THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE

Of Literature, Art, and Science.

Vol. III. NEW-YORK, JULY 1, 1851. No. IV.

Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved to the end of the article. Table of contents has been created for the HTML version.

Contents

[FITZ-GREENE HALLECK.]
[THE BENEVOLENT INSTITUTIONS OF NEW-YORK.]
[ADVENTURES AND OBSERVATIONS IN NICARAGUA.]
[THE CONSPIRACY OF PONTIAC.]
[DR. STARBUCK MAYO, AUTHOR OF "KALOOLAH," "THE BERBER," &c.]
[ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.]
[FRENCH FEUILLETONISTES UPON LONDON.]
[SCHALKEN THE PAINTER.—A GHOST STORY.]
[SKETCHES OF LIFE IN SWEDEN.]
[A FRENCHMAN'S OPINIONS OF AMERICAN FEMALE POETS.]
[JEANNE MARIE, AND LYRICAL POETRY IN GERMANY.]
[AUTHORS AND BOOKS.]
[THE FINE ARTS.]
[NICHOLAS VON DER FLUE.]
[A STORY WITHOUT A NAME.]
[HORACE WALPOLE'S OPINIONS OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES.]
[THE COUNT MONTE-LEONE: OR, THE SPY IN SOCIETY.]
[SCENES AT MALMAISON.]
[THE GRAVE OF GRACE AGUILAR.]
[THE CLOISTER-LIFE OF THE EMPEROR CHARLES V.—Part. II.]
[DICKENS AND THACKERAY.]
[WORK AWAY!]
[OUR PHANTOM SHIP.—JAPAN.]
[MY NOVEL:]
[HISTORICAL REVIEW OF THE MONTH.]
[RECENT DEATHS.]
[RECORD OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.]
[LADIES' SUMMER FASHIONS.]

FITZ-GREENE HALLECK.

The author of Fanny, Burns, Marco Bozzaris, etc., was born at Guilford in Connecticut, in August, 1795, and in his eighteenth year removed to the city of New-York. He evinced a taste for poetry and wrote verses at a very early period; but the oldest of his effusions I have seen are those under the signatures of "Croaker," and "Croaker & Co.," published in the New-York Evening Post, in 1819. In the production of these pleasant satires he was associated with Doctor Drake, author of the Culprit Fay, a man of brilliant wit and delicate fancy, with whom he was long intimate. Drake died in 1820, and his friend soon after wrote for the New-York Review, then edited by Bryant, the lines to his memory, beginning—

"Green be the turf above thee,
Friend of my better days,
None knew thee but to love thee,
Nor named thee but to praise."

Near the close of 1819, Halleck published Fanny, his longest poem, which was written and printed in three weeks; in 1827 a small volume, containing Alnwick Castle, Marco Bozzaris, and a few other pieces, which had previously appeared in various miscellanies; and in 1836, an edition of all his serious and more finished compositions. The last and most complete edition of his works appeared two years ago in a splendid volume from the press of the Appletons.

It was Lord Byron's opinion that a poet is always to be ranked according to his execution, and not according to his branch of the art. "The poet who executes best," said he, "is the highest, whatever his department, and will ever be so rated in the world's esteem." We have no doubt of the justness of that remark; it is the only principle from which sound criticism can proceed, and upon this basis the reputations of the past have been made up. Considered in this light, Mr. Halleck must be pronounced not merely one of the chief ornaments of new literature, but one of the great masters in a language, classical and immortal, for the productions of genius which have illustrated and enlarged its capacities. There is in his compositions an essential pervading grace, a natural brilliancy of wit, a freedom yet refinement of sentiment, a sparkling flow of fancy, and a power of personification, combined with such high and careful finish, and such exquisite nicety of taste, that the larger part of them must be pronounced models almost faultless in the classes to which they belong. They appear to me to show a genuine insight into the principles of art, and a fine use of its resources: and after all that has been said and written about nature, strength, and originality, the true secret of fame, the real magic of genius is not force, not passion, not novelty, but art. Look all through Milton; look at the best passages of Shakspeare; look at the monuments, "all Greek and glorious," which have come down to us from ancient times, what strikes us principally, and it might almost be said only, is the wonderfully artificial character of the composition; it is the principle of their immortality, and without it no poem can be long-lived. It may be easy to acquire popularity, and easy to display art in writing, but he who obtains popularity by the means and employment of careful, elaborate art, may be confident that his reputation is fixed upon a sure basis. This—for his careless playing with the muse, by which one time he kept the town alive, is scarcely remembered now—this, it seems to me, Mr. Halleck has done; Mr. Halleck, Mr. Bryant, and Mr. Poe, have done above all our authors.

THE BENEVOLENT INSTITUTIONS OF NEW-YORK.

No city in the world is more justly entitled to consideration for active, judicious, and liberal benevolence, than New-York, though it must be confessed that in some respects others may make a more splendid display of the machinery of philanthropy, and even seem in the subscriptions made every year to particular charities to be more liberal. This is easily explained, by the fact that, while the people of New-York are behind none in thrift and virtue, the great commercial capital has nevertheless more than twice as much pauperism and crime, from emigration and importation, as any other city in the world. Foreigners who come here of their own will, foreigners who pay their own passages to our country, are always welcome; but those who are banished from their native places for crime, or deported for idleness, imbecility, or any cause that renders them a burthen to the public, should be shut out from our ports by some more efficient means than have yet been devised for the purpose. This class alone demands of the organized and individual benevolence of New-York a larger amount of money every year than is paid for the relief of human wretchedness in any other city.

The benevolent institutions of New-York are remarkable for their number, so that in no department does an establishment indicate the attention given to the particular necessities to which it is devoted; and not only do the Quakers and the Jews, as in other places, take care of their own poor, but almost every church, no matter of what denomination, is here a well organized society for the relief of the unfortunate among its members, and to a degree, within the sphere of its influence. Where wealth has been acquired by its possessor, there is apt to be a generous consideration for the less fortunate, and no city had ever so many of the philanthropic merchants, of whom the late Samuel Ward was a type, who are as judicious as they are liberal in shielding the oppressed, strengthening the weak, and guiding the unwary, in pointing out ways and furnishing means to the young who seem born to the inheritance of degradation, and in saving others from sufferings caused by improvidence or inevitable misfortune.

We propose no account of the humane societies of New-York, but only a brief mention of some few of those whose edifices are most likely to arrest the attention of strangers, as from several directions they approach the city.

The Institution for the Blind is in the square bounded by Eighth and Ninth Avenues and by Thirty-third and Thirty-fourth Streets, and is built of marble. The society was founded by Mr. Samuel Wood, aided largely by Dr. Samuel Ackerley, and was incorporated in 1831. In the spring of the following year the managers reported that they had made arrangements for instructing two or three blind children, "by way of experiment," and from that period the increase of its action and resources has been constant. Pupils are received for one hundred and thirty dollars a year, and the State has made provision for the maintenance at the institution of one hundred and twenty-eight indigent blind persons, so that it is always nearly full. The system of instruction includes the common English studies, with philosophy and the higher mathematics, mechanics, vocal and instrumental music, and, when desired, such trades as the blind can advantageously practise. The library contains more than seven hundred volumes in raised letters, besides a considerable collection printed in ink. The occasional exhibitions of the pupils have excited much attention, and the institution may be regarded as altogether one of the most successful of its kind in the world.

THE INSTITUTION FOR THE BLIND.

In 1797 the celebrated Isabella Graham founded the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children, and in the spring of 1806, Mrs. Alexander Hamilton, the widow of the great statesman, and Mrs. Bethune, a daughter of Mrs. Graham and the mother of the Rev. Dr. Bethune, with several associates, established, as a branch of that institution, the Orphan Asylum of the City of New-York, which was incorporated in 1807. Its first edifice was in Bank-street, but the enlargement of its activity and resources in 1836 led to the purchase of the ample and beautiful grounds near Eightieth-street, five miles from the City Hall, from which the edifice described in the engraving looks down on the Hudson, and forms one of the most picturesque views which greet the traveller who approaches the city by the river from the north. The eminent women whom we have mentioned continue, after nearly half a century, to be active in its management.

THE ORPHAN ASYLUM.

There is also a Protestant Half-Orphan Asylum in Sixth Avenue, a Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum, conducted by Sisters of Charity, in Mott-street, a Roman Catholic Half-Orphan Asylum in Eleventh-street, a very large Colored Orphan Asylum in Twelfth-street, and several other establishments of the same description, supported by public or private charity, in different parts of the city. New-York is second only to Philadelphia in the liberality of its provision for orphan children: the college founded by Stephen Girard places the latter city in this respect before any other in the world.

NEW-YORK INSTITUTION FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB.

The Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb was incorporated in 1817, the first pupils were received in the following year, and in 1827 the foundation was laid for the edifice now occupied by the institution in Fiftieth street, near Fourth Avenue. Since 1831, the President, Harvey P. Peet, LL.D. has had the chief direction of its affairs, and its income, the number of its inmates, and its good reputation, have rapidly increased.

The New-York Hospital in Broadway, the Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane, the Marine Hospital, the Seamen's Retreat, the Sailors' Snug Harbor, and the numerous establishments (several of which have large and splendid edifices) under the control of the municipal authorities, we may describe at length hereafter. The illustrations of this article evince the liberal style as well as the extent of the institutions which the position of New-York has rendered it necessary for her citizens to establish and support.

LUNATIC ASYLUM, BLACKWELL'S ISLAND.

ADVENTURES AND OBSERVATIONS IN NICARAGUA.

We have already announced in these pages that Mr. Squier, who was lately representative of the United States in Nicaragua, had in preparation for the press an account of his residence in that interesting country, and expressed an opinion that his work would surpass in interest and value the entire library of English and French publications on the subject. An examination of some of the sheets justifies our expectations; Mr. Squier must hereafter be ranked among the most successful travel-writers as well as antiquaries of the time; he knows what to observe and how to observe, and his relations with the Nicaraguans were such that no traveller had ever better opportunities for the acquisition of facts or the formation of judgments. His work will soon be published in a profusely illustrated octavo by Mr. Putnam. A pleasant specimen of the author's style is afforded by the following sketch of an evening ride on the banks of the lake of Granada, and of the sigñoras of that metropolis.

"After a pleasant interview of half an hour we bade Don Jose "buena tarde," and galloped down to the shores of the lake, just as the sun was setting, throwing the whole beach in the shade, while the fairy "Corales" were swimming in the evening light. The shore was ten-fold more animated than when we landed the day previously; men on horseback, women on foot, sailors, fishermen, idlers, children, and a swarm of water-carriers, mingling together, gave life to the scene; while boats and graceful canoes drawn up on the beach, barges rocking at their anchors outside, the grim old fort frowning above, and the green border of trees, with bars of sunlight streaming between them, all contributed to heighten and give effect to the picture. We rode up the glacis of the old castle, through its broken archway, into its elevated area, and looked out beyond the broad and beautiful lake, upon the distant shores of Chontales, with its earthquake-river, hills, and rugged volcanic craters. Their rough features were brought out sharply and distinctly in the slanting light which gilded the western slope of the gigantic volcano of Momobacho, while its eastern declivity slept in purple shadow. We were absorbed in contemplating, one by one, these varied beauties, when the bells of the city struck the hour of the "oracion." In an instant every voice was hushed, the horseman reined in his steed, the rope dropped from the hands of the sailor, the sentinel on the fort stopped short in his round; even the water-jar was left half filled, every head was uncovered, and every lip moved in prayer. The merry waves seemed to break more gently on the shore in harmony with the vibrations of the distant bells, while the subdued hum of reverential voices filled the pauses between. There was something almost magical in this sudden hush of the multitude, and its apparent entire absorption in its devotions, which could not fail deeply to impress the stranger witnessing it for the first time.

"No sooner, however, had the bells ceased to toll and struck up the concluding joyful chime, than the crowd on the shore resumed its life and gayety, while we put spurs to our horses and darted through their midst on our return to the city. The commandant and his companions would only leave me at my door, where we were saluted by our host with, "Saved your distance, gentlemen, dinner's ready!"

"An evening visit to the Señorita Teresa, finished our first entire day in Granada. This young lady had been educated in the United States, spoke English very well, and was withal a proficient in music—accomplishments which we never before learned to estimate at their true value. It was worth something to hear well executed passages from familiar operas, amidst tangible and not painted orange trees and palms, and in an atmosphere really loaded with tropical perfumes, instead of the odors of oil-pots and gas lights. Eight o'clock was the signal for general withdrawal from the streets, for then commenced the reign of the military police, and the city became at once still and quiet. The occasional barking of a dog, the tinkling of a distant guitar, the soughing of the evening wind amongst the trees of the courtyard, the measured tread and graduated "alertas!" of the sentinels, were the only interruptions to the almost sepulchral silence. While returning to our quarters we were startled by the "Quien vive?" of the sentinel, uttered in a tone absolutely ferocious, and as these fellows rarely parleyed long, we answered with all expedition, "La Patria," which was followed on the instant by "Que gente?" "Americanos del Norte." This was enough—these we found were magic words which opened every heart and every door in all Nicaragua. They never failed us. We felt proud to know that no such charm was attached to "Ingleses," "Alemanes", or "Franceses."

"The day following, in accordance with the "costumbres del pais," the customs of the country, we returned the visits of the preceding day, and began to see more of the domestic and social life of the citizens of Granada. We found all of the residences comfortable, and many elegant, governed by mistresses simple, but graceful and confiding in their manners. They were frank in their conversation and inquired with the utmost naïveté whether I was married or intended to be, and if the ladies of El Norte would probably visit Granada, when the "Vapores grandes," the great steamers came to run to San Juan, and the "Vaporcitas" steameretts, to ply on the lake and river. They had heard of a Mr. Estevens (their nearest approach to Stephens), who had written a book about their "pobre pais," their poor country, and were anxious to know what he had said of them, and whether our people really regarded them as "esclavos y brutes sin verguenza," slaves and brutes without shame, as the abominable English (los malditos Ingleses) had represented them. They were also very anxious to know whether the party of Californians which had passed through, were "gente commun," common people, or "caballeros," gentlemen, upon which point, however, we were diplomatically evasive, for there was more in the inquiry than we chose to notice. Our lady had heard that I was a great antiquarian, and, anticipatory to my visit, had got together a most incongruous collection of curiosities, from "vasos antiguos," fragments of pottery, and stone hatchets, down to an extraordinary pair of horn spectacles and a preposterously distorted hog's hoof,—all of which she insisted on sending to my quarters, which she did, with some rare birds, and a plate of dulces! At every house we found a table spread with wines and sweetmeats, and bearing a silver brazier filled with burning coals, for the greater convenience of lighting cigars. I excited much surprise by declining to smoke, on the ground that I had never done so; but the ladies insisted on my taking a "cigarita," which they said wouldn't injure a new-born babe, and paid me the compliment of lighting it with their own fair lips, after which it would have been rank treason to etiquette, and would have ruined my reputation for gallantry, had I refused. I at first endeavored to shirk the responsibility of smoking by thrusting them into my vest pocket, but found that as soon as one disappeared, another was presented, so I was obliged "to face the music" in the end. In every sala we found a large hammock suspended from the walls, which was invariably tendered to the visitor, even when there were easy chairs and sofas in the room. This is the seat of honor.

RESIDENCE OF THE UNITED STATES CHARGE D'AFFAIRES, SAN JUAN DE NICARAGUA.

"The women of pure Spanish stock are very fair, and have the embonpoint which characterizes the sex under the tropics. Their dress, except in a few instances where the stiff costume of our own country had been adopted, was exceedingly loose and flowing, leaving the neck and arms exposed. The entire dress was often pure white, but generally the skirt, or nagua, was of some flowered stuff, in which case the guipil (anglice vandyke) was white, heavily trimmed with lace. Satin slippers, a red or purple sash wound loosely round the waist, and a rosary sustaining a little golden cross, with a narrow golden band, or a string of pearls extending around the forehead and binding the hair, which often fell in luxuriant waves upon their shoulders, completed a costume as novel as it was graceful and picturesque. To all this add the superior attractions of an oval face, regular features, large and lustrous black eyes, small mouth, pearly white teeth, and tiny hands and feet, and withal a low but clear voice, and the reader has a picture of a Central American lady of pure stock. A large number of the women have, however, an infusion of other families and races, from the Saracen to the Indian and the Negro, in every degree of intermixture. And as tastes differ, so may opinions as to whether the tinge of brown, through which the blood glows with a peach-like bloom, in the complexion of the girl who may trace her lineage to the Caziques upon one side, and the haughty grandees of Andalusia and Seville on the other, superadded, as it usually is, to a greater lightness of figure and animation of face,—whether this is not a more real beauty than that of the fair and more languid Señora, whose white and almost transparent skin bespeaks a purer ancestry. Nor is the Indian girl, with her full, lithe figure, long, glossy hair, quick and mischievous eyes, who walks erect as a grenadier beneath her heavy water-jar, and salutes you in a musical, impudent voice, as you pass—nor is the Indian girl to be overlooked in the novel contrasts which the "bello sexo" affords in this glorious land of the sun."

Some of the pleasantest incidents related in the book are those which befell the author in his dealings with the Indians, in prosecuting his archæological investigations. These Indians are all passionate admirers of the United States, and of the "hijos de Washington"—the sons of Washington. Mr. Squier was waited upon officially by the authorities of several of the Indian pueblos or towns, and among them by the municipality of the Indian pueblo of Subtiaba, headed by a great friend of our author, Don Simon Roque, first alcalde, who presented him with an address in the aboriginal language, of which the following is a literal translation:

"Sir: The municipality of the Pueblo of Subtiaba, of which we are members, entertain the highest enthusiasm in view of the relations which your arrival induces us to believe will speedily be established between Nicaragua and the United States, the greatest and most glorious republic beneath the sun. We rejoice in the depths of our hearts that a man like yourself has been chosen to convey to us the assurances of future prosperity, in the name of the sons of Washington; and we trust in the Almighty, that the flag of the United States may soon become the shield of Nicaragua on land and sea. Convey our sincerest thanks for their sympathy to the great people which you represent, and give to your generous government the assurances of that deep gratitude which we feel but cannot express. We beg of you, sir, to accept this humble evidence of the cordial sentiments which we entertain both for you, your countrymen, and your Government, and which are equally shared by the people which we represent

Jose de la Cruz Garcias,
(Signed) Simon Roque,
Francisco Luis Autan."

Our author returned the visit, and gives us the following account of his reception:

"The reader may be assured that I did not forget my promise to the municipality of Subtiaba. A day was shortly afterwards fixed for my visit, and I was received with great ceremony at the cabildo or council chamber, where I found collected all the old men who could assist me in forming a vocabulary of the ancient language, which I had casually expressed a desire to procure. It was with difficulty that we could effect an entrance, for a half-holiday had been given to the boys of all the schools, in honor of the occasion, and they literally swarmed around the building. We were finally ushered into an inner room, where the archives of the municipality were preserved. Upon one side was a large chest of heavy wood, with massive locks, which had anciently been the strong box or treasury. A shadow fell over Simon's animated face as he pointed it out to me, and said that he could remember the time when it was filled with "duros," hard dollars, and when, at a single stroke of the alarm bell, two thousand armed men could be gathered in the plaza of Subtiaba. But those days were passed, and the municipality now scarcely retained a shadow of its former greatness. Under the crown it had earned the title 'leal y fiel' (loyal and true), and in reward of its fidelity it had received a grant of all the lands intervening between it and the ocean, to hold them in perpetuity for the benefit of its citizens. And Simon showed me the royal letters, signed "Yo, el Rey" (I, the King), which the imperial emperor had thought it not derogatory to their dignity to address to his predecessors in office, and notwithstanding his ardent republicanism, I thought Simon looked at them with something of regret. I inquired for manuscripts which might throw some light upon the early history of the country, but found only musty records of no interest or value.

INDIAN HOUSE, SUBTIABA, NICARAGUA.

"My attempts to fill out the blank vocabulary with which I was provided created a great deal of merriment. I enjoyed it quite as much as any of them, for nothing could be more amusing than the discussions between the old men in respect to certain doubtful words and phrases. They sometimes quite forgot my presence, and rated each other soundly as ignoramuses, whereat Simon was greatly scandalized, and threatened to put them all in the stocks as "hombres sin verguenza" (men destitute of shame). 'Ah!' said he, 'these old sinners give me more trouble than the young ones'—a remark which created great mirth amongst the outsiders, and especially amongst the young vagabonds who clung like monkeys to the window bars. The group of swarthy, earnest faces, gathered round the little table, upon which was heaped a confused mass of ancient, time-stained papers, would have furnished a study for a painter. It was quite dark when I had concluded my inquiries, but I was not permitted to leave without listening to a little poem, 'Una Decima,' written by one of the school-masters, who read it to me by the light of a huge wax candle, borrowed, I am sure, from the church for the occasion. My modesty forbids my attempting a translation, and so I compromise matters by submitting the original:

DECIMA.

Nicaragua, ve harta cuando
Cesara vuestro desvelo,
Ya levantara el vuelo
Hermoso, alegre, y triunfante;
Al mismo tiempo mirando
De este personage el porte,
Y mas sera cuando corte
Todos los gradeciamentos:
Diremos todos contentos
Viva el Gobierno del Norte.

D. S.

"As I mounted my horse, Don Simon led off with three cheers for 'El Ministro del Norte,' and followed it with three more for 'El Amigo de los Indios' (the friend of the Indians), all of which was afterwards paraded by a dingy little Anglo-servile paper published in Costa Rica, as evidence that I was tampering with the Indians, and exciting them to undertake the utter destruction of the white population!"

THE CONSPIRACY OF PONTIAC.

A History of the Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Wars of the North American Tribes against the English Colonies after the Conquest of Canada, is the title of a new work to be published during the summer by Francis Parkman, Jr. of Boston. Mr. Parkman, in introducing himself to the public two or three years since, by a volume of sketches of western travel, The Oregon Trail, betrayed not alone his strong natural fancy for the wild life of the Indian, but a sensitive and sagacious eye for character and scenery, and a style of nervous simplicity which in the present undertaking have more perfect play in a much wider and worthier sphere. The narrative proceeds clearly, and with simple grace. Many figures, familiar by name, but by name only, pass sharply defined before the reader's eye. The author has not lost in the lore of the historian the feeling of the poet, but he does not compromise the dignity of history, nor mistake its purpose, by indulging too much in luxuriance of picturesque description. We congratulate Mr. Parkman that his tastes have led him to the exploration of a subject in which we are all so interested, a subject whose historical romance has never been before attempted. The consultation of all the authorities, personal observation, and the want of any unfair gilding of events or character, fix the reader's faith in the severe integrity and justice of the author's results. This history will materially mitigate the complaint that American literature has so little honored the singular charm of the aboriginal American race, and we cannot hesitate to predict for it a position of authority to the student and of honor to the author, which the works of few men so young in the literary career have attained. Little estimate of its value, or of the value of any history, can be formed from extracts, but the following will indicate the freshness and poetic simplicity of the style, the author's exact eye for characteristic life and scenery, and just appreciation of historical truth and character.

Here is a glance at the life of the Iroquois:

"The life of the Iroquois, though void of those multiplying phases which vary the routine of civilized existence, was one of sharp excitement and sudden contrast. The chase, the war-path, the dance, the festival, the game of hazard, the race of political ambition, all had their votaries. When the assembled sachems had resolved on war against some foreign tribe, and when, from their great council-house of bark, in the Valley of Onondaga, their messengers had gone forth to invite the warriors to arms, then from east to west, through the farthest bounds of the confederacy, a thousand warlike hearts caught up the summons with glad alacrity. With fasting and praying, and consulting dreams and omens, with invoking the war-god, and dancing the frantic war-dance, the warriors sought to insure the triumph of their arms; and, these strange rites concluded, they began their stealthy progress, full of confidence, through the devious pathways of the forest. For days and weeks, in anxious expectation, the villagers await the result. And now, as evening closes, a shrill wild cry, pealing from afar, over the darkening forest, proclaims the return of the victorious warriors. The village is alive with sudden commotion; and snatching sticks and stones, knives and hatchets, men, women, and children, yelling like fiends let loose, swarm out of the narrow portal, to visit upon the miserable captives a foretaste of the deadlier torments in store for them. And now, the black arches of the forest glow with the fires of death; and with brandished torch and firebrand the frenzied multitude close around their victim. The pen shrinks to write, the heart sickens to conceive, the fierceness of his agony; yet still, amid the din of his tormentors, rises his clear voice of scorn and defiance. The work is done; the blackened trunk is flung to the dogs, and, with clamorous shouts and hootings, the murderers seek to drive away the spirit of their victim.

"The Iroquois reckoned these barbarities among their most exquisite enjoyments; and yet they had other sources of pleasure, which made up in frequency and in innocence all that they lacked in intensity. Each passing season had its feasts and dances, often mingling religion with social pastime. The young had their frolics and merry-makings; and the old had their no less frequent councils, where conversation and laughter alternated with grave deliberations for the public weal. There were also stated periods marked by the recurrence of momentous ceremonies, in which the whole community took part—the mystic sacrifice of the dogs, the wild orgies of the dream feast, and the loathsome festival of the exhumation of the dead. Yet, in the intervals of war and hunting, these multiform occupations would often fail; and, while the women were toiling in the cornfields, the lazy warriors vainly sought relief from the scanty resources of their own minds, and beguiled the hours with smoking or sleeping, with gambling or gallantry."

A glimpse of Indian winter life:

"But when winter descends upon the north, sealing up the fountains, fettering the streams, and turning the green-robed forests to shivering nakedness, then, bearing their frail dwellings on their backs, the Ojibwa family wander forth into the wilderness, cheered only, on their dreary track, by the whistling of the north wind, and the hungry howl of wolves. By the banks of some frozen stream, women and children, men and dogs, lie crouched together around the fire. They spread their benumbed fingers over the embers, while the wind shrieks through the fir-trees like the gale through the rigging of a frigate, and the narrow concave of the wigwam sparkles with the frostwork of their congealed breath. In vain they beat the magic drum, and call upon their guardian manitoes;—the wary moose keeps aloof, the bear lies close in his hollow tree, and famine stares them in the face. And now the hunter can fight no more against the nipping cold and blinding sleet. Stiff and stark, with haggard cheek and shrivelled lip, he lies among the snow drifts; till, with tooth and claw, the famished wildcat strives in vain to pierce the frigid marble of his limbs. Such grim schooling is thrown away on the incorrigible mind of the northern Algonquin. He lives in misery, as his fathers lived before him. Still, in the brief hour of plenty he forgets the season of want; and still the sleet and the snow descend upon his houseless head."

Here another leaf from Penn's laurels:

"It required no great benevolence to urge the Quakers to deal kindly with their savage neighbors. They were bound in common sense to propitiate them; since, by incurring their resentment, they would involve themselves in the dilemma of submitting their necks to the tomahawk, or wielding the carnal weapon, in glaring defiance of their pacific principles. In paying the Indians for the lands which his colonists occupied,—a piece of justice which has been greeted with a general clamor of applause,—Penn, as he himself confesses, acted on the prudent counsel of Compton, Bishop of London. Nor is there any truth in the representations of Raynal and other eulogists of the Quaker legislator, who hold him up to the world as the only European who ever acquired the Indian lands by purchase, instead of seizing them by fraud or violence. The example of purchase had been set fifty years before by the Puritans of New England; and several of the other colonies had more recently pursued the same just and prudent course."

The deaths of Wolfe and Montcalm:

"In the heat of the action, as he advanced at the head of the grenadiers of Louisburg, a bullet shattered his wrist; but he wrapped his handkerchief about the wound, and showed no sign of pain. A moment more, and a ball pierced his side. Still he pressed forward, waving his sword, and cheering his soldiers to the attack, when a third shot lodged deep within his breast. He paused, reeled, and, staggering to one side, fell to the earth. Brown, a lieutenant of the grenadiers, Henderson, a volunteer, an officer of artillery, and a private soldier raised him together in their arms, and, bearing him to the rear, laid him softly on the grass. They asked if he would have a surgeon; but he shook his head, and answered that all was over with him. His eyes closed with the torpor of approaching death, and those around sustained his fainting form. Yet they could not withhold their gaze from the wild turmoil before them, and the charging ranks of their companions rushing through fire and smoke." "See how they run," one of the officers exclaimed, as the French fled in confusion before the levelled bayonets. "Who run?" demanded Wolfe, opening his eyes like a man aroused from sleep. "The enemy, sir," was the reply; "they give way every where." "Then," said the dying general, "tell Colonel Burton to march Webb's regiment down to Charles River, to cut off their retreat from the bridge. Now, God be praised, I will die in peace," he murmured; and, turning on his side, he calmly breathed his last!

"Almost at the same moment fell his great adversary, Montcalm, as he strove, with useless bravery, to rally his shattered ranks. Struck down with a mortal wound, he was placed upon a litter and borne to the General Hospital on the banks of the St. Charles. The surgeons told him that he could not recover. "I am glad of it," was his calm reply. He then asked how long he might survive, and was told that he had not many hours remaining. "So much the better," he said; "I am happy that I shall not live to see the surrender of Quebec." Officers from the garrison came to his bedside to ask his orders and instructions. "I will give no more orders," replied the defeated soldier; "I have much business that must be attended to, of greater moment than your ruined garrison and this wretched country. My time is very short; therefore, pray leave me." The officers withdrew, and none remained in the chamber but his confessor and the Bishop of Quebec. To the last, he expressed his contempt for his own mutinous and half-famished troops, and his admiration for the disciplined valor of his opponents. He died before midnight, and was buried at his own desire in a cavity of the earth formed by the bursting of a bombshell."

We conclude with a sketch of Pontiac:

"Pontiac, as already mentioned, was principal chief of the Ottawas. The Ottawas, Ojibwas, and Pottawattamies, had long been united in a loose kind of confederacy, of which he was the virtual head. Over those around him his authority was almost despotic, and his power extended far beyond the limits of the three united tribes. His influence was great among all the nations of the Illinois country; while, from the sources of the Ohio to those of the Mississippi, and, indeed, to the farthest boundaries of the wide-spread Algonquin race, his name was known and respected. The fact that Pontiac was born the son of a chief would in no degree account for the extent of his power; for, among Indians, many a chief's son sinks back into insignificance, while the offspring of a common warrior may succeed to his place. Among all the wild tribes of the continent, personal merit is indispensable to gaining or preserving dignity. Courage, resolution, wisdom, address and eloquence, are sure passports to distinction. With all these Pontiac was preëminently endowed, and it was chiefly to them, urged to their highest activity by a vehement ambition, that he owed his greatness. His intellect was strong and capacious. He possessed commanding energy and force of mind, and in subtlety and craft could match the best of his wily race. But, though capable of acts of lofty magnanimity, he was a thorough savage, with a wider range of intellect than those around him, but sharing all their passions and prejudices, their fierceness and treachery."

DR. STARBUCK MAYO, AUTHOR OF "KALOOLAH," "THE BERBER," &c.

If there is any satisfaction derivable from a long and clear lineage, the author of Kaloolah ought to be a very happy man. Seven successive generations of reputable ancestry connect him with the Rev. John Mayo, a divine of distinguished piety and learning who in the year 1630 came to this country, and after settling in the town of Barnstable, transferred his residence to Boston, and became the first pastor of the South Church. The English pedigree of this John Mayo is one of the oldest among the gentry of Great Britain. On his mother's side Dr. Mayo also traces his descent for several ages through the Starbucks, one of the primitive families of that most primitive of all places, the island of Nantucket.

The parents of Dr. Mayo removed to the village of Ogdensburg on the St. Lawrence under the circumstances very similar to those described in Kaloolah, and he was there born in the year 1812. His early intellectual training was under the pedagogueism of the Rev. Josiah Perry, one of the few men formed by nature for school-masters, who has left as marked a memory in a smaller sphere as did ever Parr or Burke in theirs. Never was instruction better given in all the elements of a thorough English education than for many years in his well-known school, which has produced several of the most distinguished men of the present time. From this the subject of our memoir was transferred, at the age of eleven or twelve, for the purpose of pursuing classical studies, to the academy at Potsdam, which enjoyed for a number of years the superintendence in the office of its principals of a succession of very eminent men, among them the present Rt. Rev. Bishop of North Carolina. His successor, under whom Dr. Mayo's pupilage occurred, was the Rev. Mr. Banks, a Presbyterian divine from New England, of learning, taste, and refinement, such as were rarely met with even in that day among men of his class.

The description of the early life of Jonathan Romer is in the main the history of the author himself. At the age of seventeen he commenced the study of medicine, which he pursued with ardor and success. In 1832, having attended for three years the lectures of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in this city, he underwent his examination for a degree, but did not receive a diploma till the ensuing term, not having attained the legal age of twenty-one. After spending several years in the city hospitals and in private practice, he abandoned brilliant professional prospects to go abroad, partly for the benefit of his health and partly urged by the spirit of adventure, which had long led him to form plans for the exploration of Central Africa. Perhaps it is to be regretted that he was prevented by the infirmity of short-sightedness from emulating the achievements of Park, Clapperton and Ledyard, for which his moral and physical constitution eminently fitted him. He travelled extensively in Spain and Barbary however, and we have the results in Kaloolah and in The Berber.

Anonymously, in various magazines, Dr. Mayo had written much and well, but he was scarcely known as an author until the appearance of the work upon which his fame still chiefly rests, Kaloolah, or Journeyings to the Djébel Kumri, in the spring of 1849. It has frequently been said that Kaloolah was suggested by the popular works of Herman Melville, but it was written and nearly printed before the appearance of Typee, the first of Mr. Melville's productions; and we see no reason for another opinion, that it was an offspring of the author's love for Defoe; if it was not an altogether spontaneous and independent work, its parentage was probably less famous; we know of no composition so nearly resembling Kaloolah as the pretended Narrative of Robert Adams, an American sailor who was wrecked on the Western Coast of Africa, in the year 1810, detained three years in slavery by the Arabs, and afterward several months a resident in the city of Timbuctoo. This was a piece of pure fiction, though brought out in London in a splendid quarto under the endorsement of the Lord Chancellor, the President of the Royal Society, and many other eminent persons in literature, science, and affairs, and elaborately and credulously reviewed in the Edinburgh, the Quarterly, and other Reviews. The hero of this performance, after various adventures, was married to a dusky princess in the terra incognita, and made almost as many marvellous discoveries as are recorded by Jonathan Romer. Another and a very different writer, who selected central Africa to be the field of somewhat similar inventions, was the learned and ingenious Richard Adams Locke, whose astonishing history of revelations in the moon was not more creditable to his abilities than his singularly recovered MSS. of a lost traveller by the borders of the Niger and in middle Africa, published in the New Era journal in this city about the year 1838. But we do not suppose Dr. Mayo was indebted to either of these works for the idea of his story. And just as erroneous as the charge of plagiarism, and much more absurd, is the notion that he designed Kaloolah as a "satirical criticism on life and manners in New-York." A writer in the North British Review declares that he "could not help laughing aloud," though seated quietly by himself, at the "description of a musical entertainment of the court of the hero's royal father-in-law, heaven knows where in Africa, and intended as a burlesque on the sheer noise which is the predominant element" in all our orchestras. We assure the shrewd critic most positively that the author never dreamed of such a thing. Kaloolah is too well known to need much description; its success was certain and immediate, and not many original works have ever been published in this country which have had a larger circulation. It evinces remarkable fertility of invention, is exceedingly interesting, and abounds in clearly defined, spirited, and occasionally well finished portraitures. Kaloolah, the heroine, is a fresh and beautiful creation, worthy of any of the masters of fiction. The hero, Romer, is designed merely as a type of the determined Yankee adventurer, drawn with only the exaggeration demanded in works of art; and half the seeming of extravagance in the narrative and the sketches of nature would have disappeared if the author had not, to reduce his volume to the size deemed by his publisher most promising of profit, omitted all his numerous and curious notes.

Kaloolah was followed in 1850 by The Berber, or the Mountaineer of the Atlas, a story of Spain and Morocco, about the close of the seventeenth century. As a novel it is decidedly better than Kaloolah; it displays greater skill in narration, and is written in the same pure, distinct and nervous English. Dr. Mayo thoroughly understood from observation as well as study all the accessories of his subject, and we are mistaken if any recent book on northern Africa gives a more clear, spirited or just impression of its scenery or of the character and manners of its people. The hero is of the highest style of the half-barbarian chiefs of the country and time; born a Christian, educated a Mohamedan, and ambitious to free his tribe from the domination of the Moors, and to found a new empire, with a higher civilization than was ever known to the race he leads; and other characters have enough adventures, dimly sketched, to fill the circles of a dozen tragedies if brought more near the eye. The faults of the book are, an excess of incident, discursiveness preventing proper unity and proportion, and a confessed failure of the story to evolve all the intended moralities, which the author therefore in some cases brings forward in his own person.

The last volume we have had from the hand of Dr. Mayo is, Romance Dust from the Historic Placer, a collection of shorter stories chiefly founded on historical incidents. In these he exhibits the fresh feeling, occasionally the humor, and always the bold drawing and effective coloring which distinguish his more ambitious performances. The volume contains also a poem, but not one of such striking qualities as to induce regret that the author has commonly chosen to write in prose. The style of his novels, especially in the narrative parts, is uncommonly good, but with its many excellencies it does not seem to us that it possesses a poetical element.

Dr. Mayo has commenced a brilliant course, in which we trust we shall have occasions to record still greater triumphs than those by which he has won a place in the first rank of the young writers of English.

The portrait at the beginning of this article is very truthful; it is from a recent daguerreotype by Brady.

THE CRYSTAL PALACE.

Original Correspondence.

London, May 23, 1851.

Historical Sketch—Why England was the most appropriate location for Exhibition—First impressions—Contrast between barbaric and civilized industry—Use and beauty—Moral and social influences.

The Great Exhibition constitutes the one absorbing topic in which, for the time being, all other topics are merged. Go where you will, nothing else is thought of, talked of, or heard of, from one end of London to the other—this magnificent display of the achievements of art and industry forms the sole theme of conversation, calling forth the most animated descriptions, the most energetic discussions, the warmest and most enthusiastic praise. Nor is this interest confined to London alone; the whole kingdom shares in the excitement, and seems to be only waiting for warmer weather, and the approaching reduction of the entrance fee, to march upon the metropolis, and satiate its curiosity within the walls of the Crystal Palace. As the season advances, and the brilliant success of the enterprise becomes known, foreign nations, who have contributed so largely to the splendor of the show, will send over hosts of friendly visitants; and the World's Fair, so veritably cosmopolitan in design and execution, will become equally so in its social character and results.

As the activity of the present age developes itself mainly through productive and commercial industry, this collection of the choicest industrial products of all the nations of the globe, is not only in perfect accordance with the spirit of the epoch, but seems indeed to belong so properly to the present day, that it may be doubted whether such an event could have taken place at any earlier period: while the political and social conditions of Great Britain, her friendly relations with all other powers, together with the perfect security for property, the commercial freedom, and facilities of transport, which are here enjoyed in a pre-eminent degree, combine to indicate this country as the most appropriate arena for this first pacific contest of the nations; the only one, perhaps, in the actual state of Europe, in which it could have taken place at this time.

The traditions of the English people, also, are such as would naturally suggest to them the idea of an enterprise of this kind; for not only have Fairs (which may be regarded as a rude attempt at a more general exhibition of wares than that afforded by the mere ordinary display of shops) been common here, as elsewhere in Europe, for many centuries, but exhibitions more nearly resembling the present Institution, in which the palm of excellence, rather than direct commerce, is the primary object, have taken place here frequently during the past century, through the enterprise of individuals, or societies, independently of any assistance from the Government. As early as the year 1756, the "Society of Arts" of London offered prizes for the best specimens of various manufactures, tapestry, carpets, porcelain, &c., and held public exhibitions of the works which were offered in competition; while about the same period, the Royal Academy, as a private society, patronized by George the Third, rather in a personal capacity than as the head of the legislature, organized its exhibitions of painting, sculpture, and engraving; and during the last thirty years exhibitions of machinery and manufactures, gotten up entirely through the efforts of private individuals, have taken place not only in the metropolitan cities, in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, but in all the principal towns of the United Kingdom.

The earliest national exhibition of industrial products in France, occurred in 1798, and was followed by others at irregular intervals until 1819, since which period they have taken place every five years, and have exercised a marked effect upon the industrial development of Europe. The brilliant character of the two last of these exhibitions (in '44 and '49), led to several ineffectual attempts on the part of the Society of Arts, and others, to interest the British Government in the getting up of a similar exhibition of the products of British industry, to be held in 1851.

At length in 1849, Prince Albert, who, as President of the Society of Arts, had known and sanctioned all these proceedings, took the project under his own personal superintendence, enlarged upon the original design by proposing to invite the co-operation and competition of all foreign nations, and proceeded to settle the principles upon which the enterprise, thus modified, should be conducted, and the mode in which it should be carried out.

The first steps toward the realization of this new plan, were made in the name, and under the auspices of the Society of Arts; but so universal was the interest which this noble project called forth throughout the country, that it was thought advisable to make it a national concern, by taking it out of the hands of the Society, and intrusting its execution to a body of royal commissioners, appointed for that purpose by the Government, with Prince Albert as its President; the Government, meantime, giving its sanction only to the undertaking, and merely lending its aid when it was absolutely indispensable, as in correspondence with foreign countries, providing a site for the building, organization of police, and the cost of such assistance whenever it entailed expense, being defrayed from the funds of the Exhibition, thus leaving all the responsibility of the attempt, pecuniary or other, with the commissioners themselves.

The subsequent history of the "rise and progress" of the undertaking; the promptitude with which the requisite funds were subscribed by private generosity; the selection of Hyde Park as the site of the projected Industrial Palace; the various plans proposed for the building, and the final adoption of the design of Mr. Paxton, after the model of a conservatory by him erected for the Duke of Devonshire; the admirable manner in which this design has been carried out by the architects, Messrs. Fox & Henderson; the cordial response with which England's friendly challenge has been answered by all the peoples of the globe, from her next-door neighbors across the channel, to the far-off denizens of Orient, and remote islands of sunny southern seas; the imposing ceremonial which, on the appointed day, threw open the vast Museum to the gaze of an impatient public; the crowds of titled dames and potent seigneurs, of the "wealth, beauty and fashion" of the aristocratic world, that fill, day after day, the immense area, wandering from one magnificent display to another, and marvelling at the richness, perfection, and variety of the countless objects that meet their eyes at every turn; the probability of a somewhat formidable thronging of less elegant, but equally interested visitors, when the "shilling days" begin; the fabulous wealth flowing, week after week, into the treasury of the royal commissioners at the various entrances of the buildings; and the growing desire on the part of the public, that the funds, thus arising from the Exhibition itself, should be appropriated to the formation of a "Permanent Museum of the Art and Industry of all Nations;" all this is too well known to call for further comment.

The first impression created by the interior aspect of the Crystal Palace, is one of admiration. Magnificent indeed is the lofty dome of the transept, arching over glorious old trees, oriental shrubbery, statuary, fountains, and masses of gorgeous flowers; the brilliant perspective of the central aisle, with its double lines of galleries, stretching away on either hand, and traversed by countless avenues, every point of the vast expanse presenting its own special subject of interest, and challenging the beholder's gaze. But so extensive and various is this great collection, so striking are the contrasts of form, color, and use, presented by the endless succession of objects that meet the eye in every direction, that the sentiment of admiration soon gives place to a feeling of hopeless bewilderment. A careful study of maps and catalogues, and many visits, spent in making a general survey of the various departments of the building, are indispensable preliminaries to a more intimate acquaintance with the admirable objects contained in each. But the topographic and distributive arrangements of the building understood, the chaos of one's impressions becomes gradually into order; and the work of examination goes on with more success.

The transept and the western wing are occupied by Great Britain and her colonial possessions; the eastern wing is appropriated to foreign nations, the countries lying nearest the tropics being ranged immediately round the transept. Objects of art and artistical industry occupy the central portions of the building; raw materials, machinery, hardware, and carriages being placed nearest to the walls. The objects admitted to the exhibition come under four general categories: raw materials, machinery, manufactures, and fine arts, and are divided into thirty classes, an arrangement which greatly facilitates the business of investigation and comparison.

Many of the Oriental nations are very fully represented, especially India; it would be difficult to cite any department of Indian life and industry not illustrated in the ample collections of her natural and manufactured products, gathered together with the utmost care. China, Tunis, Persia, and the islands of the Indian archipelago, are also here in great force, and make a very brilliant display. The exquisite texture of many of their woven fabrics, the richness of color and effect, the incredible fineness and delicacy of workmanship displayed in many of their manufactured articles, prepared with the aid only of the rudest tools, often surpass all that the enlightened skill of European artisans can accomplish, and may furnish western industry with many valuable models and precious suggestions for future use. But the beauty of eastern productions lies solely in perfection of detail; there is nothing large, generous, or comprehensive in barbaric industry. All that its resources can accomplish is lavished on objects of parade and luxury, often absolutely useless, and always destined for the privileged few; the element of ordinary existence, all that goes to make up the daily life of the masses, is coarse and rudimentary. These shawls, which, for fineness of texture, richness of color, and beauty of design, leave the choicest productions of European looms at an immeasurable distance; these muslins and gauzes, finer than gossamer, yet covered with exquisite traceries in gold and silver thread, fabrics that seem too etherially light to be worn by others than the ladies of Titania's court; these silks and satins, and damasks of admirable texture, and of richest dyes; these magnificent garments, stiff gold embroidery, with precious stones and with tinsel whose glancing hues produce an effect quite as brilliant as that of the jewels; how strangely they contrast, these splendid things intended for the few, with the coarseness of the fabrics destined for the ordinary use of the many. Compare these magnificent housings and accoutrements, these saddles of velvet, stiff with gold, these reins, and swords and daggers, full of pearls and jewels, with those clumsy implements of labor, and those uncouth, heavy utensils of domestic life. Compare the elaborate workmanship of screens, cabinets, vases, lamps, and tables, with the primitive candles and suspicious-looking soaps; the magnificence of carriages and palanquins, luxuriously cushioned, and hung with velvet and gold, in which lazy, bloated grandees are lounging, laden with jewels and finery, with the naked, emaciated bearers, human brutes that replace beasts of burden, and contrast, unfavorably, with average European horses!

In European industry, on the contrary, an ascentional, out-reaching movement is every where visible. Beauty remains no longer in scornful isolation, divorced from use, but descending into the domain of every-day existence, incorporates her divine essence in all the forms of common life, pervading the lowliest spheres, raising and ennobling the humblest details, by her purifying and vivifying presence. This tendency, visible in the industry of all European nations, is still more clearly evident in the manufactures of France and England, whose productions, standing at the head of all others, constitute the highest expression of the industrial spirit of the age. Here the hardest and heaviest materials, wood, iron, and stone, become plastic under the workman's hand, assuming the most brilliant polish, the lightest and most elegant forms; grates, fire-irons, and kitchen-ranges, rival, in lustre and beauty, the attractions of diamonds, goldsmiths' work, and flowers. The admirable construction of machinery shares in the enthusiasm excited by the beautiful fabrics woven by their tireless fingers; and the "Golden Marriage" of use and beauty is every where celebrated under varying forms.

They who imagine that art has died out of the world, and sigh for the chisel of Praxiteles, the pencil of Apelles, and the glorious conceptions of the masters of the middles ages, would do well to visit the Crystal Palace, and contrast the rudeness which shaped all the elements of ordinary life in former periods, with the elegance and beauty which the simplest objects of common use are beginning to assume. Not, however, that the one necessarily precludes the other, or that we are fated to produce no more fine statues and paintings, no more monumental temples and palaces, because we now have, at lower prices than were paid in ancient times for inferior articles, beautiful carpets, and fabrics of silk, wool, and cotton, furniture, porcelain, and glass, in which the thought of the artist and the craft of the artisan are so admirably blended that they seem to be identical. Art is not dead; it is throwing out wider and deeper roots, and will bear richer fruits in the garden of the future, enriched by the mingled detritus of by-gone ages, than it has ever borne in the primitive formations of the past.

One of the most interesting features of the present exhibition, the one which constitutes its distinguishing character, is, undoubtedly, its universality, and the interest which it excites among all nations, and all classes. And it was time that the results of human activity in its various departments, should thus be gathered together from the four corners of the globe, for the world is cut up into so many small fractions, and each fraction lives so much within the limits of its own narrow circle, ignoring, for the most part, all that is going on outside of it, that it is in the highest degree desirable that people should begin to see something of what their neighbors are doing.

It is time that nations met elsewhere than on the field of battle, and measured their strength and dignity by some more rational standard than the relative force of their cannon; time also that the various classes of society, so widely separated by the artificial divisions of caste and fortune, should look, at length, into each other's face and recognize the band of a common nature and of common needs; that the world's, as yet, unhonored workers, beholding the glorious fruits of their prolific energy, should perceive the sublimity of their mission and take fresh heart and fresh hope; that the rich should learn, from the grand results of labor, to appreciate more justly its nobleness and worth.

That the exhibition of 1851, successful as it is evidently destined to be, should fully realize this most desirable end, is hardly to be expected; but that it will do much toward creating a better understanding between classes and countries, and thus pave the way for the bringing in of a future era of universal helpfulness and good-will, may be very confidently predicted.

Stella.

FRENCH FEUILLETONISTES UPON LONDON.

The leading Parisian journals have correspondents in London during the Great Exhibition, and as the corps of Parisian feuilletonistes comprises much of the richest and rarest talent of the great French metropolis, there is a piquancy and brilliance in these daguerreotypes of London life and the impressions of English character, which is very entertaining. No traveller who remembers dining at any of the recherché cafés upon the Boulevards with a Frenchman, and chatting with him of England and London, can forget the cold chill that curled through the Parisian's conversation, as if he were a Pole, gossipping of Siberia, or the glances of intense satisfaction and pride which he cast upon the lively and lovely groups in the street, inly thanking God that he was not born a child of perfide Albion.

But these gentlemen talk not alone of the Exhibition, but of the "town" in general. Their articles wear the air of the journals of heroic adventurers who have penetrated into barbarous lands. They are clearly home-sick, these sybarites. We extract the following from a translation in the London Literary Gazette, prefaced with a few editorial remarks. Speaking of the variety of their topics the reviewer says: "Thus the great Jules Janin, in the Journal des Débats, notwithstanding the interest of portions of his article, some of which have been translated into our journals, makes the infamy of French republicans, and his own fervent love and devotedness to the royal family of Orleans, the burden of his lucubrations. M. Blanqui, the historian of political economy, and translator of Adam Smith, faithful as becomes an economist to his idée fixe, bewails in the Presse the folly of France in rejecting the doctrines of free trade, and clamors loudly for an immediate reform of French tariffs. M. Jules de Prémary fills column after column in the Patrie with descriptions of English manners, customs, and peculiarities; and yet he admits that he knows nothing of our language, and has only resided amongst us for a few days. Parisian littérateurs pride themselves on being men of imagination, poets, penseurs fantasistes; and it is clear that it would be as reasonable to chain an eagle to a dog-cart, as to expect them to deal with a plain, practical, matter-of-fact thing in the methodical business-like way of the English journalist. Of these, the lines of Miss Fanny Fudge are strikingly true:

"Vain, critics, vain
All your efforts to saddle wit's fire with a chain!!
To blot out the splendor of fancy's young stream,
Or crop in its cradle the newly-fledged beam!!!"

But though our worthy confrères of the Parisian press have thus let their wits go a wool-gathering, and left the poor Exhibition in the lurch, it is but just to state that one and all display on the whole a most friendly feeling towards the English; and even in quizzing us, as most of them do, display great good nature. They feel, perhaps, a little sore at having been outstripped by us in the establishment of the first great Universal Exhibition; but this was only natural, and they console themselves by stating that it was in France that the idea was first conceived, and by solemnly promising that France will some day prendre sa revanche. The most amusing of the feuilletonistes is unquestionably M. Jules de Prémary, of the Patrie; and we have thought it worth while to translate a portion of his last letter, as a specimen of what an intelligent man of letters feels on visiting us for the first time, and before he becomes well acquainted with us:

"One of the principal causes of surprise to me in walking along the streets of London, has been to see myself all at once become a curious animal. I did not think that I had any of the qualities necessary for such a thing, being neither humpbacked nor club-footed, neither a giant nor a dwarf. Thus, then, on the day of my arrival I went along Regent Street, and heard the exclamations and laughter of the crowd on seeing me, I examined myself from head to foot, to ascertain the cause of the unhoped-for success which I obtained in England. I even felt all up my back, thinking that perhaps some facetious boy might have transformed me into a walking placard. There was nothing, however; but I had moustachios and a foreign air! A foreign air! That is one of the little miseries on which you do not count, O simple and inexperienced travellers!

"At home you may have the dignity and nobleness of the Cid—you may be another Talma: but pass the Channel—show yourself to the English, and in spite of yourself you will become as comic as Arnal. Arnal! do I say? why, he would not make them laugh so much as you do; and they would consider our inimitable comedians Levassor and Hoffmann as serious personages. Do not be angry, then, or cry with Alceste,—

'Par la sambleu! Messieurs, je ne croyais pas être
Si plaisant que je suis!'

They would only laugh the more. In this respect the English are wanting in good taste and indulgence. Their astonishment is silly and their mockery puerile. The sight of a pair of moustachios makes them roar with laughter, and they are in an ecstasy of fun at the sight of a rather broad-brimmed hat. A people must be very much bored to seize such occasions for amusing themselves. However, all the travers, like all the qualities of the English, arise from the national spirit carried to exaggeration. They consider themselves the beau ideal of human kind. Their stiffness of bearing, their pale faces, their hair, their whiskers cut into the shape of mutton chops, the excessive height of their shirt collars, and the inelegant cut of their coats—all that makes them as proud as Trafalgar and Waterloo.

"In our theatres we laugh at them as they laugh at us, and on that score we are quits. But in our great towns they are much better and more seriously received than we Frenchmen are in England.

"At Paris now-a-days nobody laughs at an Englishman; but at London every body laughs at a Frenchman. We do not make this remark from any feeling of ill-will; in fact, we think that to cause a smile on the thin and pinched-up lips of old England is not a small triumph for our beards and moustachios. After all, too, the astonishment which the Englishman manifests at the sight of a newly disembarked Frenchman (an astonishment which appears singular when we call to mind the frequent communications between the two nations), is less inexplicable than may be thought. Geographically speaking, France and England touch each other—morally, they are at an immeasurable distance. Nothing is done at Calais as at Dover, nothing at London as at Paris. There is as much difference between the two races as between white and black. In France, the Englishman conforms willingly to our customs, and quickly adopts our manner of acting; but in England we are like a stain on a harmonious picture.

"Our fashion of sauntering along the streets, smiling at the pretty girls we meet, looking at the shops, or stopping to chat with a friend, fills the English with stupefaction. They always walk straight before them like mad dogs. In conversation there is the same difference. In England it is always solemn. Left alone after dinner, the men adopt a subject of conversation, which never varies during all the rest of the evening. Each one is allowed to develop his argument without interruption. Perhaps he is not understood, but he is listened to. When he has ended, it becomes the turn of another, who is heard with the same respect. The thing resembles a quiet sitting of the Parliament. But in France, conversation is a veritable mélée—it is the contrary excess. A subject is left and taken up twenty times, amidst joyous and unforeseen interruptions. We throw words at each other's heads without doing ourselves any harm; smart sallies break forth, and bon mots roll under the table. In short, the Englishman reflects before speaking; the Frenchman speaks first and reflects afterwards—if he has time. The Frenchman converses, the Englishman talks: and it is the same with respect to pleasure. Place a Frenchman, who feels ennui, by the side of an Englishman who amuses himself, and it will be the former who will have the gayest air. From love, the Englishman only demands its brutal joys; whereas the Frenchman pays court to a woman. The Englishman, at table, drinks to repletion; the Frenchman never exceeds intoxication.

"A difference equally striking exists between the females of the two countries. I do not now speak of the beauty of the type of the one, or the elegance and good taste of the others; but I will notice one or two great contrasts. In France, a young girl is reserved, is timid, and as it were hidden under the shade of the family: but the married woman has every liberty, and many husbands can tell you that she does not always use it with extreme moderation! In England, you are surprised at the confident bearing of young girls, and the chaste reserve of married women. The former not only willingly listen to gallant compliments, but even excite them; whilst the latter, by the simple propriety of their bearing, impose on the boldest.

"The boldness of young girls in England was explained to me by the great emigration of young men—in other words, by the scarcity of husbands. The French girl who wants a husband is ordinarily rather disdainful; the English girl is by no means difficult.

"A Frenchwoman walks negligently leaning on our arm, and we regulate our steps by the timidity and uncertainty of hers: the Englishwoman walks with the head erect, and takes large strides like a soldier charging. An accident made me acquainted with the secret of the strange way of walking which Englishwomen have. I was lately on a visit to the family of a merchant, whose three daughters are receiving a costly education. The French master, the drawing master, and the music master had each given his lesson, when I saw a sergeant of the grenadiers of the guard arrive. He went into the garden, and was followed by the young ladies.

"'Ah! mon Dieu!" I cried to the father, 'these young ladies are surely not going to learn the military exercise!'

"'No,' said he, with a smile.

"'What, then, has this professor in a red coat come for?'

"'He is the master of grace."

"'What! that grenadier, who is as long as the column in Trafalgar-square?'

"'Yes, or rather he is the walking master.'

"I looked out of the window, and saw the three young ladies drawn up and immovable as soldiers, and presently they began to march to the step of the grenadier. They formed a charming platoon, and trod the military step with a precision worthy of admiration. I asked for an explanation of such a strange thing.

"'We in England,' said my host, 'understand better the duty of women than you Frenchmen do. We cannot regulate our manner of walking on that of a being subjected to us. Our dignity forbids it. It is the woman's duty to follow us. Consequently she must walk as we do,—we can't walk as she does.'

"'Ma foi!' said I, 'I must admit that in progress you are decidedly our masters. In France the law, it is true, commands the wife to follow her husband; but it does not, I confess, say that she must do so at the rate of a quick march!'

"The contrasts between the two countries are in truth inexhaustible. Indeed I defy the most patient observer, to find any point of resemblance between them. In France, houses are gay in appearance; in London, with the exception of some streets in the centre, such as Regent-street or Oxford-street, they are as dark and dismal as prisons. Our windows open from the left to the right; windows in England open from top to bottom. At Paris, to ring or knock too loud is vulgar and ill-bred; at London, if you don't execute a tattoo with the knocker or a symphony with the bell, you are considered a poor wretch, and are left an hour at the door. Our hack cabs take their stand on one side of the street; in England they occupy the middle. Our coachmen get up in front of their vehicles; in England they go behind. In Paris, Englishmen are charming; at home they are—Englishmen. One thing astonishes me greatly—that the English don't walk on their hands, since we walk on our feet."

But the French gentlemen do not have it all their own way. The London Leader attacks them pleasantly in a similar spirit, yet it is always tinged, upon both sides, with a shade of caustic feeling: "Jules Janin, who has fallen in love with our fog and kindliness, announces to all France the joyful news that there will be no Waterloo banquet this June: the flag of France floating over the Crystal Palace suggests to the Duke that the banquet would be a breach of hospitality, because it would recall such "cruel souvenirs!" Janin believes that report; or at least prints it, which is to give journalistic credence to it. We are sorry to think how "cruelly" France will be disappointed; and we are amused at the excessive pre-occupation of Frenchmen with this said battle of Waterloo. It is the ineradicable belief of every Frenchman that we in England are in a perpetual self-swagger about Waterloo. We are prodigal of the word upon omnibus, shop, street, and road, because we wish to humble France at every corner. Waterloo-house is an insult! Waterloo-bridge a defiance! Wellington boots an outrage! Every step you take you trample on the national pride of France, for with "insular arrogance" you walk in boots named of Wellington or of Blucher! We are intoxicated with our success at having beaten the French—never having drubbed them before, from the times of Cressy, Poictiers, and Agincourt, down to the Peninsular Campaign! This one success of Waterloo—(which, after all, was not a success, as France clearly gained the battle, only she quitted the field in disgust!)—we cannot forget; we cherish it, we riot in it; we blazon the name everywhere to flatter our national pride and humiliate the foreigner. And, curious enough, the foreigner is humiliated! He turns his head away as he passes Waterloo-house; he declines crossing Waterloo-bridge, or crosses it in a passion; and even his national dread of rain cannot induce him to ride in a Waterloo omnibus. Of all the many profound misconceptions of English society current in France, none, we venture to say, is more completely baseless than the belief in the English feeling about Waterloo. Though it would be impossible to persuade a Frenchman that omnibus proprietors, hotel keepers, and builders were guilty of no national swagger in using the offending word "Waterloo.""

SCHALKEN THE PAINTER.—A GHOST STORY.

We take the following from a volume of of ghost stories, with illustrations by Phiz, which has lately been published in London. One Minheer Vanderhausen, through the means of a certain persuasive eloquence, backed by money, becomes the husband of Rose, the niece of Gerard Douw, and with whom Schalken, the celebrated painter's pupil, was in love. Vanderhausen and his wife set out ostensibly for Rotterdam, but receiving no communication from either for a long time, Gerard resolves upon a journey to the city. No such individual as Vanderhausen is known there, and the fate of the poor wife is told as follows:—

"One evening, the painter and his pupil were sitting by the fire, having accomplished a comfortable meal, and had yielded to the silent and delicious melancholy of digestion, when their ruminations were disturbed by a loud sound at the street door, as if occasioned by some person rushing and scrambling vehemently against it. A domestic had run without delay to ascertain the cause of the disturbance, and they heard him twice or thrice interrogate the applicant for admission, but without eliciting any other answer but a sustained reiteration of the sounds. They heard him then open the hall-door, and immediately there followed a light and rapid tread upon the staircase. Schalken advanced towards the door. It opened before he reached it, and Rose rushed into the room. She looked wild, fierce, and haggard with terror and exhaustion; but her dress surprised them as much even as her unexpected appearance. It consisted of a kind of white woollen wrapper, made close about the neck, and descending to the very ground. It was much deranged and travel soiled. The poor creature had hardly entered the chamber when she fell senseless on the floor. With some difficulty they succeeded in reviving her; and on recovering her senses she instantly exclaimed, in a tone of terror rather than mere impatience, 'Wine! wine!—quickly, or I'm lost!"

"Astonished, and almost scared, at the strange agitation in which the call was made, they at once administered to her wishes, and she drank some wine with a haste and eagerness which surprised them. She had hardly swallowed it, when she exclaimed, with the same urgency, 'Food, for God's sake; food at once, or I perish!'

"A large fragment of a roast joint was upon the table, and Schalken immediately began to cut some; but he was anticipated; for no sooner did she see it than she caught it, a more than mortal image of famine, and with her hands, and even with her teeth, she tore off the flesh, and swallowed it. When the paroxysm of hunger had been a little appeased, she was on a sudden overcome with shame; or it may have been that other more agitating thoughts overpowered and scared her, for she began to weep bitterly, and to wring her hands.

"'Oh! send for a minister of God!' said she; 'I am not safe till he comes; send for him speedily.'

"Gerard Douw dispatched a messenger instantly, and prevailed on his niece to allow him to surrender his bedchamber to her use. He also persuaded her to retire there at once to rest: her consent was extorted upon the condition that they would not leave her for a moment.

"'Oh, that the holy man were here!' she said; 'he can deliver me: the dead and the living can never be one; God has forbidden it.'

"With these mysterious words she surrendered herself to their guidance, and they proceeded to the chamber which Gerard Douw had assigned to her use.

"'Do not, do not leave me for a moment!' she said; 'I am lost for ever if you do.'

"Gerard Douw's chamber was approached through a spacious apartment, which they were now about to enter. He and Schalken each carried a candle, so that a sufficiency of light was cast upon all surrounding objects. They were now entering the large chamber, which, as I have said, communicated with Douw's apartment, when Rose suddenly stopped, and, in a whisper which thrilled them both with horror, she said, 'O God! he is here! he is here! See, see! there he goes!'

"She pointed towards the door of the inner room, and Schalken thought he saw a shadowy and ill-defined form gliding into that apartment. He drew his sword, and raising the candle so as to throw its light with increased distinctness upon the objects in the room, he entered the chamber into which the shadow had glided. No figure was there—nothing but the furniture which belonged to the room; and yet he could not be deceived as to the fact that something had moved before them into the chamber. A sickening dread came upon him, and the cold perspiration broke out in heavy drops upon his forehead; nor was he more composed when he heard the increased urgency and agony of entreaty with which Rose implored them not to leave her for a moment.

"'I saw him,' said she, 'he's here. I cannot be deceived; I know him; he's by me; he is with me; he's in the room. Then, for God's sake, as you would save me, do not stir from beside me.'

"They at length prevailed upon her to lie down upon the bed, where she continued to urge them to stay by her. She frequently uttered incoherent sentences, repeating again and again, 'The dead and the living cannot be one; God has forbidden it:' and then again, 'Rest to the wakeful—sleep to the sleep-walkers.' These and such mysterious and broken sentences she continued to utter until the clergyman arrived. Gerard Douw began to fear, naturally enough, that terror or ill-treatment had unsettled the poor girl's intellect; and he half suspected, from the suddenness of her appearance, the unseasonableness of the hour, and, above all, from the wildness and terror of her manner, that she had made her escape from some place of confinement for lunatics, and was in imminent fear of pursuit. He resolved to summon medical advice as soon as the mind of his niece had been in some measure set at rest by the offices of the clergyman whose attendance she had so earnestly desired; and until this object had been attained, he did not venture to put any questions to her which might possibly, by reviving painful or horrible recollections, increase her agitation. The clergyman soon arrived; a man of ascetic countenance and venerable age—one whom Gerard Douw respected much, forasmuch as he was a veteran polemic, though one perhaps more dreaded as a combatant, than beloved as a Christian—of pure morality, subtile brain, and frozen heart. He entered the chamber which communicated with that in which Rose reclined; and immediately on his arrival she requested him to pray for her, as for one who lay in the hands of Satan, and who could hope for deliverance only from heaven.

"That you may distinctly understand all the circumstances of the event which I am going to describe, it is necessary to state the relative position of the parties who were engaged in it. The old clergyman and Schalken were in the anteroom of which I have already spoken; Rose lay in the inner chamber, the door of which was open; and by the side of the bed, at her urgent desire, stood her guardian; a candle burned in the bedchamber, and three were lighted in the outer apartment. The old man now cleared his voice, as if about to commence; but before he had time to begin, a sudden gust of air blew out the candle which served to illuminate the room in which the poor girl lay, and she with hurried alarm exclaimed, 'Godfrey, bring in another candle; the darkness is unsafe.'

"Gerard Douw, forgetting for the moment her repeated injunctions, in the immediate impulse, stepped from the bedchamber into the other, in order to supply what she desired.

"'O God! do not go dear uncle,' shrieked the unhappy girl; and at the same time she sprang from the bed and darted after him, in order by her grasp to detain him. But the warning came too late; for scarcely had he passed the threshold, and hardly had his niece had time to utter the startling exclamation, when the door which divided the two rooms closed violently after him, as if swung to by a strong blast of wind. Schalken and he both rushed to the door, but their united and desperate efforts could not avail so much as to shake it. Shriek after shriek burst from the inner chamber, with all the piercing loudness of despairing terror. Schalken and Douw strained every nerve to force open the door; but all in vain. There was no sound of struggling from within, but the screams seemed to increase in loudness, and at the same time they heard the bolts of the latticed window withdrawn, and the window itself grated upon the sill as if thrown open. One last shriek, so long, and piercing, and agonized, as to be scarcely human, swelled from the room, and suddenly there followed a death-like silence. A light step was heard crossing the floor, as if from the bed to the window, and almost at the same instant the door gave way, and yielding to the pressure of the external applicants, they were nearly precipitated into the room. It was empty. The window was open, and Schalken sprang to a chair, and gazed out upon the street and canal below. There was no one there; but he saw, or thought he saw, the waters of the broad canal beneath settling ring after ring, in heavy circles, as if a moment before disturbed by the submersion of some ponderous body."

SKETCHES OF LIFE IN SWEDEN.

Hans Christian Anderson, the Danish poet and story-teller, whose Improvisatore is one of the most beautiful and intrinsically truthful of the myriad beautiful books upon Italian life, has published a new work, Pictures of Sweden. It is very genial summer reading, consisting of detached sketches of Swedish life and scenery, with interludes of poetic reverie. The London journals complain that it is not sufficiently well translated, but we quote the following characteristic passages in which the same weird child-likeness of feeling which his readers will recall, is expressed in the peculiar, subdued strain of northern sentimentalism, which is more the complexion, than the substance of his style. Here is the prelude to the book:

"It is a delightful spring: the birds warble, but you do not understand their song! Well, hear it in a free translation.

"'Get on my back,' says the stork, our green island's sacred bird, 'and I will carry thee over the Sound. Sweden also has fresh and fragrant beech woods, green meadows and cornfields. In Scania, with the flowering apple-trees behind the peasant's house, you will think that you are still in Denmark.'

"'Fly with me,' says the swallow; 'I fly over Holland's mountain ridge, where the beech-trees cease to grow; I fly further towards the north than the stork. You shall see the vegetable mould pass over into rocky ground; see snug, neat towns, old churches and mansions, where all is good and comfortable, where the family stand in a circle around the table and say grace at meals, where the least of the children says a prayer, and, morning and evening, sings a psalm. I have heard it, I have seen it, when little, from my nest under the eaves.'

"'Come with me! come with me!' screams the restless sea-gull, and flies in an expecting circle. 'Come with me to the Skjärgaards, where rocky isles by thousands, with fir and pine, lie like flower beds along the coast; where the fishermen draw the well-filled nets!'

"'Rest thee between our extended wings,' sing the wild swans. 'Let us bear thee up to the great lakes, the perpetually roaring elves (rivers), that rush on with arrowy swiftness; where the oak forest has long ceased, and the birch-tree becomes stunted. Rest thee between our extended wings: we fly up to Sulitelma, the island's eye, as the mountain is called; we fly from the vernal green valley, up over the snow-drifts, to the mountain's top, whence thou canst see the North Sea, on yonder side of Norway.

"'We fly to Jemteland, where the rocky mountains are high and blue; where the Foss roars and rushes; where the torches are lighted as budstikke, to announce that the ferryman is expected. Up to the deep, cold-running waters, where the midsummer sun does not set; where the rosy hue of eve is that of morn."

Stockholm is thus pictured, with an allusion, at the close, to a building dear to us all, now—as that which was first enriched by the voice, whose recent lapse into silence has made our hearts heavy:

"It is but the work of one night; the same night when Oluf Hakonson, with iron and with fire, burst his onward way through the stubborn ground; before the day breaks the waters of the Mälar roll there; the Norwegian prince, Oluf, sailed through the royal channel he had cut in the east. The stockades, where the iron chains hang, must bear the defences; the citizens from the burnt-down Sigtuna erect themselves a bulwark here, and build their new little town on stock-holms.[A] The clouds go, and the years go! Do you see how the gables grow? there rise towers and forts. Birger Jarl makes the town of Stockholm a fortress; the warders stand with bow and arrow on the walls, reconnoitring over lake and fiord, over Brunkaberg sand-ridge. There where the sand slopes upwards from Rörstrand's Lake they build Clara cloister, and between it and the town a street springs up: several more appear; they form an extensive city, which soon becomes the place of contest for different partisans, where Ladelaas's sons plant the banner, and where the German Albrecht's retainers burn the Swedes alive within its walls. Stockholm is, however, the heart of the kingdom: that the Danes know well; that the Swedes know too, and there is strife and bloody combating. Blood flows by the executioner's hand, Denmark's Christian the Second, Sweden's executioner, stands in the market-place. Roll, ye runes! see over Brunkaberg sand-ridge, where the Swedish people conquered the Danish host, there they raise the May-pole: it is midsummer-eve—Gustavus Vasa makes his entry into Stockholm. Around the May-pole there grow fruit and kitchen-gardens, houses and streets; they vanish in flames, they rise again; that gloomy fortress towards the tower is transformed into a palace, and the city stands magnificently with towers and draw-bridges. There grows a town by itself on the sand-ridge, a third springs up on the rock towards the south; the old walls fall at Gustavus Adolphus's command; the three towns are one, large and extensive, picturesquely varied with old stone houses, wooden shops, and grass-roofed huts; the sun shines on the brass balls of the towers, and a forest of masts stands in that secure harbor. * * *

"It is a very little semicircular island, on which the arches of the bridge rest: a garden full of flowers and trees, which we overlook from the high parapet of the bridge. Ladies and gentlemen promenade there; musicians play, families sit there in groups, and take refreshments in the vaulted halls under the bridge, and look out between the green trees over the open water, to the houses and mansions, and also to the woods and rocks: we forget that we are in the midst of the city. It is the bridge here that unites Stockholm with Nordmalen, where the greatest part of the fashionable world live, in two long Berlin-like streets; yet amongst all the great houses we will only visit one, and that is the theatre. We will go on the stage itself—it has an historical signification. Here by the third side-scene from the stage-lights, to the right, as we look down towards the audience, Gustavus the Third was assassinated at a masquerade; and he was borne into that little chamber there, close by the scene, whilst all the outlets were closed, and the motley group of harlequins, polichinellos, wild men, gods and goddesses, with unmasked faces, pale and terrified, crept together; the dancing ballet-farce had become a real tragedy. This theatre is Jenny Lind's childhood's home. Here she has sung in the choruses when a little girl; here she first made her appearance in public, and was cheeringly encouraged when a child; here, poor and sorrowful, she has shed tears, when her voice left her, and sent up pious prayers to her Maker. From hence the world's nightingale flew out over distant lands, and proclaimed the purity and holiness of art."

We ramble a moment in the garden of Linnæus, and contemplate his monument. It is withered and wasted now; it appears not unlike that grave garden of Ferney, with the close bower in which Voltaire used to walk and meditate:

"The walls shine brightly, and with varied hues, in the great chapel behind the high altar. The fresco paintings present to us the most eventful circumstances of Gustavus Vasa's life. Here his clay moulders, with that of his three consorts. Yonder, a work in marble, by Sargel, solicits our attention: it adorns the burial-chapel of the De Geers; and here, in the centre aisle, under that flat stone, rests Linnæus. In the side chapel, is his monument, erected by amici and discipuli; a sufficient sum was quickly raised for its erection, and the King, Gustavus the Third, himself brought his royal gift. The projector of the subscription then explained to him, that the purposed inscription was, that the monument was erected only by friends and disciples, and King Gustavus answered: 'And am not I also one of Linnæus's disciples?' The monument was raised, and a hall built in the botanical garden, under splendid trees. There stands his bust; but the remembrance of himself, his home, his own little garden—where is it most vivid? Lead us thither. On yonder side of Fyri's rivulet, where the street forms a declivity, where red-painted wooden houses boast their living grass roofs, as fresh as if they were planted terraces, lies Linnæus's garden. We stand within it. How solitary! how overgrown! Tall nettles shoot up between the old, untrimmed, rank hedges. No water-plants appear more in that little dried-up basin; the hedges that were formerly clipped, put forth fresh leaves without being checked by the gardener's shears. It was between these hedges that Linnæus at times saw his own double—that optical illusion which presents the express image of a second self—from the hat to the boots. Where a great man has lived and worked, the place itself becomes, as it were, a part and parcel of him: the whole, as well as a part, has mirrored itself in his eye; it has entered into his soul, and becomes linked with it and the whole world. We enter the orangeries: they are now transformed into assembly-rooms; the blooming winter-garden has disappeared; but the walls yet show a sort of herbarium. They are hung round with the portraits of learned Swedes—a herbarium from the garden of science and knowledge. Unknown faces—and, to the stranger, the greatest part are unknown names—meet us here."

A palace of Gustavus Vasa's:

"There yet stands a stone outline of Vadstene's rich palace which he (Gustavus Vasa) erected, with towers and spires, close by the cloister. At a far distance on the Vettern, it looks as if it still stood in all its splendor; near, in moonlight nights, it appears the same unchanged edifice, for the fathom-thick walls yet remain; the carvings over the windows and gates stand forth in light and shade, and the moat round about, which is only separated from the Vettern by the narrow carriage road, takes the reflection of the immense building as a mirrored image.

"We now stand before it in daylight. Not a pane of glass is to be found in it; planks and old doors are nailed fast to the window frames; the balls alone still stand on the two towers, broad, heavy, and resembling colossal toadstools. The iron spire of the one still towers aloft in the air; the other spire is bent: like the hands on a sundial it shows the time—the time that is gone. The other two balls are half fallen down; lambs frisk about between the beams, and the space below is used as a cow-stall.

"The arms over the gateway have neither spot nor blemish: they seem as if carved yesterday; the walls are firm, and the stairs look like new. In the palace yard, far above the gateway, the great folding door was opened, whence once the minstrels stepped out and played a welcome greeting from the balcony, but even this is broken down: we go through the spacious kitchen, from whose white walls, a sketch of Vadstene palace, ships, and flowering trees, in red chalk, still attract the eye.

"Here where they cooked and roasted, is now a large empty space; even the chimney is gone; and from the ceiling where thick, heavy beams of timber have been placed close to one another, there hangs the dust-covered cobweb, as if the whole were a mass of dark gray dropping stones.

"We walk from hall to hall, and the wooden shutters are opened to admit daylight. All is vast, lofty, spacious, and adorned with antique chimney-pieces, and from every window there is a charming prospect over the clear, deep Vettern. In one of the chambers in the ground floor sat the insane Duke Magnus (whose stone image we lately saw conspicuous in the church), horrified at having signed his own brother's death-warrant; dreamingly in love with the portrait of Scotland's Queen, Mary Stuart; paying court to her and expecting to see the ship, with her, glide over the sea towards Vadstene. And she came—he thought she came—in the form of a mermaid, raising herself aloft on the water: she nodded and called to him, and the unfortunate Duke sprang out of the window down to her. We gazed out of this window, and below it we saw the deep moat in which he sank."

FOOTNOTES:

[A] "Stock, signifies bulks, or beams; holms, i.e. islets, or river islands; hence, Stockholm."

A FRENCHMAN'S OPINIONS OF AMERICAN FEMALE POETS.

We find in the Paris Revue des Deux Mondes, for May 15, an article, which we translate for The International, on "The Female Poets of America,"[B] by M. E. Montegut. This writer's opinions respecting the influence of Protestantism on the cultivation of poetry may amuse those who remember who have been the greatest poets. It is a part of the cant of criticism to point to mediæval art as a fruit of the Roman Catholic ascendency—as if the Roman Catholics had done more than the Protestants for high art since the Reformation. But M. Montegut is a man of wit, and his criticism, though we confess that it loses some of its point in our version, will entertain the hundred of our countrywomen who make verses.

It is an opinion very generally entertained that the Americans are almost exclusively occupied with material affairs, with commerce, and the varied forms of mechanical industry. The volume of Mr. Griswold will contribute to dispel any such idea, for in its four hundred pages, nearly of the size of quartos, there are quoted ninety of the most celebrated female poets of North America: ninety female poets! and all, with few exceptions, contemporary. Why, all Europe could not count a greater number. If therefore, we bear in mind that this voluminous poetic flore contains only the names of women, and that Mr. Rufus Griswold has consecrated two volumes of similar dimensions, one to the Poets of the masculine gender, and the other to the Prose-Writers of both genders, it is difficult to believe in the literary sterility of the United States. But why is it, that among these three or four hundred writers, only three or four are known beyond the Atlantic? It is, that a literature is not altogether composed of harmonious reveries, of elegant imitations, of agreeable fancies; that poetry does not consist in a melodious rhythm only, nor even in a tasteful choice of words, nor in a perfect knowledge of language. Poetry, as well as all the possible expressions of thought and genius, arises from the very depths of the soul. It is the exterior expression of the national life, the recital,—from the lips of an individual animated and transported with the popular spirit—of the mysteries of his country's existence, and the desires, aspirations and convictions of his countrymen. The poet is the interpreter of the moral character of his country to other nations, and his works are the highest embodiment of the manners and habits of life in his country and his time. The poetry which does not fulfil these conditions is not poetry. Any man writing verse, who does not feel himself agitated in a more lively and distinct manner with the desires which torment his contemporaries as a vague fever, who does not know that his whole mission is to express, in an artistic and harmonious form, the clamors and the incorrect utterance of these desires, is not and cannot be a poet.

If such be the moral necessities which give birth to poetry, how is it that America has not an original literature? How is it that she has no great artists, and that there are but three or four writers—Cooper, Channing, Emerson—who well express her spirit and tendencies? None of the great moral qualities necessary to a poet are wanting to Americans. They have a national pride, approaching even to sensitiveness; they have firm and free religious faiths; life is energetic and manifests itself abundantly every where. How is it, we ask, that we meet no man of genius to tell us of the miracles of triumph over nature and barbarism; of those hardy industrial enterprises, and those wonderful displays of human activity around them; to sing the adventurous heroes of commerce and mechanism, and that singular marriage in domestic life of sedentary virtues with a changing, nomadic disposition—the love of the fireside, which remains undisturbed in the midst of perpetual displacement, as of old the tents of the patriarchs were pitched in the evening and stricken in the morning? Is it that there is no poetry in these subjects? Here, indeed, is a curious phenomenon, and one of the least-studied laws of literary history.

But ought we to regard Americans unfortunate because they have no literature of their own? In some points of view it is a reason for envying them. When true poetry appears among a people, it is not always a prophetic sign of future greatness; it is oftener a reflection of greatness passed away. It announces not new destinies, but recounts a history of the vanished and vanishing. Whenever the voice of a great poet is heard, we are sure that the customs, the institutions, and the religions he sings, are near their decline. Thus, Shakspeare, the most faithful mirror of the middle and feudal ages, came with reform and the sixteenth century; and Calderon, with the decay of Spanish Catholicism. That opinions and manners should partake of poesy, it is necessary that they begin to fade away into the realm of the fabulous past; it is necessary, in order that the ideal should appear, that these cease to exist. It was formerly said, and not without reason, "Happy the people who have no literature!" and in our time we are tempted to say: Happy the people who have no great poets! it is a proof that they enjoy the plentitude of life, that they have nothing to regret, that they are still in all their primal innocency, and the native energy of their being.

It is curious, also, to observe, how men animated by an heroic faith, seldom see that that faith and the deeds which it inspires, belong to the poetic and ideal. The first Puritans, who embarked, without resources, in a frail vessel, to seek in America the enjoyment of a free religion, now appear to us truly poetical. Walter Scott has drawn a thousand original characters of cavaliers and round-heads. Do you know what was the literature of those men full of the spirit of the Bible? Do you know what was the character of the first poetic publications in the United States? We open Mr. Griswold's volume, and the first name is that of Anne Bradstreet, who proceeded thither with her father, an ardent nonconformist. Here is the title under which her poems were printed, in the year 1640, at Boston: "Several Poems, compiled with great variety of Wit and Learning, full of delight; wherein especially is contained a compleat Discourse and Description of the Four Elements, Constitutions, Ages of Man, and Seasons of the Year, together with an exact Epitome of the Three First Monarchies, viz. the Assyrian, Persian, and Grecian; and the beginning of the Roman Commonwealth to the end of their last King; with divers other Pleasant and Serious Poems: By a Gentlewoman of New England." This Mrs. Bradstreet, called by the Americans, at this epoch, the "tenth muse"—probably a very good Protestant—made invocations to Phœbus, and imitated —— Dubartas! Certainly, the emigrant Americans, who were indeed the most zealous of all Protestants, did not suspect the mournful poetry which Protestantism contains—a poetry which we perceive to-day. It is even a part of the American life of our times. But this absence of real poetry is far from being a bad sign; it is, on the contrary, a proof of strength and energy.

Great works are not what we require of Americans; we would rather endeavor to discover in them the traces of the moral spirit of their country, its philosophical and historic signs, rather than poetic fables skilfully constructed and eloquently told. For example, these female poets of North America, suggest an interesting question for Europeans to examine. Have all those Misses and Mistresses who write poems, dramas and sonnets, any features of resemblance with our female authors? Has America, which is represented so coarse in manners, inherited the vices of European society, and become so degenerate as to give birth to that monstrous nondescript, named among us a bas-bleu? We have endeavored, diligently, to discover, in this large volume, traces of resemblance between our women of letters and the female poets of America, but we have discovered none. These daughters and wives of American citizens, of merchants, bankers, magistrates and doctors in theology, do not write as our female authors, from vain ambition, or love, or scandal, or (what among us is by no means uncommon) to repent of the scandal that they have occasioned. They write as among us young girls draw or sing. Poesy is for them an ornamental art, and nothing more. Besides, this great number of female poets in America, is explained by the much more liberal education received by the women of English blood and of the Protestant religion. We can find better specimens of poetry, certainly, but nothing equalling them in the discretion and reserve that reign in all their verses. We have sought, diligently, to discover the sentiments which American women are most pleased in translating into written poetry: one only is expressed, freely and energetically—maternal love. The other sentiments and virtues are carefully veiled, as subjects upon which it would be improper to dwell. Such verses are full of scruples and delicacies, and to us, it is their principal charm. Love, so difficult for the female heart to acknowledge in words; passionate confidences, so easily turned into sarcasms, and almost repulsive when uttered by the mouth of a woman, find no place in the inspirations of the American poetess. There are no strongly expressed individual passions. Vague and objectless longings—the cold lights of mere fancy, are the characteristics of those writers. Sometimes we discover a regret, or a mournful remembrance, but so obscure as to be nearly lost in a vastly diffused hope of some good which is not realized. We have endeavored to discover if the sentiment of conjugal love were there, but we are disappointed. To us, Europeans, who are overwhelmed with romances, in which this chaste sentiment is analyzed and written of in a manner to produce absolute nausea, it is not, perhaps, known how much discretion there is in this passionless exterior, and how commendable it is that so holy a sentiment should not pass the sacred inclosures of the female heart; that it should not wound the delicacies of its own natural reserve and silence. The talents of these writers are exercised upon permitted subjects, and not, as too often among our own female poets, upon subjects at once easy and unlawful.

This modesty and reserve throughout the work become necessarily monotonous—but it is of no great consequence to us. We would not have written if it had not been to acknowledge specimens of real literary excellence. But we have in the work itself what is of considerable value as reflecting in some degree the American character. We can use these elegies, reveries and monodies as a means of discovering the nature of the virtues thus brought out from obscurity, though in coloring too pale and uniform. The life of these women possesses nothing adventurous, passionate, or eccentric. It is composed of three facts: birth, marriage, and death. As to the intervals between these three solemn events, the biographer says little, and we suppose they are filled with exemplary virtues and the accomplishment of duties which human and divine law imposes upon the woman. Three of these, however, are distinguished from the others by their position in society, or by their talents, and constitute the only singularities of the work.

We have just remarked, that these poésies are all written by the daughters of rich merchants, lawyers, and doctors of divinity; two, however, are of low condition—a negress, Philis Wheatley Peters; and a domestic, Maria James. The negress belonged to the close of the eighteenth century, and was born at a time to justify the pamphlets of Franklin on slavery, and the demands of philanthropy. This "daughter of the murky Senegal," as one of her critics called her, has been, thanks to the circumstances of her color, birth, and condition, a sort of historic character. Sold at ten years of age, in a public mart of slaves, she was purchased by Mrs. Wheatley, a lady who educated her, and who afterwards permitted her to be called by her own name. This negress, so little known now, has had her day in history; she visited London, where she was an object of general esteem. Washington corresponded with her, and the Abbé Grégoire, our revolutionary regicide, announced her a great poet, in his Essay upon the Intellectual and Moral Faculties of the Negro. The opponents of slavery applauded her verses with enthusiasm, and the upholders of slavery denounced and slandered her. She has been, for a moment, in the eyes of the universe, the noblest type of her race—this humble black slave has been, in the civilized world, the representative of all her brethren. Her existence has been one of the incidents of universal history, and this unknown person has had her share, however small, in the revolutions of the world.

Maria James was a poor servant, the child of an emigrant from Wales. An unlettered poet, she drew her only instruction from the Bible, the Pilgrim's Progress, and Miss Hannah More, a kind of Madame de Genlis of puritanism; and yet it was this poor girl who wrote the most perfect lyric, the neatest, and in a literary view, the best composed, that we find in the collection; the lyrical pieces, by the way, are not generally well written. The thoughts are indefinite, the images confounded, and in some way run in upon each other. The principal sentiment is seldom neatly distinguished. These lyrics are as the buzzing of bees, or rather as honey scarcely formed, of which each drop contains the perfume of the flower whence it was extracted. Here is a piece by Maria James, which we do not give as her best, but which overflows with a profound religious feeling, and turns the heart of the reader, for a moment, to the haven of eternal repose:

THE PILGRIMS: TO A LADY.

We met as pilgrims meet,
Who are bound to a distant shrine,
Who spend the hours in converse sweet
From noon to the day's decline—
Soul mingling with soul, as they tell of their fears
And their hopes, as they passed through the valley of tears.

And still they commune with delight,
Of pleasures or toils by the way,
The winds of the desert that chill them by night,
Or heat that oppresses by day:
For one to the faithful is ever at hand,
As the shade of a rock in a weary land.

We met as soldiers meet,
Ere yet the fight is won—
Ere joyful at their captain's feet
Is laid their armor down:
Each strengthens his fellow to do and to bear,
In hope of the crown which the victors wear.

Though daily the strife they renew,
And their foe his thousands o'ercome,
Yet the promise unfailing is ever in view
Of safety, protection, and home:
Where they knew that their sov'reign such favor conferred,
"As eye hath not seen, as the ear hath not heard."

We met as seamen meet,
On ocean's watery plain,
Where billows rise and tempests beat,
Ere the destined port they gain:
But tempests they baffle, and billows they brave,
Assured that their pilot is mighty to save.

They dwell on the scenes which have past,
Of perils they still may endure—
The haven of rest, where they anchor at last,
Where bliss is complete and secure—
Till its towers and spires arise from afar,
To the eye of faith as some radiant star.

We met as brethren meet,
Who are cast on a foreign strand,
Whose hearts are cheered as they hasten to greet
And commune of their native land—
Of their father's house in that world above,
Of his tender care and his boundless love.

The city so fair to behold,
The redeemed in their vestments of white—
In those mansions of rest, where, mid pleasures untold,
They finally hope to unite:
Where ceaseless ascriptions of praise shall ascend
To God and the Lamb in a world without end.

But of all these poetesses, the most remarkable, certainly to us, is Maria Brooks, who died in 1845, the author of a curious poem entitled Zophiel, which Southey admired, and which Charles Lamb declared to be too extraordinary to have been conceived in the mind of a woman. Unfortunately, in Mr. Griswold's volume, we have only an incomplete analysis, with some brief fragments, of this poem. Notwithstanding its incompleteness, however, there is enough to show a powerful life and a wonderful imagination. There is in the poem a surprising union of Thomas Moore and Shelley. Imagine the bowers of Lalla Rookh, through which is sweeping the northern tempest of Shelley, bending the trees and scattering the roses. The odes To Cuba, to the Shade of her Child, and all her other lyrics, have, in a word, a very remarkable movement, and are full of mysterious inquietudes and inexplicable burnings. We cannot have an idea of the sweetness, and at the same time the impetuosity which mingle in her verses, without thinking of the impossible combination of the eagle and the dove—a dove with the stroke of an eagle's wing, and which would yet, in spite of its power, retain the timid nature of the dove, be frightened at its own strength, and tremble in looking upward to the sun. Her compositions are full of daring ideas imperfectly expressed, as if she were afraid of the boldness of her heart. Often, however, her thoughts fall into the alambiqué, the abstract and metaphysical. Her love to her child inspired the best lines she ever composed. The sports of the little one, whom she should see no more, associated with the remembrance of forests, plains, and cataracts, give to that love the grandeur and infinitude of American Nature. Of all the female poets of the new world, Maria Brooks seems to possess most the sibylline inspirations of the celebrated women of contemporaneous Europe. Yet she has none of that Byronean spirit that reigns so much among them; and if we would indicate the European poetry school to which she should be attached, we would cite, rather than that of Byron, the names of Southey, her admirer, of Coleridge, and of John Wilson, the author of the City of the Plague.

Maria Brooks is the only brilliant exception that we have met in the collection of Mr. Griswold. All her poetic companions draw their inspirations, not from their individual life, but their education, and as this education is the same for all, it is not astonishing that their works are uniform and monotonous. Yet, we do not complain, as we have already intimated, for we are thus enabled to see some of the features of American character more easily than if an original genius inspired each of the poetesses. The religious sentiment, for example, is every where uttered in these verses, but indeed it is the same that we find in the writings of American essayists—a sort of Christian theism which is becoming more the character of Protestantism in America. The spirit of Christ breathes indeed in these pages, but the person itself is seldom seen: Christ is always the teacher and saviour of the world, but the crucified Redeemer is well nigh forgotten. The Son of God is manifested as he appeared to his disciples; transfigured upon Tabor, they see him in the radiant light conversing with the prophets of the ancient law. Do you prostrate humanity in the place of the disciples and the astonished crowd at the foot of the mountain, then you have an idea of the life of the religious faiths more and more adopted in America. But the torments of the Divine agony—the cross of Golgotha, and all the tragedy in the Saviour's history upon earth, which the nations of the middle ages and the ancient Christians held in precious remembrance, are almost forgotten. We mention the fact as being one which the religious and philosophic of our times may reflect upon with profit. It is the symptom of an imminent crisis in Protestantism, and sooner or later, will not fail of attracting discussion. This theistic sentiment, which is the foundation of the writings of Channing and Theodore Parker, makes itself felt continually in the verses of this collection which by manner or subject relate to religion.

The descriptions of nature, oddly enough, never strike, as one would expect, by their novelty. Far away we see pleasantly the names of palms, cotton-trees, cocoa trees, and the botanic names of flowers unknown to us, but it is no matter whether we exchange all these trees and exotic plants for poplars, oaks, and birches, or the modern plants of our Europe. We feel very little, in any poetry, the particular sentiment of an original nature. In the midst of the woods and forests of the new world, one can readily believe himself among those of France or England; he will remark only a more lively picture of verdure and waters. Have you ever seen the landscapes of Theodore Rousseau? The grass is greener and the yellow leaves are yellower than in the paintings of any other artist. But the presence of nature is not there. Such is the effect upon us of the descriptions given by these female poets. Here, in support of our assertion, is a picture by Mrs. Frances Green.

Stillness of summer noontide over hill,
And deep embowering wood, and rock, and stream,
Spread forth her downy pinions, scattering sleep
Upon the drooping eyelids of the air.
No wind breathed through the forest that could stir
The lightest foliage. If a rustling sound
Escaped the trees, it might be nestling bird,
Or else the polished leaves were turning back
To their own natural places, whence the wind
Of the last hour had flung them. From afar
Came the deep roar of waters, yet subdued
To a melodious murmur, like the chant
Of naiads, ere they take their noontide rest.
A tremulous motion stirred the aspen leaves,
And from their shivering stems an utterance came,
So delicate and spirit like, it seemed
The soul of music breathed, without a voice.
The anemone bent low her drooping head,
Mourning the absence of her truant love,
Till the soft languor closed her sleepy eye,
To dream of zephyrs from the fragrant south,
Coming to wake her with renewed life.
The eglantine breathed perfume; and the rose
Cherished her reddening buds, that drank the light,
Fair as the vermil on the cheek of hope.
Where'er in sheltered nook or quiet dell,
The waters, like enamored lovers, found
A thousand sweet excuses for delay,
The clustering lilies bloomed upon their breast,
Love-tokens from the naiads, when they came
To trifle with the deep, impassioned waves.
The wild-bee hovering on voluptuous wing,
Scarce murmured to the blossom, drawing thence
Slumber with honey; then in the purpling cup,
As if oppressed with sweetness, sank to sleep.
The wood-dove tenderly caressed his mate;
Each looked within the other's drowsy eyes,
Till outward objects melted into dreams.
The rich vermilion of the tanager,
Or summer red-bird, flashed amid the green,
Like rubies set in richest emerald.
On some tall maple sat the oriole,
In black and orange, by his pendent nest,
To cheer his brooding mate with whispered songs;
While high amid the loftiest hickory
Perched the loquacious jay, his turquoise crest
Low drooping, as he plumed his shining coat,
Rich with the changeful blue of Nazareth.
And higher yet, amid a towering pine,
Stood the fierce hawk, half-slumbering, half-awake,
His keen eye flickering in his dark unrest,
As if he sought for plunder in his dreams.
The scaly snake crawled lazily abroad,
To revel in the sunshine; and the hare
Stole from her leafy couch, with ears erect
Against the soft air-current; then she crept,
With a light, velvet footfall, through the ferns.
The squirrel stayed his gambols; and the songs
Which late through all the forest arches rang,
Were graduated to a harmony
Of rudimental music, breathing low,
Making the soft wind richer—as the notes
Had been dissolved and mingled with the air.
Pawtucket almost slumbered, for his waves
Were lulled by their own chanting: breathing low,
With a just audible murmur, as the soul
Is stirred in visions with a thought of love,
He whispered back the whisper tenderly
Of the fair willows bending over him,
With a light hush upon their stirring leaves,
Blest watchers o'er his day-dreams. Not a sign
Of man or his abode met ear or eye,
But one great wilderness of living wood,
O'er hill, and cliff, and valley, swelled and waved,
An ocean of deep verdure. By the rock
Which bound and strengthen'd all their massive roots
Stood the great oak and giant sycamore;
Along the water-courses and the glades
Rose the fair maple and the hickory;
And on the loftier heights the towering pine—
Strong guardians of the forest—standing there,
On the old ramparts, sentinels of time,
To watch the flight of ages.[C]

These verses are pretty, perhaps very pretty. They give nature a charming appearance,—too much like the "everlasting spring" of Ovid. Do you not seem to lie in the shade of a European forest? Here are the same trees, the same flowers, the same animals. But the trees are more abundant of leaves, the grass is thicker, the sun is brighter, the waters warmer. But there is no profoundly original painting, no broad description by a few great outlines.

The sentiment of the beautiful and ideal is expressed in this collection of poetry, in an uncolored, abstract, and metaphysical manner. We are not sure that all these women love and understand the beautiful arts, and particularly the plastic arts; the only one whose influence they feel deeply, and which they seem to prefer, is music. And this preference among the moderns for music is a curious fact. The superiority given to it above painting and sculpture may be accounted for in some degree by the fact that music accords more with woman's instincts. Music is truly the art of the nineteenth century par excellence; it is the art which expresses best incredible aspirations; it is an art democratic in its essence. Appreciated by all living beings, even the unintelligent tribes, to be felt, music demands neither science nor long study—it makes every one happy, and tells to each the story of his love.

To produce sculptors, poets, and painters, it is necessary that a country should boast of many centuries, of a history, of a long succession of traditions, of established customs; but modern nations, particularly Americans, outstrip time, act with precipitation, and have no leisure to wait the traditions of history. Hence this extraordinary love of music, the least costly of the arts. They love music as one loves the conversations of the evening, and refreshing sleep after a hard day's labor. The art of music then is, if we dare say so, the art of nations who have no time for meditation and reflection—the art of ardent and feverish nations; for, to be understood, it requires only that a man should have a soul, with warm desires and hopes. We find in this collection two sonnets in honor of Beethoven and Mozart, in which the genius of the two masters is perfectly appreciated and felt. They are from Margaret Fuller, since Countess d'Ossoli, who was drowned by shipwreck on her return to her native country.

BEETHOVEN.

Most intellectual master of the art,
Which best of all teaches the mind of man
The universe in all its varied plan—
What strangely mingled thoughts thy strains impart!
Here the faint tenor thrills the inmost heart,
There the rich bass the reason's balance shows;
Here breathes the softest sigh that love e'er knows;
There sudden fancies seeming without chart,
Float into wildest breezy interludes;
The past is all forgot—hopes sweetly breathe,
And our whole being glows—when lo! beneath
The flowery brink, Despair's deep sob concludes!
Startled, we strive to free us from the chain—
Notes of high triumph swell, and we are thine again!

MOZART.

If to the intellect and passions strong
Beethoven speak, with such resistless power,
Making us share the full creative hour,
When his wand fixed wild Fancy's mystic throng,
Oh, Nature's finest lyre! to thee belong
The deepest, softest tones of tenderness,
Whose purity the listening angels bless,
With silvery clearness of seraphic song.
Sad are those chords, oh heavenward striving soul!
A love, which never found its home on earth,
Pensively vibrates, even in thy mirth,
And gentle laws thy slightest notes control;
Yet dear that sadness! spheral concords felt
Purify most those hearts which most they melt.

Of these two sonnets, we prefer that of Mozart, as expressing better, in our opinion, the character of the music of the great master—as more discriminating than that of Beethoven—a perfect description besides of the author of Fidelio. The sonnets appear curious to us as sparklings of æsthetic poetry beyond the seas.

The sentiments of American pride and of national susceptibility vibrate here and there in all this poetry, but not very often. The remembrance of the early emigrants, the description of America when inhabited by savage hordes, and the comparison of this barbaric state with the industrial wonders of the nineteenth century, are themes somewhat rare, but which are nevertheless not forgotten. We have also noticed two or three pieces which brought a smile upon our lips—where the shades of old Indian sachems appear to bless modern civilization, and seem ready to thank the Great Spirit for having exterminated their race, despoiled and chased from their own native woods and prairies. There are besides a few pieces borrowed from historic subjects, and a few dedicated to individuals; some pages in honor of Washington and Napoleon, and this is all. The rest is composed of mere musings, fancies, and elegies, expressing no precise and distinct sentiment.

But what matters the relative weakness of this poetry? Let us rise to higher spheres than that purely literary. The moral character and the virtues which this collection of poetry suggests are superior to the poetry itself. Who can tell, indeed, the good which may be done by these musical reveries and innocent caprices? They have been composed in the bosom of tranquility, by the fireside, among parents, children, relatives, and friends. These were the public to which they addressed themselves, who admired them, and drew from them their contributions to the good and beautiful. Probably many chaste tendernesses are recognized by the banks of these little limpid fountains of poesy; many hearts have rejoiced in these tender harmonies; many a man, weary with the labors of the day, has felt the sweet words of his daughter or his wife thrill his soul; he has beheld the bright gleams of ideal realities, and laid himself down and dreamed of images of higher beauty. In that hard, practical country, many poetic germs have thus taken root, many coarse natures have become more refined. What matters it, then, whether these specimens of poetry be original or not?—they have been useful. We offer our thanks to the female poets of America, for the seeds of piety, virtue, and nobility sown in their country. Without noise, without humanitary pretensions, they have fulfilled their mission of religion and refinement.

FOOTNOTES:

[B] The Female Poets of America: By Rufus Wilmot Griswold. Philadelphia, Henry C. Baird, 1851.

[C] From Nanuntenoo, an Indian Romance. By Frances H. Green. Philadelphia, 1850.

JEANNE MARIE, AND LYRICAL POETRY IN GERMANY.

We are induced to translate for The International the following crisply written critique from Die Grenzboten, not only from its giving for the benefit of certain of our dilettanti German scholars a few judicious remarks on the true merit of their "new celebrity," Jeanne Marie, but because the preceding account of the present state of lyrical poetry in Germany, is very nearly as applicable to lyrical poetry as it now exists among the rising bards of America and England as to that of the father-land:

"It is now about a century since the beginning of our most brilliant German lyrical era, and we are at the conclusion of a series of developments, which individually display all of the peculiarities indicative of the decline of a great epoch in art. The incredible number of subjects which have been artistically treated, has inspired the minds of our cotemporaries with an almost superfluity of poetically adapted figures, forms, tones and materials, with which we are familiar from our first breath. Vast numbers of corresponding series of similes, and combinations of words and sentences have been naturalized in our language, and the spirit of the rising generation cannot be other than powerfully influenced by the incredible variety of forms and phrases, which it acquires during education. From all which a limitation of the creative power naturally results—since there is hardly a sentiment, hardly a perception of the present day, which has not been rendered applicable to poetic art; and the array of these imposing creations ring in the soul of the young poet wonderfully through each other. It is almost impossible to experience a new feeling which has not been sung, and yet the impulse still exists to win for the again and again experienced, a value, and a certain degree of originality. From which results the most desperate efforts, by means of bold, artificial, highly polished or tasteless images and comparisons, to form a style and acquire a peculiar literary physiognomy: efforts which should by no means be despised, even when the critic is compelled to blame its results; for it is natural and unavoidable. Such a superabundance of poetic forms of address, applications, words, and measures, are at present current in the world, that for every poetic feeling a prosaic or metrical reminiscence rings and echoes consciously or unconsciously, and more or less clearly, through the poetic soul. To avoid this wearisome beaten path, our poets are driven, on the one hand, into unheard of refinements of metre and words—or on the other, into an affected barbarism and roughness. And since the quantity of poetic metres, applications, and forms of speech, has become so incredibly large that they every where pass and are received as a sort of spiritual small change, it has become infinitely easier to express an idea in tolerably good poetic language, than it was fifty years ago. Gleim, Holty, and Bürger, are to us great men, not because their poems are so much better than those manufactured at the present day, but because their every poem was a victory gained over the barbarism and want of form in the German language as it then existed—a true conquest for the realm of beauty and art. At present, any fool who has by heart his Schiller or his Heine, can collect and write that which may pass for his 'poem'—though perhaps not an atom of the whole is the result of aught save mere reproduction. What is really wanting to all our writers is the correct and artistic adaptation of terms. For this modern dilettanti reproduction and combination of the thoughts and forms of others is but a rough and uncomely parody of those poetic creations, which were consecrated by an earnest striving and silent battle with the force of language. Among the numerous modern poets in Germany, there live not a dozen who can write a truly correct verse and make just applications of our so poetically adapted language. The which assertion, seemingly a paradox—is nevertheless natural enough.

"And yet the creative impulse lives in many a soul, nor has there for a long time existed a more generally diffused or more exquisite appreciation of lyrical poetry than during the past year. New poets of an aristocratic or pious tendency are eagerly purchased and admired, which is also according to rule, since they reflect the spirit of the age, and correspond with modern wants. Such a peculiar influence on the interest of the public at large has naturally conducted to the most elegant style of publication of recent poems. It has become a real pleasure to see their paper, type, and binding, and their neat garments of fine linen, delicately trimmed and lettered with burnished gold. Such a highly ornamented work at present adorns every table, and appears right well in the white little hand of its fair possessor.

"The poems of Jeanne Marie, the popular romance writer, are by an intelligent and well educated lady. She has evidently observed and reflected much in the world, and had also her own experiences therein—yet knows how to express with propriety and consciousness her most passionate feelings. She is, however, in her poems, rather witty and calculating, than inspired with heart and soul. Those productions are, for the greater part, images and comparisons—not unfrequently very exquisitely conceived and executed—the point being occasionally a gross antithesis, as for example in the poem, Alles nur Du:

"'What I most longed for, thou hast to me given,
What I possess, belongeth all to thee;
Thou art mine I—thine is my life and heaven,
My life is thine, and thine my all To-Be.'

"Or in other poems, the conclusion merely amounts to the explanation of a comparison, as in the New Cloak Song, in which on a rusty nail, a torn cloak explains itself as the cloak of Christian love. But where our poetess simply narrates or describes, her art is truly agreeable, only that the lively and closely detailed perceptions, which shoot forth in her soul, often appear obscure from a want of practice in poetic language, and not unfrequently entirely perverted on account of an utter deficiency in logical acuteness.

"But since this poetess is endowed with far more than her cotemporaries—id est, a peculiar talent to conceive and represent in a lively manner epic details—let us, for the sake of art, gently beg of her to do something for this her talent. She is by far too ignorant of the art of application of terms in lyrical poetry, her delivery is too variable and inaccurate, while botched-up expressions (Flickwörter) and startling instances of incorrectness in language are in her writings every where to be met with. As yet she is a mere amateur and dilettant, and her right, to lay before the literary world her poetic inspirations, may very correctly be doubted; and yet she has evidently in her the material for something far better. This she can attain in only one way. She must lay aside all the flaunt and tawdriness of her similes and figures, and then strive to express a lively emotion or an interesting expression, with the simplest words, first in prose—and then in verse. What she has written should then be carefully thought over—every line and word tested, and no inaccuracy in poetical perceptions, no oblique expression, and no metrical defect be suffered to remain."

Authors and Books.

A new German work, entitled Klopstock in Zurich from the years 1730 to 1751, gives quite a new portrait of the poet of the Messias, who, both by the time of his appearance and by the dignity of his theme, is held as the patriarch of German poetry. In this sprightly little volume the mystic halo with which an exaggerated homage has invested the head of the genial young German rolls away, and we behold a pleasant fellow in gay summer costume, floating about upon the blue lake of Zurich, surrounded by a circle of fair and admiring votaries, to whom he chants strains from his immortal poem, and reaps a harvest of kisses in return. We behold a chivalrous equestrian dashing through the still streets of old Zurich, draining unreasonable depths of beer with wild students, biting glass, and swallowing coal, until the old Bodmer with whom he was living—a reverential admirer of the great Prophet of the Messias, and in whose imagination Klopstock sat separate in a godlike and passionless serenity—was bitterly grieved by these earthly experiences of a Greek rather than of a Christian divinity, complained, remonstrated, rebuked, until the jovial poet was forced to leave the good Bodmer's house, and betake himself to Rape's, with whom he sat in silken hose, and speculated upon the universe. It is always pleasant to hear these human facts of the heroes of fame and imagination. Few things remove Washington farther from the general sympathy than the unbending austerity of hue in which his mental portrait is always colored. Why should our great men, whose humanity makes them dearer, go so solemnly and sadly through all posterity? Burns could draw the tired hostlers of village inns from their beds to listen open-mouthed and open-hearted to his wondrous and witching stories. Shakspeare shall always have stolen sheep, even though De Quincy proves by splendid and resonant reasoning that he could never have done it. Raphael shall have been a warm-blooded man, spite of our cold-blooded speculations upon his saintship, so that we shall not wonder at De Maistre's delicate and dainty truth that the Fornarina "loved her love more than her lover." Not that sheep-stealing, or any other peccadillo is beautiful, or in any way to be commended or imitated, but that these are the signs of human and actual sympathy which these great and glorious geniuses show us—as stately sky-sailed galleons, sweeping the sea into admiring calm at their progress, might hang out simple lanterns to the fishing-smacks around, to show their crews that the same red blood was the sap of all that splendid life. "Is he not the Just?" "Yes—and because he is the Just, I have done it." Poor old Herr Bodmer could not see with equanimity the illustrious guest of his imagination boating about the lake with the girls at Zurich, and selling the stanzas—of priceless worth to him—for a snatched and blushing kiss. For our own part, we are glad that generous Mr. Morikofer has pulled off the bleached horse hair wig of factitious gravity, and shown us the natural moist and waving hair of a human-hearted poet.

A History of German Literature, from W. Wackernagel, is coming out in parts at Basle. Since Gervinus there has been no broad treatment of the subject. But Gervinus gives us rather a history of the cultivation than of the literature of Germany. Vilmar is much too partial and partisan, and Hillebrand treats only the period from Lessing to the present time. Wackernagel surveys the whole ground from the beginning. The first part of his work is occupied with the elder literature of Germany, but he has handled it so dexterously that it interests the general reader, even while he develops the laws by which the old high German proceeded from the Gothic, and the middle high German from that. He divides the literary history into three parts. 1. The old high German era, Frank, Carlovingian, of the German Latinity of the bards. 2. The middle high German, beginning with the Crusades, and treating all the chivalric, social, and international relations which they inspired. 3. The new German style. The treatise is original and profound, and lacks only a little more elaboration of the biographical notices.

A somewhat curious proof of the influence which America at present exerts, even in language, may be found in the title of a dictionary (English and German), recently published at Brunswick. The title alluded to, is as follows: A new and complete dictionary of the English and German languages, compiled with especial regard to the American idiom for general use; containing a concise grammar, &c., &c.: by William Odell Elwell.

Carl Heideloff, whose exquisite work on the architectural ornaments of the Middle Ages, should entitle him to the gratitude of every student of mediæval art, will publish, before the end of this month, by Geigar of Nuremberz, a folio, illustrated with the finest steel engravings, entitled Architectonic Sketches, and complete buildings, in the Byzantine and Old German styles.

It has long been a mooted point among the philosophers of the beautiful in Germany whether the art of gardening was a legitimate branch of æsthetic culture. Bouterweck denied that the artificial perversions of an old-fashioned French garden had the slightest relation to art, but admitted that the Landschafts-gartenkunst, or art of landscape gardening, might very properly be ranked with painting and sculpture. Thiersch passes the subject by in silent contempt, while Tittman, whose work on beauty and art is fast becoming a universal hand-book of æsthetics, declares, on the other hand, that it is, even more than architecture, closely allied to the study of the beautiful, since its object is far less directly connected with human wants, and more nearly related to the attractive and fascinating. Herr Rudolph Siebeck would appear, however, to have put the question for a time at rest, by a work at present publishing by Voigt, in Leipsic, entitled Die Vildende Gartenkunst, in ihren modernen Formen, which, as he very correctly asserts, "embraces in one comprehensive theory all those laws of the art of gardening which æsthetics present, by the application of natural and artificial methods, in order to plan and execute walks and grounds, according to the dictates of a refined taste." In pursuance of this great aim, Herr Siebeck, (who was, by the way, formerly the imperial Russian court-gardener at Lazienka, and is at present council-gardener at Leipsic,) after completing his education as a practical gardener, scientifically studied the higher principles of his art at the universities of Munich and Leipsic, both of which, but particularly the former, have long been celebrated for the facilities which they afford for this study. After which, under the kind patronage of Baron Hugel, he journeyed to "every country" the natives of which had so far advanced in the art of gardening as to deserve the honor of a visit. The results of this study and labor are given in the above-titled volume, which embraces all things, if not exactly from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall, at least from the largest royal park to the smallest garden in a city. The work is illustrated with twenty colored garden plans, arranged according to the following categories: 1. Kitchen Gardens. 2. Pleasure Gardens. 3. Pleasure and Kitchen Gardens. 4. Public Gardens. 5. A Botanical Garden.

The first volume of a new Life of Goethe, by J. W. Schafer, has been published, of which we find flattering accounts. Also the Life and Times of Joachim Jurgins, with Goethe's fragments upon his works by G. C. Guhsaner. He was the contemporary of Galileo, Kepler, Cartesius, &c.

Franz Liszt, the famous pianist, has written a pleasant pamphlet in favor of the project of a Goethean Institute of Art in Weimar, where he is chapel master.

Weil—not Alexander of the Corsaire, but Dr. Gustav Weil, Professor of Oriental languages and History at Heidelberg—is publishing at Mannheim, a History of the Khalifs,[D] which, as regards extent, erudition, and accuracy, may be fairly ranked with any work on this subject extant. The title is, however, only partial; that of "An Universal History of Islamism," would be far more appropriate. The Khalifate forms, so to speak, a nucleus around which are grouped as integral parts all of the numerous dynasties which were in any degree connected with the Khalifate, while those which were more nearly within its influence, as the Saffarides, the Tulinides, Bujides, and Saljucks, are illustrated with extraordinary learning and research. An excellent history of Arabic literature to the midst of the fourth century of the Hegira is appropriately introduced. The reader will remember that Schlosser, in the introduction to his fourth volume of the Weltgeschichte, remarks that in the oriental portion of that work he had been guided solely by the "Life of Mohammed," by Weil, and this "History of the Khalifate," of which, however, only the first volume had then appeared. Weil, remarks the great "modern Tacitus," "is at present universally recognized as one of the first oriental scholars in Germany or France. He has brought from manuscripts many new things to light, and his works may be regarded as historical sources."

Von Rahden, a German officer of note, has published some very interesting Reminiscences of a Military Career. The third part, which is just completed, contains the history of his campaigns with the earliest army in Spain. He is a soldier of the old type, and was devoted body and soul to Don Carlos—and if his story occasionally expands into romance, it is readily forgiven for the greater local truth and impression thereby obtained. He paints battle-pieces in a most vivid manner, pervaded by that interest in the individual which lends so fascinating a charm to all narration. In his first Spanish battle, when stationed as an outpost in the very tempest of bullets and balls, he quietly takes time to draw the country and the situation of the enemy. His hero is Lichnowsky—the young German Prince, who was so inhumanly butchered during the session of the German Parliament in Frankfort. He was in Spanish battle as cool, skilful, and death-despising, as he was chivalric against the crudeness of the political philosophers, and noble against the beastly brutality of his assassins, in central Germany.

The third part of the life of Baron Von Stein, the celebrated Prussian statesman, is published. The chief interest of this part is the history of Stein's sympathy with the Emperor Alexander of Russia, whom he regarded as the Saviour of Europe.

Adelbert Keller, one of the most zealous among the mediæval romantic antiquaries of the Tubingen school, and well known by his accurate editions of the Gesta Romanorum, Les Romans des Sept Sages, Romancero del Cid, and Gudrun, has recently, in company with Wilhelm Holland, prepared for the press a new edition of the songs of Guillem IX., Count of Poictiers and Duke of Aquitania. In addition to the chair of Professor Extraordinary of Modern Languages, (which our readers need not be informed is nothing very extraordinary at a German university,) Keller holds the far more important office of teacher of the German Language and Literature at the university of Tubingen. We presume that few men, even in France or Germany, have more carefully or enthusiastically hunted over the various MS. libraries of Italy or his own country, in search of Minnesinger and Provençal literature than Keller.

The twenty-fifth publication of the Geschichte der Europaischen Staaten (History of the States of Europe) consists of continuations of histories of Austria and Prussia. The series is edited by the well-known scholars Heeren and Ukert. It has been in progress more than twenty years, and is designed to embrace a complete body of American history, by competent authors. Fifty volumes have already been issued, embracing in complete works, Italy, by Leo, finished 1832; German Empire, by Pfister, 1836; Saxony, by Bottiger, 1837; Netherlands, by Van Kampen, 1837; Austria, by Mailath, 1850; France to the Revolution, by Schmidt, 1848; France, from the Revolution, by Wachsmuth, 1844; the Histories of Denmark, by Dahlmann (vol. III. in 1844); of Portugal, by Schafer (vol. III. in 1850); of Russia, continued by Herrmann after Strahl's decease (vol. IV. 1849); of Prussia, by Stenzel (vol. IV. 1850) are all far advanced, and their completion may be looked for at no distant period. Single volumes, also, have appeared, by Zinkeisen, on the Ottoman Kingdom; by Ropel, on Poland; and by Bulau on the Modern History of Germany. The Athenæum observes that when the series is completed, the Germans and those who read German in other countries will have, in no immoderate compass, a body of European history, uniform in its general plan, and maintaining a standard of competent authorship such as cannot, we believe, be found in any other language.

The well-known Countess Spaur, the wife of the Bavarian Ambassador at Rome, is engaged upon a series of memoirs of events connected with the flight of the Pope from Rome in 1849. It will be remembered that the Pope escaped under convoy of the Bavarian ambassador, and the consequent completeness of information added to the graceful elegance of her style, will produce a brilliant and interesting book.

A singular occurrence which took place very recently in Berlin affords a curious illustration of a line in The Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin, in which, speaking of German idioms, the writer somewhat inaccurately remarks, that "the u, twice dotted, is pronounced like e;" inaccurately, we say, since this pronunciation is not found in the pure north German. Dr. Wirth, director of the opera at Berlin, was during the past month confounded by some not very intelligent police agents of that city with the revolutionary Wurth (who was however deceased in 1848), arrested, and subjected to much personal inconvenience, before he could prove to their satisfaction that he was not the ci-devant disturber of kingly peace.

The Countess Ida Hahn-Hahn, has written her spiritual experience in a work published in Mannheim, entitled, From Babylon to Jerusalem. It is a history of her own soul, showing how it journeyed from confusion and doubt to peace. In it she says of the famous holy coat of Treves: "It was not comprehended—what did that show? How wonderful and incredible it was that thousands and thousands journeyed up the Rhine and down, not alone of the lower classes, but of the intelligent, of the cultivated and elegant class. And could this be really the Saviour's garment? And were the cures real which had been reported in all the journals as wrought by it? Like all the rest, I shared the religious enthusiasm of which no Protestant can conceive. Instead of ridiculing and scorning, I wrote that I knew not if this was the identical garment, but this was certainly the same faith that cast the woman at the feet of Christ, and caused her to kiss the hem of his robe, and be healed. My instinct was just, but my reasoning false. For if the old faith was so fast, so glowing, and so immortal in the old church, how could I ever say better no church than one only?"

A singular book is announced in Germany, a country in which we are not aware that singular books have ever been rare, under the title of Intercourse with the Departed by means of Magnetism. "A book for the consolation of Humanity, containing the most irresistible evidence of the personal continuance and activity of the soul after its separation from the body, collected from contemporary notes taken from extatic somnambulists, by Luis Alphonse Cahagnet, with a critical preface by Dr. J. Newberth, authorized magnetizer in Berlin and Associate of the Imperial Leopold Academy of Sciences." A prospectus, modest enough in style but of very large pretensions, sets forth that it is not a speculation, but a communication of truth, which is nowise contrary to the Christian religion, but is calculated to exercise a genial influence upon the faithful to disperse all doubts and to advance the kingdom of Faith and Love. Who will fail warmly to wish "God-speed" to a work that proposes to accomplish such rich results?

In Russia the singular prejudice has long obtained that the old Sclavonian dialects had nothing in common with the Russian language. But there is now a change in the opinions of the learned, and many skilful philologists are at present engaged in scientific speculations upon the subject. Sresnewsky, Dawydoff, and Schewyreff have recently published works upon the question. The first has "Memoirs upon the new efforts towards a philological investigation of the old Sclavonian Language," and "Thoughts upon the History of the Russian Language." Dawydoff has published "An attempt at a Grammar of Universal Comparison of the Russian Language," and Schwyreff "A Journey to the Convent of Kirillo-Bjeloserski," an archæological work, represented as a model of its kind. Schewyreff is a well known, educated, and learned man, fully cognizant of the results of philogical study in the west. It is evident that Russia constantly aims to put herself abreast of western science. Wostokoff is busy upon a complete grammar of the old Sclavonic language, and a dictionary of the same. Both works will soon go to press. Since Dobrowsky, the area of old Sclavonian philology has much extended itself, and there can be no doubt that Wostokoff has made use of all the new material. The study of the Sclavonian language and literature has more than a merely philological interest. It will throw much light upon the confused history of Eastern Europe from the sixth to the ninth century,—a light sadly needed, even after Schaffarik's Sclavonian antiquities.

In Munich, we observe that Thiersch, Professor of Fine Arts at the University of the "German Athens," and whose Aesthetik, if not the most philosophic, is at least the most agreeable and practical, (though we know that Krug disposes of it in conversation very briefly with the expression "merely eclectic,") has published a new edition of his Ziber das Erechtheum auf der Akropolis zu Athen, with excellent colored illustrations by Metzger. Out of Germany the reputation of Thiersch rests principally upon his researches into and elucidations of Athenian antiquities.

A drama by an unknown poet, Robert Prölss, The Right of Love, attracts much attention in Germany, from its clear and interesting style, its fresh and lively dialogue, and the delicate drawing of its characters. The author seems to have modelled himself upon Shakspeare, but his work shows traces also of Italian study, and the critics, without questioning Prölss' originality or asserting an imitation, are reminded of Machiavelli's Mandragora. They find in the author the material of a genuine dramatist—experience, feeling, a sharp insight into character, and great skill in dialogue. The literary eye must be fastened upon such promise. It is so refreshing to find a Phenix in a mare's nest.

Pictures of Travel and Study, from the North of the United States of America, is the title of a new book of travel by Mr. Charles Quentin, a German gentleman and official from Prussia. It is a diary of impressions, and without aiming at any high literary or philosophical excellence, abounds in sharp and smart observations. Some things do not escape the shrewd eye of Mr. Quentin, that not all Americans observe. As an illustration, we remark his notice of the American female habit in "shopping," of tumbling over all the goods in the shop and departing without finding "anything to suit." Hence our author infers the social supremacy of women in America. A new way of arriving at the old fact—a fact which the sane and sensible of the sex cannot fail to perceive and acknowledge. The book is written in a vivacious, colloquial humor.

Ernst Forster, well known as having married the daughter of Jean Paul Richter, but more celebrated for his translation of and notes to the best version of Vasari ever published, and who would deserve an honorable mention were it only for his well-known hospitality to all Americans visiting Munich, has recently given to the world, through the eminent bibliographist and publisher Kaiser, a brochure, entitled, Wem Gebuhrt der Krang? (Who deserves the Wreath?) a holiday-gift on the occasion of uncovering the colossal bronze statue of Bavaria. Next to King Ludwig himself, there are no Germans of the present day who entertain more comprehensive or sounder views of art in its manifold relations than Dr. Ernst Forster.

Since the remarkable increase of late years of the use of stucco ornaments in our Atlantic cities, we deem it almost a duty to call the attention of our builders to a work by Professor Eisenlohr, recently published, at a very moderate price, by Veith, of Carlsruhre, entitled Architectural Ornaments, in Clay and Gypsum, for practical use, with Lithographed Illustrations. Folio, 1 volume.

The publishing house of Brockhaus, one of the largest in Germany, is printing a series of Russian novels and poems, translated into German by William Wólfsohn.

The History of the United States Exploring Expedition, under Lieutenant Wilkes, is just translated and published in Germany.

Count Moritz Strachwitz has published a new volume of poems. His former books have been well received.

Professor Bulau's Review of the Year 1850, has reached a second edition.

Bayard Taylor's El Dorado has lately appeared in a German translation.

In Paris the first volume of the collection of Greek and Latin Physicians has just appeared. To the profession this will be a work of the greatest interest and importance. The idea originated with Dr. Daremberg, a learned physician, enamored of his art, versed in the ancient languages—familiar with the study of MSS., and a visitor of all the principal libraries of Europe for the purposes of his work. The book will comprise the text of the authors, collated with manuscripts, and with the best editions, with a French translation and notes. To each division there will be a copious index. Daremberg has too well appreciated the scope and dignity of his work to suppose that it could be accomplished by any individual, and has therefore associated with himself several of the most distinguished savans in various departments of the undertaking, both in France and elsewhere. He comprehended no less the immense expense of the work, and applied in its inception under the monarchy, to the Government for aid. It was granted, and the Republic does not shrink from the fulfilment of that promise of its predecessor, in so truly a democratic work—for every thing which tends to the knowledge of the means of preserving health is essentially democratic. The French translation is admirably precise and clear; the notes are numerous but useful—chiefly upon natural history—the customs of the ancients—their hygiene, and upon all points which required elucidation. The work cannot be completed for several years, but Daremberg is young and ardent, and for his future labors he will have the solace of his first great and undoubted success.

The correspondence of Mirabeau during the last three years of his life, and the complete history of his relations to the Court, is announced in Paris by Le Normant, in three octavo volumes. According to the Journal des Débats, the greatest part of these papers have never been printed. Mirabeau, a few days before his death, (2d April, 1794,) delivered them to his friend the Count de Mark, from whose hands, when he died at Brussels in 1833, they came into the possession of M. de Barcourt. This gentleman, formerly Ambassador to the United States, has enriched the volume with historical notes and commentaries.

Louis Blanc has published a political pamphlet called Plus de Girondins (No more Girondins), in which the opposition of the extreme party to the moderate party is expressed with the greatest force. The freedom of the press, and the liberty of public meeting, he wishes entirely unlimited, and the clubs to be every where opened as popular schools of politics. Exile has but knit him more closely to the democratic ideas, for whose development he hoped so much in the Revolution of '48. His compeer, Ledru Rollin, achieved nothing by his last year's work upon the Decadence of England, but ridicule in England, and no great fame at home.

A curious anecdote is told of Scribe, the French vaudevilliste. He was one day at work in his cabinet, when a young man entered. It was Lacenaire. He seemed very modest, and stated delicately the occasion of his visit. He had been appointed to a situation in Belgium, but was entirely without means, and requested of Scribe thirty or forty francs to pay his way to Brussels. Scribe was attracted by the young man's tone and manner. "Thirty to forty francs," said he, "are too few. I must give you a hundred, and if you choose to repay them, you can do so to an old woman in Brussels, who was a servant of our family. Here is her address." So saying, Scribe went to his drawer and took out the gold for the young man, who expressed his gratitude with all the elegance of a cultivated and sensitive mind, and left a copy of verses with Scribe for a remembrance. Since then Lacenaire has confessed that he knew the arrangement of Scribe's chamber, and had chosen an hour when the servants were absent. "I put myself between Scribe and the bell-rope, and if he had refused me, I should have made short and noiseless work with my knife. Scribe owed his life to his generosity." In this little story is there not an averted tragedy as sad as Eugene Aram's?

A new work, of great importance to the oriental student, will soon reach England from Siam, where it has been already published. It is a new Siamese grammar, prepared by the Roman Catholic Vicar General, who has resided in Siam for twenty years. In the "Journal of the English Archipelago," Mr. Taylor Jones announces the work and its value, with some illustrative facts in the author's life. The bishop brings to the task not alone his own remarkable intelligence and devotion, but the results of the inquiries of his predecessors for two centuries. The work forms a quarto of two hundred and forty-six pages, and treats of a mass of matter necessary to the understanding of the language, but which is not elsewhere to be found. Among this the reckoning of time, of money, measures, and weights, as well as chronology, literature, and religion, are included. The eight or ten pages devoted to chronology afford a clear and just insight into the old history of Siam. The enumeration of Siamese books, although not complete, shows that Siamese literature is by no means poor. The miscellaneous list contains one hundred and fifty various books upon grammar, arithmetic, astronomy, astrology, and history, and many poetical works, especially romances. The various warlike romances of China are very faithfully translated and broadly diffused in Siam. Sometimes these ponderous productions climb to a series of ninety volumes. The historical reports of Siam make forty volumes, and there are no less than thirty-six holy Buddhist books. A sketch of Buddhism is given in the present work, and the good bishop is now about commencing a Siamese dictionary.

The literature of democracy has received another illustration in a social tragedy in five acts, by the citizen Xavier Sauriac, entitled The Death of Jesus. Its object of course is to embody dramatically the sentiment of the old Revolution that Jesus Christ was a Sans Culottes, akin to the feeling which causes ardent abolitionists to assert that he was a negro. This tragedy makes Jesus Christ a democratic philosopher, Herod an apostle, Magdalen a kind of Fleur de Marie. The hero rehearses a plan for the salvation of the world, which is simply crude communism. We quote an illustration:

"Quand l'etat, héritier de la famille éteinte,
Sera du sol entier possesseur sans contrainte,
Qu'il serve alors de pére à tous les citoyens
Et de la vie à tous dépense les moyens."

And again:

"Dans les bizars brillante du luxe industriel,
Il devienue lui seul, marchand universel."

This work is probably a very sincere one, and deserves a prominent place among the curiosities of literature. Nevertheless, such familiar presentation of the Saviour is not only blasphemous but ridiculous.

Mr. Alexander Dufaï has published in Paris a satire on socialist women, under the title of Lélila, ou la Femme Socialiste, and the journals of the sect are very angry with him that he illustrates the tendencies of socialism by presenting as his heroine its female apostle, George Sand. That there may be no doubt of his intention, he tells us in the preface that he has made Lélila narrate her childhood, education, and poetic dreams, her marriage with a sous préfet, who did not "understand" her, and her amours with a poet who did understand her, for he carried her off; he has also made Lélila marry by turns all the socialist systems in the persons of their chiefs; and finally, shows her in the revolution of 1848, presiding at Le Club des Femmes, and playing an active part in public life. "After this," observes the Leader, "he has the shameless audacity to say he attacks the 'species,' not the 'individual!'"

The two last volumes of the Remains of Saint-Martin have just been issued from the National Press in Paris, under the title, Fragments of a History of the Arsacides, posthumous work of M. Saint-Martin. He was a well-known French litterateur, and director of the library of the Arsenal. Strange stories are told of his unwearied diligence and devotion to details. He was the original proposer of a plan for a systematic and scientific investigation of oriental antiquities, and another for a collection of oriental classics. This latter was his darling project, for the execution of which Louis XVIII. granted a commission; but the revolution of 1830 ruined his hopes. Yet a new commission was named, and on the day upon which it was to hold its first session, Saint-Martin was stricken by the cholera, and died without knowing that the hope of his life would be fulfilled.

The Univers at Paris announces a newly-discovered document in relation to the trial of Louis XVI., proving that the report of the Debates in the Moniteur were falsified. This document is reported to have been published on the third of January, 1794, but has escaped all the historians. It occurs in the report of the commission appointed by the Convention to examine the papers found in Robespierre's possession. A letter turns up, written by the editor of the Debates of the Convention in the Moniteur to Robespierre, and of this import: "You know that we always report more fully the speeches of the Mountain than of the other side. In Convet's complaint against you, I printed only a short sketch of his first point, but the whole of your reply. And in the report of the King's trial I introduced on his side only enough to preserve an appearance of impartiality," &c., &c. Lamartine received these papers to examine when he announced his history of the Girondins, but returned them, saying that he could make no use of them.

An important work is announced by Joubert in Paris, Les Murailles Revolutionaries, being a complete collection of professions of faith, proclamations, placards, decrees, bulletins, facsimiles of signatures, inedited autographs, &c., from February, 1848, to the present day: three volumes quarto. It is to be published in twenty-four parts, one part every month, and will supply a very important want of the future historian of these last remarkable years.

M. Ubicini has just published in Paris a very interesting work on the Ottomans, Lettres sur la Turquie. These letters were first printed in successive numbers of the Moniteur, from March, 1850, to the present summer, and they treat with decided ability and with freshness the chief subjects connected with Mohammedan civilization, and with the present condition and prospects of the Turkish empire, as the government, administration, army, finances, agriculture, commerce, public instruction, organization of religion, &c.