Chapter IX: Part I: Reviews (4)

But our space does not permit us to do any justice to such a life as Alfieri's. Let others read it, not from their habitual, but an eternal point of view, and they cannot mistake its purport. Some will be most touched by the storms of his youth, others by the exploits and conquests of his later years; but all will find him, in the words of his friend Casella, "sculptured just as he was, lofty, strange, and extreme, not only in his natural characteristics, but in every work that did not seem to him unworthy of his generous affections. And where he went too far, it is easy to perceive his excesses always flowed from some praiseworthy sentiment."

Among a crowd of thoughts suggested to the mind by reperusal of this book, to us a friend of many years standing, we hastily note the following:--

Alfieri knew how to be a friend, and had friends such as his masculine and uncompromising temper fitted him to endure and keep. He had even two or three of those noble friends. He was a perfect lover in delicacy of sentiment, in devotion, in a desire for constancy, in a high ideal, growing always higher, and he was, at last, happy in love. Many geniuses have spoken worthily of women in their works, but he speaks of woman as she wishes to be spoken of, and declares that he met the desire of his soul realized in life. This, almost alone, is an instance where a great nature was permanently satisfied, and the claims of man and woman equally met, where one of the parties had the impatient fire of genius. His testimony on this subject is of so rare a sort, we must copy it:--

"My fourth and last passion, fortunately for me, showed itself by symptoms entirely different from the three first. In the former, my intellect had felt little of the fires of passion; but now my heart and my genius were both equally kindled, and if my passion was less impetuous, it became more profound and lasting. Such was the flame which by degrees absorbed every affection and thought of my being, and it will never fade away except with my life. Two months satisfied me that I had now found the _true woman_; for, instead of encountering in her, as in all common women, an obstacle to literary glory, a hinderance to useful occupations, and a damper to thought, she proved a high stimulus, a pure solace, and an alluring example to every beautiful work. Prizing a treasure so rare, I gave myself away to her irrevocably. And I certainly erred not. More than twelve years have passed, and while I am writing this chit-chat, having reached that calm season when passion loses its blandishments, I cherish her more tenderly than ever; and I love her just in proportion as glide from her in the lapse of time those little-esteemed toll-gatherers of departing beauty. In her my soul is exalted, softened, and made better day by day; and I will dare to say and believe she has found in me support and consolation."

We have spoken of the peculiarities in Alfieri's physical condition. These naturally led him to seek solace in violent exercise; and as in the case of Beckford and Byron, horses were his best friends in the hour of danger. This sort of man is the modern Achilles, "the tamer of horses." In what degree the health of Alfieri was improved, and his sympathies awakened by the society and care of these noble animals, is very evident. Almost all persons, perhaps all that are in a natural state, need to stand in patriarchal relations with the animals most correspondent with their character. We have the highest respect for this instinct and sincere belief in the good it brings; if understood, it would be cherished, not ridiculed.

ITALY.--CARY'S DANTE.

Translating Dante is indeed a labor of love. It is one in which even a moderate degree of success is impossible. No great Poet can be well translated. The form of his thought is inseparable from his thought. The births of his genius are perfect beings: body and soul are in such perfect harmony that you cannot at all alter the one without veiling the other. The variation in cadence and modulation, even where the words are exactly rendered, takes not only from the form of the thought, but from the thought itself, its most delicate charm. Translations come to us as a message to the lover from the lady of his love through the lips of a confidante or menial--we are obliged to imagine what was most vital in the utterance.

These difficulties, always insuperable, are accumulated a hundred-fold in the case of Dante, both by the extraordinary depth and subtlety of his thought, and his no less extraordinary power of concentrating its expression, till every verse is like a blade of thoroughly tempered steel. You might as well attempt to translate a glance of fire from the human eye into any other language--even music cannot do that.

We think, then, that the use of Cary's translation, or any other, can never be to diffuse a knowledge of Dante. This is not in its nature diffusible; he is one of those to whom others must draw near; he cannot be brought to them. He has no superficial charm to cheat the reader into a belief that he knows him, without entrance into the same sphere.

These translations can be of use only to the translators, as a means of deliberate study of the original, or to others who are studying the original, and wish to compare their own version of doubtful passages with that of an older disciple, highly qualified, both by devotion and mental development, for the study.

We must say a few words as to the pedantic folly with which this study has been prosecuted in this country, and, we believe, in England. Not only the tragedies of Alfieri and the Faust of Goethe, but the Divina Commedia of Dante,--a work which it is not probable there are upon earth, at any one time, a hundred minds able to appreciate,--are turned into school books for little girls who have just left their hoops and dolls, and boys whose highest ambition it is to ride a horse that will run away, and brave the tutor in a college frolic.

This is done from the idea that, in order to get acquainted with a foreign language, the student must read books that have attained the dignity of classics, and also which are "hard." Hard indeed it must be for the Muses to see their lyres turned into gridirons for the preparation of a school-girl's lunch; harder still for the younglings to be called to chew and digest thunderbolts, in lieu of their natural bread and butter.

Are there not "classics" enough which would not suffer by being put to such uses? In Greek, Homer is a book for a boy; must you give him Plato because it is harder? Is there no choice among the Latins? Are all who wrote in the Latin tongue equally fit for the appreciation of sixteen Yankee years? In Italian, have you not Tasso, Ariosto, and other writers who have really a great deal that the immature mind can enjoy, without choking it with the stern politics of Alfieri, or piling upon a brain still soft the mountainous meanings of Dante? Indeed, they are saved from suffering by the perfect ignorance of all meaning in which they leave these great authors, fancying, to their life-long misfortune, that they have read them. I have been reminded, by the remarks of my young friends on these subjects, of the Irish peasant, who, having been educated on a book prepared for his use, called "Reading made easy," blesses through life the kindness that taught him his "Radamadasy;" and of the child who, hearing her father quote Horace, observed _she_ "thought Latin was even sillier than French."

No less pedantic is the style in which the grown-up, in stature at least, undertakes to become acquainted with Dante. They get the best Italian Dictionary, all the notes they can find, amounting in themselves to a library, for his countrymen have not been less external and benighted in their way of regarding him. Painfully they study through the book, seeking with anxious attention to know who Signor This is, and who was the cousin of Signora That, and whether any deep papal or anti-papal meaning was couched by Dante under the remark that Such-a-one wore a great-coat. A mind, whose small chambers look yet smaller by being crowded with furniture from all parts of the world, bought by labor, not received from inheritance or won by love, asserts that he must understand Dante well, better than any other person probably, because he has studied him through in this way thirty or forty times. As well declare you have a better appreciation of Shakspeare than any one else because you have identified the birthplace of Dame Quickly, or ascertained the churchyard where the ghost of the royal Dane hid from the sight of that far more celestial spirit, his son.

O, painstaking friends! Shut your books, clear your minds from artificial nonsense, and feel that only by spirit can spirit be discerned. Dante, like each other great one, took the stuff that lay around him, and wove it into a garment of light. It is not by ravelling that you will best appreciate its tissue or design. It is not by studying out the petty strifes or external relations of his time, that you can become acquainted with the thought of Dante. To him these things were only soil in which to plant himself--figures by which to dramatize and evolve his ideas. Would you learn him, go listen in the forest of human passions to all the terrible voices he heard with a tormented but never-to-be-deafened ear; go down into the hells, where each excess that mars the harmony of nature is punished by the sinner finding no food except from his own harvest; pass through the purgatories of speculation, of struggling hope, and faith, never quite quenched, but smouldering often and long beneath the ashes. Soar if thou canst, but if thou canst not, clear thine eye to see this great eagle soar into the higher region where forms arrange themselves for stellar dance and spheral melody,--and thought, with costly-accelerated motion, raises itself a spiral which can only end in the heart of the Supreme.

He who finds in himself no fitness to study Dante in this way, should regard himself as in the position of a candidate for the ancient mysteries, when rejected as unfit for initiation. He should seek in other ways to purify, expand, and strengthen his being, and, when he feels that he is nobler and stronger, return and try again whether he is "grown up to it," as the Germans say.

"The difficulty is in the thoughts;" and this cannot be obviated by the most minute acquaintance with the history of the times. Comparison of one edition with another is of use, as a guard against obstructions through mistake. Still more useful will be the method recommended by Mr. Cary, of comparing the Poet with himself; this belongs to the intellectual method, and is the way in which to study our intellectual friend.

The versions of Cary and Lyell will be found of use to the student, if he wants to compare his ideas with those of accomplished fellow-students. The poems in the London book would aid much in a full appreciation of the comedy; they ought to be read in the original, but copies are not easily to be met here, unless in the great libraries. The Vita Nuova is the noblest expression extant of the inward life of Love, the best preface and comment to every thing else that Dante did.

'Tis pity that the designs of Flaxman are so poorly reproduced in this American book. It would have been far better to have had it a little dearer, and thus better done. The designs of Flaxman were really a noble comment upon Dante, and might help to interpret him; and we are sorry that those who can see only a few of them should see them so imperfectly. But in some, as in that of the meeting with Farinata, the expression cannot be destroyed while one line of the original remained. The "lost portrait" we do not like as preface to "La Divina Comedia." To that belongs our accustomed object of reverence, the head of Dante, such as the Florentine women saw him, when they thought his hair and beard were still singed, his face dark and sublime with what he had seen _below_.

Prefixed to the other book is a head "from a cast taken after death at Ravenna, A. D. 1321." It has the grandeur which death sometimes puts on; the fulness of past life is there, but made sacred in Eternity. It is also the only front view of Dante we have seen. It is not unworthy to mark the point

"When vigor failed the towering fantasy,
But yet the will rolled onward, like a wheel
In even motion by the love impelled
That moves the sun in heaven, and all the stars."

We ought to say, in behalf of this publication, that whosoever wants Cary's version will rejoice, at last, as do we, to possess it in so fair and legible guise.

Before leaving the Italians, we must mourn over the misprints of our homages to the great tragedian in the preceding review. Our manuscripts being as illegible as if we were a great genius, we never complain of these errata, except when we are made to reverse our meaning on some vital point. We did not say that Alfieri was perfect _in person_, nor sundry other things that are there; but we do mourn at seeming to say of our friends, "_Why_ they felt they care little, but _what_ they felt they _scarcely_ knew," when in fact we asserted, "what they felt they _surely_ knew."

In the article on the Celestial Empire we had made this assertion of the Chinese music: "Like _their_ poetry, the music is of the narrowest monotony;" in place of which stands this assertion: "Like _true_ poetry, their music is of the narrowest monotony." But we trust the most careless reader would not think the merely human mind capable of so original a remark, and will put this blasphemy to account of that little demon who has so much to answer for in the sufferings of poor writers before they can get their thoughts to the eyes of their fellow-creatures, in print, that there seems scarcely a chance of his being redeemed as long as there is one author in existence to accuse him.[11]

AMERICAN FACTS.

Such is the title of a volume just issued from the press; a grand title, which suggests the epic poet or the philosopher. The purpose of the work, however, is modest. It is merely a compilation, from which those who have lived at some distance from the great highway may get answers to their questions, as to events and circumstances which may have escaped them. It is one of those books which will be valued in the backwoods.

It would be a great book indeed, and one that would require the eye and heart of a great man,--great as a judge, great as a seer, and great as a prophet,--that should select for us and present in harmonious outline the true American facts. To choose the right point of view supposes command of the field.

Such a man must be attentive, a quiet observer of the slighter signs of growth. But he must not be one to dwell superstitiously on details, nor one to hasten to conclusions. He must have the eye of the eagle, the courage of the lion, the patience of the worm, and faith such as is the prerogative of man alone, and of man in the highest phase of his culture.

We doubt not the destiny of our country--that she is to accomplish great things for human nature, and be the mother of a nobler race than the world has yet known. But she has been so false to the scheme made out at her nativity, that it is now hard to say which way that destiny points. We can hardly exhibit the true American facts without some idea of the real character of America. Only one thing seems clear--that the energy here at work is very great, though the men employed in carrying out its purposes may have generally no more individual ambition to understand those purposes, or cherish noble ones of their own, than the coral insect through whose restless working new continents are upheaved from ocean's breast.

Such a man, passing in a boat from one extremity of the Mississippi to another, and observing every object on the shore as he passed, would yet learn nothing of universal or general value, because he has no principles, even in hope, by which to classify them. American facts! Why, what has been done that marks individuality? Among men there is Franklin. He is a fact, and an American fact. Niagara is another, in a different style. The way in which newspapers and other periodicals are managed is American; a go-ahead, fearless adroitness is American; so is _not_, exclusively, the want of strict honor. But we look about in vain for traits as characteristic of what may be individually the character of the nation, as we can find at a glance in reference to Spain, England, France, or Turkey. America is as yet but a European babe; some new ways and motions she has, consequent on a new position; but that soul that may shape her mature life scarce begins to know itself yet. One thing is certain; we live in a large place, no less morally than physically: woe to him who lives meanly here, and knows the exhibitions of selfishness and vanity as the only American facts.

NAPOLEON AND HIS MARSHALS.[12]

As we pass the old Brick Chapel our eye is sometimes arrested by placards that hang side by side. On one is advertised "the Lives of the Apostles," on the other "Napoleon and his Marshals."

Surely it is the most monstrous thing the world ever saw, that eighteen hundred years' profound devotion to a religious teacher should not preclude flagrant and all but universal violation of his most obvious precepts; that Napoleon and his Marshals should be some of the best ripened fruit of our time; that our own people, so unwearied in building up temples of wood and stone to the Prince of Peace, should be at this era mad with boyish exultation at the winning of battles, and in a bad cause too.

In view of such facts we cannot wonder that Dr. Channing, the editor of the Tribune, and others who make Christianity their standard, should find little savor in glowing expositions of the great French drama, and be disgusted at words of defence, still more of admiration, spoken in behalf of its leading actor.

We can easily admit at once that the whole French drama was anti-Christian, just as the political conduct of every nation of Christendom has been thus far, with rare and brief exceptions. Something different might have been expected from our own, because the world has now attained a clearer consciousness of right, and in our case our position would have made obedience easy. We have not been led into temptation; we sought it. It is greed, and not want, that has impelled this nation to wrong. The paths of peace would have been for her also the paths of wisdom and of pleasantness, but she would not, and has preferred the path of the beast of prey in the uncertain forest, to the green pastures where "walks the good Shepherd, his meek temples crowned with roses red and white."

Since the state of things is such, we see no extremity of censure that should fall upon the great French leader, except that he was like the majority. He was ruthless and selfish on a larger scale than most monarchs; but we see no difference in grain, nor in principles of action.

Admit, then, that he was not a good man, and never for one moment acted disinterestedly. But do not refuse to do homage to his genius. It is well worth your while to learn to appreciate _that_, if you wish to understand the work that the spirit of the time did, and is still doing, through him; for his mind is still upon the earth, working here through the tributary minds it fed. We must say, for our own part, we cannot admit the right of men severely to criticise Napoleon, till they are able to appreciate what he was, as well as see what he was not. And we see no mind of sufficient grasp, or high-placed enough to take this estimate duly, nor do we believe this age will furnish one. Many problems will have to be worked out first.

We reject the exclusively moral no less than the exclusively intellectual view, and find most satisfaction in those who, aiming neither at apology nor attack, make their observations upon the great phenomenon as partial, and to be received as partial.

Mr. Headley, in his first surprise at finding how falsely John Bull, rarely liberal enough to be fully trusted in evidence on any topic, has spoken of the acts of a hated and dreaded foe, does indeed rush too much on the other side. He mistakes the touches of sentiment in Napoleon for genuine feeling. Now we know that Napoleon loved to read Ossian, and could appreciate the beauty of tenderness: but we do not believe that he had one particle of what is properly termed heart;--that is, he could always silence sentiment at once when his projects demanded it. Then Mr. Headley finds apologies for acts where apology is out of place. They characterize the ruthless nature of the man, and that is all that can be said of them. He moved on, like the Juggernaut car, to his end, and spilled the blood that was needed for this, whether that blood were "ditch-water" or otherwise. Neither is this supposing him to be a monster. The human heart is very capable of such uncontrolled selfishness, just as it is of angelic love. "'Tis but the first step that costs"--_much_. Yet some compassionate hand strewed flowers on Nero's grave, and the whole world cried shame when Bonaparte's Mameluke forsook his master.

Mr. Headley does not seem to be aware that there is no trust to be put in Napoleon's own account of his actions. He seems to have been almost incapable of speaking sincerely to those about him. We doubt whether he could have forgotten with the woman he loved, that she might become his historiographer.

But granting the worst that can be said of ruthless acts in the stern Corsican, are we to reserve our anathema for him alone? He is no worse than the other crowned ones, against whom he felt himself continually in the balance. He has shed a greater quantity of blood, and done mightier wrongs, because he had more power, and followed with more fervor a more dazzling lure. We see no other difference between his conduct and that of the great Frederic of Prussia. He never did any thing so meanly wicked as has just been done in stirring up the Polish peasants to assassinate the nobles. He never did any thing so atrocious as has been done by Nicholas of Russia, who, just after his hypocritical intercourse with that "venerable man," the Pope, when he so zealously defended himself against the charge of scourging nuns to convert them to the Greek church, administers the knout to a noble and beautiful lady because she had given shelter for an hour to the patriot Dembinski. Why then so zealous against Napoleon only? He is but a specimen of what man must become when he _will_ be king over the bodies, where he cannot over the souls, of his fellow-men. We doubt if it is any worse in the sight of God to drain France of her best blood by the conscription, than to tear the flower of Genius from the breast of Italy to perish in a dungeon, leaving her overwhelmed and broken-hearted. Leaving all this aside, and granting that Napoleon might have done more and better, had his heart been pure from ambition, which gave it such electric power to animate a vast field of being, there is no reason why we should not prize what he did do. And here we think Mr. Headley's style the only one in place. We honor him for the power he shows of admiring the genius which, in ploughing its gigantic furrow, broke up every artificial barrier that hid the nations of Europe one from the other--that has left the "career open to talent," by a gap so broad that no "Chinese alliance" can ever close it again, and in its vast plans of civic improvement half-anticipated Fourier. With him all _thoughts_ became _things_; it has been spoken in blame, it has been spoken in praise; for ourselves we see not how this most practical age and country can refuse to apprehend the designs, and study the instincts of this wonderful practical genius.

The characters of the marshals are kept up with the greatest spirit, and that power of seizing leading traits that gives these sketches the greatness of dramatic poetry. The marshals are majestic figures; men vulgar and undeveloped on many sides, but always clear and strong in their own way. One mind animates them, and of that mind Napoleon is the culminating point. He did not choose them; they were a part of himself, a part of the same thought of which he was the most forcible expression. If sometimes inclined to disparage them, it was as a man might disparage his hand by saying it was not his head. He truly felt that he was the central force, though some of them were greater in the details of action than himself. Attempts have often been made to darken even the military fame of Napoleon and his generals--attempts disgraceful enough from a foe whom they so long held in terror. But to any unprejudiced mind there is evident in the conduct of their battles, the development of the instincts of genius in mighty force, and to inevitable results.

With all the haste of hand and inequality of touch they show, these sketches are full of strength and brilliancy, an honor to the country that produced them. There is no got-up harmony, no attempt at originality or acuteness; all is living,--the overflow of the mind; we like Mr. Headley; even in his faults he is a most agreeable contrast to the made men of the day.

In the sketches of the Marshals we have the men before us, a living reality. Massena, at the siege of Genoa, is represented with a great deal of simple force. The whole personality of Murat, with his "Oriental nature" and Oriental dress, is admirably depicted. Why had nobody ever before had the clearness of perception to see just this, _and no more_, in the "theatrical" Murat? Of his darling hero, Ney, the writer has implied so much all along, that he lays less stress on what he says of him directly. He thinks it is all understood, and it is.

Take this book for just what it is; do not look for cool discussion, impartial criticism, but take it as a vivacious and feeling representation of events and actors in a great era: you will find it full of truth, such as only sympathy could teach, and will derive from it a pleasure and profit lively and genuine as itself. As to denying or correcting its statements, it is very desirable that those who are able should do that part of the work; but, in doing it, let them be grateful for what _is_ done, and what _they_ could not do; grateful for reproduction such as he who throws himself into the genius and the persons of the time may hope for; but he never can who keeps himself composed in critical distance and self-possession. You cannot have all excellences combined in one person; let us then cheerfully work together to complete the beautiful whole,--beautiful in its unity,--no less beautiful in its variety.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION.[13]

This lecture of Dr. Warren is printed in a form suitable for popular distribution, while the high reputation of its author insures it respect. Readers will expect to find here those rules for daily practice taught by that plain common-sense which men possess from nature, but strangely lose sight of, amid their many inventions, and are obliged to rediscover by aid of experience and science.

Here will be found those general statements as to modes of exercise, care of the skin, choice of food, and time, and circumstances required for its digestion, which might furnish the ounce of prevention that is worth so many pounds of cure. And how much are these needed in this country, where the most barbarous ignorance prevails on the subject of cleanliness, sleeping accommodations, &c.! On these subjects improvement would be easy; that of diet is far more complicated, and is, unfortunately, one which requires great knowledge of the ways in which the human frame is affected by the changes of climate and various other influences, even wisely to discuss. If it is difficult where a race, mostly indigenous to the soil, feed upon what Mother Nature has prepared expressly for their use, and where excess or want of judgment in its use produces disease, it must be far more so where men come from all latitudes to live under new circumstances, and need a judicious adaptation of the old to the new. The dogmatism and proscription that prevail on this topic amuse the observer and distress the patient. "Touch no meat for your life," says one. "It is not meat, but sugar, that is your ruin," cries another. "No, salt is the destruction of the world," sadly and gravely declares a third. Milk, which once conciliated all regards, has its denunciators. "Water," say some, "is the bliss that shall dissolve all bane. Drink; wash--take to yourself all the water you can get." "That is madness--is far worse than useless," cry others, "unless the water be pure. You must touch none that has not been tested by a chemist." "Yes, you may at any rate drink it," say others, "and in large quantities, for the power of water to aid digestion is obvious to every observer."

"No," says Dr. Warren, "animals do not drink at the time they eat, but some hours after; and they generally take very small quantities of liquid, compared with that which is used by man. The savage, in his native wilds, takes his solid food, when he can obtain it, to satiety, reposes afterwards, and then resuming his chase through the forest, stops at the rivulet to allay his thirst. The disadvantage of taking a large quantity of liquid must be obvious to all those who consider that the digesting liquid is diluted and weakened in proportion to the quantity of drink."

What wonder is it, if even the well-disposed among the multitude, seeing such dissension among the counsellors, gathering just enough from their disputes to infer that they have no true philosophical basis for their opinions, and seeing those who would set the example in practice of this art without science of dietetics generally among the most morbid and ill-developed specimens of humanity, just throw aside all rule upon the subject, partake of what is set before them, trust to air, exercise, and good intentions to ward off the worst effects of the promiscuous fare?

Yet, while hopeless at present of selecting the right articles, and building up, so far as hereditary taint will permit, a pure and healthful body from feeding on congenial substances, we know at least this much, that stimulants and over-eating--not food--are injurious, and may take care enough of ourselves to avoid these.

The other branches we can really act wisely in, Dr. Warren, after giving the usual directions (rarely followed as yet) for airing beds, and sleeping-rooms, adds,--

"The manner in which children sleep will readily be acknowledged to be important; yet very little attention is paid to this matter. Children are crowded together in small, unventilated rooms, often two or three in a bed, and on beds composed of half prepared feathers, from which issues a noxious effluvia, infecting the child at a period when he is least able to resist its influence; so that in the morning, instead of feeling the full refreshment and vigor natural to his age, he is pale, languid, and for some time indisposed to exertion.

"The rooms in which children are brought up should be well aired, by having a fireplace, which should be kept open the greater part of the year. There never should be more than one in the same bed; and this remark may be applied with equal propriety to adults. The substance on which they lie should be hair, thoroughly prepared, so that it should have no bad smell. In winter it may be of cotton, or of hair and cotton. It would be very desirable, however, to place children in separate apartments, as well as in separate beds.

"It has been justly said that adults as well as children had better employ single instead of double beds; this remark is intended to apply universally. The use of double beds has been very generally adopted in this country, perhaps in part as a matter of economy; but this practice is objectionable, for more reasons than can be stated here."

On the subject of exercise, he mentions particularly the triangle, and we copy what he says, because of the perfect ease and convenience with which one could be put up and used in every bed-chamber.

"The exercising the upper limbs is too much neglected; and it is important to provide the means of bringing them into action, as well to develop their powers as to enlarge and invigorate the chest, with which they are connected, and which they powerfully influence. The best I know of is the use of the triangle. This admirably exerts the upper limbs and the muscles of the chest, and, indeed, when adroitly employed, those of the whole body. The triangle is made of a stick of walnut wood, four feet long, and an inch and a half in diameter. To each end is connected a rope, the opposite extremities of which being confined together at such height as to allow the motion of swinging by the hands."

We have ourselves derived the greatest benefit from this simple means. Gymnastic exercises, and if possible in the open air, are needed by every one who is not otherwise led to exercise all parts of the body by various kinds of labor. Some, though only partial provision, is made for boys by gymnasia and riding-schools. In wiser nations, such have been the care of the state. And in despotic governments, the jealousy of a tyrant was never more justly awakened than when the youth of the land, by a devotion to gymnastic exercises, showed their aspiration to reach the healthful stature of manhood. For every one who possesses a strong mind in a sane body is heir presumptive to the kingdom of this world; he needs no external credentials, but has only to appear and make clear his title. But for such a princely form the eye searches the street, the mart, and the council-chamber, in vain.

Those who feel that the game of life is so nearly up with them that they cannot devote much of the time that is left to the care of wise living in their own persons, should, at least, be unwilling to injure the next generation by the same ignorance which has blighted so many of us in our earliest year. Such should attend to the work of Mr. Combe,[14] among other good books. Mr. Combe has done much good already in this country, and this book should be circulated every where, for many of its suggestions are too obviously just not to be adopted as soon as read.

Dr. Warren bears his testimony against the pernicious effects that follow upon the use of tobacco, and we cannot but hope that what he says of its tendency to create cancer will have weight with some who are given to the detestable habit of chewing. This practice is so odious to women, that we must regard its prevalence here as a token of the very light regard in which they are held, and the consequent want of refinement among men. Dr. Warren seems to favor the practice of hydropathy to some extent, but must needs bear his testimony in full against homoeopathy. No matter; the little doses will insinuate their way, and cure the ills that flesh is heir to,

"For a' that, and a' that,
And mickle mair for a' that."

FREDERICK DOUGLASS.[15]

Frederick Douglass has been for some time a prominent member of the abolition party. He is said to be an excellent speaker--can speak from a thorough personal experience--and has upon the audience, besides, the influence of a strong character and uncommon talents. In the book before us he has put into the story of his life the thoughts, the feelings, and the adventures that have been so affecting through the living voice; nor are they less so from the printed page. He has had the courage to name persons, times, and places, thus exposing himself to obvious danger, and setting the seal on his deep convictions as to the religious need of speaking the whole truth. Considered merely as a narrative, we have never read one more simple, true, coherent, and warm with genuine feeling. It is an excellent piece of writing, and on that score to be prized as a specimen of the powers of the black race, which prejudice persists in disputing. We prize highly all evidence of this kind, and it is becoming more abundant. The cross of the Legion of Honor has just been conferred in France on Dumas and Soulie, both celebrated in the paths of light literature. Dumas, whose father was a general in the French army, is a mulatto; Soulie, a quadroon. He went from New Orleans, where, though to the eye a white man, yet, as known to have African blood in his veins, he could never have enjoyed the privileges due to a human being. Leaving the land of freedom, he found himself free to develop the powers that God had given.

Two wise and candid thinkers--the Scotchman Kinmont, prematurely lost to this country, of which he was so faithful and generous a student, and the late Dr. Channing,--both thought that the African race had in them a peculiar element, which, if it could be assimilated with those imported among us from Europe, would give to genius a development, and to the energies of character a balance and harmony, beyond what has been seen heretofore in the history of the world. Such an element is indicated in their lowest estate by a talent for melody, a ready skill at imitation and adaptation, an almost indestructible elasticity of nature. It is to be remarked in the writings both of Soulie and Dumas, full of faults, but glowing with plastic life and fertile in invention. The same torrid energy and saccharine fulness may be felt in the writings of this Douglass, though his life, being one of action or resistance, has been less favorable to _such_ powers than one of a more joyous flow might have been.

The book is prefaced by two communications--one from Garrison, and one from Wendell Phillips. That from the former is in his usual over-emphatic style. His motives and his course have been noble and generous; we look upon him with high respect; but he has indulged in violent invective and denunciation till he has spoiled the temper of his mind. Like a man who has been in the habit of screaming himself hoarse to make the deaf hear, he can no longer pitch his voice on a key agreeable to common ears. Mr. Phillips's remarks are equally decided, without this exaggeration in the tone. Douglass himself seems very just and temperate. We feel that his view, even of those who have injured him most, may be relied upon. He knows how to allow for motives and influences. Upon the subject of religion, he speaks with great force, and not more than our own sympathies can respond to. The inconsistencies of slaveholding professors of religion cry to Heaven. We are not disposed to detest, or refuse communion with them. Their blindness is but one form of that prevalent fallacy which substitutes a creed for a faith, a ritual for a life. We have seen too much of this system of atonement not to know that those who adopt it often began with good intentions, and are, at any rate, in their mistakes worthy of the deepest pity. But that is no reason why the truth should not be uttered, trumpet-tongued, about the thing. "Bring no more vain oblations;" sermons must daily be preached anew on that text. Kings, five hundred years ago, built churches with the spoils of war; clergymen to-day command slaves to obey a gospel which they will not allow them to read, and call themselves Christians amid the curses of their fellow-men. The world ought to get on a little faster than this, if there be really any principle of improvement in it. The kingdom of heaven may not at the beginning have dropped seed larger than a mustard-seed, but even from that we had a right to expect a fuller growth than we can believe to exist, when we read such a book as this of Douglass. Unspeakably affecting is the fact that he never saw his mother at all by daylight.

"I do not recollect of ever seeing my mother by the light of day. She was with me in the night. She would lie down with me, and get me to sleep, but long before I waked she was gone."

The following extract presents a suitable answer to the hackneyed argument drawn by the defender of slavery from the songs of the slave, and is also a good specimen of the powers of observation and manly heart of the writer. We wish that every one may read his book, and see what a mind might have been stifled in bondage--what a man may be subjected to the insults of spendthrift dandies, or the blows of mercenary brutes, in whom there is no whiteness except of the skin, no humanity except in the outward form, and of whom the Avenger will not fail yet to demand, "Where is thy brother?"

"The Home Plantation of Colonel Lloyd wore the appeaance of a country village. All the mechanical operations for all the farms were performed here. The shoemaking and mending, the blacksmithing, cartwrighting, coopering, weaving, and grain-grinding, were all performed by the slaves on the Home Plantation. The whole place wore a business-like aspect very unlike the neighboring farms. The number of houses, too, conspired to give it advantage over the neighboring farms. It was called by the slaves the _Great House Farm_. Few privileges were esteemed higher, by the slaves of the out-farms, than that of being selected to do errands at the Great House Farm. It was associated in their minds with greatness. A representative could not be prouder of his election to a seat in the American Congress, than a slave on one of the out-farms would be of his election to do errands at the Great House Farm. They regarded it as evidence of great confidence reposed in them by their overseers; and it was on this account, as well as a constant desire to be out of the field, from under the driver's lash, that they esteemed it a high privilege, one worth careful living for. He was called the smartest and most trusty fellow who had this honor conferred upon him the most frequently. The competitors for this office sought as diligently to please their overseers as the office-seekers in the political parties seek to please and deceive the people. The same traits of character might be seen in Colonel Lloyd's slaves, as are seen in the slaves of the political parties.

"The slaves selected to go to the Great House Farm, for the monthly allowance for themselves and their fellow-slaves, were peculiarly enthusiastic. While on their way, they would make the dense old woods, for miles around, reverberate with their wild songs, revealing at once the highest joy and the deepest sadness. They would compose and sing as they went along, consulting neither time nor tune. The thought that came up came out,--if not in the word, in the sound,--and as frequently in the one as in the other. They would sometimes sing the most pathetic sentiment in the most rapturous tone, and the most rapturous sentiment in the most pathetic tone. Into all their songs they would manage to weave something of the Great House Farm. Especially would they do this when leaving home. They would then sing most exultingly the following words:--

'I am going away to the Great House Farm!
O, yea! O, yea! O!'

This they would sing as a chorus to words which to many would seem unmeaning jargon, but which, nevertheless, were full of meaning to themselves. I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of those songs would do more to impress some minds with the horrible character of slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of philosophy on the subject could do.

"I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning of those rude and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle; so that I neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear. They told a tale of woe which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension; they were tones loud, long, and deep; they breathed the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish. Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains. The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirit, and filled me with ineffable sadness. I have frequently found myself in tears while hearing them. The mere recurrence to those songs, even now, afflicts me; and while I am writing these lines, an expression of feeling has already found its way down my cheek. To those songs I trace my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery. I can never get rid of that conception. Those songs still follow me, to deepen my hatred of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds. If any one wishes to be impressed with the soul-killing effects of slavery, let him go to Colonel Lloyd's plantation, and, on allowance day, place himself in the deep pine woods, and there let him, in silence, analyze the sounds that shall pass through the chambers of his soul; and if he is not thus impressed, it will only be because 'there is no flesh in his obdurate heart.'

"I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing among slaves as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears. At least, such is my experience. I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness. Crying for joy and singing for joy were alike uncommon to me while in the jaws of slavery. The singing of a man cast away upon a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion."

PHILIP VAN ARTEVELDE.[16]

These volumes have met with as warm a reception "as ever unripe author's quick conceit," to use Mr. Taylor's own language, could hope or wish; and so deservedly, that the critic's happy task, in examining them, is to point out, not what is most to be blamed, but what is most to be praised.

With joy we hail a new poet. Star after star has been withdrawn from our firmament, and when that of Coleridge set, we seemed in danger of being left, at best, to a gray and confounding twilight; but, lo! a "ray of pure white light" darts across the obscured depths of ether, and allures our eyes and hearts towards the rising orb from which it emanates. Let us tremble no more lest our summer pass away without its roses, but receive our present visitor as the harbinger of a harvest of delights.

The natural process of the mind in forming a judgment is comparison. The office of sound criticism is to teach that this comparison should be made, not between the productions of differently-constituted minds, but between any one of these and a fixed standard of perfection. Nevertheless it is not contrary to the canon to take a survey of the labors of many artists with reference to one, if we value them, not according to the degree of pleasure we have experienced from them, which must always depend upon our then age, the state of the passions and relations with life, but according to the success of the artist in attaining the object he himself had in view. To illustrate: In the same room hang two pictures, Raphael's Madonna and Martin's Destruction of Nineveh. A person enters, capable of admiring both, but young, excitable; he is delighted with the Madonna, but probably far more so with the other, because his imagination is at that time more developed than the pure love for beauty which is the characteristic of a taste in a higher state of cultivation. He prefers the Martin, because it excites in his mind a thousand images of sublimity and terror, recalls the brilliancy of Oriental history, and the stern pomp of the old prophetic day, and rouses his mind to a high state of action, _then_ as congenial with its wants as at a later day would be the feeling of contented absorption, of perfect satisfaction with a production of the human soul, which one of Raphael's calmly beautiful creations is fitted to cause. Now, it would be very unfair for this person to pronounce the Martin superior to the Raphael, because it then gave him more pleasure. But if he said, the one is intended to excite the imagination, the other to gratify the taste, that which fulfils its object most completely must be the best, whether it give me most pleasure or no; he would be on the right ground, and might consider the two pictures relatively to one another, without danger of straying very far from the truth.

_This_ is the ground we would assume in a hasty sketch, which will not, we hope, be deemed irrelevant, of the most prominent essays to which the last sixty years have given rise in the department of the work now before us, previous to stating our opinion of its merits. Many, we are aware, ridicule the idea of filling reviews with long dissertations, and say they only want brief accounts of such books as are coming out, by way of saving time. With such we cannot agree. We think the office of the reviewer is, indeed, in part, to point out to the public attention deserving works, which might otherwise slumber too long unknown on the bookseller's shelves, but still more to present to the reader as large a cluster of objects round one point as possible, thus, by suggestion, stimulating him to take a broader or more careful view of the subject than his indolence or his business would have permitted.