather than those of body.

"The gentle vow, the gay desire,

The kind deceit, the still reviving fire;

Persuasive speech, and more persuasive sighs,

Silence that spoke, and eloquence of eyes."

Even Waller, the sycophantic poet of a corrupt and profligate court,

pays all due homage to the beauty of mind.

"Oh, my lovely foe,

Tell me where thy strength doth lie--

Where the power that _charms_ me so:

In thy soul, or in thine eye."

As woman then cannot conquer by physical strength, she must depend

upon other attributes of a more passive quality. The following little

anecdote well illustrates the characteristic differences between the

sexes in this respect. I was once giving a handsome and accomplished

lady a description of the Menagerie Royal at Paris, and was describing

the apartment of a large ferocious lion that had been brought from

Africa. The apartment was double, with a partition wall between the

chambers. Whilst the lion would be in one chamber eating, it was the

custom of the keeper to go into the other for the purpose of cleaning

it out, taking care to shut the door between them. One day he

neglected this; and the lion leaving the meat which he had been

devouring, suddenly entered the room, advanced to the man, who backed

against the wall, then leaped upon his breast, and looked him steadily

in the face. Just at this point, I paused and asked the lady, for she

seemed agitated, what she would have done in a similar crisis. Her

answer was characteristic indeed: I would have _kissed_ him! Now I

assert that there is not a man in the wide world who would have ever

thought of appeasing the wrath of the monarch of the forest by a kiss.

His power does not depend on a kiss. From him it is not sufficiently

appreciated to make it coveted by others, and therefore a source of

his power. But with woman it is far otherwise; it is one of her most

potent means--a sort of reserve, not to be resorted to but under the

pressure of necessity. Had you addressed the same question to man, he

would have told you, that he would have stood quiet and firm, (as did

the individual just mentioned,) till assistance could be brought; or

he would have summoned up all his courage and all his strength for one

desperate effort, and attempted to hurl the lion from him; but never

would he have thought of purchasing his life by giving him a kiss.

This is one of woman's resources in the hour of peril, and woman alone

would ever have thought of it.

In that darkest and most dismal hour of Josephine's life, when the

dread secret of the divorce was first hinted to her by that great but

wily and unprincipled statesman Fouche, how does she act? In all the

agony and concentrated grief which preys upon her heart, she seeks in

his chamber the solitary chieftain, whose martial prowess had shaken

all the thrones of Europe, and filled the world with a fame which

eclipsed that of the Cæsars and Alexanders--she seats herself in his

lap--she strokes back the hair from his forehead: in the mild and

faltering tone of injured honor, she asks him if it be so? He answers

no! And with beauty, grace and tears supplicating, who could have

answered otherwise! Then imprinting a kiss upon his brow, she asks the

dismission of Fouche as an earnest of his attachment. This was denied

her; {497} and at that moment despair seized upon her heart. She knew

her power was gone--the charm was broken--the spell was dissolved.

Ambition triumphed over love. But the Colossus of Europe could have

told you, that the melancholy triumph of that moment, had cost him

more than the conquest of kingdoms and the dethronement of monarchs;

or he could have told you afterwards, that when he for the first time

beheld the barren rock of St. Helena, with that countenance unmoved

and unchanged, which so astonished those who observed it,--the

internal struggle by which he chained down the conflicting emotions of

his soul, was not to be compared with that which could firmly resist

the request of a beloved but injured wife in tears.

_Points of Honor in the Sexes_.

So far, I have been considering the effects of mere inferiority of

strength in the female. But independently of this, there is another

portion of her organization, attended with consequences no less marked

on the whole character. I allude of course to the great law of nature,

which imposes upon her the burden of gestation--of nursing and of

training the rising population of the world. That woman is destined to

the office of nursing and rearing her children, the arrangement of

nature evidently demonstrates. It is she alone whom nature provides

with the food adapted to the support of the fragile constitution of

the newly born babe. She has known and felt all the solicitude,

anxiety and pain pertaining to its existence. It is a law of our

nature, to love that with most ardor, which has cost us most pain and

most anxiety in the attainment. For this reason perhaps, it may be

that even at birth, a mother's love for her babe is more intense than

that of the father; and hence an additional reason of a moral

character, why the office of tutoring and nursing should devolve more

particularly on her. Let us now proceed, for a moment, to trace the

consequences of this position of woman. It is evident that its

tendency must be, to narrow the circle in which she moves; a

considerable portion of her life must be spent in the nursery and the

sick room. Here, at once, would be presented an insurmountable barrier

against that ambition which would lead her into the field, into

politics, or any of the regular professions. She never could compete

with man. In fact, to succeed at all, she would be obliged to desert

the station and defeat the ends for which nature intended her. A

physician, a lawyer, or statesman, who should be obliged to attend to

the suckling, clothing, and the thousand little wants of a helpless

babe, would be distanced in the race by him, who with any thing like

equal power of intellect, was unimpeded in his career by any of those

embarrassing obstacles.

This organization of woman now under consideration, renders

circumspection and virtue more absolutely indispensable to her than to

man. Guilt and infidelity are much more certainly detected in her case

than in his, and are attended with much more lamentable consequences.

Her whole moral character is formed in some measure in view of this

state of things: chastity and virtue become her points of honor;

modesty becomes her most pleasing and necessary attribute.

"That chastity of look which seems to hang

A veil of purest light o'er all her beauties,

And by forbidding, most inflames desire,"