CHAPTER II.

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THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE

Of Literature, Art, and Science.

Vol. II. NEW-YORK, FEBRUARY 1, 1851. No. III

Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved

to the end of the article.

THOMAS CHATTERTON.

[Illustration]

In the history of English literature there is no name that inspires a

profounder melancholy than that of the "marvellous boy" Chatterton, of

whom it must be said that in genius he surpassed any one who ever died

so young, and that in suffering he had larger experience than almost any

one who has lived to old age. Shelley says of him:

"'Mid others of less note came one frail form,

A phantom among men; companionless

As the last cloud of an expiring storm,

Whose thunder is its knell; he, as I guess,

Had gazed on Nature's naked loveliness,

Aclaeon-like, and now he fled astray,

With feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness,

And his own thoughts along that rugged way

Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their prey."

And Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Byron, Southey, Scott, Kirke White,

Landor, Montgomery, and others, have laid immortal flowers upon his

tomb, to make the heart ache that we did not live in time to save the

"sleepless soul" from "perishing in his pride."

Of the genius of poor Chatterton, Campbell says, "I would rather lean to

the utmost enthusiasm of his admirers, than to the cold opinion of those

who are afraid of being blinded to the defects of the poems attributed

to Rowley, by the veil of obsolete phraseology which is thrown over

them. If we look to the ballad of Sir Charles Bawdin, and translate it

into modern English, we shall find its strength and interest to have no

dependence on obsolete words. The inequality of his various productions

may be compared to the disproportions of the ungrown giant. His works

had nothing of the definite neatness of that precocious talent which

stops short in early maturity. His thirst for knowledge was that of a

being taught by instinct to lay up materials for the exercise of great

and undeveloped powers. Even in his favorite maxim, that a man by

abstinence and perseverance might accomplish whatever he pleased, may be

traced the indications of a genius which nature had meant to achieve

immortality. Tasso alone can be compared to him as a juvenile prodigy."

Mrs. S. C. HALL gives us, in her "Pilgrimages to English Shrines," in

the _Art Journal_, the following interesting sketches of scenes

connected with his history:--

THOMAS CHATTERTON.

CHATTERTON--poor Chatterton! We had been brooding sadly over his

fragment of a life, ending at seventeen--when ordinary lives begin--and

turning page after page of Horace Walpole's literary fooleries, to find

his explanations and apologies for want of feeling and sympathy, which

his flippant style, and heartless commentaries, illustrate to

perfection; and we closed, with an aching heart, the volumes of both the

parasite of genius, and him who was its mightiest creation and most

miserable victim:--

"The marvellous boy who perished in his pride."

It was only natural for us to recall the many instances we have

ourselves known, during the past twenty years, or more, of sorrow and

distress among those who sought distinction in the thorny labyrinths of

literature;--those who

----"waged with Fortune an eternal war,

Checked by the scoff of Pride, by Envy's frown,

And Poverty's unconquerable bar;"

and those who, after a brief struggle with untoward fate, left the

battle-field, to die, "unpitied and unknown!"

We have seen the career of a young literary man commenced with the first

grand requisite of all excellence worth achieving--ENTHUSIASM; high

notions of moral honor, and a warm devotedness to that "calling" which

lifts units to a pinnacle formed by the dry bones of hundreds slain. We

have seen that enthusiasm frozen by disappointment--that honor corrupted

by the contamination of dissipated men--that devotedness to THE CAUSE

fade away before the great want of nature--want of bread--which it had

failed to bestow. We have seen, ay, in one little year, the flashing eye

dimmed--the round cheek flattened--the bright, hopeful creature, who

went forth into the world--rejoicing like the sun to run his

course--dragged from the waters of our leaden Thames, a discolored

remnant of mortality--recognized only by the mother who looked to him

for all the world could give!

This is horrible--but it is a tragedy soon played out. There are

hundreds at this moment possessed of the _consciousness_ of power

without the _strength_ to use it. To such, a little help might lead to a

life of successful toil--perhaps the happiest life a man can lead. A

heritage of usefulness is one of peace to the last. We knew another

youth, of a more patient nature than he of whom we have just spoken. He

seemed never weary. We have witnessed his nightly toil; his daily labor;

the smiling patience with which he endured the sneers levelled, _only_

in English society, against "_mere_ literary men." We remember when, on

the first day of every month, he used to haunt the booksellers' shops to

look over the magazines, cast his eyes down the table of contents, just

to see if "his poem" or "his paper" had been inserted--then lay them

down one after another with a pale sickly smile, expressive of

disappointment, and turn away with a look of gentle endurance. The

insertion of a sonnet, for which perhaps he might receive seven

shillings, would set him dreaming again of literary immortality; and at

last the dream was realized by an accident, or rather, to speak

advisedly, by a good Providence. He became known--known at once--blazed

forth; something he had written attracted the town's attention, and

ladies in crowded drawing-rooms stood upon chairs to see that poor,

worn, pale man of letters: and magazines, and grave reviews, and

gayly-bound albums, all waited for his contributions--charge what he

pleased; and flushed with fame, and weighed down with money--money paid

for the very articles that had been rejected without one civil line of

courtesy--the great sustaining hope of his life was realized; he married

one as worn and pale with the world's toil, as himself--married--and

died within a month! The tide was too tardy in turning!

Who shall say how many men of genius have walked, like unhappy

Chatterton, through the valley of the shadow of death, and found no

guide, no consolation--no hope; if, the one GREAT HOPE had not been most

mercifully planted early in their hearts and minds?

It was with melancholy pleasure that, during the past summer, our

Pilgrimage was made to the places connected with the boy's memory, in

Bristol; first to Colston's school, in which he was educated;[1] next to

the dull district in which he was either born or passed his boyhood;

then to the Institution, where his "Will," a mad document, and other

memoranda connected with his memory, are preserved with a degree of

care, that seems--or is--a mockery, when contrasted with the worse than

indifference of the city to all that concerned him when alive; next to

the house of Master Canynge, and next to the monument (Redcliffe Church)

with which his name will be associated as long as one of its stones

remains upon another; chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancies

through its long-drawn aisles; pondering sadly in the muniment-room,

where the cofres that suggested the forgeries, still lie rotting; and

gazing with mingled sorrow and surprise on the "Cenotaph to Chatterton,"

which now, taken to pieces, occupies the corner of a damp vault--

"A solemn cenotaph to thee,

Sweet Harper of time-shrouded minstrelsy!"

Ah! such books as we have been reading, and such memories as we have

been recalling, are, after all, unprofitable--a darkness without light.

We closed our eyes upon the world, which, in our momentary bitterness,

we likened to one great charnel-house, entombing all things glorious and

bright. We walked to the window; the rain was descending in

torrents--pour, pour; pattens clattered in the areas, and a solitary

postman made the street echo with his impatient knocks. A poor

organ-boy, whom we have long known, was moving, rather than walking, in

the centre; his hat flapped over his eyes by the rain, yet still he

turned the handle, and the damp music crawled forth: he paused opposite

our door, turned up the leaf of his hat, and looked upward; we missed

the family of white mice which usually crawled on the top of his organ:

poor child, he had sheltered them in his bosom; it was nothing more than

natural that he should do so, and the act was commonplace enough--but it

pleased us--it diminished our gloom. And we thought, if the great ones

of the land would but foster the talent that needs, and deserves,

protection from the storms of life, as that lonely boy sheltered the

creatures intrusted to his care, the world would be all the better. We

do not mean to insult the memory of such a genius as Chatterton by

saying that he required a PATRON--the very sound is linked with a

servility that degrades a noble nature; but we do say he sadly wanted a

FRIEND--some one who could have understood and appreciated his wonderful

intellectual gifts; and whose strength of mind and position in society

would have given power to direct and control the overleaping and

indomitable pride which ultimately destroyed "the Boy." His career

teaches a lesson of such rare value to all who seek distinction in any

sphere of life, that we would have it considered well--as a beacon to

warn from ruin.

"Oh! what a tangled web we weave,

When first we practise to deceive!"

Despite his marvellous talents, his industry, his knowledge, his

magnitude of mind, his glorious imagination, his bold satire, his

independence, his devotional love of his mother and sister--if he had

lived through a long age of prosperity, Chatterton could never have been

trusted, nor esteemed, _from his total want of truth_. His is the most

striking example upon record of the necessity for uprightness in word

and deed. Where a great end is to be achieved--there must be

consistency, a union between noble daring and noble deeds--there must be

Truth! No man has ever deviated from it without losing not only the

respect of the thinking, but even the confidence of the unwise.

Chatterton's earliest idea seems to have been how to deceive; and, were

it possible to laugh at youthful fraud, there would be something

irresistibly ludicrous in the lad bewildering the old pewterer, Burgum.

Imagine the fair-haired rosy boy, the brightness of his extraordinary

eyes increased by the covert mischief which urged him forward--fancy his

presenting himself to Master Burgum, who, dull as his own pewter, had

the ambition, which the cunning youth fostered, of being thought of an

"ancient family"--fancy Chatterton in his poor-school dress presenting

himself to this man, whose business, Chatterton's biographer, Mr. Dix,

tells us, was carried on in the house now occupied by Messrs. Sander,

Bristol Bridge,[2] and informing him that he had made a

discovery--presenting to him various documents, with a parchment

painting of the De Burgham arms, in proof of his royal descent from the

Conqueror.

[Illustration: BRISTOL BRIDGE.]

Mr. Dix assures us, "that never once doubting the validity of the

record, in which his own honors were so deeply implicated, he presented

the poor bluecoat-boy, who had been so fortunate in _finding_ so much,

and so assiduous in his endeavors to collect the remainder, with _five

shillings_!" Blush, Bristol, blush at this record of a citizen's

meanness; the paltry remuneration could have hardly tempted even so poor

a lad as Thomas Chatterton to continue his labors for the love of gain;

yet he furnished Burgum with further information, loving the indulgence

of his mystifying powers, and secretly satirizing the folly he duped.

It is quite impossible to trace back any circumstance which could, to

speak advisedly, have led to such a course of deception as was practised

by this boy; born of obscure parents, his father, a man of dissolute

habits, was sub-chanter of the Cathedral, and also master of the free

school in Pyle-street; this clever, but harsh, and dissolute man died in

August, 1752, and the poet was born on the 20th of the following

November.[3] Such a parent could not be a loss; he would have been, in

all human probability, as careless of his son as he was of his wife;

and, at all events, Chatterton had not the misery of early cruelty to

complain of, for he had a mother, tender and affectionate, although

totally unfit to guide and manage his wayward nature. Her first grief

with him arose, strange as it may seem, from his inaptitude for

learning--as a child he disdained A B C, and indulged himself with his

own thoughts. When nearly seven years old he "fell in love," to use his

mother's phrase, "with an illuminated French manuscript," and thus

learned his letters from the very sort of thing he spent his early days

in counterfeiting. His progress was wonderful, both as to rapidity and

extent, and his pride kept pace therewith. A friend, wishing to give the

boy and his sister a present of china-ware, asked him what device he

would choose to ornament his with. "Paint me," he said, "an angel with

wings and a trumpet, to trumpet my name over the world." Here was a

proof of innate ambition; if his mother had had an understanding mind,

this observation would have taught her to read his character. Such

ambition could have been directed,--and directed to noble deeds.

[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF CHATTERTON.]

[Illustration: CHATTERTON AS DOORKEEPER.]

He was admitted into the Blue Coat School, commonly called "Colston's

School,"[4] before he was eight years old, and his enthusiastic joy at

the prospect of learning so much, was damped by finding that, to quench

his thirst for knowledge, "there were not books enough." When he took in

rotation the post of doorkeeper at the school, he used to indulge

himself in making verses,[5] and his sister, who loved him tenderly,

presented him with a pocket-book, in which he wrote verses, and gave it

back to her the following year. There was nothing in this species of

tuition or companionship to create or foster either the imitations or

the satire he indulged in, he had neither correction nor assistance from

any one. Even before his apprenticeship to Mr. John Lambert, he felt he

was not appreciated or understood; perhaps no one ever _acted_ a greater

satire upon his own profession than this harsh attorney, who deemed his

apprentice on a level with his footboy. He must have been a man utterly

devoid of perception and feeling; his insulting contempt of what he

could not understand added considerably to the sarcastic bitterness of

Chatterton's nature, and it is easy to picture the boy's feelings when

his productions were torn by this tyrant and scattered on the office

floor! He has his reward. John Lambert, the scrivener, is only

remembered as the insulter of Thomas Chatterton![6]

[Illustration: TOMB OF CANYNGE.]

It is impossible not to pause at every page of this boy's brief but

eventful life, and lament that he had no friend; reading, as we do, by

the light of other days, we can see so many passages where judicious

counsel, given with the intelligent affection that would at once have

opened his heart, _must_ have saved him; his heart, once laid bare to

friendship, would have been purified by the air of truth; it was its

_closeness_ which infected his nature. And yet the scrivener considered

him a good apprentice. His industry was amazing; his frequent employment

was to copy precedents, and one volume, in his handwriting, which is

still extant, consists of three hundred and forty-four closely-written

folio pages. There was in that gloomy office an edition of Camden's

"Britannia," and, having borrowed from Mr. Green, a bookseller,

Speight's "Chaucer," he compiled therefrom an ingenious glossary, for

his own use, in two parts. "The first," Mr. Dix says, "contained old

words, with the modern English--the second, the modern English, with the

old words; this enabled him to turn modern English into old, as an

English and Latin dictionary enables the student to turn English into

Latin." How miserable it is, amongst these evidences of his industry and

genius, to find that all his ingenuity turned to the furtherance of a

fraud. He seems to have been morally dead to every thing like the

disgrace attending falsehood; for, when struggling afterwards in London

to appear prosperous while starving, he wrote home to Mr. Catcott, and

concludes his letter by stating that he intended going abroad as a

_surgeon_, adding, "Mr. Barrett has it in his power to assist me

greatly, by _his giving me a physical character_; I hope he will." He

seems to have had no idea that he was asking Mr. Barrett to do a

dishonest action.

But the grand fraud of his short life was boldly dared by this boy in

his sixteenth year. Why he should have ever descended to forge when he

felt the high pressure of genius so strong within him, is inexplicable.

Why, with his daring pride, he should have submitted to be considered a

transcriber, where he originated, is more than marvellous. The spell of

a benighting antiquity seemed around him; it might lead one to a belief

in "Gramarie"--that some fake spirit had issued forth from the "cofre of

Mr. Canynge,"[7] so long preserved in the room over the north porch of

this Bristol church of Redcliffe--a "_cofre_" secured by six keys, all

of which being lost or mislaid, the vestry ordered the "_cofre_" to be

opened; and not only "Canynge's _cofre_," but all the "_cofres_," in the

mysterious chamber: not from any love of antiquity, but because of the

hope of obtaining certain title-deeds supposed to be contained therein.

Well, these intelligent worthies, having found what concerned

themselves, took them away, leaving behind, _and open_, parchments and

documents which might have enriched our antiquarian literature beyond

all calculation.[8] Chatterton's father used to carry these parchments

away wholesale, and covered with the precious relics, bibles, and

school-books: most likely other officers of the church did the same.

After his death, his widow conveyed many of them, with her children and

furniture, to her new residence, and, woman-like, formed them into dolls

and thread-papers. In process of time, the child's attention being

aroused by the illuminated manuscripts, he conveyed every bit of

parchment he could find to a small den of a room in his mother's house,

which he called his own: and, when he grew a little older, set forth,

with considerable tact, in answer to all questions asked of him as to

how he obtained the poems and information, that he himself had searched

the old "_cofres_,"[9] and discovered the poems of the Monk Rowley.

Certainly he could not have had a better person to trumpet his discovery

than "a talkative fool" like Burgum, who was so proud of his pedigree as

to torment the officers of the Herald's College about his ancestors; and

he was not the only one imposed on by Chatterton's talent. His

simple-minded mother bore testimony to his joy at discovering those

"written parchments upon the covered books:" and, of course, each

discovery added to his antiquarian knowledge; for, though no trace

exists of the Monk Rowley's originals, there is little doubt that on

some of those parchments he found enough to set him thinking, and with

him to think and act was the same thing; indeed, there is one passage in

his poems bearing so fully upon the fraud, that we transcribe it. He is

writing of having discharged all his obligations to Mr. Catcott:--

"If ever obligated to thy purse,

_Rowley discharges all, my first chief curse!_

For had I never known the antique lore,

I ne'er had ventured from my peaceful shore,

But, happy in my humble sphere, had moved

Untroubled, unsuspected, unbeloved."[10]

[Illustration: MUNIMENT ROOM.]

A Mr. Rudhall[11] said that, when Chatterton wrote on a parchment, he

held it over a candle to give it the appearance of antiquity; and a Mr.

Gardener has recorded, that he once saw Chatterton rub a parchment over

with ochre, and afterwards rub it on the ground, saying, "that was the

way to antiquate it." This _expose_ of Chatterton's craft is so at

variance with his usual caution that we can hardly credit it. A humble

woman, Mrs. Edkins, speaks of his spending all his holidays in the

little den of a room we have mentioned, where he _locked_ himself in,

and would remain the entire day without meals, returning with his hands

and face completely begrimed with dirt and charcoal; and she well

remembers his having a charcoal pounce-bag and parchment and letters on

a little deal table, and all over the ground was a litter of parchments;

and she and his mother at one time fancied he intended to discolor

himself and run away to the gipsies; but afterwards Mrs. Edkins believed

that he was laboring at the Rowley manuscripts, and she thought he got

himself bound to a lawyer that he might get at old law books. The

testimony she bears to his affectionate tenderness towards his mother

and sister is touching: while his pride led him to seek for notoriety

for himself, it was only to render his mother and sister comfortable

that he coveted wealth.

It is not our province to enter into the controversy as to whether the

MSS. were originals or forgeries: it would seem to be as undecided

to-day as it was three quarters of a century ago; the boy "died and made

no sign:" and the world has not been put in possession of any additional

facts by which the question might be determined: the balance of proof

appears in favor of those who contend they were the sole offspring of

his mind, suggested merely by ancient documents from which he could have

borrowed no idea except that of rude spelling; yet it is by no means

impossible that poems did actually exist, and came into his hands, which

he altered and interpolated, but which he did not create.

In aid of his plans, Chatterton first addressed himself to Dodsley, the

Pall Mall bookseller, once with smaller poems, and afterwards on behalf

of the greatest production of his genius--the tragedy of "Ella;" but the

booksellers of those days were not more intellectual than those at the

present: they devoured the small forgery of the great Horace Walpole,

"The Castle of Otranto," and rejected the magnificence of a nameless

composition. This man's neglect drove the young poet to the "Autocrat of

Strawberry Hill." In reply he at first received a polished letter. The

literary trifler was not aware of the poverty and low station of his

correspondent, and so was courteous; he is "grateful" and "singularly

obliged;" bowing, and perfumed, and polite. Other communications

followed. Walpole inquired--discovered the poet's situation; and _then_

he changed! The poor fond boy! how hard and bitter was the rebuff. How

little had he imagined that _the_ Walpole's soul was not, _by five

shillings_, as large as the Bristol pewterer's!--that he who was an

adept at literary imposition could have been so harsh to a

fellow-sinner! The volume of his works containing "Miscellanies of

Chatterton" is now before us. Hear to his indignant honesty! He declares

that "all the house of forgery are relations; and that though it be but

just to Chatterton's memory to say his poverty never made him claim

kindred with the richest, or more enriching branches, yet that his

ingenuity in counterfeiting styles, and I believe hands, might easily

have led him to those more facile imitations of prose--promissory

notes." The literal meaning of this paragraph stamps the littleness of

the man's mind. A slight--a very slight effort on his part might have

turned the current of the boy's thoughts, and saved him from misery and

death. We do not call Chatterton "his victim," because we do not think

him so; but he, or any one in his position, might have turned him from

the love of an unworthy notoriety to the pursuit of a laudable ambition.

Following in the world's track (which he was ever careful not to

outstep), when the boy was dead, Walpole bore eloquent testimony to his

genius. The words of praise he gives his memory are like golden grains

amid the chaffy _verbiage_ with which he defends himself. If he

perceived this at first, why not have come forward hand and heart, and

shouted him on to honest fortune? But, like all _clique kings_, he made

no general cause with literature; he only smiled on his individual

worshippers, who could applaud when he said, with cruel playfulness,

"that singing birds should not be too well fed!"

His master, Lambert, dismissed the youth from his service, because he

had reason to suppose he meditated self-destruction; and then he

proceeded to London. How buoyant and full of hope he was during his

probationary days there, his letters to his mother and sister testify;

his gifts, also, extracted from his necessities, are evidences of the

bent of his mind--fans and china--luxuries rather than necessaries; but

in this, it must be remembered, his judgment was in fault, not his

affections. In all things he was swayed and guided by his pride,--his

indomitable pride. The period, brief as it was, of his sojourn in the

great metropolis proved that Walpole, while he neglected him so cruelly,

understood him perfectly, when he said that "nothing in Chatterton could

be separated from Chatterton--that all he did was the effervescence of

ungovernable impulse, which, chameleon-like, imbibed the colours of all

it looked on it was Ossian, or a Saxon monk, or Gray, or Smollett, or

Junius." His first letter to his mother is dated, April the 26th, 1770.

He terminated his own existence on the 24th of August in the same year.

He battled with the crowded world of London, and, what was in his case a

more dire enemy than the world, his overwhelming pride, for nearly four

months. Alas! how terrible are the reflections which these few weeks

suggest! Now borne aloft upon the billows of hope, sparkling in the

fitful brightness of a feverish sun, and then plunged into the slough of

despair, his proud, dark soul disclaiming all human participation in a

misery exaggerated by his own unbending pride. Let us not talk of

denying sympathy to persons who create their own miseries; they endure

agonies thrice told. The paltry remuneration he received for his

productions is recorded by himself. Among the items is one as

extraordinary as the indignant emotion it excites:--

Received from Mr. Hamilton, for 16 songs, 10s. 6d.

Of Mr. Hamilton, for "Candidus" and Foreign Journal 2s.!!

We are wearied for him of the world's dark sight: yet in the same book

is recorded that the same publisher owed him L10 19s. 6d.! This sum

might have saved him, but he was too proud to ask for money; too proud

to complain; too proud to accept the invitation of his acquaintances, or

his landlady, to dine or sup with them; and all too proud to hint, even

to his mother and sister, that he was any thing but prosperous. Ardent

as if he had been a son of the hot south, he had learned nothing of

patience or expediency. His first residence was at Mrs. Walmsley's, in

Shoreditch, but, doubtless, finding the lodging too expensive, he

removed to a Mr. Angell's, sac (or dress) maker, 4, Brook Street,

Holborn. This woman, who seems to have been of a gentle nature, finding

that for two days he had confined himself to his room, and gone without

sustenance, invited him to dine with her; but he was offended, and

assured her he was not hungry. It is quite impossible to account for

this uncalled for pride. It was his nature. Lord Byron said he was mad:

according to _his_ view of the case, all eccentricity is madness; but in

the case of unhappy Chatterton, that madness which arises from "hope

deferred," was unquestionably endured. Three days before his death,

pursuing, with a friend, the melancholy and speculative employment of

reading epitaphs in the churchyard of St. Pancras, absorbed by his own

reflections, he fell into a new-made grave. There was something akin to

the raven's croak, the death-fetch, the fading spectre, in this

foreboding accident: he smiled at it, and told his friend he felt the

sting of speedy dissolution:--

"Then black despair,

The shadow of a starless night, was thrown

Over the earth on which he moved alone."

At the age of seventeen years and nine months, his career ended; it was

shown that he had swallowed arsenic in water, and so--

"perished in his pride!"

An inquest was held, and yet though Englishmen--men who could read and

write, and hear--who must have heard of the boy's talents, either as a

poet, a satirist, or a political writer--though these men were guided by

a coroner, one, of course, in a more elevated sphere than those who

usually determine the intentions of the departed soul--yet was there not

one--NOT ONE of them all--with sufficient veneration for the casket

which had contained the diamond--not one with enough of sympathy for the

widow's son--to wrap his body in a decent shroud, and kneel in Christian

piety by his grave!--not one to pause and think that, between genius and

madness,

"What thin partitions do their bounds divide!"

In a letter from Southey to Mr. Britton (dated in 1810, to which we have

already referred, and which Mr. Britton kindly submitted to us with

various other correspondence on the subject), he says, "there can now be

no impropriety in mentioning what could not be said when the collected

edition of Chatterton's works was published,--that there was a taint of

insanity in his family. His sister was once confined; and this is a key

to the eccentricities of his life, and the deplorable rashness of his

death." Of this unhappy predisposition, indeed, he seems to have been

himself conscious, for "in his last will and testament," written in

April, 1770, before he quitted Bristol, when he seems to have meditated

suicide--although, from the mock-heroic style of the document his

serious design may be questioned,--he writes, "If I do a mad action, it

is conformable to every action of my life, which all savored of

insanity." His "sudden fits of weeping, for which no reason could be

assigned," when a mere child, were but the preludes to those gloomy

forebodings which haunted him when a boy. His mother had said, "she was

often apprehensive of his going mad."

And so,--the verdict having been pronounced, he was cast into

the burying-ground of Shoe Lane work-house--the paupers'

burying-ground,--the end, as far as his clayey tabernacle was concerned,

of all his dreamy greatness. When the ear was deaf to the worship of the

charmer, he received his meed of posthumous praise. Malone, Croft, Dr.

Knox, Wharton, Sherwin, Pye, Mrs. Cowley, Walter Scott, Haley,

Coleridge, Dermody, Wordsworth, Shelley, William Howitt, Keats, who

dedicated his "Endymion" to the memory of his fellow-genius; the burly

Johnson, whose praise seemed unintentional; the gentle and most

Christian poet, James Montgomery,--have each and all offered tributes to

his memory. Robert Southey, whose polished, strong and long unclouded

mind was a treasure-house of noble-thoughts, assisted Mr. Cottle in

providing for the poet's family by a collection of his works; and,

though last, not least, excellent John Britton has labored all his long

life to render justice to the poor boy's memory. To him, indeed, it was

mainly owing, that the cenotaph to which we have referred (and which now

lies mouldering in the Church vault), was erected in the graveyard of

Redcliffe Church, by subscription, of which the contributions of Bristol

were very small.[12]

Chatterton was another warning, not only

"Against self-slaughter

There is a prohibition so divine--"

but that no mortal should ever abandon Hope! for a reverend

gentleman,--who was, in all things, what, unhappily, Horace Walpole was

not,--had actually visited Bristol, to seek out and aid the boy while he

lay dead in London.

"Beware of desperate steps; the darkest day,

Live till to-morrow, will have passed away."

[Illustration: CHATTERTON'S MONUMENT.]

The knowledge of these facts cheered us as we set forth to the

neighborhood of Shoe-Lane to see the spot where he had been laid. Alas,

it is very hard to keep pace with the progress of London changes. After

various inquiries, we were told that Mr. Bentley's printing office

stands upon the ground of Shoe-Lane Workhouse. We ascended the steps

leading to this shifting emporium of letters, and found ourselves face

to face with a kind gentleman, who told us all he knew upon the subject,

which was, that the printing office stands--not upon the burying-ground

of Shoe-Lane Workhouse, where he had always understood Chatterton was

buried--but upon the church burial-ground. He showed us a very curious

basso-relievo, in cut-stone, of the Resurrection, which he assured us

had been "time out of mind" above the entrance to the Shoe-Lane

burying-place "over the way," and which is now the site of Farrington

Market. This, when "all the bones" were moved to the old graveyard in

Gray's Inn Road, had come "somehow" into Mr. Bentley's possession.

We were told also that Mr. Taylor, another printer, had lived, before

the workhouse was pulled down, where his office-window looked upon the

spot pointed out as the grave of Chatterton, and that a stone, "a rough

white stone," was remembered to have been "set in a wall" near the grave

with "Thomas Chatterton" and something else "scratched" into it.

We strayed back through the damp chill of the city's evening fog to the

market-place, hoping, even unconsciously, to stand beside the pit into

which the marvellous boy had been thrust; but we grew bewildered. And as

we stood upon the steps looking down upon the market--alone in feeling,

and unconscious of every thing but our own thoughts--St. Paul's bell

struck, full, loud, and clear; and, casting our eyes upward, we saw its

mighty dome through the murky atmosphere. We became still more "mazed,"

and fancied we were gazing upon the monument of Thomas Chatterton!

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Of Edward Colston, well and beautifully has William Howitt said,

"You cannot help feeling the grand beneficence of those wealthy

merchants, who, like Edward Colston, make their riches do their generous

will for ever; who become thereby the actual fathers of their native

cities to all generations; who roll off, every year of the world's

progress, some huge stone of anxiety from the hearts of poor widows; who

clear the way before the unfriended, but active and worthy lad; who put

forth their invisible hands from the heaven of their rest, and become

the genuine guardian angels of the orphan race for ever and ever:

raising from those who would otherwise have been outcasts and ignorant

laborers, aspiring and useful men; tradesmen of substance; merchants the

true enrichers of their country, and fathers of happy families. How

glorious is such a lot! how noble is such an appropriation of wealth!

how enviable is such a fame! And amongst such men there were few more

truly admirable than Edward Colston! He was worthy to have been lifted

by Chatterton, to the side of the magnificent Canynge, and one cannot

help wondering that he says so little about this great benefactor of his

city."

[2] Our engraving shows this house, and Bristol Bridge, both memorable

as being connected with the earliest of Chatterton's fabrications.

Bristol Bridge was finished in September, 1768, and in the October

following Chatterton sent to "Felix Farley's Bristol Journal," the

curiously detailed account of the ceremonial observances on opening the

ancient bridge at Bristol, 'taken from an Old Manuscript,' and which,

being his first printed forgery, led, by the attention it excited, to

the production of other work, and among them the Rowley Poems. At this

time he was in his 16th year; but some years before he had fabricated

Burgum's pedigree, and some poetry by a pretended ancestor of his, of

the alleged date of 1320, called "The Romaunte of the Knyghte." The

house where Burgum lived, and where Chatterton first tried his powers of

deception, is the central one of the three seen above the bridge in our

cut.

[3] The place of Chatterton's birth has been variously stated: Mr. Dix,

in his "Life of Chatterton," has mentioned _three_. His first being that

"he was born on the 29th of November, in the year 1752, in a house

situated on Redcliff Hill, behind the shop now (1837) occupied by Mr.

Hasell, grocer," and which has since been destroyed. But in the appendix

to his volume is a communication stating that Mrs. Newton (Chatterton's

married sister) left a daughter who "died in 1807, in the house where

Chatterton was born; I believe in the arch at Cathay," a street leading

from the church-yard to the river-side. But the most certain account

seems to be that of Mrs. Edkins (also printed by Dix) who "went to

school to Chatterton's father, and was present when the son was born, at

the Pyle School." Now, as Chatterton was born about three months after

his father's death, and he had been for some years master of the school,

it is unlikely that his wife would be removed from the house she

inhabited until after her confinement, "when," says Mrs. Edkins, "she

went to a house opposite the upper gate on Redcliff Hill." The house

appropriated to the master of Pyle Street School is shown in our

engraving, it is at the back of the school, which faces the street, and

is approached by an open passage on one side of it leading into a small

court-yard, beyond which is a little garden. Over the door is inserted a

stone, inscribed, "This house was erected by Giles Malpas, of St. Thomas

Parish, Gent., for the use of the master of this School, A. D. 1749."

The house has but two sitting rooms, one on each side of the door, that

to the right being the kitchen; and in one of them the dissolute father

of the Poet is said by Dix to have "often passed the whole night roaring

out catches, with some of the lowest rabble of the parish." He was

succeeded in the office of Schoolmaster by Edmond Chard, who held it for

five years; and he was followed in 1757 by Stephen Love, who was master

twenty-one years, and to whom Mrs. Chatterton first sent her son for

education; and who, "after exhausting the patience of his schoolmaster,

was sent back to his mother with the character of a stupid boy, and one

who was absolutely incapable of receiving instruction."

[4] This School, founded in 1708 by Edward Colston, Esq., is situated in

a street called St. Augustine's Back, behind the houses facing the

drawbridge. It is the mansion in which Queen Elizabeth was entertained

when she visited the city; and was purchased by Colston, because of its

applicability to his charitable purposes. Here the scholars are boarded,

lodged, and clothed, and are never permitted to be absent--except on

Saturdays and Saints' days, from one till seven. They are simply taught

reading, writing, and arithmetic. The school-room is on the first floor,

and runs along the entire front of the building; the bed-rooms are the

large airy rooms above. Behind the house is a paved yard for exercise.

Chatterton remained here about seven years.

[5] The gate seen at the side of Colston's School in our cut, is that by

which the school is entered; a narrow paved passage beside the house

conducts to the angle of the building, when you turn to the left, and so

reach the house by an open court-yard. In the corner of this angle,

commanding a view of the entrance to the school, and also of the outer

gate, is placed the doorkeeper's lodge delineated in our cut. It is a

small building of brick, covered with lead, about six feet in height. It

has within an iron seat, and an iron ledge for books. The windows are

unglazed; and in winter it must be singularly uncomfortable,

particularly as the occupant must traverse the length of the yard in all

weathers. It is said to be the intention of the authorities to remove

this little building; this is to be regretted, as it is almost the only

unchanged memorial of her poet-boy which Bristol possesses. It was

customary for the boys to take the office of doorkeeper in rotation for

the term of one week; and it was in Chatterton's twelfth year, when he

was doorkeeper, that he wrote here his first poem "On the Last Epiphany,

or Christ coming to Judgment."

[6] Lambert's first office was on St. John's Steps; but the unceasing

spirit of change, which has more or less destroyed all the Bristol

localities connected with Chatterton, has swept this one away; "the

Steps" have now been turned into a sloping ascent, and the old houses

removed or renovated. Shortly after he had entered Lambert's service,

his office was removed to Corn Street, and here, from the house

delineated in our cut, he dated his first communication to Horace

Walpole. It is immediately in front of the Exchange, and although the

lower part has been altered frequently within remembrance, the upper

part remains as when Lambert rented it. It may be noted, that the upper

floors of the adjacent houses are still devoted to lawyers' and

merchants' offices.

[7] The great Bristol merchant, William Canynge, jun., is buried in

Redcliffe Church, to which he was a great benefactor, as he was to the

city of Bristol generally. He entered the church to avoid a second

marriage, and was made Dean of the College of Westbury, which he had

rebuilt. There are two monuments to his memory in Redcliffe Church, both

of which are seen in our engraving. One is a raised altar tomb with an

enriched canopy; and upon the tomb lie the effigies of Canynge and his

wife in the costume of the fifteenth century. The other tomb is of

similar construction, and is believed to have been brought here from

Westbury College; it represents Canynge in his clerical robes, his head

supported by angels, and resting his feet on the figure of a Saracen.

Here Chatterton frequently ruminated; indeed, the whole church abounds

with memorials which call to mind the sources of his inspiration; near

the door is an effigy inscribed "Johannes Lamyngton," which gave name to

one of his forgeries. He was never weary of rambling in and about the

church, and all his early works originated here.

[8] The muniment-room is a large low-roofed apartment over the beautiful

north porch of Redcliffe Church, which was constructed by Canynge. It is

hexagonal, and lighted by narrow unglazed windows. The floor rests on

the groined stones of the porch, strong beams of oak forming its roof.

It is secured by two massive doors in the narrow passage leading from

the stairs into it. Here were preserved several large chests, and among

them _Canynge's cofre_; from which Chatterton assured the world he had

obtained the Rowley MSS.; and from which MSS. were carried away and

destroyed, but the old chests still remain. There are seven in all, and

they bear traces of great antiquity. Many have been strongly bound with

iron, but all are now in a state of decay. This lonely cheerless room,

strewn with antique fragments and suggestive of the boy-poet's

day-dreams, is certainly the most interesting relic in Bristol. Its

comfortless neglect is a true epitome of the life of him who first

shaped his course from his reveries within it.

[9] The house said to be that of Canynge is situated in Redcliffe

Street, not very far from the church. It is now occupied by a

bookseller, who uses the fine hall seen in our cut, as a storehouse for

his volumes. Chatterton frequently mentions this "house nempte the rodde

lodge;" and in Skelton's "Etchings of Bristol Antiquities" is an

engraving of this building, there called "Canynge's chapel or Masonic

Hall," showing the painting in the arch at the back, representing the

first person of the Trinity, supporting the crucified Saviour, angels at

each side censing, and others bearing shields. This was "the Rood" with

which Chatterton was familiar, and which induced him to give the name to

Canynge's house in his fabrications. This painting is now destroyed, but

we have restored it from Skelton's plate in our engraving.

[10] The monk Rowley was altogether an imaginary person conjured up by

Chatterton as a vehicle for his wonderful forgeries. He was described by

him as the intimate friend of Canynge, his constant companion, and a

collector of books and drawings for him. It has been well remarked, that

although it was _extraordinary_ for a lad to have written them in the

18th century, it was _impossible_ for a monk to have written them in the

15th. Indeed, it seems now both curious and amusing that his forgeries

should have deceived the learned. When Rowley talks of purchasing his

house "on a repayring lease for ninety-nine years." We at once smile,

and remember his fellow-forger Ireland's Shaksperian _Promissory_ note,

before such things were invented. Our fac-simile of the pretended

Rowley's writing is obtained from the very curious collection of

Chatterton's manuscripts in the British Museum. It is written at the

bottom of some drawings of monumental slabs and notes, stated to have

been "collected ande gotten for Mr. William Canynge, by mee, Thomas

Rowley." There are, however, other autographs of Rowley in the

collection, so entirely dissimilar in the formation of the letters, that

it might be expected to have induced a conviction of forgery. Many of

the manuscripts too are still more dissimilar; and the construction of

the letters totally unlike any of the period. Some are written on little

fragments not more than three inches square, the writing sometimes neat

and clean, at other times bad, rambling and unintelligible. The best is

the account of Canynge's feast, which has been engraved in fac-simile by

Strutt, to the edition of Rowley's Poems, 1777. The writing is generally

bolder than Barrett's fac-simile; and that gentleman, in endeavoring to

revive the faded ink, has greatly injured the originals, which are now

in some cases almost indistinguishable. The drawings of pretended

ancient coins and heraldry are absurdly inventive: and the

representations of buildings exactly such as a boy without knowledge of

drawing or architecture would fabricate; yet they imposed on Barrett who

engraved them for his history of Bristol. Many of his transcripts show

the shifts the poor boy was put to for paper; torn fragments and backs

of law bills are frequently employed. Among the rest is a collection of

extracts from Chaucer to aid him in the fabrication of his MSS. The

whole is exceedingly instructive and curious.

[11] This gentleman was the proprietor of the "Bristol Journal," to

which Chatterton sent his first forgery; and with whom he afterwards

became intimate.

[12] The cenotaph erected to Chatterton, in 1838, from a design by S. C.

Fripp, has now been removed; it stood close to the north porch, beside

the steps leading into it. One of the inscriptions, which he directs in

his will to be placed on his tomb, has been adopted. "To the Memory of

Thomas Chatterton. Reader, judge not, if thou art a Christian. Believe

that he shall be judged by a superior Power. To that Power alone is he

now answerable."

Authors and Books.

Of personalities, &c. a few words: Every man or woman coming before the

public voluntarily--especially every man or woman placing his or her

name upon the title of a book--submits so much of his or her being and

character to the general criticism. It is crime to make public use of

private conversation; it is crime, under most circumstances, to disclose

the secret of an anonymous authorship; it is crime in all cases to

invade any privacy, or comment on any purely personal matter, that has

not by the interested party been offered for the world's examination. If

any one publish a work of pure art, it is entirely inexcusable to

suggest any illustrations of it from his life or condition, unless by

his own express or implied permission. For example, if "The Princess,"

by Tennyson, had been printed anonymously by some notorious thief,

burglar, forger, or murderer, he would be as great a villain as the

author, who, in reviewing the poem, should in any manner whatever allude

to the author's sins. The extent to which this law may be applied can

easily be understood. To a gentleman the law itself is an instinct.

Personal rights are frequently violated by praise as well as by censure,

and sometimes applause is not in any degree less offensive than

denunciation, though commonly men will forgive even the most unskilful

and injudicious commendation. In both ways the writers of this country

are apt to err.

While we agree with the most fastidious, in asserting that inviolability

of one's individualism, not by himself submitted for public observation,

we contend for the right and duty of the utmost freedom in the

dissection of what is thus submitted. Public speech, public action,

public character, are adventures upon the sea of the world's opinion,

and they must brave its winds or be sunk or wrecked by them,--the

person, so far as he is not involved, meanwhile safely watching from the

shore for results.

In the most careful applications of this principle, it is inevitable

that wrong is done sometimes; but when the wrong is not personal, it is

for the most part susceptible of remedy. The author may challenge

investigation of his book, the artist of his picture, the officer of his

administration. If there has been unfair severity of criticism, they are

likely to gain by it in the end, for every critic must justify upon

challenge.

There is a distinction in the cases of the dead. The world in an

especial manner becomes the heir of a life which is abandoned by its

master. This has been held by the wise in all ages and all states of

society. The justice of the distinction is very apparent: An invasion of

the individualism of the living destroys, or to a greater or less extent

affects, the freedom, and so the right and wrong, of his conduct, while

the secrets of the dead are to the living only as logic.

There are very few men who are not more willing to praise than to blame.

The better portion of men prefer to hear the praises even of strangers.

Therefore censors are held to stricter account than eulogists. But a

natural love of justice is continually at war with feelings of personal

kindness. It is impossible to see insolent and vulgar pretension in

noisy triumph, while real and unobtrusive merit is neglected. When we

see a creature strutting in laurels that have been won by another, human

nature--much as it has been abused--prompts us to grasp them from

undeserving brows and place them where they will have a natural grace.

For trite examples, who would not rather elect Columbus than Americus to

the place of Name-Giver for this continent? who does not rejoice that

finally Hadley is proved a swindler of the fame of Godfrey, in the

matter of the quadrant? How many such wrongs do men daily hope to see

righted!

The writer of these paragraphs will never willingly violate the just

conditions of criticism. If he offers, as often is necessary,

conclusions rather than arguments, he will in no case withhold arguments

when conclusions are held to be unjust. The true value of every sort of

journalism, and of discussion also, is in its integrity much more than

in its ability. Integrity is violated as much by the suppression of

truth as by the suggestion of falsehood. In all cases that interest us

sufficiently, and which are legitimately before the public, we shall

write precisely as we think, without the slightest regard for

consequences.

* * * * *

OERSTED, the great natural philosopher, has lately published at Leipzic,

under the title of _Der in Geist in der Natur_ (Spirit in Nature), a

collection of remarkable essays which he has written, at various times,

during a series of years. The purpose he has followed through his entire

scientific career, has, perhaps, its most complete expression in this

book. It is the demonstration of the same laws in physical nature as in

the higher spheres of the reason and intelligence. On the principle of

the essential unity of all things, he seeks not only to lay the

foundation of a universal science, but to afford some views of the

superstructure. The work contains eight distinct essays: the first, "The

Spiritual in the Corporeal," is in the form of a Dialogue, and aims at a

reconciliation of the conflicting modes of thought, by which the

universe is assumed to be essentially material, or essentially

spiritual; the second, "The Fountain," treats of the impressions of

beauty produced by the great, sublime, and powerful; the third considers

the relation to the imagination, of the apprehension of nature by the

understanding, and shows that it is only imperfect culture and ignorance

which can suppose any dissonance between the two. He shows that the

progress of science enriches, aggrandizes, and elevates the imagination.

The fourth essay is, perhaps, the most interesting of all. Its theme is,

"Superstition and Skepticism in their relation to Natural Science." The

notion that superstition is favorable to poesy, he dissipates with

masterly conclusiveness. The true realm of beauty is the realm of

reason. It is true that science deprives the poet of the use of sundry

unnatural conceptions, but while it more than compensates him by the

substitution of nobler ideas, it opens to him a new, affluent, and

little explored poetic world. "It can," he says, "not be charged as a

crime upon natural science, that it has destroyed materials hitherto

used by the poets. Such losses are of small consequence to the true

poet, but may, indeed, be painful to the many dabblers in the poetic

art, who think they have rendered the insignificant poetic by tricking

it out in gewgaws from the poetic armory of a vanished era." The fifth,

entitled, "The Existence of all things in the Domain of Reason," is the

profoundest and most significant of these essays, and more than the

others brings out in form as simple and popular as could be expected,

the fundamental idea of the author's system of thought. It asserts that

there is, throughout the universe, a radical unity between the laws of

beauty, and man's moral nature and intellectual powers, and that there

must therefore exist for the mind, a perfect community of nature and

analogy between different worlds, and a rational connection between all

thinking beings, not only of the earth, but of other planets and

systems. The final essay is on "The Culture of Science as the Exercise

of Religion," and is mainly an attempt to show that the very nature of

science requires its culture to be made a religion, and that _the good

which we ought to seek must be that which is imperishable in its truth_.

This work has been rapidly followed by two other publications of the

same author, intended to explain or defend the positions of their

predecessor. The first is called, "Natural Science in its Connection

with Poetic Art and Religion." It was written in reply to the criticism

of a learned and respected friend of the author, Bishop Mynster of

Seeland. The second has for its title, "Natural Science and the

Formation of the Intellect."

Oersted is now seventy-three years old. It is admirable to see a man of

such years and distinction in the world, putting forth the same grand

and elevated ideas that marked the generous enthusiasm of his youth. It

is only in the genial and unselfish pursuits of science that such

freshness of mind can be thus preserved.

* * * * *

NEW DRAMAS.--Among the new dramas of any value, produced in Germany,

_Herodes und Mariamne_, a five act tragedy, by Hebbel, deserves

particular mention. The persons are too numerous, and the action too

complicated, but there is great fire and energy in the general

treatment, and the gradual development of the interest of the story is

managed with skill. Herod, the ruler of Judea, is a tyrant by both

nature and position. He was appointed to his office by the Roman

triumvir Antony, who can turn him out or cut his head off at any moment,

and who is strongly inclined to follow the urgent solicitations of

Herod's many enemies. In order to secure himself, Herod has married

Mariamne, a descendant of the Jewish royal family, and is deeply in love

with her. The chief of his foes is Mariamne's mother; the Pharisees also

hate him for his notorious disregard of the Jewish religion. A

conspiracy is formed against him, at the head of which is the brother of

Mariamne. This brother is killed in consequence, and Herod is summoned

before the triumvir. Meanwhile, as soon as the murder was known,

Mariamne had refused to see her husband. But the evidences of his

attachment are still so convincing, and her admiration for the force of

his character so great, that she becomes reconciled to him. He is about

to leave her to appear before Antony, and asks if her love is great

enough for her to commit suicide, in case he should not return. Finally

he asks her to take an oath to that effect. But she refuses, saying that

such an oath would give him no pledge that he might not have already

from insight into her heart. He is not content with this, and before he

leaves, engages an assassin to kill her in case Antony should put him to

death. After his departure, Mariamne declares to her mother that in case

Herod perishes, she has determined to kill herself. The report arrives

that he has been executed; and the assassin appears; from his bearing

Mariamne guesses the truth, and draws from him a confession. Just as she

is in the deepest agitation at this discovery, the king appears, having

been acquitted by Antony. She meets him with coldness, and at once lets

him know that she has learned all. He puts to death the man, but at the

same time a suspicion arises in his mind that Mariamne has discovered

the secret by betraying her honor. Against this her pride will not allow

her to defend herself. A second trial soon arrives. Herod receives the

order--shortly before the battle of Actium--to go on a dangerous

military expedition for Antony. He now requires no oath, at which she

rejoices; for she still loves him, and forgives him for the past. But

she does not reveal herself to him. He misunderstands the joy which she

cannot conceal, as satisfaction at his departure, and charges a faithful

servant to put her to death in case he shall fall. The report of his

death is renewed, but the appointed assassin, revolted at his office,

discloses all to Mariamne. This drives her to despair. She is confident

that her husband will soon return, and determines that he shall be led

to put her to death unjustly. Accordingly she gives a splendid feast, as

she says, to celebrate the death of her husband. He comes and brings her

before a court, not for having rejoiced at his death, but for

infidelity, supposing that to be the only way in which she could have

discovered the secret of the assassin. She is condemned and executed,

but before dying, she reveals the whole mystery to a friend, who

afterwards informs Herod. The king devoured by rage and remorse and

driven to desperation, becomes merciless as a fury. It is at that

moment, that the three wise men from the East arrive, and inform him of

the birth of Christ; whereupon he orders the slaughter of the children.

One of the peculiarities of this tragedy, is the introduction of a

character, who takes no part in the action, but observes and

philosophizes upon it, somewhat after the manner of the old Greek

chorus. This innovation cannot be said to be successful; moreover there

is generally too much philosophizing and moralizing in the piece.

Another new German tragedy is called _Francisco da Rimini_, by Cornelius

Von der Heyse, but we know nothing more respecting it than is

communicated by the publisher's advertisement. The title is promising.

The French dramatists produce more comedies than tragedies. Indeed, in

the weekly notices which for the last few weeks our Parisian papers have

given of the new works brought out at the various theatres of Paris, we

have not observed one tragedy of importance enough for us to remark upon

it. But in the lighter range of comedy, the French playwrights are

unequalled and inexhaustible, as is proved by the constant transfer of

their productions into both the English and German languages. They do

not think it necessary to have a plot of much intricacy, or even of

great interest. The point and brilliancy of the dialogue, and the

perfection of the actors, render that a matter of subordinate

consequence. _The Two Eagles_, by Bayard and Bieville (these

partnerships are frequent among the dramatists of Paris), was brought

out at the _Theatre Montansier_. Hippolyte Vidoux, clerk in a cap store

and lieutenant in the National Guards, is a charming fellow, and the

idol of the women in the whole quarter. He sings, jokes, and dances the

polka in every style. He is introduced into the salons of his superior

officer, Count Chamaral, but meets with no sort of success among the

marchionesses and duchesses. On the other hand, these ladies are dying

for the young Baron Albert, who dances the contra-dance with a mien of

languishing resignation worthy of a funeral. The Baron falls in love

with the daughter of a rich baker, but in vain. Here Hippolyte carries

off the honors and the heiress according to the French proverb, _the

eagle of one house is a turkey in another_. At the _Opera Comique_, a

piece in one act, _The Peasant_, by Alboize, music by Poisat is one of

the latest novelties. A proud and obstinate German Baron refuses his

daughter's hand to her lover, whose great merit nevertheless causes him

to be ennobled. Still the Baron refuses his daughter. "What!" he says,

"shall I marry my child to a new-baked nobleman?" But as good luck would

have it, the Emperor Joseph happens along in disguise, on one of his

excursions for relieving virtue and unmasking vice. The Baron receives

him, but has nothing to set before him. Hereupon a gardener furnishes a

deer, which saves the honor of the house. The Emperor is delighted with

the venison, and makes the donor sit down at the table. He is the father

of the suitor, and as he has thus had the honor to eat with the Emperor,

the Baron can say nothing more against the marriage. The good Emperor

blesses the happy pair, and sets off again to see if there are no more

comic operas in his dominions to which he can contribute a happy

denouement. At the _Theatre des Varietes_ has been produced the _Ring of

Solomon_, in one act, by Henry Berthoud. The scene is laid in Holland,

in the winter, which affords an excellent opportunity to the

scene-painter and property-man. Threa, a poor and silly girl, is so

passionately in love with Hans, who has saved her from death, that she

climbs a wall to see him as he is going by. The wall tumbles down with

her, and among the fragments she finds the ring of Solomon, and puts it

on. At once she is surrounded by fairies, in the well-known ballet

costume, who carry her off into a Dutch paradise, where she also becomes

a fairy, and undergoes a remarkable improvement in her wits. But this

does not bring any change in her passion for Hans, and she prefers to be

unhappy with him to floating for ever through the aerial joys of

fairydom without him. Accordingly, she renounces the privilege conferred

on her by the ring, and is rewarded for so much virtue by passing

through a new transformation, after which she appears as a most lovely

peasantess, and marries Hans to the universal satisfaction.

* * * * *

GERMAN NOVELS.--The bookstores of Germany now swarm with new novels,

some of which we have already noticed. _Modern Titans: Little People in

a Great Epoch_, from the press of Bookhaus, seems to be written with the

express purpose of introducing all the notabilities of Berlin, Breslau

and Vienna, and is not successful. The name of the author is not given.

_Der Tannhausen_ treats of suicide, republicanism, the identity of God

and the universe, faith, skepticism, Christ, marriage, the emancipation

of woman, and whatsoever new-fangled and startling ideas and phrases the

author has met with in the activity of this busy age. This book is also

charged with outrageous personalities. _George Volker_, a Romance of the

year 1848, by Otto Mueller, 3 vols., is of course, a revolutionary story.

The hero is so unfortunate as to be in love with two women at a time,

the one a country, and the other a peasant girl. He engages in the

Badian insurrection, is about to be arrested, and thereupon gets out of

all his difficulties by shooting himself. _Der Sohn des Volkes_, by

Leoni Schucking, takes its subject and plot from the French Revolution

and its influence on Germany. It is written with talent, and is

altogether in the interest of the aristocracy. _Der Bettler von James's

Park_ (the Beggar of James's Park), by Alexander Jung, is not

revolutionary but tragic and sentimental. At the same time, it is

didactic, and sets forth sundry ideas with reference to love, God, and

liberty. But the story deserves more than a line in these columns, were

it only as a literary curiosity. The hero is haunted by the notion that

a great misfortune will fall upon his family, whenever a travelling

dealer shall offer an _ecce homo_ for sale to any one of its members.

Unluckily, such a picture is offered to himself, and he almost loses his

wits at it. Hereupon he goes to see the young lady with whom he is in

love, and finds her dying. This quite upsets him, and he goes crazy,

and, in this condition, becomes a beggar in the London streets. At the

beginning, he is very lean, and is so well suited to this trade, that he

is even made a member of the beggars' guild. But ill luck still pursues

him; he becomes excessively fat, and gains a belly of most aldermanic

proportions. Here a lord takes him up as an object at once of study and

philanthropy, but not with sufficient interest in him to provide for his

support. Alms he gets none; next, he is turned out of the guild, and, at

last, is taken to a hospital, where he loses his flesh, and regains his

reason. Finally, after passing through a variety of other strange

experiences, he dies in tranquillity, wept by the same lord, and by the

lady he had himself supposed to be dead; but who, instead of this, had

become a nun in France. _Schnock_, a picture of life in the Netherlands,

is by Frederich Hebbel, a man of some distinction, as a dramatic writer,

as we have noticed elsewhere. The general idea of this book is borrowed

from Jean Paul's _Journey of the Chaplain Schmelzle_. The hero is a man

of weak and timid character, married to a woman of unsparing energy and

resolution. The style and execution of the work are clumsy, exaggerated

and abominable. _Handel und Wandel_ (Doings and Viewings), by

Hacklaender, is worthy of all praise, as a faithful and vivid picture of

German rural and domestic life. The characters are all human, the action

simple and direct, and the tone healthy and agreeable. Hacklaender is an

exception to the mass of modern German novelists, of whom, taking them

together, as may be judged from the brief remarks above, no great good

can be said.

_Ein Dunkles Loss_ (A Dark Destiny), by L. Bechstein, is a socialist

book, which, in the form of a novel, discusses questions relating to

art, not without genuine insight and original power of thought.

* * * * *

THE COUNTESS HAHN-HAHN, the bravest and decidedly the cleverest of the

women who have written books of Oriental travel, and whose

"latitudinarian" novels constitute a remarkable portion of the recent

romantic literature of Germany, we perceive has entered a convent. The

_Ladies' Companion_ exclaims hereof:--

"When will the wild and the restless learn self-distrust

from the histories of kindred spirits? And, observing how

the pendulum must vibrate (as in Madame Hahn-Hahn's case)

from utter disdain of social laws, to the most superstitious

form of association under authority--how, almost always, to

defiance must succeed a desire for reconciliation. When will

they become chary of pouring out their laments, their

attacks, their complaints, seeing that similar protestations

are almost certainly followed by after repentance and

recantation!"

The Countess Hahn-Hahn unfortunately has but one eye, and she is

otherwise astonishingly ugly. So we may account for a very large

proportion of the eccentricities of the sex. Had she been in this

country she would have presided at the late Woman's Rights Convention.

* * * * *

No modern man has been more written about than GOETHE, and the end of

books concerning him seems to be still distant. The last that we hear of

is called _Goethe's Dichterwerth_ (Value of Goethe as a Poet), written

by O. L. Hoffman, and published in the quaint old city of Nuremberg. It

treats first of the poet's relation to natural science, art and society:

next takes up the complaints of his antagonists; his poetic character;

his youthful productions; his lyrics; Goetz von Berlichingen; the Sorrows

of Werter; the influence of Italy on his mature mind; Egmont; Iphigenia

at Tauris; Tasso; the influence of the French Revolution; his relations

with Schiller; his Ballads; Hermann and Dorothea; the Natural Daughter;

Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship; and finally the productions of his

mature years, as Wilhelm Meister's Wander-years, the Elective

Affinities, and Faust. The work forms a complete commentary on the works

of Goethe, and is written in the warmest spirit of admiration for his

genius and influence.

* * * * *

HAGEN'S _Geschichte der Neuesten Zeit_ (History of Recent Times) is

worthy a place in the library of every historical student. It begins

with the downfall of Napoleon and is to come down to the present day.

The first volume has been published; it exhibits thorough mastery of the

materials, and great calmness and judgment in their use. The style is

clear, terse and graphic. The author, who is a professor of the

University of Heidelberg, is a decided republican.

* * * * *

COTTA'S splendid illustrated edition of the Bible (Luther's version) is

now finished. It is perhaps the best Illustrated Bible ever published.

The typography and woodcuts are admirable. Of the latter there are

eighty, after original designs by Jaeger, Overbeck, Schnorr, and others.

* * * * *

FALLERMAYER, the distinguished German traveller, is about abandoning the

fruitless polemics which have gained him so many foes, to devote himself

to more useful labors. He himself desires to be at peace with all the

world, and the antagonists which his trenchant pen has so often

unsparingly scarified, need fear him no longer. He is about to complete

and print the third volume of his Oriental Impressions of Travel. This

is reason for rejoicing. Fallermayer is one of the most charming and

instructive of travel-writers.

* * * * *

WALLON'S _Histoire de l'Esclavage dans l'Antiquite_, just published at

Paris, is a work of high value to those who wish to look into a branch

of history hitherto comparatively little cultivated, but destined to

attract the most profound attention. M. Wallon, who is one of the

candidates for the vacant seat in the French Academy, discusses in an

exhaustive manner the origin of slavery in the antique world, the

condition of bondmen in the various nations, and the gradual development

of the institution under all circumstances and in all countries. His

book is excellent for its manner, while in respect of matter the author

has drawn information from all accessible sources, and digested it with

judgment and impartiality. Thus he has produced a worthy contribution to

that great but yet unwritten work, so full of both tragic and epic

elements, the Annals of Labor. What a noble book might be made by some

competent writer who should grapple with the whole subject.

* * * * *

THE NARRATIVE of the United States South Sea Exploring Expedition, is

being translated into German, and published by Cotta of Stuttgard. The

second volume is just completed. Probably all the supplementary volumes,

as Hale's "Ethnology," and Pickering's "Races of Men," will follow.

* * * * *

MISS BARBAULD'S "God in Nature" has been translated into German by

Thecla von Gaupert, and illustrated by that most fertile and charming of

designers, Louis Richter. The translation is made from the thirtieth

English edition, and the price put within the reach of the poorer

classes, at fifty cents.

* * * * *

FREDERIC BODENSTEDT, the author of the successful book on the Wars of

the Circassians, has just published the conclusion of a new work, called

"A Thousand and One Days in the Orient."

* * * * *

A COLLECTION OF HUNGARIAN MYTHICAL TRADITIONS AND FAIRY TALES, has

lately been published in German at Berlin, translated from the Magyar of

Erdily, by G. Stier.

* * * * *

The first part of the third and last volume of HUMBOLDT'S Cosmos has

been published at Stuttgart. It is on the Fixed Stars, and makes a

pretty stout book.

* * * * *

HUMBOLDT, having furnished for his friend, Dr. Klencke, materials for a

memoir of his life, such a work was announced at Berlin, and so great

was the interest excited by its advertisement, that before the first

edition was all printed a second one was commenced.

* * * * *

DR. KARL AUGUST ESPE, who for many years has filled the post of editor

to Brockhaus's _Conversations-Lexicon_, the work which forms the basis

of the Encyclopedia Americana, died near Leipzic on the 25th November

last. He was a man of great acquirements and unwearied industry, and was

well known and esteemed in the literary and scientific circles of the

continent. He was born at Kuehren, in 1804, and went to Leipzic in 1832.

Beside the great work above alluded to, he had charge of the annual

memoirs of the German Society for the study of the native language and

antiquities. Nearly two years ago he was attacked by a fit of apoplexy,

from the effect of which his mind did not recover. He has since been in

a lunatic asylum.

* * * * *

NEANDER'S Church History is printed as far as the year 1294. He had

continued the work in manuscript up to the beginning of the fifteenth

century, so that Wiclif, Huss, and other important precursors of the

Reformation have found a place in it. This last volume of this great

work will shortly be printed. Neander's various posthumous works are of

remarkable value, though very few of them are in a finished state.

According to the _Methodist Quarterly_, always well informed upon such

matters, his exegetical Lectures upon the New Testament are of even

greater merit than his compositions in history. They are soon to be

published at Berlin, from notes taken by his students.

* * * * *

NEANDER'S Practical Expositions of St. James and of St. Paul's Epistle

to the Philippians, are in process of translation by Mrs. H. C. Conant,

the wife of Professor Conant, of Hamilton, and one of the most

accomplished women in this country. A translation of Hagenbach's

_Kirchengeschichte des 18 und 19 Jahrhunderte_, may also be expected

from the same hand, and so will be done admirably.

* * * * *

SCHLEIERMACHER'S "_Brief Outline of the Study of Theology_" has been

translated by Rev. W. Farrar, and published by Clark, of Edinburgh, in a

single duodecimo.

* * * * *

DR. KARL ZIMMERMANN has edited and published, at Darmstadt, "The

Reformatory Writings of Martin Luther, in chronological order, with a

Biography of Luther," in four volumes.

* * * * *

Two new volumes of _L'Encyclopedie du Dixneuvieme Siecle_ have just

appeared at Paris. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, Becquerel, Buchez, Delescluze,

Michel Chevalier, Philarete Chasles, and other literary and scientific

notabilities are among the contributors.

* * * * *

THE HOUSE OF DIDOT, at Paris, have just issued a most interesting volume

of the great work they have for some time been publishing under the

title of _L'Univers Pittoresque_. This volume is occupied with Japan,

the Burman Empire, Siam, Anam, the Malay peninsula, and Ceylon. The

letter-press is furnished by Col. Jancigny, who was formerly aid-de-camp

to the King of Oude, and has a thorough personal acquaintance with the

countries in question. To show how great is the multitude of elephants

in Ceylon, Col. J. speaks of an English officer who resided there, and

who had with his own hand killed above two thousand of these monsters.

The book, like all the rest of the series, is illustrated by numerous

engravings. The series is to consist of forty-five volumes. Only one or

two are now wanting to complete it. It is intended to afford a complete

description of all the countries, nations, religions, customs, manners,

&c. of the world.

* * * * *

M. NISARD has been elected a member of the Academie Francaise, in the

room of the late M. Droz. He is known to the public chiefly by his

translations of the Roman writers, poetical and prose, and by sundry

able critical papers in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. Opposing candidates

were Beranger, Alfred Musset, Jules Janin, Dumas, and others. Another

vacancy was to be filled in January, and among the candidates were

President Bonaparte, and the Count Montalembert, who are certainly more

conspicuous in politics than in letters, though one did write a book on

gunnery, and the other one on Elizabeth of Hungary.

* * * * *

Two collections of interesting and valuable official documents have just

been given to the Parisian public. One is called _Archives des Missions

Scientifiques et Litteraires_, and consists of the most remarkable

reports sent to the Government by travellers charged with scientific and

literary missions. The other is the _Bulletin des Comites Historiques_,

and embraces articles relative to history, science, literature,

archaeology, and the fine arts. It is issued by the Committee of the

written Monuments of the History of France, and the Committee of Arts

and Monuments. The most eminent names of French science and literature

are among the contributors to these works.

* * * * *

M. GINOUX, who was sent by Guizot on a scientific mission which required

him to traverse the globe, but who was recalled by the government of

General Cavaignac, has returned to Paris, having been absent several

years. He will soon publish the narrative of his travels, which have

been in Oceanica, Polynesia, Brazil, Patagonia, Chili, Bolivia, Peru,

Equador, New Grenada, Jamaica, Cuba, and the United States.

* * * * *

BERANGER, at the last dates was, and for several weeks had been,

dangerously ill, at his house at Passy.

* * * * *

VERON, the editor of the Paris _Constitutionnel_, is a transcendent

specimen of the voluptuary. He is a large, fleshy, sensual, though by no

means coarse-looking man, with the marks of high living and animal

enjoyment on all his features. He first made a fortune by selling a

quack medicine, after which he became proprietor of the

_Constitutionnel_. His paper is conducted on the quack medicine

principle, with a shrewd view to the profits, and represents the

ultra-conservative side on all public questions. Latterly Veron has made

an arrangement with Louis Napoleon, by which it has become in some sort

the special organ of that functionary. This has made the editor doubly

famous, and in consequence of the crowd desiring to see him which

surrounded the Cafe de Paris, where he had long dined regularly every

day, he has been compelled to abandon that elegant establishment, and

set up a table for himself. He has done this in a princely manner, and

from his position, and the Apicius-like dinners which he gives, finds no

difficulty in assembling at his daily banquets the elite of Parisian

_viveurs_. Among his guests are M. Roqueplan, of the opera; M. Scribe,

the dramatist; Jules Janin; M. Bertin, editor of the _Journal des

Debats_; M. Romieu, Mlle. Rachel, and Mlle. Brohan. In all some fifty

persons have a standing invitation, and come when they choose. Covers

are laid every day for twelve, and those who are there at the time,

which is six o'clock, take their places. At half-past eight the host

puts on his hat and departs, but the guests remain, and prolong the

festival at their pleasure. It is said that these dinners not only

combine every thing in the perfections of gastronomy, but that they are

equally piquant for the wit and brilliancy of the conversation that

attends them.

* * * * *

EUGENE SUE is now a member of the French Assembly; but he still finds

time to labor for democracy and socialism with his pen. He has commenced

the publication in one of the journals of a new romance, called _La

bonne Aventure_. From a few chapters, it is evident that it will possess

the enthralling interest of most of his works, and will display his

varied and vast talent in the portraiture of character and the invention

of incident. He is as intent as ever Mr. Cooper was, upon making the

novel a teacher and illustrator of opinions.

* * * * *

GEORGE SAND has completed a new drama, which, from the title, _Le

Famille du Charpentier_, we suspect to be taken out of her delightful

_Compagnon du Tour de France_. She appears to be following in the

footsteps of Dumas, in arranging her novels into plays. She has met with

a severe check in the refusal of the authorities to allow a play from

her pen to be produced at the Theatre St. Martin, entitled "Claudia."

Every thing had been prepared for it, and considerable expense incurred,

when the Censor refused to grant a license.

* * * * *

ALPHONSE KARR, the French novelist, published for the late holidays a

very successful book called _Voyage autour de mon jardin_ (Journey

around my garden). It is a prose poem in honor of nature and the joys

which nature gives to the heart. Prince SOLTIKOFF has also brought out

his travels in India and Prussia in a splendid style. One of the most

elegant and universally admired works of the season at Paris, is

_Aix-les-Bains_, by Amedee Achard, illustrated by Eugene Ginain.

Aix-les-Bains is a favorite watering place in Savoy, and this book is an

account of a summer passed there.

* * * * *

In the number for the first of December, of the Paris _Revue des Deux

Mondes_, a writer introduces and dissects poems, unedited until now in

the _Romance_ tongue, of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Two new

publications from their collection of manuscripts, by the Toulouse

Academy of Floral Games, perfectly exhibit the state of the Romaunt

tongue and poetry from 1324 to 1496.

* * * * *

In the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ is an amusing paper by HENRI BLAZE, on

_Verona and Marshal Radetzky_, where, among other matters, he touches

upon _Romeo and Juliet_. The house where Juliet was born, lived, and

loved, is now turned into a vast warehouse for merchandize by the

pitiless prosaism of Time.

* * * * *

In Paris we see advertised _Lettres d'Amour_. The Author, M. Julien

Lemer, has the idea of collecting in one volume the most celebrated love

matters--the _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of tender correspondence--a style of

composition in which France has always been eminent.

* * * * *

EDMOND TEXIER has written at Paris _L'Histoire des Jeraux, ou Biographie

des Journalistes,_ described as very piquant. Such a book would do in

this country.

* * * * *

IDA VON DUERINGSFELD has published a new novel, _Antonio Foscarini_,

said to be entertaining, and to contain a good picture of Venetian life

in the fifteenth century.

* * * * *

LAMARTINE has commenced in the _Siecle_ newspaper a new novel entitled

_Le Tailleur de Saint Pierre et Saint Point_.

* * * * *

GARNIER DE CASSAGNAC has taken ground against Lamartine and his history,

in a work entitled _Histoire du Directoire_.

* * * * *

A NEW POET, John Charles Bristow, of whom no one ever heard before, has

come out in London with five thick volumes of his "Works."

* * * * *

A NEW HISTORY OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS has just been issued at Paris.

* * * * *

The first volume of Sir Francis Palgrave's History of England, has just

been published in London.

* * * * *

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND PIUS IX.--The Jesuits' printing establishment at

Naples has lately issued a quarto volume of 773 pages, consisting of the

addresses and letters sent to the Sovereign Pontiff, from Catholic

prelates and eminent laymen within the past two years. There are 297

different letters. Among the names of lay writers may be mentioned

Montalembert, Charles Dupin, D'Arlincourt, Poujoulat and De Falloux. The

country which furnishes relatively the fewest documents to this

collection, strange to say, is Italy, owing no doubt to the confused

state of the country politically. Asia, America, and even Oceanica here

give proofs that the Church has a hold among their populations, and that

they have sympathies ready in her behalf. It is well known, too, that

their sympathies do not end in words merely, but were often, as in the

case of Mexico, splendidly and solidly evinced in behalf of the fugitive

Pius. Nothing could give a more striking idea of the great extent of

Catholicism and the influence of the Church, than this book. From the

Turkish empire it gives a letter of the Archbishop Primate of

Constantinople, one from the Armenian Church in the same city, one from

the Apostolic Vicar of Bosnia, the Armenian Patriarch of Celicia,

resident in Lebanon, the Archbishop of Laodicea, at Gazir in Lebanon,

the Syrian Patriarch of Aleppo, the Patriarch of the Melchitian Greeks,

and the Patriarch of Antioch. From distant Asia the Apostolic Vicars of

Pondicherry and Bombay, the Apostolic Vicar of Japan, resident on the

island of Hong Kong, and the Superior of the Catholic community of Agra,

in the Presidency of Calcutta, all have letters. North America furnishes

a good many; in the United States, the Archbishop of Baltimore leads the

list, in which the Bishops of Oregon and Natchez are included with

others. From Canada, the Archbishop of Quebec furnishes the principal

letter. Mexico is remarkable for the number of its addresses; besides

the Metropolitan Chapter of the Capital, the Bishops of Guadalaxara,

Michoacan, Yucatan, Sonora, Oaxaca and many others, are represented in

the book. The contributions from South America are few. The Archbishops

of Lima and Santiago, in Peru and Chili, and the Monastery of Merze del

Cuzco alone furnish letters. From Brazil there is a letter of the

Archbishop of Bahia only. The addresses from Australia and Oceanica are

from the Archbishop of Sidney, and the Bishops of Melbourne and

Auckland.

* * * * *

The History, Condition and Prospects of Hayti, have been largely and

ably discussed lately in the Paris _Revue des Deux Mondes_, and in the

New York _Tribune_. Of an article in the former publication, the first

thirty-three pages form an able survey of the history of Hayti since its

independence, and of the rule of Emperor Soulouque. Nowhere is there, in

the same compass, more of authentic information and acute remark upon

the subject.

* * * * *

UNDER the title of _L'Architecture du Cinquieme au Seizieme Siecle et

les Arts qui en dependent_, M. JULES GAILHABAUD is now producing at

Paris a work of high value to the architect and antiquary. Many years

spent in travels and special studies, and an extensive collection of

interesting documents, qualify him beyond all contemporaries for such an

undertaking. He treats not merely the architecture of the middle ages,

but sculpture, mural painting, painting on glass, mosaic work, bronzes,

iron work, the furniture of churches, &c. The book is to be published in

fifteen parts, quarto, with engravings on steel, or colored lithographs.

Eight parts are already published, containing remarkable specimens of

the Carlovingian, Roman, and _Renaissance_ architecture, a Templars'

church, Moorish buildings, &c. The whole, when finished, will cost, at

Paris, from sixty to one hundred dollars, according to the kind of paper

on which the engravings are printed.

* * * * *

AMONG the periodical publications of Italy, the _Rivista Italiana_, a

monthly review issued at Turin, occupies a high place. Its list of

writers includes Mancini, Balbo, d'Ayala, Carracciolo, Farini, &c.

Subjects of the first importance are treated with marked ability in its

pages. Its political tendencies are toward constitutional monarchy.

* * * * *

A correspondent of the _Athenaeum_ says that an extraordinary and

valuable collection of letters illustrative of the life, writings and

character of the poet Pope has just "turned unexpectedly up,"--and has

been secured by Mr. John Wilson Croker for his new edition of the poet's

works. The collection consists of a series of letters addressed by Pope

to his coadjutor Broome--of copies of Broome's replies--and of many

original letters from Fenton (Pope's other coadjutor in the Odyssey),

also addressed to Broome.

* * * * *

LORD BROUGHAM gave notice some six months ago, of his intention to visit

the United States, during the present month of February, but if it is

true, as stated in the Liverpool _Albion_, that he has lost his sight

(partly in consequence of some painful bodily infirmity with which he

has some time been afflicted), he of course will not come.

* * * * *

OF ALICE CAREY'S ballad entitled "Jessie Carol," printed in the last

number of the _International_, J. G. Whittier says, in the _Era_, that

"it has the rich tone and coloring and heart-reaching pathos and

tenderness of the fine old ballads of the early days of English

literature." Miss Carey is passing the winter in New-York, where a poem

by her is in press, which one of the most eminent and time-honored

literary men in America has declared to be, in all the best elements of

poetry, decidedly superior to any work yet published from the hand of a

woman.

* * * * *

MRS. THERESE ADOLPHINE LOUISE ROBINSON, the wife of the distinguished

Professor and traveller, is best known in the literary world under the

name of _Talvi_, and is indisputably one of the most prominent of the

few profoundly learned and intellectual women of the age. She is the

daughter of the German savan, L. H. Jacob, who was long a Professor at

Halle, where she was born on the 26th of January, 1797. In 1806, her

father was called to a professorship at the Russian University of

Charkow. Here the family remained for five years, and the daughter,

though deprived of the advantages of a regular education, laid the

foundation of that acquaintance with the Slavonic languages and

literature, which she has since so profitably and honorably cultivated.

During this time she wrote her first poems, songs full of the girl's

longing for her German home, which the strange half Asiatic environment

of Southern Russia rendered by contrast only dearer and more attractive.

In 1811 her father was transferred to St. Petersburg, and there her

studies were necessarily confined to the modern languages. But her own

industry was intense and incessant; she devoted a great deal of time to

historical reading, and privately cultivated her poetic talent. Her mind

pursued the same direction, when, in 1816, her father returned to Halle,

where she first made herself mistress of the Latin. Though her friends

beset her to give some of her productions to the public, she long

resisted. Meanwhile she wrote several tales, which were published at

Halle in 1825, under the title of _Psyche_, with Talvi as the name of

the author. This pseudonym is composed of the initials of Mrs.

Robinson's maiden name. In 1822, she translated Walter Scott's

_Covenanters_ and _Black Dwarf_, under the name of Ernst Berthold. About

this time there fell into her hands a review, by Jacob Grimm, of the

collection of Servian popular songs, published by Mark Stephanowich.

This increased her interest in that literature to such a degree, that

she determined to learn the Servian language. Hence arose the

translation of _Popular Songs of the Servians_, which, with the aid of

some Servian friends, she brought out at Halle, in 1825-6, in two

volumes. In 1828, she became the wife of Professor Robinson, and after a

long journey with him in different parts of the old world, came to

America. Here she was for some time engaged in the study of the

aboriginal languages, and prepared a translation into German of

Pickering's Work on the Indian tongues of North America, which was

published at Leipzic, in 1834. At the same time, she wrote in English a

work entitled _Historical View of the Slavic Languages_, which was

published in this country, in 1834, and translated into German, by Karl

von Olberg, in 1837. This work gives evidence of most remarkable

literary attainments. In 1837 she again visited Europe with her husband

and children, and remained in Germany till 1840. During this time she

wrote and published at Leipzic, in German, an _Attempt at a Historical

Characterization of the Popular Songs of the Germanic Nations, with a

Review of the Songs of the extra-European Races_. This is a work of a

most comprehensive character, and fills up a deficiency which was

constantly becoming more apparent, in the direction opened by Herder. It

evinces an unprejudiced and catholic mind, a just, poetic, sensible,

clear and secure understanding, as well as the most extensive and

thorough acquirements. Before her return to America she also published,

in German, a small work on _The Falseness of the Songs of Ossian_. An

article from her pen, entitled _From the History of the First

Settlements in the United States_, published in 1845 in Rumei's

_Historiches Taschenbuch_, is also worthy of notice. In 1847 she brought

out at Leipzic, a historical work on the _Colonization of New England_,

which has received the deserved applause of all the German critics, and

which abundantly merits a translation into English. An elaborate

reviewal of it appeared lately in the "Bibliotheca Sacra," in which

justice was rendered to its character for research and judicious

handling. In 1849 she published in New-York, with a preface by Dr.

Robinson, a _Historical Review of the Languages and Literature of the

Slavic Nations; with a Sketch of their Popular Poetry_. It is in one

volume, from the press of Mr. Putnam, and it has been generally admitted

that there is not in any language so complete and attractive an epitome

of the literature and various idioms of the great Sclavonic Nations,

north and south. Last year Mrs. Robinson gave to the world (through the

Appletons) a novel, entitled _Heloise_, in which there are admirable

pictures of social life in one of the minor capitals of Germany, and a

very able one of the administration of the Russian government in the

Caucasian provinces, and of the nature of Caucasian warfare. The last

work (just published by the same house), is _Life's Discipline, a Tale

of the Civil Wars of Hungary_. As a tale it is to us more interesting

than _Heloise_, and it has no less freshness of incident, scenery and

character. Though Mrs. Robinson's distinction is for scholarship and

judgment, rather than for invention, these works entitle her to a very

high rank among the female novel writers.

* * * * *

MRS. H. C. KNIGHT (we believe of Portsmouth in New-Hampshire) has just

given to the public a very interesting "New Memoir of Hannah More, or

Life in Hall and Cottage." It is a book of genuine merit, displaying in

a pleasing style the most striking scenes in the history of one of the

noblest of the women of England. (Published by M. W. Dodd.)

* * * * *

PROFESSOR H. B. HACKETT, of the Trenton Theological Institution, has in

press a "Philological and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the

Apostles," which will be published in the spring. It will embrace

various critical discussions in an appendix.

* * * * *

MADAME ANITA GEORGE, the authoress of the very clever books entitled

"Memoirs of the Queens of Spain" (recently published by Baker &

Scribner), is not, as some suppose, an American, though she began and

has thus far advanced upon her literary life in this country. She is a

native of Spain, and is the daughter of a French gentleman--an officer

of the Empire--who married there. Her early life was passed in Cuba,

where her father settled when she was about three years of age. In her

seventeenth year she was married to Mr. George, who is an Englishman.

When Mr. FENIMORE COOPER published his Life of Commodore Perry, which

the sober second thought of the people endorses as entirely candid and

just, we remember that it was urged by the Philadelphia critics (who

constitute a class, as much as the Philadelphia lawyers do), that even

if every thing he advanced were _true_, Mr. Cooper had no right to

disregard the "settled and satisfactory opinions of the country upon the

subject." We could never so appreciate as perfectly to admit the truth

of the canon in criticism here involved, and to this day we cannot help

agreeing with Gibbon, that "Truth is the first virtue of history." Mrs.

George seems to concur with Gibbon and Cooper, and disregarding the

poetry and romance woven about the name of Isabella the Catholic, has

painted her according to the documents, which by no means warranted the

common good report of her.

Queen Isabella, according to Mrs. George, owes to some agreeable

qualities, but most of all to her patronage of Columbus, oblivion of

remarkable faults, which were prolific of evil to Spain. She escaped at

the expense of her husband Ferdinand, who has been charged with her sins

as well as his own. She was not a person to yield to any one where her

power and rights were in question, so that in all matters concerning

home policy, she is at least entitled to an equal share of the

discredit; and in the establishment of the Inquisition, and the

persecution of the Jews and Moors, she stands alone. Ferdinand was

always disposed to put his religion behind his interest, and was urged

by his wife into measures of which he disapproved; sometimes, indeed,

she ordered or permitted persecutions of which he was altogether

ignorant. Beside the wickedness of these things, their impolicy was not

less conspicuous. The oppression of the Moors, and the expulsion of both

Moors and Jews, destroyed the mechanical and commercial industry of

Spain; the overthrow of the feudal power and privileges of the nobility,

and the establishment of despotism in the crown, checked the growth of

civil freedom, as the introduction of the Inquisition induced religious

bigotry, and withered mental independence and intellectual cultivation.

Nor is Mrs. George disposed to allow weight to the excuse, urged in

favor of Isabella upon such facts as undeniably tell against her. The

Spaniards of the age, she says, were not so bigoted; the Kings of

Aragon, supported by their subjects, had set the Popes at defiance; the

Cortes of Aragon and of Valencia resisted the introduction of the

Inquisition; some of the clergy, with Fray Francisco de Talavera

Archbishop of Granada at their head, were opposed to all persecution;

even the Pope remonstrated against some wholesale slaughter; and when

persecution had provoked an insurrection, Ferdinand himself was wroth.

Nor does the biographer even see an excuse in the Queen's conscience.

When religion or churchmen stood in the way of her power or interests,

they were blown aside. There is in these conclusions, something of the

woman and of the Spaniard, anxious to excuse in any way the historical

degradation and present weakness of Spain. If the Spaniards were really

enterprising and industrious, there seems no reason why they might not

have engaged in commerce, agriculture, and the useful arts, although the

Jews and Moors were expelled: the Jews were ousted from England long

before they were driven from Spain, yet the English got on in the

absence of the house of Israel. The destruction of the enormous power of

the nobility was absolutely necessary, not only to the establishment of

order, but almost to the existence of society itself. It could only be

brought about by throwing the power of the common people into the scale

of the crown; and so far as Ferdinand and Isabella were concerned, it

seems to have been a wise and politic measure. The real despotism of the

crown was established by Charles the Fifth, and he might not have been

able to effect it, had he been only King of Spain. For the religious

tyranny, cruelty, and want of faith of Isabella in violating

stipulations, Mrs. George is sparing in the quotation of authorities,

and she often rather asserts than narrates in the account of facts that

would prove the case. A strict analysis might also show that temporal

power was the object aimed at, and religion a disguise for ambition. We

think, however, that the case of relentless and cruel persecution is

established against Isabella the Catholic; and that it was aggravated by

the power which the priesthood exercised over her mind in things

indifferent or which agreed with her inclination. In the graces of

person and manner, and in suavity of temper towards her own party, or

those whom she wished to gain, Isabella of Castile far excelled her

granddaughter Mary of England. In tenacity of purpose, in obstinacy, and

in indifference to the misery arising from their orders, it is possible

they were more alike than the world has supposed. And Isabella might

have had a similar cognomen, had not the Spaniards continued as bloody

as her age and as bigoted as herself.

The style of Mrs. George is in the main very good; but occasional

defects in diction and in the structure of sentences, are matters of

course in a woman who writes in a foreign language. There are some

points in the Queen's history passed over too lightly, and the

narrative is not always continuous. Isabella's relations with Columbus,

are barely noticed, on the ground that they had already been so largely

illustrated by Irving and Prescott. Miss Pardoe, who has edited an

English impression of the book, has supplied its most obvious defects

induced by this consideration.

Mrs. George has just left this country for Madrid, and we have reasons

for believing that she will devote the remainder of her life to

literature. She has in contemplation two works, both relating to Spain,

which can hardly fail under her spirited and ingenious treatment of

being eminently attractive. Since she is no longer in America, we may

gratify curiosity by remarking that she is some years under thirty, and

is one of the most beautiful and brilliantly-talking women of the

present day.

* * * * *

WE are gratified to learn that there is a prospect of the appearance of

the Memoirs and Inedited Works of our late eminent countryman HENRY

WHEATON, the ablest and faithfulest and worst-used diplomatic servant of

the United States in the present century. The last time this great man

visited New-York he passed several hours in our study, and we remember

that he said then that his Letters to the Secretary of the Smithsonian

Institute, his various Tracts, Reviews, Historical Essays, &c., which he

would wish to collect, would make some three or four volumes as large as

his work on "The Law of Nations." He had also nearly or quite finished a

new work on the History of the Northmen, being a translation and

improvement of his _Histoire des Peuples du Nord_, published in Paris,

which was an extension of the volume he contributed originally to the

Family Library, in 1831, upon the same subject. This important work was

advertised, we believe, before the death of Mr. Wheaton, to be published

in two octavos, by the Appletons, but it has not yet been printed.

* * * * *

R. R. MADDEN'S "Infirmities of Genius," a very pleasant book, is in the

press of Mr. J. S. Redfield. Madden is an Irishman, and he first became

known to the public by his "Travels in Turkey," published about

twenty-five years ago. The "Infirmities of Genius" appeared in 1833, and

two American editions of the work have heretofore been printed. In 1835

Mr. Madden came to the United States, and in 1836-7-8-9, he filled the

office of Superintendent of Liberated Africans, and Commissioner of

Arbitration in the Mixed Court of Justice at Havana. His various

experiences and observations, during eight years of official and private

life in America, the West Indies, and Africa, led to the composition of

several tracts on the slave-trade, and a volume printed we think some

two years ago on "the Island of Cuba, its Resources, Progress, and

Prospects." The "Infirmities of Genius" is, in a literary point of view,

his best production; and it is likely to retain a place among the

contributions of the age to standard English literature.

* * * * *

THE REV. E. H. CHAPIN, whose effective elocution and brilliant rhetoric

attract crowds to his ordinary discourses at the Universalist Church in

Murray-street, has in the press of Mr. J. S. Redfield, a volume upon

"Womanhood, Illustrated by the Women of the New Testament"--not treating

of these characters in the offensive style of the small rhetoricians,

but rather in that of Emerson's Representative Men, presenting Martha as

a type of the women of society, &c. We believe we have not before

referred in these pages to the fact, that Mr. Chapin was commonly

regarded as by far the finest orator in the recent Peace Congress at

Frankfort, in which were a large number of men from several nations

eminent for eloquence.

* * * * *

A DISCOVERY OF IMPORTANT HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS, according to a Chicago

paper, has recently been made among the manuscripts which were saved

from the pillage of the Jesuits' College in Quebec. "It is well known by

those familiar with the resources of early American history, that the

publication of the Jesuit Relations, which furnish so much of interest

in regard to the discovery and early exploration of the region bordering

on our northern lakes, was discontinued after the year 1672. Some were

known to have been written, but the manuscripts were supposed to be

lost. The Relations from 1672 to 1679 inclusive, have lately been

discovered, and among them a manuscript containing a full account of the

voyages of Father Marquette, and of the discovery by him of the

Mississippi river. It was undoubtedly this manuscript which furnished

Thevenot the text of his publication in 1687, of 'The voyages and

discoveries of Father Marquette and of the Sieur Joliet.' The latter

kept a journal and drew a map of their route, but his canoe was upset in

the falls of St. Louis, as he was descending the St. Lawrence in sight

of Montreal, and he lost them with the rest of his effects. What

increases the value of the present discovery is, that the original

narrative goes much more into detail than the one published by Thevenot.

The motive which prompted and the preparations which were made for the

expedition are fully described, and no difficulty is found in tracing

its route. There is also among the papers an autograph journal by

Marquette, of his last voyage from the 25th of October, 1674, to the 6th

of April, 1675, a month before his singular death, which occurred on the

eastern shore of Lake Michigan. Also, a chart of the Mississippi drawn

by himself, illustrating his travels. The one annexed to Thevenot's

account, above referred to, a copy of which is contained in the third

volume of Bancroft's History of the United States, is manifestly

incorrect, as there is a variance between the route of the Jesuit as

traced on his map, and that detailed in his text. The manuscript chart

now rescued from oblivion, reconciles all discrepancies, and constitutes

a most interesting historical relic."

* * * * *

AMONG the publications of the past month, _A copious and critical

Latin-English Lexicon_, royal octavo, pp. 1663, from the press of the

Harpers, is especially deserving of praise. We congratulate Professors

Andrews and Turner on the honorable close to their long and arduous

labors. They have earned thanks of all beginning students and riper

scholars in the Latin tongue. These, and the advancement of sound

learning, are the only adequate rewards for labors so untiring and long

continued; so wearisome and beneficial. The highest and only just praise

of this admirable volume, would be given by a plain statement of its

merits, but these are too extensive and varied to be even catalogued

within brief limits--we can only touch upon a few of them. For a year

past we have had opportunity and occasion to examine parts of the work

as it was going on to completion, and to compare it with others of

similar design. We speak then advisedly when we say that it far

surpasses any such Lexicon hitherto in use among us, and should

supersede them all. Since the works of Forcellini, and Facciolati, and

Gesner, very great advances have been made in all departments of

classical Philology; many of the best results of these advances were

embodied in Freund's great Lexicon, the first volume of which was

published in 1834. But since then, and even since 1845, the date of the

last volume, the thirst for antiquarian research has slaked itself at

newly discovered sources. The present editors, to a discriminating

selection from all that the zeal and activity of others have gathered,

up to the latest time, have added valuable knowledge from their own

varied stores, and at last furnished to American students a work

superior in its kind to any that has preceded it here or abroad. It

combines in a remarkable degree the copiousness of a Thesaurus with the

brevity and convenience for ready reference of a school-dictionary.

Citations abundantly sufficient to meet the wants of ordinary readers

are given in full, while distinct references guide the more exacting

scholar over a much wider field of original authority. In this way space

is economized, and the book is made cheap without a sacrifice of

learning. Its first general merit is its singular correctness. In a

verification of the almost numberless passages quoted, and a correction

of time-honored blunders, committed by subordinates, but sanctioned by

names of great writers employing them; in a distrust of authority at

second-hand, and persistent fidelity to the cause of learning, we

recognize the diligence of Prof. W. W. Turner. Those who have never

tried this kind of work have but an inadequate idea of its demands on

the brain, and on the conscience too. _Reading through_ a dictionary is

an after-dinner pastime in comparison. The vocabulary is more extended

than in other lexicons. But the peculiar and highest merit of this work

appears in definitions, remarkable for clearness, fulness, and

distinction of the subtle shades of meaning. Colloquial, technical, and

other special uses of words, here receive their share of attention, and

are felicitously rendered or illustrated by corresponding English terms.

The arrangement is admirable. The words of the vocabulary are

distinguished by an appropriate type. The etymology, the primitive and

derivative, the general and special, the proper and tropical

significations of a word; its meaning before the courts, in the temples,

at the games, among the Roman mob or the Roman exquisites; its

anti-classical, golden-augustan, neo-degenerate or patristic use--all

this is given in a regular order, by changes of type and an ingenious

system of abbreviations, so that the whole origin, history, value and

application of any Latin word may be taken in, almost at a glance. The

amount of archaeological learning--compressed indeed but never obscured

by abridgment--scattered through these pages is immense. Finally there

is an appendix, containing the XII. Tables, and other specimens of

Archaic Latin; and another, giving a list of Italian and French words,

varied by euphonic changes from the Latin origin. There are also a

translation of Freund's original preface by Prof. Woolsey, and a modest

preface by Prof. Andrews, the editor in chief.

* * * * *

THE REV. F. W. SHELTON, minister of an out-of-the-way parish on Long

Island, and known in literature hitherto only by two or three wise

lectures which he addressed to the young men of his village, (though his

intimate friends have guessed all the while that his hand was in some of

the wittiest and most unique contributions to the _Knickerbocker_,) has

published during the last month one of the best specimens of allegory

furnished by this age. It is entitled "Salander," and has for its

subject the backbiting dragon sometimes called by similar name. It makes

a neat duodecimo, illustrated with wood cuts, and is published by Samuel

Hueston.

* * * * *

PROFESSOR BUSH is editing and will soon publish (through J. S.

Redfield), the pious and ingenious Heinrich Stilling's celebrated

"Theory of Pneumatology." It is a remarkable book, and in this sea of

silliness about knocking spirits, &c., which in so remarkable a degree

has shown that the infidels who cannot receive the Bible, because it is

"incredible," are the most credulous fools in the world, the German

psychologist will command attention. Dr. Bush adds to the work a preface

and notes.

* * * * *

MISS MARTINEAU and a Mr. Atkinson have just published a volume entitled

"Letters on Man's Nature and Development," in which they handle very

boldly the subjects of Mesmerism, Clairvoyance, Phrenology, &c. It is

altogether and avowedly materialistic.

* * * * *

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL has written a satire upon "The Rappers,"--a

humorous and witty poem of a thousand lines or so, which will be out, we

believe in _Graham's Magazine_, during the month.

* * * * *

MR. HENRY C. PHILLIPS, once, we understand, a companion of the traveller

Catlin, proposes to publish from his note-book and portfolio, "Sites for

Cities, and Scenes of Beauty and Grandeur, to be made famous by the

Poets and Painters of Coming Ages: observed in a Pedestrian Journey

across the middle of the North American Continent, in 1850." This is a

good title, and such a book will be interesting a thousand years hence,

for its prophecies. Surveying the vast chain of mountains, which rises

midway between the oceans, a poetical Jesuit said, "They are in labor

with nations." Mr. Phillips might easily have fancied, as he pursued his

summer journey through the wilderness from Oregon and California, among

regions more lovely and magnificent than any that were seen by the

fathers of art, that of such sights should be born nobler works than

have yet been addressed to the senses or to the imagination; and it is

not improbable that many a London, and Moscow, and Berlin, and Paris,

will some time have their busy populations, where now the ground is

hidden by the falling leaves of forests, and trampled by wild horses and

buffaloes.

* * * * *

ONE of the most eminent of the living English historians, lately

discovered, as he thought, that "Old Sam Adams" was a _defaulter_, and

that he was opposed to Washington; and not choosing to wait until the

exposure could be made in his forthcoming work, he communicated it to a

very distinguished American, by letter. Now this is all sheer nonsense.

It is not necessary to deny the justice of the suspicion that Samuel

Adams was unfriendly to Washington, and all the facts as to his conduct

as collector for his Majesty's port of Boston, are perfectly familiar to

our historical students. He did not indeed pay into the exchequer every

shilling with which he was _charged_: well understood circumstances

prevented the _collection_ of a large amount of duties; but whatever he

received was paid over, and his accounts were squared to a farthing.

* * * * *

MR. WILLIS--the best artist in words, we have now, perhaps--is preparing

a new volume for Baker & Scribner. His "People I have Met," "Life Here

and There," and other books published by that house, have sold

remarkably well--better, we are inclined to think, than any literary

works reprinted in America for a long time--though the public was

previously familiar with them under other forms and titles. This proves

that the popularity of Willis is genuine and _permanent_. In his way, he

is unrivalled,--in any way, he has among the authors of this country but

some half dozen peers.

* * * * *

J. G. WHITTIER has commenced in _The National Era_ the publication of a

new prose work, entitled "My Summer with Dr. Singleterry." It will

probably be about as long as his admirable "Leaves from Margaret Smith's

Journal," which appeared first in the same paper.

* * * * *

OF CHRISTMAS STORIES, the last season has been unusually prolific.

Thackeray published one called "The Kickleburys upon the Rhine;"

illustrated with fifteen of his own designs. Both the illustrations and

the story are liberally praised by the journals. The authoress of "Mary

Barton" published another, under the title of "Moreland Cottage," not,

like her former work, a story of social wrong, but of gentle domestic

life. At the same time it is, if we may judge by extracts in the papers,

marked by the admirable peculiarities of her writing. There were some

dozen others, most of which were by less distinguished writers.

* * * * *

THE LIFE OF CALVIN, from the German of Henry, by the Rev. Henry

Stebbing, is to be republished in this city immediately by Messrs.

Carter, and we purpose making its appearance an occasion for some

observations upon that extraordinary person, whose various and

astonishing learning and genius, exhibited in speculation, and affairs,

and wit--the small arms of his controversy, as terrible as the artillery

of his logic--and really gentle and altogether noble nature, present a

spectacle which, redeemed from sectarian prejudice and perverse

historical misrepresentation, challenges in the most eminent degree the

admiration of mankind.

* * * * *

THE pleasantest book of travels forthcoming from an American press is

"Nile Notes of a Howadje," an anonymous record of a voyage upon the

Nile--not at all statistical or learned, but a diary, and sketches of

personal impressions, aiming to give the _picturesque_ of the country,

and not vexing the reader with the mooted Egyptian questions. We have

glanced over a few sheets of it, and are confident that if success

depends upon quality, it will prove one of the most successful books yet

published, upon a region which is illustrated by a larger amount of

literature than any other in the world. (Harpers, publishers.)

* * * * *

MR. PUTNAM has just published a third and very much improved edition of

his excellent work, "The World's Progress." We have already expressed in

this magazine the opinion that "The World's Progress" is the most

interesting, valuable, and altogether indispensable manual of reference,

for the student or general reader, that has been published in this

country. It is a hand-book of facts, so perspicuously classified and

arranged, as to suit the necessities of persons of every degree of

intelligence, and so full, upon almost every sort of subjects, as to

serve the purposes of a universal manual. The new edition is augmented

by a supplement embracing the most recent statistics, etc.

* * * * *

THREE eminent scholars and authors, Dr. Lushington, Mr. Falconer, and

Dr. Twiss, are appointed by the British government, arbitrators to

determine the boundary between the provinces of Canada and Nova Scotia,

which has for some years been in dispute.

* * * * *

THE FOURTH VOLUME OF MR. HILDRETH'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, being

the first volume of the post-revolutionary history, will be published

immediately, we believe, by the Harpers. We look for an exceedingly

interesting book. Of the earlier volumes of the History, the London

_Spectator_ observes:--

"The distinguishing literary characteristic of this history

is a careful succinctness. The convenience of a summary

notice of the gradual discovery of America, and the

necessity of singly narrating the foundation of each

separate colony, render any substantial novelty of plan in a

history of the United States impossible, except upon some

scheme where fitness should be sacrificed to fanciful

strangeness. Mr. Hildreth has judiciously refrained from

attempting any thing of the kind: but perhaps he has pushed

the mere chronological arrangement to an excess, and given

undue prominence to the discoveries and settlement of North

America by foreigners, in proportion to the scale of his

work. In the execution, Mr. Hildreth has carefully read and

as carefully digested his various authorities, and presented

the results of his studies succinctly, closely, and

comprehensively. In many cases the compendious style is apt

to fall into a vague generality, or the pith of the matter

is liable to be missed; but such is not the case with Mr.

Hildreth's. He states all that he sees, though he would see

more if he possessed a loftier and imaginative mind. We know

not his profession, but there is something lawyerlike in his

work. One subject seems the same to him as another: it is

not so much that he wants variety of power; as that he does

not seem to feel the variety in nature. His book is as much

a digest as a history. The parts in which Mr. Hildreth

succeeds best are those that relate to the social and

religious opinions and practices of the colonists. In fact,

it is as a social history that it possesses character and

value. The author's quiet unimpassioned style presents the

strange peculiarities that obtained among the New England

colonists till within little more than a generation of the

Revolutionary war, and some traces of which still remain."

* * * * *

"THE MEMORIAL, _written by friends of the late Mrs. Osgood_," to which

we have heretofore referred in these pages, is the most beautiful book

published in America during the season, and as an original literary

miscellany it surpasses any volume that ever appeared in the English

language. The _Albion_ says of it:

"Seldom has a more graceful compliment been paid to the

memory of departed worth, than is exhibited in this handsome

volume, which is edited by Mrs. Mary E. Hewitt. It

originated at a chance meeting of a literary coterie, soon

after the death of the gifted and amiable woman in whose

honor it has been put together. When the conversation turned

upon the many claims which she possessed on the affections

and the esteem of those present, it was resolved that a

souvenir volume should be made up from their voluntary

contributions, and that the profits arising from the sale

should be devoted to erecting a monument over her grave, in

the Cemetery of Mount Auburn, near Boston. Many writers of

distinguished merit have engraved their names upon this

preparatory tablet, not all being numbered amongst her

friends and acquaintances, but all appreciating the many

virtues of the deceased lady, and the kindly motives of her

sorrowing friends. The table of contents shows indeed such a

list of names as should insure the speedy attainment of the

object in view. We can but mention half-a-dozen--Hawthorne,

Willis, G. P. R. James, the Bishop of Jamaica, John Neal,

Stoddard, Boker, G. P. Morris and Bayard Taylor, amongst the

men, and Miss Lynch, Mrs. Whitman, Mrs. Oaksmith, Mrs.

Sigourney, and the Editress to represent the sisterhood of

authorship. An admirable likeness of Mrs. Osgood, from a

portrait by her husband, serves as a frontispiece, and, with

some charming vignettes on steel and other illustrations,

enhances the value of this choice and creditable book."

(Putnam, publisher.)

* * * * *

FORTUNE-TELLING is as much in vogue as ever in Paris. A book, which is

said to have caused much observation, appeared there lately, which is

thus described in the correspondence of the London _Literary Gazette_:--

"It consists of extracts from the voluminous writings of a

poor _gentilhomme_ of Brittany, during a period of upwards

of sixty years, and each extract is a prediction of some one

of the great political convulsions which have occurred in

this country during that time. Never was there a more

correct _Vates_; but Cassandra herself was not more

disregarded than he. The downfall and execution of Louis

XVI., the horrors of the Terror, the power and overthrow of

Napoleon, the revolution of 1830, and the republic of 1848,

were all predicted years before they came to pass; but the

poor prophet was set down as a madman by all his literary

contemporaries, and during his lifetime not a single

newspaper would consent to say any thing about his

predictions. What is the most singular thing of all is, that

he foretold (years ago, remember--when Louis Philippe was at

the height of his power), that the proclamation of the

republic would lead to the domination of a member of

Napoleon's family, and so it has; though if any one only six

months before Louis Napoleon's election had predicted the

same thing, he would certainly have been set down as a

lunatic. In consequence of this extraordinary foresight of

our prophet, people have looked with no little concern to

what he says for the future. And alas! they have met with

nothing very consolatory. We are, it seems, on the brink of

a fearful social crisis, the consequence of which will be

the complete destruction of European society as at present

constituted; and this destruction is only to be effected by

the shedding of rivers of blood, and the weeping of oceans

of tears!"

* * * * *

WE are pleased to perceive that the writings of Hartley Coleridge are

soon to be collected and suitably published. Mr. Moxon advertises as in

press, his _Poems_, with a Memoir of his life, by his brother, the Rev.

Derwent Coleridge; _Essays and Marginalia_, in two volumes; and _Lives

of Distinguished Northerns_, a new edition, in two volumes.

* * * * *

LAMARTINE receives for his _Histoire du Directoire_--the sequel of _The

Girondists_--at which he works from fourteen to sixteen hours every day,

only 12,000 francs, equal to about $2,400.

* * * * *

AMONG the "books in press" advertised in London at the beginning of the

year, by Bentley, are _The Correspondence of Horace Walpole, Earl of

Orford, and the Rev. William Mason_, now first published from the

original MSS., and edited, with notes, by the Rev. J. Mitford, author of

"The Life of Gray." This work will contain the last series of Walpole's

unpublished letters. A _History of Greek and Roman Classical

Literature_, with an introduction on each of the languages, biographical

notices, and an account of the periods in which each principal author

lived and wrote, so far as literature was affected by such history, and

observations on the works themselves, by R. W. Browne, one of the

professors in King's College, London. And _The Literary Veteran_,

including sketches and anecdotes of the most distinguished literary

characters, from 1794 to 1849, by R. P. Gilles.

* * * * *

THE REV. HENRY T. CHEEVER has just published a volume entitled "The

Island World of the Pacific," (Harpers,) which for various personal

interest, fulness and accuracy of information, and right feeling, is to

be preferred to any book on the subject since the appearance of Cook's

Voyages. We know of no traveller in Polynesia who has had better

opportunities for observation than Mr. Cheever. His abilities as a

writer were illustrated by "The Whale and his Captors," published two or

three years ago. The style of the present performance is not at all

inferior, and it is especially commendable for a perspicuous

compactness. So much misrepresentation of the Sandwich and other Islands

has appeared lately, that we are glad of an opportunity to commend a

book so authoritative and satisfactory upon the whole subject.

* * * * *

M. J. MOREAU of Paris, has completed a new version into French of the

_Imitatio Christi_, and has accompanied it with select passages from the

Fathers and other pious authors. The same writer has also published

under the title of _Le Philosophe Inconnu_, an essay on the ideas and

writings of the celebrated theosophist Saint-Martin. This remarkable

mystic, who in his lifetime was surrounded by so many disciples and

admirers, is now known only to the curious seekers among the dusty

shelves of libraries. M. Moreau attempts to show that his heresies

contained a spice of orthodoxy, and this he endeavors to develop for the

benefit of whom it may concern.

* * * * *

BISHOP ONDERDONK of Pennsylvania is a person of large abilities; he is

one of the strongest writers of the Episcopal Church in the country; and

it is unjust that the unfortunate circumstances of his ecclesiastical

position should prevent the recognition of his merits as a scholar and

dialectician. We are pleased, therefore, that his friends have taken

measures for the publication of a collection of his _Theological Works_,

including sermons and Episcopal charges.

* * * * *

NEW GERMAN POEMS.--Louise von Ploennies has published two new books of

poetry, one under the title of _Neue Gedichte_ (New Poems), the other

_Oskar und Giaunetta_. They are spoken of as superior to her former

productions, and worthy of a most honorable place among the productions

of German poetesses. Oscar and Giaunetta is a love story in verse. The

purpose of the writer is to exhibit the masculine and feminine

principles, Thought and Beauty, as mutually completing each other in the

passion of love. The _Monates-Maehrchen_ (Tales of the Month), by Gustar

von Mayem, are poems of another sort. Instead of sentimentality, the

stock in trade of this writer is patriotism and politics. His inspiring

thought is the unity of Germany and the national greatness which must

result therefrom. Unfortunately this thought does not find so welcome a

reception with statesmen as with poets.

* * * * *

A PRODUCTION of the most indisputable German plodding and erudition is

the _Satzungen und Gebraeuche des talmudisch-rabbinischen Judenthums_, by

Dr. I. F. Schroeder, lately issued at Bremen. It gives a complete account

of the religious notions, doctrines, and usages of the Jews. To

theologians it is of high value for the light which it casts upon the

formation and institutions of the Christian Church. The author has

employed in its composition the writings of every sect, and has

condensed in it the result of a thorough study of the entire literature

relating to the Old Testament and the rabbinical writings. He writes

with the greatest impartiality, and in the interest of no particular

creed or tendency.

* * * * *

M. ARAGO said lately in the Academy of Sciences, upon the suggestion of

some possibilities in aerostation, that a long time since the whole

subject had been treated in a masterly manner by Mousnier, a celebrated

member of the Academy of Sciences. His treatise had remained in

manuscript in the public library of Metz, and if it should be committed

to the press, it would prove to those who think they have discovered new

methods of aerial locomotion, that what is plausible and rational in

their ideas was already perfectly well known, expounded and appreciated,

in the last century.

* * * * *

THE government of Naples constantly increases its list of prohibited

books. Among the works now excluded, Humboldt's Cosmos, Shakspeare,

Goldsmith, Heeren's Historical Treatises, Ovid, Lucian, Lucretius,

Sophocles, Suetonius, Paul de Kock, Victor Hugo, E. Girardin, G. Sand,

Lamartine, Valery's L'Italie, Goethe, Schiller, Thiers, A. Dumas,

Moliere, all the German philosophers, and Henry Stephens's Greek

Dictionary.

* * * * *

THE ABBE LACORDAIRE has published an introduction to a work entitled _Le

Monde Occulte_--an exposition of the mysteries of magnetism, by means of

somnambulism.

* * * * *

A BOOK which contains some excellent sketches relative to MAZZINI and

the Roman Republic, has been published at Bremen, with the title, _Des

Republikaner's Schwerdfahrt_, (The Republican's Sword-Pilgrimage). The

author is a German, Ernst Hang, who held a high post in the Roman army.

He is now in Asia Minor, where his work was written. It is eloquent

sometimes, and entertaining and sensible always. His remarks on the

mutual relations of Germany and Italy, are admitted to be sound and

judicious.

* * * * *

THE HON. CHARLES A. MURRAY, author of a volume of Travels in America,

and of three or four novels, is now the British Consul-General in Egypt,

and with his newly-married wife was to depart for Alexandria, to resume

his consular duties, towards the close of January.

* * * * *

THE first volume of a most valuable and interesting work has just made

its appearance at Frankfort-on-the-Main. It is called _Geschichte der

Frauen_ (History of Woman), and is from the pen of G. Jung. The volume

now issued contains the history of the oppression of woman, and her

gradual self-emancipation down to the Christian era. It is written with

great talent, and comprehensive learning, but without pedantry. The

author believes that the emancipation of woman is not yet completed, and

she has a right to a free development of her faculties, and a perfectly

independent position in society. Two more volumes will complete the

work.

The Fine Arts.

RICHARD WAGNER, well known as an artist, has brought out at Leipzic a

book called _Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft_ (Art in the Future), which

excites a good deal of attention, and is soundly assailed by those who

dislike it. Wagner adopts the philosophical ideas of Feuerbach, and

treats his subject from that stand-point. Into modern art he pitches

with all the force of a genuine iconoclast. He says it is a sexless,

sterile product of dreams, not art, but merely manner, &c. With him art

must come out of the people, and be the apotheosis of the people. The

people are immortal and ever young. With the poets and novel-writers of

the day, Wagner has no more patience than with the artists. They are, he

thinks, dilettanti, sentimentalists, who coquet with the misery of the

masses, in order to serve the same up well spiced and warmed to their

luxurious and fashionable readers. The ideal and absolute in art he

finds in the drama, which is the sum and type of all other artistic

creations. But no drama yet produced satisfies him, and he tells the

reasons why without hesitation. Those who wish to be entertained and set

thinking by an author who is in earnest even when most paradoxical, may

look at Wagner's book with advantage.

* * * * *

THORWALDSEN.--The Danish Government some time since sent Mr. Thiele, a

competent person, to Rome, for the purpose of collecting every thing

that could be obtained toward a history of the life and works of this

illustrious sculptor, whose early life is so obscure that even the date

and place of his birth are unknown, as well as the employment he made of

the first years that he was in Italy. Mr. Thiele has found a number of

casks in the cellars of the Tomati Palace at Rome, filled with letters,

addressed to Thorwaldsen, and among them a long and constant

correspondence between him and his mother, who lived part of the time in

Denmark and part of the time in Iceland, her native country. It seems

that Thorwaldsen had the habit of preserving his papers, even to the

most trifling, by flinging them confusedly into a cedar box in his room;

when that was full they were emptied into the casks where they have now

been found; these casks were not noticed when all the other contents of

the palace were removed to Copenhagen. Whatever is interesting in these

papers will, of course, be published. Mr. Thiele has also discovered in

the same cellar the model of a bas-relief by the same great artist,

representing the Muses dancing by Helicon. It will be added to the

collection of his works at Copenhagen.

* * * * *

THE artist HEIDEL has published at Berlin a series of Eight

Illustrations to Goethe's Iphigenia. He aims in them to preserve unmixed

the spirit of antique art, and thus to prove that the Germans are the

true successors of the Greeks. The subjects of his designs are:--The

Fall of Tantalus; the Departure of Agamemnon; the Sacrifice of

Iphigenia; the Death of Agamemnon; the Death of Clytemnestrae; the Flight

of Orestes; the Meeting of Orestes and Iphigenia; and the Return of

Iphigenia. The designs are praised by the German critics. They say that

in beholding the Flight of Orestes, pursued by the Furies, who dare not

enter the sacred temple of Apollo where he seeks refuge, one imagines

that he hears the fearful chanting of a chorus of AEschylus.

* * * * *

A NEW ART called _Metallography_ has been discovered by Nicholas Zack, a

lithographer at Munich, by means of which designs that have hitherto

been engraved on wood can be put directly upon metal, and in such a

manner as to be printed from. The plate is prepared beforehand, and the

artist draws his design upon it with a pencil or a needle. Without any

further labor, by means of the preparation alone, the plate will be

ready for printing. Worn-out plates may be restored with very little

expense.

* * * * *

A BOOKSELLER of Munich has published Albert Duerer's sketches from the

prayer-book of Emperor Maximilian I., with the original text, colored

initials, and an introduction. Price eight thalers, about $6,00.

* * * * *

MORITZ RUGENDAS, a German artist, who has lately spent a considerable

time in Mexico and the countries of South America, is now engaged at

Munich, in arranging the pictures for which his journeys in those

countries furnished him the materials. A work of such magnitude has

never before been undertaken by any artist. He intends to treat each

country in a continuous series of views. The Mexican series is now

nearly completed, consisting of about 100 landscapes, in oil. It begins

with Vera Cruz, where the artist landed, and goes through the whole

country to the Pacific. First is the coast seen from the sea; next we

behold the coast with the sea as it appears inland; then we mount to the

plains, noticing the gradual change of the mountain formations, and the

vegetation, with views in every direction from each interesting point;

we pass through the great plateau, ascend the volcanoes and survey their

craters, and admire the beauty of the region about the city of Mexico.

From the city there are sketches of journeys in every direction, and at

last we traverse the palm forest of St. Jago, and stand upon the heights

whence the eye reaches to the Pacific. Every picturesque scene is

finished with the greatest care and with special regard to the natural

features of the landscape. Buildings and human figures are either

avoided altogether or used as merely subordinate. When Mexico is

completed, Rugendas will use in a similar manner the sketches he has

taken in other countries. It is not known whether his pictures will be

engraved or not. They will, we believe, become the property of the Royal

Pinakothek, at Munich.

* * * * *

The painters at Vienna have formed an Art-Union, which is succeeding in

its first exhibition, which is now open. Some well-known artists of

Germany have sent pictures. Foltz, of Munich, has a landscape with a

flock of sheep; Zimmerman a landscape with effect of sunlight; Huelner,

of Duesseldorf, a boy reading the Bible to his mother, Vienna. Koeckoeck,

of Holland, has two landscapes. The artists of Vienna have also not been

backward. Among the names of the exhibitors we notice that of

Waldmueller, who is known in this country for his picture of the Children

leaving School, which was drawn a year since by one of the subscribers

to the International Art-Union, and was regarded as one of the chief

attractions of its collection.

* * * * *

We hear from Berlin that KAULBACH has painted in miniature the Four

Evangelists, in a copy of Luther's translation of the New Testament,

which is destined for the World's Fair. The book is a folio; the leaves

are of vellum, and the printing is done in Gothic letters and in various

colored inks by four accomplished masters of calligraphy. These artists

have also ornamented their work with numerous vignettes. The book is now

being exhibited at the Royal Library in Berlin.

* * * * *

MR. PRESCOTT, Mr. Ticknor, and other Boston gentlemen of high

cultivation and artistic taste, have prepared a memorial to Congress

that POWERS should be commissioned by government to put into marble his

statue of America. For less than twenty-five thousand dollars,

probably--for a sum not larger than that which was paid by the

government for the two specimens of commonplace by Mr. Persico, this

admirable production might be obtained in colossal size for the capitol.

* * * * *

The GERMAN _Arch[=a]ologische Institut_, at Rome, celebrated the

birth-day of Winckelmann on the 13th of December. Dr. Emil Braun read an

essay on the two chief groups of the frieze of the Parthenon. These

groups have hitherto been supposed to represent the twelve gods of

Olympus; Dr. Braun attempted to show that they represent, in a double

point of view, the native heroes of Attica. The physical development of

the country is expressed in the genealogy of a royal race, beginning

with Cecrops and his wife Agraulia, continued in Cranaus and Amphictyon,

and finally passing into Erichthonius, the son of Atthis, and foster son

of Pandrosos. The social organization of the state begins with

Erechtheus, who is aided by his wife Praxithea, and his daughter Creusa.

He annexes Eleusis to Athens, the former being here represented by

Demeter and Triptolemus; finally Theseus with his friend Pirithous

completes the civil organization of Athens, and establishes it upon a

firm basis. Essays on subjects connected with antique art and history

were also read by Dr. L. Schmidt, Dr. H. Brunn, and Dr. W. Heuzen.

* * * * *

The paintings of the Chapel of the Virgin in the Church of Notre Dame de

Lorette, a vast work, which has hitherto remained unknown to the public,

and which has been interrupted by the recent death of the painter, M.

Victor Orsel, are now attracting attention. M. Perrin, intrusted with

the execution of a similar chapel in the same edifice, will undertake

the pious task of terminating the work of a friend, with whom he had

lived on terms of the closest friendship, cemented by a community of

ideas and talent. Orsel was making rapid strides towards a great

reputation.

* * * * *

We had occasion lately to notice in the _International_ the

illustrations of Hood's "Bridge of Sighs," by Mr. Ehninger. This young

artist has just published in a large quarto (through Putnam) a series of

Outline Illustrations of Washington Irving's "Dolph Heyliger," which are

an improvement upon his first performance. Many of the scenes are

admirably rendered. We believe Mr. Ehninger is now pursuing the study of

art abroad.

* * * * *

The German sculptor, WOLFF, has added to, his many admirable works a

figure of _Paris_, which is much praised.

THE AUTHORESS OF "JANE EYRE," AND HER SISTERS.[13]

Miss Bronte has just published in London the literary remains of her

sisters, "Ellis" and "Acton Bell," with interesting sketches of their

histories, including some glimpses of her own. We copy a portion of the

reviewal of the work in the _Athenaeum_:

The lifting of that veil which for a while concealed the authorship of

'Jane Eyre' and its sister-novels, excites in us no surprise. It seemed

evident from the first prose pages bearing the signatures of Currer,

Ellis, and Acton Bell, that these were _Rosalinds_--or a _Rosalind_--in

masquerade:--some doubt as to the plurality of persons being engendered

by a certain uniformity of local color and resemblance in choice of

subject, which might have arisen either from identity, or from joint

peculiarities of situation and of circumstance. It seemed no less

evident that the writers described from personal experience the wild and

rugged scenery of the northern parts of this kingdom; and no assertion

or disproval, no hypothesis or rumor, which obtained circulation after

the success of 'Jane Eyre,' could shake convictions that had been

gathered out of the books themselves. In similar cases, guessers are too

apt to raise plausible arguments on some point of detail,--forgetting

that this may have been thrown in _ex proposito_ to mislead the

bystander; and hence the most ingenious discoverers become so

pertinaciously deluded as to lose eye and ear for those less obvious

indications of general tone of style, color of incident, and form of

fable, on which more phlegmatic persons base measurement and comparison.

Whatever of truth there may or may not be generally in the above

remarks,--certain it is, that in the novels now in question instinct or

divination directed us aright. In the prefaces and notices before us, we

find that the Bells were three sisters:--two of whom are no longer

amongst the living. The survivor describes their home as--

"A village parsonage, amongst the hills bordering Yorkshire

and Lancashire. The scenery of these hills is not grand--it

is not romantic; it is scarcely striking. Long low moors,

dark with heath, shut in little valleys, where a stream

waters, here and there, a fringe of stunted copse. Mills and

scattered cottages chase romance from these valleys; it is

only higher up, deep in amongst the ridges of the moors,

that Imagination can find rest for the sole of her foot: and

even if she finds it there, she must be a solitude-loving

raven,--no gentle dove. If she demand beauty to inspire her,

she must bring it inborn: these moors are too stern to yield

any product so delicate. The eye of the gazer must itself

brim with a 'purple light,' intense enough to perpetuate the

brief flower-flush of August on the heather, or the rare

sunset-smile of June; out of his heart must well the

freshness that in later spring and early summer brightens

the bracken, nurtures the moss, and cherishes the starry

flowers that spangle for a few weeks the pasture of the

moor-sheep. Unless that light and freshness are innate and

self-sustained, the drear prospect of a Yorkshire moor will

be found as barren of poetic as of agricultural interest:

where the love of wild nature is strong, the locality will

perhaps be clung to with the more passionate constancy,

because from the hill-lover's self comes half its charm."

Thus much of the scene:--now as to the story of the authorship of these

singular books:--

"About five years ago, my two sisters and myself, after a

somewhat prolonged period of separation, found ourselves

reunited and at home. Resident in a remote district where

education had made little progress, and where, consequently,

there was no inducement to seek social intercourse beyond

our own domestic circle, we were wholly dependent on

ourselves and each other, on books and study, for the

enjoyments and occupations of life. * * One day, in the

autumn of 1845, I accidentally lighted on a MS. volume of

verse in my sister Emily's handwriting. Of course, I was not

surprised, knowing that she could and did write verse; I

looked it over, and something more than surprise seized

me,--a deep conviction that these were not common effusions,

nor at all like the poetry women generally write. * *

Meantime, my younger sister quietly produced some of her own

compositions, intimating that since Emily's had given me

pleasure, I might like to look at hers. I could not be a

partial judge, yet I thought that these verses too had a

sweet sincere pathos of their own. We had very early

cherished the dream of one day becoming authors. This dream,

never relinquished even when distance divided and absorbing

tasks occupied us, now suddenly acquired strength and

consistency: it took the character of a resolve. We agreed

to arrange a small selection of our poems, and, if possible,

get them printed. Averse to personal publicity, we veiled

our own names under those of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell;

the ambiguous choice being dictated by a sort of

conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively

masculine, while we did not like to declare ourselves women,

because--without at that time suspecting that our mode of

writing and thinking was not what is called 'feminine'--we

had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be

looked on with prejudice; we had noticed how critics

sometimes use for their chastisement the weapon of

personality, and for their reward, a flattery, which is not

true praise. The bringing out of our little book was hard

work. * * Ill-success failed to crush us: the mere effort to

succeed had given a wonderful zest to existence; it must be

pursued. We each set to work on a prose tale: Ellis Bell

produced 'Wuthering Heights,' Acton Bell 'Agnes Grey,' and

Currer Bell also wrote a narrative in one volume. These MSS.

were perseveringly obtruded upon various publishers for the

space of a year and a half; usually, their fate was an

ignominious and abrupt dismissal. At last 'Wuthering

Heights' and 'Agnes Grey,' were accepted on terms somewhat

impoverishing to the two authors."

The MS. of a one-volume tale by Currer Bell had been thought by Messrs.

Smith & Elder so full of promise, that its writer was asked for a longer

story in a more saleable form.--

"I was then just completing 'Jane Eyre,' at which I had been

working while the one-volume tale was plodding its weary

round in London: in three weeks I sent it off; friendly and

skillful hands took it in. This was in the commencement of

September, 1847; it came out before the close of October

following, while 'Wuthering Heights' and 'Agnes Grey,' my

sisters' works, which had already been in the press for

months, still lingered under a different management. They

appeared at last. Critics failed to do them justice."

The narrative may be best concluded in the writer's own words.

"Neither Ellis nor Acton allowed herself for one moment to

sink under want of encouragement; energy nerved the one, and

endurance upheld the other. They were both prepared to try

again; I would fain think that hope and the sense of power

was yet strong within them. But a great change approached:

affliction came in that shape which to anticipate, is dread;

to look back on, grief. In the very heat and burden of the

day, the laborers failed over their work. My sister Emily

first declined. The details of her illness are deep-branded

in my memory, but to dwell on them, either in thought or

narrative, is not in my power. Never in all her life had she

lingered over any task that lay before her, and she did not

linger now. She sank rapidly. She made haste to leave us.

Yet, while physically she perished, mentally she grew

stronger than we had yet known her. Day by day, when I saw

with what a front she met suffering, I looked on her with an

anguish of wonder and love. I have seen nothing like it;

but, indeed, I have never seen her parallel in any thing.

Stronger than a man, simpler than a child, her nature stood

alone. The awful point was, that, while full of ruth for

others, on herself she had no pity; the spirit was

inexorable to the flesh; from the trembling hand, the

unnerved limbs, the faded eyes, the same service was exacted

as they had rendered in health. To stand by and witness

this, and not dare to remonstrate, was a pain no words can

render. Two cruel months of hope and fear passed painfully

by, and the day came at last when the terrors and pains of

death were to be undergone by this treasure, which had grown

dearer and dearer to our hearts as it wasted before our

eyes. Towards the decline of that day, we had nothing of

Emily but her mortal remains as consumption left them. She

died December 19, 1848. We thought this enough; but we were

utterly and presumptuously wrong. She was not buried ere

Anne fell ill. She had not been committed to the grave a

fortnight, before we received distinct intimation that it

was necessary to prepare our minds to see the younger sister

go after the elder. Accordingly, she followed in the same

path with slower step, and with a patience that equalled the

other's fortitude. I have said that she was religious, and

it was by leaning on those Christian doctrines in which she

firmly believed that she found support through her most

painful journey. I witnessed their efficacy in her latest

hour and greatest trial, and must bear my testimony to the

calm triumph with which they brought her through. She died

May 28, 1849. What more shall I say about them? I cannot and

need not say much more. In externals, they were two

unobtrusive women; a perfectly secluded life gave them

retiring manners and habits."

Though the above particulars be little more than the filling-up of an

outline already clearly traced and constantly present whenever those

characteristic tales recurred to us,--by those who have held other ideas

with regard to the authorship of "Jane Eyre" they will be found at once

curious and interesting from the plain and earnest sincerity of the

writer. She subsequently enters on an analysis and discussion of

"Wuthering Heights" as a work of art;--in the closing paragraph of her

preface to that novel, insinuating an argument, if not a defence, the

urgency of which is not sufficiently admitted by the bulk of the world

of readers. Speaking of the fiendlike hero of her sister's work, she

says:--

"Whether it is right or advisable to create beings like

Heathcliff, I do not know: I scarcely think it is. But this

I know; the writer who possesses the creative gift owns

something of which he is not always master--something that

at times strangely wills and works for itself. He may lay

down rules and devise principles, and to rules and

principles it will perhaps for years lie in subjection; and

then, haply without any warning of revolt, there comes a

time when it will no longer consent 'to harrow the valleys,

or be bound with a band in the furrow'--when it 'laughs at

the multitude of the city, and regards not the crying of the

driver'--when, refusing absolutely to make ropes out of

sea-sand any longer, it sets to work on statue-hewing, and

you have a Pluto or a Jove, a Tisiphone or a Psyche, a

Mermaid or a Madonna, as fate or inspiration directs. Be the

work grim or glorious, dread or divine, you have little

choice left but quiescent adoption. As for you--the nominal

artist--your share in it has been to work passively under

dictates you neither delivered nor could question--that

would not be uttered at your prayer, nor suppressed nor

changed at your caprice."

It might have been added, that to those whose experience of men and

manners is neither extensive nor various, the construction of a

self-consistent monster is easier than the delineation of an imperfect

or inconsistent reality--with all its fallings-short, its fitful

aspirations, its mixed enterprises, and its interrupted dreams. But we

must refrain from further speculation and illustration:--enough having

been given to justify our characterizing this volume, with its preface,

as a more than usually interesting contribution to the history of female

authorship in England.

Pertinently of these biographies, the _Athenaeum_ remarks that "some of

the most daring and original have owed their parentage, not to defying

_Britomarts_, at war with society, who choose to make their literature

match with their lives,--not to brilliant women figuring in the world,

in whom every gift and faculty has been enriched, and whetted sharp, and

encouraged into creative utterance, by perpetual communication with the

most distinguished men of the time,--but to writers living retired lives

in retired places, stimulated to activity by no outward influence,

driven to confession by no history that demands apologetic parable or

subtle plea."

FOOTNOTES:

[13] _Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey._ By Ellis and Acton Bell. A new

Edition Revised, with a Biographical Notice of the Authors, a Selection

from their Literary Remains, and a Preface. By Currer Bell. Smith, Elder

& Co.

DAVIS ON THE LAST HALF CENTURY.[14]

ETHERIZATION.

In 1802, the late reverend and venerable DR. MILLER of New Jersey, then

an active minister of the Presbyterian church in this city, published

here, in two large octavo volumes, the First Part of _A Brief Retrospect

of the Eighteenth Century, containing a Sketch of the Revolutions and

Improvements in Science, Arts and Literature, during that Period_. Six

other volumes were contemplated, to cover grounds since occupied by the

great work upon the Eighteenth Century, by Dr. Schlosser, but they never

appeared. The facts embraced in Dr. Miller's Retrospect illustrated an

extraordinary and successful intellectual activity in the preceding

hundred years; but the fruits of investigation and reflection in that

time were less remarkable and important than those which have marked the

first half of the Nineteenth Century, of which the Rev. EMERSON DAVIS,

D.D., has attempted to give us a survey in a single duodecimo. Within

such brief limits completeness and fulness were out of the question, but

we had a right to ask a judicious selection of topics, and--however

brief and imperfect,--a careful and an honest statement of facts. We are

sorry to perceive that brevity is the only redeeming quality of Dr.

Davis's performance. It is altogether worthless, in almost every

respect, and unless it tempt some competent person to the composition of

an Account of the Progress of Society from 1800 to 1851, its appearance

will be a public misfortune, as well as a private disgrace. Perfectly to

justify this condemnation we will copy a single section--the one

treating of the discovery of

"LETHEON, OR SULPHURIC ETHER, &c.

"In the autumn of 1846, it was announced in the public

journals that a dentist in Boston, W. T. G. Morton, had

discovered a method of extracting teeth without pain. Dr.

Morton, it seems, was satisfied that he could increase his

business to any extent he pleased, if he could only discover

a method by which he could extract and insert teeth without

any pain to the patient. Having some knowledge of the fact

that, by inhaling the vapor of ether, a state of

insensibility could be produced, he applied to Dr. Charles

T. Jackson to know if it could be done with safety. It

occurred to him that it might produce such a degree of

stupor that a tooth might be extracted without a

consciousness of what was doing [_meaning_ being done]. On

the 30th of September, 1846, he inhaled the vapor himself,

and found that he remained in an unconscious state eight

minutes. On the same day, he administered it with success to

a man who called to have a tooth extracted. The man, on

recovering his consciousness, did not know that any

instrument had been applied to his tooth. On the 16th and

17th of October, at the suggestion of Dr. Morton, ether was

administered to two patients at the hospital, who were to

have surgical operations performed. The experiment was

successful. As soon as the fact was known, it was generally

applauded by the newspapers as a wonderful discovery, and

the question came up, To whom belongs the honor, and who

shall reap the reward? Dr. Jackson, in a letter to M.

Beaumont, published in Galignani's Messenger, in Paris,

January, 1847, says, 'I request permission to communicate to

the Academy, through you, a discovery which I have made, and

which I regard as important to suffering humanity.' It

appears that the idea of using ether to render a person

insensible _to pain_, was original with Dr. Morton, and that

Dr. Jackson did no more than give Dr. Morton some

information respecting the nature of ether, and the best

mode of inhaling it. But as Dr. Jackson was better known as

a man of science, Dr. Morton consented to take the patent in

the name of both, and Dr. Jackson sold out his share to Dr.

Morton for ten per cent. of the income that might be derived

from the sale of rights to use the discovery.

"In February, 1847, another letter appeared in Galignani's

Messenger, from Dr. H. Wells, of Hartford, Connecticut, in

which he claimed to be the discoverer of the fact that the

respiring of gas would produce insensibility to pain. Dr.

Wells had been about the country for a few years previous,

_lecturing upon gases_, and had often administered the

exhilarating, or nitrous oxide, gas. There is _no evidence_

that he ever administered ether. He might, in his

experiments, have found that persons under the influence of

the nitrous gas were insensible to pain, but he had no right

to claim that he discovered that the vapor of ether would

produce that effect. The French Academy, however, conferred

rewards of merit upon both Jackson and Wells, and, in 1848,

the American Congress awarded to Morton the honor of the

discovery.

"In 1847, several sharp articles appeared in the Boston

papers, some favorable to Morton, and others to Jackson.

Wells committed suicide that year, and nothing more was said

respecting his claims. Some spicy pamphlets were written.

The result has been that, under the shelter of the smoke of

controversy, every one that chose has made use of the

discovery without paying Morton for the right, and that he

has been actually impoverished by the attention he gave to

the subject."

This statement is a tissue of falsehood and absurdity. To deny to Dr.

Wells the _entire_ credit of this discovery, argues simply gross

ignorance or insolence. Whenever any matter deserving of historical

commemoration is submitted to controversy, and the evidence is not full

and absolute, and the decision is not unanimous or nearly so, the

historian must _himself_ enter into the investigation, and in his own

person pronounce judgment. Therefore Dr. Davis has no excuse for so

scandalous a misrepresentation of these events, in any communications or

suggestions by unknown parties. It was easy to be rightly informed, and

under such circumstances, ignorance is scarcely less criminal than

designed falsehood. In this case, the decision has plainly been in favor

of Dr. Wells, wherever there was authority of action. By means which we

do not care to state, but which are well known to us, Drs. Jackson and

Morton did indeed procure of the Academy of Sciences in Paris, a

recognition of their joint claims to be regarded as the discoverers of

etherization. The Academy of Sciences is not a fit tribunal. The Paris

Medical Society (of which the celebrated Chevalier Ricord is President)

is; and this society, after an elaborate investigation of the whole

subject, during which it listened to a speech of several hours by Mr.

Warren, the agent of Drs. Jackson and Morton, decided with the utmost

unanimity that Dr. Wells made the discovery, and awarded him therefor

the sum of 25,000 francs.

The statement that Dr. Wells "went about the country lecturing upon

gases," is characteristically false. He never delivered even one

lecture, upon any subject whatever, in his life. It is equally false

that "the American Congress awarded to Morton the credit of the

discovery." Congress has never made any decision or award at all in the

premises. A committee was hastily appointed, and it presented a report,

probably prepared in Boston. The friends of Dr. Wells were not advised

of any such attempt, and it was thought this report, with agreeing

resolutions, could be smuggled through the House. But a counter report

was immediately offered, nevertheless, and so the game stopped.

We cannot, in these pages, enter into any detail of the history of this

important discovery; but those who wish to investigate it, are referred

to a pamphlet lately issued at Hartford, entitled, "_Discovery by the

late Dr. Horace Wells of the Applicability of Nitrous Oxide Gas,

Sulphuric Ether, and other Vapors, in Surgical Operations, nearly two

years before the Patented Discovery of Drs. Charles T. Jackson and W. T.

G. Morton_." This pamphlet was prepared by Mr. Toucey, recently Attorney

General of the United States, and nothing can be more conclusive and

satisfactory, to a fair inquirer, than the evidence contained in it,

that Drs. Jackson and Morton had never even the slightest thought of any

thing like etherization, until Dr. Wells, some time after the discovery,

proceeded to Boston, in the hope that Dr. Morton (who was under especial

private obligations to him, and therefore was regarded by him as a

friend) would assist him in procuring for it larger publicity and

recognition. Poor Wells was only laughed at by these gentlemen, who, two

years afterward, claimed the discovery as their own!

How complete the discovery, and how successful the application of it,

will appear from the affidavit of Dr. Marcy. Mr. Toucey says:

"Dr. E. E. Marcy, formerly of Hartford, now of the city of

New-York, was present at the rooms of Dr. Wells, by his

special request, to witness the operation upon Mr. F. C.

Goodrich, and witnessed it with the strong sensations

produced by a new and wonderful discovery upon a scientific

observer. He says, not only was the extraction accomplished

without pain, but the inhalation of the gas was effected

without any of those indications of excitement, or attempts

at muscular exertion, which do commonly obtain when the gas

is administered _without a definite object or previous

mental preparation_. 'By this experiment,' says Dr. Marcy,

'two important, and, to myself, _entirely new facts_ were

demonstrated: 1st. That the body could be rendered

insensible to pain by the inhalation of a gas or vapor,

capable of producing certain effects upon the organism. And

2d. When such agents were administered, to a sufficient

extent, for a definite object, and with a suitable

impression being previously produced upon the mind, that no

unusual mental excitement, or attempts at physical effort

would follow the inhalation.

"'Witnessing these wonderful phenomena, these new and

astounding facts, the idea at once occurred to me whether

there were not other substances analogous in effect to the

gas, and which might be employed with more convenience and

with equal efficacy and safety. Knowing that the inhalation

of sulphuric-ether vapor gave rise to precisely the same

effects as those of the gas, from numerous former trials

with both these substances, I suggested to Dr. Wells, the

employment of the vapor of rectified sulphuric ether--at the

same time detailing to him its ordinary effects upon the

economy, and the method of preparing the articles for use.

Our first impression was, that it possessed all the

anaesthetic properties of the nitrous oxyd, was equally safe,

and could be prepared with less trouble, thus affording an

article which was not expensive, and could always be kept at

hand. At the same time, I told Dr. Wells that I would

prepare some ether, and furnish him some of it to

administer, and also make a trial of it myself, in a

surgical case which I expected to operate upon in a few

days. Not long after this conversation (to which allusion is

made by Mr. Goodrich, in his affidavit) I administered the

vapor of rectified sulphuric ether, in my office, to the

young man above alluded to, and after he had been rendered

insensible to pain, cut from his head an encysted tumor of

about the size of an English walnut. The operation was

entirely unattended with pain, and demonstrated to Dr. Wells

and myself, in the most conclusive manner, the anaesthetic

properties of ether vapor.'

"We have narrated this important experiment in the language

of Dr. Marcy, to whose affidavit we take leave to refer, as

no part of it can, with any propriety or justice, be

overlooked by any one who proposes to subject this matter to

a searching examination. It shows the progress and the

successful result of these inquiries and experiments of Dr.

Wells, and of those skilful and liberal professional

gentlemen who co-operated with him. It shows that the

opinion was then entertained by Dr. Marcy, that the

constituents of the gas were more nearly allied to the

atmospheric air than were those of ether vapor--that the

former was more agreeable and easy to inhale than the

latter, and upon the whole was more safe and equally

efficacious as an anaesthetic agent--and that this opinion

was fully confirmed by numerous experiments subsequently

made by Drs. Ellsworth, Beresford, Riggs, Terry, Wells and

himself. It shows further, that _Dr. Wells visited Boston in

1844, for the purpose of communicating his discovery to the

faculty of that city, and that, on his return, he informed

Dr. Marcy that he had communicated it to Dr. C. T. Jackson,

and to Dr. Morton, and received from the former, and from

other medical gentlemen of Boston, nothing but ridicule for

his pains_."

We have no room for testimony. Mr. Toucey concludes his statement in the

following manner:--

"More than a year and a half after Dr. Wells had personally

made known to Dr. Jackson, and to Dr. Morton, his former

pupil, the result of his experiments, more than one year

after the announcement in the Boston _Medical and Surgical

Journal_, published at their doors, we find Dr. Jackson and

Dr. Morton confederating together, taking out a patent for

this principle, and attempting ineffectually to appropriate

it to their joint pecuniary benefit! Dr. Jackson as the

philosopher, Dr. Morton as the operator! And shortly

afterwards, differing in almost every thing else, agreeing

nevertheless in one thing--each affirming of the other that

he was not entitled to the merit of the discovery!

"Such is a brief statement of the proof, by which the mere

matter of fact is established, which induced the Legislature

of Connecticut to hail the late Dr. Horace Wells as a public

benefactor. With this accumulation of evidence on one side,

bearing directly upon the point, and _nothing to countervail

it on the other_, it is impossible to resist the conclusion

that he was the fortunate author of this great discovery,

unless one or the other of two propositions can be

established, namely, either that such a paralysis of the

nervous system as would render the subject insensible to

pain during the process of extracting teeth, would not

embrace the principle of it, or on the other hand, that

nitrous oxyd gas is arbitrarily to be excluded from its

proper place in a class of agents, all of which are nearly

identical in their operation. And even if this difficult

task could be accomplished, there would still remain another

equally difficult to be encountered; because it has already

been shown that Dr. Wells went beyond these limits, and that

Dr. Marcy, in conjunction with him, subjected the use of

sulphuric ether in a larger surgical operation, to the test

of successful experiment. But either of the foregoing

propositions would be too absurd to require a moment's

consideration. The principle is as fully developed by the

painless extraction of teeth, as by the painless amputation

of a limb; by the successful use of nitrous oxyd gas, as of

rectified sulphuric ether. In the language of Dr. Marcy:

'The man who first discovered the fact that the inhalation

of a gaseous substance would render the body insensible to

pain under surgical operations, should be entitled to all

the credit or emolument which may accrue from the use of any

substances of this nature. This is the _principle_--this is

the _fact_--this is the _discovery_. The mere substitution

of ether vapor or any other article for the gas, no more

entitles one to the claim of a _discovery_, than the

substitution of coal for wood in generating steam, would

entitle one to be called the discoverer of the powers of

steam.'

"It is unnecessary to pursue the subject further. It would

be one of the greatest marvels of this wonderful age, if the

world, with these facts before it, did not confirm the

decision which it has already pronounced, and award to Dr.

Wells the merit of a discovery, which will be remembered and

appreciated as long as mankind shall be exposed to

suffering, or have occasion to apply an antidote."

The section upon etherization, we presume, will serve as a specimen of

Dr. Davis's _History_ of the First Half of the Eighteenth Century.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] _The Half Century; or a History of changes that have taken place,

and events that have transpired, chiefly in the United States, between

1800 and 1850_; with an introduction by Mark Hopkins, D.D. By Emerson

Davis. D.D. Boston: Tappan & Whittenmore.

POPULAR LECTURES.

Thus far this season, there has been even more than the usual amount of

lecturing in our principal cities. The mania lasts longer than was

thought possible. The "phenomenon" has really become a feature of the

times. It absorbs a great share of the current literary enthusiasm--much

of which it has created, and will, it is to be feared, entirely satisfy.

Professor Pease, of the University of Vermont, in an essay upon the

subject, seeks to determine its import and value; to trace the feeling

which gives it birth to its source, and to determine as accurately as

possible the grounds of promise or of fear which it affords. "These

interpretations," he says, "vary between the widest extremes. On the one

side is heard the exulting shout of those who whirl unresistingly in the

vortex--'Does not wisdom cry and understanding put forth her voice?'

behold the 'progress of the species' and the 'march of mind!' And, on

the other side, the contemptuous murmur of those who will be overwhelmed

rather than gyrate against their will, they know not whither--'What

meaneth this bleating of the sheep in mine ears?'"

This mania for lectures, taken in connection with the prevailing

literary taste (of which it is in some sort an index), is regarded as

pointing, more or less directly, to a want of the human spirit--to its

cry--strong and importunate, though often stifled and but dimly felt,

for light--the light of science and of truth. Many feel this want only

as a _traditional_ need--one which their fathers before them have felt

and have taught them to feel--and _they_ are apt to be satisfied with a

traditional supply. Others ask for science because it will help them

make, or work, and perchance _become_ machines, whereby they may earn

bread: and oftentimes, says the writer, "does this mere irritability of

the coating of the stomach pass itself off as the waking up the life of

the soul, and the sublime and pure aspirations of the spirit, for high

and ultimate truths, pure as itself." Then, it is the fashion to be

learned, and the fops of literature, who must "follow the fashion," of

course, get wisdom as quickly and easily as possible. These are the main

features of that demand for science, which is now so clamorous. Mr.

Pease divides the lectures of the day into three classes; first those of

which the object is instruction, then those designed to amuse, and last,

those which profess to serve both these purposes; and he thinks it may

be said of all, that they have no _vital, form-giving, organific

principle_, running through them, developing properly each separate

part, and uniting them all by its own power.

In these discourses he says: "The carpenter is the actual model; for

like him the discourser cuts and fits his timber according to rules the

grounds of which it concerns not him to understand, with little labor

beyond that of hacking and hewing--materials being ever ready at his

hand: for the world is full of books as the forest is of trees and the

market of lumber. And this is done to instruct us; to build us up

inwardly; to administer food to our intellect; to nourish our souls; to

kindle the imagination and awaken to energetic action the living but

slumbering world within. But, alas! this inner world cannot be kindled

like a smouldering fire, by a basket of chips and a puff of wind! This

inner world is a world of spirits, which feed on thoughts full of truth

and living energy. And thought alone can kindle thought: and truth alone

can waken truth: not veracity, not fact, but truth vital,

'Truth that wakes

To perish never.'

This is the bread for which the soul is pining, and such are the husks

with which its calls are answered."

There is in this statement of the predominant character of our popular

lectures much that is true, as we could easily show by a definite

examination of the most popular discourses to which our audiences

listen. Every one can see that their aim is, not to announce great

truths, which are essential to the well-being of society, and the

instruction of the soul, but so to shape their sentences, so to point

their paragraphs, and to give such a turn to their expressions, as to

tickle most effectually the fancy of those who hear them, and to call

down that round of applause which tells them they have made a _hit_. Now

just so far as this is the case, popular lecturing not only seeks to

supply the place of the theatre, but actually becomes theatrical; and

lacking the essential worth and dignity of the drama, assumes its tricks

and shallow vanities.

Nevertheless, the author whom we have quoted sees in this fashion signs

of promise, for it signifies the existence and the struggling toward the

light, of the absolute want of the soul--which will soon rectify the

public taste, and teach men that pleasure lies only in the life-giving

and the true.

"In this," he says, "lives an abiding ground of hope and cheerful

confidence; for it teaches us that every human heart has those depths

and living powers in it, the healthful action of which is the true life

and well-being of the soul--and in none, we hope, are they forever

dormant; and no heart, we hope, is wholly closed. Light, though in rays

feeble and scattered, may shine in upon it, and it shall awake--for it

is not dead, but sleepeth.... The feeling of wants that lie deeper and

farther inward than the sensual appetites, must be supplied or

suppressed; and hence arise a struggle and conflict between the

antagonist principles of our being. Firm peace, and healthful, quiet

energy of soul, are the fruit of victory, and of victory only.

Therefore, though attended with a 'troubled sea of noises, and hoarse

disputes,' the contest, with its hubbub and vain clamor, is the door to

quietness and clear intelligence. Pedantry and pretension, quackery and

imposture, shall, in spite of themselves, conduct to their own exposure

and extinction; for a higher sway than ours guides all affairs, causing

even the wrath of man to praise Him, and making folly itself the guide

to wisdom. Hooker characterized his own times as 'full of tongue, and

weak of brain;' and Luther said to the same effect, of the preachers and

scholars of his day: 'If they were not permitted to prate and clatter

about it, they would burst with the greatness of their art and science,

so hot and eager are they to teach.' But the noise and dust having

subsided, there is left us, of those very times, works which men will

not willingly let die. Noise and smoke causeless do not come. There is a

force at bottom which will ultimately work itself clear, and produce

good and substantial fruits. There is a force somewhere, or no foam and

dust would rise: but there is little force in the foam and dust

themselves. And the immediate instruments are _only_ instruments,

working without knowledge what they do, like puppets, dancing and

swinging their arms, while far behind resides the force that works the

wires. All wonder bestowed upon _them_ is, most certainly, foolish

wonder. But there is no ground for discouragement, or for any but good

hopes, although ignorance and pretension stand in high places, and

vainly babble concerning things beautiful and profound. This uproar

comes only from the troubling of the stream--the foam and roar will not

continue always; the smooth plain lies below, along which it shall soon

flow, quietly, but strongly, murmuring sweet music. And for the

ambitious rainbows painted in the mists above, there shall be the sweet

reflection of earth and heaven from its calm bosom."

OLD TIMES IN NEW-YORK.

Governor William Livingston, of New Jersey, "poet, philosopher and

sage," in a letter written November 17th, 1744, gives the following

insight into life, as it then was, in New-York. He is describing a

"party:"

"The feast as usual was preceded by cards, and the company so numerous

that they filled two tables; after a few games, a magnificent supper

appeared in grand order and decorum--the frolic was closed up by ten

sunburnt virgins lately come from Columbus's Newfoundland, and sundry

other female exercises; besides a play of my own invention, which I have

not room enough to describe at present; however, kissing constitutes a

great part of its entertainment."

In 1759, Livingston's father died, and his funeral obsequies were

performed in all the pomp and attended with all the expense customary in

colonial times. These took place in New-York. The lower apartments of

most of the stores in Broad-street, where he resided, were thrown

open--a pipe of wine was spiced--there were eight pall-bearers, and to

each was presented a pair of gloves, a mourning ring, scarf and

handkerchief, and a spoon. These services were repeated at the manor,

his country-seat, and a handkerchief and pair of black gloves presented

to each of the tenants.

ROSSINI IN THE KITCHEN.

The last accounts of Rossini, if we are to credit the pleasant stories

told of him by the Parisian wit, Louis Huart, are highly characteristic

of the great _maestro_. The following _canard_ is one of the most

_veritable_ and amusing:--

"The newspapers announce that Rossini has shut himself up at Bologna

with the celebrated tenor Donzelli, and that they pass their days in

rehearsing a new opera, of which Rossini is finishing the score. After

the sea-serpent, I know of no story which returns more periodically than

the announcement of a new opera by Rossini. It is now fifteen years

since this pleasantry began to be invariably reproduced at the

commencement of every winter, and always with the same success. One

begins to meet in society a few Parisians who shrug their shoulders with

an air of incredulity when you speak to them of the sea-serpent, but no

one dares to evince the least skepticism touching the new opera of

Rossini. We received this morning a letter from our correspondent at

Bologna, and he furnishes us with details which explain the

announcements in the newspapers.

"Rossini is living in rather a retired way just now; and only receives

the regular visits of one person; there is an error, however, in the

orthography of the appellation of this visitor. Instead of Donzelli, he

is named Pastafrollo. He is no tenor! he is a cook! Rossini, in company

with Pastafrollo, is now busily occupied in endeavoring to discover a

new way of dressing turbot. Rossini has invented, up to the present day,

sixty-two different ways of dressing this fish, but he repeats to

whoever will listen to him, that he will not die content until he has

discovered a sixty-third method, which will satisfy him completely--then

he will divulge his secret, and have inscribed on the _cartes_ of all

the _restaurants_ in Europe--_turbot a la Rossini_. On that day, but

that day only, Rossini will make up his mind to open his piano and

compose a _cantata_ in honor of fish in general, and turbot in

particular. The passion of Rossini for cooking has been rendered more

ardent from the fact that the family of this illustrious personage do

all they can to cross him in it. The relatives and friends of Rossini

wish to make him believe that it is unworthy of a musician, and more

especially of a musician of his genius, to occupy himself with turbot;

but Rossini replies, history in hand, that a whole senate once devoted a

long sitting to find out what sauce would eat best with this fish.

Rossini's family do not consider themselves beaten as yet, and they have

organized a sort of _cordon sanitaire_ round the house of the composer,

to prevent the cooks from getting to him. Before this determination was

arrived at, Bologna overflowed with _chefs_, who arrived from every part

of Italy, to consult Rossini on the best methods to be employed in

dressing salmon, skate, carp, eels, and gudgeons.

"This furnishes us with an explanation of the reason why Pastafrollo was

forced to employ a stratagem in order to prevent his being stopped in

the hall by the family of Rossini. Pastafrollo arrived at Bologna, under

the name of Donzelli, and took care to have inscribed on his passport

_tenor_ instead of _cook_.

"We cannot conclude without giving expression to an earnest hope, that

the conferences established between Rossini and Pastafrollo may give

birth to the sixty-third mode of dressing turbot."

THE FIRST PEACE SOCIETY.

In an entertaining article on "The Abbe de Saint-Pierre," in the last

_Gentleman's Magazine_, there is this curious account of a "Peace

Society."

"The Abbe de Polignac took Saint Pierre with him to the Congress of

Utrecht. Witnessing all the difficulties which stood in the way of

reconciliation between the contending parties, Saint-Pierre conceived

that the truest benefit which could be conferred on mankind would be the

abolition of war. He at once proceeded to embody his idea, and published

in 1713, the year in which peace was concluded, his 'Projet de Paix

Perpetuelle,' in three volumes. The means by which he proposed that this

perpetual peace should be preserved was the formation of a senate to be

composed of all nations, and to be called _The European Diet_, and

before which princes should be bound to state their grievances and

demand redress. The Bishop of Frejus, afterwards Cardinal de Fleury, to

whom Saint-Pierre communicated his plan, replied to him, 'You have

forgotten the most essential article, that of sending forth a troop of

missionaries to persuade the hearts of princes, and induce them to adopt

your views.' D'Alembert has made one or two just remarks on

Saint-Pierre's dream of universal peace, which are as applicable now as

they were a hundred years ago: 'The misfortune of those metaphysical

projects for the benefit of nations consists in supposing all princes

equitable and moderate, in attributing to men whose power is absolute,

and who have the perfect consciousness of their power, who are often

exceedingly unenlightened, and who live always in an atmosphere of

adulation and falsehood, dispositions which the force of law and the

fear of censure so rarely inspire even in private persons. Whosoever, in

forming enterprises for the happiness of humanity, does not take into

calculation the passions and vices of men, has imagined only a beautiful

chimera.' Rousseau thought that, even if Saint Pierre's project were

practicable, it would cause more evil all at once than it would prevent

during many ages."

The writer of this memoir of Saint Pierre presents the character of that

remarkable person in a more favorable light than that in which we have

been accustomed to regard it. The author of "Paul and Virginia" was very

likely a far better man than has been supposed.

EGYPT UNDER THE PHARAOHS.

MR. KENRICK'S HISTORY.[15]

All nations turn to Egypt, as to the mother of civility, and the

Christian sees there the prison where are detained, until the end of the

world, the witnesses of truths which vindicate his religion. How much

the Holy Land is our country, appears from this, that to all Christians,

however remote the places where they live, the scenes about Jerusalem

are more familiar than those about the capital of his own nation; and

with Egypt we are scarcely less intimately, though much less perfectly,

acquainted. Within the last half century, great researches have been

made, by individual or national enterprise, into the poetry and

antiquities of Egypt, by the enterprise of travellers and the diligence

of archaeologists, among whom England claims the names of Young,

Wilkinson, and Vyse. But comparatively few know what has been the result

of these researches. They lie scattered over a number of works in

different languages, beyond the reach even of the ordinary student, much

more of the general reader. Mr. Kenrick (of whose "Ancient Egypt under

the Pharaohs" we copy below the main portion of a reviewal in the London

_Times_) has undertaken the task of supplying a synopsis, and this task

he appears to us to have accomplished excellently well. Mr. Kenrick is a

very estimable as well as a very accomplished man. Like the great

majority of the abler historical, philosophical and religious writers of

England at this time, he is a _Dissenter_, which perhaps lessens

somewhat the warmth of the critic's commendations. We hope to see his

work, as well as that of Mr. Sharpe, relating to Egypt under the

Ptolemies, reproduced, by some of our own publishers. Of Mr. Kenrick,

the _Times_ says:--

"He commences with the land of Egypt. In the East great rivers are the

parents of civilized nations. A great river, which by its deposit forms

a long valley and a broad delta of rich alluvial soil in the midst of

deserts, was the parent, the nourisher, and the god of the oldest

civilized nation of the earth. The Nile is Egypt; the Egyptians were

those who lived below the cataracts and drank of the Nile. Above the

cataracts they pushed their arms into Ethiopia, and left there the

monuments of their dominion. To the west they were at once defended and

confined by a desert impassable to armies, but which the oasis rendered

passable to the caravan. On the north was an almost harborless sea. On

the east was another desert, through which roads led to the ports of the

Red Sea and the mines of Sinai. On the north-east the Arabian desert

formed an imperfect barrier. It was traversed by the hosts of Sesostris

and Sheshonk, of Nebuchadnezzar and Cambyses, and across its sands Egypt

communicated commercially and politically with the other seats of

ancient civilization which, broken by the recurring desert, formed an

irregular chain from Philistia to China.

"Of the singular productions of Egypt, the hippopotamus, the crocodile,

the ibis, the papyrus, we need not speak. There were few beasts of

chase, and the Egyptian conquerors did not begin like those of central

Asia by being mighty hunters. It was a land of corn, and of the vine, of

fruit trees, and all herbs. The nations sought its granaries in famine;

the Israelites in the wilderness thirsted for the cooling vegetables of

its gardens. Fish abounded in the Nile, waterfowl in the marshes. Nature

yielded freely, but perhaps for that very reason the mind of man was

less exercised and less active. And the unvarying landscape, the

unchanging sky, the small number and unpoetic or even grotesque forms of

the plants and animals, may partly account for the lack of imagination

evinced by the most formal and most stationary of nations, scarcely

excepting the Chinese.

"Who and whence were the Egyptians? This question Mr. Kenrick has to

ask, and, like others, to leave unanswered. This is the secret which the

grave of the Pharaohs will not yield. Physiology supplies no clue. The

mummy cases, the paintings and sculptures, depict a race short, slight,

with low foreheads, high cheek bones, long eyes, hair now crisp now

curled, and a complexion which the conventionality of the painter's art

makes to differ in men and women, but which probably was brown with a

tinge of red, dark compared with that of the Syrian, black compared with

that of the Greek. Thick lips are frequently seen, but they are supposed

to indicate intermarriage with Ethiopians. From the negro the Egyptians

were far removed, nor can they be connected with any other known race.

If we turn to language, a surer guide perhaps than physiology, we are

again completely baffled. The Coptic has been identified through many

etymologies with the old Egyptian; and of the Coptic, though it became a

dead language in the twelfth century, much literature remains. It is an

uncultivated and formal tongue, with monosyllabic roots and rude

inflexions totally different from the neighboring languages of Syria and

Arabia, totally opposite to the copious and polished Sanscrit. The last

fact at once severs Egypt from India, and destroys every presumption of

affinity that may arise from the presence in both countries of caste, of

animal worship, and of a religion derivable from a primitive adoration

of the powers of nature. The hypothesis of an Ethiopian origin sprang

from the notion, natural but untrue, that population would follow the

course of the descending river. And no tradition among the Egyptians

themselves told of a parent stock or of another land.

"Respecting the mighty works of Egypt, little mystery remains. The great

Pyramids had been rifled by the Caliphs, if not by earlier hands, and no

inscriptions have been found. But no doubt exists that they were the

sepulchres of the Kings of Memphis. The Queens and the "princes of

Noph" reposed in smaller pyramids beside the Kings. These mountains of

wasted masonry belong to the earliest ages of the Pharaonic monarchy,

before the time of the Sesostrian conquests, and therefore they bespeak

the toil and suffering, not of captives, but of native slaves. Before

them couches the Sphinx, hewn from the rock, to spare, as a Greek

inscription says, each spot of cultivable land. His riddle--for it is _a

male_--is read. He represents, perhaps portrays, the reigning King, and

the thick lips may indicate Ethiopian blood. The lion's body represents

the monarch's might--the human head his wisdom. The rock, from which the

figure is cut, broke the view of the Pyramids, and to convert it into

the Sphinx was a stroke of Egyptian genius. Pyramids were, in the

Pharaonic times, peculiar to Memphis. The countless tombs of Thebes are

excavated in the rocky face of the Libyan hills. Those of the Theban

Pharaohs stand apart, and we approach through a narrow gorge called the

"Gate of Kings." The paintings, sculptures, and inscriptions on these

tombs, literally the eternal _houses_ of the dead, are the Pompeii of

the Egyptian antiquary. At Thebes are the magnificent and temple-like

palaces of the greatest of the Pharaohs, the halls of their assemblies

and their counsels, the records of their wars and conquests. At Thebes,

too, is the Memnon, a mutilated statue of Amnoph, which never was vocal

except by trick or in imagination, and the Obelisks, whose form is

sufficiently explained, without obscenity or mystery, by the fancy for

monolithic monuments and the possession of large blocks of granite. The

remains of the Labyrinth do not enable us to pronounce whether its

twenty-seven halls were a burial-place for kings or crocodiles, or a

place of assembly for the provinces of Egypt.

"Very various and very extravagant notions have been formed of the

population of ancient Egypt. That it was dense may well be inferred from

the length of time through which it multiplied in a limited space, and

from that evident parsimony of land which drove tombs and monuments to

the rocks, and cities to the edge of the desert. Calculations based on

the number of cities, and on the number of men of military age, have

plausibly placed the sum at about five millions.

"Agriculture was the chief business of the Egyptians, and the chief

business of agriculture consisted in distributing and detaining, by

canals and dams, the precious waters of the Nile. The sheep and cattle

were numerous. A grandee of Eilytheia possessed one hundred and twenty

two cows and oxen, three hundred rams, twelve hundred goats, and fifteen

hundred swine. Lower Egypt contained the great pasture lands, and was

the abode of the herdsmen--a lawless race, and, _therefore_, an

abomination to their more civilized countrymen. The ass was the beast of

burden. The horse was bred for the war-chariot--that great attribute of

ancient power. The breed was small but fine and peculiar to the country.

They were kept in stables along the Nile, and hence they do not appear

in the landscapes. Horticulture was extensively and elaborately

practised, both for use and pleasure; and the Pharaohs, like Solomon,

'made them gardens and orchards, planted trees in them of all kinds of

fruit, and made them pools of water to water therewith the wood that

bringeth forth trees.'

"When forced to serve on shipboard by the enterprise of their own

Monarchs or by their Persian conquerors, the Egyptians appear not to

have made bad sailors. They fought well at Salamis. But their natural

tendency was to shun the sea, which they regarded as the element of the

Destroyer Typhon. Their navigation was on the Nile, which formed the

highway of their commerce, the path of their processions and their

pilgrimages, and their passage to the tomb. The river being thus the

universal road, and being moreover without bridges, must have swarmed

with boats of all descriptions--the heavy bari of the merchant, the

light papyrus or earthenware skiffs of the common people, and the

sumptuous barge of Royalty, whose golden pavilion, masts, and rudder,

fringed and embroidered sails, and sculptured prow, remind us of the

galley of Cleopatra. The caravans of surrounding nations visited Egypt

with their precious and fragrant merchandise to exchange for her corn

and manufactures. But the Egyptian trader appears seldom to have visited

other countries either by land or sea.

"The army was a warrior caste. Its might consisted in its chariots. No

mounted cavalry appear in any of the monuments. With this exception they

had every kind of force and every weapon known to ancient warfare. They

used the long bow and drew the arrow, like the English archers, to the

ear. Their armor was imperfect, and more often of quilting than of mail.

They had regular divisions, with standards, and regular camps. Their

sieges were unscientific, and their means of assault scaling ladders,

sapping hatchets, and long pikes brought up to the walls under a sort of

shed. Of their battles no definite notion can be formed. All is lost in

the King, whose gigantic figure, drawn by gigantic horses, crushes,

massacres, or grasps by the hair scores of his pigmy enemies, whose

hands after the victory are laid in heaps before him and counted by

attendant scribes. Thus it is that Rameses the Great and the other

Pharaohs are seen warring against the Assyrian, and Chaldean against the

Jew, the Edomite, the Ethiopian, and the 'nine bows' of Libya, and

assailing the 'fenced cities' of strange races that have long passed

away.

"In the lower parts of civilization and the mechanical arts, the

Egyptians had attained high perfection. Their machinery and tools appear

to have been defective, but the defect was supplied by skill of hand,

traditional and acquired, as it is among the Chinese. They were cunning

workmen in metals, in jewelry, in engravings, in enamel, in glass, in

porcelain, and in pottery. Their fine linen and embroidery were famous.

For their chariots Solomon gave 600 shekels of silver; and they

fashioned into a hundred articles of luxury the ivory of Africa, the

mahogany of India, and the cedar of Lebanon. As no specimens remain of

their domestic architecture, it is supposed rather than ascertained that

their houses were of a single story with a terraced roof. The rooms of

great men at least were richly and elegantly painted, and furnished with

tables, chairs, and couches, which have supplied models for the

upholstery of modern times.

"Architecture is the most material of the arts. It was the art in which

the Egyptians most excelled. They seem to have understood in some degree

the grandeur which results from proportion and arrangement, as well as

that which results from size. The profuse and elaborate sculpture with

which their temples are covered, does not mar their majesty. Their

heaviness is relieved by the glowing sun and the deep sky. But the

impression produced must always have been that of cost and power rather

than of art. Some changes of style are noticed. The golden age was that

of the Pharaohs of the 19th dynasty, when the power and greatness of the

nation were at the highest. More florid and less majestic forms mark the

era of the Ptolemies. But in this respect, as in others, the Egyptians

seem to have maintained their stationary character, and the remains of

Meroe, which are now known to be among the latest, have been taken for

the earliest of all the monuments.

"In sculpture the summit of manual skill was reached. But religion, the

mistress and tyrant of Egyptian art, prescribed for the images of the

gods her unalterable and often hideous forms, and the rules of an

hereditary craft, which fixed certain proportions for each part of the

statue, and gave the execution of the several parts to several workmen,

laid another chain on the genius of the artist. Painting seems not to

have advanced beyond the barbarous excellence of brilliant colors.

Drawing and design were monstrous, and the laws of perspective and even

of vision unknown or disregarded. Of music, we learn from Plato that it

was restricted to certain established tunes of approved moral tendency,

and the wayward Athenian thought all restraint wholesome as he saw that

some license was pernicious.

"If we pass to science, we shall find no reason for supposing that the

advances of modern times were anticipated by the mysterious wisdom of

the Egyptians. Something they must have known of astronomy to practise

astrology, to divide the ecliptic, and to effect the exact orientation

of the Pyramids. Some knowledge of chemistry is implied in their

manufacture of porcelain; some knowledge of physiology, pathology,

pharmaceutics and surgery, in their division of the medical art;

something of geometry in their measurement of land; and something of

mechanics in their enormous buildings and monuments. But their great

engines were multitudes of laborers, aided by such natural expedients as

the lever, the roller, and the inclined plane, which can scarcely be

called machines. In other sciences there is evidence of long and careful

observation, but nothing to prove an acquaintance with the _laws_ of

nature. Progress in the medical art was precluded by the necessity of

adhering to the precepts of the sacred books. Science was monopolized by

the priests; and it is said that by them the King was regularly sworn to

retain the old and unintercalated year. The want of decimal notation,

and the consequent clumsiness of the system of numeration, would go far

to preclude the improvement of arithmetic, or any science into which

calculation entered.

"Literature the Egyptians appear to have had none, except of the

monumental or sacred kind, including under the latter head the sacred

books of science. But the art of writing was practised by them, or at

least by the learned part of them, more extensively than by any

contemporary nation. Mr. Kenrick gives us a full history of the

interpretation of hieroglyphics, the key to which was first given by the

parallel inscriptions in hieroglyphic and Greek found on the famous

Rosetta stone, and metes to Young and Champollion their due shares in

that discovery, of which each uncandidly claimed the whole. The

hieroglyphics are now known to be of three kinds, all of which are

generally mingled in the same inscription--the pictorial, the

symbolical, and the phonetic. The pictorial hieroglyphic is the simple

picture of the thing signified. Symbolical hieroglyphics are, among

others, a crescent for a month, the maternal vulture for _maternity_,

the filial vulpanser for _son_, the bee for _a people obedient to their

king_, the bull for _strength_, the ostrich feather with its equal

filaments for _truth_, the lotus for Upper and the papyrus for Lower

Egypt. To these we may add the bird, which denotes a cycle of time (in

Coptic _phanech_), and about which such wild fables were received by the

credulity of Herodotus and by that of the Fathers. But the greater part

of the hieroglyphics are phonetic like our alphabet, and are being

slowly and precariously deciphered into the words of a language which is

identified with the ancient form of Coptic.

"The religion of the Egyptians must be gathered chiefly from the

sculptures and paintings. The religious inscriptions and funeral papyri

remain undeciphered. The account of Herodotus is rendered suspicious by

his solicitude to force the Pantheon of Egypt into a conformity with

that of Greece. The accounts of the later Greeks are tainted by their

philosophizing and mysticizing spirit. That the Egyptian theology

embodied no profound physical or metaphysical system is evident from the

fact that it was not formed at once, but by gradual addition and

development, and that it was to the last partly local. It appears to

have been, like the other religions of the Pagan world--of Greece and

Italy, of Phoenicia and India--a worship of the powers of nature

represented by great natural objects, such as the sun and moon, or by

forms bestial or human, which were selected as symbolical of their

attributes.

"On this groundwork imagination wrought, as among the Greeks, though to

a less extent and in a different way. We cannot tell how far the more

reflective minds may have advanced towards the conception of a single

God, either independent of or permeating the material world; but contact

with the philosophic Greeks in the age of the Ptolemies can hardly have

failed to lead to some speculations of this kind, and the accounts

derived from Greek sources of Egyptian mysticism, though false of early,

were no doubt, in part at least, true of later times. Amuna or Ammon

appears to have been nominally the chief of the gods. His attributes are

to some extent identified with those of the sun; but they are not easily

distinguished from the attributes of several subordinate deities. His

ram's head is still a mystery. Thoth was the god of intellect and

learning. His representatives were the ape and the ibis: the former, it

is supposed, because it approaches nearest in intellect to man; the

latter, because its black and white feather resemble, or may be imagined

to resemble, writing. The _popular_ divinity was Osiris, the god at once

of the Nile and the realms below. Typhon, the scorching wind of the

desert which dries up the waters of the Nile, was the antagonist and the

murderer of Osiris; and at a more advanced stage of religious

speculation the two may have represented the conflicting powers of Good

and Evil. Sacrifices were offered for the ordinary purposes--to

conciliate the favor of the gods, to requite their benefits, and to

avert their wrath. Typhonian, that is, red-haired men, were immolated

when they fell into the hands of the natives in honor of Osiris, whose

name is concealed in that of the fabled Busiris. That the practice of

offering human sacrifices is compatible with a high degree of

civilization we know from the examples of Greece, of Rome, and Mexico.

There were great gatherings in honor of the gods, in the nature of

pilgrimages or holy fairs, which were celebrated with festivity, with

noisy music, with illuminations, and with license. There were mysteries,

which were not, in Egypt at least, initiations into any thing different

from the popular religion; but merely representations--celebrated amidst

nocturnal gloom--of the sufferings of Osiris. If strangers in Egypt

underwent painful initiation, it was an initiation into the knowledge of

the priests, and not into their mysteries. The Egyptians believed in the

existence of the soul after death; they believed that it would be judged

in Amenthe by Osiris and his forty-two assessors, before whom it was

brought by Analis; they had an Elysium, surrounded by waters, where the

Osirian--that is, the happy dead--ploughed, sowed, reaped, and threshed,

as on earth--a singular want of fancy. Retributive pains, by fire and

steel, are also supposed to have been detected among the paintings. At

the same time they held and taught to the Greeks the doctrine of

metempsychosis. It is difficult to reconcile with either of these

notions their belief that the spirit dwelt in the body so long as the

body could be rescued from decay, and the reason which they give for

bestowing such prodigality of labor on their sepulchres--that the tomb

was man's eternal home. The darkness of uninterpreted hieroglyphics

still rests to a great extent on the religious creed and practices of

the Egyptians. But three things we think we can discern from the

information which Mr. Kenrick has collected:--1. That the Egyptian

religion was in all essential respects like the other religions of

Paganism, and traceable to the same sources; and consequently that

whatever may be Egypt's 'place in universal history,' she is not likely

to assume an extraordinarily important place in the history of theology,

or to affect, in any material respect, our views as to the origin of

religion. 2. That no connection is to be traced between the religion of

the Egyptians and the religion of the Hebrews. A more decided polytheism

than that of Egypt cannot be imagined. So far from recognizing any thing

like the _supremacy_ of a single Divine Being in their theological

system, we can scarcely even trace any thing answering to that primacy

of Jupiter which preserves at least a vestige of monotheism in the

religion of the Greeks. The rite of circumcision, which is supposed to

have been borrowed by one nation from the other, was not practised by

the Egyptians as a religious ceremony, nor upon infants, nor

universally. And it is remarkable that the belief in the conscious

existence of the soul and a retributive state after death--a doctrine

hardly to be lost when once imparted--seems to have been so prominent in

the one faith while it was so much the reverse of prominent in the

other. 3. That there was no connection between the mythology of Egypt

and that of Greece. Subtract what is common to all polytheistic systems,

and what is common to all systems of natural religions, and absolutely

no similarity remains. On the one side are forms of human beauty,

majesty, and passion, in which the original groundwork of nature-worship

is as much as possible concealed by the working of a plastic

imagination; on the other side are forms bestial or grotesque,

featureless and passionless, exhibiting nature-worship in one of its

lowest stages. But in every respect, in language, in physiognomy, in

mind, in political tendencies, in manners, as well as in religion, the

contrariety between the Egyptian and the Athenian is complete. There is

nothing on the other side except the vain pretensions of the priests of

Thebes, the credulity of Herodotus, and the wildest legends of the

mythical age; and we are surprised that so strict an ethnologist as Mr.

Kenrick should be inclined to admit even the general fact of an

Egyptian colonization.

"The most degrading part of the religion of the Egyptians was their

animal worship, which they carried to a higher pitch than any other

people, not excepting the Hindoos. Almost the whole animal and some part

of the vegetable kingdom enjoyed either a national or a local sanctity.

Gods it was said grew in the gardens. The most cogent reasons of policy

and the terrible name of Rome failed to save from death the Roman who

had killed a cat. Fancy had first assigned to each god his favorites or

symbols among beasts or plants. Then the beasts and plants themselves

were reverenced, and at last worshipped. Stately avenues of colossal

statues, magnificent porticoes and columned courts ushered the

awe-stricken devotee into the sacred presence of an ibis or an ape. The

highest object of this superstition, the bull Apis, was regarded as an

actual incarnation of Osiris. No rational account of such a system can

be given. The serpent cannot have been respected for its utility. The

ibis cannot have been honored as the destroyer of the sacred serpent.

Nothing divine can have been perceived in the beetle or the ape. The

connection between the god and the beast was originally the offspring of

a grotesque imagination, and priestcraft and the superstitious tendency

of the people did the rest.

"The political constitution of Egypt was based on caste. The privileged

castes were those of the warriors and the priests, who, with the

Pharaoh, held in fee all the land of Egypt. The Government was an

hereditary monarchy. When election was necessary the two privileged

castes chose from among their own numbers; the people enjoyed only the

right of acclamation. If the choice fell on a warrior, he was at once

received into the order and initiated into the wisdom of the priests.

Legislation was the prerogative of the King; but he was bound to rule

and judge according to the law. He was much in the hands of the priests,

who imposed strict rules upon his life, and by a daily homily made the

duties and virtues of sovereignty familiar, perhaps too familiar, to the

royal ear. The priests, in fact, were the lords of Egypt. Exclusively

possessed of science, and even of letters, numerous, wealthy, united, in

a single polity, a confined territory and an isolated people, unchecked

by any literary, philosophical, or foreign influence, they must have

exercised a dominion unrivalled by any priesthood in the history of the

world. The result was a land of temples, of deified apes and consecrated

onions, a literature of religious inscriptions and funeral scrolls, a

Government apparently mild and humane, an enduring polity and long

internal peace, and intense and stubborn nationality, a civilization

wonderful but low, which in every department, from the act of government

to the art of writing, appears to have remained as nearly as possible at

a fixed point for about two thousand years. The mummy, as it is the

characteristic product, is the fit emblem of ancient Egypt. Yet material

happiness appears to have been enjoyed. From sports, from caricatures,

from the fanciful decorations of their houses, from their use of music

as a daily recreation, we should judge that the Egyptians were not a

gloomy people; and that their social and political system aimed, though

imperfectly, at a high standard, may be inferred from the reverence,

however exaggerated, which was entertained for it by the Greeks.

"Egyptian history is the 'dynasties' of Manetho partly filled up and

illustrated, and in time it is to be hoped to be filled up and

illustrated still more from the monuments, paintings, and inscriptions.

For this, with its thirty dynasties, its twenty centuries, and its

chronological difficulties, still formidable though much reduced, we

must refer the reader entirely to Mr. Kenrick's second volume, of which

it occupies nearly the whole. The slight sketch above given indicates

the contents of what will be to the general reader the more interesting

part of the work. In conclusion, we once more cordially commend the

book. It displays not only the ordinary merits of a good synopsis, such

as clearness of style and of arrangement, but also a high power of

combination, and, where the author treats of philosophical questions, a

sound and sensible philosophy. On some points, perhaps, Mr. Kenrick

might have spoken with more authority had he personally visited Egypt,

and the imagination of his reader would be assisted by a well selected

volume of plates. We are glad to see that Syria and Phoenicia are to

form the subject of another publication by the same hand."

FOOTNOTES:

[15] _Ancient Egypt under the Pharaohs._ By John Kenrick, M. A. In two

volumes. London: B. Fellows.

CAMILLE DESMOULINS.

In an admirable life of Camille Desmoulins, recently published in Paris,

by M. Edmond Fleury, his summing up of the character of the _Vieux

Cordelier_, presents a type of some of the heroes of the revolution of

1848:--

"Such was Camille Desmoulins. I have traced his portrait without pity,

without hatred, I dare not say without passion. In him I wished to mark

the truest and most finished type of those _enfans perdus_ of anarchy

who, without ever attaining illustration in history, or serious

influence in a government, thirst after distinction and renown;

ambitious of credit and importance, scourges of their country, torment

of their relatives, traitors to their friends, their own executioners,

flambeaux that burn without light, vain and mediocre spirits consumed by

the most intense jealousy--presumptuous fools, irritated by their own

impotence, intrepid in a pamphlet and pusillanimous in action, they,

nevertheless, carried away by the flood which they have let loose,

stake, in this terrible game of revolutions, not only their lives, but

the honor of their posthumous fame."

How different the aspect of these fiends, as they are presented to us

"sicklied o'er" with the sentiment of a Lamartine!

THE BATTLE OF THE CHURCHES IN ENGLAND.

The _Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review_, for January, 1851,

contains a great article on the controversies occasioned by the recent

movements of the Roman Catholics in Great Britain. It is very long

(making sixty pages), and very able. Reviewing the battle, from an

unusual, and to most people perhaps a not very accessible, point of

view, it throws a startling light on many matters forgotten or ignored

by the more immediate combatants. It may, therefore, be perused with

interest and advantage by partisans of every shade. Protestant and

Catholic will find their account in it, especially as helping them to

information of which they are greatly deficient--a knowledge of each

other's strong points, as well as their weak ones. There is much in the

views of the writer, with which we cannot ourselves concur; but we are

not insensible of the force and precision with which he has mapped out a

large part of the field, and given saliency to some of the great

principles at stake; which it is the natural tendency of discussions,

involving so much of the conventional and formulistic, calamitously to

obscure. The battle in the foreground may be about candlesticks,

surplices, and genuflexions. But there are involved many things

infinitely more vital, as the author of this "Battle of the Churches"

will be admitted to have illustrated with great success. Many ponderous

volumes might be named, which have not contributed a tenth part as much

to a clear understanding of the question, as this one article in the

_Westminster_. We have not space for a complete _resume_ of it. We can

only present an extract or two. The following brings forward tendencies

too little noticed by the antagonists of the papacy:

"A true British Protestant, whose notions of "Popery" are limited to

what he hears from an evangelical curate or has seen at the opening of a

Jesuit church, looks on the whole system as an obsolete mummery; and no

more believes that men of sense can seriously adopt it, than that they

will be converted to the practice of eating their dinner with a

Chinaman's chop-sticks instead of the knife and fork. He pictures to

himself a number of celibate gentlemen, who glide through a sort of

minuet by candle-light around the altar, and worship the creature

instead of the Creator, and keep the Bible out of every body's way, and

make people easy about their sins: and he is positive that no one above

a "poor Irishman," can fail to see through such nonsense. Few even of

educated Englishmen have any suspicion of the depth and solidity of the

Catholic dogma, its wide and various adaptation to wants ineffaceable

from the human heart, its wonderful fusion of the supernatural into the

natural life, its vast resources for a powerful hold upon the

conscience. We doubt whether any single reformed church can present a

theory of religion comparable with it in comprehensiveness, in logical

coherence, in the well-guarded disposition of its parts. Into this

interior view, however, the popular polemics neither give nor have the

slightest insight: and hence it is a common error both to underrate the

natural power of the Romish scheme, and to mistake the quarter in which

it is most likely to be felt. It is not among the ignorant and vulgar,

but among the intellectual and imaginative--not by appeals to the senses

in worship, but by consistency and subtlety of thought--that in our days

converts will be made to the ancient church. We have receded far from

the Reformation by length of time; the management of the controversy has

degenerated: it has been debased by political passions, and turned upon

the grossest external features of the case; and when a thoughtful man,

accustomed to defer to historical authority, and competent to estimate

moral theories as a whole, is led to penetrate beneath the surface, he

is unprepared for the sight of so much speculative grandeur, and, if he

have been a mere Anglican or Lutheran, is perhaps astonished into the

conclusion, that the elder system has the advantage in philosophy and

antiquity alike. From this, among other causes, we incline to think that

the Roman Catholic reaction may proceed considerably further in this

country ere it receives any effectual check. The academical training and

the clerical teaching of the upper classes have not qualified them to

resist it. At the other end of society there are large masses who cannot

be considered inaccessible to any missionary influence, affectionately

and perseveringly applied. Not all men, in a crowded community, are

capable of the independence, the self-subsistence, without which

Protestantism sinks into personal anarchy. The class of weak, dependent

characters, that cannot stand alone in the struggle of life, are

unprovided for in the modern system of the world. The cooperative

theorist tries to take them up. But somehow or other he is usually a man

with whom, by a strange fatality, cooperation is impossible; intent on

uniting all men, yet himself not agreeing with any; with individuality

so intense and exclusive, that it produces all the effect of intolerant

self-will; and thus the very plans which by his hypothesis are

inevitable, are by his temper made impracticable. He appeals, however,

and successfully, to the uneasiness felt by the feeble in the strife and

pressure of the world; he fills the imagination with visions of repose

and sympathy; he awakens the craving for unity and incorporation in some

vast and sustaining society. And whence is this desire, disappointed of

its first promise, to obtain its satisfaction? Is it impossible that it

may accept proposals from the most ancient, the most august, the most

gigantic organization which the world has ever seen?--that it may take

refuge in a body which invests indigence with sanctity--which cares for

its members one by one--which has a real past instead of a fancied

future, and warms the mind with the coloring of rich traditions--which,

in providing for the poorest want of the moment, enrolls the disciple

in a commonwealth spread through all ages and both worlds! Whatever

socialistic tendency may be diffused through the English mind is not

unlikely, in spite of a promise diametrically opposite, to turn to the

advantage of the Catholic cause."

Here is another valuable contribution to the philosophy of this

controversy. There are few positions more relied on by Roman Catholics,

or more thoroughly unsound and fallacious, than the assertion that there

are no essential differences between the position of Roman Catholics and

of Protestants as regards the state and the English established church.

"If we had to deal simply with a form of worship and theology, there

would be no ground for distinguishing between the case of the Catholics

and that of the Dissenters." And practically perhaps, in the actual

condition of Europe, the question now in agitation might be permitted to

rest there. But, in fairness to the Protestant feeling, it should never

be forgotten that the Roman Catholic system presents a feature absent

from every other variety of nonconformity. It is not a religion only,

but a polity; and this in a very peculiar sense. Other systems also--as

the Presbyterian--include among their doctrines an opinion in favor of

some particular church government; which opinion, however, professing to

be derived from Scripture by use of private judgment, stands, in their

case, on the same footing with every other article of their creed. You

might differ from John Knox about synods, without prejudice to your

agreement in all else. But with the Romish church it is different. It is

not that her religion contains a polity; but that her polity contains

the whole religion. The truths she publishes exist only as in its

keeping, and rest only on its guarantee; and if you invalidate it, they

would vanish, like the promissory notes of a corporation whose charter

was proved false. Christianity, in her view, is not a doctrine,

productive of institutions through spontaneous action on individual

minds; but an institution, the perpetual source of doctrine for

individual obedience and trust. Revelation is not a mere communication

of truth, not a transitory visit from heaven to earth, ascertained by

human testimony, and fixed in historical records; but a continuous

incarnation of Deity, a permanent real presence of the Infinite in

certain selected persons and consecrated objects. The same divine

epiphany which began with the person of the Saviour has never since

abandoned the world: it exists, in all its awfulness and power, only

embodied no longer in a redeeming individual, but in a redeeming church.

The word of inspiration, the deed of miracle, the authority to condemn

and to forgive, remain as when Christ taught in the temple, walked on

the sea, denounced the Pharisee, and accepted the penitent. These

functions, as exercised by him, were only in their incipient stage; he

came,--to exemplify them indeed, but chiefly to incorporate them in a

body which should hold and transmit them to the end of time. From his

person they passed to the College of the Twelve, under the headship of

Peter; and thence, in perpetual apostleship, to the bishops and pastors,

ordained through legitimate hands, for the governance of disciples.

These officers are the sole depositaries, the authorized trustees of

divine grace; whose decision, whether they open or shut the gate of

mercy, is registered in heaven and is without appeal. Not that they can

play with this power, and dispose of it by arbitrary will. The media

through which it is to flow have been divinely appointed: its channels

are limited to certain physical substances and bodily acts or postures,

selected at first hand for the purpose:--water at one time, bread at

another, oil at a third, handling of the head at a fourth. But the

infusion of the supernatural efficacy into these "alvei" depends on an

act of the appointed official; through whom alone the divine matter--no

longer choked up--can have free currency into the persons of believers.

To this inheritance of miracle is added a stewardship of inspiration.

The episcopate is keeper of the Christian records: and as those records

are only the first germ of an undeveloped revelation, with the same body

is left the exclusive power of unfolding their significance, and

directing the growth and expansion of their ever fertile principles.

Whatever interpretation the hierarchy may put upon the Scriptures,

whatever doctrine or discipline they may announce as agreeable with the

mind of God, must be accepted as infallible and authoritative. The same

spirit of absolute truth which spoke in the living voice of Christ,

which guided the pen of evangelists, still prolongs itself in the

thought and counsels of bishops, and renders their collective decisions

binding as divine oracles. The people who form the obedient mass of the

Catholic body are not without a share of this miraculous light in the

soul; not indeed for the discernment of any new truth, but for the

apprehension of the old. The moment the disciple is incorporated in the

church, faith bursts into sight; he passes from opinion into knowledge;

he perceives the objects of his worship, and the truth of his creed,

with more than the certainty of sense; and as he bows before the altar,

or commits himself to the "Mother of God," the real presence and the

invisible world are as immediately with him as the breviary and the

crucifix. Through the whole Catholic atmosphere is diffused a

preternatural medium of _clairvoyance_, which at every touch of its

ritual vibrates into activity, and opens to adoring view mysteries hid

from minds without.[16]

"Now, with the spiritual aspects of this theory we are not here

concerned. Reason has no jurisdiction over the inspiration that

transcends it. But there is a humbler task to which the common intellect

is not incompetent. We may plant this system in a political community,

set it down beside the state, imagine it surrounded by families, and

schools, and municipalities, and parliaments, by the prison and the

court of justice; within the shadow of law and in the presence of

sovereignty; and we may ask how it will work amid these august symbols

of a nation's life, and how adjust itself in relation to them? Will it

leave them to their free development? Can it tranquilly coexist with

them, and be content to see them occupy the scope which English

traditions and English usage have secured for them? We are convinced it

cannot; that every step it may make is an encroachment upon wholesome

liberty; that it is innocent only where it is insignificant, and where

it is ascendant will neither part with power, nor use it well; and that

it must needs raise to the highest pitch the common vice of tyrannies

and of democracies--the relentless crushing of minorities."

The above are only two paragraphs out of a dozen we had marked, but they

will suffice to show the value of this very able and impartial essay.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] Adequate authority for these statements will be found in Dr.

Mochler's Symbolism, part i. chap. v., and in Newman's Lectures, iii. p.

66, and Lecture ix. passim.

KILLING OF SIR ALEXANDER BOSWELL.

Among the new books in England is one entitled "Modern State Trials" by

William C. Townsend, in two octavos. In the _Times_ of the second of

January we find a reviewal of it, characteristically pungent. "Why Mr.

Townsend conceived it necessary to dignify his collection with the above

solemn title," says the critic, "we are at a loss to conjecture. Madame

Tussaud does not invite a curiosity-seeking public to her museum of

horrors by disguising the naked hideousness of her groups, or by lending

them a factitious grace which it is hardly their interest to borrow. The

publication is essentially popular, was meant for general perusal, is

made up of any thing but technical details, and gives nothing to, as it

receives nothing from, purely professional lore. A batch of interesting

trials is very commendable, and need not be afraid of occupying its own

ground. That of Courvoisier for the murder of Lord William Russel, of

the Wakefields for the abduction of Miss Turner, of Lord Cardigan for

shooting in a duel, and of John Ambrose Williams for a libel on the

Durham clergy, cannot by any stretch of fancy be converted into _state_

prosecutions, though they fairly enough find admittance into a book

which treats of our _causes celebres_. The 'state' trials of the volume

before us are the ha'porth of bread to the gallons of sack. The

legitimate is paraded to call attention from the spurious, the vulgar is

to find respectability by walking arm in arm with the classical. There

was really no necessity for the 'sham.' A crooked stick on a heath has

its picturesqueness as well as the Corinthian column. We may be very

interesting rascals though we do not poke our walking-canes into the

face of majesty, or go out on a fool's errand against the Queen's lieges

with Mr. John Frost." The author's style is described as very

unsatisfactory, though full of pretension. He is "very bombastic, very

inexact, and strangely independent in the current of his thoughts and in

the arrangement of his words." But the _Times_ admits nevertheless the

interesting quality of the work, and in its own better language gives

the following _resume_ of one of the most celebrated cases stated in

it:--

"Of all the trials contained in these volumes none have a more

melancholy interest, perhaps, than that of Mr. Stuart, who was tried on

the tenth of June, 1822, before the High Court of Justiciary at

Edinburgh, for killing Sir Alexander Boswell in a duel. Mr. Stuart was,

of course, acquitted. He had been the aggrieved party; he had found it

necessary to the vindication of his honor to call his unfortunate

antagonist to account; he had been forced, by the cruel exaction of

public opinion, to expose his life to the weapon of a man he had never

offended, and who, indeed, in his heart, bore his involuntary murderer

no malice; and public opinion, expressed in the verdict of a jury, knew

better than to sentence to death the wretched victim of its own brutal

and unwarrantable edicts. Fortunately for the interests of humanity, we

have at length reached a period when it becomes unnecessary to protest

vehemently against the iron rule of an authority more despotic than that

of absolute kings, and far more cruel and oppressive than the laws which

but a few years ago attached the penalty of death to the commission of

almost pardonable offences. Society, with the acquirement of other

useful knowledge, has learned to appreciate the iniquitous folly of

murder perpetrated in cold blood, without the slightest excuse. The

nation which above all the countries of the world takes credit for

adapting its laws to the requirements of a rapidly advancing

civilization, has had courage to inquire why the savage vestige of an

exploded system should still dishonor its history and interfere with its

social progress. Duelling, as part and parcel of the national manners,

has ceased in England. No doubt random shots will yet from time to time

be heard, and weakness in its despair will occasionally seek refuge in

cowardice, which it mistakes for valor; but the mind of the majority is

made up. Duelling henceforth must be the exception, not the rule. Public

opinion will harmonize with the law, and honor it. It will protect the

injured, and hand over the offenders to the legitimate consequences of

their own misdeeds. It will not call upon a man first to endure wrong,

and then to lay bare his breast to the bullet of his aggressors.

"Our fathers were less fortunate than ourselves in this respect. Their

dilemma was fearful. The law took no account of those delicate injuries

under which sensitive honor pines, though no bruise or wound appears to

indicate the mischief; and, in self-defence, refinement set up the

bloodiest code brutality under the guise of chivalry could imagine or

invent. A quiet gentleman, sitting from morning till night in his

library, interfering with the pleasures and pursuits of none, amiable in

every relation of life, a stanch friend, a fond husband, a devoted

father, as useful a member of society as you might find in a day's

journey, and obnoxious only to political opponents, who fear him more

than he dislikes them, is called a 'liar,' a 'coward,' and a 'heartless

ruffian.' He is nothing of the kind; he is proudly conscious of this

fact; his accusers do not even believe it; the world--that portion of it

in which he moves--is satisfied that he is a remarkable instance of

truth, of courage, and extreme tenderness of spirit. The revilers have

made a great mistake or committed a disgraceful outrage. In either case,

since they are not amenable to law, you would think they might safely be

left to acquire better information and improve their manners. Not a bit

of it. The quiet gentleman's enemies have aimed a blow at his

reputation. They are good shots--which unfortunately he is not--and now

they must aim another at his life; society 'allows it,' and society

'awards it.' The quiet gentleman makes his will, kisses his children,

shuts up his books, sighs, and 'goes out.' The quiet gentleman is

killed; a million men could not restore the life one man has taken.

Society is distressed beyond expression; so is the murderer, who is all

sorrow and tenderness for the departed. There is general weeping, and

great unavailing regret, and much commiseration for the widow: and then

a mock trial, and no end of speechifying, beautiful remorse on the part

of the survivor, lovelier tributes to the memory of deceased, a verdict

of not guilty, and a dismissal of the murderer and his accomplices into

the world, which is worthy of them as they are worthy of it. The picture

represents a common event of the time of George the Third. Let us

confess that, degenerate as we are, we have changed, in some respects,

for the better since those 'good old days!'"

"Let us also bear in mind the main cause of our improvement! It is due

to the majesty of law, to state that, had she been less faithful,

society would have grown more reckless. Public opinion and the law of

the country have had a hard fight for the mastery, and had the latter

given way but an inch, the former would have found us to-day in the

hands and at the mercy of the bullies. Judges have never hesitated to

declare that murder which juries by their verdicts have as perseveringly

regarded as justifiable homicide. In vain have eloquent counsel risen to

prove that the prisoner bore his antagonist no ill-will; that he did not

'wickedly and maliciously' challenge his victim to fight; that he had

recourse to the sole means within his power to right himself with the

world; that society would have branded him eternally for a coward had he

held back; that he took up his weapon in self-defence precisely as a man

levels his gun at the house-breaker or the midnight assassin;--the

expounder of the law has still been proof against sophistry which, once

accepted, must tend inevitably to social disorganization. The

_deliberate resolution_ to kill a fellow-creature has nothing to do with

self-defence. To destroy another in cold blood is murder in the sight of

the law, and can assume no other aspect. But what availed it that the

judge stood firm by the statute, when juries as pertinaciously backed

the sentiment of the world and refused the law permission to take its

course? It availed much. The unseemly conflict has been carried on until

at length civilization has become shocked by the spectacle. The effect

of the ever-recurring encounter is something worse than ridiculous. It

has taken years to bring us to our senses, but we are rational at last.

Public opinion exercises its good sense, and since it cannot bring the

law into harmony with its desperate folly, deems it expedient to shape

its own views in conformity with unbending law. To slay in a duel is to

commit murder, though men do not hang for the crime. To be a murderer

with benefit of clergy is but an odious and irksome privilege after all!

"Sir Alexander was the eldest son of Dr. Johnson's Boswell. The

inimitable biographer was fortunate in his offspring. His sons inherited

all the virtues of their father, and none of his foibles. The social

good humor, the cleverness, the appreciation of learning, the

joviality,--every good quality, in fact, of Bozzy was reflected in his

children, who had the sense to discern and avoid the frailties that had

rendered the sire ridiculous in his own day, and illustrious for all

time. James Boswell, the youngest son of the biographer, an accomplished

scholar, superintended several editions of his father's great work, and

was held in high esteem by his contemporaries. He was a Commissioner of

Bankrupts when he suddenly died in London, in the prime of life, on the

24th day of February, 1822. Sir Alexander, who had been created a

baronet in 1821, attended his brother's funeral in London, and returned

to Scotland to meet his own death immediately afterwards. Sir Walter

Scott, warmly attached to both, was, we are informed, much affected by

the unexpected death of the baronet, who had dined with the novelist

only two or three days before the catastrophe, and, as usual, had been

the life and soul of the party assembled. 'That evening,' writes Mr.

Lockhart, 'was, I think, the gayest I ever spent in Castle-street; and

though Charles Matthews was present and in his best force, poor

Boswell's songs, jokes and anecdotes had exhibited no symptom of

eclipse.' Four years afterwards Sir Walter dined in company with Charles

Matthews again. The event is commemorated by a singular and

characteristic entry in Scott's Diary. 'There have been odd

associations,' he writes, 'attending my two last meetings with Matthews.

The last time I saw him before yesterday evening, he dined with me in

company with poor Sir Alexander Boswell, who was killed within a week.

I never saw Sir Alexander more. The time before was in 1815, when John

Scott, of Gala, and I, were returning from France, and passed through

London, when we brought Matthews down as far as Leamington. Poor Byron

lunched, or rather made an early dinner with us at Long's, and a most

brilliant day we had of it. I never saw Byron so full of fun, frolic,

wit, and whim; he was as playful as a kitten. Well, I never saw him

again. So this man of mirth has brought me no luck.'

"Sir Alexander had made the final arrangements for his duel the very day

he dined with Sir Walter. The circumstance in no way interfered with the

flow of spirits of a man who had, indeed, invited a violent death by

nothing more criminal than an over indulgence of ill-directed mirth. The

details of the duel are of the usual kind. In the early part of 1821, a

newspaper called the _Beacon_, destined not to survive the year, was set

up in Edinburgh in the Tory interest. The object of the publication was

to counteract the effect of Radical doctrines, which were making great

way in the northern metropolis under favor of the agitation that had

been set up on behalf of Queen Caroline. Sir Walter Scott himself had

been consulted upon the propriety of establishing the journal, and had

offered with others to help it by a gift of money at starting. The

_Beacon_ served any purpose but that of directing the public mind in the

path desired. The management of the paper, with which by the way the law

officers of the Crown foolishly connected themselves, was in all

respects disastrous. The proprietors shrank from the responsibility

which the bitter invective and satire of the more youthful and

unscrupulous editors hourly accumulated on their shoulders; the articles

of the paper were made the subject of Parliamentary discussion; and to

avoid consequences which it was not difficult to anticipate, the

concern, which had opened with flying colors in January, was suddenly

and ignominiously shut up for ever in August.

"Glasgow took up the weapon which Edinburgh dropped. A newspaper

appeared in the former city as the avowed defender of the cause and

assailant of the persons previously upheld and attacked by the defunct

Edinburgh journal. The _Sentinel_, as the Glasgow paper was called,

would hold his ground though the _Beacon_ was put out. It is much easier

to bequeath hatred and rancor than to communicate talent and genius. The

_Sentinel_ was abusive and licentious enough, but it had little to

recommend it on the score of ability. The _Beacon_ had made a personal

attack upon Mr. Stuart, a gentleman connected with some leading Whig

families, and the _Sentinel_, in pursuance of its vocation, fastened

upon the same luckless gentleman. The libel of the Edinburgh journalist

had been arranged. Mr. Stuart found out its author, and libeller and

libelled were prevented from doing further mischief by being bound over

to keep the peace. To keep the peace, however, in those days was to be

wanting in the very first element of chivalry, and, accordingly, Mr.

Stuart was pronounced by the _Sentinel_ a 'bully,' a 'coward,' a

'dastard,' and a 'sulky poltroon.' Furthermore, he was 'a heartless

ruffian,' 'a white feather,' and 'afraid of lead.' To vindicate his

character Mr. Stuart raised an action of damages, and, curiously enough,

he was twitted in the very court of justice to which he appealed for

protection, for not having recourse to the hostile measure which in his

despair he at last adopted, and for pursuing which he was tried for his

life. Abuse went on in spite of the action of damages; Mr. Stuart

finally addressed himself to the agent for the printer of the newspaper,

and the agent gave up the manuscripts from which the libels had been

printed. Mr. Stuart went to Glasgow to inspect them. He discovered his

assailant. The author of the worst calumnies against him was Sir

Alexander Boswell, 'a gentleman with whom he was somewhat related, and

with whom he had never been but upon good terms.' Mr. Stuart appealed to

a friend. He called in the advice of the Earl of Roslyn, who obtained an

interview with Sir Alexander Boswell, to whom he submitted two

propositions. One was, that the baronet should deny that the calumnies

were his; the other, that Sir Alexander should confess that the libel

was but a poor joke, for which he was sorry. 'I will neither deny nor

make apology,' answered Sir Alexander.

"A duel was now a matter of course. Sir Alexander left a paper behind

him, confessing that the meeting was inevitable, and Mr. Stuart made all

his preparations for death. One stands amazed in the presence of such

horrible play, such terrific childishness. The parties met; they fired

together, and Sir Alexander fell. Boswell, who would not allow that he

had written a squib, proudly fired in the air; Mr. Stuart took no aim,

and yet killed his man. When the deed was done, the murderer, frantic,

and 'dissolved in all the tenderness of an infant,' reproached himself

with exquisite simplicity that he had not taken aim, '_for if he had, he

was certain he would have missed him!_' whilst the dying man expressed a

corresponding anxiety lest 'he had not made his fire in the air appear

so decided as he could have wished.' So men speak and act who take leave

of their reason to play the fool in the high court of honor! A line

tells the rest of the history. Sir Alexander is removed from the field

and taken to the house of a friend. Mr. Stuart flies to the house of his

friend, runs into a room, shuts the door, sits down in agony of mind,

and bursts into tears. In due time he is put on his trial for murder,

the jury unanimously find him _Not Guilty_, and Lord Chief Justice Clerk

congratulates him on the verdict, although five minutes before he had

deliberately stated that 'duels are but illustrious murders,' and that

'no false punctilio or notion of honor can vindicate an act which

terminates fatally to another fellow-creature.'"

THE LATE DR. TROOST.

We recently noticed the death of the excentric German professor, Dr.

Troost, of Tennessee. His passion for all animals of the serpent kind

was well known, and we find it illustrated in this anecdote, related by

Sir Charles Lyell:

"Every thing of the serpent kind he has a particular fancy for, and has

always a number of them--that he has tamed--in his pockets or under his

waistcoat. To loll back in his rocking-chair, to talk about geology, and

pat the head of a large snake, when twining itself about his neck, is to

him supreme felicity. Every year in the vacation he makes an excursion

to the hills, and I was told that, upon one of these occasions, being

taken up by the stage-coach, which had several members of Congress in it

going to Washington, the learned Doctor took his seat on the top with a

large basket, the lid of which was not over and above well secured. Near

to this basket sat a Baptist preacher on his way to a great public

immersion. His reverence, awakening from a reverie he had fallen into,

beheld to his unutterable horror two rattlesnakes raise their fearful

heads out of the basket, and immediately precipitated himself upon the

driver, who, almost knocked off his seat, no sooner became apprised of

the character of his ophidian outside passengers, than he jumped upon

the ground with the reins in his hands, and was followed instanter by

the preacher. The 'insides,' as soon as they learned what was going on,

immediately became outsides, and nobody was left but the Doctor and his

rattlesnakes on the top. But the Doctor, not entering into the general

alarm, quietly placed his greatcoat over the basket, and tied it down

with his handkerchief, which, when he had done, he said, 'Gendlemen,

only don't let dese poor dings pite you, and day won't hoort you.'"

MADAME DACIER.

The husband of this celebrated woman (Andre Dacier) was born at Castres

in 1651, and studied at Saumur, under Tanneguy le Fevre, whose daughter

Anne he married in 1683. Both the husband and wife became eminent among

the classical scholars of the seventeenth century. They were employed

with others to comment upon and edit a series of the ancient authors,

for the Dauphin, which form the collection "Ad usum Delphini." Madame

Dacier's commentaries are considered as superior to those of her

husband. She edited "Callimachus," "Florus," "Aurelius Victor,"

"Etropius," and the history which goes by the name of "Dictys

Cretensis," all of which have been repeatedly reprinted, with her notes.

She published French translations of the "Amphitryon," "Rudens," and

"Lepidicus," of Plautus, with a good preface, of the comedies of

Terence, of the "Plutus," and "The Clouds," of Aristophanes, and of

Anacreon and Sappho. She also translated the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey,"

with a preface and notes. This led to a controversy between her and La

Motte, who had spoken slightingly of Homer. Madame Dacier wrote, in

1714, "Considerations sur les Causes de la Corruption du Gout," in which

she defended the cause of Homer with great vivacity, as she did also

against Father Hardouin, who had written an "Apology of Homer," which

was more a censure than an apology. The warmth, however, with which both

the Daciers resented any thing that was said against the ancient writers

was carried to the extreme, and had, at times, something ludicrous in

it. But Madame Dacier's enthusiasm was real, and unaccompanied by

pedantry or conceit. She died in 1820.

Original Poetry.

DUTY.

BY ALFRED B. STREET.

In changeless green, and grasping close the rock,

Up towers the mountain pine. The Winter blast

May like an ocean surge be on it cast;

Proud doth it stand, and stern defy the shock,

Unchanged in verdure and unbroke in crest,

Although wild throes may agitate its breast,

And clinging closer when the storm is gone,

Tired, but unbent upon its granite throne,

Not always doth it wrestle with the storm!

Skies smile; spring flowers make soft its iron roots;

Its sturdy boughs are kissed by breezes warm;

And birds gleam in and out with joyous flutes.

Duty proves not its strength unless defied,

But pleasure has it, too, bright as have hearts untried.

"SOUNDS FROM HOME."

BY ALICE B. NEAL.

Last night I dreamed of thee, beloved!

I held that tiny hand,--

Encircled by my clasping arm

Once more I saw thee stand,--

The blush so faint, yet fairly traced,

Rose to thy changing cheek--

As when upon thy brows were placed

Farewells I could not speak.

Thine eyes were filled with softened light,

But welcomes now I read,

As to my heart, by love's fond sight.

I gently drew thy head;

And oh, so eloquent were they--

So full of earnest truth,--

I knew what fain thy heart would say,

The promise of thy youth.

I knew that thou hadst faithful been

To vows of long ago:

That speeding time, and changing scene,

No change in thee could show,

That absence had but bound thy love

More firmly to its choice--

It needed not one word to prove,

One sound of thy loved voice.

Yes, silent was that long embrace,

Though tears flowed fast and free.

As gazing down in that dear face,

I read thy love for me;

And thought of all the lonely hours

When I had wildly yearned

To press thee thus unto my heart,

And feel my kiss returned.

Those midnight hours! by sea and land!

How heavily they sped!

Sometimes upon a surf-beat strand

My weary feet would tread,

And when the stars looked calmly down

From cloudless foreign skies--

Their soft light seemed a radiance thrown

From these pure, earnest eyes.

'Twas but a dream! the light breeze swept

Soft touches o'er my brow;

The spray's cold kiss my lips had met,

Oh, still afar art thou!

'Twas but a dream! and yet I heard

Thy murmured--"_Art_ thou come!"--

Then woke, to feel my spirit stirred

With these dear "sounds from home."

SCANDALOUS DANCES.

BROUGHT FROM FRENCH CASINOS TO AMERICAN PARLORS.

We have constantly reflected in our "good society" and "fashionable

world" every baseness and vulgarity that is invented _outre mer_,

particularly in Paris. One woman returns to smoke cigars, in a

magnificent home erected by a lucky mechanic or shopkeeper, as if such

an indecency had ever been tolerated among the well-born and well-bred

people of the social metropolis. Others, copying from their probable

associates abroad, introduce obscene dances, and other licentious

amusements, which for a season have baffled the police of foreign

cities, and boast of their superiority to "low prejudices." All the

travelled readers of the _International_, except clerks, agents,

_chevaliers d'industrie_, and fugitives from justice, know very well

that in all the world there is a show at least of moral where there is

real social elevation; that these abuses are not anywhere tolerated

among families which have kept their carriages for three generations.

But we proposed an introduction to a passage written from Paris to the

most aristocratic of the London magazines:--

"A new species of dancing, unknown to the Alberts, the Anatoles, the

Brocards, the Hullins, the Pauls, and the Noblets, has come into vogue

at the Jardin Mabille, and at the Grande Chaumiere, situated on the

Boulevard du Mont Parnasse, not far from the Barriere d'Enfer. This

dance is called the _Cancan_ and the _Chahut_. It is unlike the waltz,

the gavotte, the country dance, the Scotch reel, the Spanish Cachucha,

the Hungarian mazurka; is far worse than jota Arragonese, or the most

lascivious of Spanish dances of Andalusia. You may remember that in the

early days of Charles X. the police of Paris attempted and succeeded in

putting down gross and immodest dances; but under the reign of Louis

Philippe the spirit of libertinage and _degingandage_, to use a French

term, again broke out among the class of _debardeurs_, and towards the

close of 1845 became terrific to behold. You, who know me well, are

aware that I am the last person in the world who would seek to put an

end to any innocent amusement, or who would contend that the French

people should not dance. They have always danced, and will always dance,

to the end of time. They danced under Saint Louis, under Henry IV.,

under Louis XIV., under Napoleon, and why should not they dance now?

There is no reason in the world why they should not dance, if in dancing

they do not shock public modesty, and offend against public decorum. In

the time of Louis XIV. there were public dances at the Moulin de

Javelle; in the time of Napoleon there were dances in the Rue Coquenard,

and at the Porcherons, near the Rue St. Lazar. In the time of Louis

XVIII. and Charles X. there were dances at the Jardin de Tivoli. But at

none of these were decency outraged or morality shocked. At Tivoli, the

national pastime was indulged with decency and decorum, and although the

price on entering was so low as fifteen sous with a ticket, and thirty

sous without a ticket, and albeit the dancers were chiefly of the

humbler classes, yet, I repeat, in 1827, 1828, and 1829, public decency

was not shocked. But from the _bal masque_ of the Theatre des Varietes

in 1831, when, towards the close of the evening the lights were put out,

and the _ronde infernale_ was commenced, obscene and disgusting dances

were becoming more and more common in Paris, and continued to make

progress till February, 1848. They had attained the most unenviable

notoriety in 1845, when at the Bal Mabille a dance was introduced called

"La Reine Pomare." Then there was the "Cancan Eccentrique," introduced

by a personage called "La Princesse de Mogador," a feigned name, as you

may suppose, assumed by some _fille perdue_. These dances, commenced at

the Chaumiere and the Bal Mabille, were also introduced at the Bal

Montesquieu, at the Bal de la Cite d'Antin, and, if I mistake not, at

the Bal Valentino. The principal performers were students in law, in

medicine, in pharmacy, clerks, commis voyageurs, profligate tradesmen,

and lorettes, grisettes, _et filles de basse condition_.

"I must do the Provisional Government, so much abused, the justice to

say, that towards the close of 1848, when these disgusting dances were

again revived, the Gardiens de Paris interfered, and proceeded to clear

the room if they were persevered in. If this had been done in 1845 and

1846 by that austere minister, who so much boasted of his independence

and morality, events might have taken a different turn. But it is now

too late to speculate, and it is easy to be wise after the event. But M.

Guizot, his prefet de police, and the members of the Government, were

warned long before 1845-6 of the profound immorality and indecency of

these dances, and they made no effort to put a stop to them. It is

because these scandals are now in a course of revival that I advert to

this matter at such length. The subject is worthy the attention of M.

Carlier, the Prefet of Police, and of wiser heads than M. Carlier.

"_Selon qu'il est conduit_," said Richelieu, and he knew his nation

well; "_Selon qu'il est conduit le peuple Francais est capable de

tout._" I am no enemy of innocent recreation, as you are well aware, or

of harmless, convivial, social, or saltatory enjoyment. But if

lasciviousness, obscenity, or _des saletes_ be tolerated in public

places, a blow is struck at the very foundations of society. I may not,

even in a letter, enter into a minute description of these dances.

Suffice it to say, they would not be endured in England, even by women

who had fallen from the paths of virtue, unless their minds and hearts

were wholly debauched. You see, after so much light gossip, I end with a

sermon--a sermon which the least strait-laced would preach under the

circumstances."

THEATRICAL CRITICISM.

The following dramatic bulletin which appeared in a Dublin newspaper on

the first appearance of the celebrated Mrs. Siddons in that city, is

quite as good a critique and as free from blunders, as some which have

appeared in our own journals more recently:--

"On Saturday, May 30, 1784, Mrs. Siddons, about whom all the world has

been talking, exposed her beautiful, adamantine, soft and lovely person

for the first time, at the Smock Alley Theatre, in the bewitching,

tearful, and all melting character of Isabella. From the repeated

panegyrics in the impartial London newspapers, we were taught to expect

the sight of a heavenly angel; but how were we supernaturally surprised

into the most awful joy at beholding a mortal goddess. The house was

crowded with hundreds more than it could hold--with thousands of

admiring spectators who went away without obtaining a sight. This

extraordinary phenomenon of tragic excellence! this star of Melpomene!

this comet of the stage! this sun in the firmament of the muses! this

moon of blank verse! this queen and princess of tears! this Donellan of

the poisoned bowl! this empress of the pistol and dagger! this chaos of

Shakspeare! this world of weeping clouds! this Terpsichore of the

curtains and scenes! this Proserpine of fire and earthquake! this

Katterfelto of wonders! exceeded expectation, went beyond belief, and

soared above all the natural powers of description! she was nature

itself! she was the most exquisite work of art! she was the very daisy,

primrose, tube rose, sweet-briar, furze blossom, gilliflower,

wall-flower, cauliflower and rosemary! in short she was a bouquet of

Parnassus. Where expectation was raised so high, it was thought she

would be injured by her appearance; but it was the audience who were

injured--several of them fainted before the curtain was drawn up.

"When she came to the scene of parting with her wedding ring, ah! what a

sight was there! The very fiddlers in the orchestra, albeit unused to

the melting mood, blubbered like hungry children crying for their bread

and butter; and when the bell rang for music between the acts, the tears

fell from the bassoon player's eyes in such plentiful showers that they

choked the finger stops; and making a spout of that instrument, poured

in such torrents on the first fiddler's book, that, not seeing the

overture was in two sharps, the leader of the band actually played in

one flat. But the sobs and sighs of the groaning audience, and the noise

of cork drawing from the smelling bottles, prevented the mistakes

between flats and sharps being discovered.

"One hundred and nine ladies fainted, forty-six went into fits, and

ninety-five had strong hysterics! The world will hardly credit the

truth, when they are told that fourteen children, five women, one

hundred tailors and six common councilmen were actually drowned in the

inundation of tears that flowed from the galleries, the slips and the

boxes, to increase the briny pond in the pit; the water was three feet

deep, and the people that were obliged to stand upon the benches, were,

in that position, up to their ankles in tears!

"An act of parliament against her playing any more, will certainly

pass."

THE FRENCH GENERALS OF TO-DAY.

A clever writer in _Fraser's Magazine_, dating at Paris, writes:--

"Of Changarnier I shall not say much. He is as taciturn as M. L. N.

Bonaparte, _et possede un grand talent pour le silence_. Changarnier is

a man of great nerve and energy, and is perfectly up to street warfare

and to the management of the unruly Parisian population. He is popular

with the soldiery and with the higher officers. As to his having any

decided political opinions to which he would become a martyr, I don't

believe a word of it. He wishes to preserve order, and to save France

from anarchy; but, apart from this, would be guided by his personal

interests. If royalty, hereditary or elective, become the order of the

day--not a very likely occurrence within two or three years--he would

adjust himself to the national arrangement on the best terms, and throw

his sword into the scale that kicked the beam. But if the game of a

president is to be played for in 1852 and 1856, Changarnier may put

forward his own pretensions, as, at heart, he has neither love nor

reverence for the Tenth of December. In the event of a war, however,

Changarnier is more likely to look to the highest command, in which he

might win the marshal's baton, and thus become still more important,

personally, professionally, and politically. Military men, more

especially of the African school, seem to allow that Changarnier

possesses a rare combination of military qualities. Decision, energy,

bravery, and the _coup d'oeil_, he exhibits in the highest degree; but

he is, on the other hand, wholly without civil talents. He is no orator,

no speaker even, and seems to entertain as great a contempt for

_ideologues_ and deliberative assemblies as Napoleon himself. If

Changarnier were ever invested with supreme power, it would go hard, so

far as he was concerned, with the constitution and liberties of France."

There is in no country a more honorable, high-principled, and

conscientious soldier than Cavaignac. Of all the men produced by the

Revolution of 1848 (Lamartine and Dufaure were known as political men

before), Cavaignac appears the most single-minded, honorable, and

conscientious. Though a Republican _pur sang_, he yet rendered more

important services to order in June, 1848, than any one of the

Moderates, Royalists, or Burgraves, or generals of order, or than all of

them together. It is significant that Cavaignac has openly declared to

his friends--indeed, under his hand, that he will not support the

candidature of Louis Napoleon, should he present himself in 1852, or

become a party to any head of the Constitution.

Lamoriciere is, as a man and as a general, of infinite talent, and of

brilliant courage. He is a good man of business, a brilliant speaker,

and certainly has carried himself as a public character with

independence and honor.

Bedeau is a general of very considerable literary and scientific

talents, and perhaps of higher attainments in his profession than any

other of the generals of the African school; but he is said to be

deficient in energy, and unresolved, and of late he seems to be less

thought of as a man of action than as an organizer and administrator. In

the event of a war, it is likely the four men I speak of will play

brilliant parts; and in civil affairs, it is possible, if not certain,

that a great part may be reserved for Cavaignac.

WILLIAM PENN AND MACAULAY.

We find in the London _Times_ a reviewal of Mr. Forster's "Observations

on the Charges made in Mr. Macaulay's History of England against the

Character of William Penn," and transfer it to these pages, as likely to

be not less interesting to Americans than to Englishmen, since Penn's

name is most intimately connected with the history of this country. The

book reviewed has been republished in New-York by Mr. John Wiley.

"Mr. Macaulay will not be likely to take offence at a comparison of his

history with Burnet's, and certainly in one particular point the two

productions have been attended with remarkably similar effects. The

number of historical writers and pamphleteers who were called into being

by the honest Bishop's account of his own times was astonishing. Every

chapter in his narrative created a literary antagonist, and the spirit

thus called into being was really instrumental, to a very considerable

extent, in changing the whole style and tone of English history. It is

too early to predict a precisely similar issue of Mr. Macaulay's labors;

but things are certainly tending that way. There have been more

discussions upon points of English history within the last twelve months

than have usually occurred in as many years. The social and political

condition of our ancestors, the motives of great acts, the characters of

great men, and the general course of our national life for the last

century and a half, have of late been perpetually brought before the

public, and seldom without instructive results. It is not, of course,

every joust which yields a respectable show, but Mr. Macaulay's shield

has been once or twice struck by antagonists who have shown a title to

the encounter, and one of these is now in the lists with the pamphlet

specified below.

"Mr. Forster's challenge is on behalf of the personal character and

political conduct of the famous William Penn--"the arch-Quaker," whom he

conceives Mr. Macaulay to have treated with an injustice which, if it

did not result from deliberate prejudice, was at all events chargeable

to unbecoming negligence of inquiry. The cause thus asserted he defends

in fifty pages of not unreasonable argument, and supports by the liberal

quotation of accepted authorities. Unfortunately, the character of the

controversy is such that it is almost impossible either to arbitrate

conclusively between the parties or to convey an adequate idea of their

respective positions. Mr. Macaulay's fashion of writing, too, makes

sadly against any minute or critical investigation of his resources or

his deductions. His habit is to throw off a single complete sketch of a

character or a transaction, and at the foot of it to quote altogether

the various authorities, from certain passages of which he derived the

warrant for his own several touches. By this means we are incapacitated

from closely following his observations, and we can only infer, with

greater or less probability, what particular portion of a particular

authority served for the foundation of any particular statement. To some

extent this method of proceeding is inseparable from Mr. Macaulay's

style, and its obvious disadvantage must be set off against that

brilliancy and effect of the general picture which commands such

universal admiration. Mr. Macaulay writes as it were from impressions.

He consults and peruses the original records of the times he is

describing, and out of the general deductions thus instinctively drawn

his conception is formed. We believe this to be the best way of arriving

at general truths, but it is a practice which greatly limits the

application of ordinary tests of accuracy. Indeed, in many portions of

Mr. Macaulay's history, a reader can do little more than compare his own

previous impressions of the facts and scenes described with the

impression of the writer who is describing them. Many of his

descriptions are compounded of such numerous and minute ingredients,

picked here and there from such a variety of quarters, that they can

only be verified by a similar process to that in which they originated.

A signal exemplification of our meaning will be found in his delineation

of the character and position of the English clergy before the

Revolution. We not only believe ourselves that this sketch is

substantially correct, but we would even venture to say that the

impressions of well-informed and unprejudiced minds as to the general

truth would, in a majority of cases, coincide with our own. Yet of this

we are perfectly certain--that it would not only be possible but easy to

collect so many particular examples of a contrary tendency as would

wholly bewilder the judgment of an ordinary reader. Mr. Macaulay, in

fact, can too frequently only be judged by those who have followed, at

however humble a distance, his own track of study. The temptations to

this kind of writing will be considerably weaker in the case of the

volumes which are yet to come, and we may there, perhaps, hope for a

little more severity of quotation. Yet in the portraitures of

individual characters these inducements will still remain, nor can they

be very easily, or indeed very properly, overlooked.

"It is not enough to say that the character of an historical personage

is to be drawn from the authentic record of his actions. No doubt it is

so; but there are a thousand minute and almost indefinable suggestions,

arising from the perusal of these actions with all their circumstances,

which will exercise a most material influence upon the judgment. The

motives, for instance, of an action, must be almost always matter of

surmise, and yet upon these surmises the conclusion will mainly depend.

It is to this cause we must attribute the contradiction which such

conclusions occasionally exhibit, as in the conflicting characters drawn

by various hands of Archbishop Cranmer, of General Monk, of James II.,

or, as in the case before us, of William Penn. Nevertheless, Mr. Forster

does supply us with some means of estimating the justice and accuracy of

Mr. Macaulay's decision; but as our limits preclude any thing like a

comparison of the two theories in detail, we must confine ourselves to

communicating a general idea of the disputed points in continuation and

illustration of what we have already premised.

"William Penn, the Quaker, as we need hardly state, passed the early

part of his life under heavy persecutions on account of his religious

opinions. In the resolute spirit of fortitude with which he sustained

these sufferings he gave utterance to many rigid and uncompromising

doctrines. Things then took a turn with him, and from a poor persecuted

pietist he became a close client of Royalty, and almost the chief of

court favorites in an age of favoritism. That some of his sayings and

doings in these two strangely-contrasted scenes of his life should be a

little contradictory is, to say the least, no matter of wonder. Mr.

Macaulay, accordingly, giving him full credit for religious principle,

but not much for strength of mind, depicts the stubborn and fanatical

Quaker of former days as having become in the reign of King James the

compliant and, though well-meaning, not over-scrupulous agent of a

monarch, whose designs were directed against the civil and religious

liberty of his people. Mr. Forster, on the other hand, would ascribe

Penn's appearance in these scenes exclusively to his good and charitable

intentions. He would represent him solely as a peacemaker (which is,

perhaps, not far from the truth), and he would exculpate him from all

motives except those of charity; attributing to him a thorough and

undisguised repugnance to the king's evil designs, and a resolution

simply to realize out of these evil doings the great and permanent

blessing of religious liberty for his countrymen at large.

"The first bone of contention is the participation of Penn in that

nefarious transaction by which the Royal Maids of Honor extorted ransoms

from the poor Taunton girls who had welcomed the arrival of Monmouth. It

seems that the chief, if not the sole authority for Mr. Macaulay's

remarks on this head is contained in a letter of Sunderland's, preserved

in the State-Paper office, and addressed to "Mr. Penne." Mr. Forster,

therefore, disputes the identity of the two persons. Now, we think that

very few people, after a careful exercise of their judgment, would doubt

either that this letter was addressed to Penn, or that another,

subsequently alluded to, was written by him. Still we admit that its

phraseology does not bear out all Mr. Macaulay's circumstantial details

of the transaction, and it certainly cannot be denied that his conduct

was, to say the least, _susceptible_ of an interpretation which should

have called rather for the approval than the censure of the historian.

The principal subject, however, of the controversy is the share taken by

William Penn in the dealings of James with the Fellows of Magdalen

College, Oxford. We feel it very difficult to give any sufficient

statement of this case, not only by reason of our narrow limits, but for

want of words so to express ourselves as not to assume what one or other

of the disputants deny. Yet Mr. Forster must not complain if we assert

that William Penn, in this as in other questionable transactions, was,

if not an agent of the king, at least a kind of go-between, and

generally with an inclination towards that conclusion which James

desired. Perhaps he often interfered because nobody else could interfere

so beneficially--this we are very willing to allow, but, to take the

case now before us, it surely cannot be gainsayed that in his mediation,

if Mr. Forster will accept the term, between the king and the college,

he really did wish that, with as little unpleasantness as might be, the

college should submit to the king. And even if we accept as not proved

the allegation that he directly tempted the Fellows to perjury, yet Mr.

Forster must not ask us to believe that Penn would not have been a great

deal better pleased if the Fellows had quietly dropped the consideration

of their oaths, and surrendered their foundation to the Papists without

further struggle.

"We suspect the truth to be, that Mr. Macaulay has somewhat exceeded his

specified warrants, not in the design, but in the coloring. We believe

that many of Penn's acts were strangely inconsistent, if rigorously

noted, with his principles as previously professed, but we doubt whether

they will bear quite such hard words as Mr. Macaulay has given them.

Nevertheless, to recur to an expression which we employed before, we are

persuaded that in a majority of cases the _general impression_ of an

unbiassed inquirer would be more nearly in accordance with Mr.

Macaulay's sketch than with that flattering and stainless portrait which

Mr. Forster, at the conclusion of his remarks, would fain have drawn.

Mr. Macaulay may have painted his story a little too highly. His faults

are less in his verbs and substantives than in his adjectives and his

adverbs. Penn never in all probability became such an obsequious and

pliant-principled courtier as he is represented in this history, but the

simple facts which are authentically recorded of his court-life preclude

any notion of the high-souled and spotless character which Mr. Forster

would fain depict."

The subjects discussed in this volume have been much handled by our own

writers, and in several cases with very decided ability. We incline to

the side of Mr. Forster, throughout. An attentive study of the life of

William Penn reveals to our view a character of singular purity, and in

nearly all respects admirably composed. The judgment of Macaulay we hold

in very little esteem. It was said of Voltaire that he would sacrifice

Christ for an epigram; it may be said of Macaulay that he would

sacrifice as liberally for an antithesis. He labors always for effect,

and it must be admitted that he has evinced very extraordinary abilities

for this end; he never fails in variety, contrast, or grouping; hence

his popularity, and the absence from his pictures of the highest

elements of history.

Although in State Papers and in the Transactions of Societies in this

country, there is a large amount of important historical material in

relation to Penn, we have no creditable memoir of him; which is

remarkable, considering the attractive interest of the subject, and the

jealousy which has been displayed in various quarters respecting every

thing affecting his reputation.

A STORY WITHOUT A NAME.[17]

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE

BY G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.

_Continued from Page 216._

CHAPTER X.

The two horsemen rode on their way. Neither spoke for several minutes.

Sir Philip Hastings pondering sternly on all that had passed, and his

younger companion gazing upon the scene around flooded with the

delicious rays of sunset, as if nothing had passed at all.

Sir Philip, as I have shown the reader, had a habit of brooding over any

thing which excited much interest in his breast--nay more, of extracting

from it, by a curious sort of alchemy, essence very different from its

apparent nature, sometimes bright, fine, and beneficial, and others dark

and maleficient. The whole of the transaction just past disturbed him

much; it puzzled him; it set his imagination running upon a thousand

tracks, and most of them wrong ones; and thought was not willing to be

called from her vagaries to deal with any other subject than that which

preoccupied her.

The young stranger, on the other hand, seemed one of those characters

which take all things much more lightly. In the moment of action, he had

shown skill, resolution, and energy enough, but as he sat there on his

horse's back, looking round at every point of any interest to an admirer

of nature with an easy, calm and unconcerned air, no one who saw him

could have conceived that he had been engaged the moment before in so

fierce though short a struggle. There was none of the heat of the

combatant or the triumph of the victor in his air or countenance, and

his placid and equable expression of face contrasted strongly with the

cloud which sat upon the brow of his companion.

"I beg your pardon, sir, for my gloomy silence," said Sir Philip

Hastings, at length, conscious that his demeanor was not very courteous,

"but this affair troubles me. Besides certain relations which it bears

to matters of private concernment, I am not satisfied as to how I should

deal with the ruffian we have suffered to depart so easily. His assault

upon myself I do not choose to treat harshly; but the man is a terror to

the country round, committing many an act to which the law awards a very

insufficient punishment, but with cunning sufficient to keep within that

line, the passage beyond which would enable society to purge itself of

such a stain upon it; how to deal with him, I say, embarrasses me

greatly. I have committed him two or three times to prison already; and

I am inclined to regret that I did not, on this occasion, when he was in

the very act of breaking the law, send my sword through him, and I

should have been well justified in doing so."

"Nay, sir, methinks that would have been too much," replied his

companion; "he has had a fall, which, if I judge rightly, will be a

sufficient punishment for his assault upon you. According to the very

_lex talionis_, he has had what he deserves. If he has nearly broke your

arm, I think I have nearly broken his back."

"It is not his punishment for any offence to myself, sir, I seek,"

replied the baronet; "it is a duty to society to free it from the load

of such a man whenever he himself affords the opportunity of doing so.

Herein the law would have justified me, but even had it not been so, I

can conceive many cases where it may be necessary for the benefit of our

country and society to go beyond what the law will justify, and to make

the law for the necessity."

"Brutus, and a few of his friends, did so," replied the young stranger

with a smile, "and we admire them very much for so doing, but I am

afraid we should hang them, nevertheless, if they were in a position to

try the thing over again. The illustration of the gibbet and the statue

might have more applications than one, for I sincerely believe, if we

could revive historical characters, we should almost in all cases erect

a gallows for those to whom we now raise a monument."

Sir Philip Hastings turned and looked at him attentively, and saw his

face was gay and smiling. "You take all these things very lightly, sir,"

he said.

"With a safe lightness," replied the stranger.

"Nay, with something more," rejoined his companion; "in your short

struggle with that ruffian, you sprang upon him, and overthrew him like

a lion, with a fierce activity which I can hardly imagine really calmed

down so soon."

"O yes it is, my dear sir," replied the stranger, "I am somewhat of a

stoic in all things. It is not necessary that rapidity of thought and

action, in a moment of emergency, should go one line beyond the

occasion, or sink one line deeper than the mere reason. The man who

suffers his heart to be fluttered, or his passions to be roused, by any

just action he is called upon to do, is not a philosopher. Understand

me, however; I do not at all pretend to be quite perfect in my

philosophy; but, at all events, I trust I schooled myself well enough

not to suffer a wrestling match with a contemptible animal like that, to

make my pulse beat a stroke quicker after the momentary effort is over."

Sir Philip Hastings was charmed with the reply; for though it was a view

of philosophy which he could not and did not follow, however much he

might agree to it, yet the course of reasoning and the sources of

argument were so much akin to those he usually sought, that he fancied

he had at length found a man quite after his own heart. He chose to

express no farther opinion upon the subject, however, till he had seen

more of his young companion; but that more he determined to see. In the

mean time he easily changed the conversation, saying, "You seemed to be

a very skilful and practised wrestler, sir."

"I was brought up in Cornwall," replied the other, "though not a Cornish

man, and having no affinity even with the Terse and the Tees--an Anglo

Saxon, I am proud to believe, for I look upon that race as the greatest

which the world has yet produced."

"What, superior to the Roman?" asked Sir Philip.

"Ay, even so," answered the stranger, "with as much energy, as much

resolution, less mobility, more perseverance, with many a quality which

the Roman did not possess. The Romans have left us many a fine lesson

which we are capable of practising as well as they, while we can add

much of which they had no notion."

"I should like much to discuss the subject with you more at large," said

Sir Philip Hastings, in reply; "but I know not whether we have time

sufficient to render it worth while to begin."

"I really hardly know, either," answered the young stranger; "for, in

the first place, I am unacquainted with the country, and in the next

place, I know not how far you are going. My course tends towards a small

town called Hartwell--or, as I suspect it ought to be, Hartswell,

probably from some fountain at which hart and hind used to come and

drink."

"I am going a little beyond it," replied Sir Philip Hastings, "so that

our journey will be for the next ten miles together;" and with this good

space of time before him, the baronet endeavored to bring his young

companion back to the subject which had been started, a very favorite

one with him at all times.

But the stranger seemed to have his hobbies as well as Sir Philip, and

having dashed into etymology in regard to Hartwell, he pursued it with

an avidity which excluded all other topics.

"I believe," he said, not in the least noticing Sir Philip's

dissertation on Roman virtues--"my own belief is, that there is not a

proper name in England, except a few intruded upon us by the Normans,

which might not easily be traced to accidental circumstances in the

history of the family or the place. Thus, in the case of Aylesbury, or

Eaglestown, from which it is derived, depend upon it the place has been

noted as a resort for eagles in old times, coming thither probably for

the ducks peculiar to that place. Bristol, in Anglo Saxon, meaning the

place of a bridge, is very easily traceable; and Costa, or Costaford,

meaning in Anglo Saxon the tempter's ford, evidently derives its name

from monk or maiden having met the enemy of man or womankind at that

place, and having had cause to rue the encounter. All the Hams, all the

Tons, and all the Sons, lead us at once to the origin of the name, to

say nothing of all the points of the compass, all the colors of the

rainbow, and every trade that the ingenuity of man has contrived to

invent."

In vain Sir Philip Hastings for the next half hour endeavored to bring

him back to what he considered more important questions. He had

evidently had enough of the Romans for the time being, and indulged

himself in a thousand fanciful speculations upon every other subject but

that, till Sir Philip, who at one time had rated his intellect very

highly, began to think him little better than a fool. Suddenly, however,

as if from a sense of courtesy rather than inclination, the young man

let his older companion have his way in the choice of subject, and in

his replies showed such depth of thought, such a thorough acquaintance

with history, and such precise and definite views, that once more the

baronet changed his opinion, and said to himself, "This is a fine and

noble intellect indeed, nearly spoiled by the infection of a corrupt and

frivolous world, but which might be reclaimed, if fortune would throw

him in the way of those whose principles have been fixed and tried."

He pondered upon the matter for some short time. It was now completely

dark, and the town to which the stranger was going distant not a quarter

of a mile. The little stars were looking out in the heavens, peering at

man's actions like bright-eyed spies at night; but the moon had not

risen, and the only light upon the path was reflected from the flashing,

dancing stream that ran along beside the road, seeming to gather up all

the strong rays from the air, and give them back again with interest.

"You are coming very near Hartwell," said Sir Philip, at length; "but it

is somewhat difficult to find from this road, and being but little out

of my way, I will accompany you thither, and follow the high road

onwards."

The stranger was about to express his thanks, but the Baronet stopped

him, saying, "Not in the least, my young friend. I am pleased with your

conversation, and should be glad to cultivate your acquaintance if

opportunity should serve. I am called Sir Philip Hastings, and shall be

glad to see you at any time, if you are passing near my house."

"I shall certainly wait upon you, Sir Philip, if I stay any time in this

county," replied the other. "That, however, is uncertain, for I come

here merely on a matter of business, which may be settled in a few

hours--indeed it ought to be so, for it seems to me very simple.

However, it may detain me much longer, and then I shall not fail to take

advantage of your kind permission."

He spoke gravely, and little more was said till they entered the small

town of Hartwell, about half through which a large gibbet-like bar was

seen projecting from the front of a house, suspending a large board,

upon which was painted a star. The light shining from the windows of an

opposite house fell upon the symbol, and the stranger, drawing in his

rein, said, "Here is my inn, and I will now wish you good night, with

many thanks, Sir Philip."

"Methinks it is I should thank you," replied the Baronet, "both for a

pleasant journey, and for the punishment you inflicted on the ruffian

Cutter."

"As for the first," said the stranger, "that has been more than repaid,

if indeed it deserved thanks at all; and as for the other, that was a

pleasure in itself. There is a great satisfaction to me in breaking down

the self-confidence of one of these burly bruisers."

As he spoke, he dismounted, again wishing Sir Philip good night, and the

latter rode on upon his way. His meditations, as he went, were

altogether upon the subject of the young stranger; for, as I have shown,

Sir Philip rarely suffered two ideas to get any strong grasp of his mind

at the same time. He revolved, and weighed, and dissected every thing

the young man had said, and the conclusion that he came to was even more

favorable than at first. He seemed a man after his own heart, with just

sufficient differences of opinion and diversities of character to make

the Baronet feel a hankering for some opportunity of moulding and

modelling him to his own standard of perfection. Who he could be, he

could not by any means divine. That he was a gentleman in manners and

character, there could be no doubt. That he was not rich, Sir Philip

argued from the fact of his not having chosen the best inn in the little

town, and he might also conclude that he was of no very distinguished

family, as he had not thought fit to mention his own name in return for

the Baronet's frank invitation.

Busy with these thoughts Sir Philip rode on but slowly, and took nearly

half an hour to reach the gates of Mrs. Hazleton's park, though they

stood only two miles' distance from the town. He arrived before them at

length, however, and rang the bell. The lodge-keeper opened them but

slowly, and putting his horse to a quicker pace, Sir Philip trotted up

the avenue towards the house. He had not reached it, however, when he

heard the sound of horses feet behind him, and, as he was dismounting at

the door, his companion of the way rode quickly up and sprang to the

ground, saying, with a laugh--

"I find, Sir Philip, that we are both to enjoy the same quarters

to-night, for, on my arrival at Hartwell, I did not expect to visit this

house till to-morrow morning. Mrs. Hazelton, however, has very kindly

had my baggage brought up from the inn, and therefore I have no choice

but to intrude upon her to-night."

As he spoke the doors of the house were thrown open, servants came forth

to take the horses, and the two gentlemen were ushered at once into Mrs.

Hazleton's receiving-room.

CHAPTER XI.

Mrs. Hazleton was looking as beautiful as she had been at

twenty--perhaps more so; for the few last years before the process of

decay commences, sometimes adds rather than detracts from woman's

loveliness. She was dressed with great skill and taste too; nay, even

with peculiar care. The hair, which had not yet even one silver thread

in its wavy mass, was so arranged as to hide, in some degree, that

height and width of forehead which gave almost too intellectual an

expression to her countenance--which, upon some occasions, rendered the

expression (for the features were all feminine) more that of a man than

that of a woman. Her dress was very simple in appearance though costly

in material; but it had been chosen and fitted by the nicest art, of

colors which best harmonized with her complexion, and in forms rather to

indicate beauties than to display them.

Thus attired, with grace and dignity in every motion, she advanced to

meet Sir Philip Hastings, frankly holding out her hand to him, and

beaming on him one of her most lustrous smiles. It was all thrown away

upon him indeed; but that did not matter. It had its effect in another

quarter. She then turned to the younger gentleman with a greater degree

of reserve in manner, but yet, as she spoke to him and welcomed him to

her house, the color deepened on her cheek with a blush that would not

have been lost to Sir Philip if he had been at all in the custom of

making use of them. They had evidently met before, but not often; and

her words, "Good evening, Mr. Marlow, I am glad to see you at my house

at length," were said in the tone of one who was really glad, but did

not wish to show it too plainly.

"You have come with my friend, Sir Philip Hastings," she added; "I did

not know you were acquainted."

"Nor were we, my dear madam, till this evening," replied the Baronet,

speaking for himself and his companion of the road, "till we met by

accident on the hill-side on our way hither. We had a somewhat

unpleasant encounter with a notorious personage of the name of Tom

Cutter, which brought us first into acquaintance; though, till you

uttered it, my young friend's name was unknown to me."

"Tom Cutter! is that the man who poaches all my game?" said the lady, in

a musing tone.

Nor was she musing of Tom Cutter, or the lost game, or of the sins and

iniquities of poaching; neither one or the other. The exclamation and

inquiry taken together were only one of those little half-unconscious

stratagems of human nature, by which we often seek to amuse the other

parties in conversation--and sometimes amuse our own outward man

too--while the little spirit within is busily occupied with some

question which we do not wish our interlocutors to have any thing to do

with. She was asking herself, in fact, what had been the conversation

with which Sir Philip Hastings and Mr. Marlow had beguiled the

way--whether they had talked of her--whether they had talked of her

affairs--and how she could best get some information on the subject

without seeming to seek it.

She soon had an opportunity of considering the matter more at leisure,

for Sir Philip Hastings, with some remark as to "dusty dresses not being

fit for ladies' drawing-rooms," retired for a time to the chamber

prepared for him. The fair lady of the house detained Mr. Marlow indeed

for a few minutes, talking with him in a pleasant and gentle tone, and

making her bright eyes do their best in the way of captivating. She

expressed regret that she had not seen him more frequently, and

expressed a hope, in very graceful terms, that even the painful

question, which those troublesome men of law had started between them,

might be a means of ripening their acquaintance into friendship.

The young gentleman replied with all gallantry, but with due discretion,

and then retired to his room to change his dress. He certainly was a

very good-looking young man; finely formed, and with a pleasing though

not regularly handsome countenance; and perhaps he left Mrs. Hazleton

other matters to meditate of than the topics of his conversation with

Sir Philip Hastings. Certain it is, that when the baronet returned very

shortly after, he found his beautiful hostess in a profound reverie,

from which his sudden entrance made her start with a bewildered look not

common to her.

"I am very glad to talk to you for a few moments alone, my dear friend,"

said Mrs. Hazleton, after a moment's pause. "This Mr. Marlow is the

gentleman who claims the very property on which you now stand;" and she

proceeded to give her hearer, partly by spontaneous explanations, partly

by answers to his questions, her own view of the case between herself

and Mr. Marlow; laboring hard and skilfully to prepossess the mind of

Sir Philip Hastings with a conviction of her rights as opposed to that

of her young guest.

"Do you mean to say, my dear madam," asked Sir Philip, "that he claims

the whole of this large property? That would be a heavy blow indeed."

"Oh, dear, no," replied the lady; "the great bulk of the property is

mine beyond all doubt, but the land on which this house stands, and

rather more than a thousand acres round it, was bought by my poor father

before I was born, I believe, as affording the most eligible site for a

mansion. He never liked the old house near your place, and built this

for himself. Mr. Marlow's lawyers now declare that his grand-uncle, who

sold the land to my father, had no power to sell it; that the property

was strictly entailed."

"That will be easily ascertained," said Sir Philip Hastings; "and I am

afraid, my dear madam, if that should prove the case, you will have no

remedy but to give up the property."

"But is not that very hard?" asked Mrs. Hazleton, "the Marlows certainly

had the money."

"That will make no difference," replied Sir Philip, musing; "this young

man's grand-uncle may have wronged your father; but he is not

responsible for the act, and I am very much afraid, moreover, that his

claim may not be limited to the property itself. Back rents, I suspect,

might be claimed."

"Ay, that is what my lawyer, Mr. Shanks, says," replied Mrs. Hazleton,

with a bewildered look; "he tells me that if Mr. Marlow is successful in

the suit, I shall have to pay the whole of the rents of the land. But

Shanks added that he was quite certain of beating him if we could retain

for our counsel Sargeant Tutham and Mr. Doubledo."

"Shanks is a rogue," said Sir Philip Hastings, in a calm, equable tone;

"and the two lawyers you have named bear the reputation of being learned

and unscrupulous men. The first point, my dear madam, is to ascertain

whether this young gentleman's claim is just, and then to deal with him

equitably, which, in the sense I affix to the term, may be somewhat

different from legal."

"I really do not know what to do," cried Mrs. Hazleton, with a slight

laugh, as if at her own perplexity. "I was never in such a situation in

my life;" and then she added, very rapidly and in a jocular tone, as if

she were afraid of pausing upon or giving force to any one word, "if my

poor father had been alive, he would have settled it all after his own

way soon enough. He was a great match-maker you know, Sir Philip, and he

would have proposed, in spite of all obstacles, a marriage between the

two parties, to settle the affair by matrimony instead of by law," and

she laughed again as if the very idea was ridiculous.

Unlearned Sir Philip thought so too, and most improperly replied, "The

difference of age would of course put that out of the question;" nor

when he had committed the indiscretion, did he perceive the red spot

which came upon Mrs. Hazleton's fair brow, and indicated sufficiently

enough the effect his words had produced. There was an ominous silent

pause, however, for a minute, and then the Baronet was the person to

resume the discourse in his usual calm, argumentative tone. "I do not

think," he said, "from Mr. Marlow's demeanor or conversation, that he is

likely to be very exacting in this matter. His claim, however, must be

looked to in the first place, before we admit any thing on your part. If

the property was really entailed, he has undoubtedly a right to it, both

in honesty and in law; but methinks there he might limit his claim if

his sense of real equity be strong; but the entail must be made

perfectly clear before you can admit so much as that."

"Well, well, sir," said Mrs. Hazleton, hastily, for she heard a step on

the outer stairs, "I will leave it entirely to you, Sir Philip, I am

sure you will take good care of my interests."

Sir Philip did not altogether like the word interests, and bowing his

head somewhat stiffly, he added, "and of your honor, my dear madam."

Mrs. Hazleton liked his words as little as he did hers, and she colored

highly. She made no reply, indeed, but his words that night were never

forgotten.

The next moment Mr. Marlow entered the room with a quiet, easy air,

evidently quite unconscious of having been the subject of conversation.

During the evening he paid every sort of polite attention to his fair

hostess, and undoubtedly showed signs and symptoms of thinking her a

very beautiful and charming woman. Whatever was her game, take my word

for it, reader, she played it skilfully, and the very fact of her

retiring early, at the very moment when she had made the most favorable

impression, leaving Sir Philip Hastings to entertain Mr. Marlow at

supper, was not without its calculation.

As soon as the lady was gone, Sir Philip turned to the topic of Mrs.

Hazleton's business with his young companion, and managed the matter

more skilfully than might have been expected. He simply told him that

Mrs. Hazleton had mentioned a claim made upon her estate by his lawyers,

and had thought it better to leave the investigation of the affair to

her friend, rather than to professional persons.

A frank good-humored smile came upon Mr. Marlow's face at once. "I am

not a rich man, Sir Philip," he said, "and make no professions of

generosity, but, at the same time, as my grand-uncle undoubtedly had

this money from Mrs. Hazleton's father, I should most likely never have

troubled her on the subject, but that this very estate is the original

seat of our family, on which we can trace our ancestors back through

many centuries. The property was undoubtedly entailed, my father and my

uncle were still living when it was sold, and performed no disentailing

act whatever. This is perfectly susceptible of proof, and though my

claim may put Mrs. Hazleton to some inconvenience, I am anxious to avoid

putting her to any pain. Now I have come down with a proposal which I

confidently trust you will think reasonable. Indeed, I expected to find

her lawyer here rather than an independent friend, and I was assured

that my proposal would be accepted immediately, by persons who judged of

my rights more sanely perhaps than I could."

"May I hear what the proposal is?" asked Sir Philip.

"Assuredly," replied Mr. Marlow, "it is this: that in the first place

Mrs. Hazleton should appoint some gentleman of honor, either at the bar

or not, as she may think fit, to investigate my claim, with myself or

some other gentleman on my part, with right to call in a third as umpire

between them. I then propose that if my claim should be distinctly

proved, Mrs. Hazleton should surrender to me the lands in question, I

repaying her the sum which my grand-uncle received, and--"

"Stay," said Sir Philip Hastings, "are you aware that the law would not

oblige you to do that?"

"Perfectly," replied Mr. Marlow, "and indeed I am not very sure that

equity would require it either, for I do not know that my father ever

received any benefit from the money paid to his uncle. He may have

received a part however, without my knowing it, for I would rather err

on the right side than on the wrong. I then propose that the rents of

the estate, as shown by the leases, and fair interest upon the value of

the ground surrounding this house, should be computed during the time

that it has been out of our possession, while on the other hand the

legal interest of the money paid for the property should be calculated

for the same period, the smaller sum deducted from the larger, and the

balance paid by me to Mrs. Hazleton or by Mrs. Hazleton to me, so as to

replace every thing in the same state as if this unfortunate sale had

never taken place."

Sir Philip Hastings mused without reply for more than one minute. That

is a long time to muse, and many may be the thoughts and feelings which

pass through the breast of man during that space. They were many in the

present instance; and it would not be very easy to separate or define

them. Sir Philip thought of all the law would have granted to the young

claimant under the circumstances of the case: the whole property, all

the back rents, every improvement that had been made, the splendid

mansion in which they were then standing, without the payment on his

part of a penny: he compared these legal rights with what he now

proposed, and he saw that he had indeed gone a great way on the generous

side of equity. There was something very fine and noble in this conduct,

something that harmonized well with his own heart and feelings. There

was no exaggeration, no romance about it: he spoke in the tone of a man

of business doing a right thing well considered, and the Baronet was

satisfied in every respect but one. Mrs. Hazleton's words I must not say

had created a suspicion, but had suggested the idea that other feelings

might be acting between her and his young companion, notwithstanding the

difference of age which he had so bluntly pointed out, and he resolved

to inquire farther.

In the mean time, however, Mr. Marlow somewhat misinterpreted his

silence, and he added, after waiting longer than was pleasant, "Of

course you understand, Sir Philip, that if two or three honest men

decide that my case is unfounded--although I know that cannot be the

case--I agree to drop it at once and renounce it for ever. My solicitors

and counsel in London judged the offer a fair one at least."

"And so do I," said Sir Philip Hastings, emphatically; "however, I must

speak with Mrs. Hazleton upon the subject, and express my opinion to

her. Pray, have you the papers regarding your claim with you?"

"I have attested copies," replied Mr. Marlow, "and I can bring them to

you in a moment. They are so unusually clear, and seem to put the matter

so completely beyond all doubt, that I brought them down to satisfy Mrs.

Hazleton and her solicitor, without farther trouble, that my demand at

least had some foundation in justice."

The papers were immediately brought, and sitting down deliberately, Sir

Philip Hastings went through them with his young friend, carefully

weighing every word. They left not even a doubt on his mind; they seemed

not to leave a chance even for the chicanery of the law, they were

clear, precise, and definite. And the generosity of the young man's

offer stood out even more conspicuously than before.

"For my part, I am completely satisfied," said Sir Philip Hastings, when

he had done the examination, "and I have no doubt that Mrs. Hazleton

will be so likewise. She is an excellent and amiable person, as well as

a very beautiful woman. Have you known her long? have you seen her

often?"

"Only once, and that about a year ago," replied Mr. Marlow; "she is

indeed very beautiful as you say--for a woman of her period of life

remarkably so; she puts me very much in mind of my mother, whom I in the

confidence of youthful affection used to call 'my everlasting.' I

recollect doing so only three days before the hand of death wrote upon

her brow the vanity of all such earthly thoughts."

Sir Philip Hastings was satisfied. There was nothing like passion there.

Unobservant as he was in most things, he was more clear-sighted in

regard to matters of love, than any other affection of the human mind.

He had himself loved deeply and intensely, and he had not forgotten it.

It was necessary, before any thing could be concluded, to wait for Mrs.

Hazleton's rising on the following morning; and, bidding Mr. Marlow good

night with a warm grasp of the hand, Sir Philip Hastings retired to his

room and passed nearly an hour in thought, pondering the character of

his new acquaintance, recalling every trait he had remarked, and every

word he had heard. It was a very satisfactory contemplation. He never

remembered to have met with one who seemed so entirely a being after his

own heart. There might be little flaws, little weaknesses perhaps, but

the confirming power of time and experience would, he thought,

strengthen all that was good, and counsel and example remedy all that

was weak or light.

"At all events," thought the Baronet, "his conduct on this occasion

shows a noble and equitable spirit. We shall see how Mrs. Hazleton meets

it to-morrow."

When that morrow came, he had to see the reverse of the picture, but it

must be reserved for another chapter.

CHAPTER XII.

Mrs. Hazleton was up in the morning early. She was at all times an early

riser, for she well knew what a special conservator of beauty is the

morning dew, but on this occasion certain feelings of impatience made

her a little earlier than usual. Besides, she knew that Sir Philip

Hastings was always a matutinal man, and would certainly be in the

library before she was down. Nor was she disappointed. There she found

the Baronet reaching up his hand to take down Livy, after having just

replaced Tacitus.

"It is a most extraordinary thing, my dear madam," said Sir Philip,

after the salutation of the morning, "and puzzles me more than I can

explain."

Mrs. Hazleton fancied that her friend had discovered some very knotty

point in the case with Mr. Marlow, and she rejoiced, for her object was

not to emulate but to entangle. Sir Philip, however, went on to put her

out of all patience by saying, "How the Romans, so sublimely virtuous at

one period of their history, could fall into so debased and corrupt a

state as we find described even by Sallust, and depicted in more

frightful colors still by the latter historians of the empire."

Mrs. Hazleton, as I have said, was out of all patience, and ladies in

that state sometimes have recourse to homely illustration. "Their virtue

got addled, I suppose," she replied, "by too long keeping. Virtue is an

egg that won't bear sitting upon--but now do tell me, Sir Philip, had

you any conversation with Mr. Marlow last night upon this troublesome

affair of mine?"

"I had, my dear madam," replied Sir Philip, with a very faint smile, for

Sir Philip could not well bear any jesting on the Romans. "I did not

only converse with Mr. Marlow on the subject, but I examined carefully

the papers he brought down with him, and perceived at once that you have

not the shadow of a title to the property in question."

Mrs. Hazleton's brow grew dark, and she replied in a somewhat sullen

tone, "You decided against me very rapidly, Sir Philip. I hope you did

not let Mr. Marlow see your strong prepossession--opinion I mean to

say--in his favor."

"Entirely," replied Sir Philip Hastings.

Mrs. Hazleton was silent, and gazed down upon the carpet as if she were

counting the threads of which it was composed, and finding the

calculation by no means satisfactory.

Sir Philip let her gaze on for some time, for he was not very easily

moved to compassion in cases where he saw dishonesty of purpose as well

as suffering. At length, however, he said, "My judgment is not binding

upon you in the least; I tell you simply, my dear madam, what is my

conclusion, and the law will tell you the same."

"We shall see," muttered Mrs. Hazleton between her teeth; but then

putting on a softer air she asked, "Tell me, Sir Philip, would you, if

you were in my situation, tamely give up a property which was honestly

bought and paid for, without making one struggle to retain it?"

"The moment I was convinced I had no legal right to it," replied Sir

Philip. "However, the law is still open to you, if you think it better

to resist; but before you take your determination, you had better hear

what Mr. Marlow proposes, and you will pardon me for expressing to you

what I did not express to him: an opinion that his proposal is founded

upon the noblest view of equity."

"Indeed," said Mrs. Hazleton, with her eyes brightening, "pray let me

hear this proposal."

Sir Philip explained it to her most distinctly, expecting that she would

be both surprised and pleased, and never doubted that she would accept

it instantly. Whether she was surprised or not, did not appear, but

pleased she certainly was not to any great extent, for she did not wish

the matter to be so soon concluded. She began to make objections

immediately. "The enormous expense of building this house has not been

taken into consideration at all, and it will be very necessary to have

the original papers examined before any thing is decided. There are two

sides to every question, my dear Sir Philip, and we cannot tell that

other papers may not be found, disentailing this estate before the sale

took place."

"This is impossible," answered Sir Philip Hastings, "if the papers

exhibited to me are genuine, for this young gentleman, on whom, as his

father's eldest son, the estate devolved by the entail, was not born

when the sale took place. By his act only could it be disentailed, and

as he was not born, he could perform no such act."

He pressed her hard in his cold way, and it galled her sorely.

"Perhaps they are not genuine," she said at length.

"They are all attested," replied Sir Philip, "and he himself proposes

that the originals should be examined as the basis of the whole

transaction."

"That is absolutely necessary," said Mrs. Hazleton, well satisfied to

put off decision even for a time. But Sir Philip would not leave her

even that advantage.

"I think," he said, "you must at once decide whether you accept his

proposal, on condition that the examination of the papers proves the

justice of his claim to the satisfaction of those you may appoint to

examine it. If there are any doubts and difficulties to be raised

afterwards, he might as well proceed by law at once."

"Then let him go to law," exclaimed Mrs. Hazleton with a flashing eye.

"If he do, I will defend every step to the utmost of my power."

"Incur enormous expense, give yourself infinite pain and mortification,

and ruin a fine estate by a spirit of unnecessary and unjust

resistance," added Sir Philip, in a calm and somewhat contemptuous tone.

"Really, Sir Philip, you press me too hard," exclaimed Mrs. Hazleton in

a tone of angry mortification, and, sitting down to the table, she

actually wept.

"I only press you for your own good," answered the Baronet, not at all

moved, "you are perhaps not aware that if this gentleman's claim is

just, and you resist it, the whole costs will fall upon you. All that

could be expected of him was to submit his claim to arbitration, but he

now does more; he proposes, if arbitration pronounce it just, to make

sacrifices of his legal rights to the amount of many thousand pounds. He

is not bound to refund one penny paid for this estate, he is entitled to

back rents for a considerable number of years, and yet he offers to

repay the money, and far from demanding the back rents, to make

compensation for any loss of interest that may have been sustained by

this investment. There are few men in England, let me tell you, who

would have made such a proposal, and if you refuse it you will never

have such another."

"Do not you think, Sir Philip," asked Mrs. Hazleton sharply, "that he

never would have made such a proposal if he had not known there was

something wrong about his title?"

Now there was something in this question which doubly provoked Sir

Philip Hastings. He never could endure a habit which some ladies have of

recurring continually to points previously disposed of, and covering the

reiteration by merely putting objections in a new form. Now the question

as to the validity of Mr. Marlow's title, he looked upon as entirely

disposed of by the proposal of investigation and arbitration. But there

was something more than this; the very question which the lady put

showed an incapacity for conceiving any generous motive, which

thoroughly disgusted him, and, turning with a quiet step to the window,

he looked down upon the lawn which spread far away between two ranges of

tall fine wood, glowing in the yellow sunshine of a dewy autumnal

morning. It was the most favorable thing he could have done for Mrs.

Hazleton. Even the finest and the strongest and the stoutest minds are

more frequently affected unconsciously by external things than any one

is aware of. The sweet influences or the irritating effects of fine or

bad weather, of beautiful or tame scenery, of small cares and petty

disappointments, of pleasant associations or unpleasant memories, nay of

a thousand accidental circumstances, and even fancies themselves, will

affect considerations totally distinct and apart, as the blue or yellow

panes of a stained glass window cast a melancholy hue or a yellow

splendor upon the statue and carvings of the cold gray stone.

As Sir Philip gazed forth upon the fair scene before his eyes, and

thought what a lovely spot it was, how calm, how peaceful, how

refreshing in its influence, he said to himself, "No wonder she is

unwilling to part with it."

Then again, there was a hare gambolling upon the lawn, at a distance of

about a hundred yards from the house, now scampering along and beating

up the dew from the morning grass, now crouched nearly flat so as hardly

to be seen among the tall green blades, then hopping quietly along with

an awkward, shuffling gait, or sitting up on its hind legs, with raised

ears, listening to some distant sound; but still as it resumed its

gambols, again going round and round, tracing upon the green sward a

labyrinth of meandering lines. Sir Philip watched it for several moments

with a faint smile, and then said to himself, "It is the beast's

nature--why not a woman's?"

Turning himself round he saw Mrs. Hazleton, sitting at the table with

her head leaning in a melancholy attitude upon her hand, and he replied

to her last words, though he had before fully made up his mind to give

them no answer whatever.

"The question in regard to title, my dear madam," he said, "is one which

is to be decided by others. Employ a competent person, and he will

insure, by full investigation, that your rights are maintained entire.

Your acceptance of Mr. Marlow's proposals contingent on the full

recognition of his claim, will be far from prejudicing your case, should

any flaw in your title be discovered. On the contrary, should the

decision of a point of law be required, it will put you well with the

court. By frankly doing so, you also meet him in the same spirit in

which I am sure he comes to you; and as I am certain he has a very high

sense of equity, I think he will be well inclined to enter into any

arrangement which may be for your convenience. From what he has said

himself, I do not believe he can afford to keep such an establishment as

is necessary for this house, and if you cling to it, as you may well do,

doubtless it may remain your habitation as long as you please at a very

moderate rent. Every other particular I think may be settled in the same

manner, if you will but show a spirit of conciliation, and----"

"I am sure I have done that," said Mrs. Hazleton, interrupting him.

"However, Sir Philip, I will leave it all to you. You must act for me in

this business. If you think it right, I will accept the proposal

conditionally as you mention, and the title can be examined fully

whenever we can fix upon the time and the person. All this is very hard

upon me, I do think; but I suppose I must submit with a good grace."

"It is certainly the best plan," replied Sir Philip; and while Mrs.

Hazleton retired to efface the traces of tears from her eyelids, the

Baronet walked into the drawing-room, where he was soon after joined by

Mr. Marlow. He merely told him, however, that he had conversed with the

lady of the house, and that she would give him her answer in person.

Now, whatever were Mrs. Hazleton's wishes or intentions, she certainly

was not well satisfied with the precise and rapid manner in which Sir

Philip brought matters of business to an end. His last words, however,

had afforded her a glimmering prospect of somewhat lengthy and frequent

communication between herself and Mr. Marlow, and one thing is certain,

that she did not at all desire the transaction between them to be

concluded too briefly. At the same time, it was not her object to appear

otherwise than in the most favorable light to his eyes; and

consequently, when she entered the drawing-room she held out her hand to

him with a gracious though somewhat melancholy smile, saying, "I have

had a long conversation with Sir Philip this morning, Mr. Marlow,

concerning the very painful business which brought you here. I agree at

once to your proposal in regard to the arbitration and the rest;" and

she then went on to speak of the whole business as if she had made not

the slightest resistance whatever, but had been struck at once by the

liberality of his proposals, and by the sense of equity which they

displayed. Sir Philip took little notice of all this; for he had fallen

into one of his fits of musing, and Mr. Marlow had quitted the room to

bring some of the papers for the purpose of showing them to Mrs.

Hazleton, before the Baronet awoke out of his reverie. The younger

gentleman returned a moment after, and he and Sir Philip and Mrs.

Hazleton were busily looking at a long list of certificates of births,

deaths and marriages, when the door opened, and Mr. Shanks, the

attorney, entered the room, booted, spurred, and dusty as if from a long

ride. He was a man to whom Sir Philip had a great objection; but he said

nothing, and the attorney with a tripping step advanced towards Mrs.

Hazleton.

The lady looked confused and annoyed, and in a hasty manner put back the

papers into Mr. Marlow's hand. But Mr. Shanks was one of the keen and

observing men of the world. He saw every thing about him as if he had

been one of those insects which have I do not know how many thousand

pair of lenses in each eye. He had no scruples or hesitation either; he

was all sight and all remark, and a lady of any kind was not at all the

person to inspire him with reverence.

He was, in short, all law, and loved nothing, respected nothing, but

law.

"Dear me, Mrs. Hazleton," he exclaimed, "I did not expect to find you so

engaged. These seem to be law papers--very dangerous, indeed, madam, for

unprofessional persons to meddle with such things. Permit me to look at

them;" and he held out his hand towards Mr. Marlow, as if expecting to

receive the papers without a word of remonstrance. But Mr. Marlow held

them back, saying, in a very calm, civil tone, "Excuse me, sir! We are

conversing over the matter in a friendly manner; and I shall show them

to a lawyer only at Mrs. Hazleton's request."

"Very improper--that is, I mean to say very unprofessional!" exclaimed

Mr. Shanks, "and let me say very hazardous too," rejoined the lawyer

abruptly; but Mrs. Hazleton herself interposed, saying in a marked tone

and with an air of dignity which did not always characterize her

demeanor towards her "right hand man," as she was accustomed sometimes

to designate Mr. Shanks, "We do not desire any interference at this

moment, my good sir. I appointed you at twelve o'clock. It is not yet

nine." "O I can see, I can see," replied Mr. Shanks, while Sir Philip

Hastings advanced a step or two, "his worship here never was a friend of

mine, and has no objection to take a job or two out of my hands at any

time."

"We have nothing to do with jobs, sir," said Sir Philip Hastings, in his

usual dry tone, "but at all events we do not wish you to make a job

where there is none."

"I must take the liberty, however, of warning that lady, sir," said Mr.

Shanks, with the pertinacity of a parrot, which he so greatly resembled,

"as her legal adviser, sir, that if----"

"That if she sends for an attorney, she wants him at the time she

appoints," interposed Sir Philip; "that was what you were about to say,

I suppose."

"Not at all, sir, not at all," exclaimed the lawyer; for very shrewd and

very oily lawyers will occasionally forget their caution and their

coolness when they see the prospect of a loss of fees before them. "I

was going to say no such thing. I was going to warn her not to meddle

with matters of business of which she can understand nothing, by the

advice of those who know less, and who may have jobs of their own to

settle while they are meddling with hers." "And I warn you to quit this

room, sir," said Sir Philip Hastings, a bright spot coming into his

usually pale cheek; "the lady has already expressed her opinion upon

your intrusion, and depend upon it, I will enforce mine."

"I shall do no such thing, sir, till I have fully----"

He said no more, for before he could conclude the sentence, the hand of

Sir Philip Hastings was upon his collar with the grasp of a giant, and

although he was a tall and somewhat powerful man, the Baronet dragged

him to the door in despite of his half-choking struggles, as a nurse

would haul along a baby, pulled him across the stone hall, and opening

the outer door with his left hand, shot him down the steps without any

ceremony; leaving him with his hands and knees upon the terrace.

This done, the Baronet returned into the house again, closing the door

behind him. He then paused in the hall for an instant, reproaching

himself for certain over-quick beatings of the heart, tranquillized his

whole look and demeanor, and then returning to the drawing-room, resumed

the conversation with Mrs. Hazleton, as if nothing had ever occurred to

interrupt it.

CHAPTER XIII.

Mrs. Hazleton was or affected to be a good deal flustered by the event

which had just taken place, but after a number of certain graceful

attitudes, assumed without the slightest appearance of affectation, she

recovered her calmness, and proceeded with the business in hand. That

business was soon terminated, so far as the full and entire acceptance

of Mr. Marlow's proposal went, and immediately after the conclusion of

breakfast, Sir Philip Hastings ordered his horses to depart. Mrs.

Hazleton fain would have detained him, for she foresaw that his going

might be a signal for Mr. Marlow's going also, and it was not a part of

her policy to assume the matronly character so distinctly as to invite

him to remain in her house alone. Sir Philip however was inexorable, and

returned to his own dwelling, renewing his invitation to his new

acquaintance.

Mrs. Hazleton bade him adieu, with the greatest appearance of

cordiality; but I am very much afraid, if one had possessed the power of

looking into her heart, one would have a picture very different from

that presented by her face. Sir Philip Hastings had said and done things

since he had entered her dwelling the night before, which Mrs. Hazleton

was not a woman to forget or forgive. He had thwarted her schemes, he

had mortified her vanity, he had wounded her pride; and she was one of

those women who bide their time, but have a strong tenacity of

resentments.

When he was gone, however, she played a new game with Mr. Marlow. She

insisted upon his remaining for the day, but with a fine sense of

external proprieties, she informed him that she expected a charming

elderly lady of her acquaintance to pass a few days with her, to whom

she should particularly like to introduce him.

This was false, be it remarked; but she immediately took measures to

make it true. Now, there is in every neighborhood more than one of that

class called good creatures. For this office, an abundant store of real

or assumed soft stupidity is required; but it is a somewhat difficult

part to play, for with this stupidity there must also be a considerable

portion of fine tact, to guard the performer against any of those

blunders into which good-natured people are continually plunging. Drill

and discipline are also necessary, in order to be always on the look out

for hints, to appreciate them properly, to comprehend that friends may

say one thing and mean another, and to ask no questions of any kind.

There were no less than three of these good creatures in this Mrs.

Hazleton's immediate neighborhood; and during a few moments' retreat to

her own little writing-room, she laid her finger upon her fair temple,

and thought them well over. Mrs. Winifred Edgeby was the first who

suggested herself to the mind of the fair lady. She had many of the

requisites. She dressed well, talked well, and had an air of style and

fashion about her; was perfectly innocuous, and skilful in divining the

purposes and wishes of a friend or patron; but there was an occasional

touch of subacrid humor about her which Mrs. Hazleton did not half like.

It gave an impression of seeing too clearly, of perceiving much more

than she pretended to perceive.

The second was Mrs. Warmington, a widow, not very rich, and not indeed

very refined; gay, talkative, somewhat boisterous, yet full of a sound

discretion in never committing herself or a friend. She had also much

experience, for she had been twice married, and twice a widow, and thus

had had her misfortunes. The third was a Miss Goodenough, the most

silent, quiet, stilly person in the world, moving about the house with

the step of a cat, and a face of infinite good nature to the whole human

race. She was to all appearance the pink of gentleness and weak good

nature; but her silence was invaluable.

After some consideration Mrs. Hazleton decided upon the widow, and

instantly dispatched a note with her own carriage, begging Mrs.

Warmington to come over immediately and spend a few days with her, as a

young gentleman had arrived upon a visit, and it would be indecorous to

entertain him alone.

Mrs. Warmington understood it all in an instant. She said to herself,

"Ho, ho! a young gentleman come to stay!--wanted a duenna! Matrimony in

the wind! Heigho! she must be six and thirty--six and thirty from two

and fifty leave sixteen points against me, and long odds. Well, well,--I

have had my share;" and Mrs. Warmington laughed aloud. However, she

would neither keep Mrs. Hazleton's carriage waiting, nor Mrs. Hazleton

herself in suspense, for there were various little comforts and

conveniences in the good will of that lady which Mrs. Warmington was

eager to cultivate. She had, too, a shrewd suspicion that the enmity of

Mrs. Hazleton might become a thing to be seriously dreaded; and

therefore, whichever side of the question she looked at, she saw reasons

for seeking the beautiful widow's good graces. Her maid was called, her

clothes packed up, and she entered the carriage and drove away, while in

the mean time Mrs. Hazleton had been expatiating to Mr. Marlow upon all

the high qualities and points of excellence in her friend Mrs.

Warmington. She was too skilful, moreover, to bring her good taste and

judgment into question with her young friend, by raising expectations

which might be disappointed. She therefore threw in insinuations of a

few faults and failings in dear Madam Warmington's manner and demeanor.

But then she said she was such a good creature at heart, that although

the very fastidious affected to censure, she herself forgot all little

blemishes in the inherent excellence of the person.

Moreover, upon the plea of looking at the ground which was the subject

of Mr. Marlow's claim, she led him out for a long, pleasant ramble

through the park. She took him amongst old hawthorn trees, through

groves of chestnuts by the banks of the stream, and along paths where

the warm sunshine played through the brown and yellow leaves above,

gilding their companions which had fallen earlier than themselves to the

sward below. It was a very lover-like walk indeed--one where nature

speaks to the heart, wakening sweet influences, and charming the spirit

up from hard and cold indifference. Mrs. Hazleton felt sure that Mr.

Marlow would not forget that walk, and she took care to impress it as

deeply as possible upon his memory. Nor did she want any of the means to

do so. Her mind was highly cultivated for the age in which she lived,

her taste fine, her information extensive. She could discourse of

foreign lands, of objects and scenes of deep interest, great beauty, and

rich associations,--of courts and cities far away, of music, painting,

flowers in other lands, of climates rich in sunshine and of genial

warmth; and through the whole she had the art to throw a sort of magic

glow from her own mind which brightened all she spoke of.

She was very charming that day, indeed, and Mr. Marlow felt the spell,

but he did not fall in love.

Now what was the object of using all these powers upon him? Was Mrs.

Hazleton a person very susceptible, or very covetous of the tender

passion? Since her return to England she had refused some half-dozen

very eligible offers from handsome, agreeable, estimable men, and the

world in general had set her down for a person as cold as a stone. It

might be so, but there are some stones which, when you heat them,

acquire intense fervor, and retain it longer than any other substance.

Every body in the world has his peculiarities, his whims, caprices,

crochets if you will. Mrs. Hazleton had gazed over the handsome, the

glittering and the gay, with the most perfect indifference. She had

listened to professions of love with a tranquil, easy balance power,

which weighed to a grain the advantages of matrimony and widowhood,

without suffering the dust of passion to give even a shake to the scale.

Before the preceding night she had only seen Mr. Marlow once, but the

moment she set eyes upon him--the moment she heard his voice, she had

said to herself, "If ever I marry again, that is the man." There is no

explaining these sympathetic attractions, impulses, or whatever they may

be called; but I think, from some observation of human nature, it will

be found that in those persons where they are the least frequent, they

are the most powerful and persevering when they do exist.

Not long after their first meeting, some intimation occurred of a claim

on the part of Mr. Marlow to a portion of the lady's property--that

portion that she loved best. The very idea of parting with it at all, of

being forced to give it up, was most painful and distressing to her. Yet

that made no difference whatever in her feelings towards Mr. Marlow.

Communications of various kinds took place between lawyers, and the

opposite counsel were as firm as a rock. Mrs. Hazleton thought it very

hard, very unjust, very wrong; but that changed not in the least her

feelings towards Mr. Marlow. Nay more, with that delicate art of

combination in which ladies are formed to excel, she conceived and

manipulated with great dexterity a scheme for bringing herself and Mr.

Marlow into frequent personal communication, and for causing somebody to

suggest to him a marriage with her own beautiful self, as the best mode

of settling the disputed claim.

O those fine and delicate threads of intrigue, how frail they are, and

how much depends upon every one of them, be it in the warp or the woof

of a scheme! We have seen that in this case, one of them gave way under

the rough handling of Sir Philip Hastings, and the whole fabric was in

imminent danger of running down and becoming nothing but a raveled

skein. Mrs. Hazleton was resolved that it should not be so, and now she

was busily engaged in the attempt to knot together the broken thread,

and to lay all the others straight and in right order again. This was

the secret of the whole matter.

She exerted all her charms, and could Waller but have seen her we should

have had such an account of the artillery of her eyes, the insidious

attack of her smile, and the whole host of powerful adversaries brought

to bear against the object of her assault in her gracefully moving form

and heaving bosom, that Saccharissa would have melted away like a wet

lump of sugar in the comparison.

Then again when she had produced an effect, and saw clear and distinctly

that he thought her lovely, and very charming too, she seemed to fall

into a pleasant sort of languid melancholy, which was even more charming

still. The brook was bubbling and murmuring at their feet, dashing clear

and bright over its stony bed, and changing the brown rock, the water

weed, or the leaf beneath, into gems by the magic of its own brightness.

The boughs were waving over head, covered with many-colored foliage, and

the sun, glancing through, not only enriched the tints above, but

checkered the mossy path along which they wandered like a chess-board of

brown and gold. Some of the late autumn birds uttered their short sweet

songs from the copse hard by, and the musical wind came sighing up from

the valley, as if nature had furnished Eolus with a harp. It was in

short quite a scene, and a moment for a widow to make love to a young

man. They were silent for some little time, and then Mrs. Hazleton said,

with her soft, sweet, round voice, "Is not all this very charming, Mr.

Marlow?"

Her tone was quite a sad one, but not with that sort of pleasant sadness

which often mingles with our happiest moments, giving them even a higher

zest, like the flattened notes when a fine piece of music passes gently

from the major into the minor key, but really sad, profoundly sad.

"Very charming, indeed," replied her young companion, looking round to

her face with some surprise.

"And what am I to do without it, when you turn me out of my house?" said

the lady, answering his glance with a melancholy smile.

"Turn you out of your house!" exclaimed Mr. Marlow; "I hope you do not

suppose, my dear madam, that I could dream of such a thing. Oh, no! I

would not for the world deprive such a scene of its brightest ornament.

Some arrangement can be easily effected, even if my claim should prove

satisfactory to those you appoint to investigate it, by which the

neighborhood will not be deprived of the happiness of your presence."

Mrs. Hazleton felt that she had made a great step, and as she well knew

that there was no chance of his proposing then and there, she resolved

not to risk losing ground by any farther advance, even while she secured

some present benefits from that which was gained. "Well, well," she

said, "Mr. Marlow, I am quite sure you are very kind and very generous,

and we can talk of that matter hereafter. Only there is one thing you

must promise me, which is, that in regard to any arrangements respecting

the house you will not leave them to be settled by cold lawyers or

colder friends, who cannot enter into my feelings in regard to this

place, or your own liberal and kindly feelings either. Let us settle it

some day between ourselves," she added, with a light laugh, "in a

tete-a-tete like this. I do not suppose you are afraid of being

overreached by me in a bargain. But now let us turn our steps back

towards the house, for I expect Mrs. Warmington early, and I must not be

absent when she arrives."

Mrs. Warmington was there already; for the tete-a-tete had lasted longer

than Mrs. Hazleton knew. However, Mrs. Hazleton's first task was to

inform her fair friend and counsellor of the cause of Mr. Marlow's being

there; her next to tell her that all had been settled as to the claim,

by that tiresome man Sir Philip Hastings, without what she considered

due deliberation, and that the only thing which remained to be arranged

was in regard to the house, respecting which Mrs. Hazleton communicated

a certain portion of her own inclinations, and of Mr. Marlow's kind view

of the matter.

Now, strange to say, this was the turning point of fate for Mrs.

Hazleton, Mr. Marlow, and most of the persons mentioned in this history.

It was then that Mrs. Warmington suggested a scheme which she thought

would suit her friend well.

"Why do you not offer him in exchange--for the time at all events--your

fine old house on the side of Hartwell--Hartwell Place? It is only seven

miles off. It is ready furnished to his hand, and must be worth a great

deal more than the bare walls of this. Besides it would be pleasant to

have him in the neighborhood."

Pause, Mrs. Hazleton! pause and meditate over all the consequences; for

be assured much depends upon these few simple words.

Mrs. Hazleton did pause--Mrs. Hazleton did meditate. She ran over in her

head the list of all the families in the neighborhood. In none of them

could she see a probable rival. There were plenty of married women, old

maids, young girls; but she saw nobody to fear, and with a proud

consciousness of her own beauty and worth, she took her resolution. That

very evening she proposed to Mr. Marlow what her friend had suggested.

It was accepted.

Mrs. Hazleton had made one miscalculation, and her fate and Mr. Marlow's

were decided.

FOOTNOTES:

[17] Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by G. P. R.

James, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States

for the Southern District of New York.

CHARLES MACKAY'S LAST POEMS.

We always read the poems of Charles Mackay, who, though not of the

highest class, even of the living poets of England, is yet earnest,

sensible, and good-hearted, and has always a point, and generally some

happy fancies, in his least considered pieces. He has published two

collections of short poems, one entitled "Voices from the Crowd," and

the other and last, "Egeria, or the Spirit of Nature," &c. from which we

take the following specimens:

WHY THIS LONGING?

Why this longing, clay-clad spirit?

Why this fluttering of thy wings?

Why this striving to discover

Hidden and transcendent things?

Be contented in thy prison,

Thy captivity shall cease--

Taste the good that smiles before thee;

Restless spirit, be at peace!

With the roar of wintry forests,

With the thunder's crash and roll,

With the rush of stormy water,

Thou wouldst sympathize, O soul!

Thou wouldst ask them mighty questions

In a language of their own,

Untranslatable to mortals,

Yet not utterly unknown.

Thou wouldst fathom Life and Being,

Thou wouldst see through Birth and Death,

Thou wouldst solve the eternal riddle--

Thou a speck, a ray, a breath,

Thou wouldst look at stars and systems,

As if _thou_ couldst understand

All the harmonies of Nature,

Struck by an Almighty hand.

With thy feeble logic, tracing

Upward from effect to cause,

Thou art foiled by Nature's barriers,

And the limits of her laws.

Be at peace, thou struggling spirit!

Great Eternity denies

The unfolding of its secrets

In the circle of thine eyes.

Be contented with thy freedom--

Dawning is not perfect day;

There are truths thou canst not fathom,

Swaddled in thy robes of clay.

Rest in hope that if thy circle

Grow not wider here in Time,

God's Eternity shall give thee

Power of vision more sublime.

Clogged and bedded in the darkness,

Little germ abide thine hour,

Thoul't expand in proper season,

Into blossom, into flower.

Humble faith alone becomes thee

In the glooms where thou art lain:

Bright is the appointed future;

Wait--thou shalt not wait in vain.

Cease thy struggling, feeble spirit!

Fret not at thy prison bars;

Never shall thy mortal pinions

Make the circuit of the stars.

Here on Earth are duties for thee,

Suited to thine earthly scope;

Seek them, thou Immortal Spirit--

God is with thee--work in hope.

YOU AND I.

Who would scorn his humble fellow

For the coat he wears?

For the poverty he suffers?

For his daily cares?

Who would pass him in the footway

With averted eye?

Would you, brother? No--you would not.

If you would--not _I_.

Who, when vice or crime repentant,

With a grief sincere

Asked for pardon, would refuse it--

More than heaven severe?

Who to erring woman's sorrow

Would with taunts reply?

Would you, brother? No--you would not.

If you would--not _I_.

Who would say that all who differ

From his sect must be

Wicked sinners, heaven-rejected,

Sunk in Error's sea,

And consign them to perdition

With a holy sigh?

Would you, brother? No--you would not.

If you would--not _I_.

Who would say that six days' cheating,

In the shop or mart,

Might be rubbed by Sunday praying

From the tainted heart,

If the Sunday face were solemn,

And the credit high?

Would you, brother? No--you would not.

If you would--not _I_.

Who would say that Vice is Virtue

In a hall of State?

Or that rogues are not dishonest

If they dine off plate?

Who would say Success and Merit

Ne'er part company?

Would you, brother? No--you would not.

If you would--not _I_.

Who would give a cause his efforts

When the cause is strong,

But desert it on its failure,

Whether right or wrong?

Ever siding with the upmost,

Letting downmost lie?

Would you, brother? No--you would not.

If you would--not _I_.

Who would lend his arm to strengthen

Warfare with the right?

Who would give his pen to blacken

Freedom's page of light?

Who would lend his tongue to utter

Praise of tyranny?

Would you, brother? No--you would not.

If you would--not _I_.

"A people among whom Charles Mackay is a popular writer," says the

Dublin University Magazine, "must possess largely the elements of

greatness and the reality of goodness."

THE COUNT MONTE-LEONE, OR, THE SPY IN SOCIETY.[18]

TRANSLATED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE FROM THE FRENCH OF H.

DE ST. GEORGES.

_Continued from page 229._

Second crime: A cold and deliberate attempt upon the life of Stenio

Salvatori, on the public square of _Torre-del-Greco_. The Count listened

to this harangue without emotion. "Bring in," said the judge, "both the

witnesses and the plaintiffs, for they have a double quality."

At this summons, a man of stern and moody aspect appeared, with his hair

and dress in great disorder. He was sustained by two others, and the

group paused at the foot of the balcony, where the judges sat.

"Your name?" said the Grand Judge, to the eldest of the three.

"Stenio Salvatori," said one.

"Your names?" asked the Grand Judge, of the other two.

"Raphael Salvatori--"

"Francesco Salvatori."

"You swear before God to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing

but the truth."

"I swear," said each of them.

"Do you persist in your accusation against Count Monte-Leone?"

"I do," said they.

"The Count," continued Francesco, "presided over the _Venta_ at Pompeia,

where he was seen by my brothers and myself. In our presence he

administered the oath to two of the neophytes of the society. They

promised to contribute by every means in their power to the dethronement

of our well-beloved sovereign Fernando IV., and to destroy monarchy

forever in our country. The associates of the Count," added Raphael and

Francesco, "discovered us listening to them, and our energy and strength

alone preserved us from their poniards."

"And my energy and strength," said Stenio, with an accent of rage, as he

sprang unexpectedly from the bench on which he sat and pointed to

Monte-Leone, "were able to contend with difficulty against the iron hand

and poniard of this man." Then tearing up the cuff which hid his wound,

he showed the judges a deep and blood-stained stab. A feeling of horror

took possession of all the assembly. Every eye was fixed on Monte-Leone,

who seemed unconscious of the sentiment he inspired.

"The Count avenged himself on one of us, because we did our duty in

denouncing him," said Francesco Salvatori.

"He would have murdered us all had he been able," said Raphael.

"Stenio," resumed Francesco, "has atoned for all the family."

"And we ask," said Stenio, with a terrible voice, "we ask justice on the

assassin! We demand it of God, the king, and the judges."

The tall stature of Stenio, his pallor heightened by anger, and the

bloody arm he intentionally exposed, made such an impression on the

spectators that a murmur of approbation ran round the room. More

numerous voices, however, soon drowned it.

"Count Monte-Leone, have you prepared yourself to reply to these

accusations, or have you chosen a defender?"

"I have."

"Name him," said the Grand Judge.

"My defender is Stenio Salvatori, my accuser."

Nothing could exceed the surprise caused by these words, not only in the

minds of the three witnesses, but of the court and public.

"Count," said the Grand Judge, solemnly, "you must remember this

accusation is a solemn one; that you are accused of two crimes, the

punishment of which is known to you. Such an answer testifies your small

respect to this court, and must injure a cause which needs to be ably

defended."

"Signor," replied Monte-Leone, "it is because I recognize the great

importance of the cause, that I confide to this man the duty of

exonerating me from it. He alone can do so: his mouth alone, his lips,

will demonstrate my innocence. Stenio Salvatori says, he saw me preside

at the Venta of Pompeia."

"I did," said Stenio, rising again.

"He says I stabbed him at his threshold in the town of

_Torre-del-Greco_."

"I do," said Stenio.

"You see clearly, Signori," continued the Count, speaking to the court,

"that this man is establishing my case distinctly, as he saw me neither

at Pompeia nor at _Torre-del-Greco_. The day on which he, his brothers,

and the people of the latter town, say they saw me, I was imprisoned in

a cell of the Castle _Del Uovo_, an impenetrable prison whence it is

impossible for any human creature to escape, and whence none saw me go."

Bravos filled the hall. The Count was triumphing.

"Signori," said the Grand Judge, rising, "such applause is an insult to

the court, and if it be renewed, the trial will be continued with closed

doors." Silence was restored.

"Do not believe him," said Stenio, turning towards the auditors and

showing his bloody arm. "He was the person who wounded me."

"Justice shall be done," said the Grand Judge. "Signori, a series of

secret and minute inquiries instituted in the Castle _Del Uovo_, the

examination of the employers of the fortress and the confronting of the

gate-keeper, a man of known piety, and the head jailer, one of the most

severe and incorruptible of Naples, have been unable to show how the

Count Monte-Leone contrived to escape from prison. In the face of such

complete evidence of his having remained in the prison, in the face of

the report of the minister of police who visited the prison a few hours

after the commission of the crime at _Torre-del-Greco_, we could not

but recognize the innocence of the Count, and fancy that something had

led to a mistake in his person. A strange and providential circumstance

makes us doubt the innocence of the Count, and though the means of his

escape from the castle be unknown to us, we persist in thinking him

guilty as accused."

The interest and emotion of the audience was as great as it could be;

and the words of the Grand Judge were listened to with the most intense

anxiety. At that moment three hearts almost ceased to beat--that of the

veiled woman, that of the young man who had replied to her signal, and

that of Count Monte-Leone, though his features were unmoved.

"The Count," resumed the Grand Judge, "possesses a family jewel, a ring

of immense price, one of the _chef-d'oeuvres_ of Benvenuto Cellini.

This ring he rarely lays aside, as we learn from many witnesses, and a

secret superstition induces him always to wear it. Did he hide it from

the jailers at the time of his incarceration, or did he obtain

possession of it on his way to _Torre-del-Greco_? This has not as yet

been demonstrated: one thing, however, is certain, he lost this jewel in

his contest with Stenio Salvatori, who, having obtained possession of

it, placed it in the hands of his Excellency the Duke of Palma, as a

positive and incontestable evidence of the criminality of the Count.

This mute witness is here," said the Grand Judge, who as he spoke

exhibited a sparkling brilliant to the audience.

The judges took the emerald, and silently looked at it. When the Grand

Judge first spoke of the emerald, the Count was satisfied that he was

lost, and drops of icy sweat coursed down his cheeks. But yet his

courage and energy, even when he saw the emerald in the hands of the

judges, did not desert him, and he struggled against the new danger

which had beset him in so strange and unexpected a manner.

"This ring," said he, pointing to the emerald, "is a fortune in itself,

and may have been stolen from me."

The Grand Judge arose to reply, when an old man advanced toward the

tribunal, pushing aside all who opposed his passage, and in spite of the

resistance of the ushers and guards, reached the foot of the balcony on

which the judges sat. With tears and an excited voice he said:

"The ring has not been stolen! It has not left our jewel closet, and I

have brought it to the judges."

"Do not believe him," said the Salvatori, "he deceives you. This is the

Count's ring."

"Silence, impostors!" said the old man. "I learned yesterday, from

public rumor, the story of our ring being lost by Count Monte-Leone, the

intendant of whom I am, and I have brought the precious jewel hither to

confound our accusers."

Nothing could equal the effect produced by Giacomo's words. The court

itself participated in the surprise, and the Grand Judge, making the old

servant approach, took the jewel from his hand.

"Two rings!" said he, amazed; "two similar emeralds! Signori," said he,

speaking to the court, "this event again changes the face of this trial.

One of these jewels is evidently a copy of the other, such as the hand

of a great artist alone can produce. There was, however, never but one

Benvenuto in the world, and it will be easy to distinguish his work."

The words of the Grand Judge increased the agitation of the crowd. The

Count, whom his friends thought saved, lost by the discovery of the

emerald, and again restored by the testimony of Giacomo, became every

moment an object of new interest and more intense curiosity. If we must

use the word, pity for him increased. Every step taken seemed to bring

his head nearer to or to remove it farther from the executioner. Just

here this event interrupted the session of the court.

The judges retired to their room, the Salvatori to the witness chamber,

until the experts, whom the president had sent for, should come. The

interval between the acts, however, was filled by a touching episode

which deeply excited the audience. Giacomo, taking advantage of the

departure of the judges, hurried to his master, fell at his knees, and

covered his hand with kisses.

"Go back!--go back!" said the chief of the officers to Giacomo. "No one

is permitted to communicate with the accused."

Adding action to words, they seized the old man by the arm, and bore him

from his master.

Giacomo however found time to whisper to the Count, "You are saved."

The crowd was so touched by the affection of the old servant, that it

was near taking sides with him against the officers who had interfered.

The veiled lady stood motionless as a statue and watched the scene. So

abstracted and calm did she appear, that it might have been supposed her

eyes looked on while her mind was far away. Her eyes, animated by a

thousand sentiments, glittered beneath her veil. The young man to whom

she had made signals did not lose sight of her, and his whole soul

seemed enchained to the life presence and breath of this woman.

The experts came; the court resumed its sessions; the Salvatori entered.

The experts were three of the most skilful lapidaries of Naples, where

the art of engraving on stone had reached the greatest excellence. They

approached the bar. The president said:

"On your soul and conscience, and by Christ your Saviour, you swear to

tell the truth."

"We swear."

"Tell us which of these two rings is the work of Benvenuto Cellini."

"On my soul and conscience, and by Christ," said the first expert, after

a careful scrutiny, "this is the work of Benvenuto Cellini."

"And you, sir?" said the judge to the second.

"On my soul and conscience, and by Christ, this is the work of the great

master."

"And this ring," said the judge, "what is it?"

"This is but a copy, compared with the original, of trifling value and

fineness."

"Very well, Signori," said the Grand Judge, rising, and with a ring in

each hand. "This ring given me yesterday by the Duke of Palma, and by

him received from the Salvatori, is an imitation of Benvenuto Cellini's

great work. The real ring of the Monte-Leoni, the chef-d'oeuvre, an

heir-loom of the family, has just been brought us by an old servant of

that noble house."

The effect of the words of the Grand Judge was immense. He was silent,

and with the other judges consulted about the decree. A few moments

after, with his hand on his heart, the Grand Judge said:

"After having carefully sought for traces of the double crime of which

Count Monte-Leone is accused--after having heard the public accuser, the

proof is found most incomplete. It appears that all the facts are based

on the resemblance of Count Monte-Leone with some unknown person, in

relation to whose identity the Salvatori were mistaken. The court

declares the Count Monte-Leone innocent of the double crime imputed to

him, and orders that he be immediately released. As for you, the

brothers Salvatori," continued the Grand Judge, sternly, "your hatred to

the Count Monte-Leone is well known. We interpret your conduct in the

most favorable light, attributing it to mistake, and not to cowardly

revenge. If the counterfeit ring was fabricated at your instance, to

corroborate the accusations made against the Count, and justice should

become possessed of proofs of it, you would have to fear its rigor and

punishment. If there be severe laws for calumniators, those for

assassins are yet more stern. You would in that case have murdered Count

Monte-Leone."

The Salvatori were amazed. The rage of Stenio was irrepressible.

"Beautiful justice! Do we serve the king so faithfully for his justices

to treat us thus! I repeat again," said he with an accent so terrible

that it reached even Monte-Leone's heart, "the Count was at Pompeia. He

stabbed me. He is an assassin!"

He then left as he had entered, walking painfully, and leaning on the

arms of his brothers. When Stenio Salvatori, spoke thus, the Count had

withdrawn, and the noise in the hall prevented the judges from hearing

him. The tumult was as great as possible in the hall, which hitherto had

been so calm and silent. The public seemed to move, shout, and become

clamorous, as a recompense for the constraint which had been so long

enforced.

The beautiful woman in the recess, who had been so long impassible and

motionless, seemed to sympathize with the excited crowd, and lifting up

her noble form to its full height, as the Grand Judge spoke the last

words, she threw aside her veil, and lifted to heaven her eyes, full of

gratitude and joy. She then looked toward Monte-Leone with an expression

of the most passionate love, and immediately letting fall her veil, as

if to enwrap her sentiments in night, left the room. Quickly, however,

as she left, the first of the young men, whose conversation was detailed

in the early part of this chapter, had time to see her, and said to his

companion:

"Signor, indeed you are fortunate. The lady of whom we spoke not long

since, and whom you know so well, is the very spirit of beauty

incarnate, she is the most magnificent woman in the world. It is _La

Felina_."

"You think so?" said Taddeo Rovero, who had become yet paler when the

singer threw up her veil.

"Yes, I think so," said the first speaker, with a smile, "and I am also

sure you know so." He left.

In the mean time the friends and partisans of the Count surrounded him.

Among them were the chief nobles of Naples, for, as has been said

before, the cause of one of the order became that of all, and

Monte-Leone's success was a triumph to all the class. Amid a proud and

gallant escort, the Count left the _Castello Capuano_. Scarcely had he

left the door when enthusiastic cries were heard on all sides. The

people, who had been in the street since dawn, waited impatiently for

the result of the trial, for Monte-Leone was immensely popular. The

crowd from time to time heard the various incidents of the trial from

persons who had contrived to get into the hall. The rumors in favor of

Monte-Leone were received with shouts of joy, and those injurious to him

with cries and curses. The sentence was hailed as a priceless boon by

the crowd around the _Chateau Capuano_. The people are everywhere, it is

said, the same. The people of every country are doubtless impressionable

and easily excited. A kind of electricity pervades large bodies, and the

subtle fluid certainly is found everywhere. But among people of the

south, under the burning sun which scorches their brains, the Italians,

and especially the Neapolitans, in their public assemblies, attain a

degree of fanaticism and exaltation, of which the people of the north

have no idea. The eruptions of their own Vesuvius are the only things to

which the passions of their populace can be compared.

When the Count and his escort left the court-room, the people literally

rushed upon them. A thousand hands, not half so seemly as those which

already had clasped his own, were extended towards his. These strong and

sturdy hands seemed to promise him protection in case it should be

needful for him at any future time to seek it.

From this crowd of men with sternly marked features, shaded by hats of

gray felt, there fell on the Count's ear such words as, "_Two hands

pledged in friendship are but one!_" Venta of Castel la Marc.

"_A dagger for ten enemies!_" Venta of Capua.

"_Our right, silence, or death!_" Venta of Annunziata.

"_Eyes to watch, and a hand to strike!_" Venta of Pompeia.

To which the Count replied, by the word _Speranza_, accompanied by a

clasp of the hand and a significative glance.

"My friends," said a penetrating voice, "for heaven's sake give him air.

The poor man has need of air. We know you love him. He is the friend of

the people of Naples, all know, but he should not on that account be

stifled. By the miracle of San Januarius restore him to me, restore my

master to me, you may have him soon, but now he needs the care of old

Giacomo."

Giacomo took the Count's arm, and sought to remove him from the crowd

which surrounded him. The Count paid no attention to the old intendant.

For a time, he strove almost to cast him off, and stood looking

anxiously at a person he saw in the crowd, and whom like a swimmer he

sought to approach. This person was his friend Taddeo Rovero. The young

man sought in vain to approach the Count. The tide of living beings

seconded their wishes, and at last they rushed into the arms of each

other, forgetting, while thus enlocked, the world, their secret

thoughts, the past, and the present, and mingling together the tears of

friendship.

"Air, day, sunlight, motion, life, life itself I have found. They woke

up our existence; a dungeon is death--"

Again he threw himself into the arms of Taddeo, with an expression of

tenderness and happiness.

"Adieu, my friends," said he to the crowd. "Count Monte-Leone will never

forget these proofs of your sympathy, and you may rely on him, his arm,

his heart, his fortune, as he does on you."

Taking Taddeo by the arm, he hurried into a neighboring street,

accompanied at a little distance by Giacomo, who, as he panted after

them, cried out, "Too fast, too fast--what the devil can I do? My legs

are worn out--remember I came from the villa to _la Vicaria_ on foot to

bring your ring to the Grand Judge."

"My ring!"--then looking anxiously at Giacomo, and in a low tone, he

said:

"Are you sure it is my ring?"

"Yes, I swear to it by the blood of Christ and by your life."

"My friends," said the Count, "we have strange secrets to talk of when

we are in a safe place. And there the ear and lip must be close

together, so that not even the walls of the room in which we are shall

be struck by the sound of our accents. Wait for me at the Etruscan

villa. In two hours I will rejoin you."

"Why not go thither now?" asked Taddeo.

"Two hours hence I will tell you."

Without speaking a word, and without listening to Rovero's reply,

Monte-Leone put on a cloak the old intendant had brought and passed into

a labyrinth of passages, with the intricate windings of which his

political associations had made him familiar. An hour after the Count so

brusquely left Taddeo and the old intendant, he paused at the door of

one of the most ancient churches in Naples, an old pile, built in 1284,

and called _San Domenico Maggiore_. It is of vast size, built in the

Gothic style, and has a magnificent picture of Titiano, the Flagellation

of Caravaggio, and in the sacristy a glory by Solimene. But not to

contemplate them had Monte-Leone come to the church. A deeply-rooted

sentiment forced him, for a few moments, to pause beneath the old

portico before he entered the sanctuary.

Nothing is more touching, more poetical, and more mysterious, than the

old Christian temples, which like giants of stone have braved the

ravages of time and the hands of men. Generations, as they pass away,

worship beneath their arches, and the prayers of many centuries have

echoed in their walls, which are yet open to coming time.

The deep notes of the organ attracted the attention of Monte-Leone and

increased his excitement. He crossed the church, went down the nave, and

approached a lateral chapel where a taper was burning with a flickering

light. The Count entered the chapel. Those who had seen him amid the

brilliant society of Naples, or amid the awful judicial ordeal to which

he had just been subjected, and which he had undergone with such

coolness and audacity, would not have recognized the humble and

trembling man, who knelt before a sarcophagus of black marble surmounted

with the coronet and arms of the Monte-Leoni. The Count knelt at the

tomb of his father--his father, who was his religion and his faith. He

would have thought himself unworthy of his protection had he not gone

immediately on his release to worship those consecrated relics.

Prostrate at the monument he prayed with fervor. All the recent events

of his life occurred to him. And in the kind of hallucination caused by

prolonged meditation, awake as he was, he entered the realm of dreams.

He seemed to see two genii seeking, the one to drag him towards heaven

and the other towards the abyss. The genii were two females. They

recalled the features of two charming and beautiful women, whom he

remembered. One had the gentle and pale expression of Aminta; the other,

the more masculine and stately air of La Felina. The one which led him

heavenward was Aminta. The sound of the organ, the mysterious light

which pervaded the chapel, the religious effect of the whole scene,

exaggerated the excitement of the Count, and contributed to add to his

nervousness. Two mild melancholy voices, like those of angels praying

for the guilty, mingled with the organ's notes, and Monte-Leone fancied

that he heard in the distance the voices of departed souls. The blood

of Monte-Leone became chilled, for at that moment he asked his father to

reveal to him the future, and guide him in his perilous path. The song

of the dead seemed to reply to him. The Count, like other energetic and

brave men, like Caesar and Napoleon, was very superstitious. We have seen

him brave death without trembling, though it came in the most terrible

form. He who had struggled against the waves of the sea, and confronted

the Grand Judge of Naples, grew pale when he heard the _de profundis_

chanted in an obscure church and by the side of a tomb. By a strange

fatality, nothing seemed wanting which could increase the sadness of

Monte-Leone. Just as he was about to leave the church the solitary light

was extinguished. The young man fancied this accident a declaration of

the will of God. Terror-stricken, he left the church, and did not regain

his consciousness until he stood in the portico of the old temple. In a

few moments he shook off his idle apprehensions, but the sombre scene

perpetually reacted upon him, as we shall see hereafter. It left a deep

trace upon his mind, and materially influenced his subsequent life.

Two hours after he left the church, the Count rode on the horse of one

of his friends to the Etruscan villa, which, as we have said, was on the

road to Castel la Marc. Giacomo was waiting at the door for him, and

taking a resinous torch, lighted his master to the strange room which we

described in the first part of this book. Things remained precisely as

they were on the night of the ball of San Carlo. The lights were

burning, the hangings displayed their richness, the Greek and Roman

couches were arrayed, and a magnificent supper was prepared. There were,

however, but two covers, one for the Count and the other for young

Rovero. By the side of the Count's plate lay the emerald of Benvenuto,

of which he had so miraculously regained possession.

"It is the emerald," said the Count. "Who brought it hither?"

"An officer of the court, from Signor San Angelo, the Grand Judge of

Naples."

Monte-Leone looked at it again, and said, "It is one of God's own

miracles."

"Not so," said Rovero, "it is one of Love's own;" and he gave the Count

the letter of La Felina.

VI.--DRAMA.

While the trial of Count Monte-Leone thus excited the whole city of

Naples, while Rovero under the influence of a thousand emotions heard

all its details, let us look back to what is going on in the villa at

Sorrento. The reader will excuse us, for thus transporting him from

place to place, for attempting to interest him in behalf of various

personages, joining or deserting them, as the plan of our story

requires.

The novelist is like the weaver, who keeps in his hand the various

threads of his woof, brings them together and apart, until the time when

his finished work rewards his toil. Like the weaver, we shall unite, day

by day, our threads, and gather them finally into one knot.

We left the Marquis of Maulear about to return to the villa, in search

of assistance for Scorpione, who had fainted. When people came to the

hut, the mute had regained his senses. He knelt before Aminta, who spoke

to him with vivacity. What she said we cannot tell, for when she was

interrupted she ceased. The eyes of Tonio were red, and he seemed to

have been shedding tears. The invalid was taken to the villa, and so the

matter seemed to end.

Maulear was not much engrossed by the suspicions he had previously

conceived of Tonio, because love for Aminta, supposing that such he

bore, did not seem formidable. His apprehensions found something far

more serious. Was the heart of her he loved unoccupied? The strange

episode of the lost veil had not yet been explained. Yielding to the

influence of passion, he had, when he saw the young girl, forgotten

every thing, and the sudden appearance of Scorpione, by rendering it

impossible for Aminta to answer him, complicated the matter yet more.

Just as Signora Rovero went towards the hut, where the Marquis had left

the mute in a state of insensibility, Aminta went to the villa,

preceding those who bore Tonio.

"I will not again trust you with our patient," said Aminta's mother. "He

always returns worse than when he goes."

"Right mother," said Aminta, "henceforth I will not take charge of

Tonio, for his new sufferings have, I am sure, taken away the little

sense he previously had."

Tonio, who heard what Aminta said, looked down and returned to his room,

glooming angrily at the Marquis as he passed.

"You are already one of us, Marquis, on account of the indiscreet

request of my son. But neither my daughter nor myself will complain of

the pleasure he has thus procured us. Now," continued she, "permit me to

show you the most precious treasure in our house."

Leading Maulear to a little boudoir, next her chamber, she drew aside a

curtain of black velvet, and exposed a noble portrait of a man the size

of life. "That is the portrait of my husband, of Aminta's father; of a

loyal and respected man, of an honest and influential minister."

Maulear was amazed at the appearance of the picture. The more he

examined it the more the features seemed to recall some one he had seen

before. His memory, however, was at fault, and left him in uncertainty.

"Strange," said he, to the widow of the minister. "It seems that I have

seen these features before. How can it be, though, that I ever met

Signor Rovero?"

"My husband has been dead two years, and was never in France."

"And I have been but six months in Italy. It is then impossible that we

ever met. The matter is surprising."

They returned to the drawing-room, where Maulear found the White Rose of

Sorrento either drawing or pretending to draw, as a means of concealing

her annoyance.

"Excuse me," said Signora Rovero to Maulear, "if I leave you for a time

with my daughter. I have some domestic matters to attend to, for

Aminta's birthday will in a few days be here, when we purpose a ball."

"A ball?" said Maulear.

"A ball; and Aminta and some of her young companions will compose the

orchestra. You, Marquis, will not, however, be forced to be present, for

my son had no intention to annoy you thus. It is enough for you to

protect us, but to dance would be too great a requisition."

"Is it, then, the Signorina's birthday?"

"Yes, or rather it is the birthday of my happiness. Thus it ever is with

mothers."

"It will then be mine also," said Maulear. "I am sorry her brother

cannot be present."

"Taddeo is fond of us," said the young girl in a low tone, with her eyes

downcast on her embroidery. "But he does not love us alone." Aminta

sighed with jealousy--and Signora Rovero left the room. Maulear drew

near Aminta.

"Signorina," said he, with emotion, "just now I opened my heart to you.

Will you punish me by silence, and not deign to tell me what I may fear

or hope?"

"Signor," said Aminta, "perhaps I am wrong to reply to you. Perhaps I

should ask you, in the first place, to speak to my mother of the

sentiments you entertain for me. But I will be frank with you. Our first

interview, my gratitude, my sincere esteem, control me. Besides, as you

have been informed, my education has not been that usual to my sex. I

will therefore describe to you my girlish ideas such us they are, such

as my early education inspired me with, such as reflection has

developed."

Maulear looked at her with great wonder. Where he had expected surprise

and embarrassment, he found calmness and reason. Still, the voice in

which these serious words were pronounced had, however, so great an

attraction and such melody, that the Marquis began again to hope.

"Different from most young persons of my age," said Aminta, "I am happy

in my present condition, contented with my mother and brother. I have

often inquired what qualities I would expect in my husband, and," said

she with a smile, "I have found them. Perhaps those qualities are

defects; for they must be my own I assure you. I have been so petted

that I can conceive of no happiness except in finding myself, with my

imperfections, ideas, and sentiments, mirrored in another."

"Then," said the Marquis, "no one can expect to please you, for who can

be like you, and be as precious as you are?"

"That may be an easier thing than you fancy," said Aminta, gayly.

"Hitherto I have, however, been unfortunate, for my suitors have been so

superior that their merit terrified me. I was afraid of the talents of

one, and of the mind of another. Besides, Marquis, let me tell you, that

I am a little foolish and exaggerated. I think there are two existences

in me, the one awake, and the other asleep. In the latter, there pass

such fancies before me, that I am often frightened at them. I sometimes

see the drama of life unrolled before me.--I am married and

unhappy--strange scenes take place around me, and he to whom my fate has

been confided, makes it sad and dreary as possible;--I am humiliated,

outraged, and betrayed, and am, too, so much afraid of marriage, that I

think I would refuse the hand of an angel were it offered me."

As she spoke, Aminta's features became sad, and her eyes glittered with

a sombre fire, like that of the Pythoness announcing the Delphic oracle.

Maulear was silent, and for a few moments said nothing. In the mean time

the young girl regained her presence of mind, and, ashamed of her

enthusiasm, sought to apologize for it.

"You will," said she, "laugh at my ridiculous whims. What, however, do

you expect of a poor child, raised like myself in solitude,

uncultivated, and from character and taste a dreamer? Such a creature

must indeed be strange to a Parisian. Perhaps, though you do not wish me

thus to speak to you, such a creature has made a deeper impression on

your imagination than on your heart. The terrible circumstances of our

meeting also, the romantic origin of our acquaintance, may lead you into

error in relation to sentiments which perhaps would be impotent, both

against the enticements of the world and against absence."

"Ah!" said Maulear, with chagrin, "if those sentiments were shared--if

he who experiences them were not indifferent to you, you, Signorina,

would have confidence in them."

"I desire nothing better than to be satisfied that such is the case,"

said she, with charming naivete. "Time, however, is required for that,

and we have been acquainted only for a few days."

"Are years then required for us to love?" said Maulear. "For that a

word, a look, suffice."

"In France, perhaps," replied Aminta; "in your brilliant saloons, with

your gay countrymen, where all is so lively and spontaneous. Here

though, in a modest villa, hidden by the orange trees of Sorrento, a

young girl's heart is not disposed of so easily."

"Yes!" said Maulear, "our hearts are lost when we behold you."

"Marquis," said Aminta, "I do not know what the future reserves for us;

I however repeat that I will always be sincere with you. Do not to-day

ask me what I cannot give."

"What can you give me?" said Maulear in despair.

"Hope," said Aminta, with a blush, "that is all--"

Signora Rovero entered. Rejection and obstacles could not but surprise a

man used as Maulear was to rapid triumphs and easy conquests. He was now

seriously in love, and passion had become a link of his life. Suffering

as he was from the uncertainty to which the reply of Aminta subjected

him, he could not but admire her prudence and modest reserve, which, as

it were, placed her heart beneath the aegis of reason. Besides, if, as

Madame de Stael says, the last idea of a woman is always centred in the

last word she utters, Aminta, by what she had last said, had delighted

Maulear. She had said "_Hope_."

During the next day and the next day after, Signora Rovero and her

daughter increased their attention to Maulear, lest he should become

weary of their solitude. This solitude to Maulear was elysium. A

pleasant intimacy grew up between Aminta and the Marquis, every hour

revealing a new grace to him, as he fancied the hour drew near when the

ice of her heart would melt, and she would find an image of her

sentiments in him. One circumstance, however, troubled Maulear, and

aroused his jealousy. Towards the end of the second day, he sat in the

saloon, leaning on his elbow, and looking with admiration through one of

the windows at the purple and magnificent Italian sun. Aminta did not

know that Maulear was in the saloon, and when she came in did not see

him. She had a letter in her hand. "_From him_," said she, as she

hastily unsealed it; "what does he say? _Dear_ Gaetano, he has not

forgotten me."

At the name Gaetano, Maulear turned around quickly, and under the

influence of much emotion, stood before her. She seemed a little

surprised and disconcerted, and hid the letter in her bosom. The words

died away on the Marquis's lips, and he asked no question. His original

distrust returned, and he resolved to watch. On that evening Maulear was

less gay and less entertaining than he had been on the previous one. He

observed that Aminta too was thoughtful. She has been unable, said he,

to read her letter, and that is the cause of her uneasiness. For a few

moments the young girl left the room, in which her mother and Maulear

were. She is reading the mysterious letter, said he to himself. Just

then it chanced that Signora Rovero spoke of Gaetano Brignoli, to whom

she paid the greatest compliments. Aminta returned with an expression

altogether changed. Her face was lit up with joy, as expressive and

animated as the tedium and thoughtfulness which marked it had been

profound. Maulear did not sympathize with her gayety, and she became

every moment more moody and sombre. Under the pretext of a headache, he

retired to his room. New thoughts assailed him. He looked out on the

terrace where he had seen the unknown form. He took the lace veil and

examined it as if he now saw it for the first time. Men are often cruel

to themselves, and find a secret pleasure in turning the knife in the

wound, and making their suffering severe as possible. To tell the truth,

when he thought of his conversation with Aminta, and analyzed its

phases, he was led by its elevation and frankness to blush at his

suspicions. After all, said he, the letter she received from Gaetano is

perhaps only a child's-play between them. It is but a secret between

brother and sister, such as often exists, and to which it is foolish to

attach any importance. Amid this excitement, sleep overtook him,

harassed as he was between hope and fear, good and evil.

The next day was Aminta's birthday. All in Signora Rovero's villa were

joyous. The gates of the garden were opened, and all were gathering

flowers. The young girls of Sorrento soon came to the villa, and offered

a magnificent chaplet of roses to _the White Rose_ of Sorrento. The

Marquis of Maulear added his congratulations to the others offered to

Aminta. An air of embarrassment, however, was evident in every remark,

and he could not forget the letter. Suddenly he saw Tonio. He was

approaching Aminta, who, when she saw him, hurried to meet him.

"Tonio, poor Tonio," said she, "my faithful companion and generous

preserver, have you also come to congratulate me on my birthday? You

have not forgotten me, but are come to say how you love me. You know how

grateful I am."

Two tears fell on the mute's brow which was humbled before her. Tonio

looked up, and his eyes expressed the languishing tenderness of which we

have hitherto spoken. One might read, in his glance, the effect of that

magnetic fascination exercised over him by Aminta. He seized her hand,

and kissed it so passionately that Aminta withdrew it at once. She

however veiled her action with a smile.

"Since," said she, "you are so well, my mother and I wish you henceforth

to be at liberty, and that you should have no domestic duty. You shall

be our chasseur, and supply us with game--for that is the only thing in

which you take pleasure."

A feeling of pride was legible on Tonio's features. He took Aminta's

hand again, and, as a token of gratitude, placed it on his heart. He

then looked proudly around on the peasants and servants, and finally

mingled with the crowd.

The day advanced, and the guests of Signora Rovero came to the villa.

Count Brignoli and Gaetano were not the last. Maulear could not restrain

an expression of mortification when he saw the latter, who, however,

looking on him as a family friend, treated him most cordially and

affectionately. Maulear at dinner sat next to the Signora Rovero. He

would have preferred the one usually given him, next to Aminta. He had,

however, one consolation. Aminta, seated at a distance from Gaetano,

could not maintain one of those private conversations with young

Brignoli, which made him so unhappy. Often during the meal he fancied

that he saw certain signals of intelligence between the young people,

who had not yet been able to speak together alone. What however had been

a doubt became a certainty when he saw Gaetano point to the garden, and

Aminta by a gesture of assent reply to him. He had no doubt there was an

understanding between Gaetano and Aminta. He knew their rendezvous. From

that time Maulear did not lose sight of them, and he suffered every

torture jealousy can inflict. The shock he received at the discovery was

so great, that he was unable even to reflect. He did not become offended

at the perfidy of Aminta, but was rather distressed by suffering, which

was as great in the physical point of view as it was in the moral.

Reason only returned with reflection.

About nine o'clock the ball commenced. At the instance of Aminta, two of

her young friends went to the piano, and Aminta, taking advantage of

certain orders she had to give, left the room. Gaetano had already gone.

The Marquis followed her. For a second he heard the light step, which

passed down the gallery, pause. The door of the vestibule however was

opened, and pointed out the route she had taken. He was afraid by

opening the door of betraying his presence, and therefore went into the

garden by another direction, and making a short detour, soon was able to

follow the direction he had seen Aminta take. Passing beneath a group of

trees which was near the house, Maulear, with an attentive ear, followed

stealthily as a deer the steps of the couple he tracked--though he could

not see. A demon had taken possession of Maulear's heart, and enkindled

it with rage. Certainly, within a few paces from him he heard a voice.

It was Aminta's. Another voice answered. It was Gaetano's.

"How I love you, dear Gaetano, for what you have told me."

"And how happy I am in your pleasure--"

"All then is understood?" said Aminta.

"All."

"We understand each other, and you will hide nothing from me?"

"Nothing."

"Your letter," said the young girl, "made me mad with joy."

"Dear Aminta--"

"Unless, indeed, my mother find out our secrets--"

"Fear not--the secret will be kept--tonight--"

"Yes, yes, to-night, certainly--"

"Rely then on me," said Gaetano.

Maulear heard a kiss. It struck on his ear like a dagger, and gave him

such pain, that a sigh burst from his lips.

"Some one overheard us," said Gaetano, "Go, go."

Aminta immediately disappeared. Before Gaetano had time to distinguish

Maulear in his place of concealment, the latter, become aware of the

ridiculous part he was playing, hid himself in the thicket, and with his

hair dishevelled, his features distorted, and his heart distressed,

hurried to the house and shut himself up in his own room. His despair

was indeed great; he fancied he had been laughed at by a coquette, while

he thought he had been the suitor of an innocent girl. Why did she not

tell me the truth yesterday, when I asked her? said he. Why did she not

avow her love of young Brignoli? She dared not confide it to me; because

she makes a mystery of it to her own mother. Why did she encourage me?

Why did she speak of hope? What unworthy plan, what improper calculation

influenced her? What part did she intend me to play in this drama of

treason?

The old idea of Maulear--that sad fancy that women are only to be

despised, and which he had conceived from women only worthy of that

estimate--took possession of him. He could not believe he was a victim

of mistake, or that the scene he had witnessed had any other motives

than guilty ones. Of what else could Gaetano and Aminta speak, than

love? An hour afterwards, Maulear returned to the drawing-room. His

toilette was irreproachable, and his face, though pale, was calm. One

would never have recognized in this elegant gentleman, so calm and

dignified, the person who, an hour before, had heard with such

excitement the conversation we have just described. Maulear had

reflected, and as soon as his first anger had passed away, had nearly

conceived an aversion for the young girl, whom he had almost adored the

evening before. Revenge, too, would be sweet. To accomplish this,

calmness, coldness, deliberation were required.

The excitement of the evening prevented the absence of the actors in

this scene from having been remarked; besides it was a ball for young

people, at which men of Maulear's age even were not expected to dance.

Gaetano, who was only eighteen, was the true Coryphoeus. Maulear

approached Aminta in the interval between two waltzes.

"You have a pleasant anniversary of your birthday," said he.

"A delicious one, Signor, I was never so happy."

At any other time the answer of Aminta would have delighted Maulear; now

he fancied she alluded to her love for Gaetano. This idea increased his

anger. Midnight came, and those of the guests who lived at a distance

remained at the villa: the others left. All soon became calm, and the

house quiet. One man alone watched, for his bosom was irritated by the

most exciting thoughts; by anger, despair, and jealousy. He was awake,

and wept bitterly over a passion, which it is true had existed but a few

days, but yet had taken deep root in his heart.

He was awake, and was indignant at the affront put on him. He was awake,

for he had sworn to be avenged. Thinking that he understood the meaning

of Gaetano's words, he did not doubt but that they had made a

_rendezvous_ for that very night. This rendezvous was not the first, for

Maulear knew the secret of the veil he had found on the terrace on the

first night he had passed at Sorrento. The veil belonged to Aminta, and

the flitting shadow he had seen was the lady's self. Her accomplice was

Gaetano. How could he doubt? Interrupted in their first intercourse by

Maulear, they expected on another occasion to be more fortunate. No,

cried he, that shall not be, they will find me between themselves and

happiness. I wish them to at least learn, that I am not their dupe. I

will cover her snowy brow with a blush, and avenge myself by disclosing

to her my knowledge of her secret. But how could he surprise them? Would

they dare to cross the terrace again? Perhaps, though, they can meet

nowhere else. If so, they will brave every thing, and in that case I

must not alarm them. The Marquis took the taper, which lighted his

chamber, and placed it in a back room, which opened on the interior

corridor of the house. Carefully opening the terrace window, he took

refuge behind a group of trees, exactly opposite his room. The clock of

Sorrento struck three--the night was clear and brilliant, and the sky

was strewn with diamond stars--the air was soft and warm. It was a night

for love and lovers.

To Maulear it was a night of agony and torture. All around was so calm

and tranquil that the slightest noise fell on his ear,--he soon heard a

door open. Maulear fixed his eyes on the point of the terrace from which

the sound proceeded--his whole existence seemed concentrated in the

single sense of sight. Something cloudlike, vapory and undefinable,

which seemed too ethereal for earth, gradually appeared at the extreme

end of the terrace. This mysterious figure seemed to glide, rather than

walk, towards the place where Maulear was concealed; it approached him

slowly, without motion or sound to betray its steps. Wrapped in long

white drapery, like a mantle of vapor, resembling those creations of

Ossian which formed often the clouds of evening; in short, one might

have believed that she had risen from the earth, and had come to

dissolve under the first rays of the sun, or of the moon. The phantom

disappeared for a few seconds, amidst a dark grove, which projected on

the terrace the lofty trunks of large forest trees--but when she emerged

from their shade, and re-entered that portion of the terrace light and

brilliant, she approached so near to Maulear, that he was enabled to

examine and recognize her.

This graceful and vapory phantom was Aminta. Maulear expected it, but he

felt not the less a distressing grief, in thus recognizing her. It

seemed to him that the last plank of the wreck had broken under his

feet, and that he had fallen into the depth of despair. But soon anger

smothered the last cry of a love now no longer felt--and Maulear rushed

in pursuit of Aminta, when he saw her, to his great surprise, stop

before the window of his apartment. Then reaching out her hand she

pushed open the door and entered the room, which was partially lighted

by the moon.

"What is she doing," said Maulear, with amazement, "what business has

she in this room?"

An idea struck him. My presentiment did not deceive me. The first time

she appeared on this terrace, she was coming to this room which was once

occupied by her lover Gaetano. Crossing the terrace rapidly, he glided

near the window with rage in his heart and his mind excited--for a

guilty project, which he would had he been cooler have repelled,

attacked him, with all its seductions. Without longer hesitation he

returned to his room, shut the terrace door, and looked in the dark for

Aminta. Aminta, however, sat at a window which the moon did not light,

and which opened on the court of the villa. She seemed to listen

anxiously to some distant noise, perceptible only to her ear. So great

was her preoccupation that she paid no attention to Maulear's entrance.

Surprised at this statue-like immobility, Maulear approached the young

girl.

"Silence, Marietta," said she, without looking around, "I promised to

see him go. He has kept his word, for I yet hear, in the distance, the

gallop of his horse. Bring the light and place it in the window. He

knows my room, in which we played so often when we were children, and

far down the road he will see it burning. My remembering him will please

him. He will see that, if he watches over me, I pray for him to bring me

good news to-morrow--Gaetano is so kind."

"Gaetano!" said Maulear, in spite of himself.

"Yes--yes, Gaetano," continued the young girl, "will watch over Taddeo

during this unfortunate trial, for I know all. But say nothing,

Marietta. Poor Taddeo--Gaetano has told me. His letter, yesterday,

comforted me. Taddeo is no longer compromised. Gaetano assured me. But

this evening in the park he confirmed all, and has promised to go to

Naples to be present at the trial."

Aminta at once became silent, and sitting in an arm-chair near the

window, appeared to sleep soundly, for the noise of her breathing was

alone heard. Maulear, erect, motionless, with an icy brow, neither saw

nor heard. A thousand confused ideas filled his mind. A revelation,

strange and unforeseen, put an end to his suffering and dissipated his

fears, by exhibiting the incomprehensible mystery under which he had

been. Aminta was sleeping. Her sleep was of that somnambulist character,

so common in this country of moral and physical excitement. While

dreaming, Aminta had told and taught him every thing. She was innocent

and pure. Yet in doubt, hesitating as the victim does, who when he

marches to punishment receives a pardon, wishing to convince himself of

the reality of all that passed, he went into the next room and came out

with the light. Directing the rays obliquely so that they fell on the

downcast lids of Aminta, he placed the lamp at some distance from her,

and saw what till then no man had ever seen. He saw this beautiful

creature in a night _neglige_, enveloped by clouds of white drapery,

which a troubled sleep had gracefully disarranged. He saw a charming

childlike foot half out of the slipper, glistening silvery in the light.

A prey at once to the greatest agitation and repentance at having

suspected her, Maulear fell on his knees. The motion thus made or some

other circumstance aroused her.

"Where am I?" said she, looking uncertainly around her; seeing Maulear

at her feet, she continued:

"A man here--with me--in my room--"

She sought to rise, but being yet under the influence of the half sleep,

sank again on her chair.

"Be silent, Signorina!" said Maulear, in a low tone.

"You! you! Signor," said Aminta, recognizing him and drawing back with

terror. "You at my feet, at night, for all is dark around us, and the

light is burning. But where am I? this room--it is the one in which I

promised Gaetano to place the light."

Passing her hand across her brow, to collect her ideas and wipe away her

doubts, she said:

"But this is not my room. I occupy one next to my mother.... Ah, I

remember; it was mine once, but it was given to the Marquis, to you,"

said she, blushing. She arose. "And this night-dress," said she, looking

at her disordered toilette, "in your presence--Signor," added she,

clasping her hands, "by your honor, I beseech you, tell me how I came

hither."

"When you slept," said the Marquis, seeking to calm her.

"As I slept?" repeated the young girl, "as I dreamed.--Ah, I see, this

sleep, this waking sleep to which I am often liable. Ah! mother, mother,

why did you not watch me?"

Concealing her face in her hands, she began to shed tears.

"Of what, Signorina, are you afraid? You are under the protection of my

faith, honor, and love."

"Signor, I am lost if any one finds me here. Let me return," said she,

attempting to go.

Just then a horrible cry was uttered out of doors. A mingling of the

lion's roar and wolf's howl, a very jackal's yell. It echoed through the

villa, and was repeated by all the groves and dells of Sorrento. It was

uttered on the terrace. Thither Aminta and Maulear looked, and saw a

hideous spectacle. The face of Scorpione, pale, and denoting both

ill-temper and sickness, was pressed against the closed window. He moved

to and fro, now rising up and then descending, as if he sought some

means to open the window and enter the room. His eyes, rendered more

glittering by hatred, cast glances of vengeance on Aminta and Maulear.

His long wiry fingers passed rapidly across the glass, which was the

only object that separated them.

Aminta yielding to terror, caused by the sight of the monster, without

any calculation or regard of any thing except the violence of Scorpione,

rushed into Maulear's arms in search of protection and aid.

"Right, right," said Maulear, "no danger shall befall you while enfolded

in these arms." Taking her then towards the door of the corridor, he

said: "Come, come, no danger can befall you here."

Scorpione, however, perceiving what Maulear was about to do, and seeing

him going towards the door, uttered a second cry more terrible than the

first. He broke the glass, and sought to reach the clasp which made the

window fast. In the mean time, Maulear had reached the other door, and

was about to escape. He, however, heard steps hurrying from every

direction down the corridor. The cries of Scorpione had awakened all the

house, and just as the wretch tore open the window and precipitated

himself into the chamber, relations, friends and guests of the house,

who had collected on the terrace and corridor, rushed in with him.

Signora Rovero was the last to come.

"My daughter!" cried she, running towards Aminta.

The poor tearful mother, not accusing that child whom her heart told her

was innocent, without anger on her lip or reproach in her eye, sought

only to shroud Aminta's form in the garments which scarcely sufficed to

cover it, and in a calm and confiding voice listened to the explanations

of Maulear. The collection of all of these people, aroused from their

sleep and grouped in the half-lighted room, was a strange

picture;--Signora Rovero holding her daughter in her arms, Maulear with

his hand lifted to heaven and protesting that Aminta was innocent,

Scorpione with his hands blood-stained by the broken glass, his hair

disheveled, his looks haggard, and his violence restrained by the

servants, who kept the beast from rushing on the Marquis.

"Signora," said Maulear, speaking to Aminta's mother, "on my life and

honor, I declare to you that this young woman came hither without her

own consent, and led by a blind chance."

Maulear was about to continue, when Aminta recovering her energy, said

with a voice full of emotion, but in a tone instinct with a pure and

chaste heart:

"You need not defend me, Marquis; it is useless to repel suspicion from

me. A young woman of my character and name, the daughter of the Rovero,

need not justify herself from the imputation of a crime, which she would

die rather than commit."

She could say no more, for her strength was exhausted, and the power of

her mind had consumed the artificial and nervous capacity of her body,

which was greatly overtasked. Aminta was ill. With her beautiful head

resting on her mother's shoulder, she was taken to her room. All

withdrew in silence.

On the features of some, however, especially of the young men whom

Aminta had rejected, an incredulousness of such virtue might have been

read. It was hard to conceive how she came to be at midnight in the room

of the Marquis of Maulear.

END OF BOOK III.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by Stringer

& Townsend, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United

States for the Southern District of New-York.

From Chambers' Papers for the People.

PUBLIC LIBRARIES.

We welcome the indications, now crowding upon us from every quarter,

that the people of this country are beginning to feel the importance of

taking active measures for the establishment and increase of public

libraries. Large collections of books, open for common use, are at once

the storehouses and the manufactories of learning and science; they

bring together the accumulated fruits of the experience, the research,

and the genius of other ages and distant nations, as well as of our own

time and land; and they create the taste, as well as furnish the

indispensable aids for the prosecution of literary and scientific effort

in every department. In great cities they qualify the exclusive spirit

of commercial and professional avocations, and encourage men to steal an

hour from the pursuit of gain, and devote it to the attempt to satisfy a

natural curiosity and to cultivate an elegant taste. Connected with

literary and academical institutions, they supply the means and multiply

the objects of study, and keep alive that enthusiasm in the cause of

letters without which nothing great or permanent can ever be

accomplished. Their establishment is a boon to all classes of society,

and all may find in them both recreation and employment; for as the poet

Crabbe says:--

"Here come the grieved, a change of thought to find;--

The curious here to feed a craving mind;

Here the devout their peaceful temple choose;

And here the poet meets his favoring muse."

The origin of libraries is involved in obscurity. According to some, the

distinction of having first made collections of writings belongs to the

Hebrews; but others ascribe this honor to the Egyptians. Osymandyas, one

of the ancient kings of Egypt, who flourished some 600 years after the

deluge, is said to have been the first who founded a library. The temple

in which he kept his books was dedicated at once to religion and

literature, and placed under the especial protection of the divinities,

with whose statues it was magnificently adorned. It was still further

embellished by a well-known inscription, for ever grateful to the votary

of literature: on the entrance was engraven, "The nourishment of the

soul," or, according to Diodorus, "The medicine of the mind." It

probably contained works of very remote antiquity, and also the books

accounted sacred by the Egyptians, all of which perished amidst the

destructive ravages which accompanied and followed the Persian invasion

under Cambyses. There was also, according to Eustathius and other

ancient authors, a fine library at Memphis, deposited in the Temple of

Phtha, from which Homer has been accused of having stolen both the

"Iliad" and the "Odyssey," and afterwards published them as his own.

From this charge, however, the bard has been vindicated by various

writers, and by different arguments.

But the most superb library of Egypt, perhaps of the ancient world, was

that of Alexandria. About the year 290 B. C., Ptolemy Soter, a learned

prince, founded an academy at Alexandria called the Museum, where there

assembled a society of learned men, devoted to the study of philosophy

and the sciences, and for whose use he formed a collection of books, the

number of which has been variously computed--by Epiphanius at 54,000,

and by Josephus at 200,000. His son, Ptolemy Philadelphus, an equally

liberal and enlightened prince, collected great numbers of books in the

Temple of Serapis, in addition to those accumulated by his father, and

at his death left in it upwards of 100,000 volumes. He had agents in

every part of Asia and of Greece, commissioned to search out and

purchase the rarest and most valuable writings; and among those he

procured were the works of Aristotle, and the Septuagint version of the

Jewish Scriptures, which was undertaken at the suggestion of Demetrius

Phalerius, his first librarian. The measures adopted by this monarch for

augmenting the Alexandrian Library were pursued by his successor,

Ptolemy Euergetes, with unscrupulous vigor. He caused all books imported

into Egypt by Greeks or other foreigners to be seized and sent to the

Museum, where they were transcribed by persons employed for the purpose;

and when this was done, the copies were delivered to the proprietors,

and the originals deposited in the library. He refused to supply the

famished Athenians with corn until they presented him with the original

manuscripts of AEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; and in returning

elegant copies of these autographs, he allowed the owners to retain the

fifteen talents (more than L3000 sterling) which he had pledged with

them as a princely security. As the Museum, where the library was

originally founded, stood near the royal palace, in that quarter of the

city called Brucheion, all writings were at first deposited there; but

when this building had been completely occupied with books, to the

number of 400,000, a supplemental library was erected within the

Serapeion, or Temple of Serapis, and this gradually increased till it

contained about 300,000 volumes--making in both libraries a grand total

of 700,000 volumes.

The Alexandrian Library continued in all its splendor until the first

Alexandrian war, when, during the plunder of the city, the Brucheion

portion of the collection was accidentally destroyed by fire, owing to

the recklessness in the auxiliary troops. But the library of the

Serapeion still remained, and was augmented by subsequent donations,

particularly by that of the Pergamean Library of 200,000 volumes,[19]

presented by Mark Antony to Cleopatra, so that it soon equalled the

former, both in the number and in the value of its contents. At length,

after various revolutions under the Roman Emperors, during which the

collection was sometimes plundered and sometimes reestablished, it was

utterly destroyed by the Saracens at the command of the Caliph Omar,

when they acquired possession of Alexandria in A. D. 642. Amrou, the

victorious general, was himself inclined to spare this inestimable

treasury of ancient science and learning, but the ignorant and fanatical

caliph, to whom he applied for instructions, ordered it to be destroyed.

"If," said he, "these writings of the Greeks agree with the Koran, they

are useless, and need not be preserved; if they disagree, they are

pernicious, and ought to be destroyed." The sentence of destruction was

executed with blind obedience. The volumes of parchment or papyrus were

distributed as fuel among the five thousand baths of the city; but such

was their incredible number, that it took six months to consume them.

This act of barbarism, recorded by Abulpharagius, is considered somewhat

doubtful by Gibbon, in consequence of its not being mentioned by

Eutychius and Almacin, two of the most ancient chroniclers. It seems

inconsistent, too, with the character of Amrou, as a poet and a man of

superior intelligence; but that the Alexandrian Library was thus

destroyed is a fact generally credited, and deeply deplored by

historians. Amrou, as a man of genius and learning, may have grieved at

the order of the caliph, while, as a loyal subject and faithful soldier,

he felt bound to obey.

Among the Greeks, as among other nations, the first library consisted

merely of archives, deposited, for the sake of preservation, in the

temples of the gods. Pisistratus, the tyrant of Athens, was the first

who established a public library in his native city, which, we need not

say, always took the lead in every thing relating to science and

literature in Greece. Here he deposited the works of Homer, which he had

collected together with great difficulty and at a very considerable

expense; and the Athenians themselves were at much pains to increase the

collection. The fortunes of this library were various and singular. It

was transported to Persia by Xerxes, brought back by Seleucus Nicator,

plundered by Sylla, and at last restored by the Emperor Hadrian. On the

invasion of the Roman Empire by the Goths, Greece was ravaged; and on

the sack of Athens, they had collected all the libraries, and were upon

the point of setting fire to this funeral pile of ancient learning, when

one of their chiefs interposed, and dissuaded them from their design,

observing, at the same time, that as long as the Greeks were addicted to

the study of books, they would never apply themselves to that of arms.

The first library established at Rome was that founded by Paulus

Emilius, in the year B. C. 167. Having subdued Perses, king of

Macedonia, he enriched the city of Rome with the library of the

conquered monarch, which was subsequently augmented by Sylla. On his

return from Asia, where he had successfully terminated the first war

against Mithridates, Sylla visited Athens, whence he took with him the

library of Apellicon the Teian, in which were the works of Aristotle and

Theophrastus. Lucullus, another conqueror of Mithridates, was not less

distinguished by his taste for books. The number of volumes in his

library was immense, and they were written in the most distinct and

elegant manner. But the use which he made of his collection was still

more honorable to that princely Roman than the acquisition or possession

of it. "It was a library," says Plutarch, "whose walls, galleries, and

cabinets were open to all visitors; and the ingenious Greeks, when at

leisure, resorted to this abode of the Muses, to hold literary

conversations, in which Lucullus himself loved to join." But although

both Sylla and Lucullus liberally gave public access to their literary

treasures, still their libraries can, in strictness, be considered as

only _private_ collections. Among the various projects which Julius

Caesar had formed for the embellishment of Rome, was that of a _public_

library, which should contain the largest possible collection of Greek

and Latin works; and he had assigned to Varro the duty of selecting and

arranging them. But this design was frustrated by the assassination of

the dictator, and the establishment of public libraries did not take

place in Rome until the reign of Augustus.

The honor of having first established these valuable institutions is

ascribed by the elder Pliny to Asinius Pollio, who erected a public

library in the Court of Liberty, on the Aventine Hill. The credit which

he gained thereby was so great, that the emperors became ambitious to

illustrate their reigns by the foundation of libraries, many of which

they called after their own names. Augustus was himself an author, and

in one of those sumptuous buildings called _Thermoe_, ornamented with

porticoes, galleries, and statues, with shady walks and refreshing

baths, he testified his love of literature by adding a magnificent

library, which he fondly called by the name of his sister Octavia. The

Palatine Library, formed by the same emperor, in the Temple of Apollo,

became the haunt of the poets, as Horace, Juvenal, and Perseus have

commemorated. There were deposited the corrected books of the Sibyls;

and from two ancient inscriptions, quoted by Lipsius and Pitiscus, it

would seem that it consisted of two distinct collections--one Greek,

and the other Latin. This library having survived the various

revolutions of the Roman Empire, existed until the time of Gregory the

Great, whose mistaken zeal led him to order all the writings of the

ancients to be destroyed. The successors of Augustus, though they did

not equally encourage learning, were not altogether neglectful of its

interests. Suetonius informs us that Tiberius founded a library in the

new Temple of Apollo; and we learn from some incidental notices that he

instituted another, called the Tiberian, in his own house, consisting

chiefly of works relating to the empire and the acts of its sovereigns.

Vespasian, following the example of his predecessors, established a

library in the Temple of Peace, which he erected after the burning of

the city by order of Nero; and even Domitian, in the commencement of his

reign, restored at great expense the libraries which had been destroyed

by the conflagration, collecting copies of books from every quarter, and

sending persons to Alexandria to transcribe volumes in that celebrated

collection, or to correct copies which had been made elsewhere. But the

most magnificent of all the libraries founded by the sovereigns of

imperial Rome was that of the Emperor Ulpius Trajanus, from whom it was

denominated the Ulpian Library. It was erected in Trajan's Forum, but

afterwards removed to the Viminal Hill, to ornament the baths of

Diocletian. In this library were deposited the elephantine books,

written upon tablets of ivory, wherein were recorded the transactions of

the emperors, the proceedings of the senate and Roman magistrates, and

the affairs of the provinces. It has been conjectured that the Ulpian

Library consisted of both Greek and Latin works; and some authors

affirm, that Trajan commanded that all the books found in the cities he

had conquered should be immediately conveyed to Rome, in order to

increase his collection. The library of Domitian having been consumed by

lightning in the reign of Commodus, was not restored until the time of

Gordian, who rebuilt the edifice, and founded a new library, adding

thereto the collection of books bequeathed to him by Quintus Serenus

Samonicus, the physician, and amounting, it is said, to no fewer than

72,000 volumes.

In addition to the imperial libraries, there were others to which the

public had access in the principal cities and colonies of the empire.

Pliny mentions one which he had founded for the use of his countrymen;

and Vopiscus informs us that the Emperor Tacitus caused the historical

writings of his illustrious namesake to be deposited in the libraries.

The number of calcined volumes which have been excavated from the ruins

of Herculaneum and Pompeii would also seem to indicate that collections

of books were common in those cities. But the irruptions of the

barbarians, who overran and desolated the Western Empire, proved more

destructive to the interests of literature than either volcanoes or

earthquakes, and soon caused the disappearance of those libraries which,

during several centuries, had been multiplied in Italy. Those of the

East, however, escaped this devastating torrent; and both Alexandria and

Constantinople preserved their literary treasures, until their capture

by the Saracens and the Turks, who finally subverted the Eastern Empire.

When Constantine the Great made Byzantium the seat of his empire, he

decorated that city with splendid edifices, and called it after his own

name. Desirous to make reparation to the Christians for the injuries

they had suffered during the reign of his predecessor, he commanded the

most diligent search to be made after those books which Diocletian had

doomed to destruction; he caused transcripts to be made of such as had

escaped the fury of the pagan persecutor; and, having collected others

from various quarters, he formed the whole into a library at

Constantinople. At the death of Constantine, however, the number of

books in the imperial library was only 6900; but it was successively

enlarged by the Emperors Julian and Theodosius the younger, who

augmented it to 120,000 volumes. Of these more than half were burned

during the seventh century, by command of the Emperor Leo III., who thus

sought to destroy all the monuments that might be quoted in proof

respecting his opposition to the worship of images. In this library was

deposited the only authentic copy of the proceedings at the Council at

Nice; and it is also said to have contained the poems of Homer written

in gold letters, together with a magnificent copy of the Four Gospels,

bound in plates of gold, enriched with precious stones, all of which

perished in the conflagration. The convulsions which distracted the

lower empire were by no means favorable to the interests of literature.

In the eleventh century learning flourished for a short time during the

reign of Constantine Porphyrogennetus; and this emperor is said to have

employed many learned Greeks in collecting books, and forming a library,

the arrangement of which he himself superintended. But the final

subversion of the Eastern Empire, and the capture of Constantinople in

1453, dispersed the literati of Greece over western Europe, and placed

the literary remains of that capital at the mercy of the conqueror. The

imperial library, however, was preserved by the express command of

Mohammed, and continued, it is said, to be kept in some apartments of

the seraglio; but whether it was sacrificed in a fit of devotion by

Amurath IV., as is commonly supposed, or whether it was suffered to fall

into decay from ignorance and neglect, it is now certain that the

library of the sultan contains only Turkish and Arabic writings, and not

a single Greek or Latin manuscript of any importance.

Such is a brief survey of the most celebrated libraries of ancient

times. Before we proceed to describe those of modern days, we shall

offer a few remarks on the extent of ancient as compared with modern

collections of books. The National Library of Paris contains upwards of

824,000 volumes, and is the largest in existence. It will be easy to

prove that it is the largest that ever has existed.

The number of writers, and consequently of books, in the bright days of

Egypt, Greece, and Rome, could not have been very great. It must, on the

contrary, have been limited by various causes, which contributed

powerfully to retard the composition of new works, and prevent the

multiplication of new editions. In fact, the histories of cities and of

nations, together with descriptions of the earth, which have become

exhaustless sources for the writers of modern times, must have been but

sterile themes at a period in which history was confined within the

limits of a few centuries, and hardly a sixth part of the world now

known had been discovered. Add to these considerations the difficulties

of communication, by which the inhabitants of different countries, and

often those of different sections of the same country, were kept apart,

together with the number of arts and sciences which were either wholly

unknown, or confined within very narrow bounds, and it will become

evident, that for every thirty or forty authors of the present day,

ancient Europe could hardly have supported one or two.

Another circumstance which may be adduced in support of our proposition,

is the fact, that an increase in the number of readers leads to a

proportionate augmentation in the number of works prepared for their

gratification. We have every reason to suppose that the reading class of

the ancient world was small in comparison with that of the modern. Even

setting aside the circumstance of the narrow limits by which the

creative literature of ancient Europe was bounded--Greece and Rome being

almost the only nations whence new productions were derived--we shall

still be constrained to acknowledge the vast distance which separates

the creative literary power of modern from that of ancient times. Our

schools, which abound with such a variety of class-books upon every

subject, bear little or no resemblance to those of Greece and Rome; nor

can the text-books prepared for our universities be brought into

comparison with the oral instructions of the old philosophers. Passing

by, also, the subjects which have been opened to our research by the

discoveries of modern science, and confining our attention to the single

branch of philosophy, in the old sense of the word, which has always

been more or less studied and disputed upon since the days of the

earliest Greeks, we shall probably find that the productions of any one

modern school outnumber those of the whole body of Greek philosophers.

How much more would the balance lean towards the moderns were we to add

all the varieties of the French, German, English, and Scottish schools,

to say nothing of those whose tenacious subtleties have procured them

the name of schoolmen! If, going a step further, we consider that

reading, which the peculiar cast of modern civilization has classed

among the luxuries of life, is one of those luxuries, in the enjoyment

of which all classes come in for a share, we shall find here also a wide

distinction between ancient times and our own. During that epoch of

splendid decay, in which the immense wealth of the Roman senators was

found insufficient to satisfy the longings for new forms of stimulant

and of pleasure, their reading, as we are told by Ammianus Marcellinus,

a contemporary historian, was confined to the writings of Marius Maximus

and Juvenal. What would they not have given for a modern novel, or to

what unlimited extent would the imagination have poured forth its

fantastic creations, had the art of printing been at hand to keep pace

with the productive powers of the mind, and the cravings of a morbid

intellect? On every score, therefore, the numerical difference between

the intellectual wealth of ancient and of modern Europe must have been

decidedly in favor of the latter.

The high price of the materials for writing, and the difficulty of

procuring them, must also have been a great obstacle to the

multiplication of books. When copies could only be procured by the slow

and expensive process of transcription, it seems impossible to suppose

that a large number could have been usually prepared of any ordinary

work. Those of our readers who are aware that only about four hundred

and fifty copies of the celebrated _Princeps_ editions were struck off,

will readily assent to the correctness of this opinion. The barbarous

system of ancient warfare must have also caused the destruction of a

great many works, raised the price of others, and rendered extremely

difficult--not to say impossible--the accumulation of a very large

number in any one place. The difficulties which the bibliomaniacs of our

own times encounter in procuring copies of the editions of the fifteenth

century, and the extravagant prices at which some of them have been

sold, are enough to show how small a part of an entire edition has been

able to pass safely through the short space of four centuries. How few

copies, then, of a work written in the time of Alexander, could have

reached the age of Augustus or of Trajan! With facts like these before

us, how can we talk of libraries of 700,000 or 800,000 volumes in the

ancient world? When we find it so difficult at the present day, in spite

of the testimony of intelligent travellers, and of all the advantages we

possess for making our estimates, to ascertain the truth with regard to

the great libraries of modern Europe, how can we give credit to the

contradictory and exaggerated statements which were promulgated in ages

of the darkest ignorance concerning ancient Rome and Alexandria? "After

an attentive examination of this subject," says that eminent

bibliographer M. Balbi, "it seems to me improbable, if I should not

rather say impossible, that any library of ancient Europe, or of the

middle ages, could have contained more than 300,000 or 400,000 volumes."

But even allowing 700,000 volumes to the largest of the Alexandrian

libraries--that, namely, of which a great part was accidentally

destroyed during the wars of Julius Caesar--allowing the same number to

the library of Tripoli, and to that of Cairo; and admitting that the

third library of Alexandria contained 600,000 volumes, and the Ulpian of

Rome, and the Cordovan founded by Al-Hakem, an equal number--it will

still be easy to show that the whole amount of one of these was not

equal to even a fifth part of a library composed of printed books.

Every one who has had any thing to do with publication, is well aware of

the great difference between the space occupied by the written and that

filled by the printed letters. It is well known that the volumes of

ancient libraries consisted of rolls, which generally were written only

on one side. Thus the written surface of one of these volumes would

correspond to but half the written surface of one of our books, of which

every page is covered with letters. A library, then, composed of 100,000

rolls, would contain no more matter than one of our libraries composed

of 50,000 manuscripts. It is well known, also, that a work was divided

into as many rolls as the books which it contained. Thus the Natural

History of Pliny, which in the _Princeps_ edition of Venice forms but

one folio volume, would, since it is divided into thirty-seven books,

have formed thirty-seven rolls or volumes. If it were possible to

compare elements of so different a nature, we should say that these

rolls might be compared to the sheets of our newspapers, or to the

numbers of our weekly serials. What would become of the great library of

Paris were we to suppose its 824,000 volumes in folio, quarto, &c., to

be but so many numbers of five or six sheets each? Yet this is the rule

by which we ought to estimate the literary wealth of the great libraries

of ancient times; and "hence," says M. Balbi, "notwithstanding the

imposing array of authorities which can be brought against us, we must

persist in believing that no library of antiquity, or of the middle

ages, can be considered as equivalent to a modern one of 100,000 or

110,000 volumes."

No one of the libraries of the first class now in existence dates beyond

the fifteenth century. The Vatican, the origin of which has been

frequently carried back to the days of St. Hilarius in 465, cannot with

any propriety be said to have deserved the name of library before the

reign of Pope Martin V., by whose order it was removed in 1417 from

Avignon to Rome. And even then a strict attention to exactitude would

require us to withhold from it this title until the period of its final

organization by Nicholas V. in 1447. It is difficult to speak with

certainty concerning the libraries, whether public or private, supposed

to have existed previous to the fifteenth century, both on account of

the doubtful authority and indefiniteness of the passages in which they

are mentioned, and the custom which so readily obtained in those dark

ages of dignifying with the name of library every petty collection of

insignificant codices. But many libraries of the fifteenth century being

in existence, and others having been preserved long enough to make them

the subject of historical inquiry before their dissolution, it becomes

easier to fix with satisfactory accuracy the date of their foundation.

We find, accordingly, that during the fifteenth century ten libraries

were formed: the Vatican at Rome, the Laurentian at Florence, the

Imperial of Vienna and Ratisbon, the University at Turin, the

Malatestiana at Cesena, the Marciana at Venice, the Bodleian at Oxford,

the University at Copenhagen, and the City at Frankfort on the Maine.

The Palatine of Heidelberg was founded in 1390, dispersed in 1623,

restored in 1652, and augmented in 1816.

The increase of the libraries of Europe has generally been slowly

progressive, although there have been periods of sudden augmentation in

nearly all of them. They began with a small number of manuscripts;

sometimes with a few, and often without any printed works. To these

gradual accessions were made from the different sources which have

always been more or less at the command of sovereigns and nobles. In

1455 the Vatican contained 5000 manuscripts. In 1685, after an interval

of more than two centuries, the number of its manuscripts had only risen

to 16,000, and that of the printed volumes did not exceed 25,000. In

1789, but little more than a century later, the number of manuscripts

had been doubled, and the printed volumes amounted to 40,000.

Far different was the progress of the Royal, or as it is now called, the

National Library of Paris. The origin of this institution is placed in

the year 1595--the date of its removal from Fontainebleau to Paris by

order of Henry IV. In 1660 it contained only 1435 printed volumes. In

the course of the following year this number was raised to 16,746, both

printed volumes and manuscripts. During the ensuing eight years the

library was nearly doubled; and before the close of the subsequent

century, it was supposed to have been augmented by upwards of 100,000

volumes.

In most cases the chief sources of these augmentations have been

individual legacies and the purchase of private collections. Private

libraries, as our readers are doubtless well aware, began to be formed

long before public ones were thought of. Like these, they have their

origin in the taste, or caprice, or necessities of their founders, and

are of more or less value, as one or the other of these motives has

presided over their formation. But when formed by private students with

a view to bring together all that has been written upon some single

branch of science, or by amateurs skilled in the principles of

bibliography, they become more satisfactory and complete than they could

possibly be made under any other circumstances. Few of them, however,

are preserved long after the death of the original collector; but

falling into the hands of heirs possessed of different tastes and

feelings, are either sold off by auction, or restored to the shelves of

the bookseller. It was by availing themselves of such opportunities that

the directors of the public libraries of Europe made their most

important acquisitions. This is, in short, the history of the Imperial

Library of Vienna; and it can hardly be necessary to add, that it was

thus that the rarest and most valuable portions of that collection were

brought together.[20] It was thus, also, that the Vatican acquired, some

twenty years ago, by the purchase of the library of Count Cicognara, a

body of materials illustrative of the history of the arts, which leaves

comparatively little to be wished for by the most diligent historian. It

can hardly be necessary to enlarge upon this subject. Every one who has

engaged, even in a small degree, in historical researches, must have

observed how soon he gets out of the track of common readers, and how

dark and difficult his way becomes, unless he chance to meet with some

guide among those who, confining their attention to a single branch of

study, have become familiar with, and gathered around them almost every

thing which can serve to throw light upon it. And when a public

institution has gone on through a long course of years adding to the

works derived from other sources these carefully chosen stores of the

learned, it is easy to conceive how much it must contribute, not merely

towards the gratification of literary curiosity, but to the actual

progress of literature.

From these general considerations respecting modern libraries, we

proceed to give some particulars which may serve to convey an idea of

the history, character, and contents of the principal book-collections

now in existence; and with this view, as well as for convenient

reference, we shall arrange them under the respective heads of British

Libraries, and Foreign Libraries.

BRITISH LIBRARIES.

1. _British Museum Library, London._--There is probably no other public

institution in Great Britain which is regarded with so great and general

interest as the British Museum. By the variety of its departments, this

splendid national depository of literature, and objects of natural

history and antiquities, meets in some way the particular taste of

almost every class of society. The department of Natural History, in its

three divisions of Zoology, Botany, and Mineralogy, contains a

collection of specimens unsurpassed, probably unequalled, in the world.

The department of antiquities is in some particulars unrivalled for the

number and value of the articles it contains. But the library is the

crowning glory of the whole. If, in respect to the number of volumes it

contains, it does not yet equal the National Library of Paris, the Royal

Library of Munich, or the Imperial Library of St. Petersburg--in almost

every other respect, such as the value and usefulness of the books, the

arrangements for their convenient and safe keeping, and, in fact, in

every matter pertaining to its internal arrangements, the library of the

British Museum, by the concurrent testimony of competent witnesses from

various countries, must take rank above all similar institutions in the

world. Well may the people of this country regard the Museum with pride

and pleasure. The liberal grants of parliament, and the munificent

bequests of individuals, are sure indications of a strong desire and

purpose to continue and extend its advantages.

Some idea of the magnitude of the Museum, and of its vast resources, may

be formed by considering that the buildings alone in which this great

collection is deposited have cost, since the year 1823, nearly L700,000;

and the whole expenditure for purchases, exclusive of the cost of the

buildings just named, is considerably more than L1,100,000. Besides this

liberal outlay by the British Government, there have been numerous

magnificent bequests from individuals. The acquisitions from private

munificence were estimated, for the twelve years preceding 1835, at not

less than L400,000. The latest considerable bequest was that of the

Right Hon. Thomas Grenville: his library, which he gave to the Museum

entire, was valued at L50,000. The annual receipts of the institution of

late years, from parliamentary grants and the interest of private

legacies, have been about L50,000. The number of visitors to the Museum

is immense. In the year 1848 they amounted to 897,985, being an average

of about 3000 visitors per day for every day the Museum is open. On

special occasions there have been as many as thirty thousand visitors on

a single day.

This noble institution may be said to have originated in the bequest of

Sir Hans Sloane, who, dying in 1752, left his immense collections of

every kind to the nation, on the condition of paying L20,000 in legacies

to different individuals; a sum considerably less than the intrinsic

value of the medals, coins, gems, and precious metals of his museum.

This bequest included a library of 50,000 volumes, among which were 3566

volumes of manuscripts in different languages; a herbarium of 334

volumes; other objects of natural history, to the number of

six-and-thirty or forty thousand, and the house at Chiswick, in which

the whole was deposited. The Harleian collection of manuscripts,

amounting to 7600 volumes, chiefly relating to the history of England,

and including, among many other curious documents, 40,000 ancient

charters and rolls, being about the same time offered for sale,

parliament voted a sum of L30,000, to be raised by lottery, and vested

in trustees, for the establishment of a National Museum. Of this money,

L20,000 were paid to the legatees of Sir Hans Sloane, L10,000 were given

for the Harleian Manuscripts, and L10,000 for Montague House as a

receptacle for the whole. Sloane's Museum was removed thither with the

consent of his trustees. In 1757, George II., by an instrument under the

great seal, added the library of the kings of England, the printed books

of which had been collected from the time of Henry VII., the manuscripts

from a much earlier date. This collection was very rich in the

prevailing literature of different periods, and it included, amongst

others, the libraries of Archbishop Cranmer, and of the celebrated

scholar Isaac Casaubon. His majesty annexed to his gift the privilege

which the royal library had acquired in the reign of Queen Anne, of

being supplied with a copy of every publication entered at Stationers'

Hall; and in 1759 the British Museum was opened to the public.[21]

The value of the library has been greatly enhanced by magnificent

donations, and by immense parliamentary purchases. In 1763, George III.

enriched it with a collection of pamphlets and periodical papers,

published in England between 1640 and 1660, and chiefly illustrative of

the civil wars in the time of Charles I., by whom the collection was

commenced. Among other valuable acquisitions may be mentioned Garrick's

collection of old English plays, Mr. Thomas Tyrwhitt's library, Sir

William Musgrave's collection of biography, the general library of the

Rev. C. M. Cracherode, the libraries of M. Ginguene, Baron de Moll, Dr.

Burney, and Sir R. C. Hoare; and above all, the bequest of Major Arthur

Edwards, who left to it his noble library, and L7000 as a fund for the

purchase of books. Four separate collections of tracts, illustrative of

the revolutionary history of France, have been purchased at different

times by the trustees, in the exercise of the powers with which they are

invested. One of these was the collection formed by the last president

of the parliament at Bretagne, at the commencement of the revolution;

two others extended generally throughout the whole revolutionary period;

and the fourth consisted of a collection of tracts, published during the

reign of the Hundred Days in 1815--forming altogether a body of

materials for the history of the revolution as complete in regard to

France as the collection of pamphlets and tracts already mentioned is

with respect to the civil wars of England in the time of Charles I.

Another feature of the Museum Library is its progressive collection of

newspapers, from the appearance of the first of these publications in

1588. Sir Hans Sloane had formed a great collection for his day. But to

this was added, in 1818, the Burney collection, purchased at the

estimated value of L1000; and since that period the Commissioners of

Stamps have continued regularly to forward to the Museum, copies of all

newspapers deposited by the publishers in their office.

In 1823, the Royal Library collected by George III. was presented to the

British nation by his successor George IV., and ordered by parliament to

be added to the library of the British Museum, but to be kept for ever

separate from the other books in that institution. The general plan of

its formation appears to have been determined on by George III., soon

after his accession to the throne; and the first extensive purchase made

for it was that of the library of Mr. Joseph Smith, British consul at

Venice, in 1762, for which his majesty paid about L10,000. In 1768 Mr.

(afterwards Sir Frederick) Barnard, the librarian, was despatched to the

continent by his majesty; and as the Jesuits' houses were then being

suppressed and their libraries sold throughout Europe, he was enabled to

purchase, upon the most advantageous terms, a great number of very

valuable books, including some very remarkable rarities, in France,

Italy, and Germany. Under the judicious directions of Mr. Barnard, the

entire collection was formed and arranged; it was enlarged during a

period of sixty years, by an annual expenditure of about L2000, and it

is in itself, perhaps, one of the most complete libraries of its extent

that was ever formed. It contains selections of the rarest kind,

particularly of scarce books which appeared in the first ages of the art

of printing. It is rich in early editions of the classics, in books from

the press of Caxton, in English history, and in Italian, French, and

Spanish literature; and there is likewise a very extensive collection of

geography and topography, and of the transactions of learned academies.

The number of books in this library is 65,250, exclusively of a very

numerous assortment of pamphlets; and it appears to have cost, in direct

outlay, about L130,000, but it is estimated as worth at least L200,000.

The nucleus of the department of manuscripts at the British Museum was

formed by the Harleian, Sloanean, and Cottonian collections. To these

George II. added, in 1757, the manuscripts of the ancient royal library

of England. Of these, one of the most remarkable is the "Codex

Alexandrinus;" a present from Cyril, patriarch of Constantinople, to

King Charles I. It is in four quarto volumes, written upon fine vellum,

probably between the fourth and sixth centuries, and is believed to be

the most ancient manuscript of the Greek Bible now extant. Many of the

other manuscripts came into the royal collection at the time when the

monastic institutions of Britain were destroyed; and some of them still

retain upon their spare leaves the honest and hearty anathemas which

the donors denounced against those who should alienate or remove the

respective volumes from the places in which they had been originally

deposited. This collection abounds in old scholastic divinity, and

possesses many volumes, embellished by the most expert illuminators of

different countries, in a succession of periods down to the sixteenth

century. In it are also preserved an assemblage of the domestic

music-books of Henry VIII., and the "Basilicon Doron" of James I. in his

own handwriting. The Cottonian collection, which was purchased for the

use of the public in 1701, and annexed by statute to the British Museum

in 1753, consists of 861 manuscript volumes, including "Madox's

Collections on the Exchequer," in ninety-four volumes, besides many

precious documents connected with our domestic and foreign history,

about the time of Elizabeth and James. It likewise contains numerous

registers of English monasteries; a rich collection of royal and other

original letters; and the manuscript called the "Durham Book," being a

copy of the Latin Gospels, with an interlinear Saxon gloss, written

about the year 800, illuminated in the most elaborate style of the

Anglo-Saxons, and believed to have once belonged to the venerable Bede.

The Harleian collection is still more miscellaneous, though historical

literature in all its branches forms one of its principal features. It

is particularly rich in heraldic and genealogical manuscripts; in

parliamentary and legal proceedings; in ancient records and abbey

registers; in manuscripts of the classics, amongst which is one of the

earliest known of Homer's "Odyssey;" in missals, antiphonars, and other

service-books of the Catholic Church; and in ancient English poetry. It

possesses two very early copies of the Latin Gospels, written in gold

letters; and also contains a large number of splendidly illuminated

manuscripts, besides an extensive mass of correspondence. It further

includes about three hundred manuscript Bibles or Biblical books, in

Hebrew, Chaldaic, Greek, Arabic, and Latin; nearly two hundred volumes

of writings of the fathers of the church; and a number of works on the

arts and sciences, among which is a tract on the steam-engine, with

plans, diagrams, and calculations by Sir Samuel Morland. The Sloanean

collection consists principally of manuscripts on natural history,

voyages and travels, on the arts, and especially on medicine.

In 1807 the collection of manuscripts formed by the first Marquis of

Lansdowne was added to these libraries, having been purchased by

parliament for L4925. It consists of 1352 volumes, of which 114 are Lord

Burleigh's state papers, 46 Sir Julius Caesar's collections respecting

the reigns of Elizabeth and James I., and 108 the historical collections

of Bishop Kennet. Other valuable collections are the classical

manuscripts of Dr. Charles Burney, the Oriental manuscripts collected by

Messrs. Rich and Hull, and the Egyptian papyri presented by Sir J. G.

Wilkinson. It would be endless, however, to enumerate these treasures;

we have indicated enough to convince our readers that the library of the

British Museum is worthy of the nation to which it belongs.

2. _Bodleian Library, Oxford._--This institution, so called from the

name of its illustrious founder, was established towards the close of

the reign of Elizabeth by Sir Thomas Bodley, who, having become

disgusted with some court intrigues, resigned all his employments about

the year 1597, and resolved to spend the remainder of his life in a

private station. Having thought of various plans to render himself

useful, he says, "I concluded at the last to set up my staff at the

library door in Oxon, being thoroughly persuaded that in my solitude and

surcease from the commonwealth affairs, I could not busy myself to

better purpose than by reducing that place, which then in every part lay

ruined and waste, to the public use of students. For the effecting

whereof I found myself furnished in a competent proportion of such four

kinds of aids, as, unless I had them all, there was no hope of good

success. For without some kind of knowledge, as well in the learned and

modern tongues as in sundry other sorts of scholastical literature;

without some purse-ability to go through with the charge; without great

store of honorable friends to further the design; and without special

good leisure to follow such a work, it could but have proved a vain

attempt and inconsiderate." Having set himself this task--"a task," as

his friend Camden justly says, "that would have suited the character of

a crowned head"--Bodley despatched from London a letter to the

vice-chancellor, offering not only to restore the building, but to

provide a fund for the purchase of books, and the maintenance of proper

officers. This offer being thankfully accepted, he commenced his

undertaking by presenting to the library a large collection of books

purchased on the continent, and valued at L10,000. He also collected

1294 rare manuscripts, which were afterwards increased to 6818,

independently of 1898 in the Ashmolean Museum. Other collections and

contributions were also, by his example and persuasion, presented to the

new library; and the additions thus made soon swelled to such an amount

that the old building was no longer sufficient to contain them. The

edifice was accordingly enlarged; and Bodley thus had the proud

satisfaction of seeing Oxford possessed, by his means, of such a library

as might well bear comparison with the proudest in continental Europe.

It would require a volume to contain an enumeration of the many

important additions which have been made to this library by its numerous

benefactors, or to admit even a sketch of its ample contents in almost

every branch of literature and science. The Oriental manuscripts are the

rarest and most beautiful to be found in any European collection; and

the first editions of the classics, procured from the Pinelli and

Crevenna libraries, rival those of Vienna. In a word, it is exceedingly

rich in many departments in which most other libraries are deficient,

and it forms altogether one of the noblest collections of which any

university can boast.

3. _University Library, Cambridge._--This is a library of considerable

extent, and contains much that is valuable or curious both in the

department of printed books and in that of manuscripts. The printed

books comprise a fine series of _editiones principes_ of the classics,

and a very large proportion of the productions of Caxton's press. Among

the manuscripts contained in it are the celebrated manuscript of the

four Gospels and Acts of the Apostles, known by the name of the _Codex

Bezae_, which was presented to the university by that distinguished

reformer; Magna Charta, written on vellum; and a Koran upon cotton paper

superbly executed. In the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, there

are several exceedingly interesting literary curiosities; amongst

others, some manuscripts in the handwriting of Milton, consisting of the

original copy of the "Masque of Comus," several plans of "Paradise

Lost," and the poems of "Lycidas," "Arcades," and others; and also Sir

Isaac Newton's copy of his "Principia," with his manuscript notes, and

his letters to Roger Coles.

4. _Advocates' Library, Edinburgh._--This library was founded in 1682,

at the instance of Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh, who was at that

time Dean of Faculty, and the plan was carried into execution on a small

scale, by a fund which had been formed out of the fines of members. It

was originally intended that it should consist merely of the works of

lawyers, and of such other books as were calculated to advance the study

of jurisprudence; it now comprehends, in a greater or less degree,

almost every branch of science, philosophy, jurisprudence, literature,

and the arts. Its collection of historical works is very complete. Among

the curiosities shown to visitors are a manuscript Bible of St. Jerome's

translation, believed to have been written in the eleventh century, and

known to have been used as the conventual copy of the Scriptures in the

Abbey of Dunfermline; a copy of the first printed Bible, in two volumes,

from the press of Faust and Guttenberg; the original Solemn League and

Covenant, drawn up in 1580; and six copies of the Covenant of 1638.

Among other manuscripts in the collection are the whole of the

celebrated Wodrow Manuscripts, relating to the ecclesiastical history of

Scotland, and the chartularies of many of the ancient religious houses.

For its extent, no less than for the liberal principles upon which it is

conducted, this deserves the name of the National Library of Scotland.

5. _Trinity College Library, Dublin._--This library owed its

establishment to a very curious incident. In the year 1603, the

Spaniards were defeated by the English at the battle of Kinsale;

determined to commemorate their victory by some permanent monument, the

soldiers collected among themselves the sum of L1800, which they agreed

to apply to the purchase of books for a public library, to be founded in

the then infant institution of Trinity College. This sum was placed in

the hands of the celebrated Dr. Usher, who immediately proceeded to

London, and there purchased the books necessary for the purpose. It is a

remarkable coincidence, that Usher, while occupied in purchasing these

books, met in London Sir Thomas Bodley engaged in similar business, with

a view to the establishment of his famous library at Oxford. From this

commencement, the library of Trinity College was, at different periods,

increased by many valuable donations, including that of Usher's own

collection, consisting of 10,000 volumes, until at length its growing

magnitude requiring a corresponding increase of accommodation, the

present library-hall, a magnificent apartment of stately dimensions, was

erected in the year 1732. Since that time numerous additions have been

made to the library: amongst others, that of the library of the

Pensionary Fagel, in 20,000 volumes, and the valuable classical and

Italian books which had belonged to Mr. Quin; so that, altogether, the

library of Trinity College now forms one of the first order, at least in

this country.

The five libraries thus briefly described are the principal ones in the

United Kingdom, and they are all entitled to receive a copy of every new

work on its publication; so that they are continually on the increase,

and enabled to keep pace with the activity of the press. Of the numerous

other libraries in this country we have no space to give a detailed

account, and must therefore content ourselves with merely indicating the

names of the more extensive ones. In London are the libraries of the

Royal Society and the Royal Institution; Sion College Library;

Archbishop Tenison's Library; and Dr. Williams's Library, belonging to

the Dissenters. The Lambeth Library of the Archbishop of Canterbury is

exceedingly rich in ecclesiastical history and biblical literature. At

Oxford and Cambridge, all the different colleges have libraries more or

less extensive and valuable. Chetham's Library at Manchester is also

worthy of mention. The library of the Writers to the Signet at Edinburgh

is an excellent and valuable miscellaneous collection of books in

science, law, history, geography, statistics, antiquities, literature,

and the arts. Finally, the Scotch universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow,

St. Andrews, and Aberdeen, all possess academical libraries of

considerable size, and which are steadily on the increase. Many of the

above receive an annual grant of money from government, as a

compensation for the withdrawal of the privilege of receiving copies of

every book published in the kingdom. All such, at least, ought to be

thrown open to the public, and doubtless soon will be.

FOREIGN LIBRARIES.

1. _National Library, Paris._--This library is justly considered as the

finest in Europe. It was commenced under the reign of King John, who

possessed only _ten_ volumes, to which 900 were added by Charles V.,

many of them superbly illuminated by John of Bruges, the best artist in

miniatures of that time. Under Francis I. it had increased to 1890

volumes, and under Louis XIII. to 16,746. In 1684 it possessed 50,542

volumes; in 1775 it amounted to above 150,000; and by 1790 it had

increased to about 200,000. At present it contains 824,000 volumes of

printed books, and 80,000 manuscripts. It is divided into four

departments:--1. Printed books; 2. Manuscripts, charters, and diplomas;

3. Coins, medals, engraved stones, and other antique monuments; and 4.

Engravings, including geographical charts and plans. Of the contents of

this magnificent, nay, matchless collection, it would far exceed our

limits to give any details, or even to enumerate its choicest articles.

It is rich in every branch and department, unique in some, scarcely

surpassed in any, and unrivalled in all taken together. Of books printed

on vellum it contains at once the finest and most extensive collection

in the world.

2. _Arsenal Library, Paris._--This library, founded by the Marquis de

Paulmy, formerly ambassador of France in Poland, was in 1781 acquired by

the Count d'Artois, who united to it nearly the whole of the library of

the Duke de la Valliere. It possesses the most complete collection

extant of romances, since their origin in modern literature; of

theatrical pieces or dramas, from the epoch of the Moralities and

Mysteries; and of French poetry since the commencement of the sixteenth

century. It is less rich in other branches, but it has all works of

importance, and in particular contains historical collections which are

not to be found elsewhere.

3. _Library of Ste Genevieve, Paris._--The foundation of this library

dates as early as the year 1624, when Cardinal de Rochefoucauld, having

reformed the Abbey of Sainte-Genevieve, made it a present of 600

volumes. At present it contains 160,000 printed volumes and 2000

manuscripts. In it may be found all the academical collections, and a

complete set of Aldines; it is particularly rich in historical works;

and its most remarkable manuscripts are Greek and Oriental. Its

typographical collections of the fifteenth century are not more valuable

for their number than the high state of preservation in which they are

found. This library is open of an evening, and is much resorted to by

students, and men of the operative classes.

4. _Mazarin Library, Paris._--This library, as its name denotes, was

instituted by Cardinal Mazarin. The formation of it was intrusted to the

learned Gabriel Naude, who, having first selected all that suited his

purpose in the booksellers' shops in Paris, travelled into Holland,

Italy, Germany, and England, where the letters of recommendation of

which he was the bearer enabled him to collect many very rare and

curious works. Cardinal Mazarin, by his will, bequeathed it to the

college which he founded, and in 1688 it was made public. It is

remarkable for a great number of collections containing detached pieces

and small treatises, which date as far back as the fifteenth century,

and exist nowhere else; nor has any other library so complete a body of

the ancient books of law, theology, medicine, and the physical and

mathematical sciences. It also possesses a most precious collection of

the Lutheran or Protestant authors. In one of the halls are placed

models in relief of the Pelasgic monuments of Italy and Greece; in

another is a terrestrial globe, eighteen feet in diameter, formed of

plates of copper, and executed by order of Louis XVI.; but this

instrument, which is unique in Europe, is unfortunately unfinished,

being destitute of several requisite circles.

5. _National Library, Madrid._--This "is one of the many institutions

which awaken the admiration of the stranger in Spain, as being at

variance with the pervading decay." According to Mr. Ford, "it is rich

in Spanish literature, especially theology and topography, and has been

much increased numerically since the suppression of the convents; but

good modern books are needed." It contains many valuable Greek, Latin,

and Arabic manuscripts, and unedited works, chiefly Spanish. _The

Monetario_, or cabinet of medals, is arranged in an elegant and

beautiful apartment, and contains an unrivalled collection of Celtic,

Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Gothic, Arabic, and modern coins and medals,

in excellent preservation. The library is open to all, at least as far

as the printed books are concerned.

6. _Vatican Library, Rome._--Among the libraries of Italy, that of the

Vatican at Rome stands preeminent, not more for its grandeur and

magnificence, than for the inestimable treasures with which it is

enriched. It was originated about the year 465 by Pope Hilary, and has

been augmented by succeeding pontiffs, and by various princes, until it

reached its present extent and value. Our space will not permit us to

give any thing like a detailed account of its treasures; but we condense

from Sir George Head's admirable work on Rome the following description

of the grand saloon of the library:--"The principal chamber of the

library appears to be 179 feet long by 51 broad. The ceiling is

remarkable for presenting to the eye the appearance of a uniform

extensive surface, as if it were a beautifully broad elliptical vault,

though in fact it consists of a double range of groined arches that,

springing on each side from the walls, and blending together in the

middle, are supported on a row of six pillars planted in a line on the

ground. These pillars are contrived, accordingly, of an oblong shape, so

extremely narrow that, planted as they are longitudinally, and

encompassed by large rectangular mahogany bookcases to serve as

pedestals, they occupy but an inconsiderable space in the apartment when

viewed edgewise by a spectator standing at the entrance, and from their

form effectually counteract the appearance of weight, that would

certainly otherwise be produced by the double vaulting. Moreover, while

the lines of curvature slide as it were thus gently and harmoniously

into the outline of the pillars, the transition of surface is the less

perceptible, owing to the whole of the vault and pillars being painted

in a uniform delicate pattern of arabesque, by Zuccari, as it is

affirmed; but at all events, in figures of plants and flowers, almost as

light and exquisite as the paintings on a china teacup, and thrown into

relief by the prevalence of a clear white ground; so that an appearance

is produced of airiness and space to all intents and purposes as

effective as if the ceiling were really contained within the span of a

single elliptical arch. Along the base of the ceiling is a cornice of

stucco, ornamented with a light pattern in white and gold; and

underneath, upon the upper portion of the walls, are six windows on each

side; and the remainder of the surface is covered with paintings by

several different artists, one of which represents Sixtus V. receiving

from his architect, Dominico Fontana, the plan of the present library.

The lower portion of the walls is entirely occupied by closed bookcases,

composed of panels of wood painted in arabesque on a ground of white and

slate color, and surrounded by gilded mouldings; which receptacles bear

no sort of affinity in appearance to ordinary library furniture, and

thoroughly conceal from public view the valuable manuscripts they

contain. No books, in fact, are to be seen in the whole chamber, and

particularly the rectangular bookcases above referred to, that serve the

purpose of pedestals, from the middle of which each pillar supporting

the ceiling and resting on the ground below rise, as the pier of a

bridge from its ceisson, rather resemble ornamental buffets upon whose

tabular surface vases and other splendid objects of art and antiquity

are arranged in order.

"With regard to the principal objects worthy of observation there are,

in the first place, two very magnificent tables, both alike, placed in

the middle of the room in a corresponding position to one another,

between the first and second pillar at each extremity. Each is composed

of an enormously thick and very highly polished slab of red Oriental

granite, supported by six bronze figures of slaves as large as life.

Such being the appropriation of two of the intercolumnial spaces, a

third is occupied by a low column of Cipollino marble, serving as a

pedestal to support a splendid and very large vase of Sevres china,

which was presented by the Emperor Napoleon to Pius VII. In a fourth

intercolumnial space is to be seen, supported on a pedestal of

Cipollino, whose base appears to be a sort of alabaster marked with

different shades of olive-green, a square tazza of malachite, presented

to Gregory XVI. by the Crown-Prince of Russia, after his visit to Rome

in 1838. In the fifth intercolumnial space are a magnificent pair of

candelabra of Sevres china, brought by Pius VII. from Paris, and also a

splendid vase of the same material presented to his holiness by Charles

X. There is also to be observed, placed at the extremity of the room, on

the right-hand side near the wall, a spirally fluted column of Oriental

alabaster, which was discovered near the church of St. Eusebio, on the

Esquiline; and suspended against the wall, not far distant, is a curious

old Russian calendar painted on wood.

"The bookcases being continually locked, as above stated, permission is

nevertheless granted to those visitors who may be desirous of consulting

the books and manuscripts, on making application to the

cardinal-librarian or his assistants; but the privilege is merely

nominal, in consequence of the extremely imperfect state of the

catalogue; and in point of fact the multitudinous volumes on the shelves

may be compared to a mine, unexplored and unexplorable; whence only a

few particular objects, considered the staple curiosities of the region,

and consequently continually had recourse to by the visitors, are

extracted. The volumes in question consist principally of a

splendidly-illuminated Bible of the sixth century; the most ancient

version of the Septuagint; the earliest Greek version of the New

Testament; the 'Assertio Septem Sacramentorum,' written by Henry

VIII.--a royal literary effort in defence of the seven Roman Catholic

sacraments that procured the title of Defender of the Faith for the

author, which descended to the Protestant monarchs of England; and a

most curious and authentic collection of original correspondence between

Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn. The 'Assertio Septem Sacramentorum' is a

good thick octavo volume, written in Latin, and printed in the year

1501, in London, on vellum. The type is clear, with a broad margin, and

at the beginning is the original presentation addressed to Leo X., as

follows, subscribed by the royal autograph--

'Anglorum Rex Henricus Leo Decime mittit

Hoc opus, et fidei testis et amicitiae.'

The whole work--in the preface of which the writer descants on his

humble talents and his modesty--would seem, as far as I was able to

judge by turning over the pages hastily, to be composed in a remarkably

clear style, and to abound with naive phrases and genuine expressions of

the king himself, wrought into the mass and substance of a prolix

theological dissertation, that no doubt was prepared and digested for

the purpose by the divines of the period. With regard to the

correspondence with Anne Boleyn, which places the royal author

altogether in a different point of view before the public, the latter

consists of a considerable number of original letters, of which those

written by the king are for the most part in French and the remainder in

English, and those of Anne Boleyn written all in French. The documents

are all in excellent preservation, and the handwriting perfectly

legible; from the difference of the character at the period in question,

and owing to the abbreviations, somewhat difficult to decipher; not so

much so, however, but that even an unpractised person, with sufficient

time and leisure, might make them out without much difficulty. Visitors

are relieved from the labor of the experiment; and fair copies, made in

a clear round hand, are placed, each copy side by side with the

original, and all are stitched together in a portfolio, where they may

be perused with the utmost facility. The letters, which to those

inclined to ponder on the anatomy of the human heart afford a melancholy

moral, are chiefly remarkable for the boisterous eager tone of the

king's passion towards his lady-love, which, expressed in terms that

would hardly be considered proper now-a-days, verges on the grotesque."

7. _Casanata Library, Rome._--This library, founded by Cardinal Girolamo

Casanata in the year 1700, is said to contain a greater number of

printed books exclusively, in contradistinction to manuscripts, than any

other in Rome, not excepting the Vatican. "The library," says Sir George

Head, "is a very beautifully-proportioned chamber, upwards of fifty feet

in breadth, and long in proportion, with an elliptically-vaulted

ceiling, along the base of which are a series of acute-angled arched

spaces containing windows that throw an admirable light on the

apartment, which is whitewashed most brilliantly. The books are ranged

all round the room on open shelves, with a communication to those of the

upper row by a pensile gallery that surrounds the whole periphery. At

the extremity of the room is a white marble statue, by Le Gros, of

Cardinal Casanata, the founder, elevated with remarkably good effect on

a pedestal of dark-colored Brazil-wood, very highly polished, and

surmounted by a splendid frontispiece, supported on two pair of fluted

Corinthian columns, all of the same material. The door of the room at

the entrance is also surmounted by a frontispiece and columns of

Brazil-wood, similar to the preceding. The librarian, a Dominican friar,

dressed in the habit of his order, and seated in an easy-chair in the

middle of the room at his desk of office, attends there continually, and

is exceedingly kind and attentive to the applications of strangers who

wish to read books in the library, though his good intentions are of

little avail, from the want of a proper catalogue."

8. _Laurentian Library, Florence._--This institution was commenced by

Cosmo de Medici, the father of a line of princes whose name and age are

almost synonymous with the restoration of learning. Naturally fond of

literature, and anxious to save from destruction the precious remains of

classical antiquity, he laid injunctions on all his friends and

correspondents, as well as on the missionaries who travelled into remote

countries, to search for and procure ancient manuscripts in every

language and on every subject. He availed himself of the services of all

the learned men of his time; and the situation of the Eastern empire,

then daily falling into ruins by the repeated attacks of the Turks,

afforded him an opportunity of obtaining many inestimable works in the

Hebrew, Greek, Chaldaic, Arabic, and Indian languages. From these

beginnings arose the celebrated library of the Medici, which, after

having been the constant object of the solicitude of its founder, was

after his death further enriched by the attention of his descendants,

and particularly of his grandson Lorenzo; and after various vicissitudes

of fortune, and frequent and considerable additions, has been preserved

to the present day--the noblest monument which its princely founders

have left of the glory of their line.

9. _Magliabecchian Library, Florence._--Antonio Magliabecchi, from being

a servant to a dealer in vegetables, raised himself to the honorable

office of librarian to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and became one of the

most eminent literary characters of his time. The force of natural

talent overcame all the disadvantages of the humble condition in which

he had been born, and placed him in a situation to make his name known

and respected. But he endeavored to deserve still better of his

countrymen, by presenting them, shortly before his death in 1714, with

his large and valuable collection of books, together with the remainder

of his fortune, as a fund for its support. This constituted the

foundation of the Magliabecchian Library, which, by the subsequent

donations of several benefactors, and the bounty of some of the grand

dukes of Florence, has been so much increased both in number and value

that it may now vie with some of the most considerable collections in

Europe.

10. _Imperial Library, Vienna._--This collection is perhaps inferior

only to that of the Vatican, and the National Library at Paris, for the

rarity and value of its contents. It was founded by the Emperor

Frederick III., who spared no expense to enrich it with printed books as

well as manuscripts in every language. By the munificence of succeeding

emperors, numerous important and valuable accessions were made to the

collection; amongst which may be mentioned the large and interesting

library of Prince Eugene, and a considerable portion of the Buda

Library, founded by Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary. The Imperial

Library occupies eight spacious apartments, and a ninth is appropriated

to a very valuable collection of medals and other curiosities. Besides

the cabinet of medals, there is also attached to the library a superb

collection of engravings, consisting of 473 large folio volumes, 510

volumes of different sizes, and 215 folio cartoons. The collection of

music contains upwards of 6000 volumes, theoretical and practical; and

that of autographs exceeds 8000 pieces, classed under the heads of

monarchs and princes, ministers and statesmen, poets, philosophers, and

men of learning or science, generals and renowned warriors, artists,

musicians, and others.

11. _Royal Library, Munich._--This is the most extensive collection in

Germany. It was founded in 1550, and is very complete in all its

departments. The ancient manuscripts relative to the art of music amount

to a great number, and are exceedingly curious.

12. _University Library, Gottingen._--The library attached to the

University of Gottingen contains 360,000 printed volumes, and 3000

volumes of manuscripts. But its extent is its least recommendation, for

it is not only the most complete among those of the universities, but

there are very few royal or public collections in Germany which can

rival it in real utility; and if not in Germany, where else? It is not

rich in manuscripts, and many libraries surpass it in typographical

rarities, but none contains so great a number of really useful books in

almost every branch of human knowledge. This library is mainly indebted

for the preeminence it has obtained to the labors and exertions of the

illustrious Heyne. In the year in which he came to Gottingen as second

librarian, the entire control of the library was committed to him, and

he became chief. From this moment commenced at once its extension and

its improvement. When Heyne went to Gottingen, it already possessed a

library of from 50,000 to 60,000 volumes; at his decease it had

increased, according to the most moderate computation, to upwards of

200,000 volumes. Nor was this all. At the commencement of his

librarianship entire departments of learning were wholly wanting; at its

close, not only were these deficiencies supplied, but the library had

become proportionally rich in every department, and, in point of

completeness, unrivalled. Fortunately, Heyne's place has been filled by

worthy successors, and the reputation of the collection is still as

great as ever.

13. _Royal Library, Dresden._--The king of Saxony's library at Dresden

contains 300,000 volumes of printed books, and 2800 volumes of

manuscripts. The valuable library that formerly belonged to Count Beurau

forms part of this noble collection, which is most complete in general

history, and in Greek and Latin classic authors. Amongst the printed

books are some of the rarest specimens of early typography, including

600 of the Aldine editions, and many on vellum, besides a copy of the

first edition of the "Orlando Furioso," printed by Mazocco, "coll'

assistenza dell'autore," in 1516, and other rarities. In the department

of manuscripts are a Mexican manuscript, written on human skin,

containing, according to Thevenot, a calendar, with some fragments of

the history of the Incas; the original manuscript of the "Reveries" of

Marshal Saxe, bearing at the end that he had composed this work in

thirteen nights during a fever, and completed it in December 1733; a

fine copy of the Koran, taken from a Turk by a Saxon officer at the last

siege of Vienna, and said to have formerly belonged to Bajazet II.; and

a Greek manuscript of the Epistles of St. Paul of the eleventh century.

An extensive collection of antiquities is preserved in twelve apartments

under the library, below which are eighteen vaulted cellars, stored with

a vast quantity of valuable porcelain, partly of foreign and partly of

Dresden manufacture.

14. _Royal Library, Berlin._--This collection includes works upon almost

all the sciences, and in nearly all languages. Among the manuscripts are

several Egyptian deeds, written on papyrus, in the demotic or enchorial

character. These are very curious, and _fac similes_ of some of them

have been published by Professor Kosegarten in his valuable work on the

"Ancient Literature of the Egyptians."

15. _University Library, Leyden._--This library was founded by William

I., Prince of Orange, and is justly celebrated throughout Europe for the

many valuable specimens of Greek and Oriental literature with which it

abounds. To it Joseph Scaliger bequeathed his fine collection of Hebrew

books; and it was further enriched by the learned Golius, on his return

from the East, with many Arabic, Turkish, Persian, and Chaldaic

manuscripts. In addition to these it received the collections of

Holmanns, and particularly those of Isaac Vossius and Ruhuken--the

former containing a number of valuable manuscripts, supposed to have

once belonged to Christina, queen of Sweden; and the latter an almost

entire series of classical authors, with a collection of manuscripts,

perhaps unique, amongst which are copies of several that were consumed

by fire in the Abbey of St. Germain-des-Pres.

16. _Imperial Library, St. Petersburg._--Russia is indebted for this

splendid collection to an act of robbery and spoliation. In 1795, when

Russia triumphed over the independence of Poland, the victorious

general, Suwaroff, unceremoniously seized the Zaluski Library, of nearly

300,000 volumes, had it packed up in all haste and dispatched to St.

Petersburg. There it formed the basis of the present Imperial Library,

which, but for that stolen collection, instead of now ranking in the

first class of European libraries, would scarcely have been entitled to

a place in the third.

17. _Libraries of Constantinople._--This city possesses thirty-two

public libraries, all varying in extent, but more or less celebrated for

the number and value of their manuscripts, which are neatly bound in

red, green, or black morocco. The Mohammedans have a peculiar method of

indorsing, placing, and preserving their books. Each volume, besides

being bound in morocco, is preserved from dust in a case of the same

material; and on it, as well as on the edges of the leaves, the title is

written in large and legible characters. The books are placed, one upon

another, in presses ornamented with trellis-work, and are disposed along

the wall, or in the four corners of the library. All these collections

are open to the public throughout the year, excepting on Tuesdays and

Fridays: the librarians are as polite and attentive as Turks can be to

those whom curiosity or love of study attract thither: and every one is

at liberty not merely to peruse, but to make extracts from the books,

and even to transcribe them entirely, provided this be done within the

walls of the library. Theology, including the Koran and commentators

thereon, jurisprudence, medicine, ethics, and history, are the sciences

chiefly cultivated by the Osmanlis. The books are all written with the

greatest care on the finest vellum, the text of each page is inclosed in

a highly-ornamented and gilt framework, the beginning of each chapter or

section is splendidly illuminated, and the value of the manuscripts

varies in proportion to the beauty of the characters.

We here terminate our rapid survey of the principal libraries of Europe.

Small, however, would be the interest which one should feel for these

magnificent establishments were they designed solely for the benefit of

a few individuals, or of any favored class. They would still be splendid

monuments of the productive powers of the human mind, and of the taste

or learning of their founders; but they would have no claims to that

unbounded admiration with which we now regard them. There is a

republican liberality in the management of the great libraries of the

continent of Europe which is well worthy of our imitation. In these

alone is the great invention of printing carried out to its full extent,

by the free communication of all its productions to every class of

society. No introduction, no recommendation, no securities are required;

but the stranger and the native are admitted, upon equal terms, to the

full enjoyment of all the advantages which the uncontrolled use of books

can afford. As this mode of accommodating, or rather of meeting the

wants of the public, is the real object of these institutions, they are

provided with librarians, who, under different titles corresponding to

the duties imposed upon them, receive from government regular salaries

proportioned to their rank and to the services which they perform. To

these the immediate superintendence of the library is wholly intrusted,

and at a stated hour of every day in the week, except of such as are set

apart for public or religious festivals, they open the library to the

public. There, undisturbed, and supplied with every thing the collection

contains that can aid him in his studies, the scholar may pass several

hours of every day without any expense, and with no other care than that

natural attention to the books he uses, which every one capable of

appreciating the full value of such privileges will readily give. Nor do

his facilities cease here. The time during which the libraries remain

open may be insufficient for profound and extensive researches, and the

writer who has to trace his facts through a great variety of works, and

to examine the unpublished documents to be found in public libraries

alone, would be obliged to sacrifice a large portion of every day if his

studies were regulated by the usual hours of these institutions. For

such persons, a proper recommendation can hardly fail to procure the

use, at their own houses, of the works they may need. In this manner the

door is thrown open to every one who wishes to enter, and science placed

within reach of all who court her favors.

This is as it should be; and it is therefore with great pleasure that we

have observed symptoms of improvement in this respect originating in our

legislature. In March, 1849, a select committee was appointed by the

House of Commons, on the motion of Mr. William Ewart, to report on the

best means of "extending the establishment of libraries freely open to

the public, especially in large towns, in Great Britain and Ireland."

This committee consisted of fifteen members--namely, Mr. Ewart, Viscount

Ebrington, Mr. D'Israeli, Sir Harry Verney, Mr. Charteris, Mr. Bunbury,

Mr. G. A. Hamilton, Mr. Brotherton, Mr. Monckton Milnes, the Lord

Advocate (Mr. Rutherford), Mr. Thicknesse, Sir John Walsh, Mr.

Mackinnon, Mr. Kershaw, and Mr. Wyld. These gentlemen seem to have

entered upon their labors with zeal, and to have performed their duty

with thoroughness and fidelity. They held numerous sessions, and

examined a large number of witnesses. The particulars of these

examinations have been printed in full, and form a rather bulky

blue-book, in which the report of the committee occupies only twelve

pages, while the minutes of evidence, tables, &c., fill over three

hundred. The committee appear to have felt that it was only necessary to

lay before parliament and the public the facts concerning the present

condition and wants of the public libraries of this country, in order to

insure the supply of all deficiencies.

After presenting a brief view of the principal libraries in the various

countries of Europe, with a more particular account of the present

condition of those in Great Britain, showing that the English are far

behind their continental brethren in this respect, the committee thus

express their conviction--"Whatever may be our disappointment at the

rarity of public libraries in the United Kingdom, we feel satisfaction

in stating that the uniform current of the evidence tends to prove the

increased qualifications of the people to appreciate and enjoy such

institutions. Testimony, showing a great improvement in the national

habits and manners, is abundantly given in the evidence taken by the

committee. That they would be still further improved by the

establishment of public libraries, it needs not even the high authority

and ample evidence of the witnesses who appeared before the committee to

demonstrate."

Frequent and favorable allusions are made in the report and the minutes

of evidence to the numerous popular libraries in this country for

district schools, factories, &c. These, we are aware, are of the

greatest value; but these alone are not sufficient. The establishment of

even a hundred thousand small village or district-school libraries would

not supersede the necessity of a certain number of large and

comprehensive ones. These little collections are much alike, each

containing nearly the same books as every other. The committee of

parliament appear to understand this. "It is evident," they say, "that

there should be in all countries libraries of two sorts; libraries of

deposit and research, and libraries devoted to the general reading and

circulation of books. Libraries of deposit should contain, if possible,

almost every book that ever has existed. The most insignificant tract,

the most trifling essay, a sermon, a newspaper, or a song, may afford an

illustration of manners or opinions elucidatory of the past, and throw a

faithful though feeble light on the pathway of the future historian. In

such libraries nothing should be rejected. Not but that libraries of

deposit and of general reading may (as in the case of the British

Museum) be combined. But though such combination is possible, and may be

desirable, the distinction which we have drawn should never be

forgotten."

The first, and apparently, in the estimation of the committee, the most

important witness, was Edward Edwards, Esq., an assistant in the

department of printed books in the British Museum. The minutes of his

evidence alone cover between sixty and seventy of the closely-printed

folio pages accompanying the report; and besides this, he has furnished

various statistical tables, occupying fifty pages, and a series of

twelve maps. In one of these maps it is his purpose to exhibit, by

various shades, the relative provision of books in public libraries in

the principal states of Europe, as compared with their respective

populations; and in the others, the local situation of the public

libraries in some of the principal cities is indicated. The evidence of

Mr. Edwards has been severely commented upon in the London papers and

elsewhere, and some inaccuracies in his tables, of greater or less

magnitude, have been pointed out. We might, perhaps, by a particular

examination of every word and figure, add something to the list of

errata. But we think that those persons who are most familiar with the

difficulty of obtaining exact statistical details, will not wonder that

an error should here and there be found. We have looked over the

evidence and the tables with considerable care, and think them, on the

whole, highly creditable to the author. It is evident, however, from the

general tenor of his testimony, that Mr. Edwards presses rather too

strongly the point respecting the condition of England, compared with

that of the countries on the continent, as to the number and

accessibility of their public libraries. His enthusiasm on the subject,

arising probably from a laudable desire to have his own country take a

higher rank in respect to libraries than she now holds, has led him, we

think, to overlook or undervalue some of the advantages which she

already possesses. But his facts and figures are in the main to be

relied upon; and we shall make use of them as sufficiently accurate to

give our readers a general view of the present bibliothecal condition of

the principal countries of Europe.

On Mr. Edwards's map of Europe we find the smaller German states to be

represented with the lightest lines, indicating the highest rank, and

Great Britain with the darkest or lowest. He states the provision of

books in libraries publicly accessible, as compared with the population,

to be as follows:--In Saxony, for every 100 inhabitants there are 417

books; in Denmark, 412; in Bavaria, 339; in Tuscany, 261; in Prussia,

200; in Austria, 167; in France, 129; in Belgium, 95; whilst in Great

Britain there are only 53 to every 100 inhabitants.

In the following tables, the libraries containing fewer than 10,000

volumes each (of which there are, in France alone, at least seventy or

eighty) are not taken into the account:--

France has 107 public libraries, containing 4,000,000 vols.

Prussia " 44 " " 2,400,000 "

Austria " 48 " " 2,400,000 "

Great Britain " 33 " " 1,771,000 "

Bavaria " 17 " " 1,267,000 "

Denmark " 5 " " 645,000 "

Saxony " 6 " " 554,000 "

Belgium " 14 " " 538,000 "

Tuscany " 9 " " 411,000 "

Taking the capital cities, we find the following results:--

Paris has 9 public libraries, containing 1,474,000 vols.

Munich " 2 " " 800,000 "

Copenhagen " 3 " " 557,000 "

Berlin " 2 " " 530,000 "

London " 4 " " 490,500 "

Vienna " 3 " " 453,000 "

Dresden " 4 " " 340,500 "

Florence " 6 " " 318,000 "

Milan " 2 " " 230,000 "

Brussels " 2 " " 143,500 "

Arranging these libraries according to their extent, or number of

printed books, they would stand as follows:--

Printed Books. Manuscripts.

Paris (1), National Library, 824,000 80,000 vols.

Munich, Royal Library, 600,000 22,000 "

St. Petersburg, Imperial Library, 446,000 20,650 "

London, British Museum, 435,000 31,000 "

Copenhagen, Royal Library, 412,000 3,000 "

Berlin, Royal Library, 410,000 5,000 "

Vienna, Imperial Library, 313,000 16,000 "

Dresden, Royal Library, 300,000 2,800 "

Wolfenbuttel, Ducal Library, 200,000 4,580 "

Madrid, National Library, 200,000 2,500 "

Stuttgard, Royal Library, 187,000 3,300 "

Paris (2), Arsenal Library, 180,000 6,000 "

Milan, Brera Library, 170,000 1,000 "

Darmstadt, Grand Ducal Library, 150,000 4,000 "

Paris (3), St. Genevieve Library, 150,000 2,000 "

Florence, Magliabecchian Library, 150,000 12,000 "

Naples, Royal Library, 150,000 3,000 "

Edinburgh, Advocates' Library, 148,000 2,000 "

Brussels, Royal Library, 133,500 18,000 "

Rome (1), Casanata Library, 120,000 4,500 "

Hague, Royal Library, 100,000 2,000 "

Paris (4), Mazarin Library, 100,000 4,000 "

Rome (2), Vatican Library, 100,000 24,000 "

Parma, Ducal Library, 100,000 "

The chief university libraries may be ranked in the following order:--

Printed Books. Manuscripts.

Gottingen, University Library, 360,000 3,000 vols.

Breslau, University Library, 250,000 2,300 "

Oxford, Bodleian Library, 220,000 21,000 "

Tubingen, University Library, 200,000 1,900 "

Munich, University Library, 200,000 2,000 "

Heidelberg, University Library, 200,000 1,800 "

Cambridge, University Library, 166,000 3,163 "

Bologna, University Library, 150,000 400 "

Prague, University Library, 130,000 4,000 "

Vienna, University Library, 115,000 "

Leipsic, University Library, 112,000 2,500 "

Copenhagen, University Library, 110,000 "

Turin, University Library, 110,000 2,000 "

Louvain, University Library, 105,000 246 "

Dublin, Trinity College Library, 104,239 1,512 "

Upsal, University Library, 100,000 5,000 "

Erlangen, University Library, 100,000 1,000 "

Edinburgh, University Library, 90,354 310 "

The largest libraries in Great Britain are those of the

Printed Books. Manuscripts.

British Museum, London, 435,000 31,000 "

Bodleian, Oxford, 220,000 21,000 "

University, Cambridge, 166,724 3,163 "

Advocates', Edinburgh, 148,000 2,000 "

Trinity College, Dublin, 104,239 1,512 "

There are in the United States of America at least 81 libraries of 5000

volumes and upwards each, to which the public, more or less

restrictedly, have access, and of these 49 are immediately connected

with colleges or public schools. The aggregate number of volumes in

these collections is about 980,413. We subjoin the contents of a few of

the largest:--

Harvard College Library, 72,000 vols.

Philadelphia and Loganian Library, 60,000 "

Boston Athenaeum, 50,000 "

Library of Congress, 50,000 "

New York Society Library, 32,000 "

Mercantile Library, New-York, 32,000 "

Georgetown College, 25,000 "

Brown University, 24,000 "

New-York State Library, 24,000 "

Yale College, 21,000 "

America will, however, soon possess a library worthy of its character as

a great nation. The Astor Library, now in the course of formation, owes

its existence to the munificence of John Jacob Astor, who died on the

29th of March, 1848, leaving by his will the sum of 400,000 dollars for

the establishment of a public library in the city of New-York.

Seventy-five thousand dollars were to be appropriated to the erection of

a suitable building, and 120,000 dollars to the purchase of books as a

nucleus. The smallest number of books which the trustees consider it

safe to estimate as a basis for enlargement is 100,000 volumes. The

Astor Library will probably, when first formed, contain a larger number

and a better selection of books than any other in the United States.

With the generous provision which the founder has made for its increase,

together with the liberal donations which will undoubtedly be made to

this as the chief library in the country, it is likely to grow rapidly,

till it will take rank with the large libraries of the old world. Under

the direction of an enlightened and judicious Board of Trustees, with

Washington Irving for president, and Dr. Cogswell for superintendent of

the institution, there is every reason to believe that the desire so

warmly expressed at the conclusion of their report will be fulfilled:

"That the Astor Library may soon become, as a depository of the

treasures of literature and science, what the city possessing it is

rapidly becoming in commerce and wealth."

The second witness examined by the committee was M. Guizot. In the

distinguished positions which he has filled as minister of public

instruction and prime minister in France, his attention has been turned

to the public libraries of that country. While in office he ordered an

inspection of those institutions, and the French government now has

complete and exact documents relative to the number of public libraries,

and the number of books in each. These institutions are accessible to

the public in every way for reading, and to a great extent for borrowing

books. Some of them receive direct grants from the government towards

their support; while others, in the provincial towns, are supported by

municipal funds; and to the latter the government distributes copies of

costly works, for the publication of which it in general subscribes

liberally. M. Guizot attributes the happiest results to this system. He

says--"There are two good results: the first is, a general regard in the

mind of the public for learning, for literature, and for books. That

complete accessibility to the libraries gives to every one, learned or

unlearned, a general feeling of good-will for learning and for

knowledge; and then the second result is, that the means for acquiring

knowledge are given to those persons who are able to employ them."

His Excellency M. Van de Weyer, the Belgian ambassador, was next

examined. He testified that the public libraries in his own country were

numerous, large, and easily accessible to all who desire to make use of

them. He attributes the best results to the literary character of his

country from this privilege of free access to their large collections of

books. He thinks the people are better prepared than is generally

supposed to appreciate works of a high character. He seems to think it

unwise to attempt to popularize science and literature by printing

inferior books, written expressly for common and uneducated people. The

government subscribe for a number of copies of nearly every valuable

work published, by which means they encourage the progress of

literature, and are enabled to enrich many of the public collections.

"The government have sometimes, within a space of twenty years, spent

some L10,000 or L12,000 in favor of libraries. I take this opportunity

of stating also, that though the Chamber only votes a grant of 65,000 or

70,000 francs for the Royal Public Library of Brussels, whenever there

is some large sale going on, there is always a special grant made to the

library. Lately one of the most curious private libraries had been

advertised for sale; a catalogue had been printed in six volumes; the

government immediately came forward, bought the whole of the collection

for L13,000 or L14,000, and made it an addition to the Royal Library in

Brussels; they did the same thing at Ghent; I believe that the library

that they bought at Ghent consisted of about 20,000 volumes, and in

Brussels about 60,000 or 70,000 volumes." Our own government would do

well to imitate this example more frequently than it has hitherto done.

Passing by several witnesses whose evidence we should be glad to notice

did our limits permit, we come to George Dawson, Esquire, who as a

lecturer, has had opportunities of becoming acquainted with the

condition, the feelings and the wants of the working-classes in the

manufacturing towns both in England and Scotland. He testifies that

libraries to some extent have already been formed in those places, and

that there is a very general desire among the working-people to avail

themselves of more and better books. They can appreciate the best

authors. Political and historical subjects interest them most, but the

higher class of poetry is also read by them. Milton is much read. Mr.

Dawson says, "Shakspeare is known by heart almost. I could produce men

who could be cross-examined upon any play." The contrast between the

manufacturing and the farming districts in respect to the intelligence

of the people and their desire for improvement is very great. Speaking

of one of the agricultural districts, Mr. Dawson says, "I have heard of

a parish in Norfolk where a woman was the parish clerk, because there

was not a man in the parish who could read or write!"

Henry Stevens, Esq., formerly librarian of one of the libraries

connected with Yale College, gave some valuable information respecting

the present state of public libraries in the United States. He says:

"The public libraries of the United States are small but very numerous.

We have but two containing above 50,000 volumes, while there are nine

above 20,000, forty-three above 10,000, more than a hundred above 5000

volumes, and thousands of smaller ones. The want of large public

consulting libraries, like those of Europe, is much felt." The chief

readers in these libraries are the working-classes, and persons who are

engaged in active business through the day. Works on physical science,

history, biography, and of a superior class, are those chiefly read by

them; and Mr. Stevens stated, that when he came to England, he could not

help being struck by the "little reading that there is among the

laboring and business classes" of this country as compared with the

United States. This is succinctly explained by Mr. Dawson, who says:

"The quantity of people who cannot read and write in this country is a

very great hinderance to the demand for books. We have _eight millions_

who cannot write yet!" Mr. Edwards, in his evidence, also points to the

same deficiency of elementary education, "In addition," he says, "to the

positive want of schooling on the part of large numbers of the

population who are now growing up, those who do get some partial

education, habitually neglect to improve what they get from the want of

cultivating a taste for reading. Unless good books are made accessible

to the people, this is very likely to continue to be a cause--even where

education by Sunday schools, and other efforts of that kind, have been

brought within the reach of a considerable number of the population--why

the good effects of education have not been continued in after life."

The committee very justly place much value on the opinions and

suggestions of M. Libri. The thorough knowledge which that eminent

bibliographer possesses of all matters pertaining to the condition and

wants of public libraries, as well as of the needs of literary men,

renders his remarks worthy of careful consideration. In a letter

addressed to Mr. Ewart, the chairman of the committee, he develops his

views at some length, and shows the necessity of having in great

countries libraries "in which one may expect to find, as far as it is

possible, all books which learned men--men who occupy themselves upon

any subject whatever, and who cultivate one of the branches of human

knowledge--may require to consult. Of these there is nothing useless,

nothing ought to be neglected; the most insignificant in appearance,

those which on their publication have attracted the least attention,

sometimes become the source of valuable and unexpected information." It

is in the fragments, now so rare and precious, of some alphabets--of

some small grammars published for the use of schools about the middle of

the fifteenth century--or in the letters distributed in Germany by the

religious bodies commissioned to collect alms, that bibliographers now

seek to discover the first processes employed by the inventors of

xylography and typography. It is in a forgotten collection of

indifferent plates, published at Venice by Faush Verantio towards the

end of the sixteenth century, that an engineer, who interests himself in

the history of the mechanical arts, might find the first diagrams of

iron suspension-bridges.

Nothing should be neglected; nothing is useless to whoever wishes

thoroughly to study a subject. An astronomer, who desires to study the

motions peculiar to certain stars, requires to consult all the old books

of astronomy, and even of astrology, which appear the most replete with

error. A chemist, a man who is engaged in the industrial arts, may still

consult with profit certain works on alchemy, and even on magic. A

legislator, a jurisconsult, needs sometimes to be acquainted with the

laws, the ordinances, which derive their origin from the most barbarous

ages; but it is particularly for the biographer, for the historian, that

it is necessary to prepare the largest field of inquiry, to amass the

greatest quantity of materials. This is not only true as regards past

times, but we ought to prepare the materials for future students.

Historical facts which appear the least important, the most

insignificant anecdotes, registered in a pamphlet, mentioned in a

placard or in a song, nay be connected at a later period in an

unforeseen manner with events which acquire great importance, or with

men who are distinguished in history by their genius, by their sudden

elevation, or even by their crimes. We are not born celebrated--men

become so; and when we desire to trace the history of those who have

attained it, the inquirer is often obliged to pursue his researches in

their most humble beginnings. Who would have imagined that the obscure

author of a small pamphlet, "Le Souper de Beaucaire," would subsequently

become the Emperor Napoleon? and that to write fully the life of the

execrable Marat, one ought to have the very insignificant essays on

physics that he published before the Revolution? Nothing is too

unimportant for whoever wishes thoroughly to study the literary or

scientific history of a country, or for one who undertakes to trace the

intellectual progress of eminent minds, or to inform himself in detail

of the changes which have taken place in the institutions and in the

manners of a nation. Without speaking of the commentaries or

considerable additions which have been introduced in the various

reprints of an author, the successive editions of the same work which

appear to resemble each other the most, are often distinguished from

each other by peculiarities worthy of much attention. It has been well

said, that a public library should contain all those works which are too

costly, too voluminous, or of _too little value_ in the common

estimation to be found elsewhere, down even to the smallest tracts. An

old almanac, or a forgotten street-ballad, has sometimes enabled the

historian to verify or correct some important point which would

otherwise have remained in dispute.

With a brief extract from the evidence of one other witness we must

close our notice of the Report on Public Libraries. Charles Meyer, Esq.,

German secretary to his Royal Highness Prince Albert, had given

attention to the public libraries of Germany, having resided several

years in Gotha, Hamburg, Leipsic, and Munich. He had perused the

principal part of the evidence which had been given by Mr. Edwards upon

this subject, and found all that he stated to be quite correct. Dr.

Meyer thinks the existence of the numerous and valuable libraries of

Germany has given the literary men of that country an advantage over

the literary men of England. "It has saved a great number of our

German learned men," he says, "from the danger of becoming

_autodidactoi_--self-taught. I think that is one essential point of

difference that is visible in comparing the general character of the

instruction in this country with that on the continent: there are in

this country a great number of self-taught people, who think according

to their own views, without any reference to previous scientific works.

They make sometimes very great discoveries; but sometimes they find that

they have wasted their labor upon subjects already known, which have

been written upon by a great number of people before them; but as they

have no access to libraries, it is impossible for them to get acquainted

with the literature of that branch upon which they treat."

From the preceding quotations, it is evident that, in the opinion of the

Parliamentary Committee, and of the witnesses examined by it, there

exists in this country at once a great deficiency of public libraries

and a pressing necessity for their establishment. Our people are and

will be readers. They are generally prepared to make a good use of books

of a higher order than those offered to them in so cheap and attractive

a form by our enterprising publishers. Now, either their energies will

be wasted in a desultory course of reading, by which they will gain only

a superficial knowledge of almost every conceivable subject, or they

must be furnished with the means, which they are so well prepared to use

to advantage, of going to the bottom of whatever subject interests them,

and having exhausted the wisdom of past generations, of adding to the

stock of general knowledge from the results of their own thoughts and

experience.

The necessity for the establishment of large collections of books,

freely open to the public--of institutions in which, as Ovid well

expresses it,

"Quaeque viri docto veteres cepere novique

Pectore, lecturis inspicienda patent"--

is, we imagine, unquestioned and unquestionable. The question now

arises, How are these libraries to be constituted? On this point it will

not be expected that we should dilate at length. At the present time the

best books on all subjects are to be purchased at a moderate rate; and

in the formation of new libraries, attention should first be paid to the

supply of works most generally in demand. It will neither be wise nor

just to the public to purchase, at the outset, rare and curious works:

when a sufficient supply of really useful and generally read

publications has been obtained, it will be quite time enough to think of

indulging the bibliomania. But there is one subject on which this taste

may advantageously be indulged--and that is, every town in which a

public library is established should take care to collect all works

relating to its local or municipal history. A selection of the best

books on bibliography should also be possessed by each. These are to the

librarian and the literary man what the compass is to the mariner, or

the tools of his trade to the artisan.

But we must hasten to a conclusion. As a pendent to the Report of the

Parliamentary Committee, Mr. Ewart brought forward a bill for the

establishment of libraries and museums in country towns. This bill has

now received the sanction of the legislature; its operation is, however,

limited to boroughs whose population exceeds 10,000; and before it can

be carried into effect, a public meeting of rate-payers must be called,

and the consent of two-thirds of those present obtained. Liverpool was

the first to profit by this act: other towns have followed her example;

and we trust that ere long, in all the considerable towns throughout the

length and breadth of this land, public libraries and museums will be

established. The subject is one that cannot be long neglected. It will

go on gaining upon public attention, until seen by all in its true

light, and in all its bearings. Then the connection between a sound

literature and the means used for its formation will be felt; then the

numerous and immediate advantages of such a form of encouragement, as

the establishment of these institutions, will be clearly seen and fully

understood; and the rich harvest of glory which our future scholars will

reap in every branch of study must convince even the most incredulous,

that literature asks no favors and seeks no aid for which she does not

repay the giver with a tenfold increase.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] The library of Pergamos was founded by King Eumenes, and enlarged

by his successor Attalus. It soon became so extensive that the

Ptolemies, afraid that it would speedily rival their own collection at

Alexandria, issued an edict forbidding the exportation of papyrus; but

this prohibition, so far from attaining the unworthy object for which it

was destined, proved rather beneficial; for the Pergameans, having

exhausted their stock of papyrus, set their wits to work, and invented

parchment (_charta Pergamena_) as a substitute.

[20] One of the most remarkable of these purchases was that made of the

private library of the Prince Eugene, for a life-income of 10,000

florins. It was composed of 15,000 printed volumes, 337 manuscripts, 290

folio volumes of prints, and 215 portfolios or boxes.

[21] For a detailed account of, and guide-book to, the treasures of this

great national collection, see "The British Museum, Historical and

Descriptive, with Numerous Engravings," recently published by W. & R.

Chambers.

THE JOURNALS OF LOUIS PHILIPPE.

Our readers know that one of the points of the singular but admirable

education that Madame de Genlis gave Louis Philippe and his brothers,

was to teach them to examine and regulate their mind and conduct by the

keeping of a journal; and this Louis Philippe has done, not, we suppose,

continuously, nor even, perhaps, for the greater part of his busy life,

but for particular periods--during seasons either of peculiar interest

or of unusual leisure. A fragment of his early journal, extending from

the autumn of 1790 to the summer of 1791, was lost or stolen in the

tumults and pillage of the first Revolution, as the memoirs of 1815 have

been in the late one, and like these, published by an illegitimate

possessor. That most curious little tract had become very rare--so rare,

indeed, that Louis Philippe himself had not a copy, till a friend of

ours lately presented him the copy from which we ourselves had made a

translation, which we published _in extenso_ in our article on "The

Personal History of Louis Philippe." The King had also written and

printed the "Journal of the Hundred Days," just mentioned; and we were

permitted to see and make extracts in our last March number from his

Journal of February and March, 1848. It is known, too, that during his

residence at Claremont, as at former intervals of repose, he amused

himself in recording his recollections; but no information has yet

transpired of the extent (either as to bulk or time) of what he may have

left--beyond the conjecture (which is, however, only founded on an

accidental expression of his which was repeated to us some months ago)

that the portion which he was so anxious to complete related to his

return to France in 1814. * * But whatever Louis Philippe may have left,

it will be curious and valuable, as the production of so powerful a

mind, always engaged in, and for a long period actually directing, the

most extraordinary series of events in the history of the modern world.

Its publication, however, must be, of course, a matter of great

delicacy, and of mature deliberation, and we have not as yet heard even

a rumor on the subject.

These facts are from an interesting paper in the last number of the

Quarterly Review.

THE BUNJARAS.

This most interesting race, the travelling grain merchants of western

India (who lead a life wholly nomadic, and have done so earlier than is

recorded), have their best interests opposed to the introduction of

foreign innovation in the matter of transit. The Bunjaras have no

sympathy with civilized life; from the people of India they move, think,

live apart, varying in dress, language, religion, from all about them.

Rajpoots by origin, they can follow no trade; the Bunjara may _serve_

only as a soldier; in all other callings he must be free and

independent. For hundreds of years we find them, as hordes, encamping in

the open air, and living by the exchange of merchandise. They are owners

of great droves of bullocks, which, laden with grain in the upper

country, they drive to the coast, exchanging their burthens for salt, at

a favorable market, but sedulously avoiding all intercourse with

strangers and their cities. The Bunjaras are a stout, sturdy race;

sturdy and stout in action and resolve as they are in body and form,

Spartan-like in their sense of honor, free in their opinion as the

mountain breeze, keeping apart from men and their cabals, and existing

by their own energies. A short time since, I journeyed on horseback over

the very line of this proposed railway, from the city of Nassiek to

Bombay, and encountered several hundreds of bullocks heavily laden, and

attended by Bunjara families; the men armed with sword and matchlock,

the children propped up among the bullock furniture, and each younger

woman of the tribe looking much as one fancies the Jewish maiden must

have looked when she obtained grace and favor in the sight of King

Ahasuerus, who "made her queen instead of Vashti." It is worthy of

remark, that the choice of colors among the Bunjara women is altogether

opposed to general taste among the Hindoos. Red and yellow among the

latter are always favorite tints, and blue is never worn by any but the

common people, to whom it is recommended by the cheapness of the indigo

used in dyeing. The Bunjara women, on the contrary, select the richest

imaginable Tyrian purple, a sort of rosy smalt, as the ground of their

attire, which is bordered by a deep phylactery of divers colors in

curious needlework, wrought in with small mirrors, beads, and sparkling

crystals. Their saree has a fringe of shells, and their handsome arms

and delicate ankles are laden with rich ornaments The Bunjara women

plaid their hair with crimson silk, and suffer it to fall on either side

of the face, the ends secured with silver tassels, and on the summit of

the head they wear a small tiara studded with silver stars. The reader

may think this a fanciful and exaggerated dress for the wife of a

drover; but these costumes are heir-looms, and though they are often

seen faded, torn, travel-stained, and grim, the materials are always as

I have described them, differing in freshness, but never in

character.--_Sharpe._

From the Dublin University Magazine.

THE MYSTIC VIAL:

OR, THE LAST DEMOISELLE DE CHARREBOURG

_Concluded from page 264._

XI.--JONQUIL.

Blassemare, meanwhile, made his toilet elaborately, and by ten o'clock

was in Paris. He stopped at the Hotel Secqville.

"Is the marquis yet risen?" he asked.

"No;" he was in his bed; he had not retired until very late, and must

not be disturbed.

"But I _must_ see him, my good friend; his happiness, indeed his safety,

depends upon my seeing him immediately."

Blassemare was so very urgent, that at length the servant consented to

deliver a note to his master.

Rubbing his eyes, and more asleep than awake, the marquis took the

billet, and read--

"The Sieur de Blassemare, who had the honor of meeting the Marquis de

Secqville last night at the Chateau des Anges, implores a few minutes

conversation without one moment's delay; by granting which the marquis