Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

"The monk, irritated by this bantering, begged Gretry to return
whence he came.--'Father,' retorted Gretry, 'have the
evangelists taught you this mode of bestowing alms, giving with
one hand and striking with the other?'--A low murmur was heard
through the hall; the monk not knowing what to say, complained
of the toothache; the cunning student lost no time, but running
up to him with an air of touching compassion, 'I am a surgeon,'
he said, as he forced him down on the bench. The monk tried to
push him off, but he held on well. 'It is Heaven which has
directed me to you, father.' Willing or not, the monk had to
open his mouth. 'Courage, father, the great saints were all
martyrs! the Saviour was crucified; and you may at least let me
pull out a tooth.' The monk struggled: 'Never, never!' he
exclaimed. The student turned with great coolness toward the
bystanders, who were all laughing in their sleeves. 'My
friends,' (he addressed crippled travellers, mountain-brigands,
and poor people of every class,) 'my friends, for the love of
God, who suffered, come and hold this good father: I do not
want him to suffer any longer!'

"The beggars understood the joke; four of them separated from
the group, and came to the surgeon's aid. The monk struggled
furiously, but it was no use to kick and scream; he had to
submit, Gretry was not the last to come to his friend's aid;
the malicious student seized the first tooth he got hold of,
and wrenched the head of the monk by a turn of his elbow, to
the great joy of the beggars, who saw themselves revenged in a
most opportune manner. 'Well, father, what do you think of it?'
asked Gretry, after the operation; 'I am sure you do not now
suffer at all!'--The monk shook with rage; the other monks
attracted by his cries, soon arrived, but it was too late."

The following is among the most touching of narratives. It is exquisitely delivered:

GRETRY'S THREE DAUGHTERS

"Gretry was therefore happy. Happy in his wife and children, in
his old mother, who had come to sanctify his house, with her
sweet and venerable face. Happy in fortune, happy in
reputation. The years passed quickly away! He was one day very
much astonished to learn that his daughter Jenny was fifteen.
Alas! a year afterward the poor child was no longer in the
family, neither was happiness. But for this sad history we must
return to the past. Gretry, during his sojourn at Rome, in the
spring-time of his life, was fond of seeking religious
inspiration in the garden of an almost deserted convent. He
observed one day, in the summer-house, an old monk of venerable
form, who was separating seeds with a meditative air, and at
the same time observing them with a microscope. The
absent-minded musician approached him in silence. 'Do you like
flowers?' the monk asked him. 'Very much,' 'At your age,
however, we only cultivate the flowers of life; the culture of
the flowers of earth is pleasing only to the man who has
fulfilled his task. It is then almost like cultivating his
recollection. The flowers recall the birth, the natal land, the
garden of the family, and what more? You know better than I who
have thrown to forgetfulness all worldly enjoyments!' 'I do not
see, father,' replied Gretry, 'why you separate these seeds
which seem to me to be all alike. 'Look through this
microscope, and see this black speck on those which I place
aside; but I wish to carry the horticultural lesson still
further.' He took a flower-pot, made six holes in the earth,
and planted three of the good seeds, and three of the spotted
ones. 'Recollect that the bad ones are on the side of the
crack, and when you come and take a walk, do not forget to
watch the stalks as they grow.'

"Gretry found a melancholy charm in returning frequently to the
garden of the convent. As he passed, he each time cast a glance
on the old flower-pot. The six stems at first shot up, each
equally verdant. The spotted seeds soon grew the longest, to
his great surprise. He was about to accuse the old monk of
having lost his wits; but what was afterwards his sorrow, when
he saw his three plants gradually fading away in their
spring-time! With each setting sun a leaf fell and dried up,
while the leaves of the other stems thrived more and more with
every breeze, every ray of the sun, every drop of dew. He went
to dream every day before his dear plants, with exceeding
sadness. He soon saw them wither away, even to the last leaf.
On the same day the others were in flower.

"This accident of nature was a cruel horoscope. Thirty years
afterward poor Gretry saw three other flowers alike fated, fade
and fall under the wintry wind of death. He had forgotten the
name of the flowers of the Roman convent, but in dying he still
repeated the names of the others. They were his three
daughters, Jenny, Lucile, and Antoinette. 'Ah!' exclaimed the
poor musician, in relating the death of his three daughters,
'I have violated the laws of nature to obtain genius. I have
watered with my blood the most frivolous of my operas, I have
nourished my old mother, I have seized on reputation by
exhausting my heart and my soul; Nature has avenged herself on
my children! My poor children, I foredoomed them to death!'

"Gretry's daughters all died at the age of sixteen. There is
something strange in their life and in their death, which
strikes the dreamer and the poet. This sport of destiny, this
freak of death, this vengeance of Nature, appears here invested
with all the charms of romance. You will see.

"Jenny had the pale, sweet countenance of a virgin. On seeing
her, Greuze said one day, 'If I ever paint Purity, I shall
paint Jenny.' 'Make haste!' murmured Gretry, already a prey to
sad presentiments. 'Then she is going to be married?' said
Greuze. Gretry did not answer. Soon, however, seeking to blind
himself, he continued: 'She will be the staff of my old age;
like Antigone, she will lead her father into the sun at the
decline of life.'

"The next day Gretry came unexpectedly upon Jenny, looking more
pale and depressed than ever. She was playing on the
harpischord, but sweetly and slowly. As she was playing an air
from _Richard Coeur-de-Lion_, in a melancholy strain, the
poor father fancied that he was listening to the music of
angels. One of her friends entered. 'Well, Jenny, you are going
to-night to the ball?' 'Yes, yes, to the ball,' answered poor
Jenny, looking toward heaven; and suddenly resuming, 'No, I
shall not go, my dance is ended.' Gretry pressed his daughter
to his heart, 'Jenny, are you suffering?' 'It is over!' said
she.

"She bent her head and died instantly, without a struggle! Poor
Gretry asked if she was asleep. She slept with the angels.

"Lucile was a contrast to Jenny; she was a beautiful girl, gay,
enthusiastic, and frolicksome, with all the caprices of such a
disposition. She was almost a portrait of her father, and
possessed, besides, the same heart and the same mind. 'Who
knows,' said poor Gretry, 'but that her gayety may save her.'
She was unfortunately one of those precocious geniuses who
devour their youth. At thirteen she had composed an opera which
was played every where, _Le Marriage d'Antonio_. A journalist,
a friend of Gretry, who one day found himself in Lucile's
apartment, without her being aware of it, so much was she
engrossed with her harp, has related the rage and madness which
transported her during her contests with inspiration, that was
often rebellious. 'She wept, she sang, she struck the harp with
incredible energy. She either did not see me, or took no notice
of me; for my own part, I wept with joy, in beholding this
little girl transported with so glorious a zeal, and so noble
an enthusiasm for music.'

"Lucile had learned to read music before she knew her alphabet.
She had been so long lulled to sleep with Gretry's airs, that
at the age when so many other young girls think only of hoops
and dolls, she had found sufficient music in her soul for the
whole of a charming opera. She was a prodigy. Had it not been
for death, who came to seize her at sixteen like her sister,
the greatest musician of the eighteenth century would, perhaps,
have been a woman. But the twig, scarcely green, snapped at the
moment when the poor bird commenced her song. Gretry had Lucile
married at the solicitation of his friends. 'Marry her, marry
her,' they incessantly repeated; 'if Love has the start of
Death, Lucile is safe.' Lucile suffered herself to be married
with the resignation of an angel, foreseeing that the marriage
would not be of long duration. She suffered herself to be
married to one of those artists of the worst order, who have
neither the religion of art nor the fire of genius, and who
have still less heart, for the heart is the home of genius. The
poor Lucile saw at a glance the desert to which her family had
exiled her. She consoled herself with a harp and a harpsichord;
but her husband, who had been brought up like a slave, cruelly
took delight, with a coward's vengeance, in making her feel all
the chains of Hymen. She would have died, like Jenny, on her
father's bosom, amidst her loving family, after having sung her
farewell song; but thanks to this barbarous fellow, she died in
his presence, that is to say, alone. At the hour of her death,
'Bring me my harp!' said she, raising herself a little. 'The
doctor has forbidden it,' said this savage. She cast a bitter,
yet a suppliant look upon him. 'But as I am dying!' said she.
'You will die very well without that.' She fell back on her
pillow. 'My poor father,' murmured she, 'I wished to bid you
adieu on my harp; but here I am not free except to die!'
Lucile, it is the nurse who related the scene, suddenly
extended her arms, called Jenny with a broken voice, and fell
asleep like her for ever.

"Antoinette was sixteen. She was fair and smiling like the
morn, but she was fated to die like the others. Gretry prayed
and wept, as he saw her growing pale; but death was not stopped
so easily. _Cruel that he is, he stops his ears, there is no
use to pray to him!_ Gretry, however, still hoped. 'God,' said
he, 'will be touched by my thrice bitter tears.' He almost
abandoned music, in order to have more time to consecrate to
his dear Antoinette. He anticipated all her fancies, dresses,
and ornaments, books and excursions,--in a word, she enjoyed to
her heart's desire every pleasure the world could afford. At
each new toy she smiled with that divine smile which seems
formed for heaven. Gretry succeeded in deceiving himself; but
she one day revealed to him all her ill-fortune in these words,
which accidentally escaped from her: 'My godmother died on the
scaffold: she was a godmother of bad augury, Jenny died at
sixteen, Lucile died at sixteen, and I am now sixteen myself.'
The godmother of Antoinette was the queen Maria Antoinette.

"Another day, Antoinette was meditating over a pink at the
window. On seeing her with this flower in her hand, Gretry
imagined that the poor girl was suffering herself to be carried
away by a dream of love. It was the dream of death! He soon
heard Antoinette murmur; '_I shall die this spring, this
summer, this autumn, this winter!_' She was at the last leaf.
'So much the worse,' she said; 'I should like the autumn
better.' 'What do you say, my dear angel?' said Gretry,
pressing her to his heart. 'Nothing, nothing! I was playing
with death; why do you not let the children play?'

"Gretry thought that a southern journey would be a beneficial
change; he took his daughter to Lyons, where she had friends.
For a short time she returned to her gay and careless manner.
Gretry went to work again, and finished _Guillaume Tell_. He
went every morning, in search of inspiration, to the chamber of
his daughter, who said to him one day, on awaking: 'Your music
has always the odor of a poem; this will have that of wild
thyme.'

"Towards autumn, she again lost her natural gayety. Gretry took
his wife aside--'You see your daughter,' said he to her. At
this single word, an icy shudder seized both. They shed a
torrent of tears. The same day they thought of returning to
Paris. 'So we are to go back to Paris', said Antoinette; 'it is
well. I shall rejoin there those whom I love.' She spoke of her
sisters. After reaching Paris, the poor, fated girl concealed
all the ravages of death with care; her heart was sad, but her
lips were smiling. She wished to conceal the truth from her
father to the end. One day, while she was weeping and hiding
her tears, she said to him with an air of gayety: 'You know
that I am going to the ball to-morrow, and I want to appear
well-dressed there. I want a pearl necklace, and shall look for
it when I wake up to-morrow morning.'

"She went to the ball. As she set out with her mother, Rouget
Delisle, a musician more celebrated at that time than Gretry,
said rapturously: 'Ah, Gretry, you are a happy man! What a
charming girl! what sweetness and grace!' 'Yes,' said Gretry,
in a whisper, 'she is beautiful and still more amiable; she is
going to the ball, but in a few weeks we shall follow her
together to the cemetery!' 'What a horrible idea! You are
losing your senses!' 'Would I were not losing my heart! I had
three daughters; she is the only left to me, but already I must
weep for her!'

"A few days after this ball, she took to her bed, and fell into
a sad but beautiful delirium. She had found her sisters again
in this world; she walked with them hand in hand; she waltzed
in the same saloon; she danced in the same quadrille; she took
them to the play: all the while recounting to them her
imaginary loves. What a picture for Gretry! 'She had,' he says
in his _Memoirs_, some serene moments before death.--She took
my hand, and that of her mother, and with a sweet smile, 'I see
well,' she murmured, 'that we must bear our destiny; I do not
fear death; but what is to become of you two?' She was propped
up by her pillow while she spoke with us for the last time. She
was laid back, then closed her beautiful eyes, and went to join
her sisters!

"Gretry is very eloquent in his grief. There Is in this part of
his Memoirs a cry which came from his heart, and wrings our
own. 'Oh, my friends,' he exclaims, throwing down the pen, 'a
tear, a tear upon the beloved tomb of my three lovely flowers,
predestined to die, like those of the good Italian monk.'"

A MODEL TRAVELLER.

One of the most readable of living travellers is certainly our own BAYARD TAYLOR, who is now somewhere in the interior of the African continent, and whose letters in the _Tribune_ are every where perused with the greatest satisfaction. Worthy to be named along with him is the German, FREDERICK GERSTAeCKER, whose adventures form one of the most interesting features in that cyclopediac journal, the Augsburg _Allgemeine Zeitung_. It is now some two years since Gerstaecker set out upon his present explorations. The backwoods of the United States furnished a broad field for his love of a wild and changeful life, and gave full play to his passion for the study of human character in all its out of the way phases. His accounts of these regions were touched with the most vivid colors; not Cooper nor Irving has more truly reproduced the grand and savage features of American scenery, or the reckless generous daring of the rude backwoodsman, than Gerstaecker, writing, from some chance hut, his nocturnal landing place on the shore of some mighty river in Nebraska or Arkansas. Next we hear of him in South America, and then in California, passing a winter among the miners of the remotest districts, digging gold, hunting, trafficking, fighting in case of need like the rest, and every where sending home the most lively daguerreotypes of the country, the people, and his own adventures among them. Finally, having seen all that was in California, he takes passage for the Sandwich Islands, where he remains long enough to exhaust all the romance remaining, and to gather every sort of useful information. From there he set out upon an indefinite voyage on board of a whaler going to the Southern seas in search of oil. Chance, however, brings him up at Australia: and he at once sets about travelling through the settled portions of the Continent, taking the luck of the day every where with exhaustless good humour, and never getting low spirited, no matter how untoward the mishaps encountered. Less elegant and poetic than Taylor, he dashes ahead with a more perfect indifference to consequences, and a more utter reliance on coming out all right in the end. In his last letter, he gives an account of a voyage in a canoe from Albury, on the upper waters of Hume River, down to Melbourne, at its mouth. He had got out of funds, and was thus obliged to set out on this route contrary to the advice of the settlers at Albury, who represented to him that the danger of being killed and eaten by the natives along shore, who had never come in contact with whites, was inevitable, and that they would be sure to destroy him before he reached his destination. This was, however, only an additional inducement to the trip. While making preparations for it, he fell in with a young fellow-countryman in the settlement, who desired to make the same journey, and who was willing to encounter the risks of the river rather than pay the heavy expenses of the trip by land. They accordingly proceeded to dig a canoe out of a caoutchouc tree, furnished themselves with paddles, a frying-pan, blankets, some crackers, sugar, salt, tea, and powder, and embarked. The river was shallow, and full of windings and sandbanks, sunken caoutchouc trees had planted the stream with frequent snags, and often heavy masses of fallen timber, still adhering to the earth at its roots, and thus preserving its vitality, and flourishing with all the luxuriance of a primitive tropical forest, covered the only part of the channel where the water was deep enough to admit of the passage of their canoe. Thus they toiled on day by day, often getting out into the water to help their vessel over shallows, or to pick up the ducks that Gerstaecker shot, which furnished the only meat for their daily meals. Cloudy or fair, cold or warm, rain or sunshine, found Gerstaecker still in the same flow of spirits, and the notes of his daily experiences show him bearing ill-luck almost as gaily as good. After they had gone some 400 miles, however, their journey by the river came to a sudden end by the oversetting of their canoe, and the loss of almost all their equipments. Gerstaecker saved his rifle and the ammunition that was upon his person; but the remaining powder was spoiled, and the provisions and part of the blankets and clothing were carried away by the current. The canoe sunk, but by holding upon the rope as they jumped out upon the overhanging trunks of trees, the voyagers succeeded in dragging it up again, and freeing it from water. Then one of them dived to the bottom, and managed to bring up the frying-pan and tea-canister. They also recovered part of their blankets, and then, with the frying-pan for their sole paddle, renewed their voyage till they found a good camping-place, where they built a roaring fire to dry themselves, and finally discovered that in the operations of the day each had utterly ruined his shoes, so that they were afterwards forced to go barefoot. In this way they continued for some days, paddling with their frying-pan, and going ashore to get a duck occasionally shot by Gerstaecker. This was often exceedingly painful, from the stubble of the grass along the banks, burnt over by fires accidentally set by the natives. Luckily, through the whole they did not come in contact with the savages at all. At last they reached a settlement, where they swapped their canoe for a couple pair of shoes, and started on foot for the rest of the way. Gerstaecker had for some time desired to get rid of his companion, who was wilful, and by no means a helper in their difficulties. They now came to Woolshed, a place 180 miles distant from Melbourne, whence there were two roads to their destination; the one was perfectly free from the savages, the other was dangerous. Here Gerstaecker separated from his companion, giving him the safe road, and, with his rifle on his arm and his knapsack slung upon his shoulders, struck off alone into the forest-path light-hearted as a boy, and sure, whatever might happen, of enjoying a fresher and healthier excitement in that journey through the woods of Australia than the dwellers in crowded cities enjoy in all their lives.

A MYSTERIOUS HISTORY.

Paris, says the _Independence Belge_, the leading journal of Brussels, is now occupied not with politics so much as with ghost stories. At the theatres, the _Vampyre_ and the _Imagier de Harlaem_, feed this appetite for supernatural horrors. Among other incidents of that kind, says the _Independance_, the following narrative was told to the company in the _salon_ of an aristocratic Polish lady by the Comte de R----. He had promised to tell a recent adventure with an inhabitant of the other world, and when the clock struck midnight he began, while his auditors gathered around him in breathless attention. His story we translate for the _International_:--

At the beginning of last December, one of his friends, the Marquis de N., came to see him. "You know, Count," said the Marquis, "what an invincible repugnance I feel against returning to my chateau in Normandy, where I had last summer the misfortune to lose my wife. But I left there in a writing desk some important papers, which now happen to be indispensable in a matter of family business. Here is the key; do me the kindness to go and get the papers, for so delicate a mission I can only intrust to you." M. de R. agreed to the request of his friend, and set out the following day. He stopped at a station on the Rouen railroad, whence a drive of two hours brought him to his friend's house. He stopped before it, and a gardener came out and spoke with him through the latticed iron gate, which he did not open. The Count was surprised at this distrust, which even a card of admission from the proprietor of the chateau did not overcome. Finally, after a brief absence, which seemed to have been employed in seeking the advice of some one within, the gardener came back and opened the gate. When the Count entered the court-yard he saw that the blinds on the hundred windows of the chateau were all closed, with one exception, where the blind had fallen off and lay upon the ground. As he afterwards discovered, this window was exactly in the middle of the chamber where his commission was to be executed.

The Count's attention had been excited by his singular reception, and he carefully observed every thing. He noticed a small stove-pipe leading into a chimney. "Is the house inhabited?" he inquired. "No," replied the gardener, gruffly, as he opened a door upon a side stairway, which he mounted before the Count, opening at each story the little apertures for light in the queer old fashioned front of the chateau.

In the third story, the gardener stopped, and pointing to a door, said, "There." And without adding a word he turned about and went down stairs. The Count opened the door and found himself in a dark ante-chamber. The light from the stairway was sufficient, however, for him to distinguish a second door, which he opened, and through which he went into the apartment lighted from the window whence the blind had fallen. The appearance of the room was cold, bare, and deserted. On the floor stood a vacant bird-cage. The writing-desk indicated to the Count by his friend, stood directly opposite the window. Without further delay, the Count went directly up to the desk and opened it.

As he turned the key, the lock creaked very loudly, but at the same moment he was aware of another and a different sound--that of a door opening. The Count turns, and in the centre of an obscure side-room, whose door was open, he sees a white figure, with its arms stretched toward him.

"Count!" exclaims a low but most expressive voice, "you come to rob me of Theodore's letters? Why?"

(Theodore is not the name of the proprietor of the chateau, at whose request the Count had come.)

"Madame!" exclaims M. de R., "who are you?"

"Do you not know me, much as I must be altered?"

"The Marchioness!" exclaims the Count, astounded and even terrified.

"Yes, it is me. We were friends once, and now you come to add terribly to my sufferings! Who sends you? My husband? What does he yet desire? In mercy leave me the letters!"

While she said this, the figure made signs to the Count to come nearer. He obeyed, forcing from his mind every suggestion that the apparition was supernatural, and finally convinced that the Marchioness stood before him living, under some strange mystery. He followed her into the second room.

She was dressed in a robe, or more properly, a shroud of a gray color. Her beautiful hair, which had for years been the envy of all other women, fell in disorder upon her shoulders. The vague light, which came in from the adjoining room, was just enough for the Count to remark the extraordinary thinness and deathly pallor of the Marchioness.

Hardly had he come near her, when she said to him, quickly, almost with vehemence:

"I suffer from incredible pains in my head. The cause is in my hair,--for eight months it has not been combed. Count, do me this service--comb it!"

After she had sat down, she reached a comb to M. de R., who involuntarily obeyed her. She did not speak again, and he did not dare to. As he confesses, he was greatly agitated. Without doubt he performed his office of waiting-maid badly, for from time to time the lady uttered a slight murmur of complaint.

Suddenly she rose, said "Merci!" and vanished in the gloom at the end of the chamber. The Count waited a few moments, vainly stretching his senses, but saw and heard nothing more. Then he resolved to return into the first room. When his eyes fell upon the writing-desk, he perceived that its contents were in the greatest confusion. However, he found the family papers that he had been sent for. After he had closed the desk again he waited a few moments; he called, but there was no answer. Finally he went down stairs, and as he said himself, with steps that did not linger.

There was no one in the court-yard. Before the iron gate was the coachman ready to start. M. de R. saw no reason for tarrying longer. On the returning way, as he was seeking to collect his thoughts upon the strange event in the chateau, he perceived that his clothes were covered with the Marchioness's hair.

He stopped at Rouen, and two days after returned to Paris. It was the third of December. He sought for the Marquis, but could not find him. It is now thought he must have fallen in the firing on the Boulevard Montmartre, where his club is situated.

Such is the narrative which M. de R. had promised to tell in the _salon_ of the old Polish lady, where he was waited for till midnight. He came just as the company were about separating, and showed the hairs of the Marchioness. One of them lies on the table before me.

EDWARD EVERETT AND DANIEL WEBSTER.

The some time expected new edition of _The Speeches, Forensic Arguments, and Diplomatic Papers_ of DANIEL WEBSTER, has just appeared, in six large and beautifully printed volumes, from the press of Little & Brown, of Boston. The editorial supervision of the work was undertaken by EDWARD EVERETT, who has prefixed to the first volume a brief memoir of the illustrious statesman, orator, and author, from the beginning and the end of which we copy a few important paragraphs. Respecting the past and present collections of these great compositions, Mr. Everett says:

"The first collection of Mr. Webster's speeches in the Congress
of the United States and on various public occasions, was
published in Boston in one volume octavo, in 1830. This volume
was more than once reprinted, and in 1835 a second volume was
published, containing the speeches made up to that time, and
not included in the first collection. Several impressions of
these two volumes were called for by the public. In 1843 a
third volume was prepared, containing a selection from the
speeches of Mr. Webster from the year 1835 till his entrance
into the cabinet of General Harrison. In the year 1848 appeared
a fourth volume of diplomatic papers, containing a portion of
Mr. Webster's official correspondence as Secretary of State.
The great favor with which these volumes' have been received
throughout the country, and the importance of the subjects
discussed in the Senate of the United States after Mr.
Webster's return to that body in 1845, have led his friends to
think that a valuable service would be rendered to the
community by bringing together his speeches of a later date
than those contained in the third volume of the former
collection, and on political subjects arising since that time.
Few periods of our history will be entitled to be remembered by
events of greater moment, such as the admission of Texas to the
Union, the settlement of the Oregon controversy, the Mexican
war, the acquisition of California and other Mexican provinces,
and the exciting questions which have grown out of the sudden
extension of the territory of the United States. Rarely have
public discussions been carried on with greater earnestness,
with more important consequences visibly at stake, or with
greater ability. The speeches made by Mr. Webster in the
Senate, and on public occasions of various kinds, during the
progress of these controversies, are more than sufficient to
fill two new volumes. The opportunity of their collection has
been taken by the enterprising publishers, in compliance with
opinions often expressed by the most respectable individuals,
and with a manifest public demand, to bring out a new edition
of Mr. Webster's speeches in uniform style. Such is the object
of the present publication. The first two volumes contain the
speeches delivered by him on a great variety of public
occasions, commencing with his discourse at Plymouth in
December, 1820. Three succeeding volumes embrace the greater
part of the speeches delivered in the Massachusetts Convention
and in the two houses of Congress, beginning with the speech on
the Bank of the United States in 1816. The sixth and last
volume contains the legal arguments and addresses to the jury,
the diplomatic papers, and letters addressed to various persons
on important political questions.

"The collection does not embrace the entire series of Mr.
Webster's writings. Such a series would have required a larger
number of volumes than was deemed advisable with reference to
the general circulation of the work. A few juvenile
performances have accordingly been omitted, as not of
sufficient importance or maturity to be included in the
collection. Of the earlier speeches in Congress, some were
either not reported at all, or in a manner too imperfect to be
preserved without doing injustice to the author. No attempt has
been made to collect from the cotemporaneous newspapers or
Congressional registers, the short conversational speeches and
remarks made by Mr. Webster, as by other members of Congress,
in the progress of debate, and sometimes exercising greater
influence on the result than the set speeches. Of the addresses
to public meetings it has been found impossible to embrace more
than a selection, without swelling the work to an unreasonable
size. It is believed, however, that the contents of these
volumes furnish a fair specimen of Mr. Webster's opinions and
sentiments on all the subjects treated, and of his manner of
discussing them. The responsibility of deciding what should be
omitted and what included, has been left by Mr. Webster to the
friends having the charge of the publication, and his own
opinion on details of this kind has rarely been taken."

This incompleteness, we think, will be regretted by all the parties most deeply interested, as well as by the public generally. Mr. Webster does not often repeat himself, and no man who has said or written so much has said or written so little that is undeserving a place in literature or in history. The next paragraph introduces us to Mr. Webster's birthplace, and to his father:

"The interval between the peace of 1763 and the breaking out of
the war of the Revolution, was one of excitement and anxiety
throughout the Colonies. The great political questions of the
day were not only discussed in the towns and cities, but in the
villages and hamlets. Captain Webster took a deep interest in
those discussions. Like so many of the officers and soldiers of
the former war, he obeyed the first call to arms in the new
struggle. He commanded a company chiefly composed of his own
townspeople, friends, and kindred, who followed him through the
greater portion of the war. He was at the battle of White
Plains, and was at West Point when the treason of Arnold was
discovered. He acted as a Major under Stark at Bennington, and
contributed his share to the success of that eventful day. In
the last year of the Revolutionary war on the 18th of January,
1782, Daniel Webster was born, in the home which his father had
established on the outskirts of civilization. If the character
and situation of the place, and the circumstances under which
he passed the first year of his life, might seem adverse to the
early cultivation of his extraordinary talent, it still cannot
be doubted that they possessed influences favorable to
elevation and strength of character. The hardships of an infant
settlement and border life, the traditions of a long series of
Indian wars, and of two mighty national contests, in which an
honored parent had borne his part, the anecdotes of Fort
William Henry, of Quebec, of Bennington, of West Point, of
Wolfe, and Stark, and Washington, the great Iliad and Odyssey
of American Independence,--this was the fireside entertainment
of the long winter evenings of the secluded village home.
Abroad, the uninviting landscape, the harsh and craggy outlines
of the hills broken and relieved only by the funereal hemlock
and the 'cloud-seeking' pine, the lowlands traversed in every
direction by unbridged streams, the tall, charred trunks in the
cornfields, that told how stern had been the struggle with the
boundless woods, and, at the close of the year, the dismal
scene which presents itself in high latitudes in a thinly
settled region, when

'The snows descend; and, foul and fierce,
All winter drives along the darkened air'--

these are circumstances to leave an abiding impression on the
mind of a thoughtful child, and induce an early maturity of
character."

Of his early professional life, and of some of his contemporaries, Mr. Everett says:

"Immediately on his admission to the bar, Mr. Webster went to
Amherst, in New Hampshire, where his father's court was in
session; from that place he went home with his father. He had
intended to establish himself at Portsmouth, which, as the
largest town and the seat of the foreign commerce of the State,
opened the widest field for practice. But filial duty kept him
nearer home. His father was now infirm from the advance of
years, and had no other son at home. Under these circumstances
Mr. Webster opened an office at Boscawen not far from his
father's residence, and commenced the practice of the law in
this retired spot. Judge Webster lived but a year after his
son's entrance upon the practice of his profession; long
enough, however, to hear his first argument in court, and to be
gratified with the confident predictions of his future success.

"In May, 1807, Mr. Webster was admitted an attorney and
counsellor of the Superior Court in New Hampshire, and in
September of that year, relinquishing his office in Boscawen to
his Brother Ezekiel, he removed to Portsmouth, in conformity
with his original intention. Here he remained in the practice
of his profession for nine successive years. They were years of
assiduous labor, and of unremitted devotion to the study and
practice of the law. He was associated with several persons of
great eminence, citizens of New Hampshire or of Massachusetts,
occasionally practising at the Portsmouth bar. Among the latter
were Samuel Dexter and Joseph Storey; of the residents of New
Hampshire, Jeremiah Mason was the most distinguished.

"During the greater part of Mr. Webster's practice of the law
in New Hampshire, Jeremiah Smith was Chief Justice of the
state, a learned and excellent judge, whose biography has been
written by the Rev. John H. Morrison, and will well repay
perusal. Judge Smith was an early and warm friend of Judge
Webster, and this friendship descended to the son, and glowed
in his breast with fervor till he went to his grave. Although
dividing with Mr. Mason the best of the business of Portsmouth,
and indeed of all the eastern portion of the State, Mr.
Webster's practice was mostly on the circuit. He followed the
Superior Court through the principal counties of the state, and
was retained in nearly every important cause. It is mentioned
by Mr. March, as a somewhat singular fact in his professional
life, that, with the exception of the occasions on which he has
been associated with the Attorney-General of the United States
for the time being, he has hardly appeared ten times as junior
counsel. Within the sphere in which he was placed, he may be
said to have risen at once to the head of his profession; not,
however, like Erskine and some other celebrated British
lawyers, by one and the same bound, at once to fame and
fortune. The American bar holds forth no such golden prizes,
certainly not in the smaller states. Mr. Webster's practice in
New Hampshire, though probably as good as that of any of his
contemporaries, was never lucrative. Clients were not very
rich, nor the concerns litigated such as would carry heavy
fees. Although exclusively devoted to his profession, it
afforded him no more than a bare livelihood. But the time for
which he practised at the New Hampshire bar was probably not
lost with reference to his future professional and political
eminence. His own standard of legal attainment was high. He was
associated with professional brethren fully competent to put
his powers to their best proof, and to prevent him from
settling down in early life into an easy routine of ordinary
professional practice. It was no disadvantage under these
circumstances (except in reference to immediate pecuniary
benefit), to enjoy some portion of that leisure for general
reading, which is almost wholly denied to the lawyer of
commanding talents, who steps immediately into full practice in
a large city."

The memoir, which extends through nine chapters, comprising a survey of the intellectual and political life of Mr. Webster, down to the last year, ends as follows:

"Such, in a brief and imperfect narrative, is the public life
of Mr. Webster, extending over a period of forty years, marked
by the occurrence of events of great importance. It has been
the aim of the writer to prevent the pen of the biographer from
being too much influenced by the partiality of the friend.
Should he seem to the candid not wholly to have escaped that
error, (which, however, he trusts will not be the case,) he
ventures to hope that it will be forgiven to an intimacy which
commenced in the youth of one of the parties and the boyhood of
the other, and which has subsisted for nearly half a century.
It will be admitted, he thinks, by every one, that this career,
however inadequately delineated, has been one of singular
eminence and brilliancy. Entering upon public life at the close
of the first epoch in the political history of the United
States under the present Constitution, Mr. Webster has stood
below none of the distinguished men who have impressed their
character on the second.

"There is a class of public questions in reference to which the
opinions of most men are greatly influenced by prejudices
founded in natural temperament, early associations, and real or
supposed local interest. As far as such questions are
concerned, it is too much to hope that, in times of high party
excitement, full justice will be done to prominent statesmen by
those of their contemporaries who differ from them. We greatly
err, however, if candid men of all parties, and in all parts of
the country, do not accord to Mr. Webster the praise of having
formed to himself a large and generous view of the character of
an American statesman, and of having adopted the loftiest
standard of public conduct. They will agree that he has
conceived, in all its importance, the position of the country
as a member of the great family of nations, and as the leading
republican government. In reference to domestic politics it
will be as generally conceded, that, reposing less than most
public men on a party basis, it has been the main object of his
life to confirm and perpetuate the great work of the
constitutional fathers of the last generation. By their wisdom
and patriotic forethought we are blessed with a system in which
the several states are brought into a union so admirably
composed and balanced,--both complicated and kept distinct with
such skill,--as to seem less a work of human prudence than of
Providential interposition. Mr. Webster has at all times been
fully aware of the evils of anarchy, discord, and civil war at
home, and of utter national insignificance abroad, from which
the formation of the Union saved us. He has been not less
sensible to the obstacles to be overcome, the perils to be
encountered, and the sufferings to be borne, before this
wonderful framework of government could be established. And he
has been persuaded that, if destroyed, it can never be
reconstructed. With these views, his life has been consecrated
to the maintenance in all their strength of the principles on
which the Constitution rests, and to the support of the system
created by it.

"The key to his whole political course is the belief that, when
the Union is dissolved, the internal peace, the vigorous
growth, and the prosperity of the states, and the welfare of
their inhabitants, are blighted for ever, and that, while the
Union endures, all else of trial and calamity which can befall
a nation may be remedied or borne. So believing, he has pursued
a course which has earned for him an honored name among those
who have discharged the duty of good citizens with the most
distinguished ability, zeal, and benefit to the country. In the
relations of civilized life, there is no higher service which
man can render to man, than thus to preserve a wise
constitution of government in healthful action. Nor does the
most eloquent of the statesmen of antiquity content himself
with pronouncing this the highest human merit. In that
admirable treatise on the Republic, of which some precious
chapters have been restored to us after having been lost for
ages, he does not hesitate to affirm, that there is nothing in
which human virtue approaches nearer the divine, than in
establishing and preserving states."

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

Miss Mitford, in her pleasant _Reminiscences of a Literary Life_, gives the following sketch of this charming poetess:

"My first acquaintance with Elizabeth Barrett commenced about
fifteen years ago. She was certainly one of the most
interesting persons that I had ever seen. Every body who then
saw her said the same; so that it is not merely the impression
of my partiality or my enthusiasm. Of a slight, delicate
figure, with a shower of dark curls falling on either side of a
most expressive face, large, tender eyes, richly fringed by
dark eyelashes, a smile like a sunbeam, and such a look of
youthfulness that I had some difficulty in persuading a friend,
in whose carriage we went together to Chiswick, that the
translatress of the 'Prometheus' of AEschylus, the authoress of
the 'Essay on Mind,' was old enough to be introduced into
company, in technical language, 'was out.' Through the kindness
of another invaluable friend, to whom I owe many obligations,
but none so great as this, I saw much of her during my stay in
town. We met so constantly and so familiarly that, in spite of
the difference of age, intimacy ripened into friendship, and
after my return into the country, we corresponded freely and
frequently, her letters being just what letters ought to
be--her own talk put upon paper.

"The next year was a painful one to herself and to all who
loved her. She broke a blood-vessel upon the lungs, which did
not heal. If there had been consumption in the family, that
disease would have intervened. There were no seeds of the fatal
English malady in her constitution, and she escaped. Still,
however, the vessel did not heal, and after attending her for
above a twelvemonth at her father's house in Wimpole street,
Dr. Chambers, on the approach of winter, ordered her to a
milder climate. Her eldest brother, a brother in heart and
talent worthy of such a sister, together with other devoted
relatives, accompanied her to Torquay, and there occurred the
fatal event which saddened her bloom of youth, and gave a
deeper hue of thought and feeling, especially of devotional
feeling, to her poetry. I have so often been asked what could
be the shadow that had passed over that young heart, that, now
that time has softened the first agony, it seems to me right
that the world should hear the story of an accident in which
there much sorrow, but no blame.

"Nearly a twelvemonth had passed, and the invalid, still
attended by her affectionate companions, had derived much
benefit from the mild sea-breezes of Devonshire. One fine
summer morning, her favorite brother, together with two other
fine young men, his friends, embarked on board a small
sailing-vessel for a trip of a few hours. Excellent sailors
all, and familiar with the coast, they sent back the boatmen,
and undertook themselves the management of the little craft.
Danger was not dreamt of by any one; after the catastrophe, no
one could divine the cause, but, in a few minutes after their
embarkation, and in sight of their very windows, just as they
were crossing the bar, the boat went down, and all who were in
her perished. Even the bodies were never found. I was told by a
party who were travelling that year in Devonshire and Cornwall,
that it was most affecting to see on the corner houses of every
village street, on every church door, and almost on every cliff
for miles and miles along the coast, handbills, offering large
rewards for linen cast ashore, marked with the initials of the
beloved dead; for it so chanced that all the three were of the
dearest and the best; one, I believe, an only son, the other
the son of a widow.

"This tragedy nearly killed Elizabeth Barrett. She was utterly
prostrated by the horror and the grief, and by a natural but a
most unjust feeling that she had been, in some sort, the cause
of this great misery. It was not until the following year that
she could be removed, in an invalid carriage, and by journeys
of twenty miles a day, to her afflicted family and her London
home. The house that she occupied at Torquay had been chosen as
one of the most sheltered in the place. It stood at the bottom
of the cliffs, almost close to the sea; and she told me herself
that during that whole winter the sound of the waves rang in
her ears like the moans of one dying. Still she clung to
literature and to Greek; in all probability she would have died
without that wholesome diversion of her thoughts. Her medical
attendant did not always understand this. To prevent the
remonstrances of her friendly physician, Dr. Barry, she caused
a small edition of Plato to be so bound as to resemble a novel.
He did not know, skilful and kind though he were, that to her,
such books were not an arduous and painful study, but a
consolation and a delight. Returned to London, she began the
life which she continued for so many years, confined to one
large and commodious but darkened chamber, admitting only her
own affectionate family and a few devoted friends (I, myself,
have often joyfully travelled five-and-forty miles to see her,
and returned the same evening without entering another house),
reading almost every book worth reading in almost every
language, and giving herself, heart and soul, to that poetry of
which she seemed born to be the priestess. Gradually her health
improved. About four years ago she married Mr. Browning, and
immediately accompanied him to Pisa. They then settled at
Florence; and this summer I have had the exquisite pleasure of
seeing her once more in London with a lovely boy at her knee,
almost as well as ever, and telling tales of Italian rambles,
of losing herself in chestnut forests, and scrambling on
mule-back up the sources of extinct volcanoes. May Heaven
continue to her such health and such happiness!"

THE HAPPINESS OF OYSTERS.

The last _Westminster Review_ contains a pleasant scientific article under the title of "Shell Fish, their Ways and Works," in which the subject so much debated lately, whether the lower orders of animals are capable of reason, has some new and amusing illustrations. Generous and honestly disposed lovers of good dinners will be gratified with the notion that _oysters_ receive as well as communicate a degree of happiness. The reviewer treats the subject in the following luminous manner: