Chapter I: Front Matter (1)

THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE

Of Literature, Art, and Science.

Vol. IV. NEW-YORK, NOVEMBER 1, 1851. No. IV.

THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF THE NEW-YORK STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY AT ROCHESTER.

This is an age of Exhibitions. From the humble collection of cattle and counter-panes, swine and "garden sauce," at the central village of some secluded County, up to the stupendous "World's Fair" at London, wherein all nations and all arts are represented, "Industrial Expositions," as the French more accurately term them, are the order of the day. And this is well--nay, it is inspiring. It proves the growth and diffusion of a wider and deeper consciousness of the importance and dignity of Labor as an element of national strength and social progress. That corn and cloth are essential to the comfortable subsistence of the human family, and of every portion of it, was always plain enough; but the truth is much broader than that. Not food alone, but knowledge, virtue, power, depend upon the subtle skill of the artificer's fingers, the sturdy might of the husbandman's arm. Let these fail, through the blighting influence of despotism, licentiousness, superstition, or slavery, and the national greatness is cankered at the root, and its preservation overtasks the ability of Phocion, of Hannibal, of Cato. A nation flourishes or withers with the development and vigor of its Industry. It may prosper and be strong without statesmen, warriors, or jurists; it fades and falls with the decline of its arts and its agriculture. Wisely, therefore, do rulers, nobles, field marshals and archbishops, unite in rendering the highest honors to eminence in the domain of Industry, dimly perceiving that it is mightier and more enduring than their petty and fragile potencies. The empire of Napoleon, though so lately at its zenith, has utterly passed away, while that of Fulton is still in its youth.

A State Agricultural Society, numbering among its members some thousands of her foremost citizens, mainly but not wholly farmers, is one of the most commendable institutions of this great and growing commonwealth. Aided liberally by the State government, it holds an Annual Fair at some one of the chief towns of the interior, generally on the line of the Erie Canal, whereby the collection of stock and other articles for exhibition is facilitated, and the cost thereof materially lessened. Poughkeepsie, Albany, Saratoga Springs, Utica, Syracuse (twice), Auburn, Rochester (twice), and Buffalo, are the points at which these Fairs have been held within the last ten years. Recently, the railroads have transported cattle, &c., for exhibition, either at half-price, or entirely without charge, while the State's bounty and the liberal receipts for admission to the grounds have enabled the managers to stimulate competition by a very extensive award of premiums, so that almost every recurrence of the State Fair witnesses a larger and still more extensive display of choice animals. Whether the improvement in quality keeps pace with the increase in number is a point to be maturely considered.

The Fair of this year was held at ROCHESTER, in a large open field about a mile south of the city, and of course near the Genesee river. Gigantic stumps scattered through it, attested how recently this whole region was covered with the primeval forest. Probably fifty thousand persons now live within sight of the Rochester steeples, though not a human being inhabited this then dense and swampy wilderness forty years ago. And here, almost wholly from a region which had less than five thousand white inhabitants in 1810, not fewer than one hundred thousand persons, two-thirds of them adult males, were drawn together expressly to witness this exhibition. The number who entered the gates on Thursday alone exceeded seventy-five thousand, while the attendance on the two preceding days and on Friday, of persons who were not present on Thursday, must have exceeded twenty-five thousand. Of course, many came with no definite purpose, no previous preparation to observe and learn, and so carried home nothing more than they brought there, save the head-ache, generated by their irregularities and excesses while absent; but thousands came qualified and resolved to profit by the practical lessons spread before them, and doubtless went away richly recompensed for the time and money expended in visiting the Fair. This Annual Exhibition is as yet the Farmers' University; they will in time have a better, but until then they do well to make the most of that which already welcomes them to its cheap, ready and practical inculcations.

The President of the State Society for this year is Mr. JOHN DELAFIELD, long a master spirit among our Wall-street financiers, and for some years President of the Phenix bank. He was finally swamped by the rascality of the State of Illinois in virtually repudiating her public debt, whereby Mr. Delafield, who had long acted as her financial agent in New-York, and had staked his fortune on her integrity, was reduced from affluence to need. Nothing daunted by this reverse, he promptly transferred his energies from finance to agriculture, taking hold of a large farm in Seneca County, near the beautiful village of Geneva; and on this farm he soon proved himself one of the best practical agriculturists in our State. Before he had been five years on the soil, he was already teaching hundreds of life-long cultivators, by the quiet force of his successful example, how to double the product of their lands and more than double their annual profits. His enlightened and admirable husbandry has finally called him to the post he now occupies--one not inferior in true dignity and opportunity for usefulness to that of Governor of the State. And this is a fair specimen of the elasticity of the American character and its capacity for adapting itself to any and every change of circumstances.

The Annual Address at this Fair was delivered by the Hon. STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS, now U. S. Senator from Illinois, and a very probable "Democratic" candidate for next President of the United States. It was an able and well enunciated discourse, devoted mainly to political economy as affecting agriculture, taking the "free trade" view of this important and difficult subject, and evidently addressed quite as much to southern politicians as to New-York farmers; but it embodied many practical suggestions of decided force and value. This address has already received a very wide circulation.

A public entertainment was proffered on Thursday evening to the officers of the State Society, on behalf of the city of Rochester, which was attended by ex-President TYLER, GOV. WASHINGTON HUNT, ex-Governor and ex-Secretary MARCY, GEN. WOOL, Governor WRIGHT of Indiana, &c. &c. Senator DOUGLAS arrived in the train just before the gathering broke up. The presence of ladies, and the absence of liquors, were the most commendable features of this festivity, which was convened at an absurdly late hour, and characterized by an afflictive amount of dull speaking. Such an entertainment is very well on an occasion like this, merely as a means of enabling the congregated thousands to see and hear the celebrities convened with them; but it should be given in the afternoon or beginning of the evening, should cost very little (the speaking being dog-cheap and the eatables no object), and should in nearly all respects be just what the Rochester festival was not. As an exercise in false hospitality, however, and a beacon for future adventurers in the same line, this entertainment had considerable merit.

_The best Short-Horned Durham Cow over Three Years Old: Owned by Lewis G. Morris._]

_The best Two Year Old Short-Horned Durham Bull: Owned by Lewis G. Morris._]

NEAT CATTLE stood first in intrinsic value among the classes of articles exhibited at the Fair. Probably not less than One Thousand of these were shown on this occasion, including imported bulls and cows, working-oxen, fat steers, blood-heifers, calves, &c. &c. Of these we could not now say whether the Durham or Devonshire breed predominated, but the former had certainly no such marked ascendency as at former Fairs. Our impression from the statements of disinterested breeders was and is, that where cattle are bred mainly for the market, a larger weight of flesh may be obtained at an early age from the Durham than from any rival breed, though not of the finest quality; while for milk or butter the Devon is, and perhaps one or two other breeds are, preferable. But this is merely the inference of one, who has no experience in the premises, from a comparison of the statements of intelligent breeders of widely differing preferences. Probably each of the half-dozen best breeds is better adapted to certain localities and purposes than any other; and intelligent farmers assert, that we still need some breeds not yet introduced in this country, especially the small Black Cattle of the Scottish Highlands, which, from their hardiness, excellence of flesh, small cost for wintering, &c., are specially adapted to our own rugged upland districts, particularly that which half covers the north-eastern quarter of our State. The subject is one of the deepest interest to agriculturists, and is destined to receive a thorough investigation at their hands.

_The best Short-Horned Durham Bull over Three Years Old: Owned by J. M. Sherwood and A. Stevens._]

_The best Devon Bull over Three Years Old: Owned by W. P. and C. S. Wainwright._]

_The best Hereford Bull, over Three Years Old: Owned by Allen Ayrault._]

_Best Foreign (Hungarian) Cattle, over Two Years Old: Owned by Roswell L. Colt._]

Of Horses, the number exhibited was of course much smaller--perhaps two hundred in all--embracing many animals of rare spirit, symmetry, and beauty. Some Canadian horses, and a few specimens of a famous Vermont breed (the Morgan) were among them. Our attention was not specially drawn in this direction, and we will leave the merits of the rival competitors to the awards of the judges.

_Best three-fourth bred Devon Heifer: owned by George Shaeffer._]

_Best Foreign Horse: owned by Jane Ward, Markham, Canada West._]

_Best thorough-bred horse over four years old: owned by John B. Burnet._]

_Best Middle-Wooled Ewe, over Two Years Old: Owned by Lewis G. Morris._]

Of Sheep, there were a large number present--at a rough guess, Two Thousand--embracing specimens of widely contrasted varieties. The fine-wooled Saxonies and Merioes were largely represented; so were coarse-wooled but fine-fleshed Bakewells and Southdowns. For three or four years past, the annual product of wool, especially of the finer qualities, has been unequal to the demand, causing a gradual appreciation of prices, until a standard has this year been reached above the value of the staple. Speculators, who had observed the gradual rise through two or three seasons, rushed in to purchase this year's clip, at prices which cannot be maintained, and the farmers have received some hundreds of thousands of dollars more for their wool than the buyers can ever sell it for. This has naturally reacted on the price of sheep, whereof choice specimens for breeding have been sold for sums scarcely exceeded during the celebrated Merino fever of 1816-18. _Bona fide_ sales for $100 each and over have certainly been made; and it is confidently asserted that picked animals from the flocks of a famous Vermont breeder were sold, to improve Ohio flocks, at the late Fair of that State--a buck for $1,000, and six ewes for $300 each. These reports, whether veritable or somewhat inflated, indicate a tendency of the times. Where sheep are grown mainly for the wool, it is as absurd to keep those of inferior grades, as to plant apple-trees without grafting and grow two or three bushels of walnut-sized, vinegar-flavored fruit on a tree which might as well have borne ten bushels of Spitzenbergs or Greenings. But there is room also for improvement and profit in the breeding of sheep other than the fine-wooled species. The famous roast-mutton of England ought to be more than rivaled among us; for we have a better climate and far better sheep-walks than the English in the rugged mountain districts of New-England, of Pennsylvania, and of our own State. The breeding of large, fine-fleshed sheep of the choicest varieties, on the lines of all the railroads communicating with the great cities, is one of the undertakings which promise largest and surest returns to our farmers, and it is yet in its infancy. A hundred thousand of such sheep would be taken annually by New-York and Philadelphia at largely remunerating prices. Thousands of acres of sterile, scantily timbered land on the Delaware and its branches might be profitably transformed into extensive sheep-walks, while they must otherwise remain useless and unimproved for ages. These lands may now be bought for a song, and are morally certain to be far higher within the next dozen years.

_Best long-wooled buck and ewe over two years old: owned by J. McDonald and Wm. Rathbone._]

Of Swine there were a good many exhibited at the Fair, but we did not waste much time upon them. The Hog Crop once stood high among the products of the older States, but it has gradually fallen off since the settlement of the great West, and the cheapening of intercommunication between that section and the East, and is destined to sink still lower. Pork can be made on the prairies and among the nutwood forests and corn-bearing intervales of the West for half the cost of making it in New-England; no Yankee can afford to feed his hogs with corn, much less potatoes, as his grandfather freely did. Only on a dairy farm can any considerable quantity of pork be profitably made east of the Ohio; and he who keeps but a pig or two to eat up the refuse of the kitchen cares little (perhaps too little) for the breed of his porkers. So let them pass.

"Fancy" Fowls are among the hobbies of our day, as was abundantly evinced at the State Fair. Coops piled on coops, and in rows twenty rods long, of Chinese, Dorking, and other breeds of the most popular domestic bird, monopolized a large share of attention; while geese, ducks, turkies, &c., were liberally and creditably represented. The "Hen Convention," which was a pet topic of Boston waggery a year or two since, might have been easily and properly held at Rochester. Many of these choice barn-yard fowls were scarcely inferior in size while doubtless superior in flavor to the ordinary turky, while the farmer who opens the spring with a hundred of them may half feed his family and at the same time quite keep down his store-bill with their daily products. Small economies steadily pursued are the source of thrift and competence to many a cultivator of flinty and ungenial acres; few farmers can afford to disregard them. If thrice the present number of fowls were kept among us, their care and food would scarcely be missed, while their product would greatly increase the aggregate not only of thrift but of comfort.

"Floral Hall" was the name of a temporary though spacious structure of scantling and rough boards, in which were exhibited, in addition to a profusion of the flowers of the season, a display of Fruits and Vegetables whereof Rochester might well be proud. This city seems the natural centre of the finest fruit-growing district on the American continent--yes, in the whole world. Its high latitude secures the richest flavors, while the harsh northern winds, which elsewhere prove so baneful, are here softened by passing over lake Erie or Ontario, and a climate thus produced, which, for fruit, has no rival. Large delicious grapes of innumerable varieties; excellent peaches; delicate, juicy, luscious pears; quinces that really tempt the eye, though not the palate; and a profusion of fair, fragrant, golden, mammoth apples,--these were among the products of the immediate vicinity of Rochester exhibited in bounteous profusion. In the department of Vegetables also there were beets and turnips of gigantic size; several squashes weighing about one hundred and thirty pounds each; with egg-plants, potatoes, tomatoes, and other edibles, which were all that palate could desire. The fertility of western New-York is proverbial; but it was never more triumphantly set forth than in the fruit and vegetables exhibited at the State Fair.

Of butter, cheese, honey, (obtained without destroying the bees,) maple-sugar &c., the display was much better than we have remarked on any former occasion. And in this connection the rock salt from our own State works around Syracuse deserves honorable mention. New-York salt has been treated with systematic injustice by western consumers. In order to save a shilling or two on the barrel, they buy the inferior article produced by boiling instead of the far better obtained by solar evaporation; then they endeavor to make a New-York standard bushel of fifty six pounds do the work of a measured bushel of Turks Island weighing eighty pounds; and because the laws regulating the preservation and decomposition of animal substances will not thus be swindled, they pronounce the New-York salt impure and worthless. Now there is no purer, no better salt than the New-York solar; but, even of this, fifty-six pounds will not do the work of eighty. Buy the best quality, (and even this is dog cheap,) use the proper quantity, and no salt in the world will preserve meats better than this. The New-York solar salt exhibited at Rochester could not be surpassed, and that which had been _ground_ has no superior in its adaptation to the table.

There were many tasteful Counterpanes and other products of female skill and industry exhibited, but the perpetual crowd in the 'halls' devoted to manufactures allowed no opportunity for their critical examination. Of stoves and ranges, heating and (let us be thankful for it, even at this late day) ventilating apparatus and arrangements, there was a supply; and so of daguerreotypes, trunks, harness, &c. &c. Nothing, however, arrested our attention in this hall but the specimens of FLAX-COTTON and its various proportions exhibited by E. G. Roberts, assignee of Claussen's patents for the United States. We saw one intelligent influential citizen converted from skepticism to enthusiasm for flax-cotton by his first earnest examination. It _will_ go inevitably. A cotton fibre scarcely distinguishable from Sea Island may be produced from flax by Claussen's process for six cents per pound; and a machine for breaking out the fibre from the unrotted stalk was exhibited by Mr. Clemmons of Springfield, Massachusetts, which is calculated materially to expedite the flax-cotton revolution. This machine renders the entire fibre, with hardly a loss of two per cent. as 'swingle-tow,' straight and wholly separated from the woody substance or 'shives,' at a cost which can hardly equal one cent per pound of dressed flax. Its operation is very simple, and any man who has seen it work a day may manage it. Its entire cost is from $125 to $200, according to size. It will be a shame to American agricultural enterprise if flax-cotton and linen are not both among our country's extensive and important products within the next three years.

The department of Agricultural Machinery and Implements was decidedly the most interesting of any. No other can at all equal it in the rapidity and universality of progress from year to year. Of Plows, there cannot have been less than two hundred on the ground, exhibiting a great variety of novel excellence. One with two shares, contrived to cut two furrows at once, seemed the most useful of any recently invented. The upper share cuts and turns the sward to the depth of five inches, which is immediately buried seven inches deep by the earth turned up by the deeper share. Since it is impossible to induce one farmer in twenty to subsoil, this, as the next best thing, ought to be universally adopted.

Seed-Sowers, Corn-Planters, Reapers, Fanning-Mills, Straw-Cutters, &c., &c., were abundant, and evinced many improvements on the best of former years. A Mower with which a man, boy, and span of horses, will cut and spread ten acres per day of grass, however heavy, on tolerably level land--both cutting and spreading better than the hand-impelled scythe and stick will do--was among the new inventions; also two threshers and cleaners, each of them warranted to thresh and nearly clean, by the labor of four men, a boy, and two horses, over one hundred bushels of wheat or two hundred bushels of oats per day. The testimony of candid citizens who had used them, and the evidence of our own senses, left no doubt on our mind of the correctness of these assertions. But we do not write to commend any article, but to call attention to the great and cheering truth which underlies them all. Agriculture is a noble art, involving the knowledge of almost all the practical sciences--chemistry, geology, climatology, mechanics, &c. It is not merely progressive, but rapidly progressing, so that fifty days' labor on the same soil produce far more grain or hay now than they did half a century ago. And every year is increasing and rendering more palpable the pressing need of a PRACTICAL COLLEGE, wherein Agriculture, Mechanics, and the sciences auxiliary thereto shall be ably and thoroughly taught to thousands and tens of thousands of our countrymen, who shall in turn become the disseminators of the truths thus inculcated to the youth of every county and township in the country.

And thus shall Agriculture be rendered what it should be--not only the most essential but the most intellectual and attractive among the industrial avocations of mankind.

HORACE GREELEY

_Exhibited at the Crystal Palace, and the New-York State Agricultural Fair, by Cyrus H. McCormick_.]

WILLIAM ROSS WALLACE.

Of the large number of young men in this country who write verses, we scarcely know of one who has a more unquestionable right to the title of poet than WILLIAM ROSS WALLACE, who has just published, in a very handsome volume, a collection of his writings, under the title of _Meditations in America_. Mr. WALLACE has written other things which in their day have been sufficiently familiar to the public; in what we have to say of his capacities we shall confine ourselves to the pieces which he has himself here selected as the truest exponents of his genius, and without giving them indiscriminate praise shall hope to find in them evidences of peculiar and remarkable powers, combined with a spirit eminently susceptible to the influences of nature and of ideal and moral beauty.

Mr. Wallace is a western man, and was born in Lexington, Kentucky, in the year 1819. His father was a Presbyterian minister, of good family, and marked abilities, who died soon after, leaving the future poet to the care of a mother whose chief ambition in regard to him was that he should be so trained as to be capable of the most elevated positions in society. After the usual preparatory studies, he went first to the Bloomington College, and afterwards to the South Hanover College, in Indiana, and upon graduating at the latter institution studied the law in his native city. When about twenty-two years of age, having already acquired considerable reputation in literature, by various contributions to western and southern periodicals, he came to the Atlantic states, and with the exception of a few months passed in Philadelphia, and a year and a half in Europe, he has since resided in New-York, occupied in the practice of his profession and in the pursuits of literature. Of his numerous poetical compositions, this is the first collection, and the only volume, except _Alban, a Romance_, intended to illustrate the influence of certain prejudices of society and principles of law on individual character and destiny, which was published in 1848.

His works generally are distinguished for a sensuous richness of style, earnestness of temper, and much freedom of speculation. Throughout the _Meditations in America_ we perceive that he is most at home in the serious and stately rhythms and solemn fancies of such pieces as the hymn "To a Wind Going Seaward," "The Mounds of America," "The Chant of a Soul," &c.; but he occasionally writes in livelier and less peculiar measures.

The late Mr. Poe in his _Marginalia_ refers to the following as one of the finest things in American literature; it is certainly very characteristic.

THE CHANT OF A SOUL.

My youth has gone--the glory, the delight
That gave new moons unto the night,
And put in every wind a tone
And presence that was not its own.
I can no more create,
What time the Autumn blows her solemn tromp,
And goes with golden pomp
Through our unmeasurable woods:
I can no more create, sitting in youthful state
Above the mighty floods,
And peopling glen, and wave, and air,
With shapes that are immortal. Then
The earth and heaven were fair,
While only less than gods seem'd all my fellow-men.
Oh! the delight, the gladness,
The sense yet love of madness,
The glorious choral exultations,
The far-off sounding of the banded nations,
The wings of angels at melodious sweeps
Upon the mountain's hazy steeps,--
The very dead astir within their coffin'd deeps;
The dreamy veil that wrapp'd the star and sod--
A swathe of purple, gold, and amethyst;
And, luminous behind the billowy mist,
Something that look'd to my young eyes like GOD.
Too late I learn I have not lived aright,
And hence the loss of that delight
Which put a moon into the moonless night
I mingled in the human maze;
I sought their horrid shrine;
I knelt before the impure blaze;
I made their idols mine.
I lost mine early love--that love of balms
Most musical with solemn psalms
Sounding beneath the tall and graceful palms.
Who lives aright?
Answer me, all ye pyramids and piles
That look like calmest power in your still might.
Ye also do I ask, O continents and isles!
Blind though with blood ye be,
Your tongues, though torn with pain, I know are free.
Then speak, all ancient masses! speak
From patient obelisk to idle peak!
There is a heaving of the plains,
A trailing of a shroud,
A clash of bolts and chains--
A low, sad voice, that comes upon me like a cloud,
"Oh, misery, oh, misery!"--
Thou poor old Earth! no more, no more
Shall I draw speech from thee,
Nor dare thy crypts of legendary lore:
Let silence learn no tongue; let night fold every shore.
Yet I have something left--the will,
That Mont Blanc of the soul, is towering still.
And I can bear the pain,
The storm, the old heroic chain;
And with a smile
Pluck wisdom from my torture, and give back
A love to Fate from this my mountain-rack.
I do believe the sad alone are wise;
I do believe the wrong'd alone can know
Why lives the world, why spread the burden'd skies,
And so from torture into godship grow.
Plainer and plainer beams this truth, the more
I hear the slow, dull dripping of my gore;
And now, arising from yon deep,
'Tis plain as a white statue on a tall, dark steep.
Oh, suffering bards! oh spirits black
With storm on many a mountain-rack
Our early splendor's gone.
Like stars into a cloud withdrawn--
Like music laid asleep
In dried-up fountains--like a stricken dawn
Where sudden tempests sweep.
I hear the bolts around us falling,
And cloud to cloud forever calling:
Yet WE must nor despair nor weep.
Did WE this evil bring?
Or from our fellows did the torture spring?
Titans! forgive, forgive!
Oh, know ye not 'tis victory but to live?
Therefore I say, rejoice with harp and voice!
I know not what our fate may be:
I only know that he who hath a time
Must also have eternity:
One billow proves and gives a whole wide sea.
On this I build my trust,
And not on mountain-dust,
Or murmuring woods, or starlit clime,
Or ocean with melodious chime,
Or sunset glories in the western sky:
Enough, I _am_, and shall not choose to die.
No matter what my future fate may be:
To live is in itself a majesty!
Oh! there I may again create
Fair worlds as in my youthful state;
Or Wo may build for me a fiery tomb
Like Farinata's in the nether gloom:
Even then I will not lose the name of man
By idle moan or coward groan,
But say, "It was so written in the mighty plan!"

The next poem is in a vein of lofty contemplation, and the rhetoric is eminently appropriate and well sustained. It is one of the most striking pieces in the book.

THE MOUNDS OF AMERICA.

Come to the mounds of death with me. They stretch
From deep to deep, sad, venerable, vast,
Graves of gone empires--gone without a sighn,
Like clouds from heaven. They stretch'd from deep to deep
Before the Roman smote his mailed hand
On the gold portals of the dreaming East;
Before the Pleiad, in white trance of song,
Beyond her choir of stars went wandering.
The great old Trees, rank'd on these hills of death,
Have melancholy hymns about all this;
And when the moon walks her inheritance
With slow, imperial pace, the Trees look up
And chant in solemn cadence. Come and hear.
"Oh patient Moon! go not behind a cloud,
But listen to our words. We, too, are old,
Though not so old as thou. The ancient towns,
The cities throned far apart like queens,
The shadowy domes, the realms majestical,
Slept in thy younger beams. In every leaf
We hold their dust, a king in every trunk.
We, too, are very old: the wind that wails
In our broad branches, from swart Ethiop come
But now, wail'd in our branches long ago,
Then come from darken'd Calvary. The Hills
Lean'd ghastly at the tale that wan Wind told;
The Streams crept shuddering through the tremulous dark;
The Torrent of the North, from morn till eve,
On his steep ledge hung pausing; and o'er all
Such silence fell, we heard the conscious Rills
Drip slowly in the caves of central Earth.
So were the continents by His crowned grief
Together bound, before that Genoese
Flamed on the dim Atlantic: so have we,
Whose aspect faced the scene, unchallenged right
Of language unto all, while memory holds.
"O patient Moon! go not behind a cloud,
But hear our words. We know that thou didst see
The whole that we could utter--thou that wert
A worship unto realms beyond the flood--
But we are very lonesome on these mounds,
And speech doth make the burden of sad thought
Endurable; while these, the people new,
That take our land, may haply learn from us
What wonder went before them; for no word
E'er came from thee, so beautiful, so lone.
Throned in thy still domain, superbly calm
And silent as a god.
Here empires rose and died;
Their very dust, beyond the Atlantic borne
In the pale navies of the charter'd wind,
Stains the white Alp. Here the proud city ranged
Spire after spire, like star ranged after star
Along the dim empyrean, till the air
Went mad with splendor, and the dwellers cried,
"Our walls have married Time!"--Gone are the marts,
The insolent citadels, the fearful gates,
The pictured domes that curved like starry skies;
Gone are their very names! The royal Ghost
Cannot discern the old imperial haunts,
But goes about perplexed like a mist
Between a ruin and the awful stars.
Nations are laid beneath our feet. The bard
Who stood in Song's prevailing light, as stands
The apocalyptic angel in the sun,
And rained melodious fire on all the realms;
The prophet pale, who shuddered in his gloom,
As the white cataract shudders in its mist;
The hero shattering an old kingdom down
With one clear trumpet's will: the Boy, the Sage,
Subject and Lord, the Beautiful, the Wise--
Gone, gone to nothingness.
The years glide on,
The pitiless years! and all alike shall fail,
State after State rear'd by the solemn sea,
Or where the Hudson goes unchallenged past
The ancient warder of the Palisades,
Or where, rejoicing o'er the enormous cloud,
Beam the blue Alleghanies--all shall fail:
The Ages chant their dirges on the peaks;
The palls are ready in the peopled vales;
And nations fill one common sepulchre.
Nor goes the Earth on her dark way alone.
Each star in yonder vault doth hold the dead
In its funereal deeps: Arcturus broods
Over vast sepulchres that had grown old
Before the earth was made: the universe
Itself is but one mighty cemetery
Rolling around its central, solemn sun.

"O patient Moon! go not behind a cloud,
But listen to our words. We, too, must die--
And thou!--the vassal stars shall fail to hear
Thy queenly voice over the azure fields
Calling at sunset. They shall fade. The Earth
Shall look and miss their sweet, familiar eyes,
And, crouching, die beneath the feet of GOD.
Then come the glories, then the nobler times,
For which the Orbs travail'd in sorrow; then
The mystery shall be clear, the burden gone;
And surely men shall know why nations came
Transfigured for the pangs; why not a spot
Of this wide world but hath a tale of wo;
Why all this glorious universe is Death's.
"Go, Moon! and tell the stars, and tell the suns,
Impatient of the wo, the strength of him
Who doth consent to death; and tell the climes
That meet thy mournful eyes, one after one,
Through all the lapses of the lonesome night,
The pathos of repose, the might of Death!"
The voice is hush'd; the great old wood is still:
The Moon, like one in meditation, walks
Behind a cloud. We, too, have them for thought,
While, as a sun, GOD takes the West of Time
And smites the pyramid of Eternity.
The shadow lengthens over many worlds
Doom'd to the dark mausoleum and mound.

We do not remember any poem on Mahomet finer than the following:

EL AMIN.

Who is this that comes from Hara? not in kingly pomp and pride,
But a great, free son of Nature, lion-souled and eagle-eyed!

Who is this before whose presence idols tumble to the sod?
While he cries out--"Allah Akbar! and there is no god but God!"
Wandering in the solemn desert, he has wondered like a child
Not as yet too proud to wonder, at the sun, and star, and wild.

"Oh, thou moon! who made thy brightness? Stars! who hung you there on high?
Answer! so my soul may worship: I must worship or die!"

Then there fell the brooding silence that precedes the thunder's roll;
And the old Arabian Whirlwind called another Arab soul.

Who is this that comes from Hara? not in kingly pomp and pride,
But a great, free son of Nature, lion-souled and eagle-eyed!

He has stood and seen Mount Hara to the Awful Presence nod;
He has heard from cloud and lightning--"Know there is no god but God!"

Call ye this man an imposter? He was called "The Faithful," when,
A boy, he wandered o'er the deserts, by the wild-eyed Arab men.

He was always called "The Faithful." Truth he knew was Allah's breath;
But the Lie went darkly gnashing through the corridors of Death.

"He was fierce!" Yes! fierce at falsehood--fierce at hideous bits of wood,
That the Koreish taught the people made the sun and solitude.

But his heart was also gentle, and Affection's graceful palm,
Waving in his tropic spirit, to the weary brought a balm.

"Precepts?" "Have on each compassion:" "Lead the stranger to your door:"
"In your dealings keep up justice:" "Give a tenth unto the poor."

"Yet ambitious!" Yes! ambitious--while he heard the calm and sweet
Aiden-voices sing--to trample troubled Hell beneath his feet.

"Islam?" Yes! "Submit to Heaven!" "Prophet?" To the East thou art!
What are prophets but the trumpets blown by God to stir the heart?

And the great heart of the desert stirred unto that solemn strain,
Rolling from the trump at Hara over Error's troubled main.

And a hundred dusky millions honor still El Amin's rod--
Daily chanting--"Allah Akbar! know there is no god but God!"

Call him then no more "Impostor." Mecca is the Choral Gate
Where, till Zion's noon shall take them, nations in her morning wait.

Mr. Wallace has published a few songs. They have not the stately movement of his other pieces, and the one which follows needs the application of the file; but it is, like the others, very spirited:

AVELINE.

----The sunny eyes of the maiden fair
Give answer better than voice or pen
That as he loves he is loved again.--C. C. LEEDS.

Love me dearly, love me dearly with your heart and with your eyes;
Whisper all your sweet emotions, as they gushing, blushing rise;
Throw your soft white arms about me;
Say you cannot live without me:
Say, you are my Aveline; say, that you are only mine,
That you cannot live without me, young and rosy Aveline!

Love me dearly, dearly, dearly: speak you love-words silver-clearly,
So I may not doubt thus early of your fondness, of your truth.
Press, oh! press your throbbing bosom closely, warmly to my own:
Fix your kindled eyes on mine--say you live for me alone,
While I fix my eyes on thine,
Lovely, trusting, artless, plighted; plighted, rosy Aveline!

Love me dearly; love me dearly: radiant dawn upon my gloom:
Ravish me with Beauty's bloom:--
Tell me "Life has yet a glory: 'tis not all an idle story!"
As a gladdened vale in noonlight; as a weary lake in moonlight,
Let me in thy love recline:
Show me life has yet a splendor in my tender Aveline.

Love me dearly, dearly, dearly with your heart and with your eyes:
Whisper all your sweet emotions as they gushing, blushing rise.
Throw your soft white arms around me; say you _lived not_ till you found me--
Say it, say it, Aveline! whisper you are only mine;
That you cannot live without me, as you throw your arms about me,
That you _cannot_ live without me, artless, rosy Aveline!

Our limits will not permit us to quote any of the remaining poems of this volume in full, and we conclude our extracts with a few passages penciled while in a hasty reading. In the piece entitled The Kings of Sorrow, the poet sings:

Was HE not sad amid the grief and strife, the Lord of light and life,
Whose torture made humanity divine, upon that woful hill of Palestine?
Then is it not far better thus to be, thoughtful, and brave, and melancholy,
Than given up to idle revelry, amid the unreligious brood of folly?
For our sorrow is a worship, worship true, and pure, and calm,
Sounding from the choir of duty like a high, heroic psalm,
In its very darkness bearing to the bleeding heart a balm.
Brothers, we must have no wailing: do we agonize alone?
Look at all the pallid millions; hear a universal moan,
From the mumbling, low-browed Bushman to a Lytton on his throne.
Nor shall we have coward faltering: Brothers! we must be sublime
By due labor at the forges blazing in the cave of Time;
Knowing life was made for duty, and that only cowards prate
Of a search for Happy Valley and the hard decrees of fate:
Seeing through this night of mourning all the future as a star,
And a joy at last appearing on the centuries afar,
When the meaning of the sorrow, when the mystery shall be plain,
When the Earth shall see her rivers roll through Paradise again.
O! the vision gives to sorrow something white and purple-plumed:
Even the hurricane of Evil comes a hurricane perfumed.

In the same:

... The Storm is silent while we speak;
The awe-struck Cloud hath paused above the peak;
The far Volcano statlier waves on high
His smoking censer to the solemn sky;
And see, the troubled Ocean folds his hands
With a great patience on the yellow sands.

In Rest:

So rest! and Rest shall slay your many woes;
Motion is god-like--god-like is repose,
A mountain-stillness, of majestic might,
Whose peaks are glorious with the quiet light
Of suns when Day is at his solemn close.
Nor deem that slumber must ignoble be.
Jove labored lustily once in airy fields;
And over the cloudy lea
He planted many a budding shoot
Whose liberal nature daily, nightly yields
A store of starry fruit.
His labor done, the weary god went back
Up the long mountain track
To his great house; there he did wile away
With lightest thought a well-won holiday;
For all the Powers crooned softly an old tune
Wishing their Sire might sleep
Through all the sultry noon
And cold blue night;
And very soon
They heard the awful Thunderer breathing low and deep.
And in the hush that dropped adown the spheres,
And in the quiet of the awe-struck space,
The worlds learned worship at the birth of years:
They looked upon their Lord's calm, kingly face.
And bade Religion come and kiss each starry place.

In the same:

See what a languid glory binds
The long dim chambers of the darkling West,
While far below yon azure river winds
Like a blue vein on sleeping Beauty's breast.

In The Gods of Old:

Not realmless sit the ancient gods
Upon their mountain-thrones
In that old glorious Grecian Heaven
Of regal zones.
A languor o'er their stately forms
May lie,
And a sorrow on their wide white brows,
King-dwellers of the sky!
But theirs is still that large imperial throng
Of starry thoughts and firm but quiet wills,
That murmured past the blind old King of Song,
When staring round him on the Thunderer's hills.

In the same:

... Still Love, sublime, shall wrap
His awful eyebrows in Olympian shrouds.
Or take along the Heaven's dark wilderness
His thunder-chase behind the hunted clouds.
And mortal eyes upturned shall behold
Apollo's robe of gold
Sweep through the long blue corridor of the sky
That, kindling, speaks its Deity:
And He, the Ruler of the Sunless Land
Of restless ghosts, shall fitfully illume
With smouldering fires, that stir in caverned eyes,
Hell's mournful House of Gloom.

In the Hymn to a Wind, Going Seaward:

Move on! Move on,
Wind of the wide wild West! Tell thou to all
The Isles, tell thou to all the Continents
The grandeur of my land! Speak of its vales
Where Independence wears a pastoral wreath
Amid the holy quiet of his flock;
And of its mountains with their cloudy beards
Tossed by the breath of centuries; and speak
Of its tall cataracts that roll their bass
Amid the choral of the midnight storms;
And of its rivers lingering through the plains
So long, that they seem made to measure time;
And of its lakes that mock the haughty sea;
And of its caves where banished gods might find
Night large enough to hide their crownless heads;
And of its sunsets broad and glorious there
O'er Prairies spread like endless oceans on--
And on--and on--over the far dim leagues
Till vision shudders o'er immensity.

In the same:

----Troubled France
Shall listen to thy calm deep voice, and learn
That Freedom must be calm if she would fix
Her mountain moveless in a heaving world.

In a Chant to the East:

Still! Oh still!
Despite of passion, sin, and ill,
Despite of all this weary world hath brought,
An angel band from Zion's holy hill
Walks gently through the open gate of Thought.
Oh, still! Oh, still!
Despite of passion, sin, and ill,
ONE in red vesture comes in sorrow's time--
ONE crowned with thorns from that far Orient clime,
Who pitying looks on me
And gently asks, "Poor man, what aileth thee?"

In the same:

The nations must forever turn to thee,
Feeling thy lustrous presence from afar;
And feed upon thy splendor as a sea
Feeds on the shining shadow of a star.

In Wordsworth:

And many a brook shall murmur in my verse;
And many an ocean join his cloudy bass;
And many a mountain tower aloft, whereon
The black storm crouches, with his deep-red eyes
Glaring upon the valleys stretch'd below;
And many a green wood rock the small, bright birds
To musical sleep beneath the large, full moon;
And many a star shall lift on high her cup
Of luminous cold chrysolite, set in gold
Chased subtilely over by angelic art;
To catch the odorous dews which poets drink
In their wide wanderings; and many a sun
Shall press the pale lips of the timorous morn
Couch'd in the bridal east: and over all
Will brood the visible presence of the ONE
To whom my life has been a solemn chant.

In the Last Words of Washington:

There is an awful stillness in the sky,
When after wondrous deeds and light supreme,
A star goes out in golden prophecy.
There is an awful stillness in the world,
When after wondrous deeds and light supreme,
Sceptres refused and forehead crowned with truth,
A Hero dies, with all the future clear
Before him, and his voice made jubilant
By coming glories, and his nation hushed,
As though they heard the farewell of a god.
A great man is to earth as God to Heaven.

In Greenwood Cemetery:

O, ye whose mouldering frames were brought and placed
By pious hands within these flowery slopes
And gentle hills, where are ye dwelling now?
For man is more than element! The soul
Lives in the body as the sunbeam lives
In trees or flowers that were but clay without.
Then where are ye, lost sunbeams of the mind?
Are ye where great Orion towers and holds
Eternity on his stupendous front?
Or where pale Neptune in the distant space
Shows us how far, in his creative mood,
With pomp of silence and concentred brows,
The Almighty walked? Or haply ye have gone
Where other matter roundeth into shapes
Of bright beatitude: Or do ye know
Aught of dull space or time, and its dark load
Of aching weariness?

Mr. Wallace is somewhat too much of a rhetorician, and he has a few defects of manner which, from this frequent repetition, he seems to regard as beauties. Peculiar phrases, of doubtful propriety, but which have a musical roll, occur in many of his poems, so that they become very prominent; this fault, however, belongs chiefly to his earlier pieces; the extracts we have given, we think will amply vindicate to the most critical judgments, the praise here awarded to him as a poet of singular and unusual powers, original, earnest, and in a remarkable degree _national_. It can scarcely be said of any of our bards that they have caught their inspiration more directly from observation and experience, or that their effusions, whatever the distinction they have in art, are more genuine in feeling.

AMERICA AS ABUSED BY A GERMAN.

Having made it a point to faithfully report all that is said of our country by foreign travellers or journalists, we deem it a duty to lay before our readers not only the more agreeable accounts given by those who have impartially examined our institutions and manners, but also the more prejudiced relations of those who, urged by interest or ill-nature, have sketched simply the darker and more irregular outlines. And we are the more induced to follow this course since we are fully convinced that it is productive of equal good with the former. We have--particularly to English eyes--appeared as a people who eagerly devour all that is said to our discredit, and at the same time fiercely repudiate the slightest insinuation that we in any thing fall short of perfection. As regards the latter, we shall content ourselves with remarking, that even the disposition to deny the existence of imperfection among us, redounds far more to our credit, than the complacent exaltation of our weaker points to virtues; while as to the former, we are certain that a higher feeling than mere nervous, sensitive vanity, induces in us the desire

"To see ourselves as others see us,"

since there is no nation which more readily avails itself of the remarks of others, even when by far too bitter or unjust to improve. True to our national character of youthfulness, we are ever ready to act on every hint. We are, _par excellence_, a _learning_ nation. Send even the _young_ Englishman on his continental tour, and the chances are ten to one that he returns with every prejudice strengthened, and his vanity increased. But the American--ductile as wax, evinces himself even at an advanced period of life, susceptible of improvement, yet firm in its retention. That we earnestly strive in every respect to improve is evident from many "little things" which foreigners ridicule. For instance, the habitual use of "fine language," and the attempt to clothe even our ordinary trains of thought in an elegant garb, which has been time and again cruelly ridiculed by Yankee goaders, is to a reflecting mind suggestive of commendation, from the very fact, that an attempt at least is made _to improve_. Better a thousand times the impulse to progress, even through the whirlwinds of hyperbole and inflated expression, than the heavy miasma of a patois, the lightest breath of which at once proclaims the cockney or provincial.

For the entertainment of those who are willing to live, laugh, and learn, we are induced to give our readers a few extracts from a recently published work, by a German, entitled, _Skizzen aus den Vereinigten Staaten von Nord Amerika: Von_ DR. A. KIRSTEN, (or, _Sketches of the United States of North America_, by Dr. A. KIRSTEN,) a work in which the author, after exhausting all the three-penny thunder of ignorant abuse, coolly informs his readers, that he has by no means represented things in their worst light. The American public at large are not aware that among the rulers of Germany, emigration to America is sternly yet anxiously discouraged. Rejoiced as they are to behold our country a receptacle for the sweepings of their prisons and _Fuchthaueser_, or houses of correction, they still gaze with an alarmed glance at the almost incredible "forth-wandering" which has at times depopulated entire villages, and borne with it an amount of wealth, which, trifling as it may appear to us, is in a land of economy and poverty of immense importance. The reader who judges of Germany by Great Britain and Ireland, is mistaken. That emigration which is to the government of the latter countries health and safety, brings to the former death and destruction. As a proof of this, we need only point to the tone of all the German papers which are in any manner connected with the interests of their respective courts. In all we find the old song: Depreciation of America, as far as applicable to the prevention of emigration. To accomplish this end, writers are hired and poets feed; remedies against emigration are proposed by political economists, and where possible, even clergymen are induced to persuade their flocks to nibble still in the ancient stubble, or among the same old barren rocks.

Dr. Kirsten, it would appear, is either a natural and habitual grumbler, or a paid hireling. If the former, we can only pity--if the latter, despise him. Could our voice be heard by his patrons, we would, however, advise them to employ a better grumbler--one who can wield lance and sword against his foes, instead of mops and muddy water. A weaker lancer, or more impotent and impudent abuser, has rarely appeared, even among our earlier English decriers.

Like many other weak-minded individuals, the Herr Doctor appears to have started under the fullest conviction that our country was, if not a true "_Schlaraffen Land_," or _Pays de Cocagne_, or Mahomet's Paradise, in which pigeons ready roasted fly to the mouth, at least a realized _Icarie_, or perfected Fourier-dom. All the books which he had read, relative to America, described it in glowing colors, and inclined his mind favorably toward it. Such was his faith in these books, or also so great his fear, that these glorious dreams might be dissipated, that he did not even ascertain or confirm their truth by the personal experience of those who had been there, and we are informed naively enough in the preface, that previous to his departure he had but once had an opportunity of conversing with an educated German, who had resided for a long time in America. Such weak heedlessness as this does not, to our ears at least, savor of the characteristic prudence and deliberation of the German, and strongly confirms us in the belief, that the doctor wandered forth well knowing what he was about--in other words, that he went his way with his opinions already cut and dried.

"After an eight weeks' voyage I arrived in New-York. It was at the end of August. Even in the vicinity of the Gulf Stream a terrible heat oppressed us, which increased as we approached land; but it was in that city that I became aware of what the heat in America really was. Many visits which I was obliged to make, caused during the day a cruel exhaustion, while at night I found no refreshment in slumber, partly because the heat was hardly diminished, and partly from the musquitoes, and to me unaccustomed alarms of fire, which were nightly repeated, from which I found that life in America was by no means so agreeable as I had been led to infer from books and popular report."