Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

The narrative before us is couched in a dialogue, between a mother and her two children; and, being obviously designed for gentlemen and ladies not much higher than mamma's rocking chair, has frequently an infantine simplicity of style, that makes us marvel at our own moral courage, in daring to serve up such a baby's mess. Convinced, however, that _children's reading_ may afford both amusement and instruction to grown people, (witness "Early Lessons," "Frank," "The Parent's Assistant," "Sandford and Merton," and "Evenings at Home," _cum pluribus aliis_;) believing, at any rate, that among the palates for which it is our duty to cater, there are some youthful ones to which this dish may be both pleasant and useful; hoping, too, that by having her faults of composition noted, the authoress may be induced to cure, or "others in like cases offending" be moved to shun them, we make the venture. Indeed, not only the book's childishness of style, but many offences far more atrocious in a critic's eyes--sins against grammar, idiom, and good taste--are in great part redeemed by the good sense and justness of its reflections, the interesting tenor of its incidents, and the virtuous glow it is calculated to kindle. The sins are very many. "_Lay_," used for "_lie_," is wholly unwarranted--scarcely palliated--even by the example of Byron, in the Fourth Canto itself: for he was compelled by duress of rhyme; a coercion, which the most tuneful and the most dissonant are alike powerless to resist. "Mr. Warren, the father of Joseph, while walking round his orchard to see if every thing was in good order, as he was looking over the trees, _he_ perceived," &c. Here is a nominative without any verb. There is a four or five fold vice in the second member of the following sentence, in which, as it stands, the writer may be defied to show a meaning: "It often happens that a mother is left with a family of young children, and is obliged to bring them up without the controlling power of a father's care; it is therefore the duty of every female so to _educate_ her own mind, and _that_ of her daughters, as to _enable_ her, if she should be placed in this responsible situation, _to be able_ to guide aright the minds of those under her care." _Enable_ her _to be able!_ _Educate_ her own mind! and _that_ of her daughters! Are they to be supposed to have but _one_ mind among them, as the Sirens had but one tooth? The use of _educate_ for _train_, is a match for the Frenchman's blunder, who, finding in the Dictionary that to _press_ means to _squeeze_, politely begged leave to _squeeze_ a lady to sing. "Enable HER." Enable whom? Why _herself_ and _her daughters_: and she should have said so. Never, surely, was prosing, _bona fide_, printed prosing, to so little purpose. Again: "A mother should always possess ... _a firm principle_ of action." Does she need _but one_ firm principle of action? If so, it is to be hoped the next edition will say what that one is; for it must be valuable. A common blunder in the _times_ of the infinitive mood, occurs repeatedly in this book: "How I should have admired _to have gone_ to see her!" "It would have been a pity for us to _have followed_ his example, and thus have _lessened_," &c.--"must have ardently desired _to have been_ present"--"must have wished very much _to have seen_," &c. We cannot see the propriety of using the word "_admired_," as it is in one of these quotations. "Tell us if he did get in, and how he contrived to?" We protest against this fashion which our Yankee brethren are introducing, of making _to_, which is but the _sign_ of the infinitive, stand for the infinitive itself. This is one of the few cases, in which we are for _going the whole_. "He began to _practice_"--"I know it was not _him_"--"he _whom_ I told you was the first one"--"to respect, _was_ added admiration and love"--"this tax bore very _heavy_"--"soldiers _which_"--"your country has much to hope from you, both in _their_ counsels and in the field." These errors, a very moderate skill in orthography and syntax would have sufficed to avoid. Such a vulgarism as "_nowadays_," or such provincialisms as "pay _one single copper_," and "walked _back and forth_ the room," (meaning _to and fro_, or _backwards and forwards_ in the room) would not have occurred, if the author had remembered, that the _simplicity_ which suits children's minds, is altogether different from _vulgarity_. There is such a thing as _neat_ and _graceful_ simplicity in writing, as well as in dress and manners. "They had contemplated making some attack on the British, or at least to endeavor to destroy their shipping." Contemplated _to_ destroy! We will not further pursue this unwelcome task; pausing, short of the middle of the book, and having already passed over several faults without animadversion. Let the author be entreated to get the aid of some friend who is master (if she is not mistress) of grammar and taste enough, to reform these and the other errors of her little work, and then give us a new edition, calling in all the copies of the first, that are within her reach.--And now to our tale.

JOSEPH WARREN was born in 1741, in the village of Roxbury, one or two miles south from Boston, Mass. His father, a rich farmer, inhabited a house, the ruins of which are still visible; and was famous for raising the best fruit in that neighborhood. He was killed by a fall from one of his own apple trees, leaving a widow and four sons, of whom Joseph, the eldest, was 16, and John, the youngest, was 4 years old. This excellent woman appears to have much resembled the mother of Washington, in the skill and care with which she infused generous sentiments and virtuous principles into the bosoms of her children: and she reaped almost as richly as Mrs. Washington, the fruits of her labors. Her sons passed through life, all honored and loved, and more than one of them distinguished. Her nature seems to have had more of amiable softness than Mrs. Washington's; who, it must be confessed, blended something of the sternness with the purity and nobleness of a Spartan matron. Mrs. Warren's door was always open for deeds of hospitality and neighborly kindness. It is not easy to imagine a lovelier scene than one paragraph presents, of the evening of a well spent life, still warmed and brightened by the benign spirit, which had been the sun of that life's long day.

"In her old age, when her own children had left her fireside, it was one of her dearest pleasures to gather a group of _their_ children, or of the children of others around her. She did all in her power to promote their enjoyment, and her benevolent smile was always ready to encourage them. On Thanksgiving-day,[1] she depended on having all her children and grand children with her; and _until she was 80 years of age, she herself made the pies with which the table was loaded!_ Not satisfied with feasting them to their heart's content while they were with her, she always had some nice great pies ready for them to take home with them."

[Footnote 1: _Thanksgiving-day_ is in New England, what Christmas is in the Southern States and England. It is always in November, on a day fixed by Proclamation of the Governor of each State, in each year. Christmas, from the anti-Catholic zeal of the Puritan Pilgrims, is almost entirely neglected; being, with all its train of quips, cranks, gambols and mince-pies, thought to savor too strongly of popery.]

Joseph's education, till his fourteenth year, was at the public school in Roxbury; one of those _common schools_, which, from the earliest times of New England, have been planting and nurturing in her soil the seeds and shoots of virtue and freedom. Even in boyhood, our hero was manly, fearless and generous: always taking the part of his weaker school-fellows against a strong oppressor--always the

"village Hampden, that with dauntless breast,
The little tyrant of his fields withstood."

At fourteen, he entered Harvard University. His talents, perseverance, gentleness and courage, here gained him unrivalled popularity. That he did not acquire or preserve the regard of his fellow students by any base compliances with vice or disorder, the following incident shews.

Some of them had once resolved on some breach of the laws, which, from the sturdiness of his principles, they knew that young Warren would disapprove, and by his powerful influence probably prevent. They therefore met in an upper room of the college, to arrange their plans secretly; fastening the door against him. He found what they were about; and seeing the window of their room open, crept out, through a _scuttle door_, upon the roof--crawled to the eaves--and there, seizing a water-spout nearly rotten with age, he swung and slid down by it to the window, and unexpectedly sprang in amongst the conspirators. The spout, at the instant of his quitting it, fell with a crash to the ground, and was shivered to pieces. Only saying, in answer to the exclamations of astonishment that burst from his comrades, "it stayed up just long enough for my purpose," he commenced an expostulation against their intended misdemeanor, and _succeeded in diverting them from it_.

On leaving college, he studied medicine, and began to practise at the age of 23, just previously to a visit of the small pox to Boston, with those fearful ravages which usually attended its march, before the virtues of vaccination were known. Dr. Warren's judgment, tenderness, and skill, made him pre-eminently successful in treating the disease. And it is said, that his gentle and courteous deportment completely neutralized the usual tendency of such professional success, to enkindle the jealousy of his brethren. His mild features and winning smile, true indexes, for once, to the soul within, gained every heart; his knowledge and talents added respect to love. Thus, by the same qualities which had distinguished him at school and at college, did he acquire among his fellow townsmen an influence which no other man of his age and day possessed.

When the British Parliament and Crown began, in 1764, that course of unconstitutional legislation, which was destined, after eleven years of wordy war, to end in a war of blood, Dr. Warren was among the first to stand forth for the rights of America--to assert, and to labor in demonstrating to his countrymen, that the _power to tax them_ (claiming, as they did, all the liberties of Englishmen) could not exist in a government of which no representatives of theirs formed a part. Fostered by him, and by others like him, the spirit of resistance to tyranny grew daily more strong. The inhabitants of the whole country, and especially of Boston, gave token after token of their fixed resolve, to spurn the chain which they saw preparing for them. In 1768, Col. Dalrymple with two royal regiments, reinforced afterwards by additional troops, entered that devoted town, with more than the usual "pomp and circumstance" of military bravado; and there remained in garrison, to repress what the king and ministry were pleased to call "the seditious temper" of the people. Never was attempt at restraint more impotent; nay, more suicidal. The curb, feebly and capriciously or unskilfully plied, served but to infuriate the noble animal it was meant to check and guide: and no wonder that the rider was at length unseated, and stretched in the dust. The New Englanders--we should rather say, the _Americans_--were too stubborn to be driven, and too shrewd to be circumvented. Every measure of tyranny, they met with an appropriate measure of resistance. Tea had been brought from India, to be the vehicle of unconstitutional taxation. They threw part of it into the sea; another part they hindered from being landed; and the remainder they excluded from use, by mutual pledges to "touch not, taste not" "the unclean thing." Judges were sent over to judge them--creatures of the king--the panders of ministerial oppression. The people would not suffer them to mount the judgment seat--closed the court houses--referred all their differences to arbitrators chosen by the parties--and even so far tamed the spirit of litigation and disorder, as to make tribunals of any sort in a great degree needless.[2] Between the British troops and the Boston people, animosities soon ran high. The soldiers seized every opportunity to exasperate the people: the people assembled in mobs, to revenge themselves on the soldiers. Amidst these tumults, Dr. Warren repeatedly exposed his life to soothe and restrain his countrymen. His eloquent persuasions were generally successful. At first, the more violent would endeavor to repel him, and would clamor to drown his voice. "While they did this, he would stand calmly and look at them. His intrepidity, his commanding and animated countenance, and above all, their knowledge that he was on their side so far as it was right to be, would soon make them as eager to hear as he was to speak: and finally, they would disperse to their homes with perfect confidence that they could not do better than to leave their cause in such hands." Those who seek to restrain the excesses of contending factions, may always expect rough usage from both sides. Warren incurred the occasional displeasure of his own party; but he did not escape insult and outrage from the British. They often called him _rebel_, and threatened him with a rebel's doom. One day, on his way to Roxbury, to see his mother, he passed near several British officers, standing in the _Neck_, which joins the peninsula of Boston to the main land. Not far before him stood a gallows. One of the officers called out, "Go on, Warren, you will soon come to the gallows:" and the whole party laughed aloud. Walking directly up to them, he calmly asked, which of them had thus addressed him? Not one was bold enough to avow the insolence, and he left them, crest-fallen and ashamed.

[Footnote 2: We have grouped together here, the events of several years, in the rapidity of our narrative. The dependence of the judges for their salaries on the _Crown_, instead of on the Colonial Legislatures, (whence we date their meriting to be called _creatures_ and _panders_,) began in 1772: and the tea was thrown into Boston Harbor, Dec. 16th, 1773.]

Distinguished for his eloquence, our young physician was repeatedly called on to address the people, upon the great and soul-stirring topics of the times. Far the most interesting of these, was the Massacre of the Fifth of March. Our authoress has passed too slightly over this incident. Let us be a little more full.

Insults, recrimination, and outrage, between the soldiers and citizens, were at length, on the 5th of March, 1770, consummated, by the former's firing upon the latter in the streets of Boston, and killing five men--with circumstances shocking to humanity. After one of the slain (Mr. Gray,) had been shot through the body, and had fallen on the ground, a bayonet was pushed through his skull, and his brains fell out upon the pavement. This was the first bloodshed, consequent on the long festering irritations of the period. The officer (Capt. Preston) who gave the word "fire!" and six of the soldiers who had so fatally obeyed it, were in the ensuing October tried before a Boston jury: and, defended, in spite of obloquy, popular clamor, and the remonstrances of timid or prudent friends, by John Adams and Josiah Quincy, Jr., were even by that jury, _acquitted_. It grieves us that we cannot pause here, to bestow a merited tribute on the moral courage of the illustrious counsel who dared defend, on the steady justice of the tribunal that could acquit, and on the virtue and good sense of the multitude who, when the first paroxysm of natural excitement was over, could applaud that defence and approve that acquittal[3]--horrible as had been the deed--maddening as had been the antecedent circumstances. But though the killing happened not to be murder, (because the people had been the assailants,) still, the violent destruction of five human lives by an armed soldiery in the streets of a free and peaceful city, was too impressive an example of what mischiefs may come of standing armies and lawless government, to pass unimproved. It was determined to solemnize each anniversary of that day, by a public exposition of those mischiefs; by an oration, commemorative of the tragedy, and of those great principles, the disregard of which had led to its perpetration. Warren delivered two of these orations.[4] His first was on the 5th of March, 1772. It is not contained in the little book now before us, but we have seen it elsewhere: and on reading it, no one need be surprised at its having well nigh urged the people, even at that early day, to forcible measures. Its masterly argumentation is equalled by its burning appeals to the passions. All the four first of these orations had wrought so powerfully upon the public mind, that the British officers declared there should be no more of them: and that whoever undertook to deliver another, should do so at the peril of life. This menace daunted others, but only roused Warren. Not wailing to be _invited_, he _solicited the task_ of addressing the people; and prepared himself accordingly for the fifth anniversary of the massacre--1775. Meanwhile, the givings out of the officers, and the rumors among the populace, imported mortal hazard to him if he should persist. He persisted but the more resolutely. Early in the day, the Old South Meeting House--which, as the scene of these orations, deserves, better than Faneuil Hall, to be termed the cradle of liberty--was crowded to its very porch. Many a devoted friend of Warren's was there, determined to see him safely through, or to fall in his defence. British officers and soldiers filled the aisles, the pulpit steps, and even the pulpit. Thinking that if he pushed through them to his place, a pretext might be seized for some disturbance, which would take from him and his audience the desirable degree of calmness, he procured a ladder to be placed outside, and by it, climbed through the window into the pulpit, just as all were expecting his entrance at the door. The officers quailed and receded, at his sudden appearance and dauntless air: while he, far from sure that his first word would not be answered by a bayonet-thrust or a pistol-shot, addressed the silent, breathless multitude. His countenance was lighted up with more than its usual glow of patriotic enthusiasm: but every other face was pale; every auditor could distinctly hear the throbbings of his own heart. The speech is given at length in the appendix to the work under examination; from the original, as we may conjecture, which, in the orator's own hand writing, is now in the possession of his nephew, Dr. John C. Warren. The opening was brief and simple: but in it we discern that curbed energy, that impassioned moderation--_une force contenue, une rèserve animée_--so characteristic of a great mind, concentrating its powers for some gigantic effort: and as he passes on from the unaffected humility of his exordium "to the height of his great argument," we have bodily before our fancy's eye, a nobler personification of wisdom, courage, eloquence and virtue, than Homer has displayed in the form of Ulysses.

"MY EVER HONORED FELLOW CITIZENS,

"It is not without the most humiliating conviction of my want of ability, that I now appear before you; but the sense I have, of the obligation I am under to obey the calls of my country at all times, together with the animating recollection of your indulgence, exhibited upon so many occasions, has induced me once more, undeserving as I am, to throw myself upon that candor, which looks with kindness upon the feeblest efforts of an honest mind.

"You will not now expect the elegance, the learning, the fire, the enrapturing strains of eloquence, which captivated you when a Lovell, a Church, or a Hancock spake: but you will permit me to say, that with a sincerity equal to theirs, I mourn over my bleeding country: with them I weep at her distress, and with them, deeply resent the many injuries she has received from the hands of cruel and unreasonable men."

[Footnote 3: Mr. Adams was, at the time, 35 years old; Mr. Quincy only 26. They were both threatened with loss of friends, of popularity, and of all prospect of political preferment. The "Memoirs of Quincy" (by his son Josiah, once a prominent federal leader in Congress, now President of Harvard University,) contain a letter from his venerable father, earnestly expostulating upon the step. The young barrister's reply is also given--a triumphant vindication of the motives, and even of the prudence of his resolution, to undertake the defence. In the success of that defence, in the universal approbation which soon followed it, and in the professional and political advancement of the generous advocates, they found ample rewards for having breasted the storm of popular feeling, in obedience to the call of duty.]

[Footnote 4: The oration of 1771 was delivered by James Lovell; that of 1772 by Joseph Warren; of 1773, by Dr. Benjamin Church; of 1774, by John Hancock; of 1775, by Joseph Warren. These, and eight others of succeeding years, down to 1783, we have in Mr. H. Niles' inestimable collection of "Revolutionary Acts and Speeches."]

Having laid down as axioms, the natural right of every man to personal freedom and to the control of his property, the orator sketched, with a master's hand, the history of English America: and, deducing the right of the colonists to the soil from their treaties with the Indians, and not from the grants of King James or King Charles, (whose pretended claims of right they undoubtedly despised--whose patents they probably accepted only "to silence the cavils of their enemies," and who "might with equal justice have made them a grant of the planet Jupiter,") he proved by unanswerable reasoning the rights of America, and painted in deep and living colors the usurpations and injustice of England. He traced the progress of these wrongs: he depicted the halcyon peace, the mutual benefactions, and the common happiness of the two countries, marred by successive and heightening aggressions--reaching, at length, that last aggravation short of civil war--the quartering of an insolent, hireling soldiery upon the people, to enforce submission to unjust and unconstitutional laws. The danger of standing armies, always, to liberty--the incompatibility of martial law with the government of a well regulated city--the certainty of disputes between the soldier and the citizen, especially when they are in each other's eyes, respectively, a rebel, and an instrument of tyranny--all made it but just to fear the most disagreeable consequences. "Our fears, we have seen," continued the orator, "were but too well grounded."

"The many injuries offered to the town, I pass over in silence. I cannot now mark out the path which led to that unequalled scene of horror, the sad remembrance of which takes full possession of my soul. The sanguinary theatre again opens itself to view. The baleful images of terror crowd around me, and discontented ghosts, with hollow groans, appear to solemnize the anniversary of the FIFTH OF MARCH.

"Approach we then the melancholy walk of death. Hither let me call the gay companion; here let him drop a farewell tear upon that body, which so late he saw vigorous and warm with social mirth; hither let me lead the tender mother, to weep over her beloved son: come, widowed mourner, here satiate thy grief! behold thy murdered husband gasping on the ground; and, to complete the pompous show of wretchedness, bring in each hand thy infant children to bewail their father's fate: take heed, ye orphan babes, lest, while your streaming eyes are fixed upon the ghastly corpse, _your feet slide on the stones bespattered with your father's brains!_ Enough! this tragedy need not be heightened by an infant weltering in the blood of him that gave it birth. Nature, reluctant, shrinks already from the view; and the chilled blood rolls slowly backward to its fountain. We wildly stare about, and with amazement, ask, _who spread this ruin round us?_ Has haughty France or cruel Spain, sent forth her myrmidons? Has the grim savage rushed again from the distant wilderness? Or does some fiend, fierce from the depth of hell, with all the rancorous malice which the apostate damned can feel, twang her destructive bow, and hurl her deadly arrows at our breast? No, none of these. It is the hand of _Britain_ that inflicts the wound! The arms of George, our rightful king, have been employed to shed that blood, when justice, or the honor of his crown, had called his subjects to the field!

"But pity, grief, astonishment, with all the softer movements of the soul, must now give way to stronger passions. Say, fellow citizens, what dreadful thought now swells your heaving bosoms? You fly to arms--sharp indignation flashes from each eye--revenge gnashes her iron teeth--death grins an hideous smile, secure to drench his jaws in human gore--whilst hovering furies darken all the air! But stop, my bold, adventurous countrymen; stain not your weapons with the blood of Britons! Attend to reason's voice. Humanity puts in her claim, and sues to be again admitted to her wonted seat, the bosom of the brave. Revenge is far beneath the noble mind. Many, perhaps, compelled to rank among the vile assassins, do, from their inmost souls, detest the barbarous action. The winged death, shot from your arms, may chance to pierce some breast, that bleeds already for your injured country.

"The storm subsides: a solemn pause ensues: you spare, upon condition they depart. They go; they quit your city: they no more shall give offence. Thus closes the important drama.

"And could it have been conceived that we again should see a British army in our land, sent to enforce obedience to acts of Parliament destructive to our liberty?... Our streets are again filled with armed men; our harbor is crowded with ships of war: but these cannot intimidate us: our liberty must be preserved: it is far dearer than _life_--we hold it even dear as our _allegiance_. We must defend it against the attacks of _friends_, as well as _enemies_: we cannot suffer even Britons to ravish it from us. No longer could we reflect, with generous pride, on the heroic actions of our American forefathers; no longer boast our origin from that far famed island, whose warlike sons have so often drawn their well tried swords to save her from the ravages of tyranny;--could we, but for a moment, entertain the thought of giving up our liberty. The man who meanly will submit to wear a shackle, contemns the noblest gift of Heaven; and impiously affronts the God that made him free."

Highly wrought as these passages may appear, they accorded, perfectly, with the minds to which they were addressed.

It may be doubted, if any scene of the kind ever possessed more of the moral sublime, than that which our young countryman presented,--daring thus, amidst armed and frowning enemies, to denounce them and their masters, and to speak forth the startling truths of justice and freedom, with the naked sword of tyranny suspended over his head. The rising of Brutus, "refulgent from the stroke of Cæsar's fate," shaking his crimsoned steel, and hailing Tully aloud as the "father of his country"--Tully's own denunciations of Catiline, Verres and Anthony--or the more illustrious Philippics of Demosthenes--all remote from personal danger--the objects of their enmity and invective being absent, defenceless, or prostrate--cannot be compared, for moral sublimity, with the splendid boldness of Warren. And, whatever classical anathemas await us for it, we are heretical enough to venture the opinion, that for true _eloquence_, blendedly pathetic and argumentative, _his_ oration outstrips any that we have read of Cicero's, and _equals_ aught that we have seen of Demosthenes. To the most effective effusions of the latter, indeed, it bears the closest resemblance--rapid, condensed, inornate, impassioned: similar, too, in its result, if we consider the difference of their auditories--the one a mercurial mob, ever liable to be swayed by whim or convulsed by passion; the other a grave, reflecting people, who subjected every thing--feeling, imagination, and even the love of liberty--to REASON. The oratory of Demosthenes made the Athenians cry out, "Let us march against Philip!" When Warren ended, a glow of admiration and respect pervaded even the hostile bosoms around him; but the people of Boston were ready at once to abjure allegiance to Great Britain. For this, however, affairs were not yet ripe.

The celebrated Josiah Quincy, Jr. was at this time in England, on a mission of remonstrance and observation. His interesting letters, and more interesting journal, (for parts of which we are indebted to the "Memoirs" before referred to,) shewed his conviction that the pending disputes must come to the arbitrament of arms. His countrymen, he said, "must seal their cause with their blood." This, he was assured by Warren, (one of his warmest and dearest friends) they were ready to do. "It is the united voice of America" (Warren wrote him) "to preserve their freedom, or lose their lives in its defence." Warren was President of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts. He writes thus to Quincy concerning it: "Congress met at Concord at the time appointed. About 260 members were present. You would have thought yourself in an assembly of Spartans, or ancient Romans, had you seen the ardor of those who spoke on the important business they were transacting." Quincy remained but six months in England, and then embarked for his home in an advanced stage of consumption: having, as he told the seaman who attended his sick bed, but one desire--that he might live long enough to have one more interview with Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren. His prayer was not granted. He died on ship board, just entering Cape Anne Harbor, on the 26th of April, 1775,[5] eight days after the battle of Lexington; where, unknown to him, his countrymen had already "sealed their cause with their blood."

[Footnote 5: Love for his country and her liberties, may be safely considered the ruling passion of this man's pure and splendid and too short life. He displayed it also "strong in death." His last reported words were in a letter to his family, dictated to his sailor nurse; in which he breathes a dying wish for his country. And his Will contains the following clause: "I give to my son, when he shall arrive to the age of 15 years, Algernon Sidney's Works, John Locke's Works--Lord Bacon's Works--Gordon's Tacitus, and Cato's Letters. May the spirit of Liberty rest upon him."]

Warren (now a brigadier general of the Massachusetts militia) was not unconcerned in that battle. Scouts of his had notified him on the 18th of April, that a detachment of troops was to march that night towards Concord: and then, remaining himself upon the watch, he saw Colonel Smith and 8 or 900 men embark for Charlestown. Knowing the stores and ammunition at Concord to be their object, he instantly sent messengers over the surrounding country, to give the alarm; and himself rode all night--passing so near the enemy, as to be more than once in great danger of capture. His messenger to Lexington was Col. Revere; who, on suddenly turning a corner as he passed through Charlestown, found himself close to a party of the British. In a moment he put his horse at full speed, dashed through them, and before they could well ascertain him to be a foe, was beyond the reach of the balls which they fired after him. It was his summons, that called forth the company of Lexington militia, upon whom, about sunrise on the 19th, was begun that bloody drama, of which the progress was to shake two continents, and the catastrophe to dissever an empire. Warren, sleepless and in motion throughout the night, hurried to the scene of action: and, when the enemy were retreating from Concord, he was among the foremost in hanging upon their rear, and assailing their flanks. By pressing them too closely, he once narrowly escaped death. A musket ball took off a lock of hair, which curled close to his head, in the fashion of that time.

When his mother first saw him after the battle, and heard of this escape, she entreated him with tears not again to risk a life so precious. "Where danger is, dear mother," he answered, "there must your son be. _Now_ is no time for any of America's children to shrink from any hazard. I will see her free, or die."

An exchange of prisoners was soon afterwards agreed on, to be carried into effect at Charlestown. Generals Warren and Putnam with two select companies of Massachusetts troops, repaired thither for the purpose. Here was a touching scene. The British and American officers, on meeting once more as friends after the recent strife had so rudely sundered their long subsisting ties of hospitality and mutual kindness, melted with tenderness, and rushed into each other's arms. The soldiers caught the infection: and mingled tears, and hands cordially shaken, softened for awhile the rugged front of war. Putnam and Warren entertained the British as guests, as sumptuously as the occasion allowed.

A few days afterwards, Warren was appointed Major General of the Massachusetts forces: but still retained his post as President of the Provincial Congress. He seems to have combined, with rare felicity, the qualities of a civil and a military leader. Cool yet brave, gentle yet decided and firm, he was precisely fitted to teach and enforce order and discipline. Mingling in the ranks, and talking with individual soldiers as with brothers, he gained their love, and infused into them his own ardor and sanguine confidence. He acted with equal talent in civil council. He spent a part of each day in sharing the deliberations of the Congress, which sat now at Watertown, ten miles northwest from Boston. His labors ended there, he would gallop to the camp at Cambridge. When the American commanders deliberated upon the seizure and fortification of Dorchester Heights and Bunker Hill, with a view to strike at the enemy's shipping, or to anticipate them in a similar movement,--Warren opposed it. Our raw troops, he thought, were not yet ready to cope with the trained veterans of England. Putnam, then commander-in-chief at Cambridge, thought differently. Warren renewed his opposition before the committee of safety and the council of war: but when these bodies successively resolved upon the measure, he promptly gave his whole heart to promote its success; repeating his determination, to be, himself, ever at the post of greatest danger. On the 16th of June, when Col. Prescott received his orders, and marched with his thousand men to fortify Bunker's Hill, the session at Watertown was so protracted, that Warren could not leave it until late at night. So soon as he could, he prepared to join Prescott--despite the dissuasion of his friends. To their assurances, that most of the detachment, and especially he--daring and conspicuous as he was--would in all probability be cut off; and that he could not be spared so soon from the cause; he replied, "I cannot help it: I must share the fate of my countrymen. I cannot hear the cannon and remain inactive." Among the most intimate of these friends, was the afterwards distinguished Elbridge Gerry; with whom he lodged regularly in the same room, and, on that last night, in the same bed. To him;--when they parted after midnight, Warren uttered the sentiment--so truly Roman, and in this instance so prophetic--"_dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori_." By day-break, he was at the camp in Cambridge; where, finding that the British had not shewn themselves, and sick with an aching head, from mental and bodily toil, he lay down, to snatch a little repose. But he was soon roused by tidings, that the enemy were in motion: and instantly rising, he exclaimed, "my headache is gone." Others doubted what the object of the enemy's threatened movement was. He at once saw it to be, the unfinished fortification upon Bunker Hill. The committee of safety (which sat in the house where he was) having resolved immediately to despatch a reinforcement thither, Warren mounted his horse, and with sword and musket, hastened to the scene of strife. He arrived just as the fight began, and seeking out General Putnam, (who was already there) desired to be posted where the service was to be most arduous. Putnam expressed his sorrow at seeing him, in a place so full of peril: "but since you have come," added he, "I will obey your orders with pleasure." Warren replied, that he came as a volunteer--to obey and fight; not to command. Putnam then requested him to take his stand in the redoubt, where Prescott commanded, and which was considerably in advance of the slighter defence, behind which Putnam and his men were stationed. On his entering the redoubt, he was greeted with loud huzzas: and Prescott, like Putnam, offered him the command. He again refused it; saying, that he was a mere volunteer, and should be happy to learn service from so experienced a soldier. We cannot, thrilling as they are to our recollections, undertake to narrate the well known particulars of that great day. But we commend the story, as told by the authoress before us, to the attention of our readers. Our business is with General Warren. He was constantly active; going through the ranks, cheering on his comrades, sharing their perils, and plying his musket against the advancing enemy. When the British had twice been driven from the height, with a thousand slain; when the exhaustion of powder and ball, leaving the Americans no means of resistance but clubbed guns, against fixed bayonets and fourfold numbers, necessarily made the third onset successful--Warren was the last to leave his station. The slowest in that slow and reluctant retreat, he struggled for every foot of ground; disdaining to quicken his steps, though bullets whizzed and blood streamed all around him. Major Small, of the British army, recognized him; and eager to save his life, called upon him for God's sake to stop, and be protected from destruction. Warren turned and looked towards him: but sickening at the sight and the thought of his slaughtered countrymen and of the lost battle, again moved slowly off as before. Major Small then ordered his men not to fire at the American General: but it was too late. Just as the order was given, a ball passed through his head; he fell, and expired.

His body lay on the field all the next night. When one who knew his person, told General Howe the next morning that Warren was among the slain, he would not believe it; declaring it _impossible_ that the President of the Congress should have been suffered to expose himself so hazardously. An English surgeon, however, who had also known Warren, identified his corpse; and, to prove the daring of which he was capable, added, that but five days before, he had ventured alone into Boston in a small canoe, to learn the plans of the British; and had urged the surgeon to enter into the American service. General Howe declared, that the death of one such adversary balanced the loss of 500 of his own men. Warren's body was buried with many others, English and American, near the spot where he fell; whence, sometime afterwards, it was removed to the Tremont burying ground, and finally to the family vault under St. Paul's Church, in Boston. His brothers, at the first disinterment, knew his remains by an artificial tooth, by a nail wanting on one of his fingers, and by his clothes, in which he was buried just as he fell. His youngest brother, Dr. John Warren, at first sight of the body, fainted away, and lay for many minutes insensible on the ground. We draw a veil over the grief of his mother, when, after a torturing suspense of three days, the dreadful truth was disclosed to her. In General Warren's pocket, an English soldier found a prayer book, with the owner's name written in it. The soldier carried it to England, and sold it for a high price to a kind-hearted clergyman, who benevolently transmitted it to a minister in Roxbury, with a request that he would restore it to the general's nearest relation. It was accordingly given to his youngest brother, whose son, Dr. John C. Warren, still retains it. It was printed in 1559, in a character remarkably distinct, and is strongly and handsomely bound.

If our due space had not already been exceeded, we would include in this sketch several other interesting particulars, connected with its illustrious subject: but we must forbear.

There were ample contemporaneous testimonials to the merits of General Warren. Amongst others, was a vote of the general Congress, that a monument should be erected to his memory, "as an acknowledgment of his virtues and distinguished services;" and that his children should be supported at the public charge. Like the prayers of Homer's heroes, this vote was half dispersed in empty air: the other half took effect, so far as the annual payment of a moderate sum went, towards the maintenance and education of the children. It is not until she has mentioned this fact, that our authoress bethinks her of saying, that General Warren was married to an excellent and amiable woman, who died three years before him; and that he left four orphan children. So important an event in human life might surely have been earlier told, and more regardfully dwelt upon. We would fain have had something said of _his_ domestic life, who filled so large a space in his country's eye; something to exemplify what we hold as an everlasting truth--that a good son and a true patriot is sure to make a true husband and a good father. Situated as she is, our authoress cannot fail, by reasonable diligence of inquiry, to learn many things, worthy of the improved edition which we hope to see, of her interesting and valuable, though so faulty production.

We, as one of the posterity whose gratitude and admiration General Warren so richly earned, can read in his destiny more than a fulfilment of the augury contained in the official account of the Battle of Bunker Hill, drawn up by the Provincial Congress. It speaks of him as "a man, whose memory will be endeared to his countrymen, and to the worthy in every part and age of the world, so long as VALOUR shall be esteemed among mankind." To VALOUR, we would add the lovelier and nobler names of COURTESY, GENEROSITY, and INTEGRITY.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

TO CHRISTIANA.

Sister, while life and joy are young,
While the sweet lyre of hope is strung,
Ere thou hast known a crowd of cares,
Earth's vain regrets and burning tears--
Ere the sick heart of grief is thine,
Or rapture's thrilling pulse decline--
Ere wounded pride and love shall tell
That thou hast served the world too well,
Turn thou to worship at the shrine
Of faith and holy love divine!
Bring all thy strength of feeling there;
Wait not to waste affection where
No harvest ever can repay
For all thou losest by delay.
Seek the bright path the saints have trod;
At his own altar worship God;
And find that peace whilst kneeling there
The world can neither give nor share.
Mourn thou with hope--with fear rejoice;
List to that small but awful voice,
Which tells us all things fade and die
To bloom no more beneath the sky.
Earth's brightest dreams soon melt away,
Her forms of loveliness decay--
And disappointment's chilling gloom
Blights all her flowers of fairest bloom;
But oh, remember, there is bliss
In a far better land than this:
Look thou beyond this world of care,
And hope a fadeless crown to wear.
Then may distress and sorrow come,
_Thy_ soul can ever find a home!

E. A. S.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

THE FRIENDS OF MAN.

The young babe sat on its mother's knee,
Shaking its coral and bells with glee,
When Hope drew near with a seraph smile,
And kiss'd the lips that had spoke no guile,
Nor breath'd the words of sorrow.
Its little sister brought a flower,
And Hope still lingering nigh,
With sunny tress and sparkling eye,
Whisper'd of buds in a brighter bower
It might cull for itself to-morrow.

The boy came in from the wintry snow,
And mus'd by the parlor fire,--
But ere the evening lamps did glow
A stranger came with a thoughtful brow;
"What is that in your hand?" she said;
"My new-year's gift, with its covers red."
"Bring hither the book, my boy, and see
The magic spell of Memory;--
That page hath gold, and a way I'll find
To lock it safe in your docile mind:
For books have honey, the sages say,
That is sweet to the taste, when the hair is grey."

The youth at midnight sought his bed,
But ere he closed his eyes
Two forms drew near with a gentle tread,
In meek and saintly guise;
One struck a lyre of wondrous power,
With thrilling music fraught,
That chain'd the flying summer hour,
And charm'd the listener's thought--
For still would its tuneful cadence be,
"Follow me! Follow me!
And every morn a smile shall bring
As sweet as the merry lay I sing."

But when she ceas'd, with serious air
The other made reply,
"Shall he not also be my care?
May not I his pleasures share?
Sister! Sister! tell me why?
Need Memory e'er with Hope contend?
Doth not the virtuous soul still find in both a friend?"

The youth beheld the strife,
And earnestly replied,
"Come, each shall be my guide--
Both gild the path of life:"
So he gave to each a trusting kiss,
And laid him down, and his dream was bliss.

The man came forth to run his race,
And ever when the morning light
Rous'd him from the trance of night,
When singing from her nest
The lark went up with a dewy breast,
Hope by his pillow stood with angel grace--
And as a mother cheers her son,
She girded his daily harness on.
And when the star of eve from weary care
Bade him to his home repair;
When by the hearth-stone where his joys were born,
The cricket wound its tiny horn,
Sober Memory spread her board,
With knowledge richly stor'd,
And supp'd with _him_, and like a guardian blest
His nightly rest.

The old man sat in his elbow-chair,
His locks were thin and grey--
Memory, that faithful friend was there,
And he in a querulous tone did say,
"Hast thou not lost with careless key
Something that I have entrusted to thee?"
Her pausing answer was sad and low,
"It may be so! It may be so!
The lock of my casket is worn and weak,
And Time with a plunderer's eye doth seek:
Something I miss, but I cannot say
What it is he hath stolen away--
For it seems that tinsel and trifles spread
Over the alter'd path we tread:
But the gems thou didst give me when life was new,
Look! here they are, all told and true,
Diamonds and rubies of changeless hue."

Thus, while in grave debate,
Mournful and ill at ease they sate,
Finding treasures disarranged,
Blaming the fickle world, when they themselves were chang'd,
Hope, on a brilliant wing did soar,
Which folded neath her robe she long had wore,
And spread its rainbow plumes with new delight,
And hazarded its strength in a bold heavenward flight.

The dying lay on his couch of pain,
And his soul went forth to the angel train--
Yet when heaven's gate its golden bars undrew,
Memory walked that portal through,
And spread her tablet to the Judge's eye,
Heightening with clear response the welcome of the sky.
But at that threshold high,
Hope faltered with a drooping eye,
And as the expiring rose
Doth in its last adieu its sweetest breath disclose,
Laid down to die.

As a spent harp its symphony doth roll,
Faintly her parting sigh
Greeted a glorious form that stood serenely by:
"Earth's pilgrim I resign;
I cheered him to his grave--I lov'd him--he was mine;
Christ hath redeemed his soul--
Immortal Joy! 'tis thine."

L. H. S.

_Hartford, Con. Sept. 1835_.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

THOUGHTS.

Oh Britain! on thy far, far distant shores,
Mid scenes of grandeur, scenes with beauty fraught,
Oft do I wish to stray, when fancy pours
Her rainbow colors in the urn of thought.

Each crumbling tower, and each enchanted wood,
And every haunted glen by Poets sung--
Each mountain, forest, valley, field, or flood,
O'er which romance her magic veil has hung;

Thy "stately homes," the beautiful, the grand--
Each "breezy lawn," and each embowering tree,
In Albion clothed by nature's partial hand
In bloom and verdure--all I seem to see.

I picture to myself thy regal halls,
Where pomp and splendor hold an equal sway;
Thy palaces, within whose time-stained walls
Kings have been born, have lived, and passed away;

That ancient pile,[1] where gloom and silence keep
Their vigils o'er the great and honored dead--
Where princes proud, and gifted poets sleep,
Each laid forever in his narrow bed;

The spots that hallowed in thy history stand,
The graves of those whose mem'ries cannot die,
With living gems that still adorn thy land,
All, all appear to fancy's ardent eye.

Parent thou art of many a cherished son,
And many a daughter crowned with wreaths of fame,
Whose talents high, or virtues rare have won
An ever glorious, ever honored name.

A Milton's genius awfully sublime,
A Shakspeare's wit in nature's garments drest,
A Scott whose fame can only end with time,
Sprung from thy soil, and sleep within its breast.

A Campbell's pure and chastened flow of thought,
A Hemans' skill poetic flowers to twine,
A Bulwer's matchless page with interest fraught,
A Landon's love-tuned lyre, all--all are thine!

But oh, between my own blest land and thee
Old Ocean's wide and restless waters spread;
Thy gifted great I may not hope to see,
And on thy shores I know I ne'er shall tread.

Yet the free spirit roves where I would go,
To other climes, the beautiful and bright,
Through fields of air, o'er ocean's trackless flow,
Eager, unchecked and chainless in its flight!

E. A. S.

[Footnote 1: Westminster Abbey.]

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

KING PEST THE FIRST.

A TALE CONTAINING AN ALLEGORY--BY ----.

The Gods do bear and well allow in kings
The things which they abhor in rascal routes.
_Buckhurst's Tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex_.

About twelve o'clock, one sultry night, in the month of August, and during the chivalrous reign of the third Edward, two seamen belonging to the crew of the "Free and Easy," a trading schooner plying between Sluys and the Thames, and then at anchor in that river, were much astonished to find themselves seated in the tap-room of an ale-house in the parish of St. Andrews, London--which ale-house bore for sign the portraiture of a "Jolly Tar."

The room, it is needless to say, although ill-contrived, smoke-blackened, low-pitched, and in every other respect agreeing with the general character of such places at the period--was, nevertheless, in the opinion of the grotesque groups scattered here and there within it, sufficiently well adapted for its purpose.

Of these groups our two seamen formed, I think, the most interesting, if not the most conspicuous.

The one who appeared to be the elder, and whom his companion addressed by the characteristic appellation of "Legs," was also much the most ill-favored, and, at the same time, much the taller of the two. He might have measured six feet nine inches, and an habitual stoop in the shoulders seemed to have been the necessary consequence of an altitude so enormous.

Superfluities in height were, however, more than accounted for by deficiencies in other respects. He was exceedingly, wofully, awfully thin; and might, as his associates asserted, have answered, when sober, for a pennant at the mast-head, or, when stiff with liquor, have served for a jib-boom. But these jests, and others of a similar nature, had evidently produced, at no time, any effect upon the leaden muscles of the tar. With high cheek-bones, a large hawk-nose, retreating chin, fallen under-jaw, and huge protruding white eyes, the expression of his countenance, although tinged with a species of dogged indifference to matters and things in general, was not the less utterly solemn and serious beyond all attempts at imitation or description.