THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE

Of Literature, Art, and Science.

Vol. IV. NEW-YORK, SEPTEMBER 1, 1851. No. II.

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

[INSTITUTIONS FOR SAILORS, IN NEW-YORK.]
[RURAL LIFE IN VIRGINIA: THE "SWALLOW BARN."]
[GEORGE H. BOKER.]
[HERR FLEISCHMANN]
[IN THE HAREM.]
[TO THE CICADA.]
[TRICKS ON TRAVELLERS AT WATERLOO.]
[STUDIES OF AMERICAN LITERATURE,]
[A PHANTASY.]
[THE TIMES OF CHARLEMAGNE.]
[THE DECORATIVE ARTS IN AMERICA.]
[A VISIT TO THE LATE DR. JOHN LINGARD.]
[PRIVATE LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN.]
[STYLES OF PHILOSOPHIES.]
[REMINISCENCES OF PARIS, FROM 1817 TO 1848.]
[THE LAST JOSEPH IN EGYPT.]
[THE ENGLISH IN AMERICA: BY THE AUTHOR OF "SAM SLICK."]
[A FEW QUESTIONS FROM A WORN-OUT LORGNETTE.]
[FRAGMENTS.]
[A STORY WITHOUT A NAME.]
[NEWSPAPER POETS: CHARLES WELDON.]
[THE COUNT MONTE-LEONE: OR, THE SPY IN SOCIETY.]
[POULAILLER, THE ROBBER.]
[THE LATE D. M. MOIR.]
[THE DESERTED MANSION.]
[ILLUSTRATIONS OF MOTIVES.]
[THE LAST DAYS OF THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER.]
[FALLEN GENIUS.]
[COPENHAGEN.]
[THE SHADOW OF LUCY HUTCHINSON.]
[THE WIVES OF SOUTHEY, COLERIDGE, AND LOVELL.]
[MY NOVEL: OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.]
[EGYPT UNDER ABBAS PASHA.]
[THE JEWS IN CHINA.]
[AUTHORS AND BOOKS.]
[THE FINE ARTS.]
[HISTORICAL REVIEW OF THE MONTH.]
[RECENT DEATHS.]
[LADIES' MIDSUMMER FASHIONS.]

INSTITUTIONS FOR SAILORS, IN NEW-YORK.

HEALTH-OFFICER BOARDING AN IMMIGRANT SHIP, QUARANTINE, STATEN ISLAND.

The maritime commerce of New-York has increased so rapidly that it has continually outgrown the space appropriated for its accommodation, so that the docks, wharves, warehouses, and landings, have been found wholly inadequate to the reception of the business which has poured in upon them. But the benevolent institutions of the "Empire City," designed to meliorate the condition of sea-faring men, have been fully equal to the exigencies of this improvident class of laborers, and are among the noblest and best conducted of the many charitable institutions in this great and growing metropolis of the New World. Commerce is the life and soul of New-York, and the most selfish motives should lead to the establishment of suitable retreats and hospitals for the benefit of the class of men without whose labors its wheels could not revolve; but it is not to those who are most benefited by the labors of seamen that they are indebted for the existence of safe havens of retreat, where they may cast anchor in repose, where they can no longer follow their dangerous and storm-tost business. Seamen are the only class who have asylums provided expressly for their use, either in sickness or old age. The nation provides no hospital like that of Greenwich, where the tars who are disabled in the public service find a home and an honorable support, but it lays a capitation tax on all the seamen in the navy for the creation of a fund, out of which the Naval Asylum, the Wallabout Hospital, &c., for the disabled, invalid, and superannuated of the navy have, at their own cost, not altogether disagreeable homes. New-York, however, from the munificence of private individuals and the creation of a fund from a tax on seamen, can boast of excellent institutions for the ample and comfortable accommodation of all the sick and infirm sailors who have earned a right of admission by sailing from this port. In this respect there is no other city in the world that can equal New-York.

The quarantine ground of the port of New-York, which is on the north-eastern point of Staten Island, five and a half miles from the Battery, is admirably located for the purposes of purification, and liberally endowed with all the necessary means for the cure of the sick and the prevention of the spread of disease. The ground appropriated for the purposes of a lazaretto has a frontage on the bay of about fourteen hundred feet, and extends back twelve hundred feet. It is inclosed by a high brick wall, and includes suitable hospitals for the accommodation of the sick, houses for the resident physician, and offices for the numerous persons employed about the grounds. The largest hospital, appropriated for fever patients, is that nearest the water. It is constructed of brick, is three stories high, and one hundred and thirty-six feet long by twenty-eight feet wide. The building on the rising ground next above this is intended for convalescents. It is built of brick, three stories high, fifty feet long, and forty-five feet high, with two wings sixty-six by twenty-six feet each. Higher up, beyond this, is the small-pox hospital, which generally has the largest number of patients. It is but two stories, eighty feet long and twenty-eight feet wide; like the other hospitals, it is built of brick, and has open galleries on the outside, in front, and rear. The quarantine hospitals, although forming no unimportant part of the maritime institutions of New-York, do not properly come under the head of those denominated benevolent, as they are merely sanitary and for the purpose of preventing the spread of contagious diseases.

THE SEAMEN'S RETREAT.

The Seamen's Retreat is also on Staten Island, a mile below the quarantine ground, built upon a natural terrace, about one hundred feet above the water, and fronting the Narrows. The location is one of exceeding beauty, being surrounded by sylvan scenery of unsurpassed loveliness, and commanding a prospect of great extent, which embraces the city, the shore of New Jersey, the Palisades, Long Island, and the highlands of Neversink and Sandy Hook. The Hospital is a noble building, constructed of rough granite, three stories high, and surrounded by piazzas, upon which the patients may inhale the pure air, and beguile their confinement by watching the ever-changing panorama presented by the bay, with its countless ships and steamers. The Retreat is intended solely for sick but not disabled seamen. It is supported by a fund derived from a state capitation tax, levied upon all seamen sailing from this port, and is the only establishment of the kind in the United States, or, we believe, in the world. Seamen are the only class who are compelled by the law of the state to contribute to a fund to form a provision for them in case of sickness. The income for the support of the Retreat is ample, and the most liberal provision is allowed for all whose necessities compel them to seek admission. On the grounds are houses for the residence of the physician and keeper.

SAILOR'S SNUG HARBOR.

This noble Charity is situated on the north side of Staten Island, about three miles from the Quarantine, and commands a magnificent view, with the city in the distance. It is surrounded with elegant villas, pretty cottages, and well cultivated farms, and is in the midst of the loveliest rural scenery that the neighborhood of New-York can boast of. The grounds belonging to the institution comprise about one hundred and sixty acres of land, which is inclosed by a handsome iron fence that cost, a few years since, thirty-five thousand dollars. The principal building is constructed of brick and faced with white marble, with a marble portico. The corner-stone was laid in 1831, and the institution opened for the reception of its inmates in 1833. The centre building is sixty-five by one hundred feet, with two wings fifty-one by one hundred feet, connected with the main building by corridors. There are two handsome houses for the residences of the governor of the institution, and the physician, and numerous offices and outhouses.

This noble institution owes its existence to Captain James Randall, who, in the year 1801, bequeathed a piece of land in the upper part of the city, for the foundation of a retreat for worn-out seamen, who had sailed from the port of New-York; it was called most appropriately the Snug Harbor, and many a poor mariner has since found safe moorings there, when no longer able to follow his perilous calling. The benevolent-hearted sailor who founded this noble charity could hardly have dreamed that the small property which he bequeathed for that purpose, could ever increase to the magnificent sum which it is now valued at. The income from the estate in the year 1806 was but a little more than four thousand dollars; it is now thirty-seven thousand dollars, and will be, next year, when the leases of the property have to be renewed, at least sixty thousand dollars a year, an income abundantly large to support even in luxurious comfort the worn-out tars who may be compelled by misfortune to seek this magnificent asylum. The trustees of the Snug Harbor are about to build extensive additions to the present accommodations for it inmates, and among the new buildings will be a hospital for the insane. There is no chapel attached to the Snug Harbor, but there is a regular chaplain who performs religious services every Sunday in the large hall in the centre building.

In front of the principal edifice a plain monument of white marble has been erected by the trustees in memory of Captain Randall, the founder of the institution, which is chiefly remarkable for the omission, in the inscription, of any information respecting the birth or death of the person in whose honor it was erected.

THE SAILOR'S HOME.

It is somewhat remarkable that New-York has originated every system for bettering the temporal and spiritual condition of seamen, that now exists, and furnished the models of the various institutions for the benefit of sea-faring men which have been successfully copied in other maritime cities of the new and the old world. It was here that the first chapel was built for the exclusive use of sailors and their families, the Mariner's chapel in Roosevelt-street; and it was here, too, that the first Home was erected for the residence, while on shore, of homeless sailors. The corner-stone of the Home in Cherry-street was laid with appropriate ceremonies on the 14th of October, 1841, just twenty-two years from the day on which the corner-stone of the Mariner's chapel was laid in Roosevelt-street. The building is a well constructed house of brick with a granite basement, plain and substantial, without any pretensions to architectural ornamentation. It is six stories high, fifty feet front, and one hundred and sixty feet deep. It contains one hundred and thirty sleeping-rooms, a dining-room one hundred by twenty-five feet, and a spacious reading-room, in which are a well selected library, and a museum of natural curiosities; there are also suitable apartments for the overseer and officers. About five hundred boarders can be accommodated in the Home, but it is not often filled. The Sailor's Home was built by the Seaman's Friend Society, and is intended to furnish sailors with a comfortable and orderly home, where they will not be subject to the rapacities of unprincipled landlords, nor the temptations which usually beset this useful but improvident class of men when they are on shore.

U.S. MARINE HOSPITAL, BROOKLYN.

The Marine Hospital at the Wallabout, Brooklyn, near the Navy Yard, belongs to the government of the United States, and is intended for the use of the sailors and officers of the navy, and none others. It was built from a fund called the hospital fund, which is created by a payment of twenty cents a month by all the officers and seamen of the navy. The Hospital stands on high ground, on one of the healthiest and pleasantest spots in the vicinity of New-York, commands a superb view of the East River as it sweeps toward the Sound, and overlooks both Brooklyn and New-York. The buildings constituting the Hospital are two fine large airy edifices constructed of white marble, with galleries and piazzas, and surrounded by well-kept grounds which abound with choice fruit trees, and every requisite for the health and comfort of the invalids. The patients remain there only while under treatment for disease. Our government has no asylum for the support of the sailors or soldiers who lose their health or limbs in its service, like the hospitals of Greenwich and Chelsea, and, in this respect at least, we are behind the government of Great Britain, which makes ample and generous provision for all classes and grades of public servants.

As New-York was the first maritime city that built a chapel expressly for seamen, so it was the first to build a floating church, for although there had been previously in London and Liverpool old hulks fitted up as chapels, and moored in the docks for the use of sailors, there had never been an actual church edifice put afloat before the Floating Church of Our Saviour, which now lies moored at the foot of Pike-street, in the East River. This novel edifice was finished and consecrated in February, 1844. It is under the charge of the Young Men's Church Missionary Society of the City of New-York, by whom it was built, and has been under the pastoral care of the Rev. B. C. C. Parker, of the Episcopal church, from its consecration to the present time. It is seventy feet long, and thirty feet wide, and will comfortably seat five hundred persons. It has an end gallery, in which is an organ. A beautiful baptismal font of white marble, in the shape of a capstan, surmounted by a seashell, chiselled from the same block with the shaft—the gift of St. Mark's church in the Bowery, New-York—stands in front of the chancel rail. The top of the communion-table is a marble slab, and the Ten Commandments are placed on the panels on each side in the recess over it. An anchor in gold, painted on the back-ground between these panels, rests upon the Bible and prayer-book. The roof, at the apex, is twenty-six feet high, and eleven feet at the eaves. The edifice is built on a broad deck, seventy-six by thirty-six feet, covering two boats of eighty tons each, placed ten feet apart. The spire contains a bell, and the top of the flag-staff is about seventy feet from the deck. Divine service is regularly performed on Sundays, commencing in the morning at half-past ten, and in the afternoon at three o'clock. Both the boats on which the edifice rests are well coppered, and protected from injury by booms placed around them.

THE FLOATING CHURCH OF OUR SAVIOUR.

A similar floating church has been built and moored near Rector-street, in the North River, near which is another floating chapel, formed of an old hulk, after the manner of the first floating chapels in London. In addition to these houses of worship for seamen, there is a large and handsome church for sailors near the "Home," in Cherry-street, under the charge of the Baptists, and a small seamen's chapel in Brooklyn, near the Catharine Ferry. To complete this system of benevolent enterprises for the benefit of sailors, there is a Seaman's Savings Bank in Wall-street, a very handsome structure of brown free-stone, in the third story of which are the offices of the Seaman's Friend Society.

In Franklin Square, which, at the time of Washington's last visit to New-York, bore about the same relation to the heart of the city that Union Square and Grammercy Park now do, being the Ultima Thule of fashion, and the very focus of gentility and aristocracy, there is the Sailor's Home for colored seamen, which has been most respectably conducted on the principle of the "Home" in Cherry-street, and under the supervision of, although not belonging to, the Seaman's Friend Society. The Colored Home consists of two respectable three-story brick buildings, and is next door to the old Walton House, which is the last remnant of ante-revolutionary splendor remaining in the commercial metropolis of the Union, which once abounded in stately old mansions full of historical mementoes of the days when we acknowledged to kingly authority.

The principle of compelling men, when they have means, to lay up a trifle against the exigencies of a rainy day, has worked well, as we have seen, when applied to the most improvident of all the laboring classes, and we are not sure but the same principle applied to other classes would not prove equally beneficial. If the law should require every author, or merchant, or broker, or editor, to pay a monthly stipend to provide houses of refuge for the needy of their class, it would be only carrying out the principle of government which has been applied to seamen, and might save many a poor wretch from committing suicide to avoid the fate of a pauper.

RURAL LIFE IN VIRGINIA: THE "SWALLOW BARN."

A CUB OF THE BARN-YARD

We remember no book of its class altogether more delightful than the "Swallow Barn" of John P. Kennedy. In Irving's "Bracebridge Hall" we have exquisite sketches of English homes, such sketches as could be drawn only by that graceful and genial humorist, but Bracebridge Hall is not in our own country, and we scarcely feel "at our own" in it, as we do in every scene to which we are introduced by the author of "Swallow Barn," the best painter of manners who has ever tried his hand at their delineation in America. The love of nature, the fine appreciation of a country life, the delicate and quiet humor, and hearty joy in every one's enjoyment, which those who know Mr. Kennedy personally will recognize as principal elements of his own character, are reflected in the pages of the book, and with its other good qualities make it one of the most charming compositions in the literature of the present time.

Mr. Putnam in a few days will publish a new edition of "Swallow Barn," profusely illustrated by Mr. Strother, an artist who seems perfectly at home in the Old Dominion, as if—which may be the case—all his life had been spent there. Some of these we shall transfer to our own pages, but first we copy in full Mr. Kennedy's "Word in Advance to the Reader":

"Swallow Barn was written twenty years ago, and was published in a small edition, which was soon exhausted. From that date it has disappeared from the bookstores, being carelessly consigned by the author to that oblivion which is common to books and men—out of sight, out of mind. Upon a recent reviewal of it, after an interval sufficiently long to obliterate the partialities with which one is apt to regard his own productions, I have thought it was worthy of more attention than I had bestowed upon it, and was, at least, entitled to the benefit of a second edition. In truth, its republication has been so often advised by friends, and its original reception was so prosperous, that I have almost felt it to be a duty once more to set it afloat upon the waters, for the behoof of that good-natured company of idle readers who are always ready to embark on a pleasure excursion in any light craft that offers. I have, therefore, taken these volumes in hand, and given them a somewhat critical revisal. Twenty years work sufficient change upon the mind of an author to render him, perhaps more than others, a fastidious critic of his own book. If the physiologists are right, he is not the same person after that lapse of time; and all that his present and former self may claim in common, are those properties which belong to his mental consciousness, of which his aspiration after fame is one. The present self may, therefore, be expected to examine more rigorously the work of that former and younger person, for whom he is held responsible. This weighty consideration will be sufficient to account for the few differences which may be found between this and the first edition. Some quaintness of the vocabulary has been got rid of—some dialogue has been stript of its redundancy—some few thoughts have been added—and others retrenched. I shall be happy to think that the reader will agree with me that these are improvements:—I mean the reader who may happen to belong to that small and choice corps who read these volumes long ago—a little troop of friends of both sexes, to whom I have reason to be grateful for that modicum of good opinion which cheered my first authorship. Health and joy to them all—as many as are now alive! I owe them a thanksgiving for their early benevolence.

"Swallow Barn exhibits a picture of country life in Virginia, as it existed in the first quarter of the present century. Between that period and the present day, time and what is called "the progress," have made many innovations there, as they have done every where else. The Old Dominion is losing somewhat of the raciness of her once peculiar, and—speaking in reference to the locality described in these volumes—insulated cast of manners. The mellow, bland, and sunny luxuriance of her home society—its good fellowship, its hearty and constitutional companionableness, the thriftless gayety of the people, their dogged but amiable invincibility of opinion, and that overflowing hospitality which knew no ebb—these traits, though far from being impaired, are modified at the present day by circumstances which have been gradually attaining a marked influence over social life as well as political relation. An observer cannot fail to note that the manners of our country have been tending towards a uniformity which is visibly effacing all local differences. The old states, especially, are losing their original distinctive habits and modes of life, and in the same degree, I fear, are losing their exclusive American character. A traveller may detect but few sectional or provincial varieties in the general observances and customs of society, in comparison with what were observable in the past generations, and the pride, or rather the vanity, of the present day is leading us into a very notable assimilation with foreign usages. The country now apes the city in what is supposed to be the elegancies of life, and the city is inclined to value and adopt the fashions it is able to import across the Atlantic, and thus the whole surface of society is exhibiting the traces of a process by which it is likely to be rubbed down, in time, to one level, and varnished with the same gloss. It may thus finally arrive at a comfortable insipidity of character which may not be willingly reckoned as altogether a due compensation for the loss of that rough but pleasant flavor which belonged to it in its earlier era. There is much good sense in that opinion which ascribes a wholesome influence to those homebred customs, which are said to strengthen local attachments and expand them into love of country. What belonged to us as characteristically American, seems already to be dissolving into a mixture which affects us unpleasantly as a plain and cosmopolitan substitute for the old warmth and salient vivacity of our ancestors. We no longer present in our pictures of domestic life so much as an earnest lover of our nationality might desire of what abroad is called the "red bird's wing"—something which belongs to us and to no one else. The fruitfulness of modern invention in the arts of life, the general fusion of thought through the medium of an extra-territorial literature, which from its easy domestication among us is scarcely regarded as foreign, the convenience and comfort of European customs which have been incorporated into our scheme of living,—all these, aided and diffused by our extraordinary facilities of travel and circulation, have made sad work, even in the present generation, with those old nationalisms that were so agreeable to the contemplation of an admirer of the picturesque in character and manners.

THE "SWALLOW BARN."

"Looking myself somewhat hopelessly upon this onward gliding of the stream, I am not willing to allow these sketches of mine entirely to pass away. They have already begun to assume the tints of a relic of the past, and may, in another generation, become archæological, and sink into the chapter of antiquities. Presenting, as I make bold to say, a faithful picture of the people, the modes of life, and the scenery of a region full of attraction, and exhibiting the lights and shades of its society with the truthfulness of a painter who has studied his subject on the spot, they may reasonably claim their accuracy of delineation to be set off as an extenuation for any want of skill or defect of finish which a fair criticism may charge against the artist. Like some sign-post painters, I profess to make a strong likeness, even if it should be thought to be hard,—and what better workmen might call a daub,—as to which I must leave my reader to judge for himself when he has read this book. The outward public award on this point was kind, and bestowed quite as much praise as I could have desired—much more than I expected—when the former edition appeared. But "the progress" has brought out many competitors since that day, and has, perhaps, rendered the public taste more scrupulous. A book then was not so perilous an offering as it is now in the great swarm of authorships. We run more risk, just now, of being left alone—unread—untalked of—though not, happily, unpuffed by newspapers, who are favorites with the publisher, and owe him courtesies.

"I wish it to be noted that Swallow Barn is not a novel. I confess this in advance, although I may lose by it. It was begun on the plan of a series of detached sketches linked together by the hooks and eyes of a traveller's notes; and although the narrative does run into some by-paths of personal adventure, it has still preserved its desultory, sketchy character to the last. It is, therefore, utterly unartistic in plot and structure, and may be described as variously and interchangeably partaking of the complexion of a book of travels, a diary, a collection of letters, a drama, and a history,—and this, serial or compact, as the reader may choose to compute it. Our old friend Polonius had nearly hit it in his rigmarole of 'pastoral-comical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral'—which, saving 'the tragical,' may well make up my schedule: and so I leave it to the 'censure' of my new reader."

VIRGINIA MILL-BOYS RACING.

Here the history of the book is admirably told. The work itself, so full of truthful and effective pictures, offers numerous passages for quotation, but though we have nothing better to give our readers, we shall limit our extracts to a few scenes illustrated by Mr. Strother's pencil. We present first the old barn itself.

"Beyond the bridge, at some distance, stands a prominent object in the perspective of this picture,—the most venerable appendage to the establishment—a huge barn with an immense roof hanging almost to the ground, and thatched a foot thick with sunburnt straw, which reaches below the eaves in ragged flakes. It has a singularly drowsy and decrepit aspect. The yard around it is strewed knee-deep with litter, from the midst of which arises a long rack resembling a chevaux de frise, which is ordinarily filled with fodder. This is the customary lounge of half a score of oxen and as many cows, who sustain an imperturbable companionship with a sickly wagon, whose parched tongue and drooping swingle-trees, as it stands in the sun, give it a most forlorn and invalid character; whilst some sociable carts under the sheds, with their shafts perched against the walls, suggest the idea of a set of gossiping cronies taking their ease in a tavern porch. Now and then a clownish hobble-de-hoy colt, with long fetlocks and disordered mane, and a thousand burs in his tail, stalks through this company. But as it is forbidden ground to all his tribe, he is likely very soon to encounter a shower of corn-cobs from some of the negro men; upon which contingency he makes a rapid retreat across the bars which imperfectly guard the entrance to the yard, and with an uncouth display of his heels bounds towards the brook, where he stops and looks back with a saucy defiance; and after affecting to drink for a moment, gallops away with a braggart whinny to the fields."

The life led by the young negroes on the plantations of Virginia is generally easy, and of course utterly free from the cares which beset their youthful masters, compelled to pore over "miserable books."

"There is a numerous herd of little negroes about the estate; and these sometimes afford us a new diversion. A few mornings since we encountered a horde of them, who were darting about the bushes like untamed monkeys. They are afraid of me because I am a stranger, and take to their heels as soon as they see me. If I ever chance to get near enough to speak to one of them, he stares at me with a suspicious gaze, and, after a moment, makes off at full speed, very much frightened, towards the cabins at some distance from the house. They are almost all clad in a long coarse shirt which reaches below the knee, without any other garment. But one of the group we met on the morning I speak of, was oddly decked in a pair of ragged trowsers, conspicuous for their ample dimensions in the seat. These had evidently belonged to some grown-up person, but were cut short in the legs to make them fit the wearer. A piece of twine across the shoulder of this grotesque imp, served for suspenders, and kept his habiliments from falling about his feet. Ned ordered this crew to prepare for a foot-race, and proposed a reward of a piece of money to the winner. They were to run from a given point, about a hundred paces distant, to the margin of the brook. Our whole suite of dogs were in attendance, and seemed to understand our pastime. At the word, away went the bevy, accompanied by every dog of the pack, the negroes shouting and the dogs yelling in unison. The shirts ran with prodigious speed, their speed exposing their bare, black, and meager shanks to the scandal of all beholders; and the strange baboon in trowsers struggled close in their rear, with ludicrous earnestness, holding up his redundant and troublesome apparel with his hand. In a moment they reached the brook with unchecked speed, and, as the banks were muddy, and the dogs had become entangled with the racers in their path, two or three were precipitated into the water. This only increased the merriment, and they continued the contest in this new element by floundering, kicking, and splashing about, like a brood of ducks in their first descent upon a pool. These young negroes have wonderfully flat noses, and the most oddly disproportioned mouths, which were now opened to their full dimensions, so as to display their white teeth in striking contrast with their complexions. They are a strange pack of antic and careless animals, and furnish the liveliest picture that is to be found in nature of that race of swart fairies, which, in the old time, were supposed to play their pranks in the forest at moonlight. Ned stood by, enjoying this scene like an amateur—encouraging the negroes in their gambols, and hallooing to the dogs, that by a kindred instinct entered tumultuously into the sport and kept up the confusion. It was difficult to decide the contest. So the money was thrown into the air, and as it fell to ground, there was another rush, in which the hero of the trowsers succeeded in getting the small coin from the ground in his teeth, somewhat to the prejudice of his finery.

DRILLING THE NEGRO BOYS.

"Rip asserts a special pre-eminence over these young serfs, and has drilled them into a kind of local militia. He sometimes has them all marshalled in the yard, and entertains us with a review. They have an old watering-pot for a drum, and a dingy pocket handkerchief for a standard, under which they are arrayed in military order, and parade over the grounds with a riotous clamor."

TREADING OUT WHEAT.

The farmers of Virginia are scarcely as far advanced in the application of science as the more active-minded Yankees, and among the ancient customs which still obtain among them is that of treading out grain with cattle. At Swallow Barn the operation is described:

"Within the farm-yard a party of negroes were engaged in treading out grain. About a dozen horses were kept at full trot around a circle of some ten or fifteen paces diameter, which was strewed with wheat in the sheaf. These were managed by some five or six little blacks, who rode like monkey caricaturists of the games of the circus, and who mingled with the labors of the place that comic air of deviltry which communicated to the whole employment something of the complexion of a pastime."

We hope this edition of Swallow Barn will be so well received that the author will give us all his other works in the same attractive style. Horse-shoe Robinson, Rob of the Bowl, Quodlibet, and all the rest, except the Life of Wirt, are now out of print, and all have been greeted on their first appearance with an approval that should satisfy a more ambitious writer than Mr. Kennedy.

GEORGE H. BOKER.

Mr. Boker is one of the youngest of American authors. He is a native of Philadelphia, and was born, we believe, in the year 1824. After the usual preparatory studies in the city of his birth, he entered the college at Princeton, New Jersey, of which he is a graduate. In addition to the collegiate course, however, he devoted much time to the study of Anglo-Saxon, and to the perusal of the early masters of English literature, whose influence is discernible in all his earlier poems. Soon after leaving college he made a visit to France and England, but was obliged to return after having been but a short time abroad, owing to the critical state of his health. He was at that time suffering under a pulmonary disease which threatened to be fatal, but all symptoms of which, fortunately, have since disappeared. On his return he took up his residence in Philadelphia, which continues to be his home. Three or four years since he was married to an accomplished lady of that city.

Mr. Boker first appeared as an author at the commencement of the year 1848, when a volume of his poems, under the title of The Lesson of Life, was published in Philadelphia. The publication of a volume was no light ordeal to a young poet whose name was unknown, and who, we believe, had never before seen himself in print. The lack of self-observation and self-criticism, which can only be acquired when the author's thoughts have taken the matter-of-fact garb of type, would of itself be sufficient to obscure much real promise. In spite of these disadvantages, the book contained much that gave the reader the impression of a mind of genuine and original power. We remember being puzzled at its seeming incongruity, the bold, mature, and masculine character of its thought being so strikingly at variance with its frequent crudities of expression. It seemed to us the work of a man in the prime of life, whose poetic feeling had taken a sudden growth, and moved somewhat unskilfully in the unaccustomed trammels of words, rather than the first essay of a brain glowing with the fresh inspiration of youth.

No one saw the author's imperfections sooner than himself; and before the year had closed, his tragedy of Calaynos was published—a work so far in advance of what he had hitherto accomplished, so full, not only of promise for the future, but of actual performance, that it took his most confident friends by surprise. To write a five act tragedy is also a bold undertaking; but there is an old French proverb which, says, "if you would shoot lions, don't begin by aiming at hares," and we believe there are fewer failures from attempting too much than from being content with too little. The success of Calaynos showed that the author had not aimed beyond his reach. The book attracted considerable attention, and its merits as a vigorous and original play, were very generally recognized. Although written with no view to its representation on the stage, it did not escape the notice of actors and managers, and a copy happening to fall into the hands of Mr. Phelps, a distinguished English tragedian, it was first performed under his direction at the Theatre Royal, Saddler's Wells, Mr. Phelps himself taking the part of Calaynos. Its success as an acting play was most decided, and after keeping the stage at Saddler's Wells twenty or thirty nights, it went the round of the provinces. It has already been performed more than a hundred times in different parts of Great Britain.

Calaynos gives evidence of true dramatic genius. The characters are distinct and clearly drawn, and their individualities carefully preserved through all the movements of the plot, which is natural and naturally developed. The passion on which the action hinges, is the prejudice of blood between the Spanish and Moorish families of Spain. The interest of the plot, while it never loses sight of the hero, is shared in the first three acts by the other personages of the story, but concentrates at the close on Calaynos, whose outbursts of love and grief and revenge are drawn with striking power and eloquence. The play is enlivened with many humorous passages, wherein the author shows his mastery of this element, so necessary to the complete dramatist.

Mr. Boker's next publication was the tragedy of Anne Boleyn, which appeared in February, 1850. In this work he touched on more familiar ground, and in some instances, in his treatment of historical characters, came in conflict with the opinions or prejudices of the critics. The necessity of adhering to history in the arrangement of the plot and selection of the dramatis personæ, imposed some restraint on the author's mind, and hence, while Anne Boleyn exhibits a calmer and more secure strength, and a riper artistic knowledge than Calaynos, it lacks the fire and passionate fervor of some passages of the latter. We should not forget, however, that the Thames has a colder and sadder sun than the Guadalquiver. Objections have been made to Mr. Boker's King Henry, especially to his complaint of the torments of his conscience, and his moralizing over Norris's ingratitude. But those who cavil at these points seem to forget that however vile and heartless King Henry appears to them, he is a very different man to himself. The author's idea—and it is true to human nature—evidently is, that a criminal is not always guilty to his own mind. This marked insensibility of King Henry to his own false and corrupt nature is a subtle stroke of art.

The language of the tragedy is strong, terse, and full of point, approaching the sturdy Saxon idiom of the early English dramatists. We might quote many passages in support of our opinion, as, for instance, the scene between the Queen and her brother, Lord Rochford; between the Queen and King Henry; Wyatt and Rochford, and King Henry and Jane Seymour. Two or three brief extracts we cannot avoid giving. Wyatt and Rochford are in "The Safety," the thieves' quarter of London—the St. Giles of that day. Wyatt speaks:

"I oft have thought the watchful eye of God
Upon this place ne'er rested; or that hell
Had raised so black a smoke of densest sin
That the All-Beautiful, appalled, shrunk back
From its fierce ugliness. I tell you, friend,
When the great treason, which shall surely come
To burst in shards law-bound society,
Gives the first shudder, ere it grinds to dust
Thrones, ranks, and fortunes, and most cunning law—
When the great temple of our social state
Staggers and throbs, and totters back to chaos—
Let men look here, here in this fiery mass
Of aged crime and primal ignorance,
For the hot heart of all the mystery!—
Here, on this howling sea, let fall the scourge,
Or pour the oil of mercy!

Rochford. Pour the oil—
In God's name, pour the blessed oil! The scourge,
Bloody and fierce, has fallen for ages past
Upon the foreward crests within its reach;
Yet made no more impression on the mass
Than Persia's whips upon the Hellespont!"

Wyatt's soliloquy on beholding Queen Anne led forth to execution is full of a rare and subtle beauty, both of thought and expression:

"O Anne, Anne!
The world may banish all regard for thee,
Mewing thy fame in frigid chronicles,
But every memory that haunts my mind
Shall cluster round thee still. I'll hide thy name
Under the coverture of even lines,
I'll hint it darkly in familiar songs,
I'll mix each melancholy thought of thee
Through all my numbers: so that heedless men
Shall hold my love for thee within their hearts,
Not knowing of the treasure."

The last scene, preceding the death of Anne Boleyn, is simple and almost homely in its entire want of poetic imagery; yet nothing could be more profoundly touching, and—in the highest sense of the word—tragic. The same tears which blur for us the lines of Browning's Blot on the 'Scutcheon, and the last words of Shelley's Beatrice Cenci, suffuse our eyes at this parting address of Anne Boleyn to her maidens, beside her on the scaffold:

"And ye, my damsels,
Who whilst I lived did ever show yourselves
So diligent in service, and are now
To be here present in my latest hour
Of mortal agony—as in good times
Ye were most trustworthy, even so in this,
My miserable death, ye leave me not.
As a poor recompense for your rich love,
I pray you to take comfort for my loss—
And yet forget me not. To the king's grace,
And to the happier one whom you may serve
In place of me, be faithful as to me.
Learn from this scene, the triumph of my fate,
To hold your honors far above your lives.
When you are praying to the martyred Christ,
Remember me who, as my weakness could,
Faltered afar behind His shining steps,
And died for truth, forgiving all mankind.
The Lord have pity on my helpless soul!"

Since the publication of Anne Boleyn, Mr. Boker has written two plays, The Betrothal, and All the World a Mask, both of which have been produced on the stage in Philadelphia with the most entire success. Calaynos was also played for a number of nights, Mr. Murdoch taking the principal part. The Betrothal was performed in New-York and Baltimore, with equal success. It is admirably adapted for an acting play. The plot is not tragic, though the closing scenes have a tragic air. The dialogue is more varied than in Anne Boleyn or Calaynos—now sparkling and full of point, now pithy, shrewd, and pregnant with worldly wisdom, and now tender, graceful, and poetic. All the World a Mask is a comedy of modern life. We have not seen it represented, and it has not yet been published; yet no one familiar with the fine healthy humor displayed in portions of Calaynos and The Betrothal can doubt the author's ability to sustain himself through a five-act comedy.

In addition to these plays, Mr. Boker has published from time to time, in the literary magazines, lyrics and ballads that would of themselves entitle him to rank among our most worthy poets. It is rare that a dramatic author possesses lyric genius, and vice versa, yet the true lyric inspiration is no less perceptible in Mr. Boker's Song of the Earth and Vision of the Goblet, than the true dramatic faculty in his Anne Boleyn.

There is a fresh, manly strength in his poetry, which may sometimes jar the melody a little, but never allows his verse to flag. The life which informs it was inhaled in the open air; it is sincere and earnest, and touched with that fine enthusiasm which is the heart's-blood of lyric poetry. Take, for instance, this glorious Bacchic, from the Vision of the Goblet:

"Joy! joy! with Bacchus and his satyr train,
In triumph throbs our merry Grecian earth;
Joy! joy! the golden time has come again,
A god shall bless the vine's illustrious birth!
Io, io, Bacche!

"O breezes, speed across the mellow lands,
And breathe his coming to the joyous vine;
Let all the vineyards wave their leafy hands
Upon the hills to greet this pomp divine!
Io, io, Bacche!

"O peaceful triumph, victory without tear,
Or human cry, or drop of conquered blood!
Save dew-beads bright, that on the vine appear,
The choral shouts, the trampled grape's red flood!
Io, io, Bacche!

"Shout, Hellas, shout! the lord of joy is come,
Bearing the mortal Lethe in his hands,
To wake the wailing lips of Sorrow dumb,
To bind sad Memory's eyes with rosy bands:
Io, io, Bacche!"

In the Song of the Earth, which shows a higher exercise of the poetic faculty than any thing else Mr. Boker has written, he has enriched the language with a new form of versification. Except in this poem, we do not remember ever to have seen dactylic blank verse attempted in the English language. The majestic and resonant harmonies of the measure are strikingly adapted to the poet's theme. The concluding Chorus of Stars, rebuking the Earth for her pride as the dwelling-place of the human soul, is a splendid effort of the imagination. We know not where to find surpassed the sounding sweep of the rhythm in the final lines:

"Heir of eternity, Mother of Souls,
Let not thy knowledge betray thee to folly!
Knowledge is proud, self-sufficient, and lone,
Trusting, unguided, its steps in the darkness.
Thine is the wisdom that mankind may win,
Gleaned in the pathway between joy and sorrow;
Ours is the wisdom that hallows the child
Fresh from the touch of his awful Creator,
Dropped like a star on thy shadowy realm,
Falling in splendor, but falling to darken.
Ours is the simple religion of Faith,
Trusting alone in the God who o'errules us;
Thine are the complex misgivings of Doubt,
Wrested to form by imperious Reason.
Knowledge is restless, imperfect, and sad;
Faith is serene, and completed, and joyful.
Bow in humility, bow thy proud forehead,
Circle thy form with a mantle of clouds,
Hide from the glittering cohorts of evening,
Wheeling in purity, singing in chorus:
Howl in the depths of thy lone, barren mountains,
Restlessly moan on the deserts of ocean,
Wail o'er thy fall in the desolate forests,
Lost star of Paradise, straying alone!"

In the flush of youth, fortunate in all the relations of life, and with a fame already secured, there is perhaps no American author to whom the future promises more than to Mr. Boker. He has that faithful reverence for his art which makes harmless the breath of praise, more dangerous to the poet than that of censure, and there are yet many years before him ere his mind attains its full scope and stature. That all these promises may be fulfilled, to his own honor and that of American literature, is the earnest hope of

Bayard Taylor.

HERR FLEISCHMANN

ON THE INDUSTRIAL AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE AMERICANS.

In the careful watch we keep of French, German, and other foreign literatures, for what will instruct or entertain the readers of the International, we are always sharp-sighted for any thing said of us or our institutions, whether it be in sympathy or in antipathy. So, for a recent number, we translated from the Revue des Deux Mondes a very clever paper on our American Female Poets, and on other occasions have reviewed or done into English a great many compositions which evinced the feeling of continental Europe in regard to our character and movements. We shall continue in this habit, as there is scarcely any thing ever more amusing than "what the world says" of our concerns, even when it is in the least amiable temper.

Among the most interesting works published of late months in Germany, is Fleischmann's Erwerbszweige der Vereinigten Staaten Nord-America's, (or Branches of Industry in the United States.) The reader who anticipates from this title a mere mass of statistics relative to the industrial condition of our own country will find himself agreeably disappointed. Statistics are indeed there—lists of figures and relative annual arrays of products, sufficient to satisfy any one that Mr. Fleischmann has turned the several years during which he was connected with the Patent Office at Washington to good account. But in addition to this there is a mass of information and observation, which, though nearly connected with the subject, was yet hardly to be expected. It is doubtful whether the social and domestic peculiarities of others or of ourselves be most attractive, but to those who prefer the latter, and who have lived as many do under the impression that our own habits and ways of life present little that is marked or distinctive, this work will be found not only interesting, but even amusing. For among those practising branches of industry, he not only includes blacksmiths, coopers, architects, planters, and pin-makers, but also clergymen, actors, circus-riders, model-artists, midwives, and boarding-house keepers! The main object of the work being to inform his countrymen who propose emigration, of the true state of the most available branches of industry in this country, and prevent on their part undue anticipation or disappointment, even these items cannot be deemed out of place. Cherishing an enthusiastic admiration of our country, and better informed in all probability in the branches of which he treats than any foreigner who has before ventured upon the subject, it is not astonishing that he should have produced a work which not only fully answers the object intended, but in a faithful translation would doubtless be extensively read by our own countrymen.

The reader will find in this book many little traits of our domestic life, which, commonplace though they be, are not unattractive when thus reflected back on us, mirror-like, from another land. Take for example the following account of confectioners:

"All men are more or less fond of sweet food and dainties, and the wealthier a people may be, and consequently in more fit condition to add such luxuries to the necessaries of life, the greater will be its consumption of sugar. If we compare the sugar consumption of England with that of Germany, we find the first consumes a far greater quantity per head than the latter.

"And in this respect the Americans are in no wise behind the English, since they not only at least twice a day drink either tea or coffee, which they abundantly sweeten, enjoying therewith vast quantities of preserved fruits, and every variety of cakes, but they have universally a remarkable appetite for sweets, which from childhood up is nourished with all sorts of confectionery. And this appetite is very generally retained even to an advanced age, so that all the cents of the children, and many of the dollars of those more advanced in life, go to the candy-shops and confectioneries. Add to this the numerous balls, marriages, and other festive occasions, particularly the parties in private houses, at which pyramids, temples, and other architectural and artistic works, founded on rocks of candied sugar, and bonsbons, are never wanting, we can readily imagine that in this country the confectioner's trade is a flourishing and brilliant business.

"The Americans are, as is well known, universally a remarkably hospitable people, not only frequently entertaining guests in their homes, but also holding it as an established point of bon ton, to give one or two parties annually, to which all their friends are invited. The evening is then spent with music and dancing, concluded with an extremely elegant (hochst elegant) supper, at which the gentlemen wisely stick to the more substantial viands and champagne, but where abundance of sugar-work for the ladies is never wanting.

"And since no family will be surpassed by another, the most incredible extravagance not infrequently results from this unfortunate spirit of rivalry. Confectionery is often brought for a certain party expressly from France, fresh fruits from the West Indies, and the stairways and rooms are adorned with the most exquisite flowers which Europe can yield, while the guests are served on costly porcelain and massive plate. In a word, the greatest imaginable expense is lavished on these festive occasions, which prevail in every class of society, and in none—be their degree what it may—are sugared sweets wanting: the poorer confining themselves, it is true, to such dainties as are the production of the country, excepting indeed a few bottles of champagne, which latter is absolutely indispensable.

"I have deemed it necessary to touch upon these extravagances of American life, that I might show that while on the one hand an expert confectioner may readily find employment during the season, on the other that mere skill and industry are by no means sufficient of themselves to support an establishment grounded on credit.

"Nearly all the small shopkeepers, fruit-dealers, and bar-keepers, sell candy and sugar-cakes, which they either prepare themselves or obtain from confectioners who not only carry on a wholesale business, but even send large quantities of their products to the country dealers. In Philadelphia, warm cakes are carried about for sale in the streets,[1] the bearers thereof announcing their presence by the sound of a bell. French confectioners have already done much in this country toward improving the public taste, and excellent bonsbons à la francaise are now actually manufactured here, though we must admit that in the country there is a great consumption of confectionery and cakes by no means of a very good quality. In these regions a taste for 'horses' (which are of cake greatly resembling gingerbread and made in the form of a horse) universally predominates, and not only children but even adults select these as a favorite dainty. It is no unusual spectacle to behold in the northern states an entire court—judge, jury, and lawyers—regaling themselves during an important trial on horse-cakes!"

Whether Herr Fleischmann received this legal anecdote on hearsay, or whether his German soul was actually startled by stumbling upon such an extraordinary legal spectacle, we will not here inquire. In Germany the favorite dainty in this line is a pretzel, or carnival cake, in the form of a two-headed serpent, which antiquaries declare to be of oriental origin, and to conceal divers horrific mysteries of deeply metaphysical import. From the solemnity of tone with which Herr Fleischmann imparts this horse-cake story, we are half inclined to suspect that he inferred that a great ethical mystery, in some way connected with the administration of justice in America, might thus be conveyed.

Under the head of spirit distilleries our author enters into a naïf and enthusiastic defence of good brandy, but still highly approves of the American custom of substituting coffee for grog in merchant vessels, on which he remarks that it is not allowed to soldiers or sailors to bring spirits into the forts or ships. "But they are so extravagantly fond of liquor as to invent every imaginable method of evading the regulation. I have been told," he says, "by persons of the highest credibility that during the night whisky is not unfrequently brought to the vicinity of military stations, and that the sentinels, after filling the barrels of their muskets therewith, bring it into the 'watch-room,' and divide the loading with their comrades."

After remarking the melancholy fact, which the strictest examination would, we fear confirm, in a still higher degree, that the sewing-girls employed in our umbrella factories, tailor establishments, &c., are very inadequately paid, he makes a statement which is, however, glaringly false, that among these poor girls corruption of manners prevails to a degree unknown in any country of Europe, save indeed "merry England." Without being familiar with such statistics, we are on the contrary firmly convinced that though females in these employments are not so well paid even as in Germany, there is no country on the face of the earth—most certainly not in Bavaria, Austria, or Prussia, where the standard of morals is in this respect so high as in our own. There are a thousand correlative facts in the state of society in our country which confirm our assertion. This opinion of our author's is, however, slightly at variance, as far as appearance is concerned, with a part of the following good advice to the more beautiful portion of his fair young countrywomen, who propose repairing to this country for the sake of catching husbands:

"And I deem this a fit place to give them a warning, which I have before often repeated, namely, that these lovely beings, when they forsake their homes, also leave behind them their fantastic national dress. In this country long dresses are worn—and not merely frocks which barely reach the knee, as is usual in several parts of Germany. The same may be applied to their head-dresses, which are not unfrequently so eccentric as to give their wearers the appearance of having escaped from a lunatic asylum. On which account, I beg my ladies, or any women who design emigrating to this land of equality, to buy themselves French bonnets,[2] or a similar style of head covering, but in no instance to run bareheaded about the streets, which is here remarkably unpopular, since neither widow, wife, nor maiden, ever appears in the public way without hat or bonnet. And I moreover beg of them, on their first arrival in the populous cities, to restrain their manifestations of affection to the house, where walls are the only witnesses, and not to permit their lovers, fiancées, or husbands, to clasp them about the waist, and lead them in this close embrace about the streets, since this would be for Americans a scandalous spectacle. I will not assert that the American is incapable of tender feeling, but he at least observes decency in the public streets, and apropos of this, I would further remark, that in this country the wife or maiden invariably walks by the side of her male companion, and never follows after him in Indian file—that is, like geese returning from pasture."

In his chapter on hat-makers, we are informed that neither French, Germans, nor English, can in this country compete with the Americans in the manufacture of hats; and that he was informed by a very intelligent manufacturer that the work of Germans by no means suited our market, and further, that within a few years past the use of caps has increased at least two thirds, though these are by no means so well adapted to carry papers, &c., as hats, in which Americans are accustomed to convey their archives.

Of boarding-houses:

"These extremely convenient establishments, in which lodging, food, and all things requisite, are provided, may be found in all the cities in the United States; but we first learn to duly appreciate their value, when, on returning to Germany, we find ourselves obliged either to lodge in a hotel, or for a short stay in a place hire and perhaps furnish rooms for ourselves.

"These communistic institutions, where one person or family takes care of several, give the boarder all the conveniences of a hotel, united to the advantages of dwelling in a private family. He has opportunities of entering such society as is adapted to his habits and tastes, in addition to which he has what may be termed a chez soi—he feels that he is 'in house.'[3]

"Such boarding-houses are generally kept by widows or old maids, and even ladies of the highest families take refuge in this branch of industry, to maintain respectably themselves and families.

"Fashionable houses of this sort are splendidly furnished, and supplied with excellent dishes and attendance. In these the price is naturally high, since for a room, without fuel, from six to twelve dollars a week is generally paid. Rooms in the upper part of the house are of course cheaper. The parlor is common to all the persons in the house—they meet there, before and after meals, pass the evening with reading, music, &c., receive visits, and live in all respects as if at home.

"The Americans are of a very accommodating disposition—particularly the men, who, from a regard for the lady of the house, are easily contented. The ladies, on the contrary, very frequently indulge in little feuds, produced by the ennui resulting from a want of domestic employment, and living in common; but all are on the whole very circumspect, are careful to live in Christian love and unity with one another, and never offend external propriety.

"It is not requisite in America to take a license from the police to establish a boarding-house, unless a bar-room be therewith connected. The person undertaking such an enterprise rents a house, makes it known in newspapers or among friends, or simply placards on the door 'Boarding'—and the establishment is opened without further ceremony. Particular introductions and recommendations are requisite to be received in a boarding-house of higher rank."

There is even yet a lingering prejudice prevailing in this country in favor of certain musical instruments of European manufacture, which this work is well adapted to dissipate, since the author appears to be in this particular an excellent judge. Take for example his chapter on pianos:

"The favorite musical instrument of the American ladies is the piano, and in every family with the slightest pretensions to education or refinement a piano may certainly be found, upon which, of an evening, the young 'Miss' plays to her parents the pieces which she has learned, or accompanies them with her voice. If the stranger will walk of an evening through the streets of an American city, he can hear in almost every house a piano and the song of youthful voices, often very agreeable, though the latter are not unfrequently wanting in proper culture. Many of these amateurs have beyond doubt remarkable talent, and would in their art attain to a high degree of perfection if they had better opportunities to hear the best music, to study more industriously, and practice more than they do, but their domestic audiences are unfortunately easily pleased, in consequence of which their knowledge seldom extends beyond well known opera pieces and favorite popular airs.

"A few years since, pianos were generally imported from Germany, England, and France, but it was soon found that their construction and material were by no means adapted to withstand the changes of the American climate; and it was also found that the enormous profit cleared by the importers, might quite as well be retained in this country, and there are consequently, at present, in Boston, New-York, Philadelphia, and even Baltimore, excellent and extensive 'piano forte manufactories,' in which every portion of these instruments is constructed. For this purpose the best varieties of wood known are used, such as mahogany and rosewood, which, however, in America are obtainable at cheap rates. The cases are of the most solid construction possible, and the legs massive, (by which especially the firmest duration is insured) all constructed of the above-mentioned material, which is quickly and accurately cut into the requisite form by a machine.... By means of these and other improvements, but particularly by means of the material, are the American pianos not only far more durable than the imported, but also infinitely less subject to loss of tone.

"The American pianos are invariably of a table form, in order to adapt them to small rooms. Their tone is sweet and rich, and has been pronounced clear, full and pleasing, by the best European performers. The pianos of Stottart (Stoddard) and Nunns, in New-York, of Laud and Mayer, in Philadelphia, and especially of Chickering, in Boston, enjoy a high reputation. This latter enterprising individual spares no expense to secure the best improvements, and apply them to his instruments. Other excellent manufactories also abound, among which are many German proprietors, who, however, all follow the American style of construction.

"Previous to the year 1847, about sixty-four patents for improvements in pianos were taken out.... The average price of a splendid 'Chickering,' of 7-1/2 octaves, is from $350 to $400. I have purchased of Stoddard in New-York an excellent and handsome instrument for $250; since which time (A. D. 1848) the price for the same has sunk fifty dollars. Instruments of a lighter construction may be bought for one hundred and fifty dollars; nor will it be long ere the best pianos may be had for a price ranging from $180 to $200. There are in America men whose exclusive business it is to tune pianos, for which they generally receive one dollar....

"While on the subject of music, I may be permitted to speak of an outcast class of minstrels, namely, the harp girls; who, after having wandered through Germany, or even England, or having been turned out of the same, find their way to the United States. Especially in New Orleans are they at home, and there sing, in the coffee-houses and bar-rooms, most blackguard (zotenhaften lieder) songs, in the English language, learned either at home or in England—partly to the delight and partly to the disgust of the mixed companies there assembled. Germany can in truth take but little pride in such representatives of her nationality. She is already too little appreciated in America to render it necessary that such females should still further degrade her—females, for whom the American (who invariably holds in high respect the sex) entertains an unconquerable disgust. Apropos of those, I may mention the so-called 'broom girls,' who sell a sort of little brooms or fly-brushes, singing therewith fearful songs; and finally, the innumerable organ and tambourine players, who frequently have with them a child which dances like an ape to the sound of their horrible music."

From the practical and common-sense-like manner in which the subject is treated, the following chapter on boarding-schools will probably prove interesting to every American reader:

"Would not any one imagine that a nation like the German, which is universally recognized as the best educated and most erudite, which has written and effected so much for the cause of education, would naturally be the one to supply the world with accomplished teachers? Is there in the civilized world another nation where so many men have made it the entire business of a life, passed in the most zealous and deeply grounded studies of all languages, living and dead, or who have so fully succeeded in teaching even foreigners their own language? Certainly not. 'Whence comes it then,' any one may reasonably inquire, 'that these learned men, who appear to be, in every respect, so peculiarly adapted to teach, have not long since conducted the education of the whole world? Or why is it, that in North America at least, where a widely spread German element throws open so vast a field to their exertions, they have not the direction of every private school?'

"Incomprehensible as this may appear at a first glance, it is still explicable in a few words. The American seeks, for the education of his children, practical men, who are not only adapted to and skilled in their vocation, but also familiar with the world—its progress and requirements—men not only capable of teaching their pupils the rules of grammar and syntax, but who are also qualified to impart the peculiarities and precepts of life in the world at large—men of prepossessing manner and appearance, and whose habits are adapted to the requirements of refined society. This it is, in a few words, that the American requires. And now, I ask—how many old and young teachers are there in Germany thus qualified?

"I here speak, of course, in a general way; for I well know that there are in Germany many teachers and learned men, who could more than fulfil all of these requirements of the American parent, but their number is unfortunately limited; and I deem it important that I speak freely and fully on this subject, since many a learned German, whose acquirements and scientific knowledge would insure him an independent and respectable station at home, nevertheless frequently finds himself compelled by the pressure of circumstances to seek America, in the hope of there opening a school, or at least finding employment as teacher, and there too frequently, in addition to the bitterest disappointment, discovers too late that he is fit for no other practical employment which will yield him his daily bread.

"As a proof, however, that most of these so called pedagogues must in America be necessarily deceived in their expectations, I take the liberty of adding yet a few words.

"The American requires before all, as far as the moral qualifications of the teacher are concerned, a firm religious tendency—a requirement for which the scion of 'Young Germany,' fresh from his university career, has but little taste; since his recollections of that life are yet too fresh upon him to admit of a willing submission to such rules,—and I advise any one who proposes to follow such a course to become a farmer's man, rather than a hypocrite or sham-saint....

"If we proceed in our examination of private schools in America, we find that the majority are for the education of girls. Upon which the question arises—Are German ladies generally adapted to the superintendence of such establishments?—a question which I must either answer with No, or modify with the admission that if there be any schools managed by German ladies, I am ignorant of their existence. The cause for the negative being essentially the same as with the male scholars.

"No man can better appreciate the worth of German women than myself. I acknowledge perfectly their virtues and excellencies—their domestic sphere is their world, inhabited by their children and ruled by their husbands, whose faithful, true-hearted, modest, obedient companions they are. To be independent and free is not in their nature; they are not so adapted either by origin or manner of life; nor does their education embrace any thing cosmopolitan. Born and brought up in a province, or court city, they have never cast a glance beyond its limits or boundaries, or those of the nearest town, and all that lies beyond is to them unknown and uninteresting. Thus they generally lead, according to ancient custom, (nach altem brauch) an almost vegetable life; and nothing save the dictates of fashion can ever disturb in the slightest degree the equanimity of their quiet souls. They do not in the least interest themselves in the progress of industry, literature, science, or politics, even in Germany—much less for that of foreign countries; but are content with learning in which section of the place they inhabit this or that necessary article may be best or most cheaply purchased; what late foreign romance is current in the circulating library; and what are the latest changes in bonnets, caps, chemisettes, or dresses, in the kingdom of fashion—whose sovereign they all obey. In politics they rest under the perpetual conviction that all goes on in the old way, and pass their leisure hours in coteries and parties, where knittings exclude all spirituelle entertainment. In the lower grades of the middle class, they grow up with an unchangeable feeling of social inferiority, and shudder at every free glance into life, as if guilty of unheard of arrogance and presumption.

"And how is it possible that a woman who has grown up in such social relations should, despite the fullest possession of all imaginable virtues and acquirements, be capable of teaching high-minded and independent girls? The American maiden regards most household employments as work requiring but little intelligence, and for which even negroes are as well qualified. She believes that she can better occupy the time necessary to the acquisition of subordinate acquirements, and prefers reading, music, and art, to knitting stockings, and similar soul-killing business. She recognizes, moreover, no distinction in rank, but strives to acquire as many accomplishments and as refined manners as any other person. In short, she strives to become a lady, and regards it as no extraordinary assumption, particularly when education or natural advantages adapt her thereto, to consider herself quite as good as any other woman in the republic. Nor does she forget that the time will come when, as mother, the first development of her child's mind will become a duty, and she remembers also that he will be a republican whose sphere of action is without limit, if his ability correspond only to the effort. Moreover, the American maidens are materially very wide awake, (sehr auf gewecht,) particularly in the large cities, where they enjoy excellent opportunities for instruction, and are proportionally highly educated.

"The American woman or girl highly esteems the elegant and noble, striving ever to form herself after this pattern, on which account French female teachers are universally preferred, even when very imperfectly qualified. The revolutions in France have driven forth many well educated persons to America, who have been compelled to seek by teaching a livelihood. Louis Philippe himself was once among the number. In addition to the fact that no nation surpasses the French in personal accomplishments, they have for Americans the further recommendation that their nation has played an important part in modern history. The American is impressed in favor of France, because she aided him in freeing his country from the yoke of England; and this inclination manifests itself continually in language.

"And when the American boy glances over his school-books, he sees France represented in pictures as the polite nation, and reads in history that she aided his country in the war of freedom, and that Lafayette was the friend of Washington; while the same work represents the German as a merely agricultural race, portrayed in the caricature of an Altenburger peasant and his wife, in their fantastic national dress. From the same book he also learns that a German prince sold his subjects for so many pounds per head to aid England to subdue his country. Such contrasts cannot but awake in the child's mind deeply-rooted prejudices, far from favorable to the German race.

"And since there has been for years an emigration to America of Germans who were very generally poor and uneducated—people speaking a revolting dialect, employed in the lowest offices, and not unfrequently much resembling the pictures in the geographies, the prejudice formed in early youth has been thus strengthened, that the Germans are a rough, uncultivated race, industrious and domestic, it is true, but yet very little improved by civilization—of all which the native Pennsylvania Germans afford unfortunately striking examples. The well-educated American, of course, knows better how to appreciate the true value of the Germans; he is aware of the value of their contributions to literature, science, art, and music; only in politics, and in the practical application of knowledge, he places (and not without justice) but little confidence in them.

"But the personal appearance and bearing of many Germans, who are in themselves truly worthy of respect, often induce the well-educated and refined American to place in the back ground their otherwise estimable qualities. There is often something rough and harsh about the German, and his domestic habits are not invariably in unison with his erudition and excellent education, but frequently destroy the good impression which the latter might produce; moreover, their 'geselliges Leben,' (social jovial life) as Germans term it, with its accompaniments of pipe and mug, are in the highest degree revolting to an American. And further, it is taken ill of the German that he considers that regard for the sex, entertained by the American, as carried somewhat too far, and allows himself to form on this point a too hasty, and not seldom unfavorable judgment, without seeking to examine more accurately this domestic characteristic. Many Germans find it impossible to enter into the spirit of American life, customs, and manners, while on religious subjects it appears impossible for either to adopt the same views: so that there is apparently almost no point in common between them."

After stating that many educated Germans might succeed as teachers in this country, could they dispense with national peculiarities, and a description of the manner of establishing schools, in which he pays a high compliment to the general appearance of such institutions in our country, he adds:

"The superintendent of such an establishment must entirely renounce all visits to bar-rooms and coffee-houses. He must learn to impart to his system of instruction the elements of novelty and attractiveness, and especially learn to make friends of the children. It is utterly impossible in this country to manage a school by the mere force of power and authority, and the teacher attempting this, soon experiences a revolution by which indeed he is not exactly driven forth, but left alone on his cathedra."

With this extract we close, regretting that we have been obliged to leave untranslated many more practical and not less interesting items. We consider the entire work as the best possible answer which can be given to the question, 'Why has America done so little for England's fair?' No one who contemplates in it the immense range of our manufactories—our incredible combinations of excellence and cheapness, and the almost superhuman rapidity of our progress in every branch of industrial and social life, will entertain for an instant the slightest regret that we have not done more to increase the profits of John Bull's raree-show.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Muffins?—International.

[2] Pariser-tracht—French dress—is the epithet usually applied in Germany to our ordinary style of costume, in contradistinction to the Bauern-tracht, or peasant's costume, which is so frequently seen among German immigrants.

[3] Zu hause—at house, at home. In this sentence the reader finds a striking exemplification of the saying, that neither in French nor German is there a word for home.

IN THE HAREM.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE

BY R. H. STODDARD.

The scent of burning sandal-wood
Perfumes the air in vain;
A sweeter odor fills my sense,
A fiercer fire my brain!

O press your burning lips to mine!—
For mine will never part,
Until my heart has rifled all
The sweetness of your heart!

The lutes are playing on the lawn,
The moon is shining bright,
But we like stars are melting now
In clouds of soft delight!

TO THE CICADA.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE

BY H. J. CRATE.

Cicada sits upon a sprig,
And makes his song resound;
For he is happy when a twig
Lifts him above the ground.

And so am I, when lifted up
On hopes delusive wing;
I laugh, and quaff the flowing cup,
I love, I write, I sing!

Should clouds or cares obscure our sky,
And all be gloom around,
My merry little friend and I
Soon tumble to the ground.

TRICKS ON TRAVELLERS AT WATERLOO.

M. Leon Gozlan, one of the most esteemed magazinists in France, has lately paid a flying visit to the scene of his country's most glorious disasters, Waterloo, and has given a characteristic account of what he saw and heard there. We quote a part of it, in which he describes a knavish practice of which great numbers are every year made victims. M. Gozlan has just passed through the Brussels faubourg Louisa, and is oppressed with most melancholy reflections, when his coachman addresses him—

"Sir," exclaimed my conductor, suddenly interrupting my meditations, "excuse me if I am troublesome, but before arriving at Mont-Saint-Jean I wish to warn you of a knavish trade you have probably never heard of at Paris."

"A knavish trade unknown at Paris?" I replied, incredulously; "that is rather surprising. But come, tell me what is this new species of industry."

"You can easily suppose," pursued my loquacious coachman, "that after the battle of Waterloo there remained on the field a large quantity of cannon-balls, buttons, small brass eagles, and broken weapons. Well, for the last thirty-four years, the country people have been carrying on a famous business in these articles."

"It seems to me, however, my friend," I observed, "that a sale continued for so long a period, must have left very little to be disposed of at present."

"True, sir; and this is precisely what I would guard you against. Those who obtain a subsistence by such means, purchase the goods new at a manufactory, in shares, and then bury in different parts of the field, and for a wide space around, pieces of imperial brass eagles, thousands of metal buttons, and heaps of iron balls. This crop is allowed to rest in the earth until summer, for few strangers visit Waterloo in winter; and when the fine weather arrives, they dig up their relics, to which a sojourn of eight months in a damp soil gives an appearance of age, deceiving the keenest observer, and awakening the admiration of pilgrims."

"But this is a shameful deceit."

"True again, sir; but the country is very poor about here; and after all, perhaps," added the philosophic driver, "no great harm is done. This year the harvest of brass eagles has been very fair."

We entered the forest of Soignies by a narrow and naturally covered alley, the two sides crowned with the most luxuriant foliage. Poplars, elms, and plane-trees appeared to be striving which should attain the highest elevation. One peculiarity I could not avoid remarking in the midst of this solemn and beautiful abode of nature, and that was the perfect stillness prevailing around. The air itself seemed without palpitation, and during a ride of nearly two hours through this sylvan gallery, not even the note of a bird broke on the solitude. A forest without feathered songsters appeared unnatural, and the only possible reason that could be imagined for such a circumstance might be, that since the formidable day of Waterloo, they had quitted these shades, never to return, frightened away by the roar of the cannon and the dismal noise of war. What melancholy is impressed upon the beautiful forest of Soignies! I cannot overcome the idea, that since Providence destined it should become the mute spectator of the great event in its vicinity, it has retained the mysterious memory in the folding of its leaves and the depths of its shades. Destiny designs the theatre for grand actions. An army of one hundred thousand men perished there. Such was the irrevocable decree.

"Do you think," I inquired of the coachman, wishing to change the current of my thoughts, "there are persons so unscrupulous as to speculate on the curiosity of tourists to Waterloo in the manner you have described?"

"Ah, sir," he replied, "I have not told you half the tricks they practice on the credulous. It would indeed fatigue you if I mentioned all of them, but if you will permit me, I will relate an instance I witnessed myself one day. I was conducting from Waterloo to Brussels a French artist and a Prussian tourist. The Prussian supported on his knee some object very carefully enveloped in a handkerchief, and which he seemed to value greatly. When we had arrived about midway on the road, he inquired of the Frenchman whether he had brought away with him any souvenir of his pilgrimage to Waterloo.

"'In good faith no,' replied the other; and yet I was on the point of making a certain acquisition, but the exorbitant price demanded prevented me: one hundred francs, besides the trouble of carrying off such an article.'

"'What could it have been?' demanded the Prussian, curiously.

"'You must not feel offended if I tell you,' returned the artist; 'it was the skull of a Prussian colonel, a magnificent one! And what rendered it more valuable, it was pierced by three holes, made by the balls of Waterloo. One was in the forehead, the others were through the temples. I should have had no objection to secure this, if I could have afforded it, and have had a lamp made of the skull of a Prussian officer killed by the French. And you, sir?' he continued, looking at the packet carried by his fellow-traveller, 'pray what luck have you had?'

"'I,' replied the Prussian, with an uneasy movement, and looking greatly confused, 'I am astonished at the wonderful resemblance of what has happened to both of us, for I purchased this morning the skull of a French colonel killed by a Prussian at Waterloo.'

"'You, sir?'

"'Y—e—s,' stammered the Prussian, 'and I thought of having it made into a cup to drink the health of Blucher at each anniversary of our victory.'

"'And is the skull pierced by three bullets?' demanded the Frenchman, his suspicions becoming awakened.

"With a look of consternation the Prussian hastily unrolled the handkerchief, and examined the contents. The skull bore the same marks indicated by his travelling companion! It was the identical relic that was French when offered to an Englishman or Prussian, and had become Prussian or English when offered to a Frenchman.

"This, sir," added Jehu, smacking his whip, "you will admit, is worse than selling false brass buttons and the Emperor's eagles."

STUDIES OF AMERICAN LITERATURE,

BY PHILARÈTE CHASLES.

We have frequently been interested by the clever contributions of M. Philarète Chasles to the Revue des Deux Mondes. They are chiefly on English and American literature, and among them are specimens of acute and genial criticism. M. Chasles has just published in Paris a collection of these papers, and we translate for The International a reviewal of it which appears in a late number of the French journal, the Illustration. Says the writer, M. Hipolyte Babou:

Books are becoming scarce. To be sure, volume upon volume is published every day, but a book that is a book is a rara avis, and if any one should inquire whose fault it is, we reply that it is the fault of the press, constantly requiring the first-fruits of a writer's meditations. The journalist has displaced the author. The fugitive page rules the great world of literature. Wit, talent, genius, science, have not time to consolidate their thoughts, before they are disseminated. They are like the folds of the birchen bark, thrown off as soon as formed, to give place to new ones. And these in their turn fall, and are scattered. But, when we wish it, we can collect our literary leaves. How many handsome volumes are made up of weekly and monthly pages! The binder runs his needle through a collection, and the book is made.

What kind of book? Ah, truly, it is not the venerable work of past days, which took ten years to print and bring to perfection, establishing at once a literary fame. It is simply a series of articles written by steam, printed by steam, and some bright morning bound up under a common title. But what is the story and the attraction of such works? Bless you! there is no story. The attraction is in the style (when there is any) and in the variety of subjects, which generally produces a variety of impressions.

For an ordinary reader, to whom continued attention produces headache, there is nothing more agreeable than those album-pages, or fragments of mosaic. Thinking and serious minds turn rather towards works of consecutive reflection, or whose details contribute to the beauty of some whole. Variety is the wind to the weather-cock; and unity is the inflexible pivot which every weather-cock requires to keep it from being blown away. Thoughtful minds prefer unity above every thing. And yet they are only heavier weather-cocks, which turn round with a grating.

Nervous and discursive reader! logical and phlegmatic reader! here is a book which will suit you both. M. Philarète Chasles has just published expressly for you his Studies upon the Literature and Manners of the Anglo-Americans in the Nineteenth Century. It is a work by compartments, any of them interesting to the superficial reader, and forming at the same time a perfect whole.

Under the influence of a spirit of order, which professors by their vocation are very apt to possess in an eminent degree, the author has composed his work, not of articles written for journals, but by detailing articles a work whose plan he had before considered. The general design, to which he is obedient, is clearly developed, page by page, in his curious studies upon the Anglo-Americans.

It is a vile term—that of Anglo-American—a pedantic term—and rather surprising from the pen of Chasles. For, professor as he is, he despises pedantry as the plague. There is nothing doctoral in his literary costume; and if he has any pretension, it resembles in no particular the grave assumptions of the cathedrants of the university. It would be a mortification to him to belong to the school of the Sorbonne. He is a member of the free family of the College of France, where individual genius has triumphed more than once over the sterile routine of tradition.

Before filling the chair of professor, the author of Etudes had written much in journals and reviews. He writes still, and is always welcome to the public. For, it may be remarked without malice, he has always had a larger audience of readers than of listeners. And that it is so is rather complimentary than otherwise. How is it, indeed, that the intellectual humorist succeeds better as an author than as a teacher? What does he need to insure, if he wishes it, the enthusiastic admiration of the young public whom he instructs? Has he not at command those vivid flashings of the imagination which, by an electric sympathy, might bring down about him thunders of applause? Is he fearful that his gesture and his voice would not become his thought? Does he disdain to have recourse, hap-hazard, to the little artifices of eloquence? It is very easy to gain popularity by a juggle, when it cannot be done by the force of true oratory. Be enthusiastic of your merits. Mingle with the swellings of poetry a certain dogmatism of opinion—call to your aid assurance, impudence, and all the insipidities of the style printanier—fire, as it were, pistol-shots into the audience, and continue the fire by a brilliant musketry of little fulminating phrases—the victory is yours, unless you are essentially an ass. For youth—verdant youth—will always be carried away by the expression, true or false, of feeling.

M. Philarète Chasles is said to want in some degree that great constituent of humanity—passion. He is one of those refined and delicate writers who employ all their genius to ridicule the mind, and all their reason to drive to shipwreck upon the beautiful waters of poesie the most charming flotillas of the imagination. He belongs to the breed of sharp raillers, whose skepticism points an epigram. In a word, there is no reverse side for his admiration on any question—a habit of judging quite common among many writers, genuine and charlatan.

But this is not saying that the author of Etudes does not feel deeply the irresistible attraction of the beau ideal; or that we are treating of one of those representatives of pompous and stupid criticism, who are so justly despised by the poets. Certainly not. On the contrary, M. Chasles combines a vigorous hate of ornate folly and vulgarity with a profound disgust towards tame or extravagant conventionalism. The academic style has no fascination for him. He likes elbow-room in the discussion of art, and if he finds himself confined by the close-fitting coat of the professor, he rips it asunder, stretching out his arms in a fit of restlessness. A protective literature regards him among its most resolute adversaries. No custom-houses in literature for him, and particularly no excisemen, who, under pretext of contraband, drive their brutal gauge-rods into the free productions of human intelligence.

M. Philarète Chasles is a literary disciple of Cobden. He would not only lower the barriers between province and province, but wholly abolish them between nation and nation. His imagination carries him as a balloon beyond the tops of custom-houses; and after visiting the shores of England and America, he returns to France with some curious samples of foreign literature. By this come-and-go policy of importation and exportation, he has created, or at least developed, a noble spirit of commerce, which may be termed international criticism.

This commerce is particularly useful for us who are always ready to proclaim ourselves in every thing and to every one the first nation of the globe. It is an auspicious time therefore to become acquainted with the weaknesses of our character without losing its force. The glory of the past obliges us to think of the glory of the future, which can be easily lost to us if ambition does not come in time to animate our courage. To deny that there are rivals is no way to conquer them. It is a great deal better to study them attentively, and to consider beforehand the perils of the combat. We are indeed the heroes of genius, but if we misapprehend the tactics, we say it frankly, we shall be beaten.

The author of the Etudes wishes to spare us such a humiliation, by telling us of the enemy as he is; and in this sense his work is truly patriotic, and cannot be unacceptable to any.

Many writers have instituted a relation between us and the Latins and Greeks. M. Chasles thinks that to remember the glorious dead of the south is to engender contempt for the living. It is not then towards the south that he directs his attention. The Saxon race, beyond the British Sea and the Atlantic, preoccupies him. The nations in progress are those most hopeful for new and immortal productions of the muse. The rest of the world is given to an incurable imitation. And M. Chasles is right in bringing us into the presence of the English and the Americans. He is sufficiently conversant with their language to fulfil the delicate functions of interpreter.

I know writers who, on account of studying foreign literature, so bear the imprints of it in their works, that one would say in reading them, that he had before him French translations of Italian or German, or English, or Spanish. The literary temperament of M. Chasles, however, is not changed, notwithstanding his migrations. The author of Etudes thinks in French, writes in French, and what is more, in French inherited from a Gaul. He preserves in his mind the brightness of his native sky, whether he wanders in the fogs of London, or is becoming a victim of ennui among the vapors of New-York. His pen seems to strike out sparks as he writes. He is active and bold, strong and light, independent and courteous. Nothing stops him. He runs oftener than he walks, and leaps over an obstacle that he may not lose time in going round it. Indeed, every thing is accomplished well by the intelligence that judges as it travels. Reflection itself is rapid, and logic hastens the step and smooths the way. A light and tripping foot belongs especially to criticism. If it raises a little brilliant dust in the road, it is no matter, it soon falls again. M. Chasles has no taste for old truths; he prefers much some kind of paradox which is now a truth and now a lie. It is for this reason that foreigners reproach him with being superficial. Very well! let him be so. He is a true Frenchman, for he touches only the flower of ideas, and, for a Frenchman, the flower and the surface are all one.

It is not just, however, to regard this reproach as wholly merited, although (originating beyond the British Sea) it is reproduced among us by those would-be grave men who are dull writers. M. Chasles often allies lightness of expression with great profundity of thought. His style cuts as a blade of steel. He has eloquence, gayety, irony, caprice, and all in a perfect measure. No style resembles less the childish dashes of persons of wit, and who possess nothing else—who play the mountebank by a hundred tricks to astonish the gaping crowd—a light style, if you please, but empty as it is light.

The Etudes of M. Chasles are not of that superficial character adopted by many. The admiration of ninnies is not his desire. The object that he pursues continues ever a serious one, although a thousand graces ornament the way. He has vivacity without losing precision—two characteristics of good writing seldom found together. If he indulges in digressions, they are not perceptible until the reappearance of his subject shows us how gracefully he has departed from it. He passes rapidly over what is known, while with an especial care he dwells on what is unknown. Thus, in the history of American literature he does not amuse himself long with the popular names of Fenimore Cooper and Franklin. What could he say new respecting these two great ornaments of American science and literature? His instinct of observation and criticism suggested to him the works less known of Gouverneur Morris and Hermann Melville. Between these two writers, of whom one was the contemporary of Washington, and the other still living in some corner of Massachusetts, are ranged according to their date the productions of the writers of the great American nation.

Gouverneur Morris was of a noble spirit. His Mémoires represent to us, with a full and attractive fidelity, the opinion which the young and tranquil republic of the United States entertained at the close of the eighteenth century, of the men and the events of our French Revolution. He was far from misunderstanding the abuses of our ancient society, but he deplored that it was necessary for violence to abolish them. A sensible and polished observer, he criticised them without passion, and with a benevolent irony. Let us hear him tell of a conversation he had, at Madame de la Suze's, with one of the most brilliant leaders of the gay world that had just perished. In a few lines, he presents an admirable sketch of the personage:

'The rest of our party were playing at cards, and quite absorbed in the game, when M. de Boufflers, in want of something better to do, spoke to me of America. The carelessness with which he heard me proved that he did not pay the least attention to what he had asked me.

—"But how could you defend your country from invasion without fleets and armies?"

"Nothing could be more difficult," replied Morris, "than to subjugate a nation composed of kings, and who, if looked upon contemptuously, would respond: 'I am a man; are you any thing more?'"

"Very well," said M. de Boufflers. "But how would you like it, if I should say to one of those citizen-kings: Monsieur, the king, make me a pair of boots!"

"My compatriot," said Morris, "would not hesitate to reply: 'With great pleasure, sir. It is my duty and my vocation to make boots, and I could wish that every one would do his duty in this world."'

M. de Boufflers looked up to the ceiling as if in search of a solution of this enigma, and Morris contemplated him, as much surprised as if, in the forests of the New World, he had heard a humming-bird reason of the affairs of the Republic. And it was thus with all that class of men—the same elegance—the same luxury—the same prattle—the same heedlessness. All these courtiers of the last hour resembled precisely M. de Boufflers. The same day, indeed, of the taking of the Bastile, Morris traced two lines upon the tablettes:

"It is very well that the court should appear to believe that all is tranquil; but to-morrow, perhaps, when the citadelle is in flames, they will agree that there has been some noise in Paris."

Some time before, the grave and gentle American had met Madame de Staël at Madame de Tesse's; the daughter of Necker conversed with him in another style than that of M. de Boufflers. However, quite serious as Corinne certainly was, the dignity of the compatriot of Washington surprised and diverted her.

"Monsieur," she said, after a moment's conversation, "you have a very imposing air."

"I know it, Madame," replied Morris.

The English literature constantly serves M. Chasles, to bring into relief the character of American literature. And thus, he opposes the peaceful inspirations of the work-girls of Lowell with the passionate dithyrambics of Ebenezer Elliott, the blacksmith of Sheffield—a chapter full of just remarks upon what Chasles calls the poetry of vengeance.

The girls of Lowell—the Lucindas, the Alleghanias, the Tancredas, the Velledas—who, after a day's labor, pass into the street in silken dresses, with gold watches shining at their zone, and their beautiful faces shaded by parasols—those Massachusetts weavers, who have even instituted an academy among themselves—do not in their innocent verses, invoke the vengeful muses. They know nothing of that terrible Nemesis, with cheeks hollow and ghastly, armed hands, and eyes red with poverty and weeping, to whom the poor workers of British factories send up the cry of famine and despair. If the female operatives of Lowell read the work of M. Philarète Chasles, they will find there an encouragement to cultivate the smiling thoughts of poetry. He, no more than George Sand, notwithstanding her sympathies for the working classes, either loves or encourages the irritable singers of social sufferings.

"What," he exclaims, "has become of the glorious Apollo of the Greek? Where is the sunny ideal of the hellenistic heavens? Where the sacred sorrows of Christian perfection? Poetry is no more a garden of roses; it is a wild field of thorns, wherein he who walks leaves tracks of blood. At the entrance of this Parnassus stands Poverty, whom Virgil places in faucibus orci. Her complaints are in the midst of curses. She holds in her hand a skull, with strings of iron, and she sweeps them as a lyre with golden chords. Behind her are Crabbe, the Juvenal of the hospitals; Ebenezer Elliott, the singer of hunger; Cooper, the poet of suicide, and the author of Ernest, followed by a miserable train of children, whom manufacturers have famished, and young women whom excessive labor has demoralized and prostituted in the morning of their life. Mournful choir, to which these poets worthily respond."

It is not very pleasant, to be sure, for a reader to pass from some agreeable representation to a frightful array of evils. The spectacle but too true of social infirmities troubles the sleep of the happy, and awakes with a start the drowsy hate of the unhappy. But there is no reason why he who suffers, should not utter his complaint. The Bible itself is not a stranger to vehement protestations against the apparent injustice of destiny. When Job arose from the ashes, surely it was not to sing to the passers-by some touching idylle in the style of Ruth and Naomi. He accused heaven and life, he cursed his friends, and his mother, without troubling himself to know whether his sorrows reached the lovers' palm-groves, or disturbed the wooings of the daughters of Idumea. The Sheffield blacksmith, among flaming furnaces, cannot sing the voluptuous sweets of existence. He strikes the anvil with a ring, and exclaims in a rough voice, amid smoke and fire:

"Accursed be the muse of necessity and suffering! Who wishes her acquaintance? The poor, so despised! Write not their frightful history. Pride and vanity despise your labors. Who is he, I pray you, that artizan who uses the pen? What right has he to do so? Absurd rhymer, let him retire and pare his nails—and renounce a species of industry for which he was never made. You are accustomed only to oaths, and you are only a rough worker in poetry."

M. Chasles does not deny the right of artizans to employ the pen. Ignoble or noble—a serf or a lord—whether he is called Burns, or Chasles of Orleans—whether he is a porter, a laborer, or even a drunkard, from the moment that there is seen upon his brow the radiant sign of genius, he is known. To wonder that an artizan is a poet, is to think it marvellous that beauty should bloom upon the cheek of a village maid. The gift is natural, and not acquired; and the mechanic who writes either prose or poetry must be judged with as much severity as if he were a king. It is not astonishing, therefore, that the author of the Etudes judges severely the blacksmith of Sheffield. But the latter seems to have anticipated the severity of the critic, when he says with an accent of the most mournful bitterness:

"Do not read me, ye who love elegance and grace. Alight not, ye butterflies, among thorns—nor upon rocks burning in the sun and beaten by the rains—you may tarnish the gauze of your beautiful wings. But you who honor truth, follow me. I will bring you wild flowers, gathered from the precipice, amid howling tempests."

While we inhale the perfume of the flowers of the heath, we can honor truth, without being foolish flies, and without renouncing the love of the elegant and graceful. Not less did M. Chasles write to the Journal des Débats, a little before the revolution, in those generous words which we are happy to see again in his book:

"It is for you, politicians, to find a remedy for the evils of society. The interests of the masses are in your hands—those who have not enough to eat, and too much work. The verses of famished workmen, which we cannot sing, we weep over. The muse of Cooper, of Elliott, and of Crabbe, is not a muse, but a fury. You are reminded, that in accumulating wealth in one direction, you are increasing poverty in another; and that the poverty which complains at first avenges itself afterward."

I do not know whether these words were prophetic, but I see in them a noble sentiment, unfortunately too rare among those who love elegance and grace. Let us be elegant, if we can; gracious, if we know how. But, besides those desirable qualities of the old French society, let us show in the light of heaven that living active charity which only can strengthen by purifying the existence of the new order of society. The grandchildren of Boufflers, we expose ourselves no more to ridicule in saying: "Monsieur le roi, faite-moi une paire de souliers." The king will make the shoes if it is his vocation. The grandchildren of Boufflers should do their duty—that is to say: contribute with all their mind to find out, according to the expression of Chasles, efficacious remedies for social evils. When workmen are more happy, they will write less poetry, or at least they will write more calmly. See the American spinners of Lowell. Ah! Lucinda or Tancreda has never lifted up her voice to heaven with the despair of Elliott. An amorous complaint suffices her; a sonnet, or a love-sigh, breathed by the light of the stars, consoles her for the labors of the day. American society works first; when it has conquered an independence, it sings. All Americans do not accept the saying of one of their journalists: "Political and practical life is sufficient for man. Imagination is a peril—arts a misfortune." So far from proscribing the arts and imagination, Cooper, Irving, Audubon, and many others are among those who have magnified the literature of their country. But the greater part, with that fruitful wisdom which characterizes them, applaud the advice of Channing:

"I made a resolution of presenting a gift to my country in the form of an epic. But I had prudence enough to postpone it until I should have a fortune. I then commenced to make my business known, after which I retired into solitude with my imagination."

In Europe it is just the contrary. We ask the imagination to make our business known, and we retire into solitude with our fortune or our poverty. Which course avails the more for our glory? Which for our repose?

The conclusion of the work of M. Chasles is, that our literature, our manners, our nationality even, will some day disappear before the rising glory of the great Western Republic, but I can declare without emotion that I have no fear of my country. America offers us examples; we also have some to offer her. The future of the United States is developed day by day in a manner that astonishes Europe. But notwithstanding the patriotes de clocher, and French humanitaires who suppress the very word native country, I believe in the higher destinies of France.

A PHANTASY.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE

BY R. H. STODDARD.

"Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean."

The light of the summer noon
Bursts in a flood through the blind;
But few are the rays of joy
That shine in my darkened mind.

My heart is stirred to a storm,
And its passions intense and proud
Feed on themselves, like fires
Pent in a thunder-cloud!

I think of the days of youth,
And the fountains of love defiled,
Till I hide my face in my hands,
And weep like a little child!

THE TIMES OF CHARLEMAGNE.

Sir Francis Palgrave's History of Normandy and of England, of which the first volume has just appeared in London, is unquestionably a very important work, illustrating a period of which comparatively little has been known, and of which a knowledge is eminently necessary to the student of British institutions and manners. The subject has been partially handled by French authors—by Thierry, Guizot, Michelet, and in a desultory manner by M. Barante—but not one of these has shown the very intimate relation that exists between the history of Normandy and of England. That intermixture of the histories of the countries may indeed be inferred from old English works, such as Camden, Fortescue, Hale, Britton, Bracton, Fleta, Spelman, Somner, Chief Baron Gilbert, Daines Barrington, and others, and from labors of Bede, William of Malmesbury, Geoffry of Monmouth, and all the older chroniclers. But not one of these writers, in all their varied labors, has undertaken to show how the histories of the two countries act and re-act on each other, or how, represented in the popular mind by the epithets Norman and Saxon, French and English, they have been for a thousand years or more running against each other a perpetual race of rivalry and emulation. A worthy Picard lawyer indeed, of the name of Gaillard, who abandoned the law for literature about a century ago, wrote a work called The Rivalry between France and England, in eleven volumes; but who, in 1851, unless specially dedicated to historical studies, would read a French history on the subject of the rivalry between the two nations, written between 1771 and 1777, especially when it extends to eleven volumes? Independently of this, any French history on such subject is sure to be tinged with prejudice, passion, and vanity. It is true that the judicious Sharon Turner, in his History of the Anglo-Saxons, Henry Wheaton, in his History of the Northmen, and M. Capefigue, give us more or less insight into Norman history; but none of these authors attempt to show the general relations of mediæval history, or that absolute need of uniting Norman to English history, which it is the chief aim of Sir Francis Palgrave to demonstrate. As deputy keeper of the public records of England, this learned historian has had the best possible opportunities of investigation, and he tells us in his preface that he has devoted to the work a full quarter of a century.

The style of Sir Francis Palgrave is generally heavy, and his work will therefore be more prized by students than by the mere lovers of literature. His manner and spirit and the character of his performance may be most satisfactorily exhibited in a few specimen paragraphs, however, and we proceed to quote, first, from an introductory dissertation, some remarks on the arts, architecture, and civilization of Rome. He says:

"Roman taste gave the fashion to the garment, Roman skill the models for the instruments of war. We have been told to seek in the forests of Germany the origin of the feudal system and the conception of the Gothic aisle. We shall discover neither there. Architecture is the costume of society, and throughout European Christendom that costume was patterned from Rome. Unapt and unskilful pupils, she taught the Ostrogothic workman to plan the palace of Theodoric; the Frank, to decorate the hall of Charlemagne; the Lombard, to vault the duomo; the Norman, to design the cathedral. Above all, Rome imparted to our European civilization her luxury, her grandeur, her richness, her splendor, her exaltation of human reason, her spirit of free inquiry, her ready mutability, her unwearied activity, her expansive and devouring energy, her hardness of heart, her intellectual pride, her fierceness, her insatiate cruelty, that unrelenting cruelty which expels all other races out of the very pale of humanity; whilst our direction of thought, our literature, our languages, concur in uniting the dominions, kingdoms, states, principalities, and powers, composing our civilized commonwealth in the Old Continent and the New, with the terrible people through whom that civilized commonwealth wields the thunderbolts of the dreadful monarchy, diverse from all others which preceded amongst mankind."

The following is our author's view of the real and the ideal Charlemagne:—

"It seems Charlemagne's fate that he should always be in danger of shading into a mythic monarch—not a man of flesh and blood, but a personified theory. Turpin's Carolus Magnus, the Charlemagne of Roncesvalles; Ariosto's Sacra Corona, surrounded by Palatines and Doze-Piers, are scarcely more unlike the real rough, tough, shaggy, old monarch, than the conventional portraitures by which his real features have been supplanted.

"It is an insuperable source of fallacy in human observation as well as in human judgment, that we never can sufficiently disjoin our own individuality from our estimates of moral nature. Admiring ourselves in others, we ascribe to those whom we love or admire the qualities we value in ourselves. We each see the landscape through our own stripe of the rainbow. A favorite hero by long-established prescription, few historical characters have been more disguised by fond adornment than Charlemagne. Each generation or school has endeavored to exhibit him as a normal model of excellence: Courtly Mezeray invests the son of Pepin with the taste of Louis Quatorze; the polished Abbé Velly bestows upon the Frankish emperor the abstract perfection of a dramatic hero; Boulainvilliers, the champion of the noblesse, worships the founder of hereditary feudality; Mably discovers in the capitulars the maxims of popular liberty; Montesquieu, the perfect philosophy of legislation. But, generally speaking, Charlemagne's historical aspect is derived from his patronage of literature. This notion of his literary character colors his political character, so that in the assumption of the imperial authority, we are fain to consider him as a true romanticist—such as in our own days we have seen upon the throne—seeking to appease hungry desires by playing with poetic fancies, to satisfy hard nature with pleasant words, to give substance and body to a dream.

"All these prestiges will vanish if we render to Charlemagne his well deserved encomium:—he was a great warrior, a great statesman, fitted for his own age. It is a very ambiguous praise to say that a man is in advance of his age; if so, he is out of his place; he lives in a foreign country. Equally so, if he lives in the past. No innovator so bold, so reckless, and so crude, as he who makes the attempt (which never succeeds) to effect a resurrection of antiquity."

The practical character of Charlemagne is thus sketched:—

"We may put by the book, and study Charlemagne's achievements on the borders of the Rhine; better than in the book may the traveller see Charlemagne's genuine character pictured upon the lovely unfolding landscape: the huge domminsters, the fortresses of religion; the yellow sunny rocks studded with the vine; the mulberry and the peach, ripening in the ruddy orchards; the succulent potherbs and worts which stock the Bauer's garden,—these are the monuments and memorials of Charlemagne's mind. The first health pledged when the flask is opened at Johannisberg should be the monarchs name who gave the song-inspiring vintage. Charlemagne's superiority and ability consisted chiefly in seeking and seizing the immediate advantages, whatever they might be which he could confer upon others or obtain for himself. He was a man of forethought, ready contrivance, and useful talent. He would employ every expedient, grasp every opportunity, and provide for each day as it was passing by.

"The educational movement resulting from Charlemagne's genius was practical. Two main objects had he therein upon his conscience and his mind. The first, was the support of the Christian Faith; his seven liberal sciences circled round theology, the centre of the intellectual system. No argument was needed as to the obligation of uniting sacred and secular learning, because the idea of disuniting them never was entertained. His other object in patronizing learning and instruction was the benefit of the State. He sought to train good men of business; judges well qualified, ready penmen in his chancery; and this sage desire expanded into a wide instructional field. Charlemagne's exertions for promoting the study of the Greek language—his Greek professorships at Osnaburgh or Saltzburgh—have been praised, doubted, discussed, as something very paradoxical; whereas, his motives were plain, and his machinery simple. Greek was, to all intents and purposes, the current language of an opulent and powerful nation, required for the transaction of public affairs. A close parallel, necessitated by the same causes, exists in the capital of Charlemagne's successors. The Oriental Academy at Vienna is constituted to afford a supply of individuals qualified for the diplomatic intercourse, arising out of the vicinity and relations of the Austrian and Ottoman dominions, without any reference to the promotion of philology. We find the same at home. If the Persian language be taught at Haileybury, it is to fit the future Writer of his Indian office. He may study Ferduzi or Hafiz, if he pleases, but the cultivation of literature is not the intent with which the learning is bestowed."

Here is the manner in which Sir Francis Palgrave contrasts and compares the two emperors, Charlemagne and Napoleon:—

"Napoleon sought the creation of an anti-christian imperial pontificate—the caliphate of positive civilization; his aspiration was the establishment of absolute dominion, corporeal and intellectual; mastery over body and soul; faith respected only as an influential and venerable delusion; the aiding powers of religion accepted until she should be chilled out, and the unfed flame expire, and positive philosophy complete her task of emancipating the matured intellect from the remaining swathing bands which had been needful during the infancy of human society. And the theories of Charlemagne and Napoleon, though irreconcileably antagonistic, in their conception, would, were either fully developed, become identical in their result, notwithstanding their contrarieties. They start in opposite directions, but, circling round their courses, would—were it permitted that they should persevere continuously and consistently—meet at the same point of convergence, and attain the same end.

"Moreover, the territorial empires of Napoleon and Charlemagne had their organically fatal characteristics in common. Each founder attempted to accomplish political impossibilities—to conjoin communities unsusceptible of amalgamation; to harmonize the discordant elements which could only be kept together by external force, whilst their internal forces sprung them asunder—a unity without internal union. But even as the wonderful agencies revealed to modern chemistry effect, in a short hour, the progresses which nature silently elaborates during a long growth of time, so in like manner did the energies of civilization effect in three years that dissolution for which, in the analogous precedent, seven generations were required."

THE DECORATIVE ARTS IN AMERICA.

The growth of the fine arts, commonly so called, in this country, has been a fruitful subject of congratulatory observation in the last dozen years. The opera in that time has gained a permanent home here, and our sculptors and painters have gone out into the old fields of art, and claimed equality with their masters—an equality which Italy, Germany, France, and even England, slowly and reluctantly in some cases, but in the presence of the works of Powers, Crawford, Greenough, Leutze, and others, have, at length, confessed. In painting, as everybody knows, with few exceptions our best works have never been seen abroad, and the advance of design here is therefore to be studied only in our own exhibitions, hung with the productions of Durand, Huntington, Eliott, and the crowd of young painters coming forward every season to claim the approval of the people. The general taste keeps pace with every achievement. We hear that the Art-Union was never visited so much as this year; and private galleries, and those of every dealer in works of art, are thronged. The existence in our principal cities, under the control of men of cultivation, of stores for the sale of works in the fine arts, is a fact eminently significant. That of Williams & Stevens, in Broadway, for example, could be sustained only by a community in which there is a refinement of taste such as a few years ago could be found only in limited circles in this country. Beginning with efforts to introduce the finest forms and combinations in looking-glass and picture frames, the proprietors of this establishment have made it a great market-house for artists, and the display upon its walls and in its windows is frequently more attractive to the connoisseur than the exhibitions of the Academies or the Art-Unions. And it is astonishing how many of the best works of the European engravers—works which may justly be called copies of the master-pieces of contemporary foreign art—are sold here, to adorn houses from which the tawdry ornaments in vogue a few years ago have been discarded. The same observations may be made in regard to furniture. The graceful styles and high finish to be seen at many of our stores, and in our recently furnished houses, illustrate a progress in elegance, luxury, and taste, not dreamed of by the last generation. And in all these things it is observable that the advance is in cheapness as well as in beauty. In this respect indeed we have scarcely kept pace with the French and English, but the cost at which a man of taste and a little tact can now furnish a house, so that it shall illustrate not only his own refinement but the condition of the best civilization of the time, is astonishingly small, compared with what it was a few years ago. The fine engraving, with its appropriate frame, to be bought for thirty dollars, is to be much preferred before the portrait or indeed before any painting whatever that is purchasable for a hundred dollars; and though silver is unquestionably silver, the imitation table furniture, of the most classical shapes, that is sold now for a fifth of the cost of the coinable metal, looks quite as well upon a salver. The arts by which beauty is made familiar in the homes of all classes of people are of all arts most deserving of encouragement, and it is among the happiest of omens that they are receiving so much attention—far more attention now than they have ever before received in America. We shall hereafter attempt a more particular exhibition of this subject.

A VISIT TO THE LATE DR. JOHN LINGARD.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE

BY REV. J. C. RICHMOND.

Noticing in the journals some brief but very just remarks upon the character of the eminent Roman Catholic historian of England, who died July 17th, at the good old age of more than four-score years, I am induced to think that an account of a visit which I had the honor to make this celebrated scholar, may not be altogether without interest for your readers.

March 12, 1850, having a leisure day at Lancaster, and having already visited John of Gaunt's castle, in company with several of those genial spirits who afford me an unusually delightful social remembrance of the dingy buildings and narrow crooked streets of that famous old town, one of them happened to mention the name of Dr. Lingard. I instantly inquired after him with interest, and, observing my enthusiasm, Mr. T. J—— proposed a drive to his residence at Hornby, a village some twelve or thirteen miles distant. I of course gladly acceded to the proposal, and we were soon on our way, with a fleet horse, over the absolutely perfect English turnpike road—for the roads in England are always passable, and not "improved," like some of those around New-York, in so continued a manner as to be useless.

After a fine rural drive, crossing the river Loon, and through Lonsdale, we came within sight of an old church and castle. I took the church to be that of the historian, but found, to my surprise, that the famous old sage was placed in entire seclusion, and ministered to a very few, and those very poor, sheep, in a little chapel, or room, under his own roof. In this remote and by no means picturesque village, at an antiquated house, we knocked, and were told by the aged domestic that the venerable historian had been very feeble of late, and had gone out, on this fine day in the spring, for a walk. After many inquiries among the villagers, by whom he was as well known as beloved, I proposed to take the line of the new railway, and, after quite a walk, met a feeble old man, with a scholar's face, a bright twinkling black eye, supporting his steps on a staff, and wrapped up with all the care which an aged and faithful housekeeper could bestow upon a long-tried and most indulgent master. I pronounced his name, and gave him my own; stated that I was a presbyter in the holy (though not Roman) Catholic church, that I had long admired his integrity and faithfulness as an historian, and that it was by no means the least of my happy days in England that I was now permitted to speak to him face to face. The kind and gentle old man seemed truly astonished that any one who had come so far, and seen so much, should care for seeing him, and rewarded my enthusiasm with a hearty grasp of the hand that had wielded so admired a pen. We then walked on together towards his house, and you will not blame me for saying, that I was proud to offer the support of my arm to this fine octogenarian, who had not suffered the spirit of the priest to becloud the candor of the historian. We conversed with the greatest freedom upon our points of difference, and he repeated to me, personally, his entire disbelief in the fable of the nag's head ordination. He seemed to be only historically aware of a disruption between us, for the benevolence of his heart would acknowledge no actual difference.

I cannot refrain from quoting a somewhat amusing illustration of his infinite and childlike simplicity of character, combined with an utter ignorance of those rudiments of modern science which would be much more familiar to our district school-boys than to many men educated in those classic homes of ancient learning, the English universities. Some posts had been set in the ground, and were bound together, for strength, by iron wires; and the venerable sage said, "I suppose this is the Electric Telegraph." I was obliged to insist with a kind of explanatory and playful pertinacity, that this supposition must be incorrect, because electricity could not be conducted, unless the wires were at least continued through the thick posts, instead of being wound around them. At his house, we found the study not very well supplied with books, for the aged scholar had now almost ceased to peruse these. At my request he wrote out very slowly, but in a wonderfully distinct hand for eighty, his own name and the date, "John Lingard, Hornby, March 12, 1850;" and voluntarily added a Latin punning inscription, which he had made the evening before, which he humorously proposed to have engraved upon the new Menai bridge. In this he had spoken of the builder of the bridge, the celebrated Stephens, as Pontifex Maximus. I need not say that I shall preserve these papers among the most precious of my English mementos. I was sorry I could have no hopes that the branch which he gave me from the tree that he had transplanted with his own hands from the battle-field of Cannæ to the quiet of his garden at Hornby, would ever flourish in America. After many hospitable invitations, which other engagements obliged us to decline, and many modest expressions of the gratitude which he seemed deeply to feel for the pains that I had taken to come so far to visit him, we bade farewell to the candid priest, who began, as he told me, an essay to defend his Church against the aspersions of Hume, and had ended by producing a voluminous as well as luminous history.

[For another part of this magazine we have compiled a more full and accurate account of the life of the deceased scholar than has hitherto appeared in this country. See Recent Deaths, post, 285-6.]

PRIVATE LIFE OF JOHN C. CALHOUN.

ADDRESSED TO HER BROTHER, AND COMMUNICATED TO THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE,

BY MISS M. BATES.

The funeral rites of the lamented Calhoun have been performed. So deeply has the mournful pageant impressed me, so vividly have memories of the past been recalled, that I am incapable of thinking or writing on any other theme. My heart prompts me to garner up my recollections of this illustrious statesman. I can better preserve these invaluable memories by committing them to paper, and as you enjoyed but one brief interview with Mr. Calhoun, these pages shall be addressed to you.

An eloquent member of the House of Representatives, from your state, has compared this southern luminary to that remarkable constellation the Southern Cross. A few years since, in sailing to a West Indian island, I had a perilous voyage, but have ever felt that the sight of that Southern Cross, which had long haunted my imagination, almost repaid me for its excitement and suffering. And thus do I regard an acquaintance with this intellectual star as one great compensation for a separation from my early home. It would have been a loss not to have seen that poetic group, which greets the traveller as he sails southward, but how much greater the loss, never to have beheld that unique luminary which has set to rise no more upon our visible horizon.

Mr. Calhoun's public character is so well known to you that I shall speak of him principally in his private relations, and shall refer to his opinions only as expressed in conversation—for it was in the repose of his happy home, in the tranquillity of domestic life, and in the freedom of social intercourse, that I knew him.

While the clarion-notes of his fame resound among the distant hills and valleys of our land, while those who in political strife crossed lances with this champion of the south nobly acknowledge his valor and his honor, while Carolina chants a requiem for her departed dead, may not one who knows his moral elevation, and who has witnessed his domestic virtues, have the consolation of adding an unaffected tribute to his memory? While his devoted constituents, with impressive symbols and mournful pageants, perform funereal rites, erect for him the costly marble, weave for him the brilliant chaplet, be it mine to scatter over his honored tomb simple but ever green leaflets. While in glowing colors the orator portrays him on his peerless career in the political arena, be it mine to delineate the daily beauty of his life.

In Mr. Calhoun were united the simple habits of the Spartan lawgiver, the inflexible principles of the Roman senator, the courteous bearing and indulgent kindness of the American host, husband, and father. This was indeed a rare union. Life with him was solemn and earnest, and yet all about him was cheerful. I never heard him utter a jest; there was an unvarying dignity and gravity in his manner; and yet the playful child regarded him fearlessly and lovingly. Few men indulge their families in as free, confidential, and familiar intercourse as did this great statesman. Indeed, to those who had an opportunity of observing him in his own house, it was evident that his cheerful and happy home had attractions for him superior to those which any other place could offer. Here was a retreat from the cares, the observation, and the homage of the world. In few homes could the transient visitor feel more at ease than did the guest at Fort Hill. Those who knew Mr. Calhoun only by his senatorial speeches may suppose that his heart and mind were all engrossed in the nation's councils, but there were moments when his courtesy, his minute kindnesses, made you forget the statesman. The choicest fruits were selected for his guest; and I remember seeing him at his daughter's wedding take the ornaments from a cake and send them to a little child. Many such graceful attentions, offered in an unostentatious manner to all about him, illustrated the kindness and noble simplicity of his nature. His family could not but exult in his intellectual greatness, his rare endowments, and his lofty career, yet they seemed to lose sight of all these in their love for him. I had once the pleasure of travelling with his eldest son, who related to me many interesting facts and traits of his life. He said he had never heard him speak impatiently to any member of his family. He mentioned that as he was leaving that morning for his home in Alabama, a younger brother said, "Come soon again, and see us, brother A——, for do you not see that father is growing old, and is not father the dearest, best old man in the world!"

Like Cincinnatus, he enjoyed rural life and occupation. It was his habit, when at home, to go over his grounds every day. I remember his returning one morning from a walk about his plantation, delighted with the fine specimens of corn and rice which he brought in for us to admire. That morning—the trifling incident shows his consideration and kindness of feeling, as well as his tact and power of adaptation—seeing an article of needlework in the hands of sister A——, who was then a stranger there, he examined it, spoke of the beauty of the coloring, the variety of the shade, and by thus showing an interest in her, at once made her at ease in his presence.

His eldest daughter always accompanied him to Washington, and in the absence of his wife, who was often detained by family cares at Fort Hill, this daughter was his solace amid arduous duties, and his confidant in perplexing cases. Like the gifted De Staël, she loved her father with enthusiastic devotion. Richly endowed by nature, improved by constant companionship with the great man, her mind was in harmony with his, and he took pleasure in counselling with her. She said, "Of course, I do not understand as he does, for I am comparatively a stranger to the world, yet he likes my unsophisticated opinion, and I frankly tell him my views on any subject about which he inquires of me."

Between himself and his younger daughter there was a peculiar and most tender union. As by the state of her health she was deprived of many enjoyments, her indulgent parents endeavored to compensate for every loss by their affection and devotion. As reading was her favorite occupation, she was allowed to go to the letter-bag when it came from the office, and select the papers she preferred. On one occasion, she had taken two papers, containing news of importance, which her father was anxious to see, but he would allow no one to disturb her until she had finished their perusal.

In his social as well as in his domestic relations he was irreproachable. No shadow rested on his pure fame, no blot on his escutcheon. In his business transactions he was punctual and scrupulously exact. He was honorable as well as honest. Young men who were reared in his vicinity, with their eyes ever on him, say that in all respects, in small as well as in great things, his conduct was so exemplary that he might well be esteemed a model.

His profound love for his own family, his cordial interest in his friends, his kindness and justice in every transaction, were not small virtues in such a personage.

He was anti-Byronic. I never heard him ridicule or satirize a human being. Indeed, he might have been thought deficient in a sense of the ludicrous, had he not by the unvarying propriety of his own conduct proved his exquisite perception of its opposites. When he differed in opinion from those with whom he conversed, he seemed to endeavor by a respectful manner, to compensate for the disagreement. He employed reason rather than contradiction, and so earnestly would he urge an opinion and so fully present an argument, that his opponent could not avoid feeling complimented rather than mortified. He paid a tribute to the understandings of others by the force of his own reasoning, and by his readiness to admit every argument which he could, although advanced in opposition to one he himself had just expressed.

On one occasion I declined taking a glass of wine at his table. He kindly said, "I think you carry that a little too far. It is well to give up every thing intoxicating, but not these light wines." I replied that wine was renounced by many, for the sake of consistency, and for the benefit of those who could not afford wine. He acknowledged the correctness of the principle, adding, "I do not know how temperance societies can take any other ground," and then defined his views of temperance, entered on a course of interesting argument, and stated facts and statistics. Of course, were all men like Mr. Calhoun temperance societies would be superfluous. Perhaps he could not be aware of the temptations which assail many men—he was so purely intellectual, so free from self-indulgence. Materiality with him was held subject to his higher nature. He did not even indulge himself in a cigar. Few spent as little time and exhausted as little energy in mere amusements. Domestic and social enjoyments were his pleasures—kind and benevolent acts were his recreations.

He always seemed willing to converse on any subject which was interesting to those about him. Returning one evening from Fort Hill, I remarked to a friend, "I have never been more convinced of Mr. Calhoun's genius than to-day, while he talked to us of a flower." His versatile conversation evinced his universal knowledge, his quick perception, and his faculty of adaptation. A shower one day compelled him to take shelter in the shed of a blacksmith, who was charmed by his familiar conversation and the knowledge he exhibited of the mechanic arts. A naval officer was once asked, after a visit to Fort Hill, how he liked Mr. Calhoun. "Not at all," says he—"I never like a man who knows more about my profession than I do myself." A clergyman wished to converse with him on subjects of a religious nature, and after the interview remarked that he was astonished to find him better informed than himself on those very points wherein he had expected to give him information. I have understood that Mr. Calhoun avoided an expression of opinion with regard to different sects and creeds, or what is called religious controversy; and once, when urged to give his views in relation to a disputed point, he replied, "That is a subject to which I have never given my attention."

Mr. Calhoun was unostentatious and ever averse to display. He did not appear to talk for the sake of exhibition, but from the overflowing of his earnest nature. Whether in the Senate or in conversation with a single listener, his language was choice, his style fervid, his manner impressive. Never can I forget his gentle earnestness when endeavoring to explain his views on some controverted subject, and observing that my mind could hardly keep pace with his rapid reasoning, he would occasionally pause and say, in his kind manner, "Do you see?"

He did not seek to know the opinion of others with regard to himself. Anonymous letters he never read, and his daughters and nieces often snatched from the flames letters of adulation as well as censure which he had not read. Although he respected the opinions of his fellow-men, he did not seek office or worldly honor. A few years since, one to whom he ever spoke freely, remarked to him that some believed that he was making efforts to obtain the presidency. At that moment he had taken off his glasses, and was wiping them, and thus he replied: "M——, I think when a man is too old to see clearly through his glasses, he is too old to think of the presidency." And recently he said to her, "They may impute what motives they please to me, but I do not seek office." So much did he respect his country, that he might have been gratified by the free gift of the people; so much did he love his country, that he might have rejoiced at an opportunity to serve it, but would he have swerved one iota from his convictions to secure a kingdom? Who that knew him believes it?

It has been said by that brilliant satirist Horace Walpole, that every man has his price. I never did believe so evil a thing; I have been too conversant with the great and good to believe this libel; and I doubt not there are others beside Mr. Calhoun who value truth and honor above all price or office.

Highly as our great statesman regarded appreciation, yet he could endure to be misrepresented. While his glorious eye would light with more brilliant lustre at the greeting of friendship or the earnest expression of confidence, he rose superior to abuse or censure. I believe it was ever thus while in health. The last winter, dying in the Senate chamber, his feeble frame could ill repel the piercing shafts of his antagonists. The ebbing currents in his pulses were accelerated. He could not desert his post, though the contest raged fiercely, but his great soul was wounded. He loved his country, he loved the Union, and it was a great grief to him in his last hours to be misunderstood and misrepresented. Still, he was consoled by the thought that in the end he would be appreciated. Some one remarked to him that he was a very unpopular man. He replied, "I am, among politicians, but not among the people, and you will know this when I am dead."

Though Mr. Calhoun acknowledged, in his own winning way, the involuntary tributes of friendship and admiration, he courteously declined, whenever he could with propriety, public testimonies of homage which were offered to him. His wife shared with him this unostentatious spirit, preferring the voice of friendship to the acclamations of the multitude. I have heard some of his family say that they coveted nothing, not even the presidency, for him. They, with many of us who knew him, felt that even the first gift of a great nation could not add one gem to his crown—that crown of genius and virtue, whose glorious beauty no mortal power could illumine with new effulgence.

His sincerity was perfect. What he thought he said. He was no diplomatist. Some of his theories might seem paradoxical, but a paradox is not necessarily a contradiction. He has been accused of inconsistency. Those who thus accuse him do him grievous wrong.

Nothing is more inconsistent than to persist in a uniform belief when changing circumstances demand its modification. How absurd to preserve a law which in the progress of society has become null and obsolete! for instance, granting to a criminal "the benefit of clergy." "Nothing," says a distinguished English writer, "is so revolutionary as to attempt to keep all things fixed, when, by the very laws of nature, all things are perpetually changing. Nothing is more arrogant than for a fallible being to refuse to open his mind to conviction." When Mr. Calhoun altered his opinion, consistency itself required the change.

However some of his political sentiments might have differed from those of many of the great and good of the age, he was sincere in them, and believed what he asserted with all the earnestness of an enthusiastic nature, with all the faith of a close and independent thinker, and with all the confidence of one who draws his conclusions from general principles and not from individual facts. Time will test the truth of his convictions. It has been said that he was sectional in his feelings, but surely his heart was large enough to embrace the whole country. It has often been said that he wished to sever the Union, but he loved the Union, nor could he brook the thought of disunion if by any means unity could be preserved. Because he foresaw and frankly said that certain effects must result from certain causes, does this prove that he desired these effects? In his very last speech he speaks of disunion as a "great disaster." But he was not a man to cry "peace, peace, when there was no peace." Although like Cassandra he might not be believed, he would raise his warning voice; he was not a man to hide himself when a hydra had sprung up which threatened to devastate our fair and fertile land from its northern borders to its southern shores. And while he called on the south for union, did he not warn the conservative party at the north that this monster was not to be tampered with? And did he not call on them to unite, and arise in their strength, and destroy it?

And how could he, with his wise philosophy, his knowledge of human nature, and universal benevolence, view with indifference that unreflecting and wild (or should I not say savage) philanthropy, which in order to sustain abstract principles loses sight of the happiness and welfare of every class of human beings? How often did he entreat that discussion on those subjects, beyond the right of legislation, should be prevented, that angry words and ungenerous recrimination should cease! Did he not foresee that such discussions would serve to develop every element of evil in all the sections of the country—a country with such capacities for good? Did he unwisely fear that the ancient fable of Cadmus would be realized—that dragon-teeth, recklessly scattered, would spring up armed? And did he not know that the southern heart could not remain insensible to reproach and aggression?

"Non obtusa adeo gestamus pectora Poeni:
Nec tam aversus equos Tyria Sol jungit, ab urbe."

And, ah, how earnestly did he plead for peace, and truth, and justice! As far as I understood him, he wished to benefit by his policy in affairs both the south and the north. I remember, in speaking to me of free trade, he expressed the opinion that the course he recommended would benefit the north as well as the south. This he did not merely assert, but sustained with frequent argument. In his conversation there was a remarkable blending of fact and theory, of a knowledge of the past and an insight into the future.

Mr. Calhoun was a philanthropist in the most liberal sense of the word. He desired for man the utmost happiness, the greatest good, and the highest elevation. If he differed from lovers of the race in other parts of the world, with regard to the means of obtaining these results, it was not because he failed to study the subject; not because he lacked opportunities of observation and of obtaining facts; nor because he indulged in selfish prejudices. From every quarter he gleaned accessible information, and with conscientious earnestness he brought his wonderful powers of generalization to bear on the subject of human happiness and advancement—his pure unselfish heart aiding his powerful mind.

The good of the least of God's creatures was not beneath his regard; but he did not believe that the least was equal to the greatest; he did not think the happiness or elevation of any class could be secured by a sentiment so unphilosophical. The attempt to reduce all to a level, to put all minds in uniform, to give all the same employment, he viewed as chimerical. He said that in every civilized society there must be division of labor, and he believed the slaves at the south more happy, more free from suffering and crime, than any corresponding class in any country. He had no aristocratic pride, but he desired for himself and others the highest possible elevation. He respected the artisan, the mechanic, and agriculturist, and considered each of these occupations as affording scope for native talent. He believed the African to be most happy and useful under the guidance of an Anglo-Saxon; he is averse to hard labor and responsible effort; he likes personal service, and identifies himself with those he serves.

Mr. Calhoun spoke of the great inconsistency of English denunciations of American slavery, and said that to every man, woman, and child in England, two hundred and fifty persons were tributary. Although colonial possessions and individual possessions are by many regarded as different, he considered them involved in the same general principle. In considering the rights of man the great question is not, Has a master a right to hold a slave? but, Has one human being a right to hold another subordinate? The rights of man may be invaded, and the idol Liberty cast down, by those who are loudest in their philanthropic denunciations respecting slavery. Is there as much cruelty in holding slaves, even under the most unfavorable circumstances, as in selling into bondage a whole nation?[4] Let the brave chiefs of the Rohillas answer from the battle-field. Let cries reply from the burning cities of Rohilcund. Let the princesses of Oude speak from their prisons.

Close observation, prompted by a kindly heart, had brought Mr. Calhoun to the opinion that the Africans in this country were happier in existing circumstances than they would be in any other; that they were improving in their condition, and that any attempt to change it, at least at present, would not only be an evil to the country but fraught with suffering to them. A state of freedom, so called, would be to them a state of care and disaster. To abolish slavery now would be to abolish the slave. The race would share the doom of the Indians. Although here nominally slaves, as a general thing they enjoy more freedom than any where else; for is not that freedom, where one is happiest and best, and where there is a correspondence between the situation and the desires, the condition and the capacities? May we not say with the angel Abdiel:

"Unjustly thou depravest it with the name
Of servitude, to serve whom God ordains,
Or Nature. God and Nature bid the same,
When he who rules is worthiest, and excels
Them whom he governs. This is servitude,
To serve the unwise."

Mr. Calhoun found the local attachment of the slaves so strong, their relation to their owners so satisfying to their natures, and the southern climate so congenial to them, that he did not believe any change of place or state would benefit them.

These, as nearly as I can recollect, were his opinions on the subject of slavery, and were expressed to me in several conversations. Sentiments similar to these are entertained by many high-minded and benevolent slave-holders. That this institution, like every other, is liable to abuse, is admitted, but every planter must answer, not for the institution—for which he is no more accountable than for the fall of Adam—but for his individual discharge of duty. If, through his selfishness, or indolence, or false indulgence, or severity, his servants suffer, then to his Master in heaven he must give account. But those who obey the divine mandate, "Give unto your servants that which is just and equal," need not fear. In the endeavor to perform their duty in the responsible sphere in which they were placed by no act of their own, they can repose even in the midst of the wild storm which threatens devastation to our fertile land; they can look away from the judgment of the world, nor will they, even if all the powers of earth bid them, adopt a policy which will ruin themselves, their children, and the dependent race in their midst; they will not cast a people they are bound to protect on the tender mercies of the cruel. In their conservative measures they are, and must be, supported at the north, by men of liberal and philosophical minds, of extended views, and benevolent hearts. But I have said far more on this subject than I intended, and will add only that those who do not, from personal observation, know this institution in its best estate, cannot easily understand the softened features it often wears, nor the high virtues exhibited by the master, and the confiding, dependent attachment of the servant. Often is the southern planter as a patriarch in olden times. Those who are striving to sever his household know not what they do.

Well may we who live in these troubled times exclaim with Madame Roland, the martyr of the false principles of her murderers, "O Liberté! O Liberté! que de crimes on commet en ton nom!" This she said, turning to the statue of liberty beside the scaffold. Liberty unrestrained degenerates into license. There may be political freedom without social liberty. Says Lamartine, speaking of the inhabitants of Malta, "Ils sont esclaves de la loi immuable de la force que Dieu leur fait; nous sommes esclaves des lois variables et capricieuses que nous nous faisons."

A few years' residence on this soil might teach even a Wilberforce to turn in his philanthropy to other and wider fields of action.

Of Mr. Calhoun's character as a master much might be said, for all who knew him admit that it was exemplary. But we need not multiply examples to prove his unaffected goodness, and I will repeat only a circumstance or two, which, by way of illustrating some subjects discussed, he incidentally mentioned to me. One related to a free negro, formerly a slave in Carolina, but then living in one of our northern cities, who came to him in Washington, begging him to intercede for his return to Carolina. He represented his condition as deplorable, said that he could not support himself and family by his trade, (he was a shoemaker,) and that not being able to obtain sufficient food or fuel in that cold climate, they were almost frozen. "When I told him," said Mr. Calhoun, "that I would do all I could for him, he seized both my hands in his and expressed fervent gratitude." At another time, speaking of a family whom his son designed to take to Alabama, he told me that the mother of the family came to him and said she would prefer to stay with her master and mistress on the plantation, even if all her children went with master A. Mr. Calhoun added, "I could not think of her remaining without either of her children; and as she chose to stay, we retained her youngest son, a boy of twelve years."

Mr. Calhoun required very little of any one, doing more for others than he asked of them. He seemed to act upon the principle that the strong should bear the burthens of the weak. In sickness he feared to give trouble, and unless his friends insisted, would have little done for him. "Energetic as he was," said a near relative, "he would lie patiently all day, asking for nothing." His sensibility was of the most unselfish nature. Some months before his death, and after he left Fort Hill the last time, he said he felt that death was near, much nearer than he was willing to have his family know, and added that he wished to give all the time he could spare from public duty to preparation for death. While suffering from increasing illness at Washington, still, as he hoped to return again to his family, he was unwilling, though they anxiously awaited his summons, that they should be alarmed, saying he could not bear to see their grief. No doubt his conscientious spirit felt that his country at that critical moment demanded his best energies, and that he should be unnerved by the presence of his nearest friends; and loving his own family as he did, and so beloved as he was by them, he serenely awaited the approach of the king of Terrors, and suffered his last sorrow far from his home, cheered only by one watcher from his household.

There was a beautiful adaptation in his bearing—a just appreciation of what was due to others, and a nice sense of propriety. I have had opportunities to compare his manners with those of other great men. His kind and unaffected interest was expressed in a way peculiarly dignified and refined. Some men appear to think they atone for a low estimate of our sex by flattery. Not so with Mr. Calhoun. He paid the highest compliment which could be paid to woman, by recognizing in her a soul—a soul capable of understanding and appreciating. Of his desire for her improvement and elevation he gave substantial proofs. Although Fort Hill was five miles from the female academy he never suffered an examination to pass without honoring it with his presence. He came not for the sake of form, but he exhibited an interest in the exercises, and was heard to comment upon them afterwards in a manner which showed that he had given them attention. He never reminded you that his hours were more precious than yours. The question may be asked how could he, amid his great and stern duties, find time for attention to those things from which so many men excuse themselves on the plea of business. But he wasted no time, and by gathering up its fragments, he had enough and to spare. I have before said that his kind acts were his recreations.

Were I asked wherein lay the charm which won the hearts of all who came within his circle, I could not at once reply. It was perhaps his perfect abandon, his sincerity, his confidential manner, his childlike simplicity, in union with his majestic intelligence, and his self-renunciation—the crowning virtue of his life: these imparted the vivid enjoyment and the delightful repose which his friends felt in his presence. It was often not so much what he said as his manner of saying it, that was so impressive. Never can I forget an incident which occurred at the time when a war with England, on account of Oregon, seemed impending. He arrived in Charleston during the excitement on that subject. He was asked in the drawing-room if he thought there would be a war. He waived an answer, saying that for some time he had been absent from home and had received no official documents; but as he passed with us from the drawing-room to the street door, he said to me in his rapid, earnest manner, "I anticipate a severe seven months' campaign. I have never known our country in such a state." War has a terror for me, and I said, "Oh, Mr. Calhoun, do not let a war arise. Do all you can to prevent it." He replied, "I will do all, in honor, I can do," and paused. A thousand thoughts seemed to pass over his face, his soul was in his eyes, and bending a little forward, as if bowed by a sense of his responsibility and insufficiency, he added, speaking slowly and with emphasis and with the deepest solemnity, as if questioning with himself, "But what can one man do?" I see him now. No painting or sculpture could remind me so truly of him as does my faithful memory. But I will not dwell on the subject, for I fear I can never by words convey to the mind of another the impression which I received of his sincerity, and of his devotion to his country and to the cause of humanity. How he redeemed his pledge to do all that he, in honor, could do, his efforts in the settlement of the Oregon question truly show. When next I saw him I told him how much I was delighted with his Oregon speech. In his kindest manner he replied, "I am glad I can say any thing to please you."

The last time I saw Mr. Calhoun, you, my brother, were with me. You remember that his kind wife took us to his room, and that you remarked the cheerfulness and affability with which he received us, although his feeble health had obliged him to refuse almost every one that day. We shall see him no more, but his memory will linger with us.