Chapter TWENTY-SEVEN (1)

In a small room, containing a box-bedstead, a single chair, and a common wooden table, on which was a pitcher of water, sat Michael Rust. The heavy iron bars which grated the windows, and the doors of thick oaken plank, secured by strong bolts of iron, indicated beyond a doubt the nature of his abode--a prison. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, with his arms resting on the table, which was drawn close to it, and his head leaning upon them. At times he straightened himself up, looked listlessly about the room, and then resumed his old position.

A key turned in the door; the heavy bolt was drawn back, and a head was thrust in.

'Some one wants to see you. Shall he come in?'

'Yes.'

The head was withdrawn, and the door being opened, admitted no less a person than Mr. Kornicker, somewhat faded in appearance since we last saw him, but still wearing an air of dashing pretension. He stood at the door, shaking his head, winking to himself, and fumbling in his pocket, evidently in a state of great mental perplexity, probably from his entertaining doubts as to what would be the character of his reception; or from his being equally uncertain as to the best mode of opening the conversation. Nor was he at all relieved by Rust, who without moving, fastened his eye upon him with a cold, steadfast stare.

Kornicker, however, seemed to have fixed upon his course of action at last; for he walked up to him, and stretching out his hand, said:

'Wont you give us your flipper, my old fellow? You're in trouble, but I'll stand by you to the last. If I don't, damme!' He struck his other hand on the table, and nodded and winked with great vehemence.

'So there is yet one who has not turned his back on the felon,' said Rust, partly addressing Kornicker and partly speaking to himself; 'one true man; a rare thing in this world; a jewel--a jewel, beyond all price; and like all costly stones, found only in the poorest soils; but,' added he, 'what have _I_ done to gain friends, or to link one solitary heart to my fortunes?--what?'

He shook his head; and although his face was unmoved, and he spoke in the low, half-soliloquizing manner of one who rather brooded over the past than regretted it, yet there was something so sad in his tone, and in his melancholy gesture, that it did more to call forth the warm feelings of Kornicker than the most eloquent language.

'What have you done?' demanded he, earnestly; 'I'll _tell_ you what you did. When I was at low water mark, with scarce a rag to my back or a crust to my stomach, and without a prospect of getting one, you took me by the hand, and in a d----d gentlemanly way gave me a h'ist out of the gutter. _That's_ what you did; and if you _did_ flare up now and then, and haul me over the coals; it was soon over, and soon forgotten. I don't bear malice, old fellow; no, no. It isn't my way; and as you're in trouble now, if I _can_ help you, I _will_. Never desert any one; am unfortunately bloody short of cash; but you can have what I've got, and when I get more, you shall have _that_ too.'

As he spoke, he plunged his hand to the bottom of his pocket, drew out a very shabby-looking pocket-book, deposited it on the table.

'It isn't much; but you'll find it useful here, and you're welcome to it. This isn't the shop where nothing put out at interest produces a heavy income.'

This offer had a powerful effect upon Rust; and it seemed as if some long dormant feelings were working their way to the surface from the depths of his heart. He gazed earnestly at his clerk, and once or twice opened his mouth to speak; but finally he got up, and taking the pocket-book from the table, handed it back to Kornicker, saying:

'I'm not in want of money. Gold is but dross _now_. I've plenty of it; but its value in my eyes is gone.'

'But,' remonstrated Kornicker, holding his hands behind him, and looking obstinately in another direction, partly to avoid taking the pocket-book and partly to resist the solicitations of his own necessities, which were strenuously urging him to do so, 'but you may want a lawyer to fight for you at your trial.'

'For that farce I am prepared. I _have_ one. He's paid for it, and he'll fight,' said Rust. 'It will avail nothing, for I did slay the man. It was a cold-blooded, deliberate murder. I planned it; I went up to that place with the stern determination to commit it; and I _did_ commit it. It was no hasty act, done in a moment of fierce and sudden passion; but a deed duly and deliberately meditated, and one that I would repeat. What _he_ had done, it's useless to mention. I had no redress, except what my own hand could give me. He has paid his forfeit, and I'll pay mine. I'll fight to the last; because,' added he, with that expression of stern purpose which so often settled on his face, 'Michael Rust never yields; and then, let the law do its worst. Take your money; I don't need it.'

Kornicker hesitated; and then thrusting it in his pocket, said: 'I suppose, if you should happen to be short, you'll let me know.'

'I will,' replied Rust; 'but I've enough to last until my sand is run out. They'll hang me.'

'Don't talk so,' exclaimed Kornicker, with a feeling not a little akin to fear, at the cold, indifferent manner in which the other spoke. 'You _may_ escape--who knows?'

Rust looked at him steadily, and then said, in a low, calm voice: 'If it were not that man and law were leagued against me to _force_ me to my doom, not one dollar would Michael Rust give to add an hour to his life. He looks to the grave only as that dark abyss which knows neither thought nor care; where the past is forgotten; where the future ends. Death is but a deep dreamless sleep, which has no waking. Yet even this boon he will not accept, if it's _forced_ upon him.'

'But the disgrace, the disgrace of such an end,' exclaimed Mr. Kornicker, twisting his fingers together, and in his earnestness cracking the knuckles of all of them. 'Think of that, my old fellow. Think of the stain that will always rest upon your memory.'

A smile, without a trace of pleasure, but cold and icy, passed across Rust's face.

'What is my memory to me? What care I for the whispers and sneers and surmises of the reptiles who crowd this world, and who will soon be as _I_ then shall be? What are these very men themselves? Shadows!--shadows! Go--my course is chosen. You can do nothing for me.'

Still Kornicker did not show any intention of quitting the room, but shifted from one leg to the other, in a fidgety manner, as if he had something farther to communicate, upon which however he did not like to venture. At last he said: 'Your daughter?'

Rust turned a quick keen eye on him, but farther than this evinced no emotion.

'Perhaps she may need a friend, when--when----'

'I'm dead,' said Rust, concluding what seemed to be rather an embarrassing sentence to Kornicker.

'I'm not exactly the fellow to make the offer,' said Kornicker, adopting the conclusion which Rust had given to the phrase; 'but--but I'll keep an eye on her, and will lend her a helping hand if she gets in trouble.'

Rust's countenance expressed neither pleasure nor anger, as he answered:

'Nothing can be done for her. Her fate is sealed; her path is marked out. There is neither turn nor winding in it, nor escape from the destiny to which it leads. She has taken the first step in it, and must follow it to the end. Look at the reckless and abandoned of her sex, who crowd our thoroughfares at night. _Their_ fate must be _her_ fate; an outcast--then the tenant of a public prison where her associates will be the thief and the felon. That's her second step. The third is--to her coffin; broken down; beggared, perhaps starving, she'll die surrounded by the offscouring of the earth--happy if she reaches her grave before she has run her full course.'

There was something in the apathetic manner in which the old man pointed out the future fate of his own child, that actually silenced Kornicker. He knew not what to say. There was no grief to console; no anger to deprecate; no wish to be fulfilled. He had however come to the prison with his mind made up to do something, and he did not like to be thwarted in his purpose. But before he had fairly determined what course was to be pursued next, Rust interrupted the current of his ideas by saying, as he pressed his hand upon his heart:

'You can do nothing for me. The disease is _here_; and the only physician who can heal it is Death. Could you blot the past from my memory and leave it one vast blank; could you gild the future with hopes which this heart did not tell me were utterly hollow; then perhaps Michael Rust might struggle on, like thousands of others, with some object in view, always to be striven for, but always receding as he advanced, or turning to ashes in his grasp. But it cannot be. I've played my part in the great drama of life, and the curtain will soon fall.'

A spirit of callous indifference pervaded all that he said and did; and making a gesture to Kornicker, forbidding all farther remark, he threw himself on the bed, and drew the clothes about his head, as if determined to shut out all sound.

Kornicker made one or two efforts to draw him again into conversation, but the communicative mood was past; and finding that nothing farther was to be done, he left him to his meditations.

From that time Kornicker, true to his maxim of deserting no one, was constant in his visits and endeavors to comfort and assist him in preparing for his trial. But never had man a more arduous task than he found in this self-imposed duty; for the hidden transactions of Rust's past life had become public, and had turned the full tide of popular feeling against him; and far and wide, through town and country, with all that could excite public animosity, rang that bloody tale, (for the dead man had powerful friends to battle for vengeance.) It was in every mouth, and whispered in every ear. In the broad glare of day, and before the eyes of the whole world, was paraded every secret of Rust's life. Witnesses who had been forgotten and had sunk from sight, and were supposed to be dead, sprang into life, all having some dark deed to record. Pamphlets, teeming with exaggerated details of the murder, were hawked through the streets; peddled at every corner; hung in every shop window. Rust's own black life had prejudged him, and had turned public opinion into public hate; until every voice called out for blood. It was under this feeling that his trial came on.

Early on that morning, long before the court was opened, a stream of people was thronging toward the City Hall by twenties and thirties and hundreds. The iron gates were barred to keep them out; still they contrived to get in, and swarmed through the halls. And when the court was opened, officers armed with staves were stationed on the stairs, to fight them down, for there was no room for them. The court-room was crammed with men heaped upon men, climbing one on the other; heads upon heads, swarming like bees, and packed and wedged together, leaving not a foot to spare. And in the midst of all that living mass sat Rust, unmoved, unflinching; returning look for look, defiance for defiance; reckless as to his fate, but resolute not to yield.

There was one however at that trial who was not so indifferent. He was a man of about fifty, tall and thin, with a grave, dignified face, which yet bore a strong resemblance to that of Rust. He was deadly pale, and sat next to Rust's lawyers, conversing with them in a low earnest tone; and at times, as the trial went on, suggesting questions to them. This was Rust's brother; the father of the two children, who, generous to the last, had forgiven all, and was battling for the life of him who had done his utmost to blast his. If Rust's cold eye sank, or his spirit quailed, it was only when he encountered the mild, sad eye of that brother.

The jury was empanelled. The District Attorney opened for the prosecution; and then the examination of witnesses commenced. Foot by foot and inch by inch was the ground contested by Rust's counsel. Exceptions to testimony were taken, points of law raised, and every informality or technicality, which afforded a loop-hole for objection, was taken advantage of. The day dragged heavily on, and Rust grew weary. The constant stir about him; the hum of voices, occasionally hushed into silence at the cry of the officer, or the tap of the judge on his desk; the hot, stifling air of the room; the wranglings of the lawyers, all tended to bewilder him. All excitement had long since left him. A leaden heaviness had settled upon all his faculties, and leaning his head upon the table, even while life and death were in the scale, he slept soundly.

He was aroused by his lawyer, touching his arm. He sat up, and gazed vacantly about him.

'Who's that?' said he, pointing to the witness's stand.

Rust half started to his feet; then clasping his hands hard together, sat down, and leaned his head on the table, but said not a word.

The clerk called out her name.

'Ellen Colton.'

'Who is she?' demanded the lawyer.

Rust drew himself up; and many who had been watching him, observed that his face had become perfectly corpse-like; his breathing oppressed, and that his eyes seemed starting from their sockets, as he fixed them on the witness.

'My own flesh and blood,' muttered he; 'my own child!'

The girl was sworn; but it was evident that a terrible struggle was going on, and she had to be supported to a chair. The lawyer for the prosecution took down her name, and then asked her a question. He received no answer. He repeated it; but the girl was silent. She held down her head, and seemed half fainting.

'You _must_ reply,' said the judge.

The girl raised her eyes, and said, in a low supplicating tone, 'He's my father.'

The judge shook his head. 'It's a very painful task,' said he, 'but there's no alternative.'

The girl uttered not a word, and the court-room became so hushed that even the hard breathing of the witness was audible.

'I must have a decided answer,' said the judge, gravely, yet mildly, for he respected the feelings which dictated her course. 'Will you answer the question put by the district attorney?'

'I will not,' was the firm reply.

The face of the judge grew a little flushed, and he compressed his lips, as if the duty which now rested with him were an unpleasant one. But before he had time to speak, the district attorney rose, and muttering in a tone loud enough to be heard, 'I will not slay the parent through the child,' said: 'If the court please, I withdraw the question. I'll call another witness.'

The judge bowed, and the girl was led away.

Rust had risen to his feet as if to speak, but he sat down, and the trial proceeded. The whole of that day passed in the examination of witnesses; so did the day following. Then came the summing up of the lawyers, and the charge of the judge to the jury. During the whole time the crowd came and went, but at all times the room was thronged. The jury went out; still the crowd hung about the Hall. It grew dark; but they could not go to their homes until they knew the result; but round and round the Hall, and through the avenues of the Park, they wandered, watching the dim light in the jury room, and wondering what the verdict would be. One of them stole up to the gray-headed constable who watched at the door, and inquired what the chance was; and as the old man shook his head, and muttered that they leaned toward a fatal verdict, he rubbed his hands with glee, and hastened to communicate the tidings to those below. Twelve--one--two--three o'clock at night came; still the twelve men held out, and still the judge, an upright, conscientious, patient man, maintained his post, waiting for the verdict, and ready to solve any doubts or points of law that might arise. The court-room grew cold; the fires went out, except one near the bench, and where the prisoner was. Sixty or seventy persons were sitting in the dim recesses of the room, looking like dark shadows, resolved to await the result. A few stretched themselves on the benches, and others gathered in knots near the fire, and whispered together; and now and then there was a loud laugh, suddenly hushed, as the person who uttered it remembered where he was. At last the judge went out, and left word with the officer to send for him if the jury agreed, or wanted his advice. The night waned; the sky grew gray in the east; and presently the day broke--but no verdict. At an early hour the judge returned, and the court-room filled again. Nine--ten--eleven. Suddenly there was a hum--a shuffling in the hall. The door was thrown open by the gray-headed constable, and the jury entered.

'The jury's agreed,' cried the officer. There was a dead silence; and the foreman gave in the verdict:

'GUILTY OF MURDER IN THE FIRST DEGREE!'

Rust moved not; no change of color or feature was perceptible, except a slight smile, and that too faded in a moment.

The trial was over; and the crowd poured through the streets, yelling with delight, and stopping those whom they met, to tell them that Michael Rust was doomed to die.

Rust sat without stirring, until an officer touched him, and told him that he must go. He then rose, and followed him without a word. The crowd gathered around him, as he went out; but he did not notice them. His brother walked at his side, but he heeded him not; and when he reached his prison, without uttering a word, he flung himself wearily upon his bed, and was soon sound asleep.

He awoke, a different man; and when his lawyer called to see him on the following day, he found him as fierce as a caged beast. He endeavored to utter some remark of consolation; but Rust impatiently motioned him to be silent. He spoke about a clergyman; but the reply was a laugh, so mocking and scornful, that he was glad to drop the theme.

'Is the game ended?' at last inquired Rust. 'Is there no farther cast of the die left?'

The lawyer looked at him, as if in doubt of his meaning.

Rust, in response to the look, repeated the question. 'Is there nothing more to be done, in that farce called the law? Is there no farther blow to be struck for life?'

'We can appeal,' replied the lawyer; 'but there is little chance of success.' He took Rust by the hand, and said in a soothing tone: 'My poor friend, you must be prepared for the worst; for I cannot promise to save your life.'

Rust rose and stood directly in front of him; and pointing to a small coin which lay on the table, said: 'Not the tenth part of _that_ would Michael Rust give to have one hour added to his life; but I _will not_ be driven from it. I _will not_ be beaten down and crushed.' He stamped furiously on the floor.

'Fight!' said he, fixing his glaring eye on the lawyer; 'fight to the last; leave nothing untried; spare not gold; bribe--corrupt--suborn; do any thing; but do not leave the triumph to my enemies. It's that that is tearing away at my heart. It's _that_ which is killing me,' exclaimed he, bitterly, shaking his hands over his head.

'We shall leave nothing untried,' said the lawyer. 'Perhaps too we may obtain a pardon, for if ever a murder was justifiable, that was.'

'Pardon!' exclaimed Rust with a sneer; '_pardon_! Because I defended my own flesh and blood; because the laws had forced upon _me_ the task which _they_ should perform! I must die, or sue for pardon. A noble thing is law!'

The lawyer was silent. He felt that Rust's own previous criminal life had been his worst enemy, and that it was the disclosure of his own evil plans which had been in every mouth long before the trial, that had done much to harden the feelings of the jury, who in another case might have stretched a point to save him.

Merely repeating what he had already said, that every thing should be tried, he took his leave.

* * * * *

Several weeks elapsed. The appeal was made, and was unsuccessful; the decision of the court below was affirmed; and nothing was left but that the sentence of the law should be enforced. Rust still maintained his indifferent bearing. All attempts to move him to any thing like repentance were unavailing. Pious men had conversed with him, but he had turned a deaf ear to their words; clergymen, too, anxious even at the last hour to turn his thoughts to holier things, had called upon him, but were equally unsuccessful; and at last he forbade them admission.

It was just about dusk, on the day previous to that fixed for his execution, that he was sitting in his cell, when he was aroused by the opening of the door. He looked up, and observed a dim figure just inside the door, cowering as if with fear; but it was so dark that he could not distinguish more than its mere outline.

'What do you want?' demanded he, harshly. 'Am I a wild beast, that you have come to stare at me?'

The only reply was a low, suppressed cry, as of one endeavoring to stifle down severe pain.

Rust rose up, advanced to the figure, and with a sudden jerk threw off the cloak which enveloped it. It was his own child.

'So it's _you_!' said he, bitterly, as he turned from her. 'And you've come to see your work. Look at me well. You've succeeded to your heart's content.'

The girl endeavored to clasp his hand, but he flung her from him; and facing her, said: 'What you have to say, say at once, and be gone. There is little policy in seeking me out now, for I have nothing to give.'

The girl cast herself at his feet, in a passion of grief. 'Oh! father! dear father! I ask nothing, except your forgiveness. Give me _that_, for the love of GOD! I ask nothing more. Do not refuse me that, as you hope for forgiveness of your own sins!'

'There was a time,' said Rust, 'when I could not have resisted those tones, when I could have refused you nothing. My very heart's blood was yours; but I am changed--changed indeed; since not a single spark of tenderness for you is left; not even the shadow of the love which I once bore to you. You are a stranger to me; or worse than that, you are _she_, whose wanton conduct has placed me here, and to-morrow will lead me to the gallows.'

The girl rose up hastily, and said in a quick husky voice:

'Farewell, father; I will not stay until you curse me, for I fear it may come to that. May GOD forgive both you and me! I have done wrong, and most bitterly have I suffered for it.'

She caught his hand, pressed it to her lips, which were hot as fire, and left the cell.

That was the last time that the father and daughter ever met.

The gaoler soon afterward brought in a light, and asked Rust if he wanted any thing; and on being answered in the negative, went out.

The night wore on heavily. Rust heard the clock, as its iron tongue struck the successive hours from his life. At last the hour of midnight sounded. He took out his watch, wound it up, and set it.

'Your life will last longer than mine,' said he, as he held it to the light, and examined the face. He then placed it on the table, and leaning his head on his hand, contemplated it for a long time. Time was hurrying on; for while he was sitting thus, the clock struck--one. He looked about the room; went to the door, and listened; then resumed his seat, and thrusting his hand in his bosom, drew out a small vial, containing a dark liquid. He held it to the light; shook it; smiled; and applying it to his lips, swallowed its contents.

'I'll disappoint the sight-seers,' said he. He raised the light; took a long and earnest survey of the room; undressed himself; sat on the edge of his bed, for a moment, apparently in deep thought; then got into bed and drew the cover closely about him.

'Now, then,' said he, 'the dream of life is past. I'll soon know whether there is any waking from it.'

These were his last words; for when the cell was opened in the morning, he was dead in his bed. As in life, so in death, his own evil acts clashed with his interests; for at an early hour in the morning a messenger arrived with a pardon. In consideration of the heinous nature of the provocation, which had led to the commission of Rust's crime, and of the inadequate punishment inflicted by the laws for such offences, the governor had remitted his sentence.

NIAGARA.

Behold! again I view thee, in thy majesty and might,
Thy broad sheet flashing in the blaze of morning's glorious light;
I mark thee maddened in thy fall, and pale with hoary rage,
And fretting in thy passion, that hath boiled from age to age.

Like thunder on my startled ear, thine everlasting roar
Hath broken, and reverberates from shore to echoing shore;
Continuous and fearful, with dread power in its tone,
That shakes the earth's foundations and rives the solid stone!

How tremulous beneath the shock the fearful earth hath grown!
Reeling beneath the mighty plunge, it sighs with ceaseless moan;
Now rush thy waves, with frenzy wild, in foam of dazzling white,
Now, placidly they sweep along, with ever-changeful light.

O, wondrous Power! O, giant Strength! how fearful to behold,
Outstretched on yon o'erhanging crag, thy mad waves downward rolled:
To look adown the cavernous abyss that yawns beneath--
To see the feathery spray flash forth in many a glittering wreath!

Voluminous and ceaseless still, forever swift descend
The waters in their headlong course, then turning, heavenward wend:
Now, disenthralled, their essence hath its spirit-shape resumed;
Bright, bodiless and pure, its fright to yon empyrean plumed!

_The Falls, 1842._ CLAUDE HALCRO.

TO MARY.

I wonder if the magic spells
That in the days of yore
Bewitched so oft poor harmless folks
(Unlucky wights!) are o'er?

I can't believe it, for I've felt
The witchery of thy smile;
I've felt thy magic arts, and yet
I've loved thee all the while.

Is it the gleam of snowy teeth,
Or wave of silken tress,
That brings me to thy side, to gaze
Upon thy loveliness?

It cannot be, for I have seen
Full many a maid as fair;
I've seen as ruby lips before,
I've seen as glossy hair.

Some dark enchantress has bequeathed
To thee her magic art,
And thou hast bound me with thy spell,
And stolen all my heart.

HORACE.

LITERARY NOTICES.

CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE, AND THE LITERARY CHARACTER ILLUSTRATED. By
I. C. D'ISRAELI, Esq., D. C. L., F. S. A. With Curiosities of American
Literature. By RUFUS W. GRISWOLD. Complete in one volume. New-York: D.
APPLETON AND COMPANY, Broadway.

The ensuing remarks refer rather to the Supplement to D'ISRAELI'S 'Curiosities of Literature,' edited by Rev. RUFUS W. GRISWOLD, than to the well-known work to which it adds its attractions. It is an excellent collection of the many odd and quaint and foolish and good things which our forefathers 'did and performed.' Mr. GRISWOLD has spiced his work with a variety, though he has done it more judiciously than a splenetic author whom he introduces in his work, who, in a vexatious mood at some severe criticisms on a former book, puts a dozen or more rows of interrogation and exclamation-points, commas, semicolons, etc., and tells his readers 'they may pepper and salt it as they please.' Mr. GRISWOLD well understands the history of American literature; and we venture to say there is no man in the country who knows the names and contents of so many American books as he. This knowledge he has found of great service to him, enabling him to lay his hand at once on those things most worthy of preservation. If he had understood the linking process a little better, it would perhaps have added to the interest of his work. A sort of running commentary would have given greater vivacity to the numerous extracts. The way isolated specimens of an author are introduced affects very much the impression they make. But Mr. GRISWOLD has succeeded well in gathering up the ravelled ends of our early literature; and the present edition of D'ISRAELI'S Curiosities of Literature will be the only one for the future in the American market. The most 'curious' part of our literary history is embraced in the revolution, with the short period preceding and following it. The British and Tories furnished endless themes to the pasquinader and ballad-maker, while the grave rights involved in the struggle called forth the efforts of more serious and thoughtful pens. The Puritans of New-England wrote most; and there is a union of the soundest sense with the most childish folly, the strongest character with the weakest prejudices in our good Yankee forefathers, that is quite incomprehensible. Like the Puritans of England in the time of CROMWELL, when called into the hall of debate to discuss the rights of man, or into the field to battle for them, he were a bold man who dare smile at them. Yet in their religious acts they were often bigoted, intolerant and puerile. The same incongruity is seen in their tastes. Men of deep poetical sentiment, they often murdered poetry for conscience sake. A man who could write a defence of the colonies with a pen that fairly glowed with the burning Saxon that fell from it, would not be shocked at all at the impropriety of the following epitaph on a tomb-stone:

'Here lies Jonathan Auricular,
Who walked in the ways of God perpendicular.'

Mr. GRISWOLD gives us a specimen of the versification of the 137th psalm, in the Bible; one of the sweetest lyrics ever written, beginning 'By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down; yea, we wept when we remembered Zion; we hanged our harps upon the willows,' etc. This psalm, whose exquisite beauties are so well preserved in our common English version, was put into verse with the rest of the psalms, by our pious forefathers. To their credit we can say, however, that the authors of the first version declare that they 'have attended to conscience rather than to elegance' in completing their work. We cannot excuse President DUNSTER of Harvard College, so easily, who revised the edition and sent it forth with the advertisement that they had in it a 'special eye both to the gravity of the phrase of sacred writ, and to the sweetness of the verse;' especially when we find this same sweet psalm completely murdered by him. After stumbling along through two stanzas, he thus paraphrases. 'They that led us into captivity,' he says:

Required of us a song, and thus
Askt mirth us waste who laid,
Sing us among, a Zion's song,
Unto us then they said.

The LORD'S song sing can we, being
In stranger's land?--then let
Lose her skill my right hand if I
Jerusalem forget.

Let cleave my tongue my palate on
If mind thee doe not I,
If chief joys o'er I prize not more,
Jerusalem my joy,' etc., etc.

Such wretched stuff as this our good forefathers sung with the profoundest gravity; and those who thus murdered the king's English and the Hebrew's poem were called 'poets!' Yet this same age could produce such poets as Mrs. ANN BRADSTREET, of whom her great panegyrist, JOHN NORTON, in a poetical description of her says:

'Her heart was a brave palace, _broad street_,
Where all heroic simple thoughts did meet,
Where nature such a tenement had ta'en,
That other souls to hers dwelt in a lane.'

The _pun_ here is good, but the comparison might have been dropped sooner without damage. The poem of Mrs. BRADSTREET, entitled 'Contemplations,' possesses a great deal of merit, and proves her to be worthy of the extravagant praise of her extravagant admirer. The extracts from the poetry of Governor WOLCOTT are very favorable to the poetic reputation of the governor. But the richest thing in the whole collection is the 'Simple Cobbler of Aggawam,' occupying ten columns. The king-fashionable ladies, and long-haired young gentlemen, are successively put on the cobbler's lapstone and hammered most industriously. And we must say, cobbler as he is, he appears to us to give vastly more _blows_ than he takes stitches. This part of the work alone is worth the price of the whole book. It is quite too long to quote entire, and a mere extract would do it injustice. FRENEAU was a rare character, and his pasquinades on RIVINGTON, a tory editor, are rich specimens. The confession he puts in the mouth of RIVINGTON, in his 'Address to the Whigs of New-York' immediately after the close of the war, is equal to 'Death and Dr. Hornbook' on the poor Scotch quack.

This RIVINGTON, however, was not a more unlucky dog than another tory named BENJAMIN TOWNE, editor of the 'Pennsylvania Evening Post.' Supposing the cause of the rebels to be hopeless, he undertook to win favor and reward from the British by the most unsparing abuse of the Americans. But when the cause of freedom finally triumphed, the unlucky editor was left on the sand. Without money, without patrons, he found himself in the midst of those whom he had traduced, and dependent on them for a livelihood. In this emergency, he goes to the celebrated Dr. WITHERSPOON for aid. The stern republican doctor would listen to nothing, unless TOWNE would make his peace with his country by a most humble confession. Finding no other resource, he consented to publish in his paper any thing the doctor would write. This confession is given by Mr. GRISWOLD at length; and if the tory editor does not make himself out a most precious scoundrel, the fault is certainly not with the doctor. He acknowledges that he had lied without limit, and was willing to publish bigger lies had they been brought him; he assures the people that he did every thing for personal gain, and was willing to do and say any thing now for the same purpose. He was moreover a brave man! 'I hope,' says he, 'the public will consider that I have been a timorous man, or if you will, a coward from my youth, so that I cannot fight; my belly is so large that I cannot run; and I am so great a lover of eating and drinking that I cannot starve. When these things are considered, I hope they will fully account for my past conduct, and procure me the liberty of going on in the same _uniform_, tenor for the future.' The collection teems with rich matter, and we have not even skimmed the surface. Here and there only have we touched a point. We could fill twice the space allotted us, with the revolutionary ballads alone, for the gathering of which Mr. GRISWOLD deserves our thanks. New-England epitaphs come in for their share; and there is a capital anecdote of Dr. DWIGHT and Mr. DENNIE, at which we gazed and pondered wistfully for a long time, in the hope, (a vain one, we are sorry to say,) of being able to present it to our readers.

This collection of Mr. GRISWOLD brings together and preserves what was before floating around and slowly disappearing with the lapse of time. Our early literature is now grafted on a work which will secure its life; and those peculiar characteristics of a remarkable age, which grow more valuable the more distant the point from which we view them, will never pass away. Nothing is more difficult than to preserve the scanty and fugitive literature of an early age. A _great_ work will live; but those fragments which are thrown off here and there, in a careless or earnest moment, perish, because they _are_ fragmentary. They do not belong together in a book, and cannot stand alone. In a later period of the history of the country, this would be of little consequence, because there is enough else to stand as exponents of that age. But these fragments are all that is left to tell us how our fathers felt, and thought, and spoke. Without them, we are without every thing. This collection greatly enhances the value of the English edition, and cannot fail to increase its already extensive sale.

NORTH-AMERICAN REVIEW FOR THE APRIL QUARTER. Number CXXIII. pp. 268.
Boston: OTIS, BROADERS AND COMPANY. New-York: C. S. FRANCIS AND
COMPANY.

There has not been issued for many a long month so good a number of this excellent and venerable Quarterly, as the one before us. It abounds in a good variety, alike of theme and style; and there is a manly, vigorous tone, and an independence of thought and expression, which we have not before observed, at least in so marked a degree. The number opens with a caustic and well-deserved critique upon the writings of JAMES, the novelist; and we are the more gratified at this, because the defects of this romancer are the besetting sins of certain of our own novelists, who had at one time a fair degree of transient popularity. A lack of skill in the creation or accurate delineation of individual character, which, instead of representing men and women, are didactic exhibitions of the author himself, projected into various personages, and all bearing an unmistakable family resemblance--this it is that is at the bottom of the sudden decadence into which the writings of one or two of our more prolific romancers have fallen, past all redemption; and this is the great fault of Mr. JAMES. 'To be successful in the exact delineation of character,' says the reviewer, 'requires a rare combination of powers--a large heart and a comprehensive mind. It is the attribute of universality; it can be obtained only by outward as well as inward observation; not by that habit of intense brooding over individual consciousness, of making the individual mind the centre and the circumference of every thing, a habit which only makes of the writer an egotist, and limits the reach of his mind.' Mr. JAMES has certain types of character which he generally reproduces in each successive novel. His heroine is idealized into something which is neither spirit, nor flesh and blood. 'His women, like his men, are ideas and feelings embodied; they are constructed, not created nor painted; built, not drawn. They do not stand boldly from the canvass.' His rascal is an unmitigated rascal, intermingled with the machinery of his plot, and appearing regularly in every novel. 'Mr. JAMES is a great spendthrift of human life. The carelessness with which he slays, evinces the feebleness with which he conceives. If his personages were real to his own heart or imagination, he would not part with them so easily, nor kill them with such _nonchalance_.' A very faithful description is given of Mr. JAMES'S style; and it is one which will apply with equal force, though certainly in a subordinate case, to certain of our own novelists, whom the reader will readily recall, but whom it would be invidious perhaps to mention. 'His style,' says the reviewer, 'has little flow and perspicuity, and no variety. It is usually heavy, lumbering, and monotonous. Half of the words seem in the way of the idea, and the latter appears not to have strength enough to clear the passage. Occasionally, a short, sharp sentence comes like a flash of lightning from the cloud of his verbiage, and relieves the twilight of his diction. There are but few felicitous phrases in his manifold volumes. He has hardly any of those happy combinations of words which stick fast to the memory, and do more than pages to express the author's meaning. He has little command of _expression_. His imagery is common; and his manner of arranging a trite figure in a rich suit of verbiage, only makes its essential commonness and poverty more apparent. His style is not dotted over with any of those shining points, either of imagery or epigram, which illumine works of less popularity and pretension.'

The review of Mr. JAMES'S works is followed by an excellent critique upon the poems of Mr. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, which receive due commendation. There are some 'rough truths' in the reviewer's opening remarks. 'We have among us little companies of people, each of which 'keeps its poet,' and not content with that, proclaims from its small corner, with a most conceited air, that its poet is the man of the age.' Instances are mentioned, closing with this irresistible climax: '_One man_ thinks CORNELIUS MATHEWS has written the finest American poetry!' In allusion to the whimsical peculiarities of Mr. CARLYLE--a man of genius, learning, and humane tendencies--and their effect upon the servile tribe of imitators, the reviewer observes: 'The study of German became an epidemic about the time that CARLYLE broke out; the two disorders aggravated each other, and ran through all the stages incident to literary affectation, until they assumed their worst form, and common sense breathed its last, as the '_Orphic Sayings_' came; those most unmeaning and witless effusions--we cannot say of the brain, for the smallest modicum of brains would have rendered their appearance an impossibility--but of mere intellectual inanity.' The American Euphuists, being possessed of the demon of affectation, strive to set themselves apart from the common herd, imagine that they are inhabitants of a sublimated ether, and look down with pitying contempt on all who profess an inability to detect a meaning in their vapid and mystical jargon. 'These be _truths_;' and our readers will bear us witness that months ago, with but little variation of terms, we promulgated them in these pages.

There is an excellent paper upon the 'Forest Lands and the Timber Trade of Maine;' it is full of interest, despite the nature of its general theme. The 'Boundary Question' did not indicate the first usurpations of the British in Maine. It was the acts of parliament that forbade the use of water-falls, the erecting of machinery, of looms and spindles, and the working of wood and iron; that set the king's arrow upon trees that rotted in the forest; that shut out markets for boards and fish, and seized sugar and molasses, and the vessels in which these articles were carried; and that defined the limitless ocean as but a narrow pathway to such of the lands that it embosoms as wore the British flag; it was these restrictions, to release which the revolution was created. The articles upon the various 'Theories of Storms,' and 'The Recent Contest in Rhode-Island,' we have not found leisure from pressing avocations to peruse. The paper on 'Architecture in the United States' is from the pen of one who '_knows_ whereof he writes;' and he has not been sparing of deserved satire upon the sad and ridiculous mistakes of those among us who are miscalled architects. High praise is awarded to our Trinity Church, now in progress of erection. 'In size, in the delicacy and propriety of its decoration, and in the beauty of its general effect, it surpasses any church erected in England since the revival of the pointed style.' In a notice of the 'Writings of Miss BREMER,' MARY HOWITT 'suffers some,' on account of a certain hysteric preface of hers to a translation of one of the Swedish lady's productions, in which she complains of the American translations from this popular writer. Among the 'Critical Notices' which compose the last article in the Review, is a critique upon Mr. CORNELIUS MATHEWS'S 'Writings,' including his poem on 'Man in his Various Aspects,' which embodies the opinions we have ourselves expressed in relation to them. Since the unfounded charge of being 'actuated by private pique,' which was brought against us by the author, cannot be assumed against the North American Review, we trust that our 'complainant' will not object that we fortify our own estimate of his literary merits by grave authority. The following is an extract:

Mr. MATHEWS has shown a marvellous skill in failing, each failure
being more complete than the last. His comedy of 'The Politicians'
is 'the most lamentable comedy;' and the reader exclaims, with
Hippolyta, 'This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.' The
'Career of Puffer Hopkins' is an elaborately bad imitation of
DICKENS; and must be ranked in fiction where 'The Politicians'
stands in the drama. It aims at being comical, and satirical upon
the times. The author studies hard to portray the motley
characters which move before the observer in a large city; but he
has not enough of the vision and the faculty divine, to make them
more than melancholy ghosts of what they profess to be. The
attempts at humor are inexpressibly dismal; the burlesque
overpowers the most determined reader, by its leaden dulness. The
style is ingeniously tasteless and feeble. He who has read it
through can do or dare any thing. Mr. MATHEWS suffers from several
erroneous opinions. He seems to think that literary elegance
consists in the very qualities which make elegance impossible.
Simplicity and directness of language he abominates. When he has
an idea to express, he aims, apparently, to convert it into a
riddle, by inventing the most forced, unnatural, and distorted
expressions. If the thing can be obscured, he is sure to obscure
it. He seems to say to the reader, 'Can you guess? do you give it
up?' But then, less obliging than the maker of charades, he leaves
the puzzled victim without an explanation at last. He studies a
singularity of phrase at once crabbed and finical, and overloads
his pages with far-fetched epithets, that are at once harsh and
unmeaning. He seems to have been told that he has wit and humor,
and--strange delusion!--to believe it. He writes as if he imagined
that he possessed the inventive power: never was a greater
mistake. These qualities and these mistakes make his prose
writings unreadable and intolerable, at least all the later ones.
But when to the charms of his ordinary style are added the
attractions of verse, then the sense aches with the combined and
heightened beauties. The present volume exaggerates all his
literary vices. The plan of these poems is very well; if executed
with taste and power, the volume would have been interesting. As
it is, we have here and there a good line, a striking figure, or a
bold expression. But most of the poems are deformed by harshness
of versification, feebleness of thought, and every species of bad
writing. Compounded words, never seen before, and impossible to be
pronounced, epithets detailed on service for which they are wholly
unfit, figures that illustrate nothing but their own absurdity,
and rhymes that any common book would die of, astonish the reader
on every page. Had the poet purposely aimed to twist the English
language into every conceivable form of awkwardness; had he
designed to illustrate, for the use of beginners, every possible
defect and every positive fault of diction; his success in
accomplishing the object could not have been more complete.'

We annex a few of the 'original' beauties which the reviewer has selected from Mr. MATHEWS'S poem. Two or three of them, we perceive, are identical with those which we ourselves selected from that luminous effort of the mind and the imagination:

'We had marked many characteristic passages in the present volume,
to illustrate the observations we have felt called on to make. But
we have space only for a few lines. In the first poem, besides
many other absurdities of thought as well as expression, occurs
this line:

'Strides he the globe, or CANVASS-TENTS the sea.'

Who ever heard of the verb to _canvass-tent_? To _canvass-back_
the sea would be much more rational.

In the second poem we find this luminous line:

'CLEAR AS THE CLEAR, round midnight at its full,'

which must be very clear indeed.

What can be the meaning of the following words in the 'Teacher?'

'Whose eyes cry light through all its dawning void.'

Again, in the 'Farmer:'

'Fierce revolutions rush in WILD-ORBED haste.'

In the 'Mechanic,' the following very intelligible direction is
given to the architect:

'In the first Builder's gracious spirit work,
Through, hall, through enginery, and TEMPLES MEEK,
IN GRANDEUR TOWERED, OR LAPSING BEAUTY-SLEEK,
Let order and creative fitness shine.'

In the 'Merchant,' the poet affirms:

'Undimmed the man should through the trader shine.
And show the soul UNBABIED by his craft.'

This can only mean, that the soul of the trader ought not to be
supplied with babies by his craft.

The 'Sculptor' ends with this prediction:

'And up shall spring through all the BROAD-SET land,
The FAIR WHITE PEOPLE of thy love unnumbered.'

In the 'Journalist,' we find the following _directions to the
printer_:

'Hell not the quiet of a Chosen Land,
Thou grimy man over thine engine bending.'

_Hell_, as a common noun, is a sufficiently uncomfortable idea;
but when converted into an active verb, it becomes positively
alarming.

The poet thus advises 'The Masses:'

'In vast assemblies calm, let order rule,
And every shout a cadence owning,
Make musical the vexed winds moaning,
AND BE AS LITTLE CHILDREN AT A SINGING-SCHOOL.'

And the 'Reformer' is told to

'Seize by its horns the shaggy Past,
Full of uncleanness.'

A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON MIDWIFERY. By M. CHAILLY, M. D., Professor of
Midwifery, etc., etc. With two hundred and sixteen wood-cuts.
Translated from the French, and edited by Dr. GUNNING S. BEDFORD, of
the University of New-York. In one volume. pp. 530. HARPER AND
BROTHERS.

This work comes to us under the fairest auspices. The author, M. CHAILLY, is a distinguished Parisian lecturer on Obstetrics, a pupil of the eminent PAUL DUBOIS, of the University of Paris, and generally recognized as the exponent of the views of that celebrated _accoucheur_. By all who are familiar (and who of the medical world is not?) with the high reputation of DUBOIS for sound medical philosophy and unbounded practical knowledge, it has been long regretted that the just opinions he so eloquently promulgates in the lecture-room have never assumed the diffusible shape of a printed book. M. CHAILLY, in the work before us, supplies us with that which has been so much desired, and which Prof. DUBOIS himself, from some cause not easily appreciated, has so long withheld from the world. The Parisian board of public instruction has moreover stamped the work of M. CHAILLY with their approbation, and fixed it as the standard text-book of the French medical schools. This is a promise of excellence which a diligent perusal of the work will fully confirm. Professor BEDFORD, the American translator, who has performed his duty as might be expected from his high character and prominent position, as Professor of the flourishing medical school of the University of New-York, felt the want of a good text-book for the student, and a sound practical guide for the physician, and has exhibited a sound judgment in this selection to supply that want. The work of VELPEAU, hitherto unquestionably the most popular book with the medical profession, is diffuse and speculative. The present work is direct, concise, and complete. Dr. BEDFORD has enriched the original with copious notes, the result of his own extensive experience and observation. The publishers have performed their duty well, in presenting the work in a handsome library form; and it is only the very extensive business facilities of the MESSRS. HARPERS that could afford so full and well illustrated a _scientific_ book at so reasonable a price.