CONTENTS OF VOLUME II, NUMBER 6 (continued 3)

Cotemporary with Klopstock and Lessing, and, from his works and influence, deserving of being mentioned next to them, was Wieland, born in 1733 in Biborach, a town of Swabia. Wieland commenced writing at the age of seventeen, and finished at that of eighty, during which extended period he addicted himself to almost every department of authorship. He is the first German who translated Shakspeare. As the author of Oberon, his name is familiar to English readers. This is much the best work of Wieland, more remarkable for grace and sprightliness than force or originality. He drew largely from the Greeks, Italians, English and French, and though a poet and writer of high and various merit, but a small portion of the much he has written is now read.

Following chronological order in this fertile period, we come after Wieland to Herder, born at Mohrungen, a small town of Eastern Prussia, in 1744. Like Wieland, Goethe, and Schiller, Herder was drawn to Weimar by the munificient spirit of the Duchess Amalia, and her son, the grand Duke Augustus, illustrious and ever memorable, as enlightened fosterers of genius—shining examples to sovereigns, kingly or popular. Herder was appointed in his thirty-second year, court preacher at Weimar, and there passed the remainder of his life, in diversified usefulness, simultaneously inspecting schools and elaborating philosophical essays, learnedly elucidating the Old Testament, and at the same time reviving and awakening a taste for national songs. His greatest work, entitled Ideas for the Philosophy of History, is esteemed one of the noblest productions of modern times. Herder is called by Richter, a Christian Plato.

And here, next to Herder, and a congenial and profounder spirit, we will speak of Richter himself, born in 1763. Richter, better known by his Christian names, Jean Paul, is a fine sample of the German character. The truthfulness of the Germans, their deep religious feeling, their earnestness and their playfulness, (far removed from frivolity) their enthusiasm and their tendency to the mystical, their warm affections and aptness to sympathy, are all not only traceable in his works, but prominent in the broad vivid lines of his erratic pen. In the union of learning with genius, Richter surpasses Coleridge. His wonderful fictions are out of the reach of common readers, not more by their learned illustrations and their subtleties, than by their wild irregularity of form and arbitrary structure, whereby the world generally is deprived of the enjoyment of a fund of the most tender pathos, gorgeous description, bold, keen wit and satire, and the richest humor in modern literature. His two greatest works are on education, and on the philosophy of criticism. He was several years in writing each; and storehouses they are of deep and just thought, of searching analysis, and of great truths, evolved by the reason of one of the world's profoundest thinkers, and illuminated by flashes of genius of almost painful intensity. They are works, each of them, to be studied page by page. Nothing similar to or approaching them exists in English literature.

Of the writers who in this remarkable epoch belong to the first class in the highest department of letters, the poetical or creative, we have spoken—in the cursory manner necessary in a general sketch—of all, save the two greatest, Schiller and Goethe.

Frederick Schiller was born in 1759, at Marbach, a small town of Wurtemberg. In his mind seem to have been blended, and there strengthened, elevated, and refined, the qualities of his parents—the one, a man of clear upright mind; the other, a woman of more than common intelligence and taste, who both enjoyed the fortune of living to witness the greatness of their son. Schiller had the benefit of good early instruction. At the age of fourteen he was placed in a high school, just founded by the reigning Duke of Wurtemberg, and conducted with military discipline. Here, while his daily teachers were tasking him with irksome lessons, first of jurisprudence and afterwards of medicine, the chained genius, chafing like the lion in his cage, was brooding over the thoughts, and by stealth feeding with a translation of Shakspeare the cravings, which nature had implanted in him to produce one of her noblest works—a great poet. At eighteen he began, within the walls of the Duke's military school, The Robbers, often feigning sickness, that he might have a light in his room at night to transfer to paper his daring conception and burning thoughts. He postponed its publication until after he had finished his college course and had obtained the post of surgeon in the army, in his twenty-first year. The appearance of The Robbers, as a consequence of the formal drilling of the self-complacent pedagogues of the Duke of Wurtemberg, I have elsewhere¹ likened to the explosion of a mass of gunpowder under the noses of ignorant boys drying it before a fire to be used as common sand. Schiller himself, in after life, described it as "a monster, for which by good fortune the world has no original, and which I would not wish to be immortal, except to perpetuate an example of the offspring which genius, in its unnatural union with thraldom, may give to the world." Never did a literary work produce a stronger impression. With enthusiastic admiration, the world hailed in it the advent of a mighty poet.

¹ North American Review, for July 1834.

That which roused enthusiasm throughout Germany, roused anger in the sovereign of Wurtemberg; and while all eyes were turned towards the land whence this piercing voice had been heard, he from whose bosom it issued was fleeing from his home to avoid a dungeon. For having gone secretly to Manheim, in a neighboring state, to witness the performance of The Robbers, the Duke had the young poet put under arrest for a week, and Schiller, learning that for repeating the transgression a severer punishment awaited him, fled in disguise, choosing rather to face the appalling reality of sudden self-dependence than brook the tyranny of mind, which to the soaring poet was even more grievous than to the high-souled man. He quickly found friends. Baron Dalberg supplied him with money, while he lived, for a short time, under the name of Schmidt in a small town of Franconia, until Madam von Wollzogen invited him to her estate near Meinungen. Under this lady's roof he gave free scope to his genius, and produced two more dramas—Fiesco, and Kabal und Liebe (Court Intrigue and Love.) These, with the Robbers, constitute the first or untutored era of Schiller's literary life. With faults as glaring as their beauties are brilliant, they are now chiefly valued as the broad first evidence of that power, whose full exertion afterwards gave to the world Don Carlos, Wallenstein, and Tell, and to Schiller immortality. Their reputation obtained for him the post of poet to the Manheim theatre. Thence, after a brief period he went to Leipsic and to Dresden, developing his noble faculties by study and exercise. In 1789, at the age of thirty, he was appointed by the Grand Duke of Weimar, at the instigation of Goethe, professor of History in the university of Jena. Here and at Weimar he passed, in constant literary labor, the remainder of his too short life.

Schiller's great reputation rests, and will ever rest, unshaken, on his dramas. Regarding his first three, which we have named, as preparatory studies to his dramatic career, he has left six finished tragedies, viz.—Don Carlos, The Maid of Orleans, Wallenstein (in three parts,) Mary Stuart, The Bride of Messina, and William Tell—works, in whose conception and execution the highest principles of art control with plastic power the glowing materials of a rich, deep, fervent mind, ordering and disposing them with such commanding skill, as to produce dramas, which are not merely effective in theatrical representation, and soul-stirring to the reader as pictures of passion, but which, by the rare combination of refined art with mental fertility and poetic genius, exhibit, each one of them, that highest result of the exertion of the human faculties—a great poem. Possessing, in common with other gifted writers, the various endowments needed in a dramatist and poet of the highest order, the individual characteristic of Schiller is elevation. The predominant tendency of his mind is ever upwards. Open his volumes any where, and in a few moments the reader feels himself lifted up into an ideal region. The leading characters in his plays, though true to humanity, have an ideal loftiness. You figure them to yourself as of heroic stature, such grandeur and nobleness is there in their strain of sentiment and expression. The same characteristic pervades his prose and lyrical poetry. Had he never written a drama, his two volumes of lyrical poetry would suffice to enthrone him among the first class of poets, so beautiful is it and at the same time of such depth of meaning, so musical and so thought-pregnant. No where is the dignity of human nature more nobly asserted than in the works of Schiller; as pure, and simple, and noble, as a man, as he is powerful and beautiful as a poet. In the full vigor of his faculties, his mind matured by experience and severe culture, and teeming with poetic plans, he died in 1805, having reached only his forty-sixth year.

Of Schiller's great rival and friend, Goethe, as of Schiller himself, I can, in the limited space allowed in such a lecture as this, only give you a rapid sketch.

John Wolfgang Goethe was born at Frankfort on the Maine in 1749, ten years before Schiller. "Selectest influences" leagued with nature to produce this wonderful man. To give its complete development to a mighty inward power, outward circumstances were most happily propitious. Upon faculties of the quickest sensibility, and yet of infinitely elastic power, wide convulsions and world-disturbing incidents bore with tempestuous force, dilating the congenial energies of the young genius, who suddenly threw out his fiery voice to swell the tumult round him, and announce the master spirit of the age. For a while, the thrilling melody of that voice mingled in concert with the deep tones of the passionate period whence it drew so much of its power. Soon, however, was it heard, uttering with calmer inspiration the words of wisdom, drawn from a source deeper than passion—passion subdued by the will, and tempered by culture. "It is not the ocean ruffled," says Jean Paul, "that can mirror the heavens, but the ocean becalmed."

Goethe's father was a prosperous honored citizen of Frankfort, improved by travel and study—a man of sound heart and sharp temper; his mother, a woman of superior mind and of genial character, to whom in her old age Madam de Stael paid a visit of homage, and who enjoyed the pleasure of introducing herself to her distinguished visiter with the words,—"I am the mother of Goethe." Under the guidance of such parents was Goethe's boyhood passed in the old free city of Frankfort, ever a place of various activity, where he witnessed when a child the coronation of an emperor of Germany, and the stir of a battle, fought in the neighborhood between Frederick the Great and the French—events of rare interest to any boy, and of deep import to one in whose unfolding a great poet was to become manifest. In due season he was sent to the university of Leipsic, famous then by the lectures of Gottsched, Gellert, Ernesti, and others. To the young Frankfort student the admired discourses of these sages of the time were but lessons in skepticism; their magisterial dicta and hollow dogmas being quickly dissolved in the fire of a mind, already in its youth competent to self-defence against error, though with vision too untried yet to pierce to the truth. From Leipsic he went to Strasburg, to complete his studies in the law, his father having destined him for a lawyer. A more imperious parent, however, had laid other commands on him, and while the words of law-professors were falling upon his outward ear, the inward mind was revolving the deeds of Goetz von Berlichingen, and shaping the vast fragments of which in after years was built the wondrous world of Faust.

In his twenty-third year appeared Goetz von Berlichingen, the firstling of a pen, which, in the following sixty years, filled as many volumes with works of almost every form wherein literature embodies itself, a series of boundless wealth and unequalled excellence, to gain access to which, a year were well spent in daily labor to master the fine language it enriches. Two years later, appeared Werter, an agonizing picture of passion, which, like the first crude outburst of Schiller's genius, shot a thrill through the then agitated mind of Germany, and which Goethe afterwards, in the tranquillity of his purified faculties, looked back upon as a curious literary phenomenon. This work has never been directly translated into English (and a good translation of it were no easy achievement,) the book called "The Sorrows of Werter" being a translation of a French version, that does not give even the title of the original, which is, "The Sufferings of the Young Werther." And yet, by this doubly distorted image of a youthful ebullition, was the Protean giant for a long while measured in England, and through England, in America.

Soon after the publication of Werter, Goethe was invited to Weimar, where, honored and conferring honor, he lived the rest of his long and fruitful life. Appointed at once a member, he in a few years became president of the Council of State; and finally, after his return from Italy, at about the age of forty he was made one of the Grand Duke's Ministers, a post he for many years held. Directing the establishment and arrangement of museums, libraries, art-exhibitions, and theatrical representations, he contributed directly by practical labors, as well as by the brilliancy which the products of his pen shed upon his place of abode, to the fame and prosperity of Weimar.

In the poems of Shakspeare, is disclosed a mind, wherein capaciousness and subtlety, vigor and grace, clearness and depth, versatility and justness, combine and co-operate with such shifting ease and impressive effect, that ordinary human faculties are vainly tasked to embrace its perfectness and its immensity. Contemplating it, the keenest intelligence exhausts itself in analysis, and the most refined admiration ends in wonder. Inferior only to this consummation of human capabilities is the mind of Goethe, akin to Shakspeare's in the breadth and variety and subtlety of its powers. In comprehensiveness of grasp and ideal harmony in conceiving a poetic whole, the German approaches the mighty Englishman, and displays also in the delineation, or, more properly, the creation of characters, that instinctive insight and startling revelation of the human heart, which in Shakspeare almost at times make us think he were privy to the mystery of its structure. The same calmness and serene self-possession—a sign of supreme mental power—are characteristic of both. Like Shakspeare, Goethe never intrudes his personal individuality to mar the proportions of a work of art.

To pour out the wealth of a mind, which ranges over every province of human thought and action, Goethe adopts all the various forms in which poetry, according to its mood and object, moulds itself. In his epigrams, elegies, songs and ballads, he embodies the highest excellences of the lyrical. In Egmont, you have a bold specimen of the romantic tragedy; in Iphygenia, a beautiful reproduction of the classical Greek; while Torquato Tasso, a drama of the most exquisite grace and refinement, occupies a middle ground between the two. To pass from this to Faust, is to be suddenly borne away from a quiet scene of rural beauty to a rugged mountain peak, whence, through a tempest, you catch glimpses of the distant sunny earth, and mid the elemental strife, beautiful in its terrors, hear sounds as though a heaven-strung æolian harp snatched music from the blast. In Herman and Dorothea, executed with matchless felicity, reigns the pure epic spirit. This one poem were enough to make a reputation. But the highest exhibition of Goethe's manifold powers is Wilhelm Meister, in which a mixed assemblage of fictitious personages, each one possessing the vital individuality and yet generic breadth of Falstaff and of Juliet, bound together in a vast circle of the most natural and complex relations, presents so truthful and significant and art-beautified a picture of the struggles and attainments, the joys and griefs, the labors and recreations, the capacities and failings of mortal men, that from its study we rise with strength freshened and feelings purified, and our vision of all earthly things brightened. Unhesitatingly characterizing this work as the greatest prose fiction ever produced, I close this brief notice of its wonderful author.

The writers I have named are they who have given existence and character to modern German literature. Yet, to omit all mention of a number of others, would be not only unjust to them, but an imperfection even in so rapid a sketch as this.

By the side of Lessing, I should have placed Winkelman, born in the beginning of the last century, whose history of ancient art is esteemed the best of all works in this department of criticism. It had great influence upon German literature. Among the poets who, next to the brilliant series already described, hold high places, are, Bürger, Koerner, (both known to English readers through translations), Voss—to whom, and to their own copious, flexible language, the Germans are indebted for the most perfect translations of Homer possessed by any people—Tieck, Novalis, Grilpazer. Besides these may be mentioned the Stolbergs, Hoelty, Tidge, Leisewits, Mülner, Collin, Mathison, Uland. Among a crowd of novelists, distinguished are the names of Engel, Fouquet, Lafontaine, and Hoffman, and Thummel, whose satirical novels have a high reputation. Of miscellaneous writers there is a host, among whom should be particularized, Mendelsohn, Jacobi, Lichtenberg. In historians Germany is especially rich. Johan von Müller, Heeren, Niebuhr, Raumer, O. Müller, are writers whose merits are acknowledged throughout Europe, and acquaintance with whose works is indispensable to the scholar who would have wide views and accurate knowledge of the spirit of history. In criticism the two Schlegels have a European reputation. The "Lectures on the Drama" of Augustus William Schlegel constitute the finest critical work extant. Of the well known learning, profoundness, and acuteness of the German philologists, theologians and metaphysicians, it were superfluous here to speak. In short, to conclude, the Germans, endowed by nature with mental capabilities inferior to those of no people of the earth, and enjoying for the last half century a more general as well as a higher degree of education than any other, and thus combining talent and genius with wide learning and laborious culture, possess a vast and various accumulation of productions, wherein are to be found in every province of letters works of highest excellence, which to the literary or scientific student, whatever be his native tongue, are inexhaustible sources of mental enjoyment and improvement.

LINES.

The following lines were composed in January 1830, while passing the night in the wilderness before a huntsman's fire, in company with a party of friends engaged in a hunting expedition.

Above, the starry dome; Beneath, the frozen ground; And the flickering blaze that breaks the gloom, And my comrades sleeping sound. Well may they sleep; their sportive toil Has found a mirthful close, And dreams of home, of love's sweet smile, And prattling childhood void of guile, Invite them to repose. O! never more on me, Such dear illusions e'en in sleep can fall; Scared by the frown of stern reality The forms my yearning spirit would recall. The dead! the dead! The ne'er forgotten dead, In slumber's shadowy realm so vainly sought, Yet haunt my path, and hover round my bed, Unseen, unheard, but present still to thought. Breathe not their voices in the linnet's strain? Glow not their beauties in the opening flower? Fond fantasies of grief! alas! how vain, While cruel memory tells "they are no more." But this spangled roof is their mansion bright, Though the icy earth is their lowly tomb; And this mounting flame is their spirit's light, That seeks its native home. And that oak that frowns o'er the desolate waste, While its withered arms are tossing wide, As if to screen from the whirling blast The scattered wreck of its summer pride— 'Tis I: thus left alone on earth, Thus fixed in my spirit's lonely mood, Mid the strifes of men, in the halls of mirth, Or the desart's solitude. For never can I stoop To bandy malice with the base and vile; And in the grave is quenched the cherished hope, Kindled and fed by Beauty's favoring smile. The grave! the grave! It will not restore The victims to its hunger given; And this weary spirit can rest no more, Till it sleep with them to wake in heaven.

ALLITERATION.

"Pierce Plowman's Vision," by William Langlande, in the reign of Edward III, is the longest specimen extant of alliterative poetry. It proceeds in this manner without rhyme, and with few pretensions to metre—

It befell on a Friday two friars I mette Maisters of the minours, men of great wytte.

READINGS WITH MY PENCIL.

NO. IV. Legere sine calamo est dormire.—Quintilian.

26. "There should always be some foundation of fact for the most airy fabric: and pure invention is but the talent of a liar."—Byron, by Moore.

This seems harsh judgment—but is it so, in reality? Ethically, as well as in a mere worldly view, I think it is. "There is nothing new under the sun," and he who tells what is not, lies—under a mistake, or otherwise. All fiction is woven on a web of fact, except the liar's fiction, which is all woof and no web, and so must soon fall to pieces from its own want of consistency. Apropos! I saw a play advertised, within the week, which was announced by the author, as founded neither in fact, fancy, or imagination!

27. "The piety implanted in Byron's nature—as it is, deeply, in all poetic natures," &c.—Moore's Byron.

Devotion arises very naturally from viewing the works of God with seriousness. If Byron had not some holy stirrings of devotion within him, when painting his loveliest pictures, I greatly err in my estimate of human nature. These remained, perhaps, to show him how much he had lost in his misanthropic musings over the dark and gloomy past: and had he followed gently those motions, with which, in thinking of the sublime and beautiful of nature, his mind was visited, it would have but been a compliance with a call from heaven, guiding him to true happiness.

28. "Ye that keep watch in heaven, as earth, asleep, Unconscious lies—effuse your mildest beams! Ye constellations!—while the angels strike, Amid the spangled sky, their silver lyres!" Thomson.

How vividly does this bold but beautiful figure at times come back upon me, when I have been walking at deep midnight—when the stillness that pervaded all around me was so deep and intense as to make me, for very fear of breaking it, restrain my breath: while the fine array of stars was gloriously marshalled in high heaven: the belted Orion—the Serpent showing its every fold between the Bears. Lyra had not set, the Eagle was just on the western edge, and the Dolphin's cluster near its precursor. The Canès, Major and Minor, were bright in the east; nearly over head was Capella, and the Gemini as bright as the prince of the Hyades, Aldebaran. Jupiter lighted his gas-like flame, eastward of Castor and Pollux, and meteors were flitting in various lines across the whole western sky. And again, on some still, clear, fair night—when the blood-red planet, Mars, was high in heaven, and the brighter and purer Jupiter, and the Dogstar were fading in the horizon—how have I stood, listening to nothing, while the hum of the fairies was melting in my ears! For what else can I call that deception of the fancy, or perhaps that real sound from an unknown source, which, in the most profound silence, is still sweetly rising up around us?

29. "Do not we all know that the whig laureate, Tom Moore, actually published in the Morning Chronicle, the substance of conversations which had occurred at the royal table itself, to which he had been incautiously admitted? And that the most pungent and piquant things in * * the Twopenny Post Bag, and the Fudge Family * * *, are derived from information picked up in the progress of social intercourse?"

Blackwood's Magazine for Nov., 1823.

I believe these inuendoes are now beyond all cavil. The excuse of Tom was, that George deserted his party, and that all's fair in politics. Whether or not this were reasonable excuse, casuists may settle; but there is one reflection incident to the anecdote, to which the years 1835-6 has given rise; and this is, how ungracefully looks the Irish Anacreon, after such a well-authenticated charge, in raising a breeze against poor Willis, for repeating what himself had said about O'Connell, as a public speaker merely, at a large dinner party of Lady Blessington's! The mote and the beam!

J. F. O.

AMERICAN SOCIAL ELEVATION.

The Spartan knew no other stimulus to exertion than the shining glories of war. From infancy to old age he was ever learning the skill and daring which belong to the battle field. His every mental development was martial in its tendency. He saw in every feature of his country's institutions an appeal to his warrior spirit. Imagine a band of young ambitious minds circled around some aged patriot, who, in the all-glowing language of arms, is describing the daring, the glorious achievement which had immortalized the Spartan character. Listen to him as he portrays the bravery unrivalled, the death unequalled, of those who fell at Thermopylæ or Leuctra; as he calls upon their mighty shades to witness his words—and mark the youth how intent, how all-intent they grow as he proceeds; their eyes flashing with fire; their hands clenched; their teeth set. Do this, and you have a faint idea of that kind of influence which moulded and directed the mind of the Spartan. Is it wonderful that Sparta became the military school of antiquity? Thus taught, the highest worship of her youth was offered on the altars of war. Thus taught, their imagination was ever picturing the fierce onset, the high conflict, the battle won, and the laurel immortal which graced the victor's brow. Thus taught, they were ever ready to seize the sword and shield and rush to meet the invader. Thus taught, they served well their country and went to their fancied home in the distant Elysia, to join the heroes whom they had learned to admire, mourned and remembered by their countrymen.

We propose to point out those objects which actuate the American mind; to show their inadequacy to produce the general elevation of society, and humbly to suggest what should be the controlling stimulus. Need we ask what are the chief motives which influence our national mind? Need it be told that our young growing mind is fast becoming a money making, political mind? The most casual observer has only to glance at the state of things, to feel sensibly its truth. Observe that man of quick step and active air, as he moves through the street of the commercial city; how, all absorbed in himself, he passes heedlessly on, as if he were the only being in society: his mind is intensely bent on making a few dollars; and he is but one among the thousands. Observe the throngs of men who have met to-day on public exchange, to transact the business of thousands and millions. Mark this one in deep meditation; that one lively with a face brilliant with joy; here one telling in whispers some long expected news to one all attention; there one earnest in persuasion with one feignedly reluctant. There is a variety of mental exercise, of thought, of emotion; but the desire of gain, the secret spring of action, is the chief mental development. Go into the extensive manufactory, and while with delighted mind you admire the beauties and power of invention, and believe the veil of the Holy of Holies of Science's temple to be lifted, and her mysteries revealed, reflect to what end these fruits of inventive genius are applied. Go upon the hill-top, and looking down upon the verdant meadow, the rich fields of grain, the orchard and vine-clad arbors, all in luxuriant growth, ask yourself, why so much industry in bringing forth the products of the soil. There is but one answer—the desire of gain. Nor are the manifestations of this desire seen only in the outward world; it is the deity of the fireside circle. It moulds the earliest thought, and directs its action. Around it bow in low submission the powers and affections of mind. For it, all, all which belongs to the man, mentally and physically, is offered a willing sacrifice.

Now, it may be asked, are the fruits of this desire the elevation of society, the full developments of the mind's faculties, the beautiful, the active, the useful, the noble? Being the controlling power which influences every thought and feeling, it becomes the sole arbiter of every action. Self-emolument being its highest aim, it shapes every exertion to this end. It requires activity, unrelaxing activity—but it is not an activity for the promotion of general good. It requires sleepless attention, even such as belonged to the virgins who tended the sacred fires of Vesta's temple. But it is a watching which takes care of self. It requires the exertion of the intellectual powers, but only so far as to bemean them to its purposes. In fine, it concentrates the whole soul, its entire thoughts and feelings on a single point. And whatever attractions there may be around, however glorious or grand, it never turns from this point. This point is self.

Now, where in this system is that cultivation of mind, which lifts society from the depths of barbarism to the mountain heights of power and civilization? Where those brilliances and glories of intellect, which die not with nations but live in the admiration of all coming time? Where that eloquence of the heart which flows from the deep well of the affections? That eloquence which strengthens and chastens the social relations; which, silent, unobserved, connects men together by chains of sympathetic love and benevolence? Or where in this system, is that love of country, that lofty patriotism, which is the foundation of national character? What is patriotism? It is a love of ancestry; a love, the very antithesis of self; a love, which like the Christian's love, beautifies and elevates society. Can it exist in this money-getting age? As well might you bid yonder queen river of the west to roll backwards. Does it exist? Who can doubt that this is an age of degenerate patriotism? Patriotism! that which holds a nation up, which forgotten lets her fall into the common sepulchre of departed empires. Patriotism! alas! that the signs of the times are ominous that this people are fast bidding you a long, long farewell.

But the fruits, say the advocates of this money-seeking desire, are industry and wealth. We grant wealth as its result, and that it is not an effect of enchantment; but as there must be much labor, chiselling and hammering, before the edifice can rise in beauty and magnificence, so in its acquisition there must be inflexible industry. But is it that kind of industry which unfolds and invigorates the mind, thereby producing social elevation and refinement? History informs us how some of the mighty cities of the east, by industry, rose to opulence, but laments over their low state of society, and as a consequence, their fall, like Lucifer from the halls of heaven, never to rise again. This industry, so beloved, so enticing in the view of the many, is directed to one end—individual gain. Considered in reference to the well-being of communities as a whole, it is a gilded fatality. It explores the deep centres of the earth, and brings forth its long buried riches; covers every river, sea, and lake with commerce; ransacks all nature, animate and inanimate. But what is all this, without a fully developed mind to direct, to manage, to enjoy? What would it avail us, though industry should roof our houses with diamonds, if there was not within a virtuous feeling, an elevation of thought? Does this money-loving industry purify and ennoble the social relations—show their nature and point out how they should be observed?—or, does it lift the mind to the contemplation of the ineffable glories and majesties of the eternal King of worlds?

We have said we grant wealth as the result of this desire, but it is not general wealth. All may strive, all may labor with intense anxiety and assiduity, but all will not gain the mountain's summit; a great majority must ever be at its base. Speculation, which is the mean of immense fortunes, bankrupts more than it enriches. The follies of mankind, their diversity of thought and feeling, their ignorance, their mistaken notions of pride, render it impossible for all to be alike successful. The result is obvious. The few, the mighty few, are the wealthy. Now, wealth in the present state of things is power; for the sicklied conception of the age has thrown around it all that is great or glorious. And it is a well founded principle that power, whatever its nature, will govern. Who can picture that state of society, governed by aristocratic wealth, untempered by the virtues of the heart and intellect?

Further; it is not only by the sacrifice of its mind that this age will acquire its wealth, but by the sacrifice of that of posterity. One generation stamps a character upon another. Whatever this age thinks and does, will more or less characterize the thoughts and actions of the succeeding.

Nor is this all. This, with coming generations, by their industry, by the stimulus of an unquenchable thirst for wealth, will, in all probability, accumulate countless riches—will, if we may speak thus figuratively, erect in our land immense moneyed houses filled with gold and silver, the reward of their desire. But these generations, like all things below, must pass away, and sink into the common tomb of the dead. Then these moneyed houses, though locked and barred, and ironed, will be burst open, and their gold and silver, amassed with miserly care, be made to flow in streams to slake the thirst of a debased posterity. And the result is beyond the power of human imagination. Having the wealth of their ancestors in their hands, and being, as man is, naturally prone to idleness, they will forget the industry of their fathers, and only think how they may live most lavishly, most splendidly. The gratification of the senses, attended by its concomitants, vice and degradation, will be the sole desire of all human aspiration. Society—its beautiful dependences and proportions destroyed—will fall into fragments and return to original anarchy. Mind uncultivated, will shed no illuminations, but, like "expression's last receding ray," will be lost in the universal midnight of heart and intellect. For to this idol of their worship, sensual pleasure, they will bring as daily offerings the lovely and beautiful in the heart, the noble and sublime in the intellect. But amid all their dissipation, like the revellers at Belshazzar's feast, surrounded by the luxuries and glittering splendors of earth, unsuspecting, the thunderbolt of their destruction will come upon them—fearfully, suddenly, to their annihilation.

We have now briefly shown the nature of this money-getting desire, and its inadequacy, from its total neglect of all mental cultivation, to promote the general elevation of society. There is another stimulus of American mind which sometimes combines with the desire of wealth—occasionally acts alone. It is an aspirancy for political fame.

Bear with us while we attempt very concisely to show its nature and effects. No one who looks abroad upon the present aspect of society can doubt the existence of such a desire. It is the controlling stimulus of our young educated mind. It has its origin in our nature, for man is naturally fond of distinction, fond of wielding the sceptre of governing power. Our institutions in their high and impartial wisdom have said, that all men possess equal rights; and upon this declaration rest the pillars which support the sky-dome of our national temple. But the mind of this age has perverted its original intent, and made it the all-stimulating cause of a thirst for political elevation. The state of society, its love of political excitement, its seeming willingness to reward political effort, likewise awaken and nourish this thirst.

What is its nature? It does not develope the various mental powers. It does not strengthen the affections or awaken their inborn eloquence. It does not teach us the nature of that great chain of relations which holds society in union. Being common to the many, and attainable but by the few, it creates an ungenerous rivalry among its votaries. All in fancy gaze upon the shining halo of greatness which encircles the rulers, and beholding the unbounded adoration paid it by the ruled, each resolves, in newness of purpose and strength, to gratify his selfish aim, though at the expense of the best hopes of society.

What is its effect? All the faculties of mind are applied and made subservient to one end—individual elevation. A fondness for excitement is created, and the mind is ever longing and panting for this excitement. Parties start up, and society is engrossed and agitated by party dissensions—dissensions which awaken and cherish old prejudices and sectional feelings, to the smothering of those which are purer and nobler; dissensions, which combine bad ambition and immature intellect; dissensions, which elicit cunning and chicanery, instead of throwing out the brilliant thought or touching the chord of high affection; dissensions, in which that calm serenity which chastens the powers, passions, and emotions which unfold the higher graces and charities of our nature, is unknown; dissensions in which patriotism, which is a love as universal, as it is noble and inspiriting, is forgotten; dissensions, which terminate in the elevation of some ambitious leader to the high throne of power; who, having reached the summit of his wishes, looks down upon the servile mass, and with the utmost complacency throws upon their bended necks the yoke of their bondage. Where is here the elevation of society, pure feeling, pure thoughts?

The same train of thought may be exemplified by a reference to those nations of antiquity, where now the "spirit of decay" has its abiding place. The history of ancient republics is familiar to every one; their unequalled greatness, their decline and fall are the schoolboy's tale. And what does this history tell him? That in times of great political excitement there was less virtue, less elevation of mind, less real patriotism; that what is noble or excellent in our nature, was lost amid the whirl of party dissensions; as in the times of the Gracchi when the first seed was sown which led to the fall of the "seven-hilled city"—or still later, when the mighty Cæsar rose, and the elements of old parties were stirred up and new ones created, until the imperial mistress of the world reeled and fell to the dust. This history likewise tells him that the same is true of the democracy of Athens—that in periods of high party contention the excellences and glories of mind, so congenial to that "bright clime of battle and of song," were unknown, as in the ages of Aristides and Socrates, or of Demosthenes and Æschines, when the gold of the Macedonian bought their purest patriots.

We come now to the last point which we proposed to set forth. What is essential to the elevation of society? Before proceeding in its investigation, we would correct all misapprehensions. We would not have this age unmindful of the importance of wealth, but would have it exert due energy in its acquisition. Wealth, in the hands of enlightened mind, is a powerful mean in the improvement of morals and intellect, adorns the social structure by its offerings of the beauties and elegances of art and nature, dispenses far and near the comforts and blessings of life—and is one of the great levers by which society is raised to its highest elevation. Nor would we have this age unmindful of political interests. Politics, from the nature of the social organization, enter into and necessarily become an inherent characteristic of all society. There must be a government of laws; and whether the people or their representatives legislate, it is necessary that the people understand the nature and effect of legislation. Without such knowledge, the maxim, that power is ever stealing from the many to the few, would be too truly, fatally, verified; for the power-loving nature of man would be enabled, first, to throw around the mass an illusive gilded snare—afterwards, to crush it in its iron despotic grasp. There must then be both wealth and politics. But we would not have either wealth or politics the controlling desire of the mind; thus considered, they debase and destroy this mind. We would have them as subordinate instruments to one grand desire, the elevation of society. We would have them as the satellites which revolve in glorious harmony around the great sun; and we would not have them take the place of the sun, for then the system would be broken, the music of the spheres hushed, and all nature return to primeval chaos.

The promotion of the general well-being of society by a cultivation of the heart and intellect, is impliedly required of Americans, from the nature and structure of our government. It was not reared by the gold of the conquered, or on the bones of the subject. It rose into being all glorious, the creation of free minds enlightened by the reason and experience of centuries. Being the opposite of despotism, it does not chain down the powers of mind or shrivel away their existence. Nor does it like Sparta, unchain the mind, only to stimulate its martial character; for the rainbow of peace is the circling arch of our national fabric. Founded in morals and intellect, it appeals to their cultivation as the means of its prosperity and perpetuity. It says to the mind, be free!—free, to expand in full bloom and vigor—free, to be noble—free, to rise and soar with the strength and majesty of the eagle! And it attaches a meaning to freedom of mind. That mind is free which is not bound to the will of party; which is not the slave of any imperious passion or desire. That mind is free which can love and rejoice over the prosperity of the Union. That mind is free which does not allow the still current of the soul's affections to be chilled by impure passion or feeling, but increases its onward flow in warmth and strength. That mind is free which thinks and acts as becomes the "noblest work" of Deity. That mind is free which enjoys a full and chaste development of all its powers, passions and emotions; which knows and observes its relations; which can concentrate its thoughts on a single point; which, when it looks abroad upon nature's works, beholds the reflected power and wisdom of a God; or, which, as it gazes upon the azure sky, the verdant forest, the beautiful river, the sparkling lake, the storm-rolling ocean, feels inexpressible delight and reverence. Such is the meaning which our government attaches to the phrase "freedom of mind." What in the nature of things can be clearer? Does it not require of this people a general cultivation of mind?

Consistency then with the objects of our government requires, that the great pervading desire of society should be its elevation by its universal mental cultivation. Such a desire is opposed to the selfish system—is the protecting angel of patriotism. It combines the excellences of intellect and pure ambition. It lifts the mind from low and grovelling objects to the contemplation of those which are purer and higher, delighting in the good, the exalted. In it is concentrated whatever is noble in morals, whatever is sublime and unanswerable in truth.

What is meant by universal mental cultivation? We find it not in the history of nations. The history of the world is no more than a record of human usurpations based on human ignorance. A powerful few have ever moulded and wielded the destinies of mankind. Learning has shone only to render more brilliant some kingly reign. Unlike the great luminary of day, which it should resemble, its beams have ever been confined within the compass of a court or palace. The mountain peaks only of society have felt its light, while at the base, where the great mass congregate, there has been utter darkness. True, we are told of remarkable eras in the history of learning—of the Augustan age, when all that was beautiful and powerful in thought, all that was magic in conception or grand in imagery, shone forth in the most attractive forms; of the reigns of queens Anne and Elizabeth, when the graces and elegances of English literature were unrivalled, as they appeared in the majestic imaginings of Shakspeare, the nervous beauty and simplicity of Addison, and other master minds; of periods in the learning of Italy, when Dante, Tasso, Petrarch, gave a new name and a new being to Italian intellect. But was the state of society, as a whole, refined and elevated in any of these remarkable eras? The lights were chiefly intellectual, and belonged to the higher grades of society; besides, they shone but for a short time and departed, leaving the deeper darkness. Moreover, they were purely literary, and pure literature never reaches the mass of mind. True, it is perpetual, and shines down from age to age, as do the lights of those eras which now illumine in some degree the mind of the present; but it is only a reflection from eminence to eminence—the people see it, feel it not. We repeat it, learning has ever been confined to the few; the many have never known its invigorating influence.

Now, mind is the moving and guiding principle of all human action. Mind teaches the nature of the delicate and momentous relations which unite society, preserves their beauty and uniformity, developes their power and usefulness. This mind dwells with the mass of mankind. We would then, that society may be elevated, have the rays of knowledge penetrate and expand this mind. We would have the genius of learning courted and wooed from her mountain residence, that literature and science might come down, and walk radiant with truth and loveliness through every grade of the community. We would have the bright light struck out from the mind of the mass, and its illuminations reach the uttermost boundaries of the land, as extensive as the circling canopy of the sky. So speaks the voice of humanity, even as the voice of an angel.

Again: What is meant by universal mental cultivation? It is not the expansion of any single mental power or susceptibility. There should be no brilliancy of intellect unmellowed by the radiancy of moral feeling—no strength of passion or sentiment uninfluenced by other of the mind's faculties. There must be a mental balance, which is the great secret of all education. From the want of such balance, Ignorance, with her offspring, Superstition and Prejudice, has ever weighed down the intellectual scale and destroyed the noblest results of mental effort. That system should be discarded which developes only the powers of intellect. Variety, the high thought, the virtuous sentiment, the beautiful and sublime emotion, the chaste passion, all, in happy union, raise communities to power and happiness.

Surely, it is not illogical to maintain, that an endowment of diversified powers and affections of mind, impliedly requires their cultivation. Why the gift of reason, of memory, of imagination? Why the gift of moral and religious feeling, of love, of sympathy—or of any faculty? It would be absurd to say that they are mere trifles, mere butterfly appendages, to gratify taste or pleasure. Further, this diversity of mind, entering into, necessarily creates the numerous individual fibres which are the sources of the vigor and strength of the social frame. Is it not then evident, that the expansion of any one mental power to the neglect of all, or of some to the neglect of others, would take away more or less of this vigor and strength; would disfigure the social frame and destroy its beauty and harmony of proportion? Here, the mind suggests an analogical argument. Look abroad over the material world. Is there sameness? Is there the exclusive development of any single feature? Is the earth's surface one barren, limitless plain? or its soil of one kind? or its deep mines all gold, or silver, or iron? Or do we behold a world of water, of inconceivable sublimity? No! There is the mountain, bold and rugged, bleak, or crowned with magnificent foliage, to awaken the emotions and give wings to the imagination; the valley of varied soil suited to the production of the comforts of life; the vein of gold, of silver, of iron, each and all, in happy effect, increasing the embellishments and blessings of society; and there are the river, the lake, and still worlds of water. What is there useful or harmonious, or ornamental, or enlivening, or grand, unseen in this, the Deity's material creation? Now, observe the mental world. There is reason, producing the solid and beneficial; memory and imagination, her handmaids, assisting her vigor and research, and robing her in loveliness and brightness; the affections, diffusing through all and throwing over all a glow of love, beauty, and peace; thus, preserving the necessary relations, and showing their glorious influences when developed and joined in union in this the Deity's mental creation. Should you take from the material world one of its parts, you would destroy its harmony and uniformity. A similar result would follow, should you take from the mental world one of its parts. Let there, then, be no single mental development since it destroys the other powers and their relations, but let there be a full growth of all to their greatest, their proudest stature. Let the systems of the past be forgotten, and in contemplation of the future, let us resolve that no one passion or desire of mind, shall erect its tyrant throne on the prostration of other nobler powers. For the mind fully cultivated is a "museum of knowledge," lives forever "serene in youthful beauty."

The principle of universal mental cultivation being set forth, its bearing and effect will be seen in its application to the various classes of society. First, in the professions, that of the law being the one of our adoption, and therefore most congenial to our thoughts, we select for illustration. The science of law considered strictly, only in reference to rules, forms, and the gathered opinions of centuries, may be styled an isolated system in character, cold and forbidding. But construed liberally, in all its relations and bearings, it embraces within its circle all that belongs to human action. It appeals to, and acts upon the good sense and good feeling of mankind. It is the protector of morals, and may be the defender of religion. It is the guardian and dispenser of social rights, and their invincible champion with power. It combats vice and ignorance, unravels the cunning and chicanery of men, and brings forth truth all beautiful and overwhelming. In short, founded in justice and the good of society, it becomes the conservator of religion, morals, and intellect. What should be the qualifications of the high priests who administer around the sacred altars of the judicial temple? They should sound deep the wells of knowledge, and be familiar with nice and subtle distinctions. They should know every motive of human conduct, from that which causes the most delicate to that which causes the most stupendous movements in society. They should examine well the passions, their sources and effect upon the mind. They should look abroad upon society, understand its origin, the nature of its relations, their beautiful adaptations, their harmonious influences, and love to increase its glory and happiness by the cultivation of fresh virtues and excellences. They should, for this end, unlock the store-houses of wisdom and knowledge for original and sound principles, for apt illustration. They should be thoroughly indoctrinated in a spirit of true philosophy—of that philosophy which teaches the intimate nature of the transactions and interests of men—of that philosophy which teaches what should characterize every action whether in the family or in the outward world. They should be old acquaintances with the master spirits of literature and science, both in ancient and modern times; that "halo" of mingled character, of light, grace and magic, which encircles the Muses, should likewise be to them a fount of inspiration. Now, such a preparation presupposes a full development of minds—of minds, not only powerful in stern reason, but rich and dazzling in imagination, and useful in the exercise of all other powers; of minds, not only great in some one of the affections, but deeply imbued in all the higher and sympathetic feelings of the heart. Such being the case, these minds, which we may call by their prototypes, Marshalls and Wirts, will raise the profession to the loftiest pinnacle of eminence, will stamp its character for moral and intellectual power and usefulness. The same remarks apply to the other professions, and the same train of cause and effect will raise them to a similar eminence.

But is the elevation of the professions the elevation of society? So has thought the world, and generation after generation has passed away, and others and others have followed, and still it is thus thought. But it is time that this fatal delusion, which has hung like an incubus over society, blasting its bloom and vigor, should be dispelled—that all grades may rise to their rightful station. Never was suggested to mortal mind a fairer scheme, or one of more moral grandeur. The mechanic possessing the same mental gifts, enjoying the same rights, holding the same momentous relations to society as the professional man, should likewise have his heart and intellect fully developed. It is not sufficient that he be a mere mechanic. A mere mechanic is a child in the world of knowledge. It is not sufficient that he be a good workman, though he be as skilful and precise in the use of his instrument, as was the Moorish king Saladin, in Scott's story of the Talisman. In mere workmanship there is no illumination of intellect, no awakening of emotion, no refinement of passion. The principles of science are closely interwoven in every piece of mechanism. He should master well these principles, the effect of their application, consider them as the solid basis of the comforts and conveniences of life, and not the least among the means of human power and enjoyment. He should love his trade because of the science engrafted in it, because of its usefulness, because of its affording him an enduring place in Fame's temple. For this purpose, he should go back to the earliest, feeblest dawn of science, when first Israel's shepherds gazed upon the star-gemmed firmament, and mark its gradual but onward progress; how, at one period, it shone all luminous; how, at another, it went down in universal midnight; how again it revived under the touch of a few mighty geniuses, and rose clustered with new principles and discoveries, with the glory and splendor of the sun itself. The productions of Newton and Franklin, and other great lights both of the past and present, should be the aliment of his mind; their thoughts, which when sought, come clear and inspiriting from the living page, should be familiar to him as household words; and how they studied and thought, he should learn to study and think. And like them, whatever is important in the material world, above or below, he should make the playthings of his inquiring mind. And like them, he should not be ignorant of whatever is excellent in religion, useful in philosophy, enrapturing in song, or thrilling in eloquence. He will thus exhibit a mind not stinted in its growth, not controlled by any one desire, but a mind, like Milton's tree of paradise, weighed down with rich and delicious fruits—a mind, elevated, useful and polished. He will thus exalt his trade, and add to it new and brighter glories. But the elevation of professions and mechanical trades is not sufficient to produce the general elevation of society. They compose no more than half of the great mass of mind. There are yet the merchant and the farmer, who should be raised to a like eminence. Commerce, viewed in reference to buying and selling, retards the moral and intellectual improvement of mankind. Thus viewed, and connected with avarice for money, it would create a nation of pedlars. But, considered in its widest sense, as influencing the business and interests of men, and thus acting on thought and feeling, as entering into every social relation, as drawing on the resources of the earth, the air, and the water, as connected with foreign climes, and uniting nations by golden links of sympathy and interest, it is by far the most comprehensive and important of all life's vocations. The merchant then should possess a mind sure, deep and searching; nor should he be a novice in knowledge of any kind. What is peculiar to variety of soil and climate, what to the habits and feelings of countries, what to their wants and desires, should be fully known to him. What are the duties and obligations, arising from the many and weighty relations which his calling creates, should likewise be fully known to him. He should therefore be a historian, a philosopher, a scholar, and a Christian. Commerce will then rise to the highest degree of perfection and usefulness.

And is the mind of the farmer, amid all this moral and intellectual illumination, to remain uncultivated? Is he an isolated being, unconnected by any relations with society? or has he no obligations to perform in common with his fellow men? Has he not those varied mental endowments, which are the glory of his species, which exalt, adorn, bless, and refine? Or is he incapable of feeling the poetry of the emotions, delight, beauty, and sublimity? or of that warmth and exaltedness of sympathetic virtue, which stimulate and invigorate the spirit of love and benevolence? Is there no knowledge or science in agriculture? Agriculture is closely allied to commerce, and has a bearing greater or less on every pursuit in life. It may be called an unfailing source of national wealth and prosperity, supplying the wants of man, and imparting new life, and stirring, ceaseless activity to trade of every kind. Besides, its followers—uninfluenced by the vanities and vices of the world, so effeminating, so debasing to the mind—are the repositories of the integrity and patriotism of society. Indeed, we may say that the farmer is the guardian of government, rights and laws; the watchman, sleeping neither by day nor by night, on the outposts of defence. We would then have his mind cultivated both morally and intellectually, that he may know and observe the duties imposed upon him by society—by Heaven. We would then have him conversant with all that is noble or mighty, with all that is inspiriting or strengthening in literature, science, and philosophy, both in the ancient and modern world, for then agriculture shall become a fountain of power and usefulness, and a "wall of fire" around society.

And what is the effect of this principle thus applied to the various classes of society? Heretofore, and at present, to a certain extent, as we have before remarked, learning has ever belonged to a few, constituting a single class of society, and of course, the repositories of all moral and intellectual power and wisdom. And these, having the power in their own grasp, and standing on lofty stations and surrounded by a false show of glory and goodness, the result of admiring ignorance, mould and wield the destinies of society. To them the mass of mind looks up, as to oracular deities, with much the same faith and confidence as the ancient pagan, when consulting the Pytho of the Delphian shrine. Thus, the elevation of society has ever been characterized by the moral and intellectual education of a single class; and as this class has been cultivated, communities have risen or fallen. Thus, the history of society has ever been, like the waves of a rolling sea, a series of fluctuations. Now, this principle of universal mental cultivation, as above applied, destroys this usurping, tyrannizing system. It takes from the few the power of holding and disposing of the rights of the many, giving to the many the same mental superiority and knowledge. It presents not an isolated point, but raises all grades to the same glorious, elevated level.

The mind of society is composed, to a greater or less degree, by the mingling of purity and pollution. As the pure rivers of intellect and affection flow on, they are met by counter streams deeper and broader, emanating from the sources of evil and ignorance. Thus, good is counteracted, and its tendency destroyed by evil; thus, society is full of bitter animosities and contentions, and kept in a deleterious, feverish excitement, destructive of all noble effort. By the introduction of this principle, peace, active and beauteous, will calm the angry waters, and the countless currents of thought and feeling which sweep society, will only tend to the magnifying of one grand current flowing to universal good. Moreover, at the approach of this light, struck out of the mind of the mass, ignorance, though sitting upon her throne of centuries, shall find her throne to crumble from under her, and her reign over mankind to depart forever. Superstition, too, which has ever chained down the soaring spirit of mind, and destroyed the harmony and independence of society, shall find her power vanish—her altars prostrate—"her spell over the minds of men broken, never to unite again." In their place, whatever is glorious, noble, and sublime in mind, will reign supreme. And instead of any one desire giving tone productive of sordid selfishness to the thought and action of society; or instead of that levelling spirit, originating in lawless passion, which tramples upon and bids defiance to all law and good order—which marches through society with the terror and fatality of a thousand plagues—from a union of the virtues of the heart and intellect, a spirit of high-mindedness will arise, full of nobleness and power, to guarantee the force of law, to strengthen the social ties, and, like the star of the east, which marked the coming of the Saviour, ensure to the world universal happiness.

Are the effects of this principle sufficient to create a motive conducive to the universal cultivation of mind—or is something more required? As an effect creative of a motive, we would merely refer to the immortality of mental achievement. It is a fact, known to every one of common observation, that a virtuous mind dies not with the clayey tenement, but lives forever in its hallowed results. It is founded in reason and philosophy. The mind of the past is not different in its essential characteristics from the mind of the present; and therefore, the thoughts and feelings of the past are in a measure congenial with our thoughts and feelings; and from this kindred sympathy, it is, that the intellect of the remotest antiquity lives in the intellect of the most distant future. Are Homer, or Cicero, or any of that galaxy of mind which casts so brilliant, so undying a lustre over the ancient world, forgotten? Are Milton and Shakspeare, or Newton and Franklin, or any of the illustrious moderns, whatever their sphere of action, forgotten? The beautiful fanes and consecrated groves, where genius was wont to shine in her full power and brightness; the elegances of art, her towering domes and her magnificent columns, once the centre of admiration; the luxuries and splendors of opulence, once affording rich continued gratification—where are they? They have passed away, like "shadows over a rock," and are lost in the dust. But the mind which created them, admired them, enjoyed them, lives, will live, shall live, forever, forever.

H. J. G.

Cincinnati.

DYING MEDITATIONS

OF A NEW YORK ALDERMAN.

Let me review the glories that are past, And nobly dine, in fancy, to the last; Since here an end of all my feasts I see, And death will soon make turtle soup of me! Full soon the tyrant's jaws will stop my jaw, A bonne bouche I, for his insatiate maw; My tongue, whose taste in venison was supreme, Whose bouncing blunders Gotham's daily theme, In far less pleasant fix will shortly be Than when it smack'd the luscious callipee. Oh would the gourmand his stern claim give o'er, And bid me eat my way through life once more! And might (my pray'rs were then not spent in vain,) A hundred civic feasts roll round again, As sound experience makes all men more wise, How great th' improvement from my own would rise! What matchless flavor I would give each dish, Whether of venison, soup, or fowl, or fish! In this more spice—in that more gen'rous wine, Gods, what ecstatic pleasure would be mine! But no—ungratified my palate burns, Departed joy to me no more returns; And vainly fancy strives my death to sweeten, With dreams of dinners never to be eaten. The dawning of my youth gave promise bright Of vict'ry in the gastronomic fight: "Turtle!" I cried, when at the nurse's breast, My cries for turtle broke her midnight rest; Such pleasure in the darling word I found, That turtle! turtle! made the house resound. When, after years of thankless toil and pains, The pedant spic'd with A B C my brains, My cranium teem'd, like Peter's heav'nly sheet, With thoughts of fish and flesh and fowls to eat; The turtle's natural hist'ry charm'd my sense— Adieu, forever, syntax, mood and tense! And when in zoologic books I read, That once a turtle liv'd without his head, To emulate this feat I soon began, And so became a Gotham Alderman. A civic soldier, I no dangers fear'd, Save indigestion or a greasy beard; Forced balls were shot, I fac'd with hearty thanks, And in the attack on Turkey led the ranks, The fork my bayonet—the knife my sword, And mastication victory secur'd. Alas! that kill'd and eat'n foes should plague us, And puke their way back through the œsophagus! Ye murder'd tribes of earth and air and sea, Dyspepsia hath reveng'd your deaths on me! Ah! what is life? A glass of ginger beer, Racy and sparkling, bubbling, foaming, clear; But when its carbonated gas is gone, What matter where the vapid lees are thrown? In this eternal world to which I go, I wonder whether people eat or no! If so, I trust that I shall get a chair, Since all my life I've striv'n but to prepare. And holy writ—unless our preachers lie— Says, "Eat and drink, to-morrow we must die." My faith was firm as ardent zeal could wish, From Noah's ark full down to Jonah's fish. Then may the pow'rs but give a starving sinner, A bid to that eternal turtle dinner!

E. M.

IRENE.

I stand beneath the soaring moon At midnight in the month of June. An influence dewy, drowsy, dim, Is dripping from yon golden rim. Grey towers are mouldering into rest, Wrapping the fog around their breast. Looking like Lethe, see! the lake A conscious slumber seems to take, And would not for the world awake. The rosemary sleeps upon the grave, The lily lolls upon the wave, And million cedars to and fro Are rocking lullabies as they go To the lone oak that nodding hangs Above yon cataract of Serangs. All Beauty sleeps!—and lo! where lies With casement open to the skies Irene with her destinies! And hark the sounds so low yet clear, (Like music of another sphere) Which steal within the slumberer's ear, Or so appear—or so appear! "O lady sweet, how camest thou here? "Strange are thine eyelids! strange thy dress! "And strange thy glorious length of tress! "Sure thou art come o'er far off seas "A wonder to our desert trees! "Some gentle wind hath thought it right "To open thy window to the night, "And wanton airs from the tree-top "Laughingly through the lattice drop, "And wave this crimson canopy, "So fitfully, so fearfully, "As a banner o'er thy dreaming eye "That o'er the floor, and down the wall, "Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall— "Then, for thine own all radiant sake, "Lady, awake! awake! awake! The lady sleeps!—oh, may her sleep As it is lasting, so be deep, No icy worms about her creep! I pray to God that she may lie Forever with as calm an eye— That chamber changed for one more holy, That bed for one more melancholy! Far in the forest dim and old, For her may some tall vault unfold, Against whose sounding door she hath thrown In childhood many an idle stone— Some tomb which oft hath flung its black And vampire-wing-like pannels back, Fluttering triumphant o'er the palls Of her old family funerals.

E. A. P.

VERBAL CRITICISMS.

Guessing and Reckoning. Right merry have the people of England made themselves at the expense of us their younger brethren of this side of the Atlantic, for the manner in which we are wont to use the verbs, to guess and to reckon. But they have unjustly chided us therefor, since it would not be difficult to find in many of the British Classics of more than a century's standing, instances of the use of these words precisely in the American manner. In the perusal of Locke's Essay on Education a short time since, I noticed the word guess made use of three times in our way. In section 28 he says, "Once in four and twenty hours is enough, and no body, I guess, will think it too much;" again, in section 167, "But yet, I guess, this is not to be done with children whilst very young, nor at their entrance upon any sort of knowledge;" and again, in section 174, "And he whose design it is to excel in English poetry, would not, I guess, think the way to it was to make his first essay in Latin verses."

Was John Locke a Yankee? Or have the people of the United States preserved one of the meanings of the verb to guess which has become obsolete in England?

In several passages of the English version of the New Testament the word reckon is used as the people in many parts of the United States are in the habit of using it. In the Epistle to the Romans, chapter 8, verse 18, is an instance, "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us."

"Take and tell." "If you do so I will take and tell father," such is the constant language of children. What will they take? Is the expression a contraction of some obsolete phrase? Who can tell me if it is to be met with in print?

Had have. I have for some time noticed this corruption in conversation. It has lately crept into print. Here are instances of it, "Had I have gone, I should not have met her," "If I had have been at the sale I would not have bought it at that price." I have a suspicion that a rapid pronunciation of "would have," "should have," and "could have," has given rise to this. "I'd have gone," "I'd have come," and similar phrases have probably introduced it, the contraction answering as well for had as would, could, and should. It is very awkward and incorrect.

Fully equal. This is a tautologous expression in constant use. "This work is fully equal to its predecessor." The writer means to say that the last work is equal to the first; but what is the use of the fully, unless there can be an equality which is not full and perfect?

Eventuate. The editor of Coleridge's Table Talk, very justly denounces this Americanism. He says it is to be met with in Washington Irving's Tour to the Prairies. If so, so much the worse for the book. It is a barbarism, "I pray you avoid it." We do not need the word, so that it cannot be sneaked in, under the plea of necessity. The English verb, to result, means all, I presume, that the fathers of eventuate design that it shall mean. If we may coin eventuate from event, why not processiate from process, contemptiate from contempt, excessiate from excess, and a hundred more, all as useful and elegant as eventuate?

Directly. Many of the English writers of the present day, use this word in a manner inelegant and unsanctioned, I am convinced, by any standard author. They appear to think that it has the same meaning as the phrase "as soon as." For instance: "The troops were dismissed directly the general had reviewed them." "The House of Lords adjourned directly this important bill had passed." I am happy to find that the writers in this country have not fallen into it.

Mutual. When persons speak of an individual's being a mutual friend of two others, who perhaps may not know each other, they attach a meaning to the word mutual which does not belong to it. A and B may be mutual friends, but how C can be the mutual friend of A and B it is difficult to comprehend. Where is the mutuality in this case? We should say, C is the common friend of A and B. Several of the associations for interment which have lately been instituted, have seized upon the word mutual and used it very absurdly. They style themselves "Mutual Burial Societies." How can two individuals bury each other? and yet this is implied by the term "mutual."

Is not the familiar phrase, "now-a-days," a corruption of "in our days?"

"If I am not mistaken." This is evidently wrong. If what I say to another is misunderstood, I am mistaken, but if I misunderstand what is said to me, I am mistaking, and so we should speak and write.

Degrees of perfection. "The army," says president Monroe, in one of his messages, "has arrived at a high degree of perfection." There can be no degrees of perfection. Any thing which is perfect cannot become more perfect, and any thing which falls short of perfection is in a degree of imperfection.

"Is being built." This form of expression has met with many and zealous advocates. It is an error almost exclusively confined to print. In conversation we would say, "the house is getting built," and no one would be in doubt as to our meaning. Being built is the past or perfect participle, which according to Lindley Murray, signifies action perfected or finished. How then can prefixing the word is or are, words in the present tense, before it, convert this meaning into another signifying the continuation of the building at this moment? We say, "the house being built the family moved in," and imply absolute completion by the phrase being built, as people are not in the habit of moving into unfinished houses. To say that the house is being built, is no more than saying that the house is built, and by this we understand that the building is completely finished, not that the work is still going on.

I do not know that any of Shakspeare's hundred and one commentators has noticed the pun in Hamlet's address to his father's ghost, "Thou comest to me in such a questionable shape, that I will speak to thee." Perhaps the great bard meant to exhibit the coolness of his hero by placing a jest in his mouth. Hamlet immediately after proceeds to question the spirit.

Editorial.

LYNCH'S LAW.

Frequent inquiry has been made within the last year as to the origin of Lynch's law. This subject now possesses historical interest. It will be perceived from the annexed paper, that the law, so called, originated in 1780, in Pittsylvania, Virginia. Colonel William Lynch, of that county, was its author; and we are informed by a resident, who was a member of a body formed for the purpose of carrying it into effect, that the efforts of the association were wholly successful. A trained band of villains, whose operations extended from North to South, whose well concerted schemes had bidden defiance to the ordinary laws of the land, and whose success encouraged them to persevere in depredations upon an unoffending community, was dispersed and laid prostrate under the infliction of Lynch's law. Of how many terrible, and deeply to be lamented consequences—of how great an amount of permanent evil—has the partial and temporary good been productive!

"Whereas, many of the inhabitants of the county of Pittsylvania, as well as elsewhere, have sustained great and intolerable losses by a set of lawless men who have banded themselves together to deprive honest men of their just rights and property, by stealing their horses, counterfeiting, and passing paper currency, and committing many other species of villainy, too tedious to mention, and that those vile miscreants do still persist in their diabolical practices, and have hitherto escaped the civil power with impunity, it being almost useless and unnecessary to have recourse to our laws to suppress and punish those freebooters, they having it in their power to extricate themselves when brought to justice by suborning witnesses who do swear them clear—we, the subscribers, being determined to put a stop to the iniquitous practices of those unlawful and abandoned wretches, do enter into the following association, to wit: that next to our consciences, soul and body, we hold our rights and property, sacred and inviolable. We solemnly protest before God and the world, that (for the future) upon hearing or having sufficient reason to believe, that any villainy or species of villainy having been committed within our neighborhood, we will forthwith embody ourselves, and repair immediately to the person or persons suspected, or those under suspicious characters, harboring, aiding, or assisting those villains, and if they will not desist from their evil practices, we will inflict such corporeal punishment on him or them, as to us shall seem adequate to the crime committed or the damage sustained; that we will protect and defend each and every one of us, the subscribers, as well jointly as severally, from the insults and assaults offered by any other person in their behalf: and further, we do bind ourselves jointly and severally, our joint and several heirs &c. to pay or cause to be paid, all damages that shall or may accrue in consequence of this our laudable undertaking, and will pay an equal proportion according to our several abilities; and we, after having a sufficient number of subscribers to this association, will convene ourselves to some convenient place, and will make choice of our body five of the best and most discreet men belonging to our body, to direct and govern the whole, and we will strictly adhere to their determinations in all cases whatsoever relative to the above undertaking; and if any of our body summoned to attend the execution of this our plan, and fail so to do without a reasonable excuse, they shall forfeit and pay the sum of one hundred pounds current money of Virginia, to be appropriated towards defraying the contingent expenses of this our undertaking. In witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands, this 22d day September 1780."

CRITICAL NOTICES.

SPAIN REVISITED.

Spain Revisited. By the author of "A Year in Spain." New York: Harper and Brothers.

Some three months since we had occasion to express our high admiration of Lieutenant Slidell's American in England. The work now before us presents to the eye of the critical reader many if not all of those peculiarities which distinguished its predecessor. We find the same force and freedom. We recognize the same artist-like way of depicting persons, scenery, or manners, by a succession of minute and well-managed details. We perceive also the same terseness and originality of expression. Still we must be pardoned for saying that many of the same niaiseries are also apparent, and most especially an abundance of very bad grammar and a superabundance of gross errors in syntatical arrangement.

With the Dedicatory Letter prefixed to Spain Revisited, we have no patience whatever. It does great credit to the kind and gentlemanly feelings of Lieutenant Slidell, but it forms no inconsiderable drawback upon our previously entertained opinions of his good taste. We can at no time, and under no circumstances, see either meaning or delicacy in parading the sacred relations of personal friendship before the unscrupulous eyes of the public. And even when these things are well done and briefly done, we do believe them to be in the estimation of all persons of nice feeling a nuisance and an abomination. But it very rarely happens that the closest scrutiny can discover in the least offensive of these dedications any thing better than extravagance, affectation or incongruity. We are not sure that it would be impossible, in the present instance, to designate gross examples of all three. What connection has the name of Lieutenant Upshur with the present Spanish Adventures of Lieutenant Slidell? None. Then why insist upon a connection which the world cannot perceive? The Dedicatory letter, in the present instance, is either a bona fide epistle actually addressed before publication to Lieutenant Upshur, intended strictly as a memorial of friendship, and published because no good reasons could be found for the non-publication—or its plentiful professions are all hollowness and falsity, and it was never meant to be any thing more than a very customary public compliment.

Our first supposition is negatived by the stiff and highly constrained character of the style, totally distinct from the usual, and we will suppose the less carefully arranged composition of the author. What man in his senses ever wrote as follows, from the simple impulses of gratitude or friendship?

In times past, a dedication, paid for by a great literary patron, furnished the author at once with the means of parading his own servility, and ascribing to his idol virtues which had no real existence. Though this custom be condemned by the better taste of the age in which we live, friendship may yet claim the privilege of eulogizing virtues which really exist; if so, I might here draw the portrait of a rare combination of them; I might describe a courage, a benevolence, a love of justice coupled with an honest indignation at whatever outrages it, a devotion to others and forgetfulness of self, such as are not often found blended in one character, were I not deterred by the consideration that when I should have completed my task, the eulogy, which would seem feeble to those who knew the original, might be condemned as extravagant by those who do not.

Can there be any thing more palpably artificial than all this? The writer commences by informing his bosom friend that whereas in times past men were given up to fulsome flattery in their dedications, not scrupling to endow their patrons with virtues they never possessed, he, the Lieutenant, intends to be especially delicate and original in his own peculiar method of applying the panegyrical plaster, and to confine himself to qualities which have a real existence. Now this is the very sentiment, if sentiment it may be called, with which all the toad-eaters since the flood have introduced their dedicatory letters. What immediately follows is in the same vein, and is worthy of the ingenious Don Puffando himself. All the good qualities in the world are first enumerated—Lieutenant Upshur is then informed, by the most approved rules of circumbendibus, that he possesses them, one and each, in the highest degree, but that his friend the author of "Spain Revisited" is too much of a man of tact to tell him any thing about it.

If on the other hand it is admitted that the whole epistle is a mere matter of form, and intended simply as a public compliment to a personal friend, we feel, at once, a degree of righteous indignation at the profanation to so hollow a purpose, of the most sacred epithets and phrases of friendship—a degree, too, of serious doubt whether the gentleman panegyrized will receive as a compliment, or rather resent as an insult, the being taxed to his teeth, and in the face of the whole community, with nothing less than all the possible accomplishments and graces, together with the entire stock of cardinal and other virtues.

Spain Revisited, although we cannot think it at all equal to the American in England for picturesque and vigorous description (which we suppose to be the forte of Lieutenant Slidell) yet greatly surpasses in this respect most of the books of modern travels with which we now usually meet. A moderate interest is sustained throughout—aided no doubt by our feelings of indignation at the tyranny which would debar so accomplished a traveller as our countryman from visiting at his leisure and in full security a region so well worth visiting as Spain. It appears that Ferdinand on the 20th August, 1832, taking it into his head that the Lieutenant's former work "A Year in Spain" (esta indigesta produccion) esta llena de falsedades y de groceras calumnias contra el Rey N. S. y su augusta familia, thought proper to issue a royal order in which the book called un ano en Espana was doomed to seizure wherever it might be found, and the clever author himself, under the appellation of the Signor Ridell, to a dismissal from the nearest frontier in the event of his anticipated return to the country. Notwithstanding this order, the Lieutenant, as he himself informs us, did not hesitate to undertake the journey, knowing that, subsequently to the edict in question, the whole machinery of the government had undergone a change, having passed into liberal hands. But although the danger of actual arrest on the above-mentioned grounds was thus rendered comparatively trivial, there were many other serious difficulties to be apprehended. In the Basque Provinces and in Navarre the civil war was at its height. The diligences, as a necessary consequence, had ceased to run; and the insurgents rendered the means of progressing through the country exceedingly precarious, by their endeavors to cut off all communications through which the government could be informed of their manœuvres. The post-horses had been seized by the Carlist cavalry to supply their deficiencies, "and only a few mules remained at some of the post-houses between Bayonne and Vitoria."

The following sketch of an ass-market at Tordesillas seems to embody in a small compass specimens of nearly all the excellences as well as nearly all the faults of the author.

By far the most curious part of the fair, however, was the ass-market, held by a gay fraternity of gipsies. There were about a dozen of these, for the most part of middle stature, beautifully formed, with very regular features of an Asiatic cast, and having a copper tinge; their hands were very small, as of a race long unaccustomed to severe toil, with quantities of silver rings strung on the fingers. They had very white and regular teeth, and their black eyes were uncommonly large, round-orbed, projecting, and expressive; habitually languid and melancholy in moments of listlessness, they kindled into wonderful brightness when engaged in commending their asses, or in bartering with a purchaser. Their jet-black hair hung in long curls down their back, and they were nearly all dressed in velvet, as Andalusian majos, with quantities of buttons made from pesetas and half pesetas covering their jackets and breeches, as many as three or four hanging frequently from the same eyelet-hole. Some of them wore the Andalusian leggjn and shoe of brown leather, others the footless stocking and sandal of Valencia; in general their dress, which had nothing in common with the country they were then in, seemed calculated to unite ease of movement and freedom from embarrassment to jauntiness of effect. All of them had a profusion of trinkets and amulets, intended to testily their devotion to that religion which, according to the popular belief, they were suspected of doubting, and one of them displayed his excessive zeal in wearing conspicuously from his neck a silver case, twice the size of a dollar, containing a picture of the Virgin Mary holding the infant Saviour in her arms.

Four or five females accompanied this party, and came and went from the square and back, with baskets and other trifles, as if engaged at their separate branch of trade. They had beautiful oval faces, with fine eyes and teeth, and rich olive complexions. Their costume was different from any other I had seen in Spain, its greatest peculiarity consisting in a coarse outer petticoat, which was drawn over the head at pleasure instead of the mantilla, and which reminded me of the manta of Peru, concealing, as it did, the whole of the face, except only a single eye.

I asked a dozen people where these strange beings were from, not liking to speer the question at themselves; but not one could tell me, and all seemed to treat the question as no less difficult of solution than one which might concern the origin of the wind. One person, indeed, barely hinted the possibility of their being from Zamora, where one of the faubourgs has a colony of these vermin, for so they are esteemed. He added, moreover, that a late law required that every gipsy in Spain should have a fixed domicil, but that they still managed, in the face of it, to gratify their hereditary taste for an unsettled and wandering life. He spoke of them as a pack of gay rogues and petty robbers, yet did not seem to hold them in any particular horror. The asses which they were selling they had probably collected in the pueblos with a view to this fair, trading from place to place as they journeyed, and not a few they had perhaps kidnapped and coaxed away, taking care, by shaving and other embellishments, to modify and render them unknown.

I was greatly amused in observing the ingenious mode in which they kept their beasts together in the midst of such a crowd and so much confusion, or separated them for the purpose of making a sale. They were strung at the side of the parapet wall, overlooking the river, with their heads towards it and pressing against it, as if anxious to push it over, but in reality out of sedulousness to avoid the frequent showers of blows which were distributed from time to time, without motive or warning, on their unoffending hinder parts, and withdraw them as far as possible from the direction whence they were inflicted. As they were very much crowded together, there was quite scuffling work for an ass to get in when brought back from an unsuccessful effort to trade, or when newly bought, for these fellows, in the true spirit of barter, were equally ready to buy or sell. The gipsy's staff, distributing blows on the rumps of two adjoining beasts, would throw open a slight aperture, into which the nose of the intruding ass would be made to enter, when a plentiful encouragement of blows would force him in, like a wedge into a riven tree. The mode of extracting an ass was equally ingenious, and, if any thing, more singular; continually pressing their heads against the wall with all their energy, it would have required immense strength, with the chance of pulling off the tail if it were not a strong one, to drag them forcibly out; a gipsy, taking the tail of the required animal in one hand, would stretch his staff forward so as to tap him on the nose, and, thus encouraged, gently draw him out.

The ingenuity of these gipsies in getting up a bargain, trusting to be able to turn it to their own account, was marvellous. Mingling among the farmers, and engaging them in conversation on indifferent subjects, they would at length bring them back to the favorite theme of asses, and eventually persuade them to take a look at theirs. "Here is one," measuring the height of an individual with his staff, "which will just suit you;—what will you give for him? Come, you shall have him for half his worth, for one hundred reals—only five dollars for an ass like this," looking at him with the admiration of a connoisseur in the presence of the Apollo; "truly, an animal of much merit and the greatest promise—de mucho merito y encarecimiento—he has the shoulders and breast of an ox; let me show you the richness of his paces," said the gipsy, his whole figure and attitude partaking of his earnestness, and his eye dilating and glowing with excitement. He had brought the unwary and bewildered countryman, like a charmed bird, to the same point as the eloquent shopkeeper does his doubting customer when he craves permission to take down his wares, and does not wait to be denied. Vaulting to the back of the animal, he flourished his staff about its head, and rode it up and down furiously, to the terror of the by-standers' toes, pricking it on the spine with his iron-pointed staff to make it frisky, and pronouncing the while, in the midst of frantic gesticulations an eloquent eulogium on its performances and character, giving it credit, among other things, for sobriety, moderation, long suffering, and the most un-asslike qualification of chastity. To add to the picturesque oddity of the scene, an old monk stood hard by, an interested spectator of some chaffering between a young woman and a seller of charms and trinkets stationed beneath an awning, and no accessory was wanting to render the quaint little picture complete.

In our notice of the American in England, we found much fault with the style—that is to say, with the mere English of Lieutenant Slidell. We are not sure whether the volumes now before us were written previously or subsequently to that very excellent work—but certain it is that they are much less abundant than it, in simple errors of grammar and ambiguities of construction. We must be pardoned, however, for thinking that even now the English of our traveller is more obviously defective than is becoming in any well educated American—more especially in any well educated American who is an aspirant for the honors of authorship. To quote individual sentences in support of an assertion of this nature, might bear with it an air of injustice—since there are few of the best writers of any language in whose works single faulty passages may not readily be discovered. We will therefore take the liberty of commenting in detail upon the English of an entire page of Spain Revisited.—See page 188, vol. i.