Chapter V (4)

But one rich argosy holds all my store—
If harm befall that one, what comes of me?
Must I in beggary wander evermore,
Subsistence craving of cold charity?

How should I bear to think upon the day
When Fortune’s gifts were showered upon my head
Would not my misery more heavy weigh.
In view of happiness remembered?

Then let me rather trust my life also,
In that one ship where all my riches be,
That wheresoe’er she goeth I may go,
And toss with her upon the faithless sea.

Then, if the tempest bow the sturdy mast,
And horrid billows sweep the shuddering deck,
When every help and every hope is past,
Calmly I’ll perish with my treasure’s wreck.

* * * * *

EDITOR’S TABLE.

THE PARTING YEAR.

“Why sitt’st thou by that ruined hall,
Thou aged earl, so stern and gray?
Dost thou its former pride recall,
Or ponder how it passed away?”
“Know’st thou not me?” the deep voice cried:
“So long enjoyed, so oft misused;
Alternate in thy fickle pride,
Desired, neglected, and accused!

“Before my breath, like blazing flax,
Man and his marvels pass away!
And changing empires wane and wax;
Are founded, flourish, and decay.
Redeem mine hours, the space is brief,
While in my glass the sand grains shiver;
And measureless thy joy or grief,
When time and thou shalt part forever.”
WALTER SCOTT.

The waning year is, to most minds, a season of reflection. And it is good to pause and think, occasionally; to glance along the receding vista of months, and review our actions ere too great a distance makes their memory indistinct. Time seems to linger on his journey, to pause by the crumbling ruins of earthly things, and point us to the past, that we may gather therefrom lessons of wisdom for the future.

And now, as we stand on the verge of the parting year—as the last line in its record of events is about being written, it is but to obey the dictate of reason to let our thoughts run back. Time we cannot recall, nor change the past. What we have done is done forever. Then, why, it may be asked, turn our thoughts thitherward? Why not look in hope to the future? It is that we may look to the future with brighter hopes, made more certain through repentance and good resolutions.

What we are is of more, far more importance to us than what we seem to others, or what we have gained in worldly goods. Our thoughts, then, as we review the days and weeks in the closing circle of months, should linger rather upon the purposes and acts of our moral life, than upon the impression we have made upon others, or the amount of earthly treasure we have gathered in from the harvest-fields of the world. A good reputation may be lost through slander; riches may take to themselves wings and fly away; but of the heart’s conscious rectitude no event external to ourselves can rob us. It is true gold, which neither moth nor rust can corrupt, and of which not even death itself can rob us.

In turning back our thoughts upon the past, then, let us examine all our acts in the light of their prompting ends. There is no act without a purpose, and the purpose gives quality to the act. A selfish and bad end makes an act evil, which might be innocent if done with a good end. A man may pursue his worldly business with the same energy and success that marks the course of his neighbor, and be all the while laying up treasure above, while the latter gains nothing but the treasure on earth, which, in a few years, passes into the coffers of another, while he, naked and poor as he came into the world, recrosses the mortal bourne, and is seen no more among his fellows. The great difference lies in the end with which each prosecutes his daily calling. A good end keeps in view what is just to the neighbor, while a selfish end causes a man to disregard and even trample upon others’ rights.

As time points his trembling finger to the past, let each one, then, carefully review the history of the year, so far as himself is concerned, and, in reviewing it, look earnestly at the purposes which have governed his various actions. These, in their accumulations, are to make the future happy or miserable. Gold gained in a total disregard of others’ rights or feelings, never has nor never will bring happiness; for, in the acquisition, the mind takes an evil form in accordance with its purpose, and such a form precludes the possibility of happiness. Honor and fame acquired in like manner, will as certainly bring pain and disappointment.

The great question then is—How far have I advanced in the year toward that true humanity which is built up into a beautiful form, through good purposes coming forth into good deeds? Just so far as this true humanity has been attained, _and no further_, has the waning year been a well spent and profitable year.

Is your mind not satisfied with the review measured by this standard? Let the fact be wisely improved by a better life in the future. Begin the next year with this higher standard in your mind, and resolve to live up to it as far as is in your power.

There is one reflection connected with this theme that should produce a strong impression. It is our present that makes our future. What we purpose and do to-day throws forward its effect upon our coming years. And this is the result of every day’s life. What would not some of us give if we could change the rebuking past? But, alas! what is done is done forever. The present with its deeds flits by and becomes the unchangeable past. We may repent of our wrong doings, but repentance cannot extract the sting from memory. With this thought, which should alone prompt to right living in the future, we close our brief sermon; commending its teachings to the wise and simple, the rich and the poor, the old and the young, the learned and the unlearned, with the hope that it may be like a nail in a sure place, or, like apples of gold on pictures of silver.

THE POLITICAL WORLD FOR 1849.

BY J. R. CHANDLER.

It seems meet that we should take some note of the times in which we live, and not allow a whole year to pass without a record of some of those startling incidents by which it has been distinguished. We do not pretend to publish “the news”—we do not mean to make commentaries upon the political changes which are constantly occurring. There are papers specially devoted to such matters, and they do their duty with fidelity and satisfaction. We, however, think it proper (useful we mean, and therefore proper,) to give a simple abstract of great political changes and convulsions that have occurred in 1849. It may instruct some; it will probably send many more to the records of the times to gain minute information of such startling affairs. Some it may lead to reflect upon the mutability of human productions, and the causes which have wrought out such remarkable effects. Others will probably be ready, while they mourn over the suffering and kindle at the bold steps and courageous conduct of the uprising oppressed, abroad, to rejoice at the peace and happiness secured to our own beloved country by the institutions of republicanism which we enjoy, and to inquire whether such signal advantages are not worth a vigilance that shall detect the first movement, or the dangerous neglect that may jeopard the liberties of the people and the peace and prosperity of the country.

We desire to sit down and make a small daguerreotype view of the nations abroad, that our Magazine may close the year 1849 with such a picture as would make ordinary readers, even the ladies, who are only ordinary as they are the _general_ readers of our book, understand the changes which are yet to take place. But we are compelled to write nearly a month before we nominally publish, so that much may transpire between the inkstand and the reading-desk; much that may change the whole complexion, the features even of European politics, and cast either a shade or a light across the Atlantic. Again, while we sit down to adjust our instrument to catch the manners living as they rise, to receive and fix the forms of nations upon our plates, they, instead of awaiting their little moment, to give a perfect image, start into some revolution and thus mar the picture which we would have strong, clear and distinct. The troubles which beset the whole of Italy a year ago are, if not settled, at least becoming less. The affairs of the various independent governments seem to be so directed as to insure a return to something like the position they held more than two years since.

In ROME, whence the Pope had been driven by the revolutionary power, the French army in Italy established itself, after a free use of its heavy batteries. For a moment it seemed that nothing more was intended than the restoration of the Pope to his temporal power. But either the President of France had a concealed motive in sending Oudinot with an army into Italy, or the uplifted voice of the liberal portion of Europe caused him to declare that he wished to prevent Austria and Spain from gaining influence in Rome, and he desired with the return of the Pope, to see the government (under his holiness) secularized.

Meantime the Pope, at Gaeta, apparently enjoying all the distinction which his elevated position as spiritual and temporal chief could claim, has been far from happy. He has seen into the motives of France, and cannot be ignorant now of the spirit, the interested spirit, likely to influence other nations which may undertake to restore him to Rome with all his former power. Nay, it is evident that he is now weighing the consideration whether it is best for his spiritual mission, and his temporal comforts and honors to receive back such rule—he sees that the times have changed, and he is evidently pausing to see how he may change with them without exposing himself to the outrages to which his former liberal movements exposed him.

VENICE that held out against the Austrian forces was compelled to capitulate. She loses the distinction which she had retained, and her condition as a free port is lost. Austria has even desired to build up Trieste at the expense of Venice. It should be remarked, however, that the political offences of the Venetians have been more leniently dealt with than had been anticipated. The leaders of the revolt were removed to Corfu by the French before the Austrians entered the city. Venice and Venetian Lombardy are again the appanages of the Austrian crown.

There was an attempt at a revolt in the IONIAN ISLANDS, a quasi republic under the protection of Great Britain. The disturbance took place in Cephalonia, and the political outbreak was the occasion for a band of ruffians to undertake to plunder and assassinate. A leading citizen of Argistile was, with his family, burnt to death. Vigorous measures were adopted by Mr. Ward, the high commissioner of the British government for the Ionian Islands, and finally order was restored.

FRANCE—The year 1849 opened upon France in the enjoyment of the _fierce_ youth of Republicanism, with a President elected almost unanimously by the people, and with a National Assembly almost ready to expire by its own peculiar organization. A new Assembly was elected and was organized in May, and early in June the President, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, sent to that body his message, which, for the first time in European history, contained a statement of the situation of the country minutely set forth, and was thus far republican. Unfortunately the President took occasion to set forth his own views and determinations in a tone far more in accordance with those of his uncle, the Emperor Napoleon, than like that of those who should supply his model—the Presidents of the United States.

It may be noted that the revolutions of France have been very costly, and her debt has been fearfully augmented by the convulsion that drove Louis Philippe from the kingly throne and placed Louis Napoleon in the presidential chair.

The election of Louis Napoleon to the presidency did by no means secure the tranquillity of France; so many men leading various sections, that united only _against_ one portion, were unprovided with power when the union was to be in _favor_ of one man, that no sooner was the president installed than those who had done most to make a place for him were willing to do more to get him out of a place. And it cannot be denied that the movements of France, or rather of Louis Napoleon, for really he seems to be France, upon Rome, were not at first calculated to conciliate the Red Republicans, and are now as little likely to satisfy the opposite party; each will remember its peculiar cause of dislike, but neither will keep in mind its occasion for approval. The truth is, France is not yet essentially republican in its system. The people of France would, by a large majority, vote to fight for a republican form of government for their country, but they do not seem to comprehend the true policy of a republic, and it may be doubted whether the tendency of a single legislature, and the weight of Paris is not toward centralization—most anti or at least unrepublican. France must look to the federation of her departments. The president of France has made various tours in his republic, and has been received with various degrees of respect and courtesy, as his principles were more or less approved, or, perhaps, as the people were more or less republican or monarchical in their views. And it may be remarked, that every where he has taken occasion to say that “order, system, and conservatism,” were necessary to the prosperity of France; an idea well enough in the abstract, but evidently, considering the speaker and the hearers, intended to intimate that France needed less revolution among the people, and more permanency in her executive. When he visited the neighborhood of Ham, where he had been for a long time a prisoner, on account of a rebellion against the established government, he was reminded by some obsequious citizens of his sufferings and his deliverance. But instead of launching out into a tirade against tyranny in general, and especially that which confined him there, he took occasion to preach a homily in favor of established power, and confessed his error in being one of those who rose against it. Fenelon, when he ascended the pulpit to denounce his own book, did not assume a more self-condemnatory air, nor did he more regret his offences against ecclesiastical rule, than did Louis Napoleon _his_ outrage upon the kingly government; and this, too, in presence of a people that had assisted within two years to put down a king, and had, by their votes, elected him to office, in the place of that king.

France has placed herself, or was placed by her president, in a very delicate position, with regard to other European powers, by her interference in the Italian contest. She now complains that the Pope does not acknowledge the services which she has rendered, (he certainty seems to be very ignorant of any advantage which France has wrought for him,) while the president declares that Rome must be secularized, and must grant a _full_ amnesty to political offenders. France has her attention now drawn toward the peculiar situation of affairs between the Porte and the Emperor of Russia, in which England and France seem to understand each other.

While the continent of Europe has been embroiled for the last year in all kinds of contests, GREAT BRITAIN seems to have enjoyed unusual tranquillity at _home_. The imperial parliament repealed the old navigation laws which had been operative for two centuries. By the new enactments greater freedom is given to vessels of other countries to trade between the several ports of Great Britain; and in other countries where reciprocal commercial treaties are established, the ships of Great Britain will have similar advantages.

Peace is not productive of historical interest, and we have only to say, that Great Britain has settled her troubles in the East by defeating the Indian forces raised against her power; and she has commenced her troubles in the _West_, by sanctioning certain laws passed by the parliament of the Canadas to remunerate those who lost property in a former rebellion. The truth is, there has grown up a strong and violent hostility between the English residents in Canada and the French; and the latter, with some of their allies, having a majority, passed the law for indemnity, which the governor, Lord Elgin, signed; and this brought against him the English party. The Home Government sanctioned the action of his lordship, and this has led some of the English party to talk of throwing off the English yoke, and uniting Canada with the United States. It is probable that Great Britain has held Canada about as long as is possible—and perhaps quite as long as is profitable.

The Queen of Great Britain has, with her husband and children, attended by a numerous court, been visiting to Ireland and Scotland, and has been eminently successful in conciliating the people of these parts of her empire, and has done more to restore kind feelings and establish herself, than all the arms which she could have sent against the disaffected. She is at once popular and powerful, and sustains a bad system by her gentleness and her sterling worth.

It is to the glory of Great Britain that in all the disturbances in Europe of late, she has sought, by her intervention, to save the people from the consequences of a bloody war, and in all cases she has appeared as the friend of the weakest side, her mediation was not often accepted. In the case of the unhappy war between Prussia and Denmark, about the miserable affair of Schleswick Holstein, her offer was accepted, and peace was restored.

DENMARK. We have little to say of this kingdom excepting that by her superior naval force she redeemed her credit, somewhat impaired by the success of the Prussians on the land; and the effective blockade induced her enemy to listen to the proposition of Great Britain to mediate. The result was the settlement of the difficulties about Schleswick Holstein.

PRUSSIA. The attempt to create a federative government in Germany has not yet proved successful. Various plans have been proposed, and a constitution, not unlike that of the United States, was nearly adopted. But when the states which are to compose the federation have been so long entirely independent, and have exercised the privileges of complete sovereignty, they do not readily yield up their independence, and hence, after moving toward a union, they start off, alarmed at the chance of being lost sight of in the shadow of the larger states. The intention of forming a confederacy is still cherished, and may be realized. Prussia must, of course, have a leading voice in such a movement. But the power of the continental monarchs rests, and must continue to rest, upon the army, and consequently war, that weakens the nation, must, for a time, give strength to kings. But as the strength which is imparted to the human system by the use of opium, it will destroy in time what it was intended to support.

AUSTRIA has had a sort of triumph; her arms have been successful in Italy, and, with the aid of Russia, she has put down the rebellion in Hungary. Yet Austria is weaker now than before her triumphs, and is regarded with less favor, more hatred, more contempt than formerly. The necessity of changes in her government; the necessity of destroying her own rebellious cities; the necessity of applying to Russia for help, have taught that power to feel that it is not only vulnerable, but that it is perishable. And a few more such convulsions, even though Russia interfere, will dismember the Germans, and set free her injured dependencies.

HUNGARY. The brilliant effort of Hungary to cast off the yoke of Austria promised for a time to be gloriously successful. The character of Kossuth was so beautiful, his manners so conciliatory, his plans so wise, and his power with the army so complete, that the world was prepared to hail and welcome the old kingdom back to independence. Austria was defeated. Her armies were beaten, and the rickety old tyranny appealed to Russia for help—to Russia, the last refuge of tyranny that exists. And Russia poured her _rubles_ down upon the plains of Hungary, and corrupted one of the generals that had been entrusted with power; and then she sent her herds of serfs and generals to receive the concessions which she had _purchased_. And so Hungary sinks back into a dependence upon Austria, liable at all times to be claimed and fleeced by Russia.

We had wished, we confess, that Hungary would have freed herself—but she must abide her time. Bem, Kossuth, and many other generals, with numerous companies of soldiery, escaped into the Turkish dominions, under a pledge of safety from the Sultan. But Russia, true to her principle of pursuing her offenders, demanded these unfortunate fugitives. The Sultan became alarmed, and asked the Hungarians to renounce their faith, and adopt Mohamedism, and then they would become citizens, and might not be claimed. Some assumed the turban, others refused. But it is probable that Russia will find occasion in these and other matters to make war on Turkey; if so, France and England must look to what they have called the balance of power in Europe.

It is worthy of remark, that while Russia is settling the disturbance in Hungary, the western principalities of Turkey seem to be uniting with Greece to assert some of the rights of man. We know not what will result—but it appears as if there was going forth a voice which is crying “_war—war_ to tyranny and oppression!” Its denunciation may indeed serve to make the hand of power clutch more closely the neck of its victim, but the grasp must be spasmodic—strong, perhaps stronger than formerly, at least, the neck is growing more sensitive—but the grasp will be loosed, and the people will be allowed to go and form their own government and enjoy their own rights.

There have been few changes on this side of the Atlantic. The most important movements have been in California, where the tide of immigration attracted by gold and retained by a new feeling of civicism, has swollen into the materials for a new government. The opinion entertained at one time that the attempt to form a territorial government for California would embarrass the National Administration by giving rise to the question of the extent of slavery, by the application of what is called the “Wilmot proviso,” seems to have subsided by the project of inducing California to make application at once for admission into the Union as a _State_, of course the Wilmot proviso would have no operation on such an appeal.

No changes of consequence have occurred in South America. Improvement in the sciences, peace, and order will strengthen republican institutions, and republican feelings, and we may hope that prosperity and happiness will ere long be the lot of those whom Providence has placed in a Heavenly climate and on a most productive soil, but whose stimulated passions have made a hell of their country, and denied to the soil the produce which it might have brought forth.

Excepting the fearful prevalence of cholera in various parts of the country, the UNITED STATES have continued in the enjoyment of political, moral, and social blessings; and we may hope that Providence will continue to smile on the efforts of its patriots to sustain the institutions with which their country is blessed, and to make each citizen sensible of the vast advantages he enjoys over the subjects of foreign powers. And if God, who hitherto has poured out his choicest favors on our beloved land, should vouchsafe his blessings hereafter, we may see her wielding power for the good of mankind, and teaching other nations the true use of government. Not doubting but this will be the case, we think we see down the vista of time our country becoming the mild dictator to the world, and her peaceful government sheltering the injured from other lands and correcting the injurer. And while such a prospect is held out we may look, as the cause and consequence thereof, for peace and moral worth, and

From Darien to Davis one garden shall bloom
When war’s wearied banners are furled,
And the far-scented zephyr that wafts its perfume
Shall silence the storms of the world.

PROSPECTIVE!—1850.

MY DEAR JEREMY,—Have you ever taken a long-bill on the wing of a July morning? Not a note at eight months, flying in the market at a heavy discount—but a genuine long-bill, an old woodcock, springing up at your feet with whistling and whirring wings, and doing his uttermost to get out of the way, without waiting for the formality of invitation expended upon a certain Mr. Tucker? “You have not.” Well, I shall not attempt the task of teacher after HERBERT, but you can have no conception of the cool head and steady nerve required to do it well. To an old hand, with dog and gun, with a constitution inured by exercise, it is the glory of the world’s excitements, and as far above the lust of money-getting, as poetry is above note-shaving.

I took my tramp this summer, of three months, among the hills and marshes where this bird—which is a bore in one way only—loves most to congregate, and saw our old friend, “the iron pump” of copper notoriety looking as dry as his purchasers and quite as rusty. I could not resist the impulse to take a crack at him, at forty yards, with my double-barrel, as at an imaginary copper-head. The excavations looked like the ready-made graves of speculators, who somehow or other had not come there to be buried. The very faces of the rocks had been twisted into grimaces, and seemed with their yellow eyes to be grinning at one; so shouldering my gun, and whistling to give strength to an imaginary band playing

“Over the river to Charley,”

I went down into the valley, and took vengeance for bills long dishonored, upon bills that I honor long.

But, Jeremy, we cannot submit to the “vagabond propensity,” as the old farmers call it, of roaming with dog and gun over mountain and meadow, though the morning dew has made the air redolent of sweets, and from every bush and blade of grass nature has hung her pearls invitingly, and lit up, as with the blaze of a torch, the gum and maple trees; though the pure air and fresh water have given health to eye and cheek and vigor to the frame, we must away to the turbulent city, and within its pent up streets and among its crowded artisans and tradesmen wrestle for bread, and shutting out from the heart its glimpses of heaven and repose in the country, grapple with toil, work on, and hope on! Yet with a sure and an abiding trust and faith.

With the opening of the New Year the periodical campaign brings thought and labor. What a world within itself is this business in Philadelphia alone—how stirring the competition—how diverse the interests—how various the success. The unparalleled rise in the business within one short year has been the result of diligent application. The publishers have most gloriously bought their own success, and have raised their works to such a point of beauty and excellence that money can go no further. The spirit of a just competition has urged each man to do his very uttermost to give his readers all that can by possibility be crowded, in the way of beauty and excellence, into his work. Every dollar received goes back in renewed outlay, in costly embellishments and articles. Nothing in Europe at twice their price can at all approach the illustrated American Monthlies in the beauty and costliness of their appointments. At the head of _all_ stands “GRAHAM”—Proud—Imperious—Supreme. He has no long line of broken promises to come up in judgment against him, but for ten long years has steadily gone on increasing in the face of all opposition, until he now stands unapproachable and alone, among the highest class of literary monthlies in the land. There are others of a lighter class—successful—highly successful—but his is the proud honor of having lifted the tone of his literature, and the quality of his engravings, up to the highest European standard of excellence in all respects. There is yet another class, who deal in promises—and promises only—whose best numbers come up to the meanest promise only of their printed circulars, but who go on crowding promise upon failure to redeem, until the virtues of their acts are lost in the fog they raise—fortunately their works also. More than a score of such have we seen entombed—some we have helped to bury—but they come again, like the locust, annually, and swindling a few dupes out of their money, annually die. This is the class which does business altogether by

THE SUCTION AND PUMPING PROCESS.

From this party, we shall no doubt be favored, with very extravagant-looking show-bills, and plenty of them—long bills drawn upon the credulity of people who fill an imaginary subscription list, and are very liberal in remittances, and whose wonderful sagacity in waiting until 1850, will be duly heralded, and in type announced. The existence of any periodical of the slightest pretension to elegance or ability, not having been heard of before, and only known among that benighted class, whose urgent literary tastes would not allow them to suffer and to wait.

Having seen our friends of “The Suction and Pumping Process” fairly in the field, let us survey the ground. On the whole, things look rather brilliant; a number of “new volumes with superb inducements,” are already announced, and with the usual cheering before starting, the entertainments for 1850 promise to be rich and various beyond parallel. Ingenuity, it seems, is not exhausted, nor are novelties entirely run out. What have we here?

One of the ladies’ magazines actually promises to “_outstrip_” all its cotemporaries! A novel sort of assertion, truly, for a genteel ladies’ magazine; yet a proceeding, one would think, that cannot be carried very far with any sort of propriety. The grace of modesty and the delicacy of its position alike forbid it. Such things, if really attempted, will drive the meeker and weaker brethren entirely from the contest. We may—but scarcely can—tolerate the pretty large liberties which have been taken with the dresses of ladies elsewhere in engravings and fashion plates. Let it stop here. Give us models of art, even if they are a little nude; we can stand that—but this is touching on the province of the model artists; and as the _elder_ magazine, we cannot allow it—positively. Jeremy, if you have any influence with these people, stop this thing, I pray you.

Phew!—but what _is_ this?

It appears that under cover of fire-works, with sky-rockets, blue-lights, shooting-stars, or something of that sort, we are to have a grand conflagration, perhaps immolation of fashionable and pretty women; for another ladies’ magazine, audaciously—in order to offset the other, we suppose—promises, “_a blaze of beauty throughout the year!_”

Heavens! “can these things be,
And overcome us like a summer cloud,
Without our special wonder.”

And this is actually put out in the bills, before a Christian country, in the nineteenth century, and the police look on, and are silent!

Ah! this comes home to “our hearts and our bussums.” _What do we read? “All_ the distinguished writers and authors of this country and Europe are engaged.” The deuce they are? Oh Lord!—Our office then may be closed, during business hours hereafter, we suppose.

_Overlooked, by George!_—News! news! “The acknowledged Blackwood of America, 1850.” Now is that old vagabond coming back again, after having enjoyed our hospitalities for two seasons—’42 and ’43?

If Blackwood were to come in spirit shape, this I think would be his story, Jeremy:

“You see I was coming along, when a tall fellow, our old friend, cries, ‘How are you, Mr. Blackwood?’

“‘Come in here,’ says he, seizing my elbow, and in an instant I found myself deceived, swindled, jostled in among the wrong set. A parcel of puritanical looking dogs, sitting cheek by jowl, with long gowns, play actors, medical students, penny-a-liners, seedy old boys and silly school girls. I suppose they took me for a Mormon or a Shaker, or perhaps a clown, and dragged me in, to add to the novelty of the collection. But Scotch manners wouldn’t allow me to be rude, so I said, very politely, to the tall gentleman, if _that_ is whisky-punch you have on the stove, I’ll take a tumbler of it. Heavens! you should have heard the yell that went up, and seen the horrible faces; so seeing the way the wind set, I gave one or two of them a knock over the skull with ebony—bestowed my parting benediction upon the whole company—ladies excepted—and came at once to head-quarters.”

Now, Jeremy, I don’t know what you may think of this business, but I say I have been silent long enough under various aggressions, and hereafter, I take the cudgel and trounce any son of a gun who poaches on my manor. Why do you know that people have the audacity to say that theirs is the _oldest_ magazine, when the Casket, which we bought, and on which Graham was based, started in 1826, and had its colored fashions and wood engravings printed on tinted paper long before any of them opened their eyes. The mezzotints I was the first to put to magazine use on a large scale; and Burton’s Magazine, which was incorporated with this, gave the first that Sartain ever did for a magazine of large circulation; and yet these young fellows, with the down yet upon their chins, affect the experience of years, and learnedly talk about teaching their grandfather how to snuff. I care nothing about this, but that it has gone far enough; and they will after a while begin to believe their own stories—a bit of self-deception that it is a pity they should be subjected to.

But, Jeremy, we live in a funny world, and even with our criminal code, and prison discipline, I fear me, the moral reformer has a vast work to do. The shades of right and wrong, as worked up in the woof of practical life, are not of colors which contrast very strongly. They form rather the figures of a kaleidoscope. Is there not a little gambling done, in the way of “specimens” in literature, as well as in “specimens” in copper? Do the samples shown as “inducements” always honestly represent the real article afterward put upon the purchaser? Oh! very nice, rigid and self-complacent moralist, “with good fat capon lined,” why are thy hands held up in such affected holy horror at thy brother, who has stumbled and fallen, “because he has done this thing;” when printed records of thy falsified pledges and assertions, fill the post-towns of the country, the Union over! The lie in type and upon record, is it less venal, because multiplied by thousands, than that by word, which palms upon the unsuspecting a sinking fancy stock! Let the canting, praying hypocrite, of all trades, go down into his own heart, and clear it of its “dead men’s bones, and all uncleanness,” before, with bastard honesty, he casts a stone at his most desperate brother.

Ah, Jeremy, is there not a thriving business done, by men professing to be respectable, by “The Suction and Pumping Process,” in most of the trades of life—even in the very honorable business of manufacturing and selling goods? Ay! in the thousand well dressed, painted living lies, that stare at you in the streets, and from behind counters, and impose upon the ignorant—is there no rascality? When goods are put upon the poor and ignorant hired girls at high prices—the remnants of shabby gentility—are the shopkeepers honest do you suppose? In the poisoned rum, that is sold for _good_ (God defend us!) and which sends destitution, misery, and crime into the hovels of the poor—is there no weight of damnation, past finding out? Is every marble palace, with steeds prancing at the door, the monument of a good man’s well spent life; has every stone and carved niche been paid for by money honestly earned? Are the laces, and feathers, and gold and jewels, that flash upon us and glitter in the sun, _all_, always the well-earned rewards of honest and praiseworthy toil? Much of the money thus lavishly displayed, and on which an insolent pride fattens and corrupts, may it not be the legitimate reward of a sin that would taint the fingers of a thief? Hold up thy head, young brother, and keep thy heart pure; all is not lost! the courage to dare, the power and will to do are thine! Up! and against wrong and oppression of every shade, set thy face as a flint, and with conscious might and truth, press on! The world is before thee where to choose—it is thy battle-ground! Do nobly, and thou art man—meanly, a more creeping thing than a worm a upon whom every coward braggart will set his heel. Aye on! there is yet to come—thank God—a reckoning-day, of motives and of actions, when assumption shall be stript—deceit exposed—the hollow heart laid bare, and when the secret sin of pride and self-complacency, dragged from its hiding-place, shall be thrust, blazing into its face.

My dear Jeremy, there is a consolation in this—we shall see one of these times, every man’s motive for the acts he has committed revealed—whether it is only the poor devils cast down, forsaken, down-trodden and despised, that die in the ditch, who are damned; or whether he only is on his way to heaven—the sleek and lucky moralist who dozes over his wine—who thinks he can pave his way to heaven with ingots, however got, that shall be saved. That will be a sight worth seeing, Jeremy, for it will open the eyes of the Universe, and make all things even. We can afford to wait for even this, can we not? It will not be long.

G. R. G.

* * * * *

REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.

_Poems. By Robert Browning, Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 2
vols. 12mo._

This edition of Browning is almost a facsimile of the beautiful London edition, published by Chapman & Hall, the only real difference between the two being that the American reprint costs less than half as much as the London original.

Browning, for the last four or five years, has been steadily advancing to fame; and having overcome by the pure strength of his genius all outward and some inward obstacles, is now widely recognized as a new force in English letters. Next to Tennyson, we know of hardly another English poet of the day who can be compared with him. He possesses striking excellences both of thought and diction, but he is so indisputably an originality, that he is compelled to create the taste which appreciates him. Like almost all the poets of the new school, he is “high contemplative,” scorns rather than courts the means of popularity, and is more pleased by conquering one reader than by enticing many. In his distaste for the stereotyped diction and ideas of English poetry, he is apt to go to the opposite extreme of obscurity. There is a beautiful willfulness, a delicious bit of the devil, in him; accordingly many of his verses seem thrown off in an imaginary boxing match with professors of square-toed rhetoric and critics of the old school. This independence and pugnacity are sometimes carried to that extreme of recklessness, which indicates self-conceit and supercilious arrogance, rather than a wrestling with the difficulties of expression. “Sordello,” a poem which the author has now suppressed, was a tangled mass of half-formed thoughts and half-clutched sentiments, tottering dizzily on the vanishing points of meaning; and the publication of such a piece of elaborate worthlessness was an insult to public intelligence which would have consigned to deserved damnation, any poet who did not possess sufficient genius to retrieve his reputation.

In his best works, Browning appears as a poet gifted with a large reason and a wide-wandering imagination; but his reason and imagination do not seem to work genially together—are sometimes in each other’s way—and in their operation they sometimes strangle each other. He thinks broadly and deeply, and he shapes finely; but the thought does not commonly seem born in music, but rather born _with_ music; and he often gives the idea and the illustrative image, instead of the idea in the illustrative image. Sometimes, in reading him, we wish he would abandon poetry for metaphysics, so sure and clear is his analysis and statement of mental phenomena; and then again some magnificent comparison, metaphor or image, or some exquisite touch of characterization, makes us wish that he would abjure metaphysics, and cling to poetry. Compared with Tennyson, his nature would be called hard, and be said to lack mellowness and melody. That sensuous element in poetry, which proceeds from fusing thought, sensation, and imagination—the spiritual and physical—into one sweet product, “felt in the blood,” and felt along the brain, he does not appear to have reached; but then the burning words, struck off like sparks from the conflict of flint and steel, which come from him in his periods of real excitement, seem to the reader sufficient compensations for his comparative absence of softness and harmony. He may not delight so much as Tennyson, but he gives the mind a wider field to range in, inspires a manlier feeling, and indicates a greater capacity. The very fact that all his works are cast in a dramatic form, even though the dramatic element is often more formal than real, shows that his mind has a healthy affection for objects, and steadily resists its own subjective tendencies.

The first poem in the collection is “Paracelsus.” This is an attempt to exhibit the influence on character of knowledge disjoined from love, by a delineation of an aspiring and noble nature, smitten by a restless thirst to know, and ruined by “the lust of his brain.” The poem is not poetically conceived; its central idea is not organic, not the germinating principle of the whole, but rather an abstract proposition logically developed; and, accordingly, the mechanical understanding not the vital imagination is predominant throughout. Besides, though it exercises the brain not unpleasantly, it hardly gives poetic pleasure; and so far from comfortable is the general impression it leaves, that the reader recurs to it only for deep or delicate thoughts and imaginations which are separately beautiful. As a whole, it is not philosophical enough for a treatise, nor beautiful enough for a poem.

“King Victor and King Charles” is a drama containing four characters moderately well conceived and discriminated, but evincing dramatic genius not much above Bulwer’s, though profounder in sentiment, and richer in imagination. The most dramatic passage is where Polyxena seizes her husband’s hand, when he is on the point of yielding to a weak amiability of nature, and conjures him to sacrifice her happiness and his to duty. It is the passage commencing—

“King Charles! pause here upon this strip of time,
Allotted you out of eternity!”

“Colombe’s Birth Day” is a sweet and beautiful dramatic poem, abounding in intellectual wealth. The characters of Colombe and Valence are vigorously drawn. The scene between them in the fourth act, where he confesses his love, is grand and exhilarating as an exhibition of character and passion. But the idea of the play, that of representing the triumph of love over wealth and rank in a woman fully susceptible of the charms of the latter, is the animating life of the piece. We hardly know, out of Fletcher and Shakspeare, a play where fidelity to a sentiment is represented with such ethereal grace.

In “Luria” and “The Return of the Druses,” an intimate acquaintance is shown with the best and worst parts of human nature, and the development of the characters indicates that the author’s dramatic skill grows with exercise. Luria is a noble character, original in conception, and finely developed from “within outwards.” “A Soul’s Tragedy” has many marked excellences of thought, and diction, and exhibits one of the most hateful qualities in human nature, with a blended dramatic coolness and individual abhorrence, singularly felicitous.

The “Dramatic Lyrics” are very striking, and are full of matter. “Count Gismond,” “Porphyria’s Lover,” “The Confessional,” “The Lost Leader,” and “The Pied Piper of Hamelin,” we should select as, on the whole, the best. The latter, written for little William Macready, exhibits the peculiar vein of humor in which Browning excels, and of which we have indications all over his works. The commencement we will venture to extract:

“Rats!
They fought the dogs, and killed the cats,
And bit the babies in the cradles,
And ate the cheese out of the vats,
And licked the soup from the cook’s own ladles.
Split open the kegs of the salted sprats,
Made nests inside men’s Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women’s chats,
By drowning their speaking
And shrieking and squeaking,
In fifty different sharps and flats.”

But the grandest pieces in the volume are “Pippa Passes,” and “A Blot in the ’Scutcheon.” The latter, in the opinion of Dickens, is the finest poem of the century. We think there can be detected in it that hardness of touch which characterizes the other dramas, but the depth and pathos of the matter, and the approach to something like impassioned action in the events, make it wonderfully impressive. Once read it must haunt the imagination forever, for its power strikes deep into the very substance and core of the soul. Thorold’s adamantine pride, and Guendolen’s sweet woman’s sympathy, and Mildred’s awful sorrow, can never be forgotten. Mildred’s repetition, in moments of agony or half-consciousness, of the lines—

“I was so young—I loved him so—I had
No mother—God forgot me—and I fell—”

exceeds in pathetic effect any thing in English dramatic literature since the Elizabethan era.

We hardly know how to express our admiration of “Pippa Passes,” making as it does the “sense of satisfaction ache,” with its abounding beauty. In this piece the author’s nature seems for once to have become fluid, and gushes out in melodious thought and passion. Pippa herself is one of poetry’s most exquisite creations, and, among her many “passes,” those she makes into the hearts and imaginations of a thousand readers, ought not to be overlooked. The design of the play is new, and it would be difficult to state in an intellectual form the source of its charm. Its completeness is in its seeming incompleteness. The grandest scene is that between Ottima and Sebald, the fine audacity of which carries us back to the elder period of the English drama. The greatest instance of imagination in Browning’s works is contained in this scene. We give it below:

“Buried in woods we lay, you recollect;
Swift ran the searching tempest overhead,
And ever and anon some bright white shaft
Burnt through the pine-tree roof—here burnt and there,
As if God’s messenger through the close wood screen
Plunged and replunged his weapon at a venture,
Feeling for guilty thee and me.”

The dedication of “Pippa Passes” is beautifully ingenious;

“I DEDICATE
MY BEST INTENTIONS, IN THIS POEM, MOST ADMIRINGLY,
TO THE AUTHOR OF ”ION,“—
MOST AFFECTIONATELY TO
MR. SERJEANT TALFOURD.”

We trust that the elegant edition of Browning, which we have here noticed, will make him widely known in the United States. The volumes are in Ticknor & Co.’s best style, both as regards type and paper.

* * * * *

_Physician and Patient, or a Practical View of the Mutual
Duties, Relations and Interests of the Medical Profession and
the Community. By Worthington Hooker, M. D. New York: Baker &
Scribner. 1 vol. 12mo._

This is a timely production, written by a man who appears to have sterling honesty as well as sterling sense, and devoted to a subject as interesting as any which can engage the attention of the community. We hope it will attract sufficient attention to insure its extensive circulation, and bring it within the notice of all families. The author grapples with his subject thoroughly, and almost exhausts it. Owing to the various forms, genteel and vulgar, which quackery has assumed in our day, no person, intelligent or ignorant, is safe from some one mode of its operation, as it has contrivances for every age, disposition, grade of mental development, and social station. Dr. Hooker has gone elaborately over the whole matter, and has really given the philosophy as well as the facts of empiricism, both as it exists out of the profession and in it. He does not spare those physicians who follow medicine as a trade, instead of pursuing it as a profession, “and study the science of patient-getting to the neglect of the science of patient curing,” while in showing the processes of the quack in experimenting on the credulity of his victims, he has done an essential service to the health of the community. We can but reiterate the hope that the volume, full as it is of practical wisdom, will be extensively circulated, and do its part toward enlightening the most quack-ridden people on the face of the earth.

* * * * *

_History of England from the Invasion of Julius Cæsar to the
Abdication of James the Second. By David Hume. Boston: Phillips,
Sampson & Co. Vols. 1, 2, 3, 4, 12mo._

This edition of Hume is uniform with the same publishers’ edition of Macaulay. It is neatly printed in good sized type, and is placed at a price sufficiently cheap to bring it within the reach of the humblest reader. It is reprinted from the last and best London edition, and is prefaced by Hume’s delightful autobiography. It is needless to inform our readers that the work is a classic, and ranks with the greatest historical works ever written in this world. But though its fame is wide, we doubt if the generality of the reading public give it their attention. This is really abstinence from pleasure as well as instruction, for Hume is among the most fascinating of narrators. His style is simple, clear, racy, and flowing, beyond that of almost any English historian, and being but a translucent mirror of events and reflections, it attracts no attention to itself, and therefore never tires. The wonder of the book is its happy union of narration and reflections and the skill with which every thing is brought home to the humblest capacity. It belongs to that class of works in which power is not paraded, but unobtrusively insinuated in thoughts carelessly dropped, as it were, in the course of a familiar narration of interesting incidents. “Easy writing,” said Sheridan, “is cursed hard writing.” The easy style of Hume is an illustration. The reader, at the end, feels that he has been keeping company with a great man, gifted with an extraordinary grasp and subtlety of mind, but during the journey he thought he was but chatting with an agreeable and intelligent familiar companion.

* * * * *

_Success in Life. The Merchant. By Mrs. L. C. Tuthill. New York:
Geo. P. Putnam. 1 vol. 12mo._

The present volume is the first of a series of six, in which the authoress intends to indicate the _rationale_ of the successful merchant, lawyer, mechanic, artist, physician and farmer, illustrating each department by biographical anecdotes. We have here, as the leader of the series, a volume on The Merchant. The style is gossiping, without much pretension to beauty or correctness, but the matter indicates a shrewd mind and extensive miscellaneous reading. There is one chapter devoted almost wholly to Robert Morris, a man whose amplitude of mind comprehended both statesmanship and commerce, and whom Burke might have adduced in proof of his assertion, that he had known merchants with the large conceptions of statesmen, and statesmen with the little notions of pedlars. Mrs. Tuthill chats very agreeably of Morris, and among other anecdotes of him, gives a laconic letter he wrote to some French officers in the American army, on their insolently demanding an immediate settlement of their arrears of pay. Here it is, and it is a good example of cutting knots which cannot be untied: “Gentlemen,—I have received this morning your application. I make the earliest answer to it. You demand immediate payment, I have no money to pay you with.” We extract this letter as a model to those of our readers who are often puzzled, under similar circumstances, to hit upon the right mode of announcing such uncomfortable demands to perform the impossible.

* * * * *