Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

"On this groundwork imagination wrought, as among the Greeks, though to a less extent and in a different way. We cannot tell how far the more reflective minds may have advanced towards the conception of a single God, either independent of or permeating the material world; but contact with the philosophic Greeks in the age of the Ptolemies can hardly have failed to lead to some speculations of this kind, and the accounts derived from Greek sources of Egyptian mysticism, though false of early, were no doubt, in part at least, true of later times. Amuna or Ammon appears to have been nominally the chief of the gods. His attributes are to some extent identified with those of the sun; but they are not easily distinguished from the attributes of several subordinate deities. His ram's head is still a mystery. Thoth was the god of intellect and learning. His representatives were the ape and the ibis: the former, it is supposed, because it approaches nearest in intellect to man; the latter, because its black and white feather resemble, or may be imagined to resemble, writing. The _popular_ divinity was Osiris, the god at once of the Nile and the realms below. Typhon, the scorching wind of the desert which dries up the waters of the Nile, was the antagonist and the murderer of Osiris; and at a more advanced stage of religious speculation the two may have represented the conflicting powers of Good and Evil. Sacrifices were offered for the ordinary purposes--to conciliate the favor of the gods, to requite their benefits, and to avert their wrath. Typhonian, that is, red-haired men, were immolated when they fell into the hands of the natives in honor of Osiris, whose name is concealed in that of the fabled Busiris. That the practice of offering human sacrifices is compatible with a high degree of civilization we know from the examples of Greece, of Rome, and Mexico. There were great gatherings in honor of the gods, in the nature of pilgrimages or holy fairs, which were celebrated with festivity, with noisy music, with illuminations, and with license. There were mysteries, which were not, in Egypt at least, initiations into any thing different from the popular religion; but merely representations--celebrated amidst nocturnal gloom--of the sufferings of Osiris. If strangers in Egypt underwent painful initiation, it was an initiation into the knowledge of the priests, and not into their mysteries. The Egyptians believed in the existence of the soul after death; they believed that it would be judged in Amenthe by Osiris and his forty-two assessors, before whom it was brought by Analis; they had an Elysium, surrounded by waters, where the Osirian--that is, the happy dead--ploughed, sowed, reaped, and threshed, as on earth--a singular want of fancy. Retributive pains, by fire and steel, are also supposed to have been detected among the paintings. At the same time they held and taught to the Greeks the doctrine of metempsychosis. It is difficult to reconcile with either of these notions their belief that the spirit dwelt in the body so long as the body could be rescued from decay, and the reason which they give for bestowing such prodigality of labor on their sepulchres--that the tomb was man's eternal home. The darkness of uninterpreted hieroglyphics still rests to a great extent on the religious creed and practices of the Egyptians. But three things we think we can discern from the information which Mr. Kenrick has collected:--1. That the Egyptian religion was in all essential respects like the other religions of Paganism, and traceable to the same sources; and consequently that whatever may be Egypt's 'place in universal history,' she is not likely to assume an extraordinarily important place in the history of theology, or to affect, in any material respect, our views as to the origin of religion. 2. That no connection is to be traced between the religion of the Egyptians and the religion of the Hebrews. A more decided polytheism than that of Egypt cannot be imagined. So far from recognizing any thing like the _supremacy_ of a single Divine Being in their theological system, we can scarcely even trace any thing answering to that primacy of Jupiter which preserves at least a vestige of monotheism in the religion of the Greeks. The rite of circumcision, which is supposed to have been borrowed by one nation from the other, was not practised by the Egyptians as a religious ceremony, nor upon infants, nor universally. And it is remarkable that the belief in the conscious existence of the soul and a retributive state after death--a doctrine hardly to be lost when once imparted--seems to have been so prominent in the one faith while it was so much the reverse of prominent in the other. 3. That there was no connection between the mythology of Egypt and that of Greece. Subtract what is common to all polytheistic systems, and what is common to all systems of natural religions, and absolutely no similarity remains. On the one side are forms of human beauty, majesty, and passion, in which the original groundwork of nature-worship is as much as possible concealed by the working of a plastic imagination; on the other side are forms bestial or grotesque, featureless and passionless, exhibiting nature-worship in one of its lowest stages. But in every respect, in language, in physiognomy, in mind, in political tendencies, in manners, as well as in religion, the contrariety between the Egyptian and the Athenian is complete. There is nothing on the other side except the vain pretensions of the priests of Thebes, the credulity of Herodotus, and the wildest legends of the mythical age; and we are surprised that so strict an ethnologist as Mr. Kenrick should be inclined to admit even the general fact of an Egyptian colonization.

"The most degrading part of the religion of the Egyptians was their animal worship, which they carried to a higher pitch than any other people, not excepting the Hindoos. Almost the whole animal and some part of the vegetable kingdom enjoyed either a national or a local sanctity. Gods it was said grew in the gardens. The most cogent reasons of policy and the terrible name of Rome failed to save from death the Roman who had killed a cat. Fancy had first assigned to each god his favorites or symbols among beasts or plants. Then the beasts and plants themselves were reverenced, and at last worshipped. Stately avenues of colossal statues, magnificent porticoes and columned courts ushered the awe-stricken devotee into the sacred presence of an ibis or an ape. The highest object of this superstition, the bull Apis, was regarded as an actual incarnation of Osiris. No rational account of such a system can be given. The serpent cannot have been respected for its utility. The ibis cannot have been honored as the destroyer of the sacred serpent. Nothing divine can have been perceived in the beetle or the ape. The connection between the god and the beast was originally the offspring of a grotesque imagination, and priestcraft and the superstitious tendency of the people did the rest.

"The political constitution of Egypt was based on caste. The privileged castes were those of the warriors and the priests, who, with the Pharaoh, held in fee all the land of Egypt. The Government was an hereditary monarchy. When election was necessary the two privileged castes chose from among their own numbers; the people enjoyed only the right of acclamation. If the choice fell on a warrior, he was at once received into the order and initiated into the wisdom of the priests. Legislation was the prerogative of the King; but he was bound to rule and judge according to the law. He was much in the hands of the priests, who imposed strict rules upon his life, and by a daily homily made the duties and virtues of sovereignty familiar, perhaps too familiar, to the royal ear. The priests, in fact, were the lords of Egypt. Exclusively possessed of science, and even of letters, numerous, wealthy, united, in a single polity, a confined territory and an isolated people, unchecked by any literary, philosophical, or foreign influence, they must have exercised a dominion unrivalled by any priesthood in the history of the world. The result was a land of temples, of deified apes and consecrated onions, a literature of religious inscriptions and funeral scrolls, a Government apparently mild and humane, an enduring polity and long internal peace, and intense and stubborn nationality, a civilization wonderful but low, which in every department, from the act of government to the art of writing, appears to have remained as nearly as possible at a fixed point for about two thousand years. The mummy, as it is the characteristic product, is the fit emblem of ancient Egypt. Yet material happiness appears to have been enjoyed. From sports, from caricatures, from the fanciful decorations of their houses, from their use of music as a daily recreation, we should judge that the Egyptians were not a gloomy people; and that their social and political system aimed, though imperfectly, at a high standard, may be inferred from the reverence, however exaggerated, which was entertained for it by the Greeks.

"Egyptian history is the 'dynasties' of Manetho partly filled up and illustrated, and in time it is to be hoped to be filled up and illustrated still more from the monuments, paintings, and inscriptions. For this, with its thirty dynasties, its twenty centuries, and its chronological difficulties, still formidable though much reduced, we must refer the reader entirely to Mr. Kenrick's second volume, of which it occupies nearly the whole. The slight sketch above given indicates the contents of what will be to the general reader the more interesting part of the work. In conclusion, we once more cordially commend the book. It displays not only the ordinary merits of a good synopsis, such as clearness of style and of arrangement, but also a high power of combination, and, where the author treats of philosophical questions, a sound and sensible philosophy. On some points, perhaps, Mr. Kenrick might have spoken with more authority had he personally visited Egypt, and the imagination of his reader would be assisted by a well selected volume of plates. We are glad to see that Syria and Phoenicia are to form the subject of another publication by the same hand."

FOOTNOTES:

[15] _Ancient Egypt under the Pharaohs._ By John Kenrick, M. A. In two volumes. London: B. Fellows.

CAMILLE DESMOULINS.

In an admirable life of Camille Desmoulins, recently published in Paris, by M. Edmond Fleury, his summing up of the character of the _Vieux Cordelier_, presents a type of some of the heroes of the revolution of 1848:--

"Such was Camille Desmoulins. I have traced his portrait without pity, without hatred, I dare not say without passion. In him I wished to mark the truest and most finished type of those _enfans perdus_ of anarchy who, without ever attaining illustration in history, or serious influence in a government, thirst after distinction and renown; ambitious of credit and importance, scourges of their country, torment of their relatives, traitors to their friends, their own executioners, flambeaux that burn without light, vain and mediocre spirits consumed by the most intense jealousy--presumptuous fools, irritated by their own impotence, intrepid in a pamphlet and pusillanimous in action, they, nevertheless, carried away by the flood which they have let loose, stake, in this terrible game of revolutions, not only their lives, but the honor of their posthumous fame."

How different the aspect of these fiends, as they are presented to us "sicklied o'er" with the sentiment of a Lamartine!

THE BATTLE OF THE CHURCHES IN ENGLAND.

The _Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review_, for January, 1851, contains a great article on the controversies occasioned by the recent movements of the Roman Catholics in Great Britain. It is very long (making sixty pages), and very able. Reviewing the battle, from an unusual, and to most people perhaps a not very accessible, point of view, it throws a startling light on many matters forgotten or ignored by the more immediate combatants. It may, therefore, be perused with interest and advantage by partisans of every shade. Protestant and Catholic will find their account in it, especially as helping them to information of which they are greatly deficient--a knowledge of each other's strong points, as well as their weak ones. There is much in the views of the writer, with which we cannot ourselves concur; but we are not insensible of the force and precision with which he has mapped out a large part of the field, and given saliency to some of the great principles at stake; which it is the natural tendency of discussions, involving so much of the conventional and formulistic, calamitously to obscure. The battle in the foreground may be about candlesticks, surplices, and genuflexions. But there are involved many things infinitely more vital, as the author of this "Battle of the Churches" will be admitted to have illustrated with great success. Many ponderous volumes might be named, which have not contributed a tenth part as much to a clear understanding of the question, as this one article in the _Westminster_. We have not space for a complete _resume_ of it. We can only present an extract or two. The following brings forward tendencies too little noticed by the antagonists of the papacy:

"A true British Protestant, whose notions of "Popery" are limited to what he hears from an evangelical curate or has seen at the opening of a Jesuit church, looks on the whole system as an obsolete mummery; and no more believes that men of sense can seriously adopt it, than that they will be converted to the practice of eating their dinner with a Chinaman's chop-sticks instead of the knife and fork. He pictures to himself a number of celibate gentlemen, who glide through a sort of minuet by candle-light around the altar, and worship the creature instead of the Creator, and keep the Bible out of every body's way, and make people easy about their sins: and he is positive that no one above a "poor Irishman," can fail to see through such nonsense. Few even of educated Englishmen have any suspicion of the depth and solidity of the Catholic dogma, its wide and various adaptation to wants ineffaceable from the human heart, its wonderful fusion of the supernatural into the natural life, its vast resources for a powerful hold upon the conscience. We doubt whether any single reformed church can present a theory of religion comparable with it in comprehensiveness, in logical coherence, in the well-guarded disposition of its parts. Into this interior view, however, the popular polemics neither give nor have the slightest insight: and hence it is a common error both to underrate the natural power of the Romish scheme, and to mistake the quarter in which it is most likely to be felt. It is not among the ignorant and vulgar, but among the intellectual and imaginative--not by appeals to the senses in worship, but by consistency and subtlety of thought--that in our days converts will be made to the ancient church. We have receded far from the Reformation by length of time; the management of the controversy has degenerated: it has been debased by political passions, and turned upon the grossest external features of the case; and when a thoughtful man, accustomed to defer to historical authority, and competent to estimate moral theories as a whole, is led to penetrate beneath the surface, he is unprepared for the sight of so much speculative grandeur, and, if he have been a mere Anglican or Lutheran, is perhaps astonished into the conclusion, that the elder system has the advantage in philosophy and antiquity alike. From this, among other causes, we incline to think that the Roman Catholic reaction may proceed considerably further in this country ere it receives any effectual check. The academical training and the clerical teaching of the upper classes have not qualified them to resist it. At the other end of society there are large masses who cannot be considered inaccessible to any missionary influence, affectionately and perseveringly applied. Not all men, in a crowded community, are capable of the independence, the self-subsistence, without which Protestantism sinks into personal anarchy. The class of weak, dependent characters, that cannot stand alone in the struggle of life, are unprovided for in the modern system of the world. The cooperative theorist tries to take them up. But somehow or other he is usually a man with whom, by a strange fatality, cooperation is impossible; intent on uniting all men, yet himself not agreeing with any; with individuality so intense and exclusive, that it produces all the effect of intolerant self-will; and thus the very plans which by his hypothesis are inevitable, are by his temper made impracticable. He appeals, however, and successfully, to the uneasiness felt by the feeble in the strife and pressure of the world; he fills the imagination with visions of repose and sympathy; he awakens the craving for unity and incorporation in some vast and sustaining society. And whence is this desire, disappointed of its first promise, to obtain its satisfaction? Is it impossible that it may accept proposals from the most ancient, the most august, the most gigantic organization which the world has ever seen?--that it may take refuge in a body which invests indigence with sanctity--which cares for its members one by one--which has a real past instead of a fancied future, and warms the mind with the coloring of rich traditions--which, in providing for the poorest want of the moment, enrolls the disciple in a commonwealth spread through all ages and both worlds! Whatever socialistic tendency may be diffused through the English mind is not unlikely, in spite of a promise diametrically opposite, to turn to the advantage of the Catholic cause."

Here is another valuable contribution to the philosophy of this controversy. There are few positions more relied on by Roman Catholics, or more thoroughly unsound and fallacious, than the assertion that there are no essential differences between the position of Roman Catholics and of Protestants as regards the state and the English established church.

"If we had to deal simply with a form of worship and theology, there would be no ground for distinguishing between the case of the Catholics and that of the Dissenters." And practically perhaps, in the actual condition of Europe, the question now in agitation might be permitted to rest there. But, in fairness to the Protestant feeling, it should never be forgotten that the Roman Catholic system presents a feature absent from every other variety of nonconformity. It is not a religion only, but a polity; and this in a very peculiar sense. Other systems also--as the Presbyterian--include among their doctrines an opinion in favor of some particular church government; which opinion, however, professing to be derived from Scripture by use of private judgment, stands, in their case, on the same footing with every other article of their creed. You might differ from John Knox about synods, without prejudice to your agreement in all else. But with the Romish church it is different. It is not that her religion contains a polity; but that her polity contains the whole religion. The truths she publishes exist only as in its keeping, and rest only on its guarantee; and if you invalidate it, they would vanish, like the promissory notes of a corporation whose charter was proved false. Christianity, in her view, is not a doctrine, productive of institutions through spontaneous action on individual minds; but an institution, the perpetual source of doctrine for individual obedience and trust. Revelation is not a mere communication of truth, not a transitory visit from heaven to earth, ascertained by human testimony, and fixed in historical records; but a continuous incarnation of Deity, a permanent real presence of the Infinite in certain selected persons and consecrated objects. The same divine epiphany which began with the person of the Saviour has never since abandoned the world: it exists, in all its awfulness and power, only embodied no longer in a redeeming individual, but in a redeeming church. The word of inspiration, the deed of miracle, the authority to condemn and to forgive, remain as when Christ taught in the temple, walked on the sea, denounced the Pharisee, and accepted the penitent. These functions, as exercised by him, were only in their incipient stage; he came,--to exemplify them indeed, but chiefly to incorporate them in a body which should hold and transmit them to the end of time. From his person they passed to the College of the Twelve, under the headship of Peter; and thence, in perpetual apostleship, to the bishops and pastors, ordained through legitimate hands, for the governance of disciples. These officers are the sole depositaries, the authorized trustees of divine grace; whose decision, whether they open or shut the gate of mercy, is registered in heaven and is without appeal. Not that they can play with this power, and dispose of it by arbitrary will. The media through which it is to flow have been divinely appointed: its channels are limited to certain physical substances and bodily acts or postures, selected at first hand for the purpose:--water at one time, bread at another, oil at a third, handling of the head at a fourth. But the infusion of the supernatural efficacy into these "alvei" depends on an act of the appointed official; through whom alone the divine matter--no longer choked up--can have free currency into the persons of believers. To this inheritance of miracle is added a stewardship of inspiration. The episcopate is keeper of the Christian records: and as those records are only the first germ of an undeveloped revelation, with the same body is left the exclusive power of unfolding their significance, and directing the growth and expansion of their ever fertile principles. Whatever interpretation the hierarchy may put upon the Scriptures, whatever doctrine or discipline they may announce as agreeable with the mind of God, must be accepted as infallible and authoritative. The same spirit of absolute truth which spoke in the living voice of Christ, which guided the pen of evangelists, still prolongs itself in the thought and counsels of bishops, and renders their collective decisions binding as divine oracles. The people who form the obedient mass of the Catholic body are not without a share of this miraculous light in the soul; not indeed for the discernment of any new truth, but for the apprehension of the old. The moment the disciple is incorporated in the church, faith bursts into sight; he passes from opinion into knowledge; he perceives the objects of his worship, and the truth of his creed, with more than the certainty of sense; and as he bows before the altar, or commits himself to the "Mother of God," the real presence and the invisible world are as immediately with him as the breviary and the crucifix. Through the whole Catholic atmosphere is diffused a preternatural medium of _clairvoyance_, which at every touch of its ritual vibrates into activity, and opens to adoring view mysteries hid from minds without.[16]

"Now, with the spiritual aspects of this theory we are not here concerned. Reason has no jurisdiction over the inspiration that transcends it. But there is a humbler task to which the common intellect is not incompetent. We may plant this system in a political community, set it down beside the state, imagine it surrounded by families, and schools, and municipalities, and parliaments, by the prison and the court of justice; within the shadow of law and in the presence of sovereignty; and we may ask how it will work amid these august symbols of a nation's life, and how adjust itself in relation to them? Will it leave them to their free development? Can it tranquilly coexist with them, and be content to see them occupy the scope which English traditions and English usage have secured for them? We are convinced it cannot; that every step it may make is an encroachment upon wholesome liberty; that it is innocent only where it is insignificant, and where it is ascendant will neither part with power, nor use it well; and that it must needs raise to the highest pitch the common vice of tyrannies and of democracies--the relentless crushing of minorities."

The above are only two paragraphs out of a dozen we had marked, but they will suffice to show the value of this very able and impartial essay.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] Adequate authority for these statements will be found in Dr. Mochler's Symbolism, part i. chap. v., and in Newman's Lectures, iii. p. 66, and Lecture ix. passim.

KILLING OF SIR ALEXANDER BOSWELL.

Among the new books in England is one entitled "Modern State Trials" by William C. Townsend, in two octavos. In the _Times_ of the second of January we find a reviewal of it, characteristically pungent. "Why Mr. Townsend conceived it necessary to dignify his collection with the above solemn title," says the critic, "we are at a loss to conjecture. Madame Tussaud does not invite a curiosity-seeking public to her museum of horrors by disguising the naked hideousness of her groups, or by lending them a factitious grace which it is hardly their interest to borrow. The publication is essentially popular, was meant for general perusal, is made up of any thing but technical details, and gives nothing to, as it receives nothing from, purely professional lore. A batch of interesting trials is very commendable, and need not be afraid of occupying its own ground. That of Courvoisier for the murder of Lord William Russel, of the Wakefields for the abduction of Miss Turner, of Lord Cardigan for shooting in a duel, and of John Ambrose Williams for a libel on the Durham clergy, cannot by any stretch of fancy be converted into _state_ prosecutions, though they fairly enough find admittance into a book which treats of our _causes celebres_. The 'state' trials of the volume before us are the ha'porth of bread to the gallons of sack. The legitimate is paraded to call attention from the spurious, the vulgar is to find respectability by walking arm in arm with the classical. There was really no necessity for the 'sham.' A crooked stick on a heath has its picturesqueness as well as the Corinthian column. We may be very interesting rascals though we do not poke our walking-canes into the face of majesty, or go out on a fool's errand against the Queen's lieges with Mr. John Frost." The author's style is described as very unsatisfactory, though full of pretension. He is "very bombastic, very inexact, and strangely independent in the current of his thoughts and in the arrangement of his words." But the _Times_ admits nevertheless the interesting quality of the work, and in its own better language gives the following _resume_ of one of the most celebrated cases stated in it:--

"Of all the trials contained in these volumes none have a more melancholy interest, perhaps, than that of Mr. Stuart, who was tried on the tenth of June, 1822, before the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh, for killing Sir Alexander Boswell in a duel. Mr. Stuart was, of course, acquitted. He had been the aggrieved party; he had found it necessary to the vindication of his honor to call his unfortunate antagonist to account; he had been forced, by the cruel exaction of public opinion, to expose his life to the weapon of a man he had never offended, and who, indeed, in his heart, bore his involuntary murderer no malice; and public opinion, expressed in the verdict of a jury, knew better than to sentence to death the wretched victim of its own brutal and unwarrantable edicts. Fortunately for the interests of humanity, we have at length reached a period when it becomes unnecessary to protest vehemently against the iron rule of an authority more despotic than that of absolute kings, and far more cruel and oppressive than the laws which but a few years ago attached the penalty of death to the commission of almost pardonable offences. Society, with the acquirement of other useful knowledge, has learned to appreciate the iniquitous folly of murder perpetrated in cold blood, without the slightest excuse. The nation which above all the countries of the world takes credit for adapting its laws to the requirements of a rapidly advancing civilization, has had courage to inquire why the savage vestige of an exploded system should still dishonor its history and interfere with its social progress. Duelling, as part and parcel of the national manners, has ceased in England. No doubt random shots will yet from time to time be heard, and weakness in its despair will occasionally seek refuge in cowardice, which it mistakes for valor; but the mind of the majority is made up. Duelling henceforth must be the exception, not the rule. Public opinion will harmonize with the law, and honor it. It will protect the injured, and hand over the offenders to the legitimate consequences of their own misdeeds. It will not call upon a man first to endure wrong, and then to lay bare his breast to the bullet of his aggressors.

"Our fathers were less fortunate than ourselves in this respect. Their dilemma was fearful. The law took no account of those delicate injuries under which sensitive honor pines, though no bruise or wound appears to indicate the mischief; and, in self-defence, refinement set up the bloodiest code brutality under the guise of chivalry could imagine or invent. A quiet gentleman, sitting from morning till night in his library, interfering with the pleasures and pursuits of none, amiable in every relation of life, a stanch friend, a fond husband, a devoted father, as useful a member of society as you might find in a day's journey, and obnoxious only to political opponents, who fear him more than he dislikes them, is called a 'liar,' a 'coward,' and a 'heartless ruffian.' He is nothing of the kind; he is proudly conscious of this fact; his accusers do not even believe it; the world--that portion of it in which he moves--is satisfied that he is a remarkable instance of truth, of courage, and extreme tenderness of spirit. The revilers have made a great mistake or committed a disgraceful outrage. In either case, since they are not amenable to law, you would think they might safely be left to acquire better information and improve their manners. Not a bit of it. The quiet gentleman's enemies have aimed a blow at his reputation. They are good shots--which unfortunately he is not--and now they must aim another at his life; society 'allows it,' and society 'awards it.' The quiet gentleman makes his will, kisses his children, shuts up his books, sighs, and 'goes out.' The quiet gentleman is killed; a million men could not restore the life one man has taken. Society is distressed beyond expression; so is the murderer, who is all sorrow and tenderness for the departed. There is general weeping, and great unavailing regret, and much commiseration for the widow: and then a mock trial, and no end of speechifying, beautiful remorse on the part of the survivor, lovelier tributes to the memory of deceased, a verdict of not guilty, and a dismissal of the murderer and his accomplices into the world, which is worthy of them as they are worthy of it. The picture represents a common event of the time of George the Third. Let us confess that, degenerate as we are, we have changed, in some respects, for the better since those 'good old days!'"

"Let us also bear in mind the main cause of our improvement! It is due to the majesty of law, to state that, had she been less faithful, society would have grown more reckless. Public opinion and the law of the country have had a hard fight for the mastery, and had the latter given way but an inch, the former would have found us to-day in the hands and at the mercy of the bullies. Judges have never hesitated to declare that murder which juries by their verdicts have as perseveringly regarded as justifiable homicide. In vain have eloquent counsel risen to prove that the prisoner bore his antagonist no ill-will; that he did not 'wickedly and maliciously' challenge his victim to fight; that he had recourse to the sole means within his power to right himself with the world; that society would have branded him eternally for a coward had he held back; that he took up his weapon in self-defence precisely as a man levels his gun at the house-breaker or the midnight assassin;--the expounder of the law has still been proof against sophistry which, once accepted, must tend inevitably to social disorganization. The _deliberate resolution_ to kill a fellow-creature has nothing to do with self-defence. To destroy another in cold blood is murder in the sight of the law, and can assume no other aspect. But what availed it that the judge stood firm by the statute, when juries as pertinaciously backed the sentiment of the world and refused the law permission to take its course? It availed much. The unseemly conflict has been carried on until at length civilization has become shocked by the spectacle. The effect of the ever-recurring encounter is something worse than ridiculous. It has taken years to bring us to our senses, but we are rational at last. Public opinion exercises its good sense, and since it cannot bring the law into harmony with its desperate folly, deems it expedient to shape its own views in conformity with unbending law. To slay in a duel is to commit murder, though men do not hang for the crime. To be a murderer with benefit of clergy is but an odious and irksome privilege after all!

"Sir Alexander was the eldest son of Dr. Johnson's Boswell. The inimitable biographer was fortunate in his offspring. His sons inherited all the virtues of their father, and none of his foibles. The social good humor, the cleverness, the appreciation of learning, the joviality,--every good quality, in fact, of Bozzy was reflected in his children, who had the sense to discern and avoid the frailties that had rendered the sire ridiculous in his own day, and illustrious for all time. James Boswell, the youngest son of the biographer, an accomplished scholar, superintended several editions of his father's great work, and was held in high esteem by his contemporaries. He was a Commissioner of Bankrupts when he suddenly died in London, in the prime of life, on the 24th day of February, 1822. Sir Alexander, who had been created a baronet in 1821, attended his brother's funeral in London, and returned to Scotland to meet his own death immediately afterwards. Sir Walter Scott, warmly attached to both, was, we are informed, much affected by the unexpected death of the baronet, who had dined with the novelist only two or three days before the catastrophe, and, as usual, had been the life and soul of the party assembled. 'That evening,' writes Mr. Lockhart, 'was, I think, the gayest I ever spent in Castle-street; and though Charles Matthews was present and in his best force, poor Boswell's songs, jokes and anecdotes had exhibited no symptom of eclipse.' Four years afterwards Sir Walter dined in company with Charles Matthews again. The event is commemorated by a singular and characteristic entry in Scott's Diary. 'There have been odd associations,' he writes, 'attending my two last meetings with Matthews. The last time I saw him before yesterday evening, he dined with me in company with poor Sir Alexander Boswell, who was killed within a week. I never saw Sir Alexander more. The time before was in 1815, when John Scott, of Gala, and I, were returning from France, and passed through London, when we brought Matthews down as far as Leamington. Poor Byron lunched, or rather made an early dinner with us at Long's, and a most brilliant day we had of it. I never saw Byron so full of fun, frolic, wit, and whim; he was as playful as a kitten. Well, I never saw him again. So this man of mirth has brought me no luck.'

"Sir Alexander had made the final arrangements for his duel the very day he dined with Sir Walter. The circumstance in no way interfered with the flow of spirits of a man who had, indeed, invited a violent death by nothing more criminal than an over indulgence of ill-directed mirth. The details of the duel are of the usual kind. In the early part of 1821, a newspaper called the _Beacon_, destined not to survive the year, was set up in Edinburgh in the Tory interest. The object of the publication was to counteract the effect of Radical doctrines, which were making great way in the northern metropolis under favor of the agitation that had been set up on behalf of Queen Caroline. Sir Walter Scott himself had been consulted upon the propriety of establishing the journal, and had offered with others to help it by a gift of money at starting. The _Beacon_ served any purpose but that of directing the public mind in the path desired. The management of the paper, with which by the way the law officers of the Crown foolishly connected themselves, was in all respects disastrous. The proprietors shrank from the responsibility which the bitter invective and satire of the more youthful and unscrupulous editors hourly accumulated on their shoulders; the articles of the paper were made the subject of Parliamentary discussion; and to avoid consequences which it was not difficult to anticipate, the concern, which had opened with flying colors in January, was suddenly and ignominiously shut up for ever in August.

"Glasgow took up the weapon which Edinburgh dropped. A newspaper appeared in the former city as the avowed defender of the cause and assailant of the persons previously upheld and attacked by the defunct Edinburgh journal. The _Sentinel_, as the Glasgow paper was called, would hold his ground though the _Beacon_ was put out. It is much easier to bequeath hatred and rancor than to communicate talent and genius. The _Sentinel_ was abusive and licentious enough, but it had little to recommend it on the score of ability. The _Beacon_ had made a personal attack upon Mr. Stuart, a gentleman connected with some leading Whig families, and the _Sentinel_, in pursuance of its vocation, fastened upon the same luckless gentleman. The libel of the Edinburgh journalist had been arranged. Mr. Stuart found out its author, and libeller and libelled were prevented from doing further mischief by being bound over to keep the peace. To keep the peace, however, in those days was to be wanting in the very first element of chivalry, and, accordingly, Mr. Stuart was pronounced by the _Sentinel_ a 'bully,' a 'coward,' a 'dastard,' and a 'sulky poltroon.' Furthermore, he was 'a heartless ruffian,' 'a white feather,' and 'afraid of lead.' To vindicate his character Mr. Stuart raised an action of damages, and, curiously enough, he was twitted in the very court of justice to which he appealed for protection, for not having recourse to the hostile measure which in his despair he at last adopted, and for pursuing which he was tried for his life. Abuse went on in spite of the action of damages; Mr. Stuart finally addressed himself to the agent for the printer of the newspaper, and the agent gave up the manuscripts from which the libels had been printed. Mr. Stuart went to Glasgow to inspect them. He discovered his assailant. The author of the worst calumnies against him was Sir Alexander Boswell, 'a gentleman with whom he was somewhat related, and with whom he had never been but upon good terms.' Mr. Stuart appealed to a friend. He called in the advice of the Earl of Roslyn, who obtained an interview with Sir Alexander Boswell, to whom he submitted two propositions. One was, that the baronet should deny that the calumnies were his; the other, that Sir Alexander should confess that the libel was but a poor joke, for which he was sorry. 'I will neither deny nor make apology,' answered Sir Alexander.

"A duel was now a matter of course. Sir Alexander left a paper behind him, confessing that the meeting was inevitable, and Mr. Stuart made all his preparations for death. One stands amazed in the presence of such horrible play, such terrific childishness. The parties met; they fired together, and Sir Alexander fell. Boswell, who would not allow that he had written a squib, proudly fired in the air; Mr. Stuart took no aim, and yet killed his man. When the deed was done, the murderer, frantic, and 'dissolved in all the tenderness of an infant,' reproached himself with exquisite simplicity that he had not taken aim, '_for if he had, he was certain he would have missed him!_' whilst the dying man expressed a corresponding anxiety lest 'he had not made his fire in the air appear so decided as he could have wished.' So men speak and act who take leave of their reason to play the fool in the high court of honor! A line tells the rest of the history. Sir Alexander is removed from the field and taken to the house of a friend. Mr. Stuart flies to the house of his friend, runs into a room, shuts the door, sits down in agony of mind, and bursts into tears. In due time he is put on his trial for murder, the jury unanimously find him _Not Guilty_, and Lord Chief Justice Clerk congratulates him on the verdict, although five minutes before he had deliberately stated that 'duels are but illustrious murders,' and that 'no false punctilio or notion of honor can vindicate an act which terminates fatally to another fellow-creature.'"

THE LATE DR. TROOST.

We recently noticed the death of the excentric German professor, Dr. Troost, of Tennessee. His passion for all animals of the serpent kind was well known, and we find it illustrated in this anecdote, related by Sir Charles Lyell:

"Every thing of the serpent kind he has a particular fancy for, and has always a number of them--that he has tamed--in his pockets or under his waistcoat. To loll back in his rocking-chair, to talk about geology, and pat the head of a large snake, when twining itself about his neck, is to him supreme felicity. Every year in the vacation he makes an excursion to the hills, and I was told that, upon one of these occasions, being taken up by the stage-coach, which had several members of Congress in it going to Washington, the learned Doctor took his seat on the top with a large basket, the lid of which was not over and above well secured. Near to this basket sat a Baptist preacher on his way to a great public immersion. His reverence, awakening from a reverie he had fallen into, beheld to his unutterable horror two rattlesnakes raise their fearful heads out of the basket, and immediately precipitated himself upon the driver, who, almost knocked off his seat, no sooner became apprised of the character of his ophidian outside passengers, than he jumped upon the ground with the reins in his hands, and was followed instanter by the preacher. The 'insides,' as soon as they learned what was going on, immediately became outsides, and nobody was left but the Doctor and his rattlesnakes on the top. But the Doctor, not entering into the general alarm, quietly placed his greatcoat over the basket, and tied it down with his handkerchief, which, when he had done, he said, 'Gendlemen, only don't let dese poor dings pite you, and day won't hoort you.'"

MADAME DACIER.

The husband of this celebrated woman (Andre Dacier) was born at Castres in 1651, and studied at Saumur, under Tanneguy le Fevre, whose daughter Anne he married in 1683. Both the husband and wife became eminent among the classical scholars of the seventeenth century. They were employed with others to comment upon and edit a series of the ancient authors, for the Dauphin, which form the collection "Ad usum Delphini." Madame Dacier's commentaries are considered as superior to those of her husband. She edited "Callimachus," "Florus," "Aurelius Victor," "Etropius," and the history which goes by the name of "Dictys Cretensis," all of which have been repeatedly reprinted, with her notes. She published French translations of the "Amphitryon," "Rudens," and "Lepidicus," of Plautus, with a good preface, of the comedies of Terence, of the "Plutus," and "The Clouds," of Aristophanes, and of Anacreon and Sappho. She also translated the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey," with a preface and notes. This led to a controversy between her and La Motte, who had spoken slightingly of Homer. Madame Dacier wrote, in 1714, "Considerations sur les Causes de la Corruption du Gout," in which she defended the cause of Homer with great vivacity, as she did also against Father Hardouin, who had written an "Apology of Homer," which was more a censure than an apology. The warmth, however, with which both the Daciers resented any thing that was said against the ancient writers was carried to the extreme, and had, at times, something ludicrous in it. But Madame Dacier's enthusiasm was real, and unaccompanied by pedantry or conceit. She died in 1820.

Original Poetry.

DUTY.

BY ALFRED B. STREET.

In changeless green, and grasping close the rock,
Up towers the mountain pine. The Winter blast
May like an ocean surge be on it cast;
Proud doth it stand, and stern defy the shock,
Unchanged in verdure and unbroke in crest,
Although wild throes may agitate its breast,
And clinging closer when the storm is gone,
Tired, but unbent upon its granite throne,
Not always doth it wrestle with the storm!
Skies smile; spring flowers make soft its iron roots;
Its sturdy boughs are kissed by breezes warm;
And birds gleam in and out with joyous flutes.
Duty proves not its strength unless defied,
But pleasure has it, too, bright as have hearts untried.

"SOUNDS FROM HOME."

BY ALICE B. NEAL.

Last night I dreamed of thee, beloved!
I held that tiny hand,--
Encircled by my clasping arm
Once more I saw thee stand,--
The blush so faint, yet fairly traced,
Rose to thy changing cheek--
As when upon thy brows were placed
Farewells I could not speak.

Thine eyes were filled with softened light,
But welcomes now I read,
As to my heart, by love's fond sight.
I gently drew thy head;
And oh, so eloquent were they--
So full of earnest truth,--
I knew what fain thy heart would say,
The promise of thy youth.

I knew that thou hadst faithful been
To vows of long ago:
That speeding time, and changing scene,
No change in thee could show,
That absence had but bound thy love
More firmly to its choice--
It needed not one word to prove,
One sound of thy loved voice.

Yes, silent was that long embrace,
Though tears flowed fast and free.
As gazing down in that dear face,
I read thy love for me;
And thought of all the lonely hours
When I had wildly yearned
To press thee thus unto my heart,
And feel my kiss returned.

Those midnight hours! by sea and land!
How heavily they sped!
Sometimes upon a surf-beat strand
My weary feet would tread,
And when the stars looked calmly down
From cloudless foreign skies--
Their soft light seemed a radiance thrown
From these pure, earnest eyes.

'Twas but a dream! the light breeze swept
Soft touches o'er my brow;
The spray's cold kiss my lips had met,
Oh, still afar art thou!
'Twas but a dream! and yet I heard
Thy murmured--"_Art_ thou come!"--
Then woke, to feel my spirit stirred
With these dear "sounds from home."

SCANDALOUS DANCES.

BROUGHT FROM FRENCH CASINOS TO AMERICAN PARLORS.

We have constantly reflected in our "good society" and "fashionable world" every baseness and vulgarity that is invented _outre mer_, particularly in Paris. One woman returns to smoke cigars, in a magnificent home erected by a lucky mechanic or shopkeeper, as if such an indecency had ever been tolerated among the well-born and well-bred people of the social metropolis. Others, copying from their probable associates abroad, introduce obscene dances, and other licentious amusements, which for a season have baffled the police of foreign cities, and boast of their superiority to "low prejudices." All the travelled readers of the _International_, except clerks, agents, _chevaliers d'industrie_, and fugitives from justice, know very well that in all the world there is a show at least of moral where there is real social elevation; that these abuses are not anywhere tolerated among families which have kept their carriages for three generations. But we proposed an introduction to a passage written from Paris to the most aristocratic of the London magazines:--

"A new species of dancing, unknown to the Alberts, the Anatoles, the Brocards, the Hullins, the Pauls, and the Noblets, has come into vogue at the Jardin Mabille, and at the Grande Chaumiere, situated on the Boulevard du Mont Parnasse, not far from the Barriere d'Enfer. This dance is called the _Cancan_ and the _Chahut_. It is unlike the waltz, the gavotte, the country dance, the Scotch reel, the Spanish Cachucha, the Hungarian mazurka; is far worse than jota Arragonese, or the most lascivious of Spanish dances of Andalusia. You may remember that in the early days of Charles X. the police of Paris attempted and succeeded in putting down gross and immodest dances; but under the reign of Louis Philippe the spirit of libertinage and _degingandage_, to use a French term, again broke out among the class of _debardeurs_, and towards the close of 1845 became terrific to behold. You, who know me well, are aware that I am the last person in the world who would seek to put an end to any innocent amusement, or who would contend that the French people should not dance. They have always danced, and will always dance, to the end of time. They danced under Saint Louis, under Henry IV., under Louis XIV., under Napoleon, and why should not they dance now? There is no reason in the world why they should not dance, if in dancing they do not shock public modesty, and offend against public decorum. In the time of Louis XIV. there were public dances at the Moulin de Javelle; in the time of Napoleon there were dances in the Rue Coquenard, and at the Porcherons, near the Rue St. Lazar. In the time of Louis XVIII. and Charles X. there were dances at the Jardin de Tivoli. But at none of these were decency outraged or morality shocked. At Tivoli, the national pastime was indulged with decency and decorum, and although the price on entering was so low as fifteen sous with a ticket, and thirty sous without a ticket, and albeit the dancers were chiefly of the humbler classes, yet, I repeat, in 1827, 1828, and 1829, public decency was not shocked. But from the _bal masque_ of the Theatre des Varietes in 1831, when, towards the close of the evening the lights were put out, and the _ronde infernale_ was commenced, obscene and disgusting dances were becoming more and more common in Paris, and continued to make progress till February, 1848. They had attained the most unenviable notoriety in 1845, when at the Bal Mabille a dance was introduced called "La Reine Pomare." Then there was the "Cancan Eccentrique," introduced by a personage called "La Princesse de Mogador," a feigned name, as you may suppose, assumed by some _fille perdue_. These dances, commenced at the Chaumiere and the Bal Mabille, were also introduced at the Bal Montesquieu, at the Bal de la Cite d'Antin, and, if I mistake not, at the Bal Valentino. The principal performers were students in law, in medicine, in pharmacy, clerks, commis voyageurs, profligate tradesmen, and lorettes, grisettes, _et filles de basse condition_.