Chapter II: Preface: To the Fourth Volume (2)

In 1812, he removed to Amherst, in Massachusetts, where he devoted ten years entirely to these labors. He returned to New Haven in 1822; in the following year he received from Yale College the degree of LL. D., and in the spring of 1824 he proceeded to Paris to consult in the _Bibliotheque du Roi_ some works not accessible in this country, and then went to England and passed eight months in the libraries of the University of Cambridge.

Returning to America, he made arrangements for the publication of his great work, and it finally appeared, near the end of 1826, in an edition of twenty-five hundred copies, in two quarto volumes, which were sold at twenty dollars per copy. An edition of three thousand copies was soon after printed in England.

Dr. Webster was now seventy years of age, and he considered his life-task accomplished; but habits of literary occupation had become fixed and necessary, and after a few months he began to rewrite his _History of the United States for Schools_. In 1840 he published a second edition of the _Dictionary_, in two octavo volumes; in 1843, _A Collection of Papers, on Political, Literary and Moral Subjects_, selected from his various writings in early life; and in 1847 another edition of the _American Dictionary_ appeared, after a thorough revision of it by Professor Goodrich, of Yale College. In this edition very large additions were made, amounting to a fifth of the whole work. There were new words, and new definitions, when needed; careful attention was bestowed on technical terms of science and art; and it was made a general cyclopaedia of knowledge. Yet by employing a finer type, and adopting a close yet clear style of printing, the original work, with all these copious additions, was brought within the compass of a single quarto, which has been styled the finest specimen of book-manufacture ever produced in America. A revised edition of the abridgement was issued at the same time, and both volumes have had a circulation which evinces the general appreciation of their value. Several of the New England states, we believe, have furnished a copy of the quarto Dictionary to every school district within their limits, and the legislature of New-York, during its recent session, passed a law for the distribution of some thousands of copies in the school districts of this state also. Whatever may be said of the Dictionary by Dr. WEBSTER, it will not be questioned by the disinterested scholar that it is one of the most extraordinary and honorable monuments of well-directed intellectual labor of which we have any account in the histories of literature or learning. It is as great an advance from the work of Dr. Johnson, as that was from the wretched vocabularies of the English language which existed before his time; and so accurate and exhausting has been the investigation which it displays that no rival work is likely to take its place until sufficient time has elapsed for the language itself to pass into a new condition.

Much has been said of Dr. Webster's innovations, but for the most part, by persons altogether ignorant of the philosophy of languages in general, as well as of the character and condition of the English language. Dr. Webster attempted, and with eminent success, to reduce the English language to order, and to subject it to the operation of principles. The changes which he made, though in a few instances, necessary for consistency, striking, are much less numerous than is commonly supposed, and even to scholars, with whom the study of languages is not a _specialite_, they would not be very apparent but for the frequent attempts which are made to prejudice the public against the work. An amusing illustration of this fact occurred a few years ago, when, a concerted assault upon the Dictionary having been made, and sustained for some time, a distinguished author who had a new book in the press of the Harpers, was alarmed by intelligence that they intended to adopt for it Webster's orthography. He wrote to these publishers his apprehensions that the success of his performance and his own good reputation could not fail of exceeding injury, if their design should be executed, and begged them to adopt some other work as a medium for the display of the Websterian innovations. The Harpers replied that he might select his own standard; they believed he had, perhaps unconsciously, followed Webster in his _manuscript_, and that the several productions of his which they had published in previous years had all been printed according to Webster's Dictionary, which was the guide used in their printing offices.

The incidents of Dr. Webster's life after the publication of the second edition of his Dictionary, in 1840, were few and unimportant. Indeed, with that effort he regarded his public life as brought to a close. He passed through a serene old age, which was terminated by a peaceful death, on the twenty-eighth of May, 1843, when he was in the eighty-fifth year of his age.

DR. MERLE D'AUBIGNE AND THE ENGLISH CHURCH.

The celebrated German historian, Dr. MERLE D'AUBIGNE, is now in England, and in consequence of certain proceedings growing out of his occupation of an Episcopal pulpit recently, he has published a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury concerning the general subject of the exclusion of continental Protestant ministers from the pulpits of English churches. He is aware that, in consequence of the Act of Uniformity, there are churches which cannot be opened to those ministers, but he hopes that this law of exclusion will be repealed. "It is no longer in harmony with the spirit and the wants of the church in the age in which we live." The Calvinistic historian expresses his conviction that the reestablishment of the Annual Convocation would not reform the Church. The Convocation has been for more than a century deprived of its powers, and it is to Parliament that the question now belongs. He says:

"Why should I not express to you, my lord, a desire which I
have long had in my heart? This desire is, that being
surrounded by ministers and members of the Church the most
enlightened and most devoted to God and to his word, you
should digest and present to Parliament a plan, not to
_effect_ (_sic_) a reform of the Church, but to _establish
the authority_ (_sic_) which should be charged with its
reform and government. It seems to me that the best way
would be to establish a body similar to that which governs
the Episcopal church of America, composed of three chambers,
that of the bishops, that of the presbyters, and that of the
members of the Church, the two latter being ordinarily
united in one. The Americans of the United States have
received so much from you (they have received every thing,
even their very existence), why should you not take
something from them? I am convinced that sooner or later a
reform _must_ take place in the government of the Church of
England: it is important that it should be done well. I
think that there would be some hope of its being
accomplished in a good sense, if it were done while you, my
lord, are Primate of the Church, and while Victoria is Queen
of England."

Every thing seems to tend to an entire revolution in the British ecclesiastical system, and the cooeperation of Dr. Merle and other continental writers with those who are agitating the subject in England--demanding the separation of the church from the state--makes the prospect of such a separation more imminent than it has ever been hitherto.

THE EXILE'S SUNSET SONG.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE

BY J. R. THOMPSON.

When from thy side, love,
In silence and gloom,
Half broken-hearted
Fate tore me away,
All humbled in pride, love,
I thought in my doom,
That Hope had departed
For ever and aye!

But Fate may not banish
From memory's store,
That blissful communion
Of years that are flown,
Nor make yet to vanish
The lustre which o'er
Our fond thoughts of union,
So tenderly shone.

And still o'er the ocean
My fancy takes flight,
Where oft I see gleaming
Thy figure afar;
And I think with emotion,
That sometimes at night,
We watch the same beaming
And tremulous star.

The sunsets so golden.
That stream round me here,
But call up thy shadow
The landscape between:
And when in the olden
Dim season so dear,
It tripped o'er the meadow
With step of a queen.

As the light of the moon, love,
Like snow softly falls,
And rests on the mountain,
And silvers the sea,
That midnight in June, love,
My mem'ry recalls,
When up to the fountain
I clambered with thee.

How sweetly the river
Reflected the ray
Of moon through the willows
Or sun o'er the hill:
Does the moonbeam there quiver,
The sunset there play,
Upon its gay billows
As splendidly still?

My spirit is weary--
An exile I grieve,
When morn's early voices
A glad song proclaim,
And the faint Miserere
Of nature at eve,
To me but rejoices
To murmer thy name.

Yet Hope, reappearing,
A vision unfolds,
Of rapture together
In joy's happy reign,
When love all endearing
The full eye beholds,
We'll walk o'er the heather
At sunset again.

RICHMOND, Va.

DRAMATIC FRAGMENTS.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE,

BY R. H. STODDARD.

THE GAME OF CHESS.

We played at chess, Bianca and myself,
One afternoon, but neither won the game,
Both absent-minded, thinking of our hearts
Moving the ivory pawns from black to white,
Shifted to little purpose round the board;
Sometimes we quite forgot it in a sigh
And then remembered it, and moved again;
Looking the while along the slopes beyond,
Barred by blue peaks, the fountain, and the grove
Where lovers sat in shadow, back again,
With sideway glances in each other's eyes;
Unknowingly I made a lucky move,
Whereby I checked my mate, and gained a queen;
My couch drew nearer hers, I took her hand--
A soft white hand that gave itself away--
Told o'er the simple story of my love,
In simplest phrases which are always best,
And prayed her if she loved me in return--
A fabled doubt--to give her heart to me;
And then, and there, above that game of chess,
Not finished yet, in maiden trustfulness,
She gave me, what I knew was mine, her heart!

FROM A PLAY.

Alas! I think of you the live-long day,
Plying my needle by the little stand,
And wish that we had never, never met,
Or I were dead, or you were married off,
Though that would kill me; I lay down my work,
And take the lute you gave me, but the strings
Have grown so tuneless that I cannot play;
I sing the favorite airs we used to sing,
The sweet old tunes we love, and weep aloud!
I sought forgetfulness, and tried to-day
To read a chapter in the Holy Book;
I could not see a line, I only read
The solemn sonnets that you sent to me:
Nor can I pray as I was wont to do,
For you come in between me and the Lord,
And when I strive to lift my soul above,
My wits are wandering, and I sob your name!
And nights, when I am lying on my bed,
(I hope such thoughts are not unmaidenly,)
I think of you, and fall asleep, and dream
I am your own, your wedded, happy wife,--
But that can never, never be on earth!

THE COUNTESS IDA HAHN-HAHN.

We gave in the last _International_ a short notice of "_Von Babylon nach Jerusalem_" (A Journey from Babylon to Jerusalem), by Ida, Countess of Hahn-Hahn, in which she declares her conversion to Christianity and Catholicism. What the Germans themselves think of this work may be gathered from the following brief review, which has just fallen under our notice in the _Central Blatt_. The article is curious, from the "intensely German" style and spirit in which it is written, though we cannot very warmly commend either.

"The above-mentioned work," which contains an account of the conversion of its celebrated authoress to the Catholic belief, says the critic, "presents a sad picture of the complete decay and dissolution of a _void subjectivity_ (a vacant mind).

"The writer falls a sacrifice to her exclusive, aristocratic position in society. Without occupying any place in the world, won and maintained by personal ability, and consequently without a well-grounded moral standard, she wanders like a homeless being from land to land, every where influenced, 'as far as it agreed with her disposition,' by her momentary interests, and thus rendering apparent the barrenness of her soul. But this had been developed at an early period. 'That this feeling (that of joy) was occasionally accompanied by the deepest discontent, appearing as an unearthly _ennui_--and that over it swept the darkest melancholy, will be readily intelligible to every one, for they are the twin sisters of the fortune of this world.' 'And occasionally it was a kind of heroism, in that I sat myself down, and--wrote a romance. Was it finished, I travelled--did I return, I described the tour--was there a time when the book was complete and circumstances did not permit of travelling, I took with raging appetite to reading--and when I no longer wrote, no longer travelled, and could no longer read for any determined purpose--because I had none--I knew not what to do with my time. I could not create illusions, and say to myself, Try this! try that! perhaps the world hath yet somewhat hidden for thee--the call of Knowledge is incessant. No, no! she hath nothing. Well--what then? God? There stood the Word, the One, the Eternal.' Thereupon she reads the greater and lesser catechisms of Luther, the creeds of the evangelic reformed church, and the decrees and canons of the Council of Trent. 'But only the Catholic church hath under roof and proof brought her dogma-buildings to a tower, provided with the lightning-rod of authority.' Thereupon she determines, 'I asked no human being for explanation, information, or counsel--not even myself.' Three months after, on the first day of January, 1850, she wrote to the Cardinal Prince-Bishop of Breslau, to beg of him aid in her entrance to the church.

"The moral vacancy displayed in these quotations corresponds with the shallow manner and half romantic, half French style of the book. Though the first part be written in a fresher and livelier style than the second, there is still not to be found in the whole a single well-determined and clearly-impressed thought, and whenever we imagine that we have hit upon such a thing, straightway we find whirling forth the dust-clouds of an obscure, phrase-laden, highly affected sentimental feeling, which, without any real energy, stirs itself up with repeated 'ohs!' and 'ahs!' and other forced sighs and artificial aids. In place of such thoughts we find a shallow and occasionally insupportably wearisome speech on the ideal of Catholicism, or 'the heathenish abomination in art and literature, which, after the fall of Byzantium was transported thence to Italy, and there received with that love which impels sensuous mortals to joyfully draw into the sphere of his life the new and glittering, because it promises fresh and shining pleasures.'(!) In another place she speaks of the reformers as 'miserable, narrow-minded heads, who should have chosen other ground whereon to exercise their love of quarrelling;' while the second half of her book is confined almost exclusively to the democrats, and the events which took place from 1847 to 1849. In this part the authoress displays the greatest want of intellect, and is sadly wearisome; but her frivolity of manners and morals appears most repulsive in her account of the Reformation. None of the Catholics--not even Cochlaeus himself--has so far degraded himself as to interpret in such a vulgar manner the deeds of the reformers (more particularly Luther's) as is here done by--a lady!

"If the Countess places at the conclusion of her work the words 'Soli Deo Gloria,' this is merely in accordance with a Catholic custom, and by no means meant in earnest, since the work is more particularly adapted to flatter the vanity and self-conceit of its composer, who cannot imagine why she should suffer the disgrace to belong to the German nation. A vain, coquettish self-regard, an affected, aristocratic-noble nonchalance, and a contradicting, heresy-accusing confidence of judgment, meet us on every side, and render us completely opposed to the pretence and moral vacancy of this book."

These are bitter words, and bitterly spoken, when thus applied to a woman. The reader will in their perusal remember that the writer is evidently influenced by a deep feeling against all that savors of conservatism in politics, and shares in an unusual degree the popular German feeling against _emancipiste Frauen_, or women who strive against the bonds which the customs of society have imposed on the sex,--a feeling, which, however creditable it may be when applied to undue extravagances of manners or morals, should be carefully guarded against when it threatens an unconditional restraint of every exertion of feminine genius and talent.

JULES JANIN, AND THE PARIS FEUILLETONISTES.

Jules Janin, whose name, of so constant recurrence in the contemporary history of light literature, artistic criticism, and _feuilleton_, is the Prince Royal of the brilliant court of gifted, tasteful, witty and _spirituel_ writers, who compose the body of Parisian _feuilletonistes_. These are men who write, not because they have any thing especial to say--for their peculiar function is to say nothing, in a pointed and brilliant manner--but because they love leisure and luxury, the opera, pictures, and beautiful ballet girls, and must themselves make the golden lining to their purses, which they can do by the very simple process of weaving the similar lining of their brains into a _feuilleton_. They are often scholars, men of fine cultivation and genius, whose tastes however are so imperious, and who enjoy so much the ease thus facilely achieved, that they accomplish no great work, win no lasting name. Of course the _feuilletonist_ proper is to be distinguished from the author or novelist who publishes a work in the _Feuilleton_, as Lamartine his _Confidences_, and Sue and Dumas and George Sand, their romances. We propose now to follow briefly the sparkling career of JULES JANIN as the type of the life, character, and success of the _feuilletonistes_.

He came to Paris, a Jew: as Meyerbeer, Heine, Grisi, Rachel, and the long luminous list of contemporary artists who have made fame in Paris, are Jews. He supported himself by teaching--doing nothing, but very conscious that he could do something--at all events he could lecture upon the Syrian language, if for a week he could prepare himself. Then he wrote in little theatrical papers, and received twenty-five francs a month. But in 1830 he happily succeeded to his present position in the _Journal des Debats_. He is now a rich man. He gives splendid soirees in his saloons glittering with oriental luxury, and artists and authors bow before him. Like Henry Heine, his contemporary, whom he as much resembles in talent as in manner, he declared now for the Republic and Freedom, now for the Church and King, until his connection with the _Debats_ impressed upon him the conservative seal. He since loudly declaims for public morality--against the prostitution of the press; but his early works were the most licentious of any that have swarmed from the fertile French genius of social protestantism. His first novel, published in 1829, _The Dead Donkey and the Guillotined Woman_, is the history of a prostitute, from the brothel, to the murder of her child, and her execution, garnished with Byronic sentimentalities upon the transitoriness of things temporal.

Jules Janin's next work was one of the most instructive illustrations of the character of French romance at that period when literary feeling and taste seemed to reach the artificial point that is artistically achieved by the melo-dramas of Chatham-street and the Strand. We record it as a literary curiosity, as the work of a "fast" Frenchman, a Parisian Vivian Grey, on a small scale. It is called _The Penitent_, and was published in 1830. It opens with a marriage. The bride, who has been violently dancing, retires, overcome with sleep, and the husband in his rage at her sleepiness smothers her. It is nominally supposed that she has been stricken with apoplexy, but a Jesuit, who meditates many mysteries, understands the whole matter, yet observes the most discreet silence. The young man, who is somewhat conscience-pricked, still persists in profligacy, until he is overwhelmed by remorse, and rushes to the church to receive absolution. He seeks a trusty confessor, and of course finds the old Jesuit; but as he finds it difficult to obtain access to him, makes the acquaintance of a girl, with whom the Jesuit has some kind of relation, and in order to win her to his will, seduces her! Then comes the Jesuit and begins to fulminate excommunications and damnations. But the youth bursts into a passionate strain of repentance, and is told by the old Jesuit, that the difficulty in his case, is a religious one, that in fact the murder was "a circumstance" arising from his irreligious state, and that by genuine repentance the matter will be arranged. _Presto_: The youth repents and enters the church, is made Bishop and proceeds through an endless course of fat capon and Chateau Margaux to an edifying end!

The boldest efforts of young France and young Germany, are feeble by the side of this extraordinary effort. His earlier tales, which are somewhat in the style of Hoffmann, Jules Janin published in the year 1833, under the title of _Fantastic Tales_, and a series of works of less size and importance followed, until the series of papers, half fiction, half fact, which, in the novel form, treated a great variety of historico-literary subjects. His last romance is the _Nun of Toulouse_, written during the revolution of '48. It sparkles with the same sprightly skepticism and spiritual coquetry that distinguished his earlier works, yet he celebrates in it those beautiful times, the "old times," in which the serenity of faith was never ruffled by impertinent thought; and in his recent letters from the Great Exhibition, he indulges in the same strain, and sighs for the magnificence of the monarchy.

But his weekly contributions to the _Debats_, the rapid dashing review of the dramatic novelties and incidents in a metropolis where alone a living drama survives, and which he serves up garnished with the most felicitous verbal graces and the most charming intellectual conceits, every Monday morning--these are the flowers whence the brilliant Jules Janin builds the honey hive of his reputation. He has decreed the fashion of the _Feuilleton_, and the other Parisian critics flash and snap and sparkle, as much like Jules Janin as possible. Their articles are the streak of _light_ in the dimness of the preponderating political literature of the week. They hold high holiday at the bottom of the page, although the history of revolutions, and woes, and the rumors of wars and impending millenniums may throw their sombre shadows along the columns above. They raise their banner of a butterfly's wing, emblazoned with _Vive la Bagatelle_, and march on to the tournament of wit and beauty. They belong to France; their game is the gambol of the exuberance of French genius. They are more than witty, they are _spirituel_; and they have more than talent, they have taste.

In a day of such rapid and facile printing as ours, this department of literary labor was a necessity. Every man who has a conceit and can write, may parade it before the world. In the mass of pleasant common-place, what is _bizarre_ may supplant the symmetrically beautiful. To seize therefore what every man saw, and with nimble fingers to weave a transparent tissue of gorgeous words through which every man's impressions of what he saw look large and graceful and piquant--to sum up a vaudeville in a _bon mot_, and a ballet in a voluptuous trope,--_voila! c'est fait_, you have the recipe of a successful _feuilletoniste_. Hence, the influence of these writers, upon _words_, has been remarkable. The French language, long so precise, is now among the most dissolute of tongues. It reels through the columns of a _feuilleton_, drunk and dim-eyed with expletives and exaggerations and beatified adjectives, so that, fascinated with the casket, you quite forget the jewel. The language of dramatic and operatic criticism in Paris is now inexplicable to any one but an _habitue_. If you should tell John Bull, who wishes to go to the opera, that Alboni's singing is _pyramidale_, he would expect to see the fair and fat contralto sharpened to a point at top,--but, I grant, if you should call it "jolly" or "stunning," he would entirely comprehend that you meant to express your admiration in superlatives.

I must not longer gossip as these gay gossips do, these fanciful _feuilletonistes_, nor seek more deeply to draw the outline of these rainbow bubbles upon the stream of the time, whether it flow turbid or transparent. One cannot live upon sugar and nutmeg, or even upon allspice. But our friends are a literary phenomenon not to be omitted, and if you love the Muses, you will not omit to snuff the azure incense offered weekly by the _feuilletonistes_.

Jules Janin shall show us out of this article as he ushered us in. The Great Mogul of the _Feuilleton_ had purchased a carriage whose luxury, and taste of appointment, and perfection of footman, was unsurpassed in the Champs Elysee. But the gods are jealous and the _feuilletonistes_ have thus the highest authority for jealousy. So, on one evening when the exquisite equipage awaited its master at the grand opera, a crowd of lesser critical luminaries gathered around it, and both reviled and envied the fortunate owner. While they were thus engaged, the great critic came out of the opera house and saw his contemporaries engaged in longing and envious remark. Now tact is the sublimest secret of success--and smilingly Jules Janin advanced cheerily, greeted his friends cordially, and piled into the carriage all of them who lived in his neighborhood.

They naturally reserved the seat of honor for the owner, but this great General seizing the most inimical of all the party who lived in a quarter of the city farthest from his own home, pushed him into the vacant seat, ordered his coachman to set him down first, and then humming the finale of the opera, lighted a cigar and sauntered leisurely down the street. It was like Jules Janin to make his own marriage the subject of a _Feuilleton_. In his case the man and the _feuilletoniste_ are the same.

ODE XX. OF ANACREON.

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF MADAME DACIER FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE,

BY MARY E. HEWITT.

Niobe, maddened by her woes, of yore.
The gods in pity turned to marble fair;
And wretched Progne, doomed for evermore,
Changed to a swallow wings the upper air.

But ah! would Love, whom I, enslaved, obey,
By his sweet power transform me, I would be
The mirror in thy hand, if thus, alway,
Thy gentle eyes would fondly turn on me.

Or, I would be the perfume that reveals
Its fragrance 'mid the tresses of thy hair;
Or, that soft veil which o'er thy bosom steals,
And jealous, hides the ivory treasure there.

Or I would be the robe that round thee flows,
The zone that circles thee with fond caress;
The rivulet that with thy beauty glows,
And to its breast enclasps thy loveliness.

Or I were blest those envied pearls to be
That closely thus thy swan-white neck entwine;
Or e'en to be the sandal, pressed by thee,
Were, for thy lover, destiny divine.

SWEDISH LANDSCAPES: BY HERR ANDERSEN.

In the last _International_ we gave some characteristic historical sketches from Hans Christian Andersen's latest and most delightful book, the _Pictures of Sweden_; but the inspiration of nature is more powerful with him than that of history, and he is never so felicitous as when painting the scenery of his native country, though he has certainly indulged, to a greater extent than a sober taste can approve, in that passion for the fantastic and visionary, which has been but too visibly manifested in some of his later and slighter works. Our readers, however, shall judge for themselves. The forests of Sweden and its rivers give the most noticeable features to its landscape. This is how they appeared to Andersen--the forest first:

"We are a long way over the elv. We have left the
corn-fields behind, and have just come into the forest,
where we halt at that small inn which is ornamented over the
doors and windows with green branches for the midsummer
festival. The whole kitchen is hung round with branches of
birch and the berries of the mountain ash; the oat cakes
hang on long poles under the ceiling; the berries are
suspended above the head of the old woman who is just
scouring her brass kettle bright.

"The tap-room, where the peasants sit and carouse, is just
as finely hung round with green. Midsummer raises its leafy
arbor every where, yet it is most flush in the forest which
extends for miles around. Our road goes for miles through
that forest, without seeing a house, or the possibility of
meeting travellers, driving, riding, or walking. Come! The
ostler puts fresh horses to the carriage; come with us into
the large woody desert: we have a regular trodden way to
travel, the air is clear, here is summer's warmth and the
fragrance of birch and lime. It is an up-and-downhill road,
always bending, and so, ever changing, but yet always
forest-scenery--the close, thick forest. We pass small
lakes, which lie so still and deep, as if they concealed
night and sleep under their dark, glassy surfaces.

"We are now on a forest plain, where only charred stumps of
trees are to be seen; this long tract is black, burnt, and
deserted, not a bird flies over it. Tall, hanging birches
now greet us again; a squirrel springs playfully across the
road, and up into the tree; we cast our eyes searchingly
over the wood-grown mountain side, which slopes so far, far
forward, but not a trace of a house is to be seen: nowhere
does that bluish smoke-cloud rise, that shows us, here are
fellow-men. The sun shines warm; the flies dance around the
horses, settle on them, fly off again, and dance as though
it were to qualify themselves for resting and being still.
They perhaps think, 'Nothing is going on without us: there
is no life while we are doing nothing.' They think, as many
persons think, and do not remember that time's horses always
fly onward with us!

"How solitary is it here! so delightfully solitary! one is
so entirely alone with God and one's self. As the sunlight
streams forth over the earth, and over the extensive
solitary forests, so does God's Spirit stream over and into
mankind; ideas and thoughts unfold themselves--endless,
inexhaustible, as He is--as the magnet which apportions its
powers to the steel, and itself loses nothing thereby. As
our journey through the forest scenery here along the
extended solitary road, so, travelling on the great high
road of thought, ideas pass through our head. Strange, rich
caravans pass by from the works of poets, from the home of
memory, strange and novel; for capricious fancy gives birth
to them at the moment. There comes a procession of pious
children with waving flags and joyous songs; there come
dancing Menades, the blood's wild Bacchantes. The sun pours
down hot in the open forest; it is as if the Southern summer
had laid itself up here to rest in Scandinavian forest
solitude, and sought itself out a glade where it might lie
in the sun's hot beams and sleep; hence this stillness as if
it were night. Not a bird is heard to twitter, not a pine
tree moves. Of what does the Southern summer dream here in
the North, amongst pines and fragrant birches?

"In the writings of the olden time, from the classic soil of
the South, are sagas of mighty fairies, who, in the skins of
swans, flew towards the North, to the Hyperboreans' land, to
the east of the north winds; up there, in the deep still
lakes, they bathed themselves, and acquired a renewed form.
We are in the forest by these deep lakes; we see swans in
flocks fly over us, and swim upon the rapid elv and on the
still waters...."

"Woodland solitude! what images dost thou not present to our
thoughts! Woodland solitude! through thy vaulted halls
people now pass in the summer time with cattle and domestic
utensils; children and old men go to the solitary pasture
where echo dwells, where the national song springs forth
with the wild mountain flower! Dost thou see the procession?
Paint it if thou canst! The broad wooden cart, laden high
with chests and barrels, with jars and with crockery. The
bright copper kettle and the tin dish shine in the sun. The
old grandmother sits at the top of the load, and holds her
spinning wheel, which complete the pyramid. The father
drives the horse, the mother carries the youngest child on
her back, sewed up in a skin, and the procession moves on
step by step. The cattle are driven by the half-grown
children; they have stuck a birch branch between one of the
cows' horns, but she does not appear to be proud of her
finery; she goes the same quiet pace as the others, and
lashes the saucy flies with her tail. If the night becomes
cold on this solitary pasture, there is fuel enough; here
the tree falls of itself from old age, and lies and rots.

"But take especial care of the fire--fear the fire-spirit in
the forest desert! He comes from the unextinguishable pile;
he comes from the thunder-cloud, riding on the blue
lightning's flame, which kindles the thick, dry moss of the
earth: trees and bushes are kindled; the flames run from
tree to tree, it is like a snow-storm of fire! the flames
leap to the tops of the trees. What a crackling and roaring,
as if it were the ocean in its course! The birds fly upward
in flocks, and fall down suffocated by the smoke; the
animals flee, or, encircled by the fire, are consumed in it!
Hear their cries and roars of agony! The howling of the wolf
and the bear, dost thou know it? A calm rainy day, and the
forest-plains themselves alone are able to confine the fiery
sea, and the burnt forest stands charred, with black trunks
and black stumps of trees, as we saw them here in the forest
by the broad high-road. On this road we continue to travel,
but it becomes worse and worse; it is, properly speaking, no
road at all, but it is about to become one. Large stones lie
half dug up, and we drive past them; large trees are cast
down, and obstruct our way, and therefore we must descend
from the carriage. The horses are taken out, and the
peasants help to lift and push the carriage forward over
ditches and opened paths. The sun now ceases to shine; some
few rain-drops fall, and now it is a steady rain. But how it
causes the birch to shed its fragrance! At a distance there
are huts erected of loose trunks of trees and fresh green
boughs, and in each there is a large fire burning. See where
the blue smoke curls through the green leafy roof; peasants
are within at work, hammering and forging; here they have
their meals. They are now laying a mine in order to blast a
rock, and the pine and birch emit a finer fragrance. It is
delightful in the forest."

So say we. It is delightful in the forest; not less so on the torrent-river of Scandinavia:

"Before Homer sang, there were heroes; but they are not
known, no poet celebrated their fame. It is just so with the
beauties of nature; they must be brought into notice by
words and delineations, be brought before the eyes of the
multitude; get a sort of world's patent for what they are.
The elvs of the North have rushed and whirled along for
thousands of years in unknown beauty. The world's great
high-road does not take this direction; no steam-packet
conveys the traveller comfortably along the streams of the
Dal-elvs; fall on fall makes sluices indispensable and
invaluable. Schubert is, as yet, the only stranger who has
written about the magnificence and southern beauty of
Dalecarlia, and spoken of its greatness.

"Clear as the waves of the sea does the mighty elv stream in
endless windings through forest deserts and varying plains,
sometimes extending its deep bed, sometimes confining it,
reflecting the bending trees and the red-painted
block-houses of solitary towns, and sometimes rushing like a
cataract over immense blocks of rock.

"Miles apart from one another, out of the ridge of mountains
between Sweden and Norway, come the east and west Dal-elvs,
which first become confluent and have one bed above Balstad.
They have taken up rivers and lakes in their waters. Do but
visit this place! here are pictorial riches to be found: the
most picturesque landscapes, dizzyingly grand, smilingly
pastoral, idyllic; one is drawn onward up to the very source
of the elv, the bubbling well above Finman's hut; one feels
a desire to follow every branch of the stream that the river
takes in.

"The first mighty fall, Njupesker's Cataract, is seen by the
Norwegian frontier in Semasog. The mountain stream rushes
perpendicularly from the rock to a depth of seventy fathoms.

"We pause in the dark forest, where the elv seems to collect
within itself nature's whole deep gravity. The stream rolls
its clear waters over a porphyry soil, where the mill-wheel
is driven, and the gigantic porphyry bowls and sarcophagi
are polished.

"We follow the stream through Siljan's lake, where
superstition sees the water-sprite swim like the sea-horse,
with a mane of green seaweed; and where the aerial images
present visions of witchcraft in the warm summer day.

"We sail on the stream from Siljan's lake under the weeping
willows of the parsonage, where the swans assemble in
flocks; we glide along slowly with horses and carriages on
the great ferry-boat, away over the rapid current under
Balstad's picturesque shore. Here the elv widens and rolls
its billows majestically in a woodland landscape, as large
and extended as if it were in North America.

"We see the rushing, rapid stream under Avista's yellow clay
declivities; the yellow water falls, like fluid amber, in
picturesque cataracts before the copper works, where
rainbow-colored tongues of fire shoot themselves upwards,
and the hammer's blow on the copper-plates resound to the
monotonous, roaring rumble of the elv-fall."

And so on, past the famous fall down which the waters gush, ere they lose themselves in the waters of the Baltic. One glimpse more ere they reach their resting-place. We take them up as they are circling the garden of a trim Swedish manor-house:

"The garden itself was a piece of enchantment. There stood
three transplanted beech trees, and they throve well. The
sharp north wind had rounded off the tops of the wild
chestnut trees of the avenue in a singular manner; they
looked as if they had been under the gardener's shears.
Golden yellow oranges hung in the conservatory; the splendid
Southern exotics had to-day got the windows half open, so
that the artificial warmth met the fresh, warm, sunny air of
the Northern summer.

"The branch of the Dal-elv which goes round the garden is
strewn with small islands, where beautiful hanging birches
and fir-trees grow in Scandinavian splendor. There are small
islands with green, silent groves; there are small islands
with rich grass, tall brakens, variegated bell flowers, and
cowslips. No Turkey carpet has fresher colors. The stream
between these islands and holmes is sometimes rapid, deep,
and clear; sometimes like a broad rivulet with silky green
rushes, water lilies, and brown feathered reeds; sometimes
it is a brook with a stony ground, and now it spreads itself
out in a large, still mill-dam.

"Here is a landscape in midsummer for the games of the
river-sprites, and the dancers of the elves and fairies!
There, in the lustre of the full moon, the dryads can tell
their tales, the water-sprites seize the golden harp, and
believe that one can be blessed, at least for one single
night, like this.

"On the other side of Ens Bruck is the main stream--the full
Dal-elv. Do you hear the monotonous rumble? It is not from
Elvkarleby Fall that it reaches hither; it is close by; it
is from Laa Foss in which lies Ash Island: the elv streams
and rushes over the leaping salmon.

"Let us sit here, between the fragments of rock by the
shore, in the red evening sunlight, which sheds a golden
lustre on the waters of the Dal-elv.

"Glorious river! But a few seconds' work hast thou to do in
the mills yonder, and thou rushest foaming on over
Elvkarleby's rocks, down into the deep bed of the river,
which leads thee to the Baltic--thy eternity."

We could fill half our number with passages just as beautiful; but will leave the rest of the poet's landscapes till some American publisher brings out the book. We must nevertheless quote one picture of a different kind. "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin;" and the sorrows of the palace and the cottage alike find their level and their rest in the grave. The "Mute Book" speaks with a moving eloquence to those who can read it aright:

"By the high-road into the forest there stood a solitary
farm-house. One way lay right through the farm-yard; the sun
shone; all the windows were open; there was life and bustle
within, but in the yard, in an arbor of flowering lilacs,
there stood an open coffin. The corpse had been placed out
here, and it was to be buried that forenoon. No one stood
by, and wept over that dead man; no one hung sorrowfully
over him. His face was covered with a white cloth, and under
his head there lay a large, thick book, every leaf of which
was a whole sheet of gray paper, and, between each, lay
withered flowers, deposited and forgotten,--a whole
herbarium, gathered in different places. He himself had
requested that it should be laid in the grave with him. A
chapter of his life was blended with every flower! 'Who is
that dead man?' we asked, and the answer was, 'The old
student from Upsala. They say he was once very clever; he
knew the learned languages, could sing and write verses too;
but then there was something that went wrong, and so he gave
both his thoughts and himself up to drinking spirits, and,
as his health suffered by it, he came out here into the
country, where they paid for his board and lodging. He was
as gentle as a child when the dark humor did not come over
him, for then he was strong, and ran about in the forest
like a hunted deer; but when we got him home, we persuaded
him to look into the book with the dry plants. Then he would
sit the whole day, and look at one plant, and then at
another, and many a time the tears ran down his cheeks. God
knows what he then thought! But he begged that he might have
the book with him in his coffin; and now it lies there, and
the lid will soon be fastened down, and then he will take
his peaceful rest in the grave!'

"They raised the winding sheet. There was peace in the face
of the dead. A sunbeam fell on it; a swallow, in its
arrow-flight, darted into the new-made arbor, and in its
flight circled twittering over the dead man's head.

"How strange it is!--we all assuredly know it--to take out
old letters from the days of one's youth, and read them: a
whole life, as it were, then rises up, with all its hopes
and all its troubles. How many of those with whom we, in
their time, lived so devotedly, are now even as the dead to
us, and yet they still live! But we have not thought of them
for many years--them whom we once thought we should always
cling to, and share our mutual joys and sorrows with!

"The withered oak-leaf in the book here, is a memorial of
the friend--the friend of his school days--the friend for
life. He fixed this leaf on the student's cap, in the
greenwood, when the vow of friendship was concluded for the
whole life. Where does he now live? The leaf is preserved;
friendship forgotten. Here is a foreign conservatory plant,
too fine for the gardens of the North. It looks as if there
still were fragrance in it. _She_ gave it to him--she, the
lady of that noble garden!

"Here is the marsh-lotus, which, he himself has plucked and
watered with salt tears--the marsh-lotus from the fresh
waters! And here is a nettle; what do its leaves say! What
did he think on plucking it?--on preserving it? Here are
lilies of the valley, from the woodland solitudes; here are
honeysuckles from the village ale-house flower-pot; and here
the bare, sharp blade of grass. The flowering lilac bends
its fresh, fragrant clusters over the dead man's head; the
swallow again flies past--'qui-vit! qui-vit!' Now the men
come with nails and hammer; the lid is placed over the
corpse, whose head rests on the 'Mute
Book'--preserved--forgotten!"

The book, to those who are not repelled by a certain quaintness of manner from the enjoyment of a work of true genius, will form a permanent and delightful addition to those pictures of many lands which the enterprise and accomplishment of modern travellers is creating for the delight of those whose range of locomotion is bounded by the limits of their own country, or by the four walls of a sick chamber.

Andersen has grown old in years, and with age he has increase of art, but he was never younger in spirit, and his genius never blossomed with more freshness and beauty.

VERSES

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE,

BY R. H. STODDARD.

My desk is heaped with niceties
From tropic lands divine,
But this is braver far than all--
A flask of Chian wine!

Brim up my golden drinking-cup,
And reach a dish of fruit,
And then unlock my cabinet,
And hand me out my lute;

For when these luxuries have fed
And filled my brain with light,
I must compose a nuptial song,
To suit my bridal night!

A CHAPTER OF PARODIES.

Parodies have been much in vogue in almost every age; among the Greeks, Latins, Germans, French, and English, it has been among the commonest of literary pleasantries to turn verses into ridicule by applying them to a purpose never dreamed of by their authors, or to burlesque serious pieces by affecting to observe the same rhymes, words, and cadences. The wicked arts of Charles the Second's time thus made fun of the hymns of the Roundheads, and pious people have since turned the tables by adapting to good uses the profane airs and sensual songs of the opera house. Of the class of puns, parodies have in the scale of art a much higher rank, and occasionally they furnish specimens of genuine poetry. Among the best we have ever seen are a considerable number attributed to Miss Phebe Carey, of Ohio; they are rich in quaint and natural humor, and as a London critic describes them, "wonderfully American." In its way, we have seen nothing better than this reflex of Bayard Taylor's poem of "Manuela."

MARTHA HOPKINS.

A BALLAD OF INDIANA.

From the kitchen, Martha Hopkins, as she stood there making pies,
Southward looks along the turnpike, with her hand above her eyes;
Where along the distant hill-side, her yearling heifer feeds,
And a little grass is growing in a mighty sight of weeds.

All the air is full of noises, for there isn't any school,
And boys, with turned-up pantaloons, are wading in the pool;
Blithely frisk, unnumbered chickens cackling for they cannot laugh,
Where the airy summits brighten, nimbly leaps the little calf.

Gentle eyes of Martha Hopkins! tell me wherefore do ye gaze
On the ground that's being furrowed for the planting of the maize?
Tell me wherefore down the valley, ye have traced the turnpike's way,
Far beyond the cattle pasture, and the brick-yard with its clay?

Ah! the dog-wood tree may blossom, and the door-yard grass may shine,
With the tears of amber dropping from the washing on the line;
And the morning's breath of balsam, lightly brush her freckled cheek,--
Little recketh Martha Hopkins of the tales of spring they speak.

When the summer's burning solstice on the scanty harvest glowed,
She had watched a man on horseback riding down the turnpike road;
Many times she saw him turning, looking backward quite forlorn,
Till amid her tears she lost him, in the shadow of the barn.

Ere supper-time was over, he had passed the kiln of brick,
Crossed the rushing Yellow River and had forded quite a creek,
And his flat-boat load was taken, at the time for pork and beans,
With the traders of the Wabash, to the wharf at New Orleans.

Therefore watches Martha Hopkins--holding in her hands the pans,
When the sound of distant footsteps seems exactly like a man's;
Not a wind the stove-pipe rattles, nor a door behind her jars,
But she seems to hear the rattle of his letting down the bars.

Often sees she men on horseback, coming down the turnpike rough,
But they come not as John Jackson, she can see it well enough;
Well she knows the sober trotting of the sorrel horse he keeps,
As he jogs along at leisure with his head down like a sheep's.

She would know him 'mid a thousand, by his home-made coat and vest;
By his socks, which were blue woollen, such as farmers wear out west;
By the color of his trousers, and his saddle, which was spread
By a blanket which was taken for that purpose from the bed.

None like he the yoke of hickory, on the unbroke ox can throw,
None amid his father's corn-fields use like him the spade and hoe;
And at all the apple-cuttings, few indeed the men are seen,
That can dance with him the polka, touch with him the violin.

He has said to Martha Hopkins, and she thinks she hears him now,
For she knows as well as can be, that he meant to keep his vow,
When the buck-eye tree has blossomed, and your uncle plants his corn,
Shall the bells of Indiana usher in the wedding morn.

He has pictured his relations, each in Sunday hat and gown,
And he thinks he'll get a carriage, and they'll spend a day in town;
That their love will newly kindle, and what comfort it will give,
To sit down to the first breakfast, in the cabin where they'll live.

Tender eyes of Martha Hopkins! what has got you in such scrape,
'Tis a tear that falls to glitter on the ruffle of her cape,
Ah! the eye of love may brighten, to be certain what it sees,
One man looks much like another, when half hidden by the trees.

But her eager eyes rekindle, she forgets the pies and bread,
As she sees a man on horseback, round the corner of the shed.
Now tie on another apron, get the comb and smooth your hair,
'Tis the sorrel horse that gallops, 'tis John Jackson's self that's there!

Here is one scarcely less happy upon Mr. Willis's "Better Moments:"

WORSER MOMENTS.

That fellow's voice! how often steals
Its cadence o'er my lonely days!
Like something sent on wagon wheels,
Or packed in an unconscious chaise.
I might forget the words he said
When all the children fret and cry,
But when I get them off to bed,
His gentle tone comes stealing by--
And years of matrimony flee,
And leave me sitting on his knee.

The times he came to court a spell,
The tender things he said to me,
Make me remember mighty well
My hopes that he'd propose to me.
My face is uglier, and perhaps
Time and the comb have thinned my hair;
And plain and common are the caps,
And dresses that I have to wear--
But memory is ever yet
With all that fellow's flat'ries writ.