EDITOR’S TABLE.

Alexander Hamilton Bogart.—Our attention was not long ago called to this name by the number of elegiac verses and eloquent obituary paragraphs upon “the admired and lamented young Bogart,” which we found in an old file of Albany papers, while referring to them for other matters connected with some researches in which we were at the time engaged. On inquiring in his native city for the productions of one whose early death had caused so general a sensation in the community of which he was a member, we found that he was still remembered, and still deplored. His literary abilities, not less than his personal character, seemed to have left a profound impression on all who knew him; but of his writings we could recover scarcely any, and those we obtained were principally of a fragmentary character. Yet these fragments, though their local and personal allusions were lost upon us, as they would be upon most of our readers, had in them veins of sentiment and humor that sufficiently proved the easy and versatile genius of their author, and inspired the regret that a man evidently so gifted had not left his countrymen some more finished mementos of his genius. Mr. Bogart was a native of the city of Albany, where, at the early age of twenty-one years, he died, in 1826. He was engaged in the study of the law at the time of his decease, and, as we have learned from an eminent member of the bar in that city, gave the highest promise of professional reputation, when his studies were interrupted by the illness which terminated in his death. In an interval of that illness, he is said to have destroyed such of his writings as were within his reach. The following spirited song, being happily in the hands of a friend, escaped with the fragments we have already alluded to, and, judging by them, is a characteristic specimen of his verse.

ANACREONTIC.

The flying joy through life we seek

For once is ours—the wine we sip

Blushes like beauty’s glowing cheek,

To meet our eager lip.

Round with the ringing glass once more!

Friends of my youth and of my heart;

No magic can this hour restore⁠—

Then crown it ere we part.

Ye are my friends, my chosen ones⁠—

Whose blood would flow with fervor true

For me—and free as this wine runs

Would mine, by heaven! for you.

Yet, mark me! When a few short years

Have hurried on their journey fleet,

Not one that now my accents hears

Will know me when we meet.

Though now, perhaps, with proud disdain,

The startling thought ye scarce will brook,

Yet, trust me, we’ll be strangers then

In heart as well as look.

Fame’s luring voice, and woman’s wile,

Will soon break youthful friendship’s chain⁠—

But shall that cloud to-night’s bright smile?

No—pour the wine again!

Mr. Bogart composed with singular rapidity, and would frequently astonish his companions by an improvisation equal to the elaborate performances of some poets of distinguished reputation. It was good-naturedly hinted on one occasion that his impromptus were prepared beforehand, and he was asked if he would submit to the application of a test of his poetical abilities. He promptly acceded, and a most difficult one was immediately proposed. Among his intimate friends were the late Colonel John B. Van Schaick and Charles Fenno Hoffman, both of whom were present. Said Van Schaick, taking up a copy of Byron, “The name of Lydia Kane”—a lady distinguished for her beauty and cleverness, who died a year or two since, but who was then just blushing into womanhood—“the name of Lydia Kane has in it the same number of letters as a stanza of ‘Childe Harold;’ write them down in a column.” They were so written by Bogart, Hoffman and himself. “Now,” he continued, “I will open the poem at random; and for the ends of the lines in Miss Lydia’s acrostic shall be used the words ending those of the verse on which my finger may rest.” The stanza thus selected was this:

And must they fall? the young, the proud, the brave,

To swell one bloated chief’s unwholesome reign?

No step between submission and a grave?

The rise of rapine and the fall of Spain?

And doth the Power that man adores ordain

Their doom, nor heed the suppliant’s appeal?

Is all that desperate valor acts in vain?

And counsel sage, and patriotic zeal,

The veteran’s skill, youth’s fire, and manhood’s heart of steel?

The following stanza was composed by Bogart within the succeeding ten minutes—the period fixed in a wager—finished before his companions had reached a fourth line, and read to them as we print it⁠—

Lovely and loved, o’er the unconqueredbrave

Your charms resistless, matchless girl, shallreign!

Dear as the mother holds her infant’sgrave

In Love’s own region, warm, romanticSpain!

And should your Fate to courts your stepsordain,

Kings would in vain to regal pompappeal,

And lordly bishops kneel to you invain,

Nor Valor’s fire, Law’s power, nor Churchman’szeal

Endure ’gainst Love’s (time up!) untarnishedsteel!

We need not inform the reader that few of the most facile versifiers could have accomplished the task in hours. Bogart nearly always composed with the same rapidity, and his pieces were marked by the liveliest wit and most apposite illustration. Of how many young Americans who, like him, died as the bud of their promise was unfolding, have we heard! “Whom the gods love, indeed die young.”

The Annuaries.—The Gift may be regarded as a dial by which to learn the progress of the arts in America. The best of our painters and engravers are engaged in its embellishment, and in pictorial beauty as well as literary character every new volume surpasses its predecessor. The Gift for 1843 will be issued in a few days, with pictures from Malbone, Huntington, Inman, Chapman, Sully, and others, and prose and verse by Herbert, Simms, Miss Gould, Mrs. Seba Smith, Mrs. Sigourney, and some half dozen beside. The Token, published for fourteen years in Boston, will not again be issued.

John Jacob Astor, the wealthiest citizen of the United States, has with enlightened liberality devoted three hundred thousand dollars to the establishment of a public library in New York, an elegant and durable edifice is being built in the most pleasant part of the city for its reception, and Doctor Cogswell, a gentleman of taste and sound learning, is engaged in the purchase of books for it. There are a large number of libraries in America, owned by societies and individuals, but none yet for the public, and none that, if they were free like the great libraries of the old world, would be of much use to men of science or letters. To so many of the million as can buy shares in them those of Boston, New York and Philadelphia will afford sufficient means of amusement, but if a man wishes to explore any department of science, moral, political, or historical, and resorts to them, he will soon be compelled to abandon his researches or to go abroad for their prosecution. Indeed, except the library of Congress, which is not half so good as an intelligent bibliopole with the requisite means might make it in six months, there is in this country no collection of books relating to our own history comparable with several collections in England, and for works by American authors, for our national literature, such as it is, the very last place to look is in an American library. Stepping a few days since into an extensive bibliographical establishment in this city, we were shown an order for American books, by catalogue, amounting to several thousand dollars; with great difficulty they had been found among the book-stalls and other out-of-the-way places, and shipped to London, to be added to a collection probably already as large as any existing here, except two or three owned by governments and societies, and a few in the hands of private individuals. We have examined carefully most of the libraries of any consequence in the United States, and know something of their condition. Small as they are, compared with the libraries of Europe, they are made up in a great degree of duplicate copies of worthless books, and are most poorly supplied with works by our countrymen or relating to our history and institutions. They are managed by persons incompetent to discharge their duties; have librarians who cannot comprehend the title pages of half the books mentioned in their catalogues; and add very little indeed to the means of obtaining knowledge which have an independent existence. The Astor library will be different. The large amount of money appropriated by its founder, the ability of his actuary, and the system which has been proposed for its government, give promise that we are to have at length the nucleus, gradually and surely to be enlarged into a really good American library, to which scholars may resort with such hopes of advantage as now prompt them to visit England, Germany, Spain, or France.

Mr. Francis J. Grund, our Consul at Bremen, and author of “Aristocracy in America,” “The Americans in their Moral, Social and Political Condition,” etc., has nearly ready for press a work on the state and prospects of Germany, which will be published in a few weeks by Longman, Reese, Orme, Browne & Longman, of London. It will of course be reprinted in this country.

Doctor Marsh.—We learn with great pleasure that Professor Torrey, of the University of Vermont, is preparing for publication the writings, religious, philosophic and literary, of the late President Marsh, the greatest American who has died in this decade.

Mr. Fay’s Notes on Shakspeare.—The series of articles by Mr. Theodore S. Fay, on the writings of Shakspeare, which we are publishing in this Magazine, prove that the subject, however ably or frequently it has been treated, is not exhausted. Shakspeare’s works will probably continue through all future time to be more read than any other productions save the inspired books which compose the Holy Bible. They contain peculiarities which distinguish the author from every other writer, and have made him for two centuries the object of the world’s attention and admiration. With all the praise awarded to him by the greatest critics of all nations, we believe with our correspondent that he is not even yet generally understood, and that many thousands read his plays, and see them performed, without a true idea of their particular beauty and profound meaning. The system of the German critic, Ulrici, alluded to by Mr. Fay, is highly interesting, and this entire series of papers—which will be completed in four or five more numbers—without being so studied as the critiques of Schlegel and Hazlitt, is well calculated to call the popular attention to beauties which have not generally been observed, and many of which we do not remember having seen pointed out before at all.

The Antiquities of Central America.—Few subjects have recently attracted more attention than that of the discovery of the vast remains of ancient cities in the southern port of this continent. The “hand book” of Mr. John L. Stephens, descriptive of his hasty journey through Central America, though it contains little new information, and none of the curious learning which we look for in the chronicle of an antiquary’s researches, has been read with avidity in this country and in Europe, and is soon to be followed by an account of a second visit to the same scenes. Since the return of Mr. Stephens, Mr. Norman, an intelligent and careful explorer, has passed several months in Yucatan, visiting Tchechuan and other places not discovered by former travellers, and abounding in interesting relics of an aboriginal race, and monuments, yet undecayed by time, which show that their builders were far advanced in civilization. Mr. Norman is now preparing for this magazine a series of articles on the ruins of Yucatan, the first of which, with illustrative engravings by Butler, from original drawings, will probably appear in our next number.

National Songs.—Among the new works to be published in Philadelphia, during the autumn, is “A Collection of American Patriotic, Naval and Military Songs, in three volumes,” by the veteran bookseller, Mr. McCarty. It will be curious and unique.

Thulia, a Tale of the Antarctic, is the title of a beautiful poem by J. C. Palmer, U. S. N., written while the author, attached to the Exploring Expedition, was in the Southern seas, which will soon be published in New York, with illustrations engraved by Adams, from designs by Agate.

The Smuggler’s Son, with other Tales and Sketches, in Prose and Verse, is the title of a volume from the pen of a lady of Tennessee, soon to be published by Herman Hooker, of this city.

Mr. Alfred B. Street, one of the most graphic and natural of the poets who have attempted the description of external nature, we learn has a collection of his writings in press.

Transcriber’s Notes:

Table of Contents has been added for reader convenience. Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Obvious punctuation and typesetting errors have been corrected without note.

[End of Graham’s Magazine, Vol. XXI, No. 3, September 1842, George R. Graham, Editor]