Vivian was punctual to his appointment; but Miss Walton received him
with a cold and quiet dignity, for which he could not account. Her cheek
was flushed, and she looked as if she had been weeping bitterly. She was
slowly tearing a note. As soon as she had finished, she touched the
spring of the secret door, and, taking from the shelf the unfortunate
card, deliberately tore it into atoms, and placed the bits in the
basket. Vivian gazed upon her in mingled astonishment and despair.
“Wont they hurt the poor woman’s head?” asked he, attempting to smile.
“Not so much as they have hurt my _heart_,” replied Margaret in a low
tone, and rising as she spoke, she was gone before he had time to reply.
He resolved to ask an explanation, and simply writing, “How have I
offended you?”—he again used the secret shelf as a repository for his
thoughts.
The next day he called again. The box was still on the table, but the
little door, the shelf, the note, had vanished, and only a hollow space
disfigured our heroine’s beautiful India work-box. It seemed she was
determined to have no secret correspondence, either with him or any one
else. Vivian thought himself alone, and, leaning his head on the box,
sighed deeply. His sigh was echoed, and, looking up, he caught
Margaret’s eyes bent mournfully upon him—blushing she turned away. He
sprung up, caught her hand, drew her gently to the sofa, and pointing to
the box, looked imploringly, but silently, in her face.
“Oh!” she said, in a faltering voice, “how could you so humble me in my
own eyes, as to let me know that you had discovered the only secret I
ever had in my life?”
A sudden light flashed upon Vivian’s mind!
“Was that it, dearest Margaret? It _was_ wrong, it was indelicate; but I
did not think of it then, I was so happy, and Heaven knows I have
suffered enough for my fault! Forgive me! you _will_ forgive me?”
“I have already forgiven you, Vivian.”
“But that is not enough; you must do more than forgive, you must love
me, dear one!” he murmured, drawing her tenderly towards him.
“Must I?” said Margaret playfully; “Well, then, if I must, I must! I
have always been a pattern of obedience—have I not, papa?” and Mr.
Walton entering, as she spoke, the happy but embarrassed girl escaped
from Vivian’s ardent thanks, and flew to her chamber, to recall his
every look and tone, and to live over again in fancy the joy of that
delightful interview.
An hour afterwards, he joined her in her walk, and gave her the whole
history of his love, his suspicions and his jealousy.
“And so, Mr. Vivian Russell,” said the lady, when he had concluded,
“those harmless atoms of paper have been the cause of all this
misunderstanding and estrangement. Truly, indeed, said the bard that,
“_Trifles light as air_
Are, to the jealous, confirmation strong
As proofs of holy writ.”
* * * * *
SEPTEMBER WALTZ.
COMPOSED FOR GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.
[Illustration: musical score]
* * * * *
REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.
_The Poems of Alfred Tennyson. Two vols. 12mo. Boston, William
D. Ticknor. Philadelphia, Carey & Hart._
Of the works of cotemporary English poets of the second class, perhaps
none have been more commented upon or less read in America than those of
Alfred Tennyson. The chief reason may be that never until now having
been reprinted here, and a very small number only of the first English
impression having been imported, they have not been accessible to many
whom the praises or the reviewers would have led to examine into their
pretensions. The Cardinal de Richelieu, it is said, fancying himself as
skilled in poetry as in diplomacy, wrote a tragedy, which having been
damned on its anonymous presentation to the critics, he tore into atoms
and burned. For like cause Mr. Tennyson, soon after the publication of
his “Poems, chiefly Lyrical,” committed all the copies of them he could
regain to the fire. But the cardinal and our cotemporary erred. Time,
not fire, is the trier of verse. Upon the surface of the stream of ages
the good will at some period rise to float forever, the middling for a
while live in the under current of the waters, and in the end, with the
utterly worthless, sink into the oblivious mire at the bottom. To this
conclusion Mr. Tennyson seems now to have been brought, for he has this
summer republished his early poems, with many new ones which, though
free from some of the more conspicuous faults of his first productions,
generally lack their freshness, beauty and originality. We look in vain
in the second volume of the edition before us for pieces surpassing his
Mariana, Oriana, Madeline, Adeline, Margaret, The Death of the Old Year,
or parts of The Dream of Fair Women. He excels most in his female
portraitures; but while delicate and graceful they are indefinite; while
airy and spiritual, are intangible. As we read Byron or Burns, beautiful
forms stand before us, we see the action of their breathing, read the
passionate language of their eyes, involuntarily throw out our arms to
embrace them; but we have glimpses only of the impalpable creations of
Tennyson, as far away on gold-fringed clouds they bend to listen to
dreamlike melodies which go up from fairy lakes and enchanted palaces.
Tennyson has been praised as a strikingly original poet. He has indeed a
bold and affluent fancy, whereby he tricks out common thoughts in
dresses so unique that it is not always easy to identify them; but we
have not seen in his works proofs of an original mind. He certainly is
not an inventor of incidents, for most of those he uses were familiar in
the last century. Dora he acknowledges was suggested by one of Miss
Mitford’s portraits, and the Lady Clare by Mrs. Farrar’s Inheritance;
The Day Dream, The Lady of Shalott, and Godiva, are versions of old
tales, skilfully made, but showing no creative power. There is a
statue-like definiteness and warmth of coloring about the following
stanzas from the first of these poems which we have not elsewhere
observed in his writings:
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY.
Year after year unto her feet,
She lying on her couch alone,
Across the purpled coverlet,
The maiden’s jet-black hair has grown.
On either side her tranced form
Forth streaming from a braid of pearl:
The slumbrous light is rich and warm,
And moves not on the rounded curl.
The silk star-broider’d coverlid
Unto her limbs itself doth mould
Languidly ever; and, amid
The full black ringlets downward roll’d,
Glows forth each softly-shadow’d arm
With bracelets of the diamond bright;
Her constant beauty doth inform
Stillness with love, and day with light.
She sleeps! her breathings are not heard
In palace chambers far apart,
The fragrant tresses are not stirr’d
That lie upon her charmed heart.
She sleeps: on either hand upswells
The gold-fringed pillow lightly prest:
She sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwells
A perfect form in perfect rest.
There is also a beautiful passage in Godiva, which we cannot forbear to
quote:
Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there
Unclasped the wedded eagles of her belt,
The grim earl’s gift; but ever at a breath
She lingered, looking like a summer moon
Hair dipt in cloud; anon she shook her head
And showered the rippled ringlets to her knee;
Unclad herself in haste; adown the stair
Stole on, and, like a creeping sunbeam, slid
From pillar unto pillar until she reached
The gateway.
A specimen of description, graphic, but not very poetical, is the
following from the Miller’s Daughter:
I see the wealthy miller yet,
His double chin, his portly size,
And who that knew him could forget
The busy wrinkles round his eyes?
The slow, wise smile, that round about
His dusty forehead daily curled,
Seemed half within and half without,
And full of dealings with the world.
In The Day Dream, from which we have already quoted, the following lines
will suggest to the reader’s mind the story of Rip Van Winkle, or Sleepy
Hollow:
And last of all the king awoke,
And in his chair himself uprear’d,
And yawn’d, and rubb’d his face, and spoke,
“By holy rood, a royal beard!
How say you? we have slept, my lords.
My beard has grown into my lap.”
The barons swore, with many words,
’Twas but an after-dinner’s nap.
Tennyson frequently exhibits a rare sense of the beautiful, “a spirit
awake to fine issues,” and, in his own language,
does love Beauty only
In all varieties of mould and mind,
And Knowledge for its beauty, or if Good,
Good only for its beauty.
Yet this sense is sometimes dead in him, and he exhibits as little taste
as is possessed by ante-diluvian McHenry. A critic for whose judgment we
have great respect, and who seems determined to believe Mr. Tennyson
“the first original English poet since Keats, perhaps the only one of
the present race of verse writers who carries with him the certain marks
of being remembered hereafter with the classic authors of his language,”
points to St. Simeon Stilites as the finest of his productions. It is
not his worst, but if he had not written better we should desire none of
his companionship. In the opening lines a devotee prays, in the very
language of old cloister legends—
Altho’ I be the basest of mankind,
From scalp to sole one slough and crust of sin,
Unfit for earth, unfit for heaven, scarce meet
For troops of devils, mad with blasphemy,
I will not cease to grasp the hope I hold
Of saintdom, and to clamor, mourn and sob,
Battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer,
Have mercy, Lord, and take away my sin.
Recounting his mortifications, he says—
O take the meaning, Lord: I do not breathe,
Not whisper, any murmur of complaint.
Pain heap’d ten hundredfold to this, were still
Less burthen, by ten hundredfold, to bear,
Than were those lead-like tons of sin, that crush’d
My spirit flat before thee. . . . . .
O Jesus, if thou wilt not save my soul,
Who may be saved? who is it may be saved?
Who may be made a saint, if I fail here?
Show me the man hath suffer’d more than I.
For either they were stoned or crucified,
Or burn’d in fire, or boil’d in oil, or sawn
In twain beneath the ribs; but I die here
To-day, and whole years long, a life of death.
Bear witness, if I could have found a way
(And heedfully I sifted all my thought)
More slowly painful to subdue this home
Of sin, my flesh, which I despise and hate,
I had not stinted practice, O my God.
For not alone this pillar-punishment,
Not this alone I bore; but while I lived
In the white convent down the valley there,
For many weeks about my loins I wore
The rope that haled the buckets from the well,
Twisted as tight as I could knot the noose,
And I spake not of it to a single soul,
Until the ulcer, eating through my skin,
Betray’d my secret penance, so that all
My brethren marvel’d greatly. More than this
I bore, whereof, O God, thou knowest all.
Three winters, that my soul might grow to thee
I lived up there on yonder mountain side.
My right leg chain’d into the crag, I lay
Pent in a roofless close of ragged stones,
Inswath’d sometimes in wandering mist, and twice
Black’d with thy branding thunder, and sometimes
Sucking the damps for drink, and eating not
Except the spare chance-gift of those that came
To touch my body and be heal’d, and live.
And they say then that I work’d miracles,
Whereof my fame is loud amongst mankind,
Cured lameness, palsies, cancers. Thou, O God,
Knowest alone whether this was or no.
Have mercy, mercy; cover all my sin.
Then, that I might be more alone with thee,
Three years I lived upon a pillar, high
Six cubits, and three years on one of twelve;
And twice three years I crouch’d on one that rose
Twenty by measure; last of all, I grew,
Twice ten long weary, weary years to this,
That numbers forty cubits from the soil.
I think that I have borne as much as this—
Or else I dream—and for so long a time.
At length the miserable fool, with no rebuke for the heathen thought
that God is moved by penances like these instead of active efforts to
promote His cause and human happiness, working miracles such as the
earliest saints performed, climbs up into his airy home and there
“receives the blessed sacrament.” Where is Mr. Tennyson’s “high,
spiritual philosophy,” and “transcendental light?” The ideas, imagery
and style of expression in this poem are familiar to all readers of
monkish stories, and from the beginning of it to the end there are not
half a dozen lines to be remembered when the book is closed.
We cannot foretell to what degree of popularity these poems will attain
in America. The fewness of the copies here, before the appearance of the
present edition, enabled some persons to steal the author’s livery and
achieve great reputation among a class who will now transfer their
admiration to him who “stole at first hand from Keats.” That Tennyson
has genius cannot be denied, but his chief characteristics pertaining to
style, they will not long attract regard. We have better poets in our
own country—Bryant, Longfellow, and others—who put “diamond thoughts
in golden caskets;” and all true critics will prefer their simple
majesty or beauty to the fantastic though often tasteful and brilliant
displays of Tennyson. The difference between them is like that which
distinguishes the sparkling frost that vanishes in the sun from ingots
of silver that may be raked into heaps and will last forever.
Our attention has been directed to resemblances between the poems of
Tennyson and those of our own quaint and felicitous humorist, Doctor
Oliver Wendell Holmes. We have not space for a parallel. The first is a
man of fortune who has given twenty years to the poetic art; the last a
young physician who, devoting all his time to a laborious profession,
has little leisure for dalliance with the muse, and no ambition to win
“a poet’s fame.” Yet even as a versifier Holmes is equal to Tennyson,
and with the same patient effort and care, he would in every way surpass
him as an author.
* * * * *
_Forest Life: By the author of “A New Home—Who’ll Follow?” Two
Vols. 12mo. New York, Charles S. Francis. Philadelphia, Carey &
Hart._
These are charming volumes, written with a freshness and spirit that
delights and would surprise us were we not familiar with the first work
of their author. Mrs. Kirkland has opened a new vein in our national
literature. Her sketches of forest scenery and wood-craft, with all its
varied details, are not less true than graphic. We Americans are
probably inclined to think too lightly of the vigor and intelligence
displayed in them; that bad old adage about the estimate of a prophet in
his native land unfortunately applies with force to Mrs. Kirkland, Mrs.
Brooks and some other writers of this country whose works, while they
excite comparatively little attention here, are passing through numerous
editions abroad. All the world has read the pleasant stories in “Our
Village,” by Miss Mitford. We institute no comparison between her and
our own “Mary Clavers,” but we think our countrywoman has exhibited
powers infinitely superior to those of the popular delineator of English
rural life. She is sometimes _extravagant_, indeed; but a tendency to
extravagance has its foundation in nature, and is necessary in all works
of art, from pen or pencil, to produce a true impression. Having made a
pedestrian tour through the country about “Montecute,” a few years ago,
and gained by observation some knowledge of its inhabitants, we thought
after glancing at a few of Mrs. Kirkland’s chapters that she had
exaggerated too much their peculiarities; but on closing her volumes we
are as confident of their truth as of their extreme cleverness. One or
two of Miss Mitford’s stories may be read with pleasure, and a
philosopher can endure a third; but the fourth invariably induces sleep
or weariness. There is, however, no monotony to pall in “Mary Clavers;”
the tragic and the comic, the pathetic and the droll, succeed each other
so rapidly in her works that they are as various in their tone as the
inimitable “Don Juan.”
We might find some faults in “Forest Life,” but its good qualities so
predominate that the task becomes both difficult and ungracious. We will
allude to one only—the too frequent introduction of French words and
phrases—not, certainly, from vanity, for no woman has less affectation
than our author—but doubtless from habit and a desire of condensation.
A pithy French phrase of three words, _to those who understand the
language_, will frequently convey more meaning than half a dozen English
lines; but, Mrs. Clavers, there are in this world a vast number of very
decent people who know as little of French as a politician does of
honesty.
* * * * *
_The American in Egypt, with Rambles through Arabia Petræa and
the Holy Land, during the Years 1839 and 1840. By James Ewing
Cooley. Illustrated with numerous Steel Engravings, and Etchings
by D. C. Johnston. One vol. 8vo., pp. 610. New York, D. Appleton
& Co., 1842._
We have seen few American books comparable to this in elegance of paper,
typography and embellishments. The richest productions of the printers
of London and Paris do not surpass it. Of its literary character—having
read but a few chapters—we can speak with less confidence. The author,
with his family, we believe left New York in the autumn of 1828, and
making pleasure the principal object of his pursuit, passed through the
most interesting portions of Europe, Africa and Asia. He was in Egypt
during an important period, and enjoyed there all the facilities he
could well desire for the acquisition of information. But so numerous
are the works relative to that country, which have been published within
a few years, that little in regard to its antiquities or social
condition was left to be discovered, and instead, therefore, of
presenting familiar statistics and minute descriptions of fallen columns
and crumbling arches, Mr. Cooley has given us a gallery of
character-sketches in which the various classes of travelers, exiles,
and other “Franks,” encountered on the banks of the Nile, on the deserts
and among the ruins, are exhibited. We cannot tell to what degree of
confidence these portraitures are generally entitled, but we fancy the
English tourists are not truly represented in his “Wrinklebottoms” and
“Sneezebiters;” and we are sure our intelligent consul at Cairo, Mr.
Gliddon, is not the real original of the picture which bears his name.
Mr. Cooley sometimes writes carelessly and incorrectly; such phrases as
“fellow-townsmen” and some others in the volume before us, may pass
without reproof in hasty conversation, but it is not easy to excuse
their appearance in a printed book. Though far from faultless, “The
American in Egypt” is an instructive and amusing record of travels and
observations.
* * * * *
_A History of the Life of Edward the Black Prince, and of
various Events connected therewith, which occurred during the
Reign of Edward III., King of England. By G. P. R. James, Esq.,
Author of “Darnley,” “Richelieu,” “The Gipsy,” etc. Two vols.
12mo. Philadelphia, Carey & Hart._
Mr. James has probably written more than any other living English
author. We have not now a list of his works, but a London bookseller
advertises a set of them, as “nearly complete,” containing _one hundred
and twenty-three volumes_. Many of them are historical, and one is
poetical; but the greater number is composed of novels and romances.
These last have some excellent qualities which distinguish them from
nearly all other works of their kind, especially from the romances of
Walter Scott. They are truer as histories than the chronicles and
biographies of the author of Waverley. Whatever incidents he may invent,
Mr. James draws his real characters with scrupulous fidelity. Philip
Augustus, Richelieu, and Henri IV. are great historical pictures, of
which the details are imaginary, but the general impression given so
correct that a man may learn nearly as much by reading them as from
Sismondi’s History of France for the periods to which they relate. While
Scott’s histories are as unworthy of credit as his novels, James, in his
historical writings, is singularly careful as well about their minutest
incidents as their principal effect, so that he is in a way one of the
best of living historians. Of The Life of Edward the Black Prince we
have not space for a review; but we have found it exceedingly
interesting, and we gladly commend it to the favorable attention of our
readers.
* * * * *
_The United Irishmen, their Lives and Times. By R. R. Madden, M.
D., author of “Travels in the East,” “Infirmities of Genius,”
etc. Two vols. 12mo. Philadelphia, Lea & Blanchard._
Any work descriptive of the characters and events of the great Irish
rebellion of 1798, must possess considerable interest. The volumes
before us, while they are written with a kindness and candor which
distinguish few of the chronicles of the stormy period to which they
relate, are constructed so carelessly, are so destitute of continuity
and method, as to deserve little praise for their literary execution.
The notices of Emmett, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the brothers John and
Henry Sheares, to whose fate the indignant eloquence of Curran imparted
such interest, and many others will, however, enchain the reader’s
attention and well reward him for laboring through the more heavy
passages. It is estimated by the most moderate judges that the number of
persons slain during the rebellion was not less than seventy thousand;
twenty thousand on the side of the government, and fifty thousand on
that of the insurgents; and it is generally admitted that more were
murdered in cold blood than fell on the fields of battle. The judicial
investigations which followed were mere mockeries, and the whole conduct
of the triumphing government so atrocious as to shock the sensibilities
of the whole civilized world. The history of these scenes cannot yet be
written. Doctor Madden has but added material to the accumulating stores
which await some laborious and skilful writer of the next century. His
work will fulfill its office by attracting a momentary attention to the
subject, and afterward by appearing as an authority in quotations on the
margins of a successor’s pages.
* * * * *
_The Man of Fortune, and other Tales. By Mrs. Gore, Author of
“Greville,” “Preferment,” “The Lover and the Husband,” etc. Two
vols. 12mo. Philadelphia, Lea & Blanchard._
Female writers have generally a superior tact in painting manners; a
discerning eye for the lights and shadows of social life; and their
pictures of the family or the ball are marked by a certain detail which
we seldom find in the writings of the other sex. Mrs. Charles Gore has
an excellent reputation for this kind of ability. Her characters are
well drawn, the interest of her stories is well sustained, and their
moral is always correct. Of the volumes before us we have read but a
moiety, though enough to see that they are worthy of their author. The
first contains The Man of Fortune, and Ango, or the Merchant Prince; and
the second, The Queen’s Comfit Maker; A Legend of Tottenham Cross; The
Young Soldier, or Military Discipline; A Lucky Dog; The Fatal Window;
The Railroad; The Mariners of the Pollet; The Wife of an Aristocrat;
Neighbor Grey and her Daughter; and The Jewess.
* * * * *
_Romantic Biography of the Age of Elizabeth, or Sketches of Life
from the Byways of History. Edited by William Cooke Taylor, LL.
D., Author of “Natural History of Society,” etc. Two vols. 12mo.
Philad. Lea & Blanchard._
We have room only to announce the appearance of an American edition of
this work, and to remark that it is a collection of the most
entertaining memoirs in our language.
* * * * *
EDITOR’S TABLE.
Alexander Hamilton Bogart.—Our attention was not long ago called to
this name by the number of elegiac verses and eloquent obituary
paragraphs upon “the admired and lamented young Bogart,” which we found
in an old file of Albany papers, while referring to them for other
matters connected with some researches in which we were at the time
engaged. On inquiring in his native city for the productions of one
whose early death had caused so general a sensation in the community of
which he was a member, we found that he was still remembered, and still
deplored. His literary abilities, not less than his personal character,
seemed to have left a profound impression on all who knew him; but of
his writings we could recover scarcely any, and those we obtained were
principally of a fragmentary character. Yet these fragments, though
their local and personal allusions were lost upon us, as they would be
upon most of our readers, had in them veins of sentiment and humor that
sufficiently proved the easy and versatile genius of their author, and
inspired the regret that a man evidently so gifted had not left his
countrymen some more finished mementos of his genius. Mr. Bogart was a
native of the city of Albany, where, at the early age of twenty-one
years, he died, in 1826. He was engaged in the study of the law at the
time of his decease, and, as we have learned from an eminent member of
the bar in that city, gave the highest promise of professional
reputation, when his studies were interrupted by the illness which
terminated in his death. In an interval of that illness, he is said to
have destroyed such of his writings as were within his reach. The
following spirited song, being happily in the hands of a friend, escaped
with the fragments we have already alluded to, and, judging by them, is
a characteristic specimen of his verse.
ANACREONTIC.
The flying joy through life we seek
For once is ours—the wine we sip
Blushes like beauty’s glowing cheek,
To meet our eager lip.
Round with the ringing glass once more!
Friends of my youth and of my heart;
No magic can this hour restore—
Then crown it ere we part.
Ye are my friends, my chosen ones—
Whose blood would flow with fervor true
For me—and free as this wine runs
Would mine, by heaven! for you.
Yet, mark me! When a few short years
Have hurried on their journey fleet,
Not one that now my accents hears
Will know me when we meet.
Though now, perhaps, with proud disdain,
The startling thought ye scarce will brook,
Yet, trust me, we’ll be strangers then
In heart as well as look.
Fame’s luring voice, and woman’s wile,
Will soon break youthful friendship’s chain—
But shall that cloud to-night’s bright smile?
No—pour the wine again!
Mr. Bogart composed with singular rapidity, and would frequently
astonish his companions by an improvisation equal to the elaborate
performances of some poets of distinguished reputation. It was
good-naturedly hinted on one occasion that his impromptus were prepared
beforehand, and he was asked if he would submit to the application of a
test of his poetical abilities. He promptly acceded, and a most
difficult one was immediately proposed. Among his intimate friends were
the late Colonel John B. Van Schaick and Charles Fenno Hoffman, both of
whom were present. Said Van Schaick, taking up a copy of Byron, “The
name of _Lydia Kane_”—a lady distinguished for her beauty and
cleverness, who died a year or two since, but who was then just blushing
into womanhood—“the name of Lydia Kane has in it the same number of
letters as a stanza of ‘Childe Harold;’ write them down in a column.”
They were so written by Bogart, Hoffman and himself. “Now,” he
continued, “I will open the poem at random; and for the ends of the
lines in Miss Lydia’s _acrostic_ shall be used the words ending those of
the verse on which my finger may rest.” The stanza thus selected was
this:
And must they fall? the young, the proud, the brave,
To swell one bloated chief’s unwholesome reign?
No step between submission and a grave?
The rise of rapine and the fall of Spain?
And doth the Power that man adores ordain
Their doom, nor heed the suppliant’s appeal?
Is all that desperate valor acts in vain?
And counsel sage, and patriotic zeal,
The veteran’s skill, youth’s fire, and manhood’s heart of steel?
The following stanza was composed by Bogart within the succeeding ten
minutes—the period fixed in a wager—finished before his companions had
reached a fourth line, and read to them as we print it—
L ovely and loved, o’er the unconquered brave
Y our charms resistless, matchless girl, shall reign!
D ear as the mother holds her infant’s grave
I n Love’s own region, warm, romantic Spain!
A nd should your Fate to courts your steps ordain,
K ings would in vain to regal pomp appeal,
A nd lordly bishops kneel to you in vain,
N or Valor’s fire, Law’s power, nor Churchman’s zeal
E ndure ’gainst Love’s (time up!) untarnished steel!
We need not inform the reader that few of the most facile versifiers
could have accomplished the task in hours. Bogart nearly always composed
with the same rapidity, and his pieces were marked by the liveliest wit
and most apposite illustration. Of how many young Americans who, like
him, died as the bud of their promise was unfolding, have we heard!
“Whom the gods love, indeed die young.”
* * * * *
The Annuaries.—The Gift may be regarded as a dial by which to learn the
progress of the arts in America. The best of our painters and engravers
are engaged in its embellishment, and in pictorial beauty as well as
literary character every new volume surpasses its predecessor. The Gift
for 1843 will be issued in a few days, with pictures from Malbone,
Huntington, Inman, Chapman, Sully, and others, and prose and verse by
Herbert, Simms, Miss Gould, Mrs. Seba Smith, Mrs. Sigourney, and some
half dozen beside. The Token, published for fourteen years in Boston,
will not again be issued.
* * * * *
John Jacob Astor, the wealthiest citizen of the United States, has with
enlightened liberality devoted three hundred thousand dollars to the
establishment of a public library in New York, an elegant and durable
edifice is being built in the most pleasant part of the city for its
reception, and Doctor Cogswell, a gentleman of taste and sound learning,
is engaged in the purchase of books for it. There are a large number of
libraries in America, owned by societies and individuals, but none yet
for the _public_, and none that, if they were free like the great
libraries of the old world, would be of much use to men of science or
letters. To so many of the million as can buy shares in them those of
Boston, New York and Philadelphia will afford sufficient means of
amusement, but if a man wishes to explore any department of science,
moral, political, or historical, and resorts to them, he will soon be
compelled to abandon his researches or to go abroad for their
prosecution. Indeed, except the library of Congress, which is not half
so good as an intelligent _bibliopole_ with the requisite means might
make it in six months, there is in this country no collection of books
_relating to our own history_ comparable with several collections in
England, and for works by American authors, for our national literature,
such as it is, the very last place to look is in an American library.
Stepping a few days since into an extensive bibliographical
establishment in this city, we were shown an order for American books,
by catalogue, amounting to several thousand dollars; with great
difficulty they had been found among the book-stalls and other
out-of-the-way places, and shipped to London, to be added to a
collection probably already as large as any existing here, except two or
three owned by governments and societies, and a few in the hands of
private individuals. We have examined carefully most of the libraries of
any consequence in the United States, and know something of their
condition. Small as they are, compared with the libraries of Europe,
they are made up in a great degree of duplicate copies of worthless
books, and are most poorly supplied with works by our countrymen or
relating to our history and institutions. They are managed by persons
incompetent to discharge their duties; have librarians who cannot
comprehend the title pages of half the books mentioned in their
catalogues; and add very little indeed to the means of obtaining
knowledge which have an independent existence. The Astor library will be
different. The large amount of money appropriated by its founder, the
ability of his actuary, and the system which has been proposed for its
government, give promise that we are to have at length the _nucleus_,
gradually and surely to be enlarged into a really good American library,
to which scholars may resort with such hopes of advantage as now prompt
them to visit England, Germany, Spain, or France.
* * * * *
Mr. Francis J. Grund, our Consul at Bremen, and author of “Aristocracy
in America,” “The Americans in their Moral, Social and Political
Condition,” etc., has nearly ready for press a work on the state and
prospects of Germany, which will be published in a few weeks by Longman,
Reese, Orme, Browne & Longman, of London. It will of course be reprinted
in this country.
* * * * *
Doctor Marsh.—We learn with great pleasure that Professor Torrey, of
the University of Vermont, is preparing for publication the writings,
religious, philosophic and literary, of the late President Marsh, the
greatest American who has died in this decade.
* * * * *
Mr. Fay’s Notes on Shakspeare.—The series of articles by Mr. Theodore
S. Fay, on the writings of Shakspeare, which we are publishing in this
Magazine, prove that the subject, however ably or frequently it has been
treated, is not exhausted. Shakspeare’s works will probably continue
through all future time to be more read than any other productions save
the inspired books which compose the Holy Bible. They contain
peculiarities which distinguish the author from every other writer, and
have made him for two centuries the object of the world’s attention and
admiration. With all the praise awarded to him by the greatest critics
of all nations, we believe with our correspondent that he is not even
yet generally understood, and that many thousands read his plays, and
see them performed, without a true idea of their particular beauty and
profound meaning. The system of the German critic, Ulrici, alluded to by
Mr. Fay, is highly interesting, and this entire series of papers—which
will be completed in four or five more numbers—without being so studied
as the critiques of Schlegel and Hazlitt, is well calculated to call the
popular attention to beauties which have not generally been observed,
and many of which we do not remember having seen pointed out before at
all.
* * * * *
The Antiquities of Central America.—Few subjects have recently
attracted more attention than that of the discovery of the vast remains
of ancient cities in the southern port of this continent. The “hand
book” of Mr. John L. Stephens, descriptive of his hasty journey through
Central America, though it contains little new information, and none of
the curious learning which we look for in the chronicle of an
antiquary’s researches, has been read with avidity in this country and
in Europe, and is soon to be followed by an account of a second visit to
the same scenes. Since the return of Mr. Stephens, Mr. Norman, an
intelligent and careful explorer, has passed several months in Yucatan,
visiting Tchechuan and other places not discovered by former travellers,
and abounding in interesting relics of an aboriginal race, and
monuments, yet undecayed by time, which show that their builders were
far advanced in civilization. Mr. Norman is now preparing for this
magazine a series of articles on the ruins of Yucatan, the first of
which, with illustrative engravings by Butler, from original drawings,
will probably appear in our next number.
* * * * *
National Songs.—Among the new works to be published in Philadelphia,
during the autumn, is “A Collection of American Patriotic, Naval and
Military Songs, in three volumes,” by the veteran bookseller, Mr.
McCarty. It will be curious and unique.
* * * * *
Thulia, a Tale of the Antarctic, is the title of a beautiful poem by J.
C. Palmer, U. S. N., written while the author, attached to the Exploring
Expedition, was in the Southern seas, which will soon be published in
New York, with illustrations engraved by Adams, from designs by Agate.
* * * * *
The Smuggler’s Son, with other Tales and Sketches, in Prose and Verse,
is the title of a volume from the pen of a lady of Tennessee, soon to be
published by Herman Hooker, of this city.
* * * * *
Mr. Alfred B. Street, one of the most graphic and natural of the poets
who have attempted the description of external nature, we learn has a
collection of his writings in press.
* * * * *
[Illustration: Five ladies, a gentleman and a child dressed in latest
fashions.]
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
Table of Contents has been added for reader convenience. Archaic
spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Obvious punctuation and
typesetting errors have been corrected without note.
[End of _Graham’s Magazine, Vol. XXI, No. 3, September 1842_, George R.
Graham, Editor]