Chapter IV (3)

It would be a work of supererogation to detail the variety of insults and the tortures of mind that I was forced to undergo from my appearance before the magistrate the next morning, until my final trial at the Old Bailey upon the charge of burglary. I had heard nothing of my ingenious tyrant, who was evidently, at the time I saw him last, in a very fair way to lead my lady-love to the altar. Nor, indeed, had I any opportunity of hearing from him. I saw no persons save my keeper, and a little, seedy, Jew attorney, whom I discovered to be in pay of the gang of which I was a worthy member. After various consultations with this gentleman, who informed me that he would be able, in spite of the veracious testimony of the respectable Mr. Ikey Solomons, to produce a satisfactory alibi, it was decided that I was to put in the plea of Not Guilty.

The day of trial arrived, after a weary and solitary residence within the walls of my prison of a month. None of the gang came near me, and I could never learn any tidings of Bess. At the appointed time, I was escorted into the court, and being duly arraigned, the charge was read to me, in that agreeable nasality of tone peculiar to the clerks of all legal tribunals. During this process, to which I paid not the least attention, I espied a newspaper lying by the side of the dock. I picked it up, and was vacantly pouring over the columns, unseen by my jailers, when my attention was riveted by the following paragraph, which filled my breast with horror and despair.

“Married, by the Right Rev. Doctor Dumfungle, at St. Martin’s in the Fields, Flashington Highflyer, Esq., to the Hon. Julia Adeliza, daughter of Sir Poins Dashleigh, Bart.”

The climax to my sorrows had then arrived. The whole man was quelled within me. Spectators, judge and jury were all forgotten, and the tide of my woes rushed irresistibly onward, overwhelming me in the vortex. The question was put in the usual form, “guilty or not guilty?” Life had cloyed with me. I longed to occupy a resting place where I should be secure from the scorn and the persecutions of the world. The grave offered this refuge, and I gladly embraced it.

I therefore rose from my seat, and replied to the query of the clerk, “guilty.”

My attorney fairly fell under the table with astonishment. The whole assemblage seemed utterly confounded at my audacity, and a voice was heard above the general buz of tongues, which I recognized as appertaining to my acquaintance, Mr. Sooterkins.

“Vell, by blazes, h’aint you gone and done it!”

Of course I was sentenced to be hanged. Day after day dragged on its weary course, and as I gazed at the gray walls of my dungeon, my heart seemed to harden like the stone itself. In vain did the ministers of the gospel strive to arouse me from my apathy. All was cold and dead within me. The day before that which was fixed for my execution, to my extreme surprise, Mr. Flashington Highflyer entered my cell.

For some time indignation chained up my tongue. I experienced a choking sensation as I stared furiously upon my visiter, whose countenance was drawn out into the most hypocritical length. This did not very long continue, for the solemn visage which he had chosen to exhibit at his entrance soon gave place to a most malicious and devilish sneer.

“Well,” said he, with an odious chuckle, “my fine fellow, how d’ye like your bargain?”

“Avaunt, fiend!” I exclaimed. He certainly manifested no symptoms of departure, but lolling upon my bunk, produced a Havana from his mother-of-pearl cigar-case, and igniting it by means of a Lucifer, commenced to smoke with great _sang froid_.

“Pretty pleasant lodgings, those of yours, my old chap, but your wardrobe was horridly low and vulgar. In fact, I was compelled to make a bonfire of all your old clothes, before I could manage to put it into tolerable order.”

“You infernal scoundrel!” I roared, goaded to madness by this last insult. “I told you that you should pay for your rascality, and, by heaven, you shall pay for it now!”

As I spoke, I rushed upon him and grappled tightly with him. He resisted strenuously, but rage had nerved me with the strength of a dozen men, and seizing him by the throat, we rolled upon the ground together.

“Ya—ya—yough! Gollamity, massa, what you do? Want fur choke Sip?—oh, murder! murder!”

I looked with bewildered eyes around me. I had upset the table, tumbled from my chair upon the floor, and had grappled poor Scipio by the throat, until his eye-balls protruded an inch from his head.

“Hollo!” I cried, “where the devil am I?”

“Why, you home, be sure, massa,” replied Scipio, whimpering from the effects of the rough salutation I had bestowed upon him, “and be broad daylight, and you no bin to bed yit.”

I looked at the decanter. It was empty.

“Oh!” ejaculated I.

The odious apparel of the preceding night still decked my person and strewed the room. There was a sickening odor of stale tobacco-smoke hovering through the chamber, and, with a very clear perception that I should require a tumbler of Hock and soda to reinvigorate the inner man, I arrived at the comfortable conclusion that I was still in _propria persona_, the “man who could never dress well.”

P. S. I’m off to Paris. Fitzcrocky has Julia’s promise. A pea-green coat with gilt buttons, and a scarlet satin lining has done my business.

* * * * *

SUMMER’S BACCHANAL.

BY J. BAYARD TAYLOR.

Fill the cup from some secretest fountain,
Under granite ledges, deep and low,
Where the crystal vintage of the mountain
Runs in foam from dazzling fields of snow!

Some lost stream, that in a woodland hollow
Coils, to sleep its weariness away,
Hid from prying stars, that fain would follow,
In the emerald glooms of hemlock spray.

Fill, dear friend, a goblet cool and sparkling
As the sunlight of October morns—
Not for us the crimson wave, that darkling
Stains the lips of olden drinking-horns!

We will quaff, beneath the noontide glowing,
Draughts of nectar, sweet as faery dew;
Couched on ferny banks, where light airs blowing,
Shake the leaves between us and the blue.

We will pledge, in breathless, long libation,
All we have been, or have sworn to be—
Fame, and Joy, and Love’s dear adoration—
Summer’s lusty bacchanals are we!

Fill again, and let our goblets, clashing,
Stir the feathery ripples on the brim:
Let the light, within their bosoms flashing,
Leap like youth to every idle limb!

Round the white roots of the fragrant lily
And the mossy hazels, purple-stained,
Once the music of these waters chilly
Gave return for all the sweetness drained.

How that rare, delicious, woodland flavor
Mocked my palate in the fever hours,
When I pined for springs of coolest savor,
As the burning Earth for thunder-showers!

In the wave, that through my maddened dreaming
Flowed to cheat me, fill the cups again!
Drink, dear friend, to life which is not seeming—
Fresh as this to manhood’s heart and brain!

Fill, fill high! and while our goblets, ringing,
Shine with vintage of the mountain-snow,
Youth’s bright Fountain, clear and blithely springing.
Brims our souls to endless overflow!

* * * * *

THE PLANTATION OF GENERAL TAYLOR.

[SEE ENGRAVING.]

We present our readers this month with the first of a series of views which, by permission, we have caused to be engraved expressly for this Magazine, from Mr. John R. Smith’s celebrated Panorama of the Mississippi River. It represents the cotton plantation belonging to the recently elected President of the U. S., General Zachary Taylor. It is situated on the eastern branch of the Mississippi River, in Jefferson county, Mississippi, seven miles below the town of Rodney, between the estates of James Suggett, on the north, and Colonel Barker, on the south. The view embraces the overseer’s house, the cottages of the laborers, with a small portion of the broad acres which are comprised in the plantation. The spot is interesting, not only as being the property and the occasional residence of a distinguished public man, but as affording a specimen of those cotton estates, the culture of which exerts so important an influence on the commercial and financial destinies of the republic.

* * * * *

FANCIES ABOUT A LOCK OF HAIR.

BY S. D. ANDERSON.

What is this dream that o’er me now
Comes with its bright and sunny spell,
As starlight falls on childhood’s brow?
Haply this lock of hair can tell.

Ah me! how thoughts of early years
Are linked with this dear gift of thine—
The doubts, the memories, and the tears
That cluster round this bygone shrine.

The air seems filled with boyhood’s flowers,
The perfume of the summer fields;
The dreams and gladness of the hours
That freshness to our pathway yields.

Times when the heart was glad and young,
A thousand scenes of love and truth,
That, rose-like, from our track have sprung,
Amid the dreamy times of youth.

Hours when each gushing fount of life
Leaped high amid this desert wild,
Come angel-like to calm the strife,
As once they did when Eden smiled.

Not often on life’s beaten track
Come such rich summer times,
To bring the heart’s pure sunshine back,
Like old remembered rhymes.

But now I see, deep in a wood,
Two lovers ’neath the trees so hoary;
She, blushing to the solitude
Beneath his simple touching story;

Her sweet face coyly turned away,
To hide the thoughts that on her cheek
Are mantling like the wakened day
Upon the mountain’s highest peak.

And he, perhaps some poet who
Had filled the world with golden dreams,
Hopes, that around his path upgrew,
As wild flowers deck the singing streams.

And thus, as hand in hand they go,
He tells her much we may not hear—
How his heart swelled to overflow
Under a sky so dark and drear—

How on the soul came _Care_ and _Pain_,
Twin-sisters of the soulless _Real_,
The race and haggle for the gain
That those who win the world must feel.

The striving to become a part
Of that great sea whose tideings ever
Bears on its waves each manly heart,
That, struggling, droops its pinions never.

And now there is a bridal throng
Slow winding through the moss-grown aisle;
The ring, the vow, the nuptial song—
From age a tear, from youth a smile.

A cot with jessamine-covered door,
A streamlet singing all the day,
And on the dew-bespangled floor
A thousand golden sunbeams play.

Gay groups of happy children there,
The old oak and the breathless swing,
The shouts of laughter on the air,
The chaplets that the young girls bring.

All’s gone! except these gushing tears,
Sad relics of the joyous past,
The shrines that memory uprears
To shield the incense from the blast.

Some sleep beneath the ocean’s wave,
Some ’neath the flowers that loved ones tend,
Others have found an early grave
Where stranger skies above them bend,

And she, the cherished one, she sleeps
Beneath the violet-covered earth,
Where spring-time’s earliest cloudlet weeps
And roses have a dewy birth.

Enough, she sleeps—would that my dreams
Could rest forever by her side,
As peaceful as the morning beams
Are pillowed on the sleeping tide.

* * * * *

THE PRECIOUS REST.

BY RICHARD COE, JR.

Once on a lovely summer day,
I saw a little child at play,
While in a garden straying—
Till suddenly I heard him say,
“I am tired with playing!”
Then running to his father he
Laid down his head upon his knee,
And slept, oh! how contentedly?

So life is but a summer day,
And man—a little child at play—
While through the world a-straying:
And often, too, we hear him say,
“I am tired with playing!”
Till hast’ning to his Father, he
Lays down his head upon his knee,
And rests, oh! how contentedly!

* * * * *

WILD-BIRDS OF AMERICA.

BY PROFESSOR FROST.

This singular bird is found throughout the greater portion of the United States, and by the notes from which it derives its name is known to almost every farmer. The species was long considered identical with the Night Hawk; but this fallacy was fully exposed by Wilson. The Whip-poor-will appears in the Middle States toward the end of April, when its low, sad wail, may be heard at evening along the creeks and by the woods of the country. So peculiarly mournful is this sound that the ignorant almost invariably consider it an omen of approaching evil. By the Indians it is regarded as a spirit-voice, boding death or perhaps national calamity. The bird articulates pretty distinctly the syllables _whip-poor-will_, the first and last being uttered with great emphasis. A kind of chuckling sound sometimes precedes the principal tone. At these times the bird is generally on the wing, flying close to the ground in the manner of swallows, and sometimes skimming around houses. The notes of the Whip-poor-will are continued until about midnight, and on fine moonlight nights until morning. The shady banks of creeks and rivulets are favorite haunts. During the day they remain in the darkest parts of the forest, hushed to silence like owls, and apparently annoyed at the presence of sunlight. The cry of the Whip-poor-will is not heard after the middle of June; and early in September it departs for the south.

The Whip-poor-will is nine inches and a-half long, of a beautiful mottled-brown, relieved by other colors. It is noted for an extravagantly large mouth, beset on each side with thick bristles, and for a very strong bill. The female is less in size than the male, and rather lighter colored. She begins to lay toward the middle of May, choosing for this purpose a dry situation, covered with brush, decayed leaves, etc., but building no nest. The eggs are two in number, dark and marbled. The young appear early in June.

The Goatsucker, Night Hawk, and seventeen other species belong to the same genus as the Whip-poor-will. Of these fifteen belong to America. Nuttall has the following remarks on some of these.

“But if superstition takes alarm at our familiar and simple species, what would be thought by the ignorant of a South American kind, large as the Wood Owl, which, in the lonely forests of Demerara, about midnight, breaks out, lamenting like one in deep distress, and in a tone more dismal even than the painful hexachord of the slothful Ai. The sounds like the expiring sighs of some agonizing victim, begin with a high, loud note, ‘_ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! ha! ha!_’ each tone falling lower and lower, till the last syllable is scarcely heard, pausing a moment or two between this reiterated tale of seeming madness.

“Four other species of the Goat-sucker, according to Waterton, also inhabit the tropical wilderness, among which is included our present subject. Figure to yourself the surprise and wonder of the stranger who takes up his solitary abode for the first night amidst these awful and interminable forests, when, at twilight, he begins to be assailed familiarly with a spectral equivocal bird, approaching within a few yards, and then accosting him with ‘_who-are-you, who—who—who are you?_’ Another approaches, and bids him, as if a slave under the lash, ‘_work-away, work—work—work-away!_’ A third, mournfully cries, ‘_willy come go, willy—willy—willy come go!_’ and as you get among the highlands, our old acquaintance vociferates, ‘_whip-poor-will, whip—whip—whip-poor-will!_’ It is, therefore, not surprising that such unearthly sounds should be considered in the light of supernatural forebodings issuing from spectres in the guise of birds.”

This lively and beautiful bird is widely diffused through the United States under the names of Oriole, Hanging-Bird, Golden Robin, Fire Bird, and Baltimore Bird. According to Catesby, the latter name originates from the colors of its plumage being the same as that of Lord Baltimore’s livery. It is seven inches in length. The head, throat, and upper part of the back, are black, and the remaining portions bright orange, inclining to vermilion on the breast, with some white among the feathers of the wings. The colors of the female are less bright than those of the male, and she is somewhat smaller. The male does not acquire his full plumage until the third spring, undergoing in the intermediate time many singular changes.

The Oriole family are distinguished for the singular manner of building. “For this purpose,” says Wilson, “he generally fixes on the high-bending extremities of the branches, fastening strong strings of hemp or flax round two forked twigs, corresponding to the intended width of the nest. With the same materials, mixed with quantities of loose tow, he interweaves or fabricates a strong, firm kind of cloth, not unlike the substance of a hat in its raw state, forming it into a pouch of six or seven inches in depth, lining it substantially with various soft substances well interwoven with the outward netting, and lastly, finishes with a layer of horse-hair; the whole being shaded from the sun and rain by a natural pent-house or canopy of leaves.” The solicitude of the Baltimore to obtain proper materials for his nest, often leads him to commit depredations on the farmer’s hemp, or the thread and silk of the housewife. Skeins of these materials have been found in the nest after its being deserted by the young.

According to Nuttall, the Oriole possesses a propensity to imitate other birds. He is particular in describing their natural notes. “The mellow-whistled notes which they are heard to trumpet from the high branches of our tallest trees and gigantic elms, resemble at times, _tshippe-tshayia too too_, and _’tshippee-’tshippee, too too_, (with the two last syllables loud and full.) These notes are also varied so as to resemble _’tsh, ’tsh ’tsheet shoo tshoo tshoo_,[2] also _tsh, ’tsheefa ’tsheefa tshoo_ and _’k’túfatúf a túf a téa kerry_.[3] Another bird I have occasionally heard to call for hours, with some little variation, _tu teo teo teo too_, in a loud, querulous, and yet almost ridiculously merry strain. At other intervals, the sensations of solitude seem to stimulate sometimes a loud interrogatory note, echoed forth at intervals, as _k’rry kerry?_ and terminating plaintively _k’rry k’rry tu_, the voice falling off very slenderly in the last long syllable, which is apparently an imitation from the Cardinal Grosbeak, and the rest is derived from the Crested Titmouse, whom they have heard already in concert as they passed through the warmer states. Another interrogatory strain which I heard in the spring of 1830, was precisely _’yip ’k’rry, ’yip ’yip k’rry_, very loud and oft repeated. Another male went in his ordinary key, _tsherry tsherry, tshipee_ _tsh’rry_, notes copied from the exhaustless stock of the Carolina Wren, (also heard on his passage,) but modulated to suit the fancy of our vocalist. The female likewise sings, but less agreeably than the male.”

This particularity in describing sounds which are almost indescribable may seem frivolous to some of our readers, but those who have ever listened to the melting notes of the Baltimore Oriole will pardon this accurate observer of nature the attempt.

The common food of the Oriole is insects, especially a species of small beetle. They are said to love the honey in the blossoms of trees. If domesticated, they must still be fed on animal food, principally minced meat, soaked in milk. When adult, they will also eat fruit-cakes and meal. They are not difficult to tame, and form a pleasant pet. Their eggs are four or five in number, white, with dark lines and spots. In the Southern States they sometimes raise two broods; but further northward only one. The Oriole extends over the continent as far south as Brazil, where hundreds of nests are found in every forest.

-----

[2] The first three of these notes are derived from the summer Yellow Bird, though not its usual notes.

[3] The last phrase loud and ascending, the _tea_ plaintive, and the last syllable tender and echoing.

* * * * *

THE PINE-TREE.

BY CAROLINE MAY.

How dear to my heart and my memory
Is that old majestic evergreen tree!
It stands like the guardian of our cot
Time-honored friend! it shall ne’er be forgot,
For I’ve spent bright hours of glee,
And of quiet rest
More deeply blest,
In the shade of the dark pine-tree.

A rose-tree lived ’neath this agéd one,
Concealed from the noontide rays of the sun,
And ’twas sweet to mark in his resting hour,
(The only time he could look on the flower,)
How he smiled on her lovingly,
Till her rosy hue
Still rosier grew,
In the shade of the dark pine-tree.

Up by its trunk I would stand and lean,
Gazing with rapture upon the soft scene,
(On the feathery-outlined isle that lay
Where the river and stream together play,)
For beauty and love seemed to be
Everywhere felt,
The spirits that dwelt
In the shade of the dark pine-tree.

And, laid at its feet, I oft tried to read,
But the breeze would play with my book, and plead
For my heart and ear, in a witching song
Which I could not resist, for ’twas never long,
And plaintive as plaintive could be;
So I listened, and sighed
When the sweet breeze died
In the shade of the dark pine-tree.

And there in the quiet I fain would rhyme,
And weave loving lays with a measured chime,
But my thoughts, as wild as the birds, would fly
From the beautiful earth to the beautiful sky
Unfixed, unfettered, and free,
In a dreamy joy
Which naught could destroy,
In the shade of the dark pine-tree.

I loved to be up on a merry May morn,
When musical sounds and bright clouds were born,
And join in the earliest chant of praise,
Which all that had life seemed glad to raise,
The clear carols of gushing glee
The birds would make,
Just at day-break,
In the shade of the dark pine-tree.

And I loved in the summer twilight dim,
To sing with my sister some holy hymn,
And watch the green shades as they deeper grew,
And a strange mysterious darkness threw;
And most dearly I loved to see
O’er the wavy grass
The night-wind pass,
In the shade of the dark pine-tree.

Then since I have loved both in shape and shine
Under its sheltering boughs to recline—
Since what I once love I love to the end,
Be it tree, bird or flower—book, music or friend—
When death cometh I fain would be
There laid to sleep,
Lowly and deep,
In the shade of the dark pine-tree.

* * * * *

GEMS FROM LATE READINGS.

BY MRS. GORE.

But few of those who examine the reminiscences of their own hearts, and the incidents of their own lives, will deny that scarcely a given moment of their youth admitted of swearing to a solitary object of attachment. Till the heart throbs with the master-passion which impels a man to seek a partner for life by an impulse as overmastering as that which prompts an heroic action, or generates a _chef-d’œuvre_, it is pretty sure to experience a succession of feverish spasms; the commencement of one of which is as hazily interblended with the conclusion of another, as with nocturnal darkness the glimmerings of a summer-day dawn, when “night is at odds with morning, which is which.”

* * * * *

BY J. WESTLAND MARSTON, ESQ.

LOVE’S VICTORY.

I was a bard—she listened to my lay
As there her questioning soul had answer found.
She stooped to pluck my wild-flowers on the way,

Fancies that teem from the prolific ground
In the heart’s solstice—in whose inner light
Through all the pleasant paths of earth we wound.

And sometimes through her music of delight
An undersound of sadness softly stole,
And floated ’twixt the fountain pure and bright

Of her deep joy and heaven—a cloud of dole
That almost seemed relief—for scarce below
The noon of rapture is allowed the soul.

Hence even in life’s summer sunbeams throw
Shades on the very path they glorify—
And ecstasy would perish but for wo.

I asked not if she loved me; for reply
To every doubt, I read her glance and tone,
And made them oracles of destiny.

They whispered love—I deemed that love my own:
Nor guessed that in the mirror of my song
She saw an idol face to me unknown.

Nor that the chords of my devotion, strung
To feeling’s highest tension for her sake,
And on whose notes with breathless hush she hung,

Were prized for memories which they did awake—
To her an echo what to me was life.
O God, the strings that quivered would not break!—

He came! Can I forget that inward strife
Which made me calm?—The mightiest grief is dumb.
They met:—he clasped her—called her plighted wife!—

A frost was in that moment to benumb
My very sense of anguish—and I smiled.
Freed by despair—what after-pang could come?

She was his own—both Love’s. They roamed the wild,
And knew not it was bleak:—the wooded dell
They called not fair, for love had reconciled

And blent all difference. From their spirits fell
A glow that bathed creation. Where they stood
Light was their shadow:—bliss unspeakable

Became at once their being and its food:—
The world they did inhabit was themselves;
And they were Love’s—and all their world was good!

As o’er a barren reef that sea-ward shelves
Waves dash, their gladness sported o’er my fate;
But in the abyss no line of pity delves

Lay the wrecked hope which naught could re-create—
At least I deemed so then: and yet we parted
With blessings, and her eyes were dim with tears.

She told me I had been her friend true-hearted—
The friend she would recall in other years.
These came; and when the storm was spent there darted

Over my sombre deep as from the spheres,
The memory of those words, at first revealing
More present gloom from all the past endears.

In time, their light and beauty o’er me stealing,
Softened despair to grief; and in its dew
My withered heart put forth one bud of feeling.

I dared not hope its life:—fierce tempests blew
From the cold east of Youth in day’s decline,
And shook its tender petals:—still it grew!

It grew and blossomed to a hope divine:—
I might be like her in her nature’s worth;
I might live for her though she was not mine!

From her each better impulse should take birth—
For her my song should raise and cheer mankind,
And I would sow her influence through the earth.

And, as by great attraction are combined
All kindred essences—as waters blend
With waters, flame with flame—and though confined

By bounds material, each to other tend—
Released from the division of our clay
Again might be united friend with friend.

For then, immortal and beyond decay,
The store of love partaken richer grows:
The torch that burned for one—for all, a day!

Oh, ye whose hearts in _happy_ love repose,
Your thankful blessings at its footstool lay,
Since faith and peace can issue from its woes!

* * * * *

BY MISS MARIA J. McINTOSH.

With most of us it is only when we are nigh unto death that we learn what it is to live. We talk of acquainting ourselves with the lives of eminent persons, when we read a record of the events through which they have passed; we call our own lives desolate, because events of a painful nature have befallen us; but these are not our life. Life—the principle which makes us sentient, intelligent, active beings; the principle by which we hold converse with the living spirit of beauty and goodness, by which—if we pervert not its heavenly aims—assimilating with that spirit incarnated in the adorable Saviour, we rise from the finite to the infinite, and, resting on the bosom of love, find blessedness when that which made our happiness has vanished from our grasp; this life no events can make desolate. Sorrow may darken our sky, but the loving, trusting child of God rises above its gloomy cloud, and there shines his life supremely bright.

Who shall penetrate into the spirit’s mysterious intercourse with Him, who inhabiting eternity, yet dwelleth with the humble and contrite heart? Reverently and humbly to illustrate this precious truth, to show that in His presence earth’s discords are harmonized, and peace and strength arise where all was disorder and weakness may be permitted—but there let us pause, lest we be as the fools who “rush in where angels dare not tread.”

* * * * *

BY G. A BERTIE.

STANZAS.

I am not what I was—the time’s gone by
When, bright and cloudless as the summer’s sky,
My day of life began;
When all was music to my raptured ear,
And, bounding onward, without grief or fear,
Eager my course I ran.

I am not what I was—the sense of youth,
And hope, and joyous feeling, and the truth
Of earth, hath passed away;
The heart that once throbbed high with health and life
Beats faint and wearied with the ceaseless strife
Which there has held its sway.

* * * * *

BY G. P. R. JAMES.

Long experience of any thing existing, has shown mankind all its benefits and all its evils; but beside this, there is an indirect advantage in retaining that which is, namely, that it has adjusted itself to the things by which it is surrounded; and there is an indirect disadvantage in change, namely, that one can never calculate what derangements of all relations may take place, by any great alteration of even one small part in the complicated machine of any state or society.

* * * * *

It is difficult to find words to express the infinite; and although it may seem a pleonasmatic expression, I must say that all the varieties of human character have infinite varieties within themselves. However, the easily impressible character, that which suffers opinions, feelings, thoughts, purposes, actions to be continually altered by the changing circumstances around—the chameleon character, if I may so call it—is, perhaps, the most dangerous to itself, and to those it affects, of any that I know. It goes beyond the chameleon, indeed. The reptile only reflects the colors of objects near, retaining its own form and nature. The impressible character, on the contrary, is changed in every line, as well as in every hue, by that with which it comes in contact. Certain attributes it certainly does retain. The substance is the same, but the color and the form are always varying. In the substance lies the permanence and the identity. All else is moulded and painted by circumstance.

* * * * *

The pure, ingenuous, open-hearted candor of early years, would be a better friend to man, if he did but cling to it with affection, through life, than all the worldly friends we gain in passing through existence—shrewdness, caution, prudence, selfishness, wit, or even wisdom.

* * * * *

BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE.”

A high, pure earthly love is powerful above all other earthly principles for overcoming evils; but even in its highest purity, it has not sufficient power to lead to fall perfection. It is from Heaven, but it is not Heaven itself; it is but as an angel messenger, and fails in its office if it does not lead on to love, perfect, unchangeable, divine.

* * * * *

BY MRS. GREY.

Is there a woman to be found who is not insensibly flattered, even against her better reason, by devoted incense to her charms?—Very few, we fear!—poor human nature is full of vanity. A woman will indignantly spurn such love—her sense of right will make her shrink with shuddering from such feelings; still there is too often a latent, lingering spark of gratified self-love hovering about the heart; although the spark is prevented from spreading into a flame, by the preponderating influence of strong principle and purity of mind. It is, as we before said, _human nature_—and this same nature is miserably full of weakness and vanity.

* * * * *

TO MY LITTLE BOY.

BY MRS. HENRIETTA L. COLEMAN.

I watched a rose, one lovely morn,
Parade herself a summer queen,
While by her side a bud, new-born,
Lay locked in leaves of softest green:
As that fresh bud to beauty blew,
That rose lost all its scent and hue:
Alas! I cried, that this should be!—
For I thought, dear boy, of thee and me.

I watched a parent bird that fed
Her fledgling many a vernal day,
Training his dainty wings to spread
And lightly flit from spray to spray:
Away—afar—I marked him soar,
Never to own fond guidance more.
Can care and love thus wasted be?—
Sadly I thought of thee and me.

I watched the moon rise sweetly bright,
With one fair star that lay below,
Each lovelier shone from mutual light,
As hearts united gentler flow:
Though moon and star in heaven divide
Time brings them ever side by side.
Glorying I spoke, thus may it be!—
For I thought, dear boy, of thee and me.

* * * * *

REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.

_Merry-Mount; A Romance of Massachusetts Colony. Boston: James
Monroe & Co. 2 vols. 12mo._

This novel is the production of a New England writer of fine talents and large acquirements, but of talents and acquirements which have not been as bountifully expressed in literature as the Public, that exacting leech of intellects raised above the mass, had a right to demand. The work, with some obvious defects, evinces a range of characterization, and a general opulence of mind, which place it above many novels which can claim more felicity in the evolution of a story and more variety of incident. The scene is laid in the early history of Massachusetts, commencing about eight years after the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, and its peculiarity consists in vividly reproducing to the imagination a period which even the driest annalists have hardly touched. The novel might with propriety be called, “The Cavaliers in Massachusetts,” for its originality, as an American story, consists in bringing together Cavalier and Roundhead on New England ground. The hero, Morton, is a loose, licentious, scheming, good-natured, and good-for-nothing English “gentleman,” engaged in a project to outwit the Puritans, and to obtain the ascendancy in Massachusetts of a different code of principles and a different kind of government from those which the Puritans aimed to establish. Connected with this reckless Cavalier is a deeper plotter, Sir Christopher Gardiner, a villain half after James’s and half after Bulwer’s heart, pursuing schemes of empire and schemes of seduction with equal ingenuity and equal ill-success. These two, with the followers and liege men of Morton—a gang of ferocities, rascalities and un-moralities from the lowest London taverns—constitute the chief carnal ingredients of the novel. Opposed to these we have grand and life-like portraits of Miles Standish, Endicott, Winthrop, and other Puritan celebrities, with only an occasional view of the Indians. The business of the affections is principally transacted by two persons—a pure, elevated, large-hearted and high-spirited woman, and a noble-minded but somewhat irascible man; and this portion of the novel has the ecstasies and agonies which are appropriate to the subject.

We think the novel a real addition to American literature, whether considered in respect to the amount of new information it conveys, or the splendor, vivacity and distinctness of its representations both of character and scenery. A dozen passages might be extracted, which, viewed simply as descriptions, are grand enough to establish a reputation. But the author’s great merit consists in having as clear and distinct a notion of the Cavalier, in his daily life and conversation, as of the Puritan, and this merit, rare in an American, he could only have obtained from a profound study of the elder dramatists of England, and a vivid insight into the very heart of their characters. Out of Scott, we do not know where to look for finer representations of these two great classes of English society, as they must have appeared when brought into opposition to each other. No one familiar with Marston, Deckar, Beaumont and Fletcher, or any other dramatist in whose plays the bullies and minor reprobates of the Elizabethan age appear, will call even Bootefish, Cakebread and Company, improbable or unnatural.

The leading defect of the novel is the lack of a steady, orderly and artistical development of the plot. The narrative wants rapidity of movement; the rich materials of the work are imperfectly fused together; and occasionally things good in themselves seem to be in each other’s way. All those faults which beset the creations of the most fertile intellects, when they aim to give great variety of incident and character without having a grand, leading, ever-present conception of their work as a whole, are visible in this novel, and mar its harmony as a work of art. But these defects inhere in many romances which are read with delight by thousands, and though the splendid talents of the author of Merry-Mount may not always hide the heterogeneousness of his plan, they are amply sufficient to prevent it from interfering seriously with the interest of his novel, and sufficient also to delineate persons and scenes which leave on the reader’s mind a strong impression of power and beauty.

* * * * *

_The Female Poets of America. By Rufus W. Griswold.
Philadelphia: Carey & Hart. 1 vol. 8mo._

In the space of four hundred closely printed pages, Mr. Griswold has here brought together some ninety of our female poets, and introduced them with critical and biographical notices. Of all Mr. Griswold’s various works, the present evinces the greatest triumph over difficulties, and best demonstrates the minuteness and the extent of his knowledge of American literature. Very few of the women included in this collection have ever published editions of their writings, and a considerable portion of the verse was published anonymously. The labor, therefore, of collecting the materials both of the biographies and the illustrative extracts, must have been of that arduous and vexatious kind which only enthusiasm for the subject could have sustained. The volume is an important original contribution to the literary history of the country, and nobody, whose mind is not incurably vitiated by prejudice, can make dissimilarity of opinion with regard to some of the judgments expressed in the book, a ground for denying its general ability, honesty and value. Most of the materials are strictly new, and this fact of itself is sufficient to stamp the work with that character which distinguishes books of original research from mere compilations.

Mr. Griswold has given us a fine preface, in which he ably vindicates and acutely limits the genius of women. The biographies and extracts which follow, commence with Mrs. Anne Bradstreet and close with Miss Phillips. Between these two he has included an amount of beautiful and touching poetry which will surprise even those who are inclined to take the most elevated view of the intellectual excellence of their countrywomen. We have here the lofty and energetic thought of Miss Townsend, the bright fancy and primitive feeling of Miss Gould, the impassioned imagination and deep discernment of Maria Brooks, the holy and meditative spirit of Mrs. Sigourney, the tender and graceful sentiment of Mrs. Embury; Mrs. Whitman, with her grasp of all literatures, her keen thought which pierces through nature’s most mystical symbols, and her ethereal spirit casting on every object that light “which never was on sea or land;” Mrs. Oakes Smith, with her constant sense of the pure and the good, her daring and shaping imagination, before whose creations and revelations her soul shrinks awed and subdued, and her deep feeling of the spiritual significance of things—a woman worthy to be the companion of Plato; Fanny Osgood, the most brilliant and graceful of poetesses, with her quick decisive sensibility, and her teeming and exhaustless fancy, eloquent of love and romance, and high-heartedness in every relation of life; Miss Lynch, simple, austere, bold, despising ornament as ornament, and keeping her raised eye fixed on the vanishing features of the elusive thought she aims to shape into almost sculptural form; Grace Greenwood, with her fine combination of the tender and the impassioned in feeling, and the subtile and grand in thought, “with a heart in her brain and a brain in her heart;”—all these, and many more whom we lack epithets to characterize rather than desire to celebrate, appear in Mr. Griswold’s volume in all the royalty of womanhood. To proceed further in description would be merely to enumerate names, without being able to suggest things. In addition to the notables, whose names are known to all readers of the magazines, Mr. Griswold has included in his collection, many a timid violet and daisy of womanhood, too modest and sensitive not to feel the fear of notoriety, and has transplanted it to his book with a delicacy as commendable as the taste which dictated it.

In conclusion, we have only to observe that a volume, so complimentary to the genius of our countrywomen, can hardly be read without a feeling of exultation and pride. We trust it will meet that wide circulation it so richly deserves.

* * * * *

_Acton: or the Circle of Life. A Collection of Thoughts and
Observations, designed to delineate Life, Man, and the World.
New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 12mo._

This beautiful volume is the result of a life of observation and thought. The author has traveled in every part of the globe, and viewed mankind in a greater variety of aspects than most of those who meditate as well as observe. He has thrown his reflections into a somewhat quaint form, and has but a few words for even the greatest topics, but whatever he touches he either adorns or illuminates, and his book furnishes numberless texts for essays. Like most writers of maxims, he has a sardonic element in his mind, and occasionally disposes of an important matter, deserving serious discussion, with a gibe or a fleer, and sometimes descends even to flippancy and impertinence; but these are the almost inevitable vices of the form of composition he has chosen, and he has fewer of them than might be expected. A good part of the raciness of such books as Acton comes from the occasional substitution of the writer’s impressions or prejudices for general truths. The didactic tone of such compositions is in this way relieved, and a paradox or a piece of acute nonsense thrown in, here and there, reminds us that it is a person who is thinking, not a moral and reasoning machine. The author of the present work has been especially successful in giving an individuality to his general remarks, and preserving them from the abstract and “do-me-good” character of impersonal morality.

The volume is so laden with striking thoughts and observations, that it is difficult to fix upon any deserving especial quotation. As a specimen of the writer’s manner, the following on Genius and Talent may serve:

“Talent is strength and subtlety of mind, genius is mental inspiration and delicacy of feeling. Talent possesses vigor and acuteness of penetration, but is surpassed by the vivid intellectual conceptions of genius. The former is skillful and bold, the latter aspiring and gentle; but talent excels in practical sagacity, and hence those striking contrasts so often witnessed in the world, the triumph of talent through its adroit and active energies, and the adversities of genius in the midst of its boundless but unattainable aspirations.

“Talent is the Lion and the Serpent; Genius is the Eagle and the Dove.

“Or the first is like some conspicuous flower which flaunts its glory in the sunshine, while the last resembles the odoriferous spikenard’s root, whose sweetness is concealed in the ground.

“The flower displays itself openly, the root must be extracted from the earth.”

Here is a piece of verse, in a different vein, on a very common dispensation of Providence, the Mean Fellow. We fear that few are so fortunate as not to be able to apply it to some acquaintance or enemy:

“Born but to be some snarl or plague,
Vile product of a rotten egg,
In every feature of thy face,
A want of heart, of soul, we trace;
By every honest man contemn’d,
By your own looks betray’d, condemn’d—
Of shame in front there is no lack,
And curses ride upon your back.”

* * * * *

_The Sacred Poets of England and America, for Three Centuries.
Edited by Rufus W. Griswold. Illustrated by Steel engravings.
New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 8vo._

There is a strange impression current even among people who ought to know better, that religious poetry is a form of composition confined to poets of the third or fourth class, and chiefly valuable for Hymn Books. The existence of any verse, instinct with the finest essence of poetry, and glowing with the rapt and holy passions of the religious bard, is practically denied. Now nothing is more certain than that poetry, impassioned imagination, is essentially religious both in its nature and its expression. It springs from that raised mood of mind in which the object present to thought is worshiped. This is true even in poetry relating to the senses and to human passion, for if we scrutinize it sharply, we shall find that the object which fills the poet’s mind, however low in itself, is still deified for the moment, and made the exclusive object of his adoration. In this way bards often make gods of persons and things very questionable in themselves, but this is owing rather to the direction than the nature of the poet’s powers. If these powers instead of being devoted to the idealization of appetite or destructive passions, be directed upward to the true object of worship, the poetry will be really more beautiful and sublime than if it were merely confined to spiritualized sensations.

No one can glance over Mr. Griswold’s beautiful book without feeling how rich is English literature in song, celebrating the beauty of holiness and the infinite perfections of God. The compilation comprehends the early as well as the later English poets, and contains some exquisite but not generally known extracts from Spenser, Gascoigne, Drayton, Sir Henry Wottan, Davies, Carew, Ben Jonson, Drummond, Fletcher, Donne, Sir John Beaumont, Wither, Herrick, Quarles, Vaughan and Herbert. The holy poets of a later date, both of England and America, are likewise profusely quoted, and the whole collection is well deserving a place in every family library in the country.

* * * * *

_Benjamin Franklin: His Autobiography. With a Narrative of his
Public Life and Services. By Rev. H. Hastings Weld. New York:
Harper & Brothers._

The Harpers are publishing this work in numbers, to be completed in eight. It is illustrated with numerous engravings after designs by Chapman, and is printed in large type on fine paper. The edition promises to be altogether the best which has been issued in the country, and will tend to make more familiar to his countrymen the great American philosopher’s genuine character and real services to the world.

* * * * *

_The Haunted Man. By Charles Dickens. New York: Harper &
Brothers._

This new Christmas story by Dickens is hardly worthy of him, though it might be considered a triumph to almost any body else. It has a _jobby_ air, as though it had been written in accordance with a contract, and without any especial inspiration. The materials are, in great part, the old capital of the author, and repetition is stamped on almost every page. The Tetterbys and the baby, however, and Mrs. William, are full of beautiful humor and pathos, and succeed in saving the book from positive condemnation and failure.

* * * * *

EDITOR’S TABLE.

“GRAHAM” TO “JEREMY SHORT.”

MY DEAR JEREMY,—Your name would be euphonious in the stock-market, at times; but I believe stocks are muddied waters in which you seldom dabble. You are wise. But do you find yourself at all in the _vein_ speculative, particularly now, when the streams of that new El Dorado, California, sparkle invitingly with yellow pebbles? and its many broad acres spread themselves out temptingly, with their bowels of undug gold, begging for pickaxe, shovel and basin? How many ears heretofore closed to the artifices of the speculator, are pricked up, or belie their masters, at the all-enchanting sound of the word GOLD!! With all the close calculation and keen spirit of inquiry which mark us as a nation, I fear me that Jonathan has his weakness, and that his soft side is metallic. There is something in the clinking of gold and silver that sets aside his ordinary caution and shrewdness, and leads him to do very silly things to get at it. It belongs to his nature to be impetuous, and continued success leads him into very rash ventures. A more interrupted fortune would, in this case, have allowed him breathing time to make a “calculation;” and when Jonathan does that coolly, he is seldom overreached. But he has flogged the Mexicans, taken the territory that he wanted—as he knew he would—and he is ready now to believe that the golden pavements of the Incas were no fable, and that the streams in California are walled in with gold, if you will. At least he will believe it until he sees for himself. He is a little taken by surprise with this glittering bait, and no trout dashes at a tempting fly with a more ravenous bite than he does at these shining “placers.” What cares he for the thousands of miles that intervene; for the storms of winter that howl around the Horn, and threaten danger and death! At the first glimpse of the prospect, a thousand sails are set, and whitening the ocean, bear him to fortune. No ordinary comforts, no moderate success here, restrains his keen thirst of adventure. Were home a paradise, and California a desert, with its shores bristling with opposing bayonets, and parked with roaring artillery, he would go. Yes! he would, perhaps, rather go then than now. The glory of the achievement would enhance the value of the wealth. The founder of Nations—he must work out a prophecy. Already the cry of a great people goes up with a shout from the once desolate hills, and ardent, panting thousands, answer the cry with, “WE COME!” and the shout swells with a louder triumph, a more emphatic joy, for “_a nation is born in a day!_”

The impetuous rush to that far-off land is not in itself striking or marvelous. Other and feebler nations have shown the same avidity for gold. The Spaniards have dared more, to quench the same insatiate thirst. But the Anglo-Saxon heel, upon that soil, seals its greatness and proclaims its destiny. From every wooded hill-side and babbling stream—from the snow-capped mountain to the fertile valley—yes! even over the great desert plains, where the footstep cracks the crisp soil, a voice has gone forth, which the Nations hear and obey, proclaiming—BE YE FREE!

Do you not think that the abandoning of all domestic and personal comfort, sundering of all social and friendly ties, and rushing into the doubtful companionship of California, for the mere sake of gold, is a pretty accurate data from which to estimate a man’s heart, or brain, or both? Is it not something so absolutely sordid, that one cannot help losing a little of the respect heretofore entertained for a friend who is seized with this yellow fever? As if life had nothing to mitigate the evils of existence but wealth—indeed, as if we were born only to worship that as a god—upon whose shrine we are to sacrifice time, friends, health, and even life itself, to be the masters of so much tinsel as you can clutch at the altar. Bah! Is there not in home enjoyments and the society and friendship of men who know us well, and love us truly, more _real_ wealth than all that will ever be attained by the slaves who sweep the dirt from the streams in California—live upon frogs and beetles, and fill the air with curses. Think of men, of even the most ordinary sense of decency, herding—_for any sum_—for months and years with the scum of every clime; with souls sickened and minds defiled with their abominations; to be of them, “or not to _be_” at all—is there any consideration that could tempt your avarice or mine? None that I can think of, unless to gratify some darling revenge, vigilant and sleepless for years, which men sometimes cherish for wrongs, and which nothing but gold could furnish the means of satisfying—even in that case it would be the _last_ resort.

If any friend of yours is solicitous to enrich a patch of soil, two feet by six, I think I can recommend an Undertaker who will arrange the thing nicely for him here; it is not worth while for him to go to California with his benevolence. For _you_, he would be reasonable, as you are _Short_.