Chapter XIII: Front Matter (13)

But vain was his boldness and wisdom in council; in vain did he beard in their very den, the infuriate demagogues; a bloody pall was spread over his devoted country; he gave her up in despair, and the dungeon of Olmutz closed upon him as a tomb. When a brighter day arose, his freedom was stipulated as the most glorious trophy of his nation's victories. But the hurricane had swept the ancient fabric from the earth; not a vestige of it remained, so dreadful had been the storm. All the powers of the state were centred in one man; a man of selfishness and pride, who aimed at absorbing all wills in his own. And in sooth he did this, with one sole and great exception. The instinct of freedom, which was as the vital spark in our great citizen, kept him aloof from the man whose empty and ephemeral triumph is stained with the blood and tears of every nation. He retired to his paternal fields; and at a time when the sword ruled paramount, he guided the fruitful ploughshare.

Liberty was no more; and by a hard but just retribution, it was made the rallying word of nations against us. Then fell upon our country unheard of disasters and defeats; after which dawned a milder reign. He now reappears upon the public stage; he comes to heal our wounds, to rekindle in our hearts the love of liberty. He devotes himself to the task with a zeal unceasing, enlightened by long-tried experience, inspired by a pure and upright heart, and animated by a spirit of self denial never equalled. In the prosecution of this noble attempt--he dies!

He was one of those men who, at far and distant intervals, appear in days of degeneracy to arrest the right of proscription against virtue.

He disdained power, he despised riches, he abhorred corruption. He wished that all men should be happy and free.

Yet in the age of barefaced egotism, and under the reign of fraud and knavery, such disinterestedness and candor must inevitably be deceived; therefore is it that our political jugglers sneer at this great and good man--their grovelling minds understand him not.

But his name, pronounced with reverence in both hemispheres, is become the watchword of mankind laboring to be free; and it will stand for ages, as the brightest symbol of humanity.

Thy soul, oh Lafayette! was a pure and glorious emanation from that GOD in whose bosom thou now hast found a resting place. He alone can reward thy manifold virtues, thy constant love of humanity, thy inexhaustible charity, thy piety and truth. Thou art blessed in Christ.

ALEXANDRE DE BOINVILLE.

_Paris, May 1834._

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

PINKNEY'S ELOQUENCE.

Hear you this triton of the minnows?--_Coriolanus_.

"Yet Mr. Pinkney is not an eloquent man; he is convincing, to be sure--and that is to be eloquent in one way; but he would be more, and fails." "Nothing can be further from eloquence, if by eloquence be understood any thing that is persuasive, beautiful, dignified or natural, than the declamation or reasoning of William Pinkney." "His best speeches are a compound of stupendous strength, feeble ornament, affected earnestness, and boisterous turbulent declamation." "But God never meant him for an orator; he has no property of mind or body--no not one, calculated to give him dominion in eloquence."

As old Doiley says in the farce, when told that "gold in the balance of philosophy was light as phlogisticated air," this must be deep, for I don't understand a word of it. The above are extracts from a work, in which the author undertakes to deny to Mr. Pinkney the praise of eloquence. No kind of composition confounds me more than criticism, and especially that sort which pretends to develope the characteristics of some distinguished orator. If one

----------------should
So get the start of the majestic world

as to "bear the palm alone," we feel a very natural curiosity to know what was his appearance, his manner, and peculiar style of eloquence; but alas! in the hands of the critic, he assumes so many shapes, that the imagination is absolutely bewildered, and we turn away in despair of finding out what the man was like. The critic like the newspaper, contradicts himself at every step. One sentence tells us what another denies; and we rise from the perusal of his sketch jaded and worn out with the variety of contrariant ideas which have passed through our brains. I am no critic, and heaven forbid I should ever belong to that cold hearted fraternity, who more often pervert taste than improve it; but I cannot forbear contesting the truth of this writer's assertions, and declaring that he seems to me to be a Lilliputian about the body of a Gulliver.

It has been said of Demosthenes, "that he has been deservedly styled the prince of orators. His orations are strongly animated, and full of the impetuosity and ardor of public spirit. His composition is not distinguished by _ornament_ and splendor. Negligent of the lesser graces, he seems to have aimed at the sublime, which lies in sentiment. His action and pronunciation are said to have been uncommonly _vehement_ and _ardent_. The Archbishop of Cambray gives him the preference to Cicero, against whom he makes the objection of too much _ornament_." According therefore to this author, if Wm. Pinkney was not an orator, it follows that Demosthenes was none; because their style of eloquence seems to have been alike in almost every particular, except that Pinkney aimed at _ornament_, of which Demosthenes had none and Cicero too much. If speeches, characterized by _stupendous strength_, and _turbulent declamation_, and _convincing argument_, are neither "persuasive, nor dignified, nor natural," then was not Demosthenes persuasive, nor dignified, nor natural, and of course he was no orator according to this definition. If ornament be a fault in Mr. Pinkney, he had it in common with Cicero; but perhaps the author may say that Cicero attained what Pinkney only aimed at. Hear him then again on the subject of ornament, so passionately loved by Mr. Pinkney. "Bring him in contact with a truly poetical mind, and his argument resembles a battery of colored fire-works, giving out incessant brightness and reverberation." It would seem then that ornament is not a common trait of his eloquence, but a {95} glitter which is effected by attrition against poetical minds. It is then that he draws upon the inexhaustible stores of beauty laid up in his mind, gathered from the writings of Shakspeare and others, and retained by the force of a powerful memory. He has no fancy of his own, but uses the fancy of others. Then surely he is so far superior to Demosthenes, whose eloquence was thought to border on the hard and dry; alike impetuous, vehement, stupendous and convincing with him, and superadding a relish for the beauties of poetry; not aiming at any _ornament_ of his own, but contented with what suggested itself in illustration of his argument from the pen of others. Then how is he feeble in ornament? But again; if there be nothing of dignity or nature in Pinkney's _reasoning_, how is it discovered that his mind is "_adamant clamped with iron_," [a poor conception, and suiting the ideas of a blacksmith better than a belles-lettres scholar--for the iron adds nothing to our thoughts of the strength of adamant;] that it is "a colossal pile of granite, over which the thunders of heaven might roll," &c. &c. It is useless to quote the rest of the unmeaning fustian of the sentence.

After all this avowal of stupendous strength of argument, we are told in a subsequent paragraph, that say what we will of Mr. Pinkney's argument, he the author, never saw him yet--no never, pursue his argument steadily for ten minutes at a time. Then how can it be so overwhelming and convincing? Nothing lessens so much the force of argument as a perpetual aberration from the subject. Again; "God never meant him for an orator; he has no property of mind or body," &c. &c. Not to say any thing of the presumption and impiety of determining for God, I would ask what are the _bodily properties_ of an orator? This writer has not condescended to define them, although he dwells at large upon such as he thinks cast discredit upon Mr. Pinkney. It is scarcely necessary to observe that Demosthenes was ungraceful in figure and action; and that not only _orators_, but very wise and learned men, have been repulsive in their persons, their features, and their manners also. Though Cæsar and Cicero were exempt from defect in this respect, as far as I remember Demosthenes stuttered--Socrates was bald and flatnosed--Anthony a rough soldier--Lord Chatham's eloquence was forcible, but uniform and ungraceful--Fox was a fop of Bond street, and wore high heeled morocco shoes. Mr. Pinkney therefore may, without reproach, be a "_thick, stout man, with a red fat English face_," and Mr. Fox will keep him in countenance as a fashionable man. The facetious Peter Pindar has said, that

Love hates your large fat lubberly fellows,
Panting and blowing like a blacksmith's bellows;

but I never heard that oratory did.

In the next breath we hear that "Mr. Pinkney has a continual appearance of natural superciliousness and affected courtesy." _Continual_--and yet afterwards "his manner is exceedingly arrogant and unpropitiating;" and his deportment had been already described as "_brutal, arrogant, full of sound and fury, accompanied by the rude and violent gestures of a vulgar fellow_." One moment he is a giant, not only _metaphorically_, but in sober truth, if we may judge from his stentorian lungs, which have caused the author's whole system to jar--and from those violent gesticulations, which indicate uncommon personal strength;--the next, he turns out to be only five feet ten, and a petit maitre, and affectedly courtly and conciliatory; and yet "nothing could make a gentleman of him; he can neither look, act, _speak_, sit, nor _talk_ like one." Notwithstanding all this scurrility and abuse of Mr. Pinkney's person, the author is not yet exhausted, but lavishes more upon his intellect. "The physical powers of Mr. Pinkney," he says, "are to my notion, strictly correspondent with his intellectual ones; both arc solid, strong and substantial, but without grace, dignity or loftiness." Loftiness! the same man who has such "prodigious elevation and amplitude of mind," "and both have _a dash of fat English dandyism_." I confess myself wholly at a loss to comprehend what the fat dandyism of the intellectual powers is. A man's mind might, by a forced metaphor, be said to be dandyish, perhaps; but a _fat mind_, is a solecism in words wholly inadmissible, I think. "His style of eloquence," it is added, "is a most disagreeable and unnatural compound of the worst faults of the worst speakers." "He is said to resemble Lord Erskine as he was in the day of his power: it is a libel on Erskine, who was himself a libel on the reputation of his country as a speaker." "The language of Mr. Pinkney does resemble that of Lord Erskine; his reasoning is about as forcible." If the term style here be the manner of speaking appropriate to particular characters, I have shown that the censure is equally applicable to Demosthenes, the prince of orators, who, in addition to his vehemence, was so ungraceful in his motions, that it was necessary for him to practice with a naked sword hanging over his shoulder; and therefore to compare Demosthenes to Lord Erskine is a libel on Lord Erskine, himself a libel on his country as a speaker--and _argal_, as Shakspeare says, Demosthenes is inferior to English orators. If, again, the word style mean the manner of writing with regard to language, these sentences would involve a contradiction, and Mr. Pinkney is like and unlike Lord Erskine at the same time.

Yet why do I talk of Demosthenes? In the following sentences the author admits that Mr. P. copied too closely after Cicero and Demosthenes. "He desired to be eloquent; he thought of Demosthenes and Cicero, and his heart swelled with ambition. He remembered not that he was to be a lawyer, and that Demosthenes and Cicero were declaimers. He who should look to move a body of Americans in a court of justice by the best thundering of Demosthenes, would only make himself ridiculous." Very true; and this may certainly prove that Mr. Pinkney might have been a greater _lawyer_, by bending the whole force of his mind to that one pursuit; but it has nothing to do with the premises. The ground is here changed; this is not the point to be proved--not the quod erat demonstrandum. The point to be proved is not the _propriety_ of displaying eloquence before a jury, but that Wm. Pinkney was never meant by God for an orator; that he has no property of mind or body to make one. This is assuredly the scope of the extracts. Had Mr. P. not aimed at _ornament_, his ashes might have passed undisturbed by the author, who allows that he was decidedly the greatest _lawyer_ in America, but is very angry that he was not the greatest in the world. In spite of all this, however, Pinkney "pursued his way like a conqueror, and had well nigh {96} established himself as the high priest of eloquence in America." Why, what a stupid, blind, misjudging race we must be, to think of choosing a man for our high priest of eloquence whom God never meant for an orator, and who had no property, not one, of mind or body, for his business--and never to awaken from our folly until this writer tore the urim and thummim from his breast. "The giant," he says, "is gone down like a giant to the household of death," and there should at least have escaped the imputation of baseness which deserved shooting. How _giants_ die, I pretend not to know; but imagine such giants die pretty much like other people; and it seems to me perfectly ridiculous to talk of a man's dying like a giant. At that awful hour, the littleness of the greatest genius is a subject of melancholy reflection. I will only add that I know nothing of this writer. If his object was to guard us against the mischievous effects of a false taste in eloquence, he cannot be angry with me for wishing to guard against the equally bad effects of a false taste in criticism.

NUGATOR.

THE DANDY CHASTISED.

In this metropolis a real, downright exquisite is rarely to be seen. Curiosity may be gratified by a good description of the animal as exhibited in other places. The following communication is from one residing in a city much more fashionable than ours. Its author seems well informed in the science of æsthetics; and it is to be hoped that he will exert himself to correct mistaken impressions as to the beautiful. Further notices by him may be beneficial.

C.

Among the follies and vices of mankind, there is nothing more remarkable or ridiculous than the continual effort, among all classes and kinds of people--savage, civilized, and pseudo-civilized--to increase or impart beauty and comeliness to their forms and features. Through what various and opposite means is this cherished object pursued! This savage tattoos his cheeks--that smooths and oils them, and would esteem the gratuitous tattoonry of the small-pox a graver misfortune than all the pain attendant on the disease.

The Indians on our Western border are wont to assume the character of the bear, the panther, or some "other interesting beast of prey," and place their ambition in enacting the look and conduct of such beast to the life--and "to the death."

The belle of that age is surrounded by a vast circumvallation of hoop--of this, is pinched into a narrow breastwork of steel and whale-bone.

To cramp the feet into unnatural littleness is now the sad task of those who, to be beautiful, are willing to suffer the tortures of the thumb-screw--or the toe-screw, (it matters not.) The fashion changes, and long pointed shapeless boots deform the human foot.

In no age--in no condition, can men and women be persuaded that God Almighty has made them well,--albeit he hath "made man after his own image," and woman much better than man.

They must fall to reforming their forms by some fanciful deformity.

But the innovation stops not here. Thus far it might be borne. The human form cannot be wholly changed by all the ingenuity of vanity and fashion. It must still retain its principal attributes, and lose not all its lustre. Not so with manners. They are more plastic. From fashion and human folly they accordingly suffer most. Fashion is the sworn foe of nature, and in this field there is no natural bound to its triumphs.

On the face of the earth, or in the waters, there is no animal to my feelings so wholly hateful as a modern exquisite: a wretch that has put off his natural aspect to put on a clay mask, hard, ungainly, inflexible, of lifeless mud--which no Prometheus could vivify: a thing which can boast neither the humor of the monkey, nor the fierce respectability of the wild beast,--not the usefulness of the tame--still less the dignity and bearing of a man.

Sometime since, after sauntering an evening through a ball room, in which some such caricatures of men were existing, I went home and vented my rage in the following doggerel:

The Indignant Rhymes of a Natural Proser.

Oh! Muse, assist me in my strain!
Your Museship I would entertain
With a poetic flagellation:
Assist me Muse, to lay the lash on,
With pen formed from a dog-wood switch,
Fit to chastise a dunce: with pitch
For ink, and bull's hide parchment handy;
Now aid me, Muse, and we'll chastise a dandy.

That petty, puny, paltry, pretty thing--
In form a wasp, but destitute of sting;
Vain as a peacock, soulless as a gnat,
Brainless as soulless, finical as flat:
Of apes the ape most awkward and most vile--
Jackall of monkeys, and without jacko's wile.
The jackall serves none but the noblest beast,
But this base thing takes lessons from the least.
As Egypt's sons did bow the knee of yore,
And worship apes, the eternal God before--
He, in god image framed, with godlike mind,
Would be a god--of Egypt's monkey kind.
A traveller sage! Europe he hath explored--
His mistress fashion, and an ape his lord.
No dignity finds he in native man,
Acting and thinking after nature's plan;
No wisdom, save in artificial fools--
Nature's apostates--slaves to senseless rules:
No beauty sees he, save in gold and lace,
A made up figure, and a painted face;
And no politeness, save in mere grimace.

Go! thou vile satire on the human race;
Go! _on all fours_, and seek thy proper place:
Go! thing too mean for any mighty ill--
Go! petty monster, "pay thy tailor's bill."

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

PLACED WITH A ROSE UPON A LADY'S CHEEK.

Roses on roses I bestow;
Bright rose! to brighter roses go--
Bask in the sunlight of her eyes,
Nor dread their fires; the dews which rise
In pity for a heart that grieves,
Will shed reviving coolness on thy leaves.

QUESTUS.

_Norfolk_.

{97}

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

THE ALLEGHANY LEVELS.

The following description of a part of Virginia and Maryland, seldom visited and but little known, may have sufficient interest to deserve a place in the columns of the Messenger.

The country alluded to, is in the northern part of this state, and comprehends that corner of Maryland included between the North Branch of Potomac and a line due north from the Fairfax stone, at the head spring of that stream, to the Pennsylvania line; and also a portion of the territory at present in dispute between the two states; Maryland claiming as her boundaries the South Branch of Potomac and a meridian thence to Mason and Dixon's line,--while the first mentioned limits only are acknowledged by Virginia.

A short notice of the origin of these conflicting titles might, perhaps, be interesting to some readers; but in addition to our lack of complete information, the limits of this sketch will not permit it.

Between Cheat river, at the fertile bottom called the Horse-shoe, and the summit of the mountain which divides the Western from the Atlantic waters, the country is thinly peopled, and only cultivated in the largest tributary vallies: the long spurs of the Backbone being too sterile to serve any other purpose than ranges for cattle and animals of the chase. The approach to the Great Backbone of the Alleghany region is here, as elsewhere on the western side, characterized by a broad and gentle acclivity, covered almost entirely with loose rocks of various sizes, many of them of the species of agglomerated quartz, familiar to the west under the name of country mill-stone, and valuable for the domestic molendinary uses of the simple and hardy race inhabiting those regions.

There is little timber of large size, the growth being chiefly chestnut oak and small moss-grown white oaks, exhibiting upon their blackened roots the scathing effects of flames, which, through the negligence of hunters in firing the dry leaves, have often and fiercely swept down the mountain side. The more recent inroads of fire are denoted by large tracts of underwood, black and denuded of leaves, and so stiffened by scorching as to present vexatious obstacles to progress, independent of the minor, though, in that place, unimportant annoyance of soiled clothes and person.

Large pine and birch trees, and a thicker undergrowth--detached blocks of stratified sandstone, some of them of huge size--and an increasing wildness and desolation in the aspect of the scenery, inform the traveller who may have ventured so far, that he is on the confines of the Alleghany wilderness.

The mountain top, near Lord Fairfax's stone, is crowned with a bold irregular precipice, which the hunters belonging to the exploring party of which the writer of this article was a member, termed the Bear-holeing, from its being the winter abode of great numbers of those animals,--the numerous cavities of the rocks, and the tangled laurel thickets, affording them a secure refuge from foes, whether biped or canine.

We were not without hope of being treated to the novelty of a bear hunt, our guides being veterans of the rifle, and accompanied by fine dogs, one of them as his master informed us, having engaged Sir Bruin more than fifty times.

The perils of this sport may well give a reputation for boldness and hardihood to our western yeomanry, when we consider that these encounters always occur in most intricate thickets of stubborn tangled laurel, in which the bear must have greatly the advantage in progression,--the sharp form of his head, and its close proximity to the ground, making it perform, in relation to his huge muscular body, the office, it might be said, of the coulter to a plough. But few of them are killed without the sacrifice of one or more of man's zealous confederates in this dangerous sport; and the rescue of the faithful brutes, (such is the inexpugnable nature of the foe and his extraordinary vital energy, which seems often to defy even the rifle,) obliges the hunter, with a personal daring not inferior to that of the Roman gladiators, to terminate the conflict with his hunting knife;--he dies invariably biting the ground or whatever else may be within his reach; showing to the very last the propensity to combat, which he exhibits even while a cub.

The range of precipice of which we have spoken, either terminates, or is interrupted for some distance north of this point--whence, for more than thirty miles, the country is totally without human inhabitant, and will probably for a long time, if not always, so remain.

The land may be said to lie in lofty tables, though the vallies are of great depth--the latter circumstance alone reminding the traveller that he has descended a mountain,--the seemingly interminable tract of flat forest land impressing, most forcibly, the idea of a lower situation, though these are without doubt among the very highest lands in Virginia. They are called by the hunters and settlers upon their outskirts, the Alleghany Levels. In them are the principal sources of all the great waters of Virginia. The North and South Branches of Potomac, Jackson's river, and the Shenandoah, Greenbrier and Gauley, Cheat and Tygart's Valley--which flow north, east, west and south, seeking by long and winding courses, the Ohio or the Atlantic Ocean.

The greatest singularity of this country consists in its primeval appearance: the ground is carpeted throughout with an elastic and verdant moss; black spruce and hemlock pines, of dark funereal aspect, tower above the soil like an army of Titans,--the interlacing of their umbrageous arms converting the noonday into seeming twilight. Under its mossy covering, the surface of the ground is completely reticulated with roots of trees--nature seeming to compensate in numbers for the defective character of her supports, as large trees may be often observed whose roots do not enter the ground for some feet below the trunk, being previously contorted and spread out like the arms of a polypous, and clothed in the same mantle of moss which overspreads rocks, trees and earth, in this fantastic region.

This moss may be stripped from the soil in sheets of any desirable size, and, when not previously saturated with rain, affords a most comfortable substitute for a mattrass, as in our bivouacs we more than once experienced.

The underwood is mostly streaked maple or elkwood, (the _Acer Striatum_ of Michaux,) diversified with immense tracts of the _Kalmia Latifolia_ and the large rose-bay-tree, (_Rhododendron Maximum_,) more popularly known as the "little and big laurels." The last {98} named plant, when in flower, is the ornament of the wilderness. Those who have never seen it, may have some conception of its appearance, if they imagine tall bushes, from eight to twenty feet in height, with dark evergreen leaves, (not unlike in form and color to those of the magnolia grandiflora,) bearing clusters of full blown peonies, or large double damask and cinnamon roses, the intensity of the color seeming to vary with situation.

It is to be feared that this beautiful plant cannot easily be naturalized in this climate--an attempt made by the writer of this article, possibly from a too warm or not sufficiently humid exposure, having failed.

The geographical position of these "laurel beds" is a necessary part of the hunter's lore. Frequent instances are narrated of persons bewildered in them many days, and some are said to have perished. A farmer, born and residing on Stony river, five miles north of this wild, by whom we were supplied with provisions, accompanied us to the skirt of the forest, but could by no entreaty be induced to proceed farther.

These laurel thickets are most frequent in approaching vallies, which are as before remarked, of great depth; the descent is sudden, in general by what resembles a rude flight of steps, moss grown and ruined. To casual observation there would appear to be no water at the bottom; but a subterraneous rumbling, and occasional flashes through the interstices of the fragments on which he steps, inform the passenger that a stream of volume and power is beneath him.

The largest streams however, as in other regions, flow in open channels, their waters having a dark ferruginous tinge, derived it is said, from the laurel roots, but more probably from deposites of ore through which they flow.

The wild animals are no doubt many, as well as various, though the noise attending our own operations kept them from our sight. We daily saw tracks of bears, deer and elk; of the latter, a drove of some threescore is said still to inhabit these almost inaccessible wilds. Of birds, we saw none living except a few silent and melancholy snow birds; but our nightly lullaby was the whooping of owls, which here abound in great numbers.

To the reputed wonders of rattlesnake dens, where these reptiles lie in monstrous cumuli, refusing to uncoil until the whole mass has been many times assailed with rifle balls and other missiles, we cannot testify, having never, though very desirous of so doing, the fortune to find one.

The soil is a cold argillaceous loam, unsuited to the production of the nobler grains, but susceptible of becoming, under proper culture, good grazing land, and no doubt proper for rye, oats and potatoes,--the invariable products of the whole mountain region.

The botany of the wilderness proper, is confined chiefly to the two species of pine before mentioned, the hemlock pine (_Pinus Canadensis_,) and the black spruce (_Pinus Nigra_ of Lambert.) Some stately specimens of the wild cherry and scattering patches of red beach complete the list.

On emerging from the wilderness, the customary variety of oak, ash maple and hickory presents itself, mingled with the cucumber tree (_Magnolia Acuminata_,) and that invaluable treasure to western housewives, the sugar tree,--announcing the neighborhood of cultivation.

This dreary expanse of forest terminates on the summit of the Eastern Front Ridge, at the head of the North Fork of Patterson's creek, itself an inconsiderable tributary of Potomac, but deserving celebrity for the grandeur of its scenery. It appears to have cut its way through three lofty mountains in succession, affording a more sublime exhibition of river gap landscapes than I have witnessed in any other part of the state,--the boasted grandeur of Harper's Ferry fading into insignificance when compared with it.

At the first farm east of the wilderness,--in the homely but comfortable dwelling of one of the worthy Dutch farmers, our little party enjoyed the unwonted luxury of beds, and were able to breakfast without performing for ourselves the office, which has occasioned our species to be so properly designated as "cooking animals."

C. B. S.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

THE CYCLOPEAN TOWERS, IN AUGUSTA COUNTY, VA.

On a fine morning in September 1834, a party of which the writer was one, consisting for the most part of gentlemen who had met together in the town of Staunton from various sections of the Union, resolved on a visit to certain remarkable NATURAL STRUCTURES which lay in the neighborhood of the Augusta Springs, and about twenty miles distant from the place of their departure.

After passing over a hilly and picturesque country, the road opened upon a fertile valley, which though in places narrow, was of considerable length,--and when seen from an elevated position, appeared like the bed of an ancient lake, or as it really is, the alluvial border of a flowing stream. The strata of limestone hills, followed their usual order of parallel lines to the great mountains of our continent, as though a strong current had once swept through this magnificent valley,--forming in its course islands and promontories,--which are now discoverable in numerous short hills and rocky bluffs, that are either naked and barren, or covered with a growth of stately trees. It was at such a projection, that we first descried the gray summits of what seemed a ruinous castle,--resembling those which were raised in feudal times to guard the passes of the Rhine, or like such as are still seen in mouldering majesty on many an Alpine rock. These summits or towers, of which there are seven, lifted their heads above the lofty elms, like so many antique chimnies in the midst of a grove; but, on approaching them nearer, our pleasure was greatly increased, to find them rise almost perpendicularly from the bed of a small stream, which winding around their base, serves as a natural moat to a building not made with mortal hands. The southern front of this colossal pile, presents a wall of about sixty feet elevation, terminating in three towers of irregular height, and perforated at its base by a cavern,--which, by an apt association, was denominated "_Vulcan's Forge_." The tower on the extreme right, was unanimously called "_Cocke's Tower_"--in honor of one of our party who ascended it. On the left, are two other isolated towers,--of which the centre or smaller one was distinguished as the "_Hymenial Altar_,"--a name which {99} had its origin partly in a _jeu d'esprit_, and partly on account of a shady bower in its rear, which seemed an appropriate shade to mantle maiden's blushes. The furthest and tallest, received the title of the "_Tower of Babel_." This is also the most perpendicular of all these rocky structures; an archway passes through it, by which there is an easy ascent to the remaining two, which stand on the acclivity of the hill,--and though of less altitude, are not of inferior beauty to the rest. One of them, which is of a round form, and flat at the top, and on that account received the appellation of the "_Table Rock_"--affords from its summit a splendid view of the whole; the other, and last of the five, we distinguished as "_Shelton's Rock_"--from one of our party.

These rocks in their formation resemble the palisades on the Hudson river--but are more regular in their strata,--which appear to have been arranged in huge masses of perfect workmanship--with projections like cornices of Gothic architecture, in a state of dilapidation. Those who are acquainted with the structure of the Cyclopean walls of the ancients, would be struck with the resemblance,--which suggested the name at the head of this article.

We pause to inquire why these primeval fragments of the world have remained so long unnoticed? Why is it that men are so easily awakened to the liveliest interest in distant objects, and yet neglect those which are nearer and more accessible? "A prophet" it hath been said on high authority, "hath honor save in his own country,"--and to that strange propensity of the mind to contemn whatever is familiar, must be attributed the neglect of many of the richest treasures at our own door, which frequently impart both wealth and distinction to foreign enterprise. For many years these towers have been known in the surrounding country, by the homely appellation of "THE CHIMNEYS,"--but no one has ever stopped to examine them, or to inquire how nature formed so curious a pile in such a spot. Imagination may indeed conceive that this noble structure was once the _Scylla_ of a narrow strait connecting the waters of the north and the south, until their accumulated pressing burst through the blue ridge at Harper's Ferry, and left in their subsidence these towers, as a perpetual memorial of their former dominion.

G. C.

[We do not remember where or when the following _Sonnet to Lord Byron_ was published. All we know is that it has been in print before, and has been ascribed to the pen of the Hon. R. H. Wilde, of Georgia.]

ORIGINAL SONNET TO LORD BYRON.

Byron! 'twas thine alone on eagle's pinions,
In solitary strength and grandeur soaring,
To dazzle and delight all eyes, out-pouring
The electric blaze on tyrants and their minions;
Earth, sea and air, and Powers and Dominions,
Nature--man--time--the universe exploring,
And from the wreck of worlds, thrones, creeds, opinions,
Thought, beauty, eloquence, and wisdom storing.
O! how I love and envy thee thy glory!
To every age and clime alike belonging;
Linked by all tongues with every nation's story,
Thou TACITUS of song!--whose echoes thronging
O'er the Atlantic, fill the mountains hoary
And forests with a name which thus I'm wronging.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

MUSINGS III--_By the Author of Vyvyan_.

JAMESTOWN.

Yet could I seat me by this ivied stone
Til I had bodied forth the heated mind
Forms from the floating wreck which ruin leaves behind.
_Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, _Canto_ iv. _Stanza_ civ.

Tawnor nehiegh Powhatan.
_Salvage dialect_, _apud Capt. Smith_.

I stand on hallowed ground--the sacred sod
Which once an ill-starred people bravely trod
In native freedom, ere the wanderer crost
The broad Atlantic waters and love lost
The fair reward of labor, ill repaid
By base desertion--country--friends betrayed--
Misery and exile from a native land,
Ending in death upon a foreign strand.

* * * * *

My spirit falls into a deeper mood
And thought goes darkly forth to gather food
For bitter contemplation;--for I trace
Some record of the spoilers of that race
Most gallant, wheresoe'er I turn mine eyes,--
While of the exiled--neath their native skies
Is scarce a token left--save what belongs
To a sad history of unnumbered wrongs.
Methinks the very sun's departing rays
With melancholy meaning seem to gaze
Upon the hostile monuments of yore,--
Yon ruined arch with ivy overgrown--
Those shattered tombs of moss-discolored stone--
That slowly moulder by the silent shore.

* * * * *

Might I the Genius of Old Time invoke,
This were the hour--the place--where many an oak
Tosses its arms and points to ancient graves
Beside the aisleless tower, which o'er the waves
Shall no more send its voice upon the air,
To call to matin or to vesper prayer.
Alone, it stands, like some grim sentinel
And in stern silence bids the world farewell!

* * * * *

Lift we the veil of vanished centuries--
Beneath the shade and shelter of these trees
The careless Indian smoked his calumet--
(The CHRISTIAN had not crost the ocean yet)--
Without a thought to mar his musing, save
To strand his light canoe beyond the wave
Or fasten it with sedgy rope secure,
Lest the next tide should steal it from the shore.
But lo! one evening as he lay beside
The margin where his native waters glide,
A sight of wonder on his vision broke;
And the deep voice of flame in thunder spoke
The doom of wo to him and all his race.
Yet fear, which might have blanched a paler face,
Quenched not the flashings of his dauntless eye,
Nor for an instant quelled that bearing high
Which best became the warrior of the wild--
The Hunter bold--the Forests' lordly child!
Ay! tho' the evil spirit of his sky,
For such well might his inexperienced eye
Have deemed it, lurked within the snow-white mist
That brooded o'er the silent river's breast, {100}
And spoke in accents of the dark storm-cloud,
From out the folding of its gleaming shroud,
He stood prepared to meet the worst--like one
Who hath no fear of aught beneath the sun.
Methinks I see him watching by the shore,
With strained eye, intently gazing o'er
The river's course. Well may he clasp his brow
In doubt and wonder--is he dreaming now?--
The cloud seems gathering up its folds of snow,
And straight spars glitter in the sunset glow,
Far loftier than the loftiest pine that rears
Its stately crest above its tall compeers:
Beneath--a huge dark mass is seen to glide
With stealthy motion o'er the heaving tide,
Crowded with moving forms of human mould,
But of an aspect well might daunt the bold,
Gazing the first time on that pallid crew,
So foreign and so ghastly in their hue!
But hark!--the distant shout that wildly pours
Its thousand echoes on the strand, assures--
Swift to the Chiefs he speeds--the wise--the bold
In council meet--his tale is briefly told;
Then far and near they gathered in their might
And 'gainst the invader battled for their right,
As valiant men should for the altars reared
By their forefathers and the homes endeared
By thousand ties and recollections past
To which the heart clings warmly to the last.
But not to lengthen out a thrice told tale--
The Red Man never yielded to the Pale,
Though forced by foreign fire to wander far,
Homeless and houseless, neath the evening star.
Slowly and sad, the western hills they climb,
Yet find no rest beyond for wearied limb
And aching heart--no single spot of earth,
Of all the wide spread land that gave them birth,
Is theirs. They gaze upon the setting sun
And feel their course like his must soon be run--
They hear their requiem in the deepening roar
Of waves that dash upon the distant shore--
But they must wander on unceasingly
So long as space remains for footing free,
Til hemmed at last twixt ocean and the foe
They turn to bay _once more_ and perish so.

* * * * *

Oh! little dreamed the tender hearted maid,
By love and her own gentleness betrayed,
That death and desolation's fellest wrath
So surely followed--in the very path
Of good intent--to whelm her race with woes
She would have warded even from her foes.
Where yonder temporary structure frail[1]
Extends across the strait its slender rail,
The shallow waves at flood scarce overflow
The sandy bar the ebb reveals below--
'Twas there the royal daughter crost to save
The pilgrim strangers from an early grave.
Who that had seen her on that fatal night,
Swift gliding, like a startled water sprite,
To that lone Island-Fort where calmly slept
The dreaming foe, in fancied safety wrapt--
Who could have aimed at such a breast the shaft?
Tho' well apprised no other means were left
To baffle treason--not as such designed
In the simplicity of her guileless mind.
Had she been only destined to inherit
A portion of that fierce determined spirit
And deep prophetic hate--like vestal fire
Nursed in the bosom of her royal sire,
A nation's doom had not been rashly sealed
By mercy thus so erringly revealed--
But it is done--and lo! the love which hurled
An ancient race to ruin--GAINED A WORLD!!

[Footnote 1: Alluding to the new bridge erected by Collier Minge, Esq. affording passage from the main land to the island, where a wharf has been built for the accommodation of steamboat travellers.]

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

THE FATED CITY.

'Twas evening, and the sinking sun
Streamed brightly in the sky,
And cast his farewell beams abroad,
Like smiles of an approving god,
O'er plain, and mountain high--
O'er waving fields of floating gold
That, round his gorgeous pyre, were rolled,
And o'er the city's glistening spires,
That flashed beneath his blazing fires.

There lay that city;--wealth and pride
Had built their temples there,
And swift-winged commerce there had brought,
From many a clime, her trophies caught:--
From Indian isles afar,
The pearl, the beryl and the gem;--
But treasures, far outvieing them,
Were with that city's wealth combined--
The priceless treasures of the mind!

The sun went down, and night came o'er
That city's winding walls;
The white moon rose along the sky,
And looked down calm, and silently,
Upon the shouting halls,
Where music rang, and laughter went,
From lip to lip, in merriment;--
Where all was careless, heedless, light,
Besporting on that festal night!

An hour passed on;--what cry was that,
Which thrilled that city so?
What shrieks are those,--what means yon cloud
That wraps the temple, like a shroud,
And fills the breast with wo?--
What mean yon flames, that blazing, run
Along that mountain dark and dun?--
Why quakes the land,--why heaves the sea--
Why peal the heavens dreadfully?

Night left the earth;--the sun arose,
As wont, above the sky,
And looked,--not on that city bright,
Which he had left before the night,
With turrets gleaming high;
But on a black and blasted waste,
Dread desolation's hand had traced,--
Upon a flood of _lava_, where
Once proudly stood POMPEII fair!

A. B. M.

_Tuscaloosa, Alabama_.

{101}

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

HYMN TO THE STARS.

BY D. MARTIN, _of Mobile_.

Ye burning blazonry of God!
Ye glittering lights that never die!
That pace the realms by seraphs trod!
And hold untiring watch on high!
And circling heaven's eternal king,
Ye dwell--His glorious fashioning!

Creation saw your timeless birth,
When from your own clear sapphire skies,
Ye looked upon the virent earth,--
An everlasting paradise!--
And seemed to mock with silent gaze,
Nature's green garb and tuneless lays!

Since then ye've read the world's black page,
And seen a stream sublime,
Roll its dark waters o'er an age
Of countless years of time!--
In whose deep, dark, unletter'd caves,
Earth hides her mighty as in graves!

Life's wasting--but ye still shine on,
And seem to me to be,
The lights upon the horizon
Of eternity's black sea!--
Pointing to the sun-lit far off west,
Where all immortal spirits rest!

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

TO * * * * *.

Believe not that my heart is cold,
And feels not friendship's sacred fire,
If I sometimes myself withhold,
And from thy festive scenes retire.

Oh, no! I love the social bower
Where friendship smiles with joyous mirth,
And yet to me there is an hour
More dear than all those scenes on earth.

'Tis when in pensive mood, the mind,
Retires within itself to muse,
And some bright dream, long since resigned,
With sad though pleasing thought reviews;

Some golden dream of early years,
When all the heart was warm and true;
And life, unshaded yet with cares,
Displayed its best and brightest hue.

'Twas then I dreamed of faithful love,
That would o'er time and change prevail--
Food, fairy scenes of pleasure wove--
Bright, verdant spots in life's dark vale.

But time advanced, and at one sweep
My air-built castles tore away;
And, like a wreck upon the deep,
My shattered hopes and prospects lay.

Upon life's ocean still I'm tossed;
And tho' the skies are sometimes bright,
Yet on the waves again I'm lost,
Midst howling storms and pitchy night.

Believe not then my heart is cold,
And feels not friendship's sacred fire,
If I sometimes myself withhold,
And from thy festive scenes retire.

L.

_Pittsylvania_.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

THE GRAVE SEEKERS.

BY R. S. F.

Come part the crowd, and open a way,
For those who are seeking the grave;
Some are pressing on in the light of day,
Some by the moon's obscurer ray,
Some on land and some on the wave.

Now come with me to the festive hall,
Where in mirth they dance and sing,
Till echo is answered by echo's call,
As the merry peals ring from one and all;
To the grave they swiftly wing.

Again with me, come haste away
Where the theatre shines so bright,
For there the lamps, with their peerless ray,
Have darkness changed into brighter day.
They gaze on the stage with delight!

Come follow this crowd which moves as the wave
On the gently ebbing sea;
With the scenes of the night their bosoms heave,
But little they think the next is the grave,
Not of the stage--but eternity.

See, reckless youth--maturer age
Alike are far from heaven;
In festive scenes their time engage--
They idly sport--they madly rage--
While to the grave they are driven.

Ye may trace their path as ye move along
The busy crowds of care;
In the house of God--in the house of song--
In distant isles--the waves among,
To the grave they must all repair.

So part the crowd, and open a way,
For those who are seeking the grave;
Some are pressing on in the light of day,
Some by the moon's obscurer ray,
Some on land and some on the wave.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

TO A YOUNG CHILD.

BY D. MARTIN, _of Mobile_.

Thou hast a clear, unsullied brow,
A bright and dreaming eye,--
And a spirit free and chainless,
As cherubs in yon sky!

The meteor lights of intellect,
Glance lightly on thee now,
And play like fairy revellers,
Upon thy parian brow!

Well, be it so--and may thy life
Be like a summer stream,
That sparkles into gladness,
Beneath the sun's bright beam.

May thy brow ne'er wear the coloring
Of passion's stern commotion,--
Which darkens many a God-like one,
While on life's stormy ocean!

May the sunny hours of childhood
Be the last to pass away,--
And the setting sun of life's dark night,
Dawn on a brighter day!

{102}

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

CUPID'S SPORT.

"Am I in fairy land?--or tell me, pray,
To what love lighted bower I've found my way?
Sure luckless wight was never more beguiled
In woodland maze, or closely-tangled wild."

Some where in Virginia, and in a certain year,--but I beg you will not inquire when or where, for you will break the thread of my discourse, and I shall be compelled, like corporal Trim when he was rehearsing the Lord's prayer before my dear uncle Toby, to begin at the beginning, at every interruption,--there lived a young man, in a certain town--

Now my dear reader, do you suppose I intend telling you a story without a single name, date or place in it? If you do, I am afraid you would see me at Kamschatka, or in Simms' hole, before you would make up your mind to travel one inch with me, or listen to one syllable.

Well, then, in a _certain_ place, and at a _certain_ time, as young _Timothy_ was sitting in the cool evening's shade, musing o'er the events that human life befall, and reflecting upon the many ups and downs he must necessarily encounter during the residue of his life, that _old_ heathen god, who, paradoxical as it may appear, is still as _young_ as he was at the day of his birth, I mean sly Cupid, who was, is, and ever will be a boy to all eternity, happened to have been snugly perched upon a branch of the very tree under which our friend was reclining, and the little urchin sat pluming his variegated wings, and feeling the points of his keen feathery arrows, preparing for his evening's sport.

Poor Tim! how little did he dream he was the subject the young god had selected for as merry a frolic as ever fortune smiled upon in her merriest mood. Tim was in his twentieth year,--"a leal light heart was in his breast," he knew not the cares and anxieties of the world, nor had he yet encountered fortune's frowns; he had enjoyed a full portion of her smiles and blandishments, and his life had flitted along like a gay summer's dream. He had yet to learn that all his castles were but air built and fanciful, and it was necessary he should plod a little upon his mother earth. Tim was none of your dashing thorough-going bloods, who soar aloft with the eagles of the day, ever and anon to pounce upon some harmless pigeon,--nor was he one of your gig and tandem boys,--flourish and dash,--tinsel and paint,--who whirl about for a season, and are all the go while the chink or the credit lasts, but who, finally whirl off to jail, or into obscurity and insignificance, nobody knows where, and nobody cares when. He was a mild, pleasant, merry-making fellow. As for his person,--my dear miss, you must excuse me; I know from your looks, you are curious to know whether he had black hair and black eyes,--or light hair and blue eyes,--or red hair and grey eyes,--but, really, I can't tell you,--certain it is, he had eyes and a nose, and

"When he happened to grin,
His mouth stood across
'Twixt his nose and his chin."

There he lay, all defenceless, on his right side, (I like to be particular,) with his clean white roundabout, and his waistcoat unbuttoned, both thrown carelessly over his left arm; there lay his heart, gently swelling and subsiding and he unconscious of its undulating flow--while Cupid--I was about to say, while Cupid's keen eyes were penetrating its inmost recesses, and eyeing it as a hawk some sunny perch in a limpid stream,--but, alas for Cupid--the ancients have interdicted the use of his eyes; nevertheless, on the present occasion, it is necessary for my purposes that Cupid should, at least, take the bandage from off his eyes, and the ancients to the contrary notwithstanding, I do maintain that the sly god has as beautiful a pair of eyes as ever were seen,--yes, and he is able to change them at his pleasure. At one time, he appears with the mildest, softest, kindest, clearest, heavenly blue eyes;--at another, with the keenest, blazing, and yet the blackest eyes that ever flashed wit, and eloquence, and expressing all the passions that the heart ever darts through its open portals. All eyes are his, of every hue and every form,--and at this moment, he was using as playful and as devilish a pair, as ever bewitched and enchanted a trembling maiden. He sat quietly selecting the most mortal parts of that defenceless heart, with bow well strung, and barbed arrows, and ever and anon, he placed the winged messenger to the string and twanged his silver bow. Cupid sometimes but tips his arrows' point with a poison, as rapid in its action and as efficacious as the most powerful prussic acid, and wo to the youth or the maid who feels the deadly pang; at other times, he slightly dips the barb, and leaves it to time and circumstances to develop its potent influence. On the present occasion, having smitten poor Tim with a double portion, away he flew, to practise his wiles on other subjects. Gentle reader, you are now introduced to our young friend Tim,--you have seen him in a condition worse than that of Daniel in the lions' den, and whether he is delivered or not your patience will enable you to discover. Would that I could have interposed a shield to protect the youth, but what the fates decree no mortal can prevent,--and you know, what is to be, happens for the best.