Chapter VI (2)

Statues are now rising in every quarter of our metropolis, and mallet and chisel are the chief instruments in use. Whatever is conducive to the promotion of the arts ought undoubtedly to be encouraged; but love in this instance, quite as much as in any, ought neither to be precipitate nor blind. A true lover of his country should be exempted from the pain of blushes, when a foreigner inquires of him, "_Whom does this statue represent? and for what merits was it raised?_" The defenders of their country, not the dismemberers of it, should be first in honor; the maintainers of the laws, not the subverters of them, should follow next. I may be asked by the studious, the contemplative, the pacific, whether I would assign a higher station to any public man than to a Milton and a Newton. My answer is plainly and loudly, _Yes_. But the higher station should be in the streets, in squares, in houses of parliament: such are their places; our vestibules and our libraries are best adorned by poets, philosophers, and philanthropists. There is a feeling which street-walking and public-meeting men improperly call _loyalty_; a feeling intemperate and intolerant, smelling of dinner and wine and toasts, which raises their stomachs and their voices at the sound of certain names reverberated by the newspaper press. As little do they know about the proprietary of these names as pot-wallopers know about the candidates at a borough election, and are just as vociferous and violent. A few days ago, I received a most courteous invitation to be named on a Committee for erecting a statue to Jenner. It was impossible for me to decline it; and equally was it impossible to abstain from the observations which I am now about to state. I recommended that the statue should be placed before a public hospital, expressing my sense of impropriety in confounding so great a benefactor of mankind, in any street or square or avenue, with the Dismemberer of America and his worthless sons. Nor would I willingly see him among the worn-out steam-engines of parliamentary debates. The noblest parliamentary men who had nothing to distribute, not being ministers, are without statues. The illustrious Burke, the wisest, excepting Bacon, who at any time sat within the people's House; Romilly, the sincerest patriot; Huskisson, the most intelligent in commercial affairs, has none. Peel is become popular, not by his incomparable merits, but by his untimely death. Shall we never see the day when Oliver and William mount the chargers of Charles and George; and when a royal swindler is superseded by the purest and most exalted of our heroes, Blake?

Walter Savage Landor.

[From the last Edinburgh Review.]

RESPONSIBILITY OF STATESMEN.

It is of the last moment that all who are, or are likely to be, called to administer the affairs of a free state, should be deeply imbued with the statesmanlike virtues of modesty and caution, and should act under a profound sense of their personal responsibility. It is an awful thing to undertake the government of a great country; and no man can be any way worthy of that high calling who does not from his inmost soul feel it to be so. When we reflect upon the fearful consequences, both to the lives, the material interests, and the moral well-being of thousands, which may ensue from a hasty word, an erroneous judgment, a temporary carelessness, or a lapse of diligence; when we remember that every action of a statesman is pregnant with results which may last for generations after he is gathered to his fathers; that his decisions may, and probably must, affect for good or ill the destinies of future times; that peace or war, crime or virtue, prosperity or adversity, the honor or dishonor of his country, the right or wrong, wise or unwise solution of some of the mightiest problems in the progress of humanity, depend upon the course he may pursue at those critical moments which to ordinary men occur but rarely, but which crowd the daily life of a statesman; the marvel is that men should be forthcoming bold enough to venture on such a task. Now, among public men in England this sense of responsibility is in general adequately felt. It affords an honorable (and in most cases we believe a true) explanation of that singular discrepancy between public men when in and when out of office--that inconsistency between the promise and the performance,--between what the leader of the opposition urges the minister to do, and what the same leader, when minister himself, actually does,--which is so commonly attributed to less reputable motives. The independent member may speculate and criticise at his ease; may see, as he thinks, clearly, and with an undoubting and imperious conviction, what course on this or that question ought to be pursued; may feel so unboundedly confident in the soundness of his views, that he cannot comprehend or pardon the inability of ministers to see as he sees, and to act as he would wish; but as soon as the overwhelming responsibilities of office are his own, as soon as he finds no obstacle to the carrying out of his plans, except such as may arise from the sense that he does so at the risk of his country's welfare and his own reputation--he is seized with a strange diffidence, a new-born modesty, a mistrust of his own judgment which he never felt before; he re-examines, he hesitates, he delays; he brings to bear upon the investigation all the new light which official knowledge has revealed to him; and finds at last that he scruples to do himself what he had not scrupled to insist upon before. So deep-rooted is this sense of responsibility with our countrymen, that whatever parties a crisis of popular feeling might carry into power, we should have comparatively little dread of rash, and no dread of corrupt, conduct on their part; we scarcely know the public man who, when his country's destinies were committed to his charge, could for a moment dream of acting otherwise than with scrupulous integrity, and to the best of his utmost diligence and most cautious judgment,--at all events till the dullness of daily custom had laid his self-vigilance asleep. We are convinced that were Lord Stanhope and Mr. Disraeli to be borne into office by some grotesque freak of fortune, even they would become sobered as by magic, and would astonish all beholders, not by their vagaries, but by their steadiness and discretion. Now, of this wholesome sense of awful responsibility, we see no indications among public men in France. Dumont says, in his "Recollections of Mirabeau," "I have sometimes thought that if you were to stop a hundred men indiscriminately in the streets of Paris and London, and propose to each to undertake the government, ninety-nine of the Londoners would refuse, and ninety-nine of the Parisians would accept." In fact, we find it is only one or two of the more experienced _habitues_ of office who in France ever seem to feel any hesitation. Ordinary deputies, military men, journalists, men of science, accept, with a _naive_ and simple courage, posts for which, except that courage, they possess no single qualification. But this is not the worst; they never hesitate, at their country's risk and cost, to carry out their own favorite schemes to an experiment; in fact, they often seem to value office mainly for that purpose, and to regard their country chiefly as the _corpus vile_ on which the experiment is to be made. To make way for their theories, they relentlessly sweep out of sight the whole past, and never appear to contemplate either the possibility or the parricidal guilt of failure.

[From the New Monthly Magazine.]

THE COW TREE OF SOUTH AMERICA.

Mr. Higson met with two species of cow tree, which he states to be abundant in the deep and humid woods of the provinces of Choco and Popayan. In an extract from his diary, dated Ysconde, May 7, 1822, he gives an account of an excursion he made, about twelve miles up the river, in company with the alcaide and two other gentlemen, in quest of some of these milk trees, one species of which, known to the inhabitants by the name of Popa, yields, during the ascent of the sap, a redundance of a nutritive milky juice, obtained by incisions made into the thick bark which clothes the trunk, and which he describes as of an ash color externally, while the interior is of a clay red. Instinct, or some natural power closely approaching to the reasoning principle, has taught the jaguars, and other wild beasts of the forest, the value of this milk, which they obtain by lacerating the bark with their claws and catching the milk as it flows from the incisions. A similar instinct prevails amongst the hogs that have become wild in the forests of Jamaica, where a species of Rhus, the _Rhus Metopium_ of botanists, grows, the bark of which, on being wounded, yields a resinous juice, possessing many valuable medicinal properties, and among them that of rapidly cicatrizing wounds. How this valuable property was first discovered by the hogs, or by what peculiar interchange of ideas the knowledge of it was communicated by the happy individual who made it to his fellow hogs, is a problem which, in the absence of some porcine historiographer, we have little prospect of solving. But, however this may be, the fact is sufficiently notorious in Jamaica, where the wild hogs, when wounded, seek out one of these trees, which, from the first discoverers of its sanative properties, have been named "Hog Gum Trees," and, abrading the bark with their teeth, rub the wounded part of their bodies against it, so as to coat the wound with a covering of the gummy, or rather gum-resinous fluid, that exudes from the bark. In like manner, as Mr. Higson informs us, the jaguars, instructed in the nutritious properties of the potable juice of the Popa, jump up against the stem, and lacerating the bark with their claws greedily catch the liquid nectar as it issues from the wound. By a strange perverseness of his nature, man, in the pride of his heart and the intoxication of his vanity, spurns this delicious beverage, which speedily fattens all who feed on it, and contents himself with using it, when inspissated by the sun, as a bird-lime to catch parrots; or converting it into a glue, which withstands humidity, by boiling it with the gum of the mangle-tree (_Sapium aucuparium?_), tempered with wood ashes. Mr. Higson states that they caught plenty of the milk, which was of the consistence of cream, of a bland and sweetish taste, and a somewhat aromatic flavor, and so white as to communicate a tolerably permanent stain wherever it fell; it mixed with spirit, as readily as cow's milk, and made, with the addition of water, a very agreeable and refreshing beverage, of which they drank several tutumos full. They cut down a tree, one of the tallest of the forest, in order to procure specimens, and found the timber white, of a fine grain, and well adapted for boards or shingles. They were about a month too late to obtain the blossoms, which were said to be very showy, but found abundance of fruit, disposed on short foot-stalks in the alae of the leaves; these were scabrous, and about the size of a nutmeg. The leaves he describes as having very short petioles, hearted at the base, and of a coriaceous consistence, and covered with large semi-globular glands.

Besides the Popa, he speaks of another lactescent tree, called Sande, the milk of which, though more abundant, is thinner, bluish, like skimmed milk, and not so palatable.

This, inspissated in the sun, acquires the appearance of a black gum, and is so highly valued for its medicinal properties, especially as a topical application in inflammatory affections of the spleen, pleura, and liver, that it fetches a dollar the ounce in the Valle del Cauca. The leaves are described as resembling those of the _Chrysophyllum cainito_, or broad-leaved star apple, springing from short petioles, ten or twelve inches long, oblong, ovate, pointed, with alternate veins, and ferruginous on the under surface. The locality of the Sande he does not point out, but says that a third kind of milk tree, the juice of which is potable, grows in the same forests, where it is known by the name of Lyria. This he regards as identical with the cow tree of Caracas, of which Humboldt has given so graphic a description.

[From the Illustrated London News.]

SONG OF THE SEASONS.

BY CHARLES MACKAY.

I heard the language of the trees,
In the noons of the early summer;
As the leaves were moved like rippling seas
By the wind--a constant comer.
It came and it went at its wanton will;
And evermore loved to dally,
With branch and flower, from the cope of the hill
To the warm depths of the valley.
The sunlight glow'd; the waters flow'd;
The birds their music chanted,
And the words of the trees on my senses fell--
By a spirit of Beauty haunted:--
Said each to each, in mystic speech:--
"The skies our branches nourish;--
The world is good,--the world is fair,--
Let us _enjoy_ and flourish!"

Again I heard the steadfast trees;
The wintry winds were blowing;
There seem'd a roar as of stormy seas,
And of ships to the depths down-going
And ever a moan through the woods were blown,
As the branches snapp'd asunder,
And the long boughs swung like the frantic arms
Of a crowd in affright and wonder.
Heavily rattled the driving hail!
And storm and flood combining,
Laid bare the roots of mighty oaks
Under the shingle twining.
Said tree to tree, "These tempests free
Our sap and strength shall nourish;
Though the world be hard, though the world be cold,
We can endure and flourish!"

[From Eliza Cook's Journal.]

THE WANE OF THE YEAR.

But autumn wanes, and with it fade the golden tints, and burning hues, and the warm breezes; for winter, with chilling clasp and frosty breath, hurries like a destroyer over the fields to bury their beauties in his snow, and to blanch and wither up with his frozen breath, the remnants of the blooming year. The harvests are gathered, the seeds are sown, the meadow becomes once more green and velvet-like as in the days of spring: the weeds and flowers run to seed, and stand laden with cups, and urns, and bells, each containing the unborn germs of another summer's beauty, and only waiting for the winter winds to scatter them, and the spring sunshine to fall upon them, where they fall to break into bud and leaf and flower, and to whisper to the passing wind that the soul of beauty dies not. It is now upon the waning of the sunshine and the falling of the leaf that the bleak winds rise angrily, and the gloom of the dying year deepens in the woods and fields. We hear the plying of the constant flail mingling with the clatter of the farm-yard; we are visited by fogs and moving mists, and heavy rains that last for days together; upon the hill the horn of the hunter is heard, and in the mountain solitudes the eagle's scream; up among craggy rifts the red deer bound, and the waterfall keeps up its peals of thunder; and although the autumn, having ripened the fruits of summer, and gathered into the garnery the yellow fruitage of the field, must hie away to sunbright shores and islands in the glittering seas of fairy lands, she leaves the spirits of the flowers to hover hither and thither amid the leafless bowers to bewail in midnight dirges the loss of leaves and blossoms and the joyful tide of song. It is one of these of whom the poet speaks; for he, having been caught up by the divine ether into the regions of eternal beauty, has seen, as mortals seldom see, the shadows of created things, and has spoken with the angel spirits of the world:--

A spirit haunts the year's last hours,
Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers;
To himself he talks:
For at eventide, listening earnestly,
At his work you may hear him sob and sigh.
In the walks
Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks
Of the mouldering flowers,
Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
Over its grave i' the earth so chilly,
Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.

The air is damp, and hush'd and close,
As a sick man's room when he taketh repose
An hour before death;
My very heart faints, and my whole soul grieves,
At the rich moist smell of the rotting leaves,
And the breath
Of the fading edges of box beneath,
And the year's last rose.
Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
Over its grave i' the earth so chilly,
Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.--_Tennyson._

The black clouds are even now gathering upon the fringes of the sky, and the mellow season of the fruitage ends. Thus all the changes of the earth pass round, each imprinting its semblance on the brow of man, and writing its lessons on his soul; that like the green earth beneath his feet, he may, through cold and heat, through storm and sun, be ever blossoming with fragrant flowers, and yielding refreshing fruit from the inexhaustible soil of a regenerated heart.

[From Slack's Ministry of the Beautiful, just published by A. Hart, Philadelphia.]

THE FOUNTAIN IN THE WOOD.

A little way apart from a great city was a fountain in a wood. The water gushed from a rock and ran in a little crystal stream to a mossy basin below; the wildflowers nodded their heads to catch its tiny spray; tall trees overarched it; and through the interspaces of their moving leaves the sunlight came and danced with rainbow feet upon its sparkling surface.

There was a young girl who managed every day to escape a little while from the turmoil of the city, and went like a pilgrim to the fountain in the wood. The water was sparkling, the moss and fern looked very lovely in the gentle moisture which the fountain cast upon them, and the trees waved their branches and rustled their green leaves in happy concert with the summer breeze. The girl loved the beauty of the scene and it grew upon her. Every day the fountain had a fresh tale to tell, and the whispering murmur of the leaves was ever new. By-and-by she came to know something of the language in which the fountain, the ferns, the mosses, and the trees held converse. She listened very patiently, full of wonder and of love. She heard them often regret that man would not learn their language, that they might tell him the beautiful things they had to say. At last the maiden ventured to tell them that she knew their tongue, and with what exquisite delight she heard them talk. The fountain flowed faster, more sunbeams danced on its waters, the leaves sang a new song, and the ferns and mosses grew greener before her eyes. They all told her what joy thrilled through them at her words. Human beings had passed them in abundance, they said, and as there was a tradition among the flowers that men once spoke, they hoped one day to hear them do so again. The maiden told them that all men spoke, at which they were astonished, but said that making articulate noises was not speaking, many such they had heard, but never till now real human speech; for that, they said, could come alone from the mind and heart. It was the voice of the body which men usually talked with, and that they did not understand, but only the voice of the soul, which was rare to hear. Then there was great joy through all the wood, and there went forth a report that at length a maiden was found whose soul could speak, and who knew the language of the flowers and the fountain. And the trees and the stream said one to another, "Even so did our old prophets teach, and now hath it been fulfilled." Then the maiden tried to tell her friends in the city what she had heard at the fountain, but could explain very little, for although they knew her words, they felt not her meaning. And certain young men came and begged her to take them to the wood that they might hear the voices. So she took one after another, but nothing came of it, for to them the fountain and the trees were mute. Many thought the maiden mad, and laughed at her belief, but they could not take the sweet voices away from her. Now the maidens wished her to take them also, and she did, but with little better success. A few thought they heard something, but knew not what, and on their return to the city its bustle obliterated the small remembrance they had carried away. At length a young man begged the maiden to give him a trial, and she did so. They went hand in hand to the fountain, and he heard the language, although not so well as the maiden; but she helped him, and found that when both heard the words together they were more beautiful than ever. She let go his hand, and much of the beauty was gone; the fountain told them to join hands and lips also, and they did it. Then arose sweeter sounds than they had ever heard, and soft voices encompassed them saying, "Henceforth be united; for the spirit of truth and beauty hath made you one."

[From Dr. Marcy's Homeopathic Theory and Practice of Medicine.]

WEARING THE BEARD.

One great cause of the frequent occurrence of chronic bronchitis may be found in the reprehensible fashion of shaving the beard. That this ornament was given by the Creator for some useful purpose, there can be no doubt, for in fashioning the human body, he gave nothing unbecoming a perfect man, nothing useless, nothing superfluous. Hair being an imperfect conductor of caloric, is admirably calculated to retain the animal warmth of that part of the body which is so constantly and necessarily exposed to the weather, and thus to protect this important portion of the respiratory passage from the injurious effects of sudden checks of perspiration.

When one exercises for hours his vocal organs, with the unremitted activity of a public declamation, the pores of the skin in the vicinity of the throat and chest become relaxed, so that when he enters the open air, the whole force of the atmosphere bears upon these parts, and he sooner or later contracts a bronchitis; while, had he the flowing beard with which his Maker has endowed him, uncut, to protect these important parts, he would escape any degree of exposure unharmed.

The fact that Jews and other people who wear the beard long, are but rarely afflicted with bronchitis and analogous disorders, suggests a powerful argument in support of these views.

[From "Ada Greville," by Peter Leicester.]

A VIEW OF BOMBAY.

They had soon reached the Apollo Bunder, where they were to land, and where Ada's attention was promptly engaged by the bustle awaiting her there; and where, from among numbers of carriages, and palanquins, and carts in waiting--many of them of such extraordinary shapes--some moved by horses, some by bullocks, and some by men, and all looking strange; from their odd commixture, Mr. McGregor's phaeton promptly drew up, and he placed the ladies in it, himself driving, and the two maids following in a palanquin carriage. This latter amused Ada exceedingly; a _vis-a-vis_, in fact, very long, and very low, drawn by bullocks, whose ungainly and uneven paces were very unlike any other motion to which, so far, her experience had been subjected; but they went well enough, and quickly too, and Ada soon forgot their eccentricities in her surprise at the many strange things she saw by the way. The airy appearance of the houses, full of windows and doors, and all cased round by verandahs; the native mud bazaars, so rude and uncouth in their shapes, and daubed over with all kinds of glaring colours; with the women sitting in the open verandahs, their broad brooms in hand, whisking off from their food-wares the flies, myriads of which seem to contend with them for ownership; the native women in the streets carrying water, in their graceful dress, their scanty little jackets and short garments exhibiting to advantage their beautiful limbs and elegant motion, the very poorest of them covered with jewels--the wonted mode, indeed, in which they keep what little property they have--the women, too, working with the men, and undertaking all kinds of labor; the black, naked coolies running here and there to snatch at any little employment that would bring them but an _anna_. Contrasting with these, and mixed up pell mell with them, the smart young officers cantering about, the carriages of every shape and grade, from the pompous hackery, with its gaudy, umbrella-like top, and no less pompous occupant, in his turban and jewels, his bullocks covered with bells making more noise than the jumbling vehicle itself, down to the meager bullock cart, at hire, for the merest trifle. Here and there, too, some other great native, on his sumptuously caparisoned horse, with arched neck and long flowing tail sweeping the ground, and feeling as important as his rider; and the popish priests, in their long, black gowns, and long beards; and the civilians, of almost every rank, in their light, white jackets; and the umbrellas; and the universal tomtoms, incessantly going; and above all, the numbers of palanquins, each with its eight bearers, running here, there, and everywhere; everything, indeed, so unlike dear old England; everything, even did not the burning sun of itself tell the fact, too sensibly to be mistaken, reminding the stranger that she was in the Indian land.

From "The Memorial:"

[The most brilliant and altogether attractive gift-book of the season, edited by Mrs. Hewitt, and published by Putnam.]

FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD.

BY RUFUS WILMOT GRISWOLD.

From the beginning of our intellectual history women have done far more than their share in both creation and construction. The worshipful Mrs. Bradstreet, who two hundred years ago held her court of wit among the classic groves of Harvard, was in her day--the day in which Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton sung--the finest poet of her sex whose verse was in the English language; and there was little extravagance in the title bestowed by her London admirers, when they printed her works as those "of the Tenth Muse, recently sprung up in America." In the beginning of the present century we had no bard to dispute the crown with Elizabeth Townsend, whose "Ode to Liberty" commanded the applause of Southey and Wordsworth in their best days; whose "Omnipresence of the Deity" is declared by Dr. Cheever to be worthy of those great poets or of Coleridge; and who still lives, beloved and reverenced, in venerable years, the last of one of the most distinguished families of New England.

More recently, Maria Brooks, called in "The Doctor" _Maria del Occidente_, burst upon the world with "Zophiel," that splendid piece of imagination and passion which stands, the vindication of the subtlety, power and comprehension of the genius of woman, justifying by comparison, the skepticism of Lamb when he suggested, to the author of "The Excursion," whether the sex had "ever produced any thing so great." Of our living and more strictly contemporary female poets, we mention with unhesitating pride Mrs. Sigourney, Mrs. Oakes Smith, Mrs. Hewett, Mrs. Whitman, Mrs. Welby, Alice Carey, "Edith May," Miss Lynch, and Miss Clarke, as poets of a genuine inspiration, displaying native powers and capacities in art such as in all periods have been held sufficient to insure to their possessors lasting fame, and to the nations which they adorned, the most desirable glory.

It is Longfellow who says,

----"What we admire in a woman,
Is her affection, not her intellect."

The sentiment is unworthy a poet, the mind as well as the heart claims sympathy, and there is no sympathy but in equality; we need in woman the completion of our own natures; that her finer, clearer, and purer vision should pierce for us the mysteries that are hidden from our own senses, strengthened, but dulled, in the rude shocks of the out-door world, from which she is screened, by her pursuits, to be the minister of God to us: to win us by the beautiful to whatever in the present life or the immortal is deserving a great ambition. We care little for any of the mathematicians, metaphysicians, or politicians, who, as shamelessly as Helen, quit their sphere. Intellect in woman, so directed, we do not admire, and of affection such women are incapable. There is something divine in woman, and she whose true vocation it is to write, has some sort of inspiration, which relieves her from the processes and accidents of knowledge, to display only wisdom in all the range of gentleness, and all the forms of grace. The equality of the sexes is one of the absurd questions which have arisen from a denial of the _distinctions_ of their faculties and duties--of the masculine energy from the feminine refinement. The ruder sort of women cannot comprehend that there is a distinction, not of dignity, but of kind; and so, casting aside their own eminence, for which they are too base, and seeking after ours, for which they are too weak, they are hermaphroditish disturbers of the peace of both. In the main our American women are free from this reproach; they have known their mission, and have carried on the threads of civility through the years, so strained that they have been melodiously vocal with every breath of passion from the common heart. We turn from the jar of senates, from politics, theologies, philosophies, and all forms of intellectual trial and conflict, to that portion of our literature which they have given us, coming like dews and flowers after glaciers and rocks, the hush of music after the tragedy, silence and rest after turmoil of action. The home where love is refined and elevated by intellect, and woman, by her separate and never-superfluous or clashing mental activity, sustains her part in the life-harmony, is the vestibule of heaven to us; and there we hear the poetesses repeat the songs to which they have listened, when wandering nearer than we may go to the world in which humanity shall be perfect again, by the union in all of all power and goodness and beauty.

The finest intelligence that woman has in our time brought to the ministry of the beautiful, is no longer with us. Frances Sargent Osgood died in New-York, at fifteen minutes before three o'clock, in the afternoon of Sunday, the twelfth of May, 1850. These words swept like a surge of sadness wherever there was grace and gentleness, and sweet affections. All that was in her life was womanly, "pure womanly," and so is all in the undying words she left us. This is her distinction.

Mrs. Osgood was of a family of poets. Mrs. Anna Maria Wells, whose abilities are illustrated in a volume of "Poems and Juvenile Sketches" published in 1830, is a daughter of her mother; Mrs. E.D. Harrington, the author of various graceful compositions in verse and prose, is her youngest sister; and Mr. A.A. Locke, a brilliant and elegant writer, for many years connected with the public journals, was her brother. She was a native of Boston, where her father, Mr. Joseph Locke, was a highly accomplished merchant. Her earlier life, however, was passed principally in Hingham, a village of peculiar beauty, well calculated to arouse the dormant poetry of the soul; and here, even in childhood, she became noted for her poetical powers. In their exercise she was rather aided than discouraged by her parents, who were proud of her genius and sympathized with all her aspirations. The unusual merit of some of her first productions attracted the notice of Mrs. Child, who was then editing a Juvenile Miscellany, and who foresaw the reputation which her young contributor afterwards acquired. Employing the _nomme de plume_ of "Florence," she made it widely familiar by her numerous contributions in the Miscellany, as well as, subsequently, for other periodicals.

In 1834, she became acquainted with Mr. S.S. Osgood, the painter--a man of genius in his profession--whose life of various adventure is full of romantic interest; and while, soon after, she was sitting for a portrait, the artist told her his strange vicissitudes by sea and land; how as a sailor-boy he had climbed the dizzy maintop in the storm; how, in Europe he followed with his palette in the track of the flute-playing Goldsmith: and among the

Antres vast and deserts idle,
Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven,

of South America, had found in pictures of the crucifixion, and of the Liberator Bolivar--the rude productions of his untaught pencil--passports to the hearts of the peasant, the partizan, and the robber. She listened, like the fair Venetian; they were married, and soon after went to London, where Mr. Osgood had sometime before been a pupil of the Royal Academy.

During this residence in the Great Metropolis, which lasted four years, Mr. Osgood was successful in his art--painting portraits of Lord Lyndhurst, Thomas Campbell, Mrs. Norton, and many other distinguished characters, which secured for him an enviable reputation--and Mrs. Osgood made herself known by her contributions to the magazines, by a miniature volume, entitled "The Casket of Fate," and by the collection of her poems published by Edward Churton, in 1839, under the title of "A Wreath of Wild Flowers from New England." She was now about twenty-seven years of age, and this volume contained all her early compositions which then met the approval of her judgment. Among them are many pieces of grace and beauty, such as belong to joyous and hopeful girlhood, and one, of a more ambitious character, under the name of "Elfrida"--a dramatic poem, founded upon incidents in early English history--in which there are signs of more strength and tenderness, and promise of greater achievement, though it is without the unity and proportion necessary to eminent success in this kind of writing.

Among her attached friends here--a circle that included the Hon. Mrs. Norton, Mrs. Hofland, the Rev. Hobart Caunter, Archdeacon Wrangham, the late W. Cooke Taylor, LL.D., and many others known in the various departments of literature--was the most successful dramatist of the age, James Sheridan Knowles, who was so much pleased with "Elfrida," and so confident that her abilities in this line, if duly cultivated, would enable her to win distinction, that he urged upon her the composition of a comedy, promising himself to superintend its production on the stage. She accordingly wrote "The Happy Release, or The Triumphs of Love," a play in three acts, which was accepted, and was to have been brought out as soon as she could change slightly one of the scenes, to suit the views of the manager as to effect, when intelligence of the death of her father suddenly recalled her to the United States, and thoughts of writing for the stage were abandoned for new interests and new pursuits.

Mr. and Mrs. Osgood arrived in Boston early in 1840, and they soon after came to New-York, where they afterward resided; though occasionally absent, as the pursuit of his profession, or ill health, called Mr. Osgood to other parts of the country. Mrs. Osgood was engaged in various literary occupations. She edited, among other books, "The Poetry of Flowers, and Flowers of Poetry," (New-York, 1841,) and "The Floral Offering," (Philadelphia, 1847,) two richly embellished souvenirs; and she was an industrious and very popular writer for the literary magazines and other miscellanies.

She was always of a fragile constitution, easily acted upon by whatever affects health, and in her latter years, except in the more genial seasons of the spring and autumn, was frequently an invalid. In the winter of 1847-8, she suffered more than ever previously, but the next winter she was better, and her husband, who was advised by his physicians to discontinue, for a while, the practice of his profession, availed himself of the opportunity to go in pursuit of health and riches to the mines of the Pacific. He left New-York on the fifth of February, 1849, and was absent one year. Mrs. Osgood's health was variable during the summer, which she passed chiefly at Saratoga Springs, in the company of a family of intimate friends; and as the colder months came on, her strength decayed, so that before the close of November, she was confined to her apartments. She bore her sufferings with resignation, and her natural hopefulness cheered her all the while, with remembrances that she had before come out with the flowers and the embracing airs, and dreams that she would again be in the world with nature. Two or three weeks before her death, her husband carried her in his arms, like a child, to a new home, and she was happier than she had been for months, in the excitement of selecting its furniture, brought in specimens or patterns to her bedside. "_We shall be so happy!_" was her salutation to the few friends who were admitted to see her; but they saw, and her physicians saw, that her life was ebbing fast, and that she would never never again see the brooks and greens fields for which she pined, nor even any of the apartments but the one she occupied of her own house. I wrote the terrible truth to her, in studiously gentle words, reminding her that in heaven there is richer and more delicious beauty, that there is no discord in the sweet sounds there, no poison in the perfume of the flowers there, and that they know not any sorrow who are with Our Father. She read the brief note almost to the end silently, and then turned upon her pillow like a child, and wept the last tears that were in a fountain which had flowed for every grief but hers she ever knew. "I cannot leave my beautiful home," she said, looking about upon the souvenirs of many an affectionate recollection; "and my noble husband, and Lily and May!" These last are her children. But the sentence was confirmed by other friends, and she resigned herself to the will of God. The next evening but one, a young girl went to amuse her, by making paper flowers for her, and teaching her to make them: and she wrote to her these verses--her dying song:

You've woven roses round my way,
And gladdened all my being;
How much I thank you none can say
Save only the All-seeing....

_I'm going through the Eternal gates
Ere June's sweet roses blow;
Death's lovely angel leads me there--
And it is sweet to go._

May 7th, 1850.

At the end of five days, in the afternoon of Sunday, the twelfth of May, as gently as one goes to sleep, she withdrew into a better world.

On Tuesday, her remains were removed to Boston, to be interred in the cemetery of Mount Auburn. It was a beautiful day, in the fulness of the spring, mild and calm, and clouded to a solemn shadow. In the morning, as the company of the dead and living started, the birds were singing what seemed to her friends a sadder song than they were wont to sing; and, as the cars flew fast on the long way, the trees bowed their luxuriant foliage, and the flowers in the verdant fields were swung slowly on their stems, filling the air with the gentlest fragrance; and the streams, it was fancied, checked their turbulent speed to move in sympathy, as from the heart of Nature tears might flow for a dead worshipper. God was thanked that all the elements were ordered so, that sweetest incense, and such natural music, and reverent aspect of the silent world, should wait upon her, as so many hearts did, in this last journey. She slept all the while, nor waked when, in the evening, in her native city, a few familiar faces bent above her, with difficult looks through tears, and scarcely audible words, to bid farewell to her. On Wednesday she was buried, with some dear ones who had gone before her--beside her mother and her daughter--in that City of Rest, more sacred now than all before had made it, to those whose spirits are attuned to Beauty or to Sorrow--those twin sisters, so rarely parted, until the last has led the first to Heaven.

The character of Mrs. Osgood, to those who were admitted to its more minute observance, illustrated the finest and highest qualities of intelligence and virtue. In her manners, there was an almost infantile gaiety and vivacity, with the utmost simplicity and gentleness, and an unfailing and indefectable grace, that seemed an especial gift of nature, unattainable, and possessed only by her and the creatures of our imaginations whom we call the angels. The delicacy of her organization was such that she had always the quick sensibility of childhood. The magnetism of life was round about her, and her astonishingly impressible faculties were vital in every part, with a polarity toward beauty, all the various and changing rays of which entered into her consciousness, and were refracted in her conversation and action. Though, from the generosity of her nature, exquisitely sensible to applause, she had none of those immoralities of the intellect, which impair the nobleness of impulse--no unworthy pride, or vanity, or selfishness--nor was her will ever swayed from the line of truth, except as the action of the judgment may sometimes have been irregular from the feverish play of feeling. Her friendships were quickly formed, but limited by the number of genial hearts brought within the sphere of her knowledge and sympathy. Probably there was never a woman of whom it might be said more truly that to her own sex she was an object almost of worship. She was looked upon for her simplicity, purity, and childlike want of worldly tact or feeling, with involuntary affection; listened to, for her freshness, grace, and brilliancy, with admiration; and remembered, for her unselfishness, quick sympathy, devotedness, capacity of suffering, and high aspirations, with a sentiment approaching reverence. This regard which she inspired in women was not only shown by the most constant and delicate attentions in society, where she was always the most loved and honored guest, but it is recorded in the letters and other writings of many of her most eminent contemporaries, who saw in her an angel, haply in exile, the sweetness and natural wisdom of whose life elevated her far above all jealousies, and made her the pride and boast and glory of womanhood. Many pages might be filled with their tributes, which seem surely the most heartfelt that mortal ever gave to mortal, but the limits of this sketch of her will suffer only a few and very brief quotations from her correspondence. Unquestionably one of the most brilliant literary women of our time is Miss Clarke, so well known as "Grace Greenwood." She wrote of Mrs. Osgood with no more earnestness than others wrote of her, yet in a letter to the "Home Journal," in 1846, she says:

"And how are the critical Caesars, one after another, 'giving in' to
the graces, and fascinations, and soft enchantments of this
Cleopatra of song. She charms _lions_ to sleep, with her silver
lute, and then throws around them the delicate net-work of her
exquisite fancy, and lo! when they wake, they are well content in
their silken prison.

'From the tips of her pen a melody flows,
Sweet as the nightingale sings to the rose.'

"With her beautiful Italian soul--with her impulse, and wild
energy, and exuberant fancy, and glowing passionateness--and with
the wonderful facility with which, like an almond-tree casting off
its blossoms, she flings abroad her heart-tinted and love-perfumed
lays, she has, I must believe, more of the improvisatrice than has
yet been revealed by any of our gifted countrywomen now before the
people. Heaven bless her, and grant her ever, as now, to have
laurels on her brows, and to browse on her laurels! Were I the
President of these United States, I would immortalize my brief term
of office by the crowning of our Corinna, at the Capitol."

And about the same period, having been introduced to her, she referred to the event:

"It seems like a 'pleasant vision of the night' that I have indeed
seen 'the idol of my early dreams,' that I have been within the
charmed circle of her real presence, sat by her very side, and
lovingly watched the shadow of each feeling that moved her soul,
glance o'er that radiant face!'"

And writing to her:

"Dear Mrs. Osgood, let me lay this sweet weight off my heart--look
down into my eyes--believe me--long, long before we met, I loved
you, with a strange, almost passionate love. You were my literary
idol: I repeated some of your poems so often, that their echo never
had time to die away; your earlier, bird-like warblings so chimed
in with the joyous beatings of my heart, that it seemed it could
not throb without them; and when you raised 'your lightning glance
to heaven,' and sang your loftiest song, the liquid notes fell upon
my soul like baptismal waters. With an 'intense and burning,'
almost unwomanly ambition, I have still joyed in _your_ success,
and gloried in your glory; and all because Love laid its reproving
finger on the lip of Envy. I cannot tell you how much this romantic
interest has deepened,

Now I have looked upon thy face,
Have felt thy twining arms' embrace,
Thy very bosom's swell;--
One moment leaned this brow of mine
On song's sweet source, and love's pure shrine,
And music's 'magic cell!"

Another friend of hers, Miss Hunter, whose pleasing contributions to our literature are well known, probably on account of some misapprehension, had not visited her for several months, but hearing of her illness she wrote:

"Learning this, by chance, I have summoned courage once more to
address you--overcoming my fear of being intrusive, and offering as
my apology the simple assertion that it is my _heart_ prompts me.
Till to-day pride has checked me: but you are 'very ill,' and I can
no longer resist the impulse. With the assurance that I will never
again trouble you, that now I neither ask nor expect the slightest
response, suffer me thus to steal to your presence, to sit beside
your bed, and for the last time to speak of a love that has
followed you through months of separation, rejoicing when you have
rejoiced, and mourning when you have mourned. You know how, from
childhood, I have worshipped you, that since our first meeting you
have been my idol, the realization of my dreams; and do not suppose
that because I have failed to inspire you with a lasting interest,
I shall ever feel for you a less deep or less fervent devotion. The
blame or misfortune of our estrangement I have always regarded as
only mine. I know I have seemed indifferent when I panted for
expression. You have thought me unsympathizing when my every nerve
thrilled to your words. I have lived in comparative seclusion; I
have an unconquerable reserve, induced by such an experience; and
when I have been with you my soul has had no voice.

"The time has been when I could not bear the thought of never
regaining your friendship in this world--when I would say 'The
years! oh, the years of this earth-life, that must pass so slowly!'
And when I saw any new poem of yours, I experienced the most sad
emotions,--every word I read was so like you, it seemed as if you
had passed through the room, speaking to others near me kindly, but
regarding me coldly, or not seeing me. But one day I read in a book
by Miss Bremer, 'It is a sad experience, who can describe its
bitterness! when we see the friend, on whom we have built for
eternity, grow cold, and become lost to us. But believe it not,
thou loving, sorrowing soul--believe it not! continue thyself only,
and the moment will come when thy friend will return to thee. Yes,
_there_, where all delusions cease, thy friend will find thee gain,
in a higher light,--will acknowledge thee and unite herself to thee
forever.' And I took this assurance to my heart.... We may meet in
heaven, if not here. I shall not go see you, though my heart is
wrung by this intelligence of your illness. So good-bye, darling!
May good angels who have power to bless you, linger around your
pillow with as much love as I shall feel for you forever.

"March 6, 1850."

I have been permitted to transcribe this letter, and among Mrs. Osgood's papers that have been confided to me are very many such, evincing a devotion from women that could have been won only by the most angelic qualities of intellect and feeling.

It was the custom in the last century, when there was among authors more of the _esprit du corps_ than now, for poets to greet each other's appearance in print with complimental verses, celebrating the qualities for which the seeker after bays was most distinguished. Thus in 1729, we find the _Omnium Opera_ of John Duke of Buckingham prefaced by "testimonials of authors concerning His Grace and his writings;" and the names of Garth, Roscommon, Dryden, and Prior, are among his endorsers. There have been a few instances of the kind in this country, of which the most noticeable is that of Cotton Mather, in whose _Magnalia_ there is a curious display of erudition and poetical ingenuity, in gratulatory odes. The literary journals of the last few years furnish many such tributes to Mrs. Osgood, which are interesting to her friends for their illustration of the personal regard in which she was held. I cannot quote them here; they alone would fill a volume, as others might be filled with the copies of verses privately addressed to her, all through her life, from the period when, like a lovely vision, she first beamed upon society, till that last season, in which the salutations in assemblies she had frequented were followed by saddest inquiries for the absent and dying poetess. They but repeat, with more or less felicity, the graceful praise of Mrs. Hewitt, in a poem upon her portrait:

She dwells amid the world's dark ways
Pure as in childhood's hours;
And all her thoughts are poetry,
And all her words are flowers.

Or that of another, addressed to her:

Thou wouldst be loved? then let thy heart
From its present pathway part not!
Being everything, which now thou art,
Be nothing which thou art not.
So with the world thy gentle ways,
Thy grace, thy more than beauty,
Shall be an endless theme of praise,
And love--a simple duty.

Among men, generally, such gentleness and sweetness of temper, joined to such grace and wit, could not fail of making her equally beloved and admired. She was the keeper of secrets, the counsellor in difficulties, the ever wise missionary and industrious toiler, for all her friends. She would brave any privation to alleviate another's sufferings; she never spoke ill of any one; and when others assailed, she was the most prompt of all in generous argument. An eminent statesman having casually met her in Philadelphia, afterward described her to a niece of his who was visiting that city:

"If you have opportunity do not fail to become acquainted with Mrs.
Osgood. I have never known such a woman. She continually surprised
me by the strength and subtlety of her understanding, in which I
looked for only sportiveness and delicacy. She is entirely a child
of nature and Mrs. ----, who introduced me to her, and who has
known her many years I believe, very intimately, declares that she
is an angel. Persuade her to Washington, and promise her everything
you and all of us can do for her pleasure here."

For her natural gaiety, her want of a certain worldly tact, and other reasons, the determinations she sometimes formed that she would be a housekeeper, were regarded as fit occasions of jesting, and among the letters sent to her when once she ventured upon the ambitious office, is one by her early and always devoted friend, Governor ----, in which we have glimpses of her domestic qualities: