Death cometh to the chamber of the sick.
The ruler's daughter, like the peasant's child,
Grows pale as marble. Hark, that hollow moan
Which none may help, and then, the last, faint breath
Subsiding with a shudder!
The loud wail
Bespeaks an idol fallen from the shrine
Of a fond parent's heart. A wither'd flower
Is there, oh mother, where thy proudest hope
Solac'd itself with garlands, and beheld
New buddings every morn. Father, 'tis o'er!
That voice is silent, which had been thy harp,
Quickening thy footstep nightly toward thy home,
Mingling, perchance, an echo all too deep
Even with the temple-worship, when the soul
Should deal with God alone.
What stranger-step
Breaketh the trance of grief? Whose radiant brow
In meekness, and in majesty doth bend
Beside the bed of death?
“She doth but sleep,
The damsel is not dead.”
A smother'd hiss
Contemptuous rises from the wondering band
Who beat the breast and raise the licens'd wail
Of Judah's mourning.
Look upon the dead!
Heaves not the winding-sheet? Those trembling lids—
What peers between their fringes, like the hue
Of dewy violet? The blanch'd lips dispart,
And what a quivering, long-drawn sigh restores
Their rose-leaf beauty! Lo, the clay-cold hand
Graspeth the Master's, and with sudden spring
That shrouded sleeper, like a timid fawn,
Hides in her mother's bosom!
Faith's strong root
Was in the parent's spirit, and its boon
How beautiful!
O mother, who dost gaze
Upon thy daughter, in that deeper sleep
Which threats the soul's salvation, breathe her name
To that Redeemer's ear, both when she smiles
In all her glowing beauty on the morn,
And when, at night, her clustering tresses sweep,
Her downy pillow, in the trance of dreams,
Or when at pleasure's beckoning she goes forth,
Or to the meshes of an earthly love
Yields her young heart! Be eloquent for her!
Take no denial, till that gracious hand
Which rais'd the ruler's dead, give life to her—
That better life, whose wings surmount the tomb!

SKETCHES OF THE HISTORY

AND PRESENT CONDITION OF TRIPOLI, WITH SOME ACCOUNTS OF THE OTHER BARBARY STATES.

NO. XI.
BY ROBERT GREENHOW.

By the evening of the 3d of July, the preparations for the bombardment of the Emperor's castle were completed; ditches had been dug to the extent of more than two thousand yards, and the batteries some of which were within musket shot of the walls, were armed with six sixteen-pounders, ten twenty-four-pounders, four eleven-inch mortars and six nine-inch howitzers. In order to secure themselves against any general attack, the French had likewise established communications between the different bodies of their forces by roads across the field and gardens, while they had barricaded or otherwise fortified the lanes and passes which separated their positions from those of their enemies. All this was done notwithstanding the bold and persevering efforts of the Algerines, who maintained an almost constant though ill-directed fire on the workmen from their batteries, and annoyed them by frequent sorties.

At day break on the morning of the 4th, a rocket was thrown up from the quarters of the French commander as a signal for the commencement of the attack, and all the batteries were instantly opened on the devoted fortress. Its dauntless defenders returned the fire, which they continued for some time with great spirit but with little effect, their balls and shells causing scarcely any damage to the persons or works of the besiegers. The walls of the castle, high and entirely exposed, soon exhibited evidences of the skill of the French artillerists; the materials of which they were built, crumbled under the “iron shower” falling incessantly upon them; and the embrasures, made unnecessarily wide, afforded but little protection either to the guns or to those engaged in serving them.

By eight o'clock the guns of the castle were nearly all dismounted, and the number of its effective defenders had been so much diminished, that it was found necessary to desert the ramparts, and retire within the great tower, which from the thickness of its walls offered at least a temporary security. On this last place of refuge, the Hasnagee hoisted a black flag, in token of his determination to die rather than yield, according to the promise which he had made to his master. He was however released from this promise by a signal from the Casauba indicating the Dey's wish that the fortress should be abandoned; this was accordingly done and the garrison escaped just as the French had effected a practicable breach in its wall. General Hurel who commanded the nearest battery, was then in the act of advancing with his men towards the opening, when suddenly the earth shook, the towers of the castle were seen to totter, flashes of flame and dense clouds of smoke rose above them, and an explosion ensued which momentarily stunned the ardent soldiers. The Algerines, before they evacuated the castle, had fired a slow match communicating with the powder magazines in its vaults, and the last and strongest defence of Algiers was utterly destroyed. As the smoke vanished, the walls of the fortress were seen rent and shattered by the terrible concussion; the great tower was reduced to a few shapeless masses, and the ground in the environs was covered with fragments of wall, corpses and even cannon, which had been projected into the air by the violence of the explosion. The French soon recovered, and rushing forward with shouts of triumph, planted their standard among the smoking ruins; scarcely too was this done, ere the prompt and skilful engineers were directing the workmen to clear away the interior of the place, and stop the breaches in its outward walls, so as to protect it against the assaults of its former possessors. The ruins of the Star fort were also occupied, and preparations were made for erecting batteries on them for the bombardment of the city.

Algiers was now completely exposed; in a few hours the artillery which had so rapidly overwhelmed its strongest defence, would be levelled against the palace of the Dey and the dwellings of the citizens. Hussein and his subjects had done all that men could do in defence of their country; and it was unnecessary farther to provoke a foe who held them at his mercy. At two o'clock Sidi Mustapha, the Dey's private secretary, appeared under a flag of truce at Bourmont's head quarters, to offer on the part of his master, the surrender of those claims against France which had led to the war, as well as the payment of the expenses occasioned by the expedition, provided the French would leave the country. It is scarcely necessary to say that this proposition was rejected with scorn. “I hold in my hand,” was the reply, “the fate of your city; nothing less than its unconditional surrender can save the Dey and inhabitants from being buried in its ruins.” With this answer Mustapha returned to the Casauba, exclaiming, says Bourmont, “When the Algerines are at war with France, they should obtain peace before the evening prayer.” Such a speech may have been uttered by the trembling secretary, but when repeated in the despatch of the victorious general it became a mere fanfaronade.

A few bombs were immediately thrown into the town which produced the desired effects. Hussein saw that his fate was in the power of his enemies, and his whole anxiety was to obtain as good terms as possible for himself and his own immediate followers; he accordingly despatched a Turk named Mahmoud, and Bouderba a Moor who had lived in Marseilles and spoke French, to entreat that the firing might be stopped, promising a similar cessation on the side of the Algerines. They received at first the same answer which had been given to the Secretary; however a conference ensued between them and Bourmont, which resulted in a suspension of hostilities.

As soon as the Dey had received the first answer of the French General, he sent to entreat the intervention of the British Consul. Mr. St. John instantly obeyed the summons, and after an interview with the Dey, proceeded to Bourmont's head quarters which were by this time established among the ruins of the Emperor's castle, in order to learn with exactness the conditions required by him. Bourmont at first objected to his interference, but subsequently thought proper to treat with him. The plan of a Convention was in consequence drawn up between them, by the terms of which, the Casauba and all the other fortresses of the city were to be delivered to the French early on the following morning; the Dey and soldiers were to quit Algiers with their families and private property; the inhabitants were to be protected in the enjoyment of their personal liberty, property and religion; their women were to be respected, and their commerce and industry to remain undisturbed.

This Convention was sent to the Dey and immediately returned with his seal and signature affixed in token of his own assent; he however required time to consult his Divan without whose approbation it could not be legally executed. Bourmont agreed to wait until the next morning; he did not however suspend his preparations for the investment of the place, which were continued with unabated activity.

The debate in the Divan lasted the whole night of the 4th, and it was probably stormy; the younger and poorer members of the body proposed, it is said, to murder Hussein, then divide the treasures of the Casauba and escape with them to the interior of the country; the older Turks who had wives and other valuables to lose, found the conditions so much better than was expected, that they only doubted as to their being observed by the French commander. The morning's sun however put an end to the discussion, by enabling them to see every height around the place occupied by the batteries of their enemy; they therefore resigned themselves to their fate, and Mahmoud and Bouderba were despatched to announce their acceptance of the conditions proposed by the conqueror. The envoys were likewise charged if possible to obtain a delay of twenty-four hours before the entry of the French troops into the city; this was peremptorily refused by Bourmont, who probably conceiving that within that period the treasures of the Casauba might become the “private property” of the Turks, insisted that the port, the forts and the town should all be delivered to him before noon. The Dey of course assented to this demand, and prepared for his retreat to a house in the town which he had occupied before his elevation to the throne; the Beys of Tittery and Constantina made their way with their surviving followers to the country; the forts were evacuated, and the Turks and citizens sullenly retired to their houses.

The French troops were in the meantime collected under arms; every flag was unfurled, and all the pomp and circumstance of warlike triumph was displayed, to render the serious ceremony more imposing. At two o'clock the fleet was anchoring in security under the dreaded batteries of the Mole, and the famous Algezr Al Ghazie so long the terror as well as the reproach of Christian Europe, was in the possession of the Franks.

Bourmont met at the gate the French prisoners who had been liberated, and after receiving their felicitations he hastened to the Casauba, whither a guard had been already despatched. The Dey was just taking his departure, and his followers were endeavoring to appropriate to themselves the rich shawls, hangings, plate, &c. which had not been secured, when the appearance of the French grenadiers put them to flight. The General received from Hussein the keys of the treasury, and accompanied by Commissioners who had been appointed to that effect he proceeded to inspect its contents.

Whether the amount of treasure found in the Casauba differed from that stated in the report of the commissioners will probably ever remain a subject for speculation. Shaler reckoned it at fifty-two millions of dollars in 1818, when Ali Cogia transferred his residence to the Casauba; his calculations were however founded only upon the number and the probable values of the burthens of the mules employed to transport it. The British Consul, when he visited Hussein on the evening previous to the surrender of the city, “was admitted by him” says Campbell,¹ “to the chamber of his treasures. It was paved with stone, for no wooden floor would have borne the weight of them—golden coins literally in millions were heaped up like corn in a granary several feet high.” A French officer who accompanied Bourmont in his first visit describes rather more minutely the number and size of the rooms containing these precious articles.

¹ Letters from Algiers by Thomas Campbell, published in the London New Monthly Magazine. These letters give an agreeable and interesting picture of Algiers as it now is; the historical statements are, however, in almost every instance erroneous.

Such appear to be the only data from which we can estimate the treasures in the Casauba previous to its surrender. Gold, silver and jewels, to the value of forty-one millions of francs (seven millions seven hundred and forty-nine thousand dollars,) declared by the General and Commissioners appointed to superintend the affair, to be the whole contents of the Algerine treasury, were transmitted to France immediately after the conquest of the city.

To these fruits of the expedition are to be added, wool and other articles found in the Magazines of the Regency, worth three millions of francs, and brass cannon valued as old metal at four millions, thus giving to the government an immediate return of more than nine millions of dollars, besides ammunition, materials of various sorts and public property to a vast amount. The whole expenses of the armament, to the middle of September following the capture of the place were reckoned at eight and a quarter millions of dollars, to which should however be added nearly half as much more for the cost of the blockade since June, 1827. Taking all the circumstances into consideration, the French Government was probably the gainer in the contest at the time of the capture of Algiers.

How many lives were lost during the war it is impossible to determine with accuracy; between the 14th of June, the day on which the French landed at Sidi Ferruch, and the 5th of July when Algiers was surrendered, it is supposed that not less than six hundred of their men were killed and two thousand five hundred wounded. Of the loss on the side of the Algerines we have no accounts, but it was probably greater than that of the French.

On the 11th of August the news of the surrender of Algiers reached Paris, and was received with the utmost enthusiasm by all classes of the population. The liberals could afford to rejoice as it came just too late to produce any effect on the elections, the result of which was known to be fatal to the Ministry. The Court was perhaps somewhat disappointed by the failure of what was in reality the principal object of the expedition; the baton of Marshal of France was indeed sent to Bourmont, but the crosses (only three) to be distributed among his officers were much less numerous than had been expected.

The British Ambassador immediately offered his congratulations to Prince Polignac, expressing at the same time his conviction, that the French Government “would keep its faith with his Court and would not fall from the assurances given in the name of the Sovereign, that the expedition was undertaken for the sole purpose of vindicating the national honor, and not with views of acquisition or conquest.” The Prince in answer “declared his readiness to repeat his former assurances, from which he protested that their late success had given the French government no inclination to depart.”

With this repetition of former assurances terminated all correspondence on the subject between the government of Great Britain and that of Charles X. His successor on the 10th of August, immediately after his establishment on the throne, and before his government was acknowledged by that of Great Britain, verbally declared to Lord Stewart “his intention to fulfil the engagements of the preceding government relative to Algiers.” We have already seen how vague were those engagements. Charles the Tenth declared his readiness, “in case the existing government of Algiers should be overthrown, to concert immediately with the other Powers, the new order of things to be there established, for the greatest advantage of the Christian world.” The change produced in the political relations of the European Governments, by the Revolution of July, has rendered any such “concert” with regard to Algiers impossible; and the engagement of the French King may be considered as obsolete as that made by Great Britain at the peace of Amiens, to restore Malta to the Knights of Saint John.

To return to Algiers. Immediately after their occupation of the city, the conquerors took measures to conciliate the inhabitants, and to free the country from the presence of the Turks. For the former purpose administrative institutions were established, similar at least in name and form to those which had previously existed; they were however soon found to be inefficient, and were replaced by others which have been also since abandoned. With regard to the Turks a considerable number had perished in the conflicts, others went off with the Beys of Tittery and Constantina, and only about three thousand five hundred were left in the place. Of these the elder, and such as had wives and houses, obtained permission to remain in Algiers under certain conditions until they could dispose of their property; the others were sent without delay to Turkey, each man receiving five dollars on his departure.

On the 11th of July, Hussein embarked with his son-in-law the Aga Ibrahim, and their families and attendants to the number of a hundred, on board the frigate Jeanne d'Arc for Mahon, carrying with them, it was said, upwards of a million of dollars. As he has no farther connection with this history, it may be here stated, that from Mahon he proceeded to Naples where he had the satisfaction to learn that the Sovereign who had ordered, and the General who had effected his overthrow were themselves in exile; from Naples he went to Leghorn, in the vicinity of which he passed a year; in 1831 he visited Paris, where he was of course the object of universal attention; his piety afterwards led him to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, and he died in Egypt in 1835, aged about 70 years. Notwithstanding his dethronement and exile, he was perhaps in every respect, the most fortunate of the Deys of Algiers.

The Bey of Oran, on learning the fall of the capital, made his submission to the conquerors and received their troops as garrisons into the principal places on the coast of his province. Achmet Bey of Constantina retired with the remnant of his forces and some Turks, towards his capital, determined to resist the invaders to the last extremity. As a first measure against him a division of the fleet under Admiral Rosamel was sent with a detachment of troops commanded by General Damremont to occupy Bona.

The Bey of Tittery appeared in person at Algiers on the 8th of July; and after a conference with the General in Chief took the oath of allegiance to the French before the Moorish Cadi or principal municipal officer of the place, and was confirmed in his government. He then invited Bourmont to make an excursion to Blida, a small town at the foot of the great chain of Mount Atlas about twenty-four miles south of the capital, assuring him that his presence there would tend to quiet the apprehensions of the inhabitants, and induce them the more readily to submit to the French. The Ex-Dey Hussein, on being consulted with regard to the propriety of making this excursion, declared his total want of confidence in the assurances of Abderrahman, whom he described a designing and treacherous knave. Notwithstanding this premonition, on the 23d of July the Marshal (he had just received his baton) left Algiers with about two thousand men and several of his principal officers for Blida, which place they reached in the evening after a fatiguing march across the Metijah. They were received with every demonstration of joy by the inhabitants, who came out to meet them bringing fruits and refreshments of all kinds; some uneasiness was indeed excited by the number of the Kabyles, who appeared loitering about the place and its vicinity; however no distrust was manifested by the French, the soldiers bivouaced in an open square, and the Marshal having occupied the best house in the place, was about to retire to rest, when some musket shots were heard under the window. One of his aid-de-camps went out to ascertain the cause and was immediately brought back mortally wounded; the assailants increased in numbers, and the French soldiers were soon completely surrounded and exposed to a murderous fire. In this state of things it was determined to retreat without delay to Algiers; the men although fatigued with their day's march were formed in order, and the party proceeded back to the city exposed during the way to the unceasing attacks of their daring enemies.

The ill success of this first attempt on the part of the French to penetrate the country, rendered the wandering tribes of Arabs and Kabyles more bold and more determined to resist the invaders, who were soon almost shut up within the walls of the capital. Several expeditions have been subsequently sent from Algiers in the same direction, the events of which are described in glowing colors in the despatches of their commanders; in one of them the treacherous Bey of Tittery was made prisoner and sent to Paris, where he strutted his hour rather as a prince than as a captive; this and the glory of planting the standard of France on a new soil, appear to have been the only beneficial results obtained from these excursions.

During the first ten days of August, no news was received from France. On the 11th of that month, a corvette appeared in the bay; she was recognized as French, but instead of the white flag of the Bourbons the tri-color of the revolution appeared on her mast head. The despatches brought by her were delivered to Bourmont, but notwithstanding all his efforts to keep their contents secret, the astounding details of the events which occurred in Paris during the three days of July, soon became known. Bourmont assembled a council of his principal officers and proposed to them to retain the white cockade, and sail back to France with the army, in order to defend the cause of Charles the Tenth. His arguments were however unavailing; the majority declared in favor of the new state of things, and the tri-colored flag had been already hoisted by the fleet. At length after some days spent in hesitation, or in hopes that the cause of the Bourbons might not be lost, he at length decided to obey the orders which he had received, and his soldiers were gratified by seeing that standard which they considered as the symbol of victory, waving over the towers of the Casauba.

On the 2d of September Marshal Clausel arrived from France to assume the command of the forces, in the name of King Louis Philippe; on the same day, Bourmont accompanied by his two sons and carrying with him the embalmed heart of the third who had fallen in action, embarked on board an Austrian trading vessel for Malaga. He has since been a wanderer in exile; and except for a few weeks, during which he endeavored unsuccessfully to retrieve the fortunes of a fiendish despot, his active spirit has been unemployed. The Duke d'Escars and some other officers whose attachment to the cause of the fallen dynasty, was either too strong or had been too conspicuously manifested, also retired from the army; the general popularity and good management of Clausel however soon reconciled the majority of the disaffected to the change of rulers, and restored the troops to discipline.

The division of the fleet commanded by Admiral Rosamel, consisting of two ships of the line, three frigates and four smaller vessels, which quitted Algiers on the 26th of July, arrived before Bona on the 7th of August. That town was instantly occupied by the troops under Damremont, who endeavored to repair the fortifications and render them tenable against the Bey of Constantina as it was expected that he would soon attack them. The Kabyles however soon after appearing in great numbers about the place, it was judged prudent by the French Commander to withdraw with his troops to Algiers. The wretched inhabitants, who relying upon the assurances of the conquerors had quietly submitted to them, were thus left until the spring of 1832, to maintain themselves as they could against the savage mountaineers.

After the troops had been landed at Bona the French squadron proceeded eastward and on the 7th of August was seen at the entrance of the harbor of Tunis, where its appearance contributed to hasten the conclusion of the negotiation then in progress between the Consul of France and the Bey of that Regency. The result of the negotiation was a treaty, signed at Tunis on the 8th of August, the provisions of which were apparently more liberal and more nearly universal in their application, than those of any convention previously made between a Christian State and a Barbary Power. The Bey of Tunis here distinctly renounced for himself and his successors, the right of cruising against any nation, which should renounce or have renounced the right of cruising against Tunis. Christian prisoners of war were not to be enslaved under any circumstances, but to be treated according to the usages of European nations. Foreign vessels wrecked on the coasts of the Regency were not to be plundered; their crews were to receive every assistance; those guilty of maltreating or robbing them were to be punished, and the government was made answerable for all injuries to their persons or property. Foreign nations were to have the privilege of establishing consular and commercial agents in any part of the Regency, and no tribute or present was to be exacted from or on account of them, on any occasion whatsoever. The subjects of foreign nations were to be at liberty to trade in all parts of the Regency, without being subject to any other than the established duties; and the government was to exercise no right of pre-emption or of monopoly, with regard to any goods which they may wish to buy or sell. Finally, the Bey gives to the French the full right of fishing for coral on certain parts of the coast of Tunis without any tribute or duty. These conditions appear to evince a degree of liberality on the part of France and of regard for the interests of other nations, which her former diplomatic proceedings had not prepared us to expect. However on examining the subject more minutely, it will be seen that although something may have been gained for the cause of civilization, by the formal admission of such principles, yet nothing was in reality secured to any other Power than France; for no other nation could or would avail itself of these provisions, as France could not be expected to enforce their observance, in any other cases than those in which the interests of her own subjects were concerned. The treaty was received with great dissatisfaction at Tunis; for which there was indeed just cause, as it not only prescribed new rules for intercourse with foreign nations but also interfered materially with the internal administration of the country.

Having produced the desired effect at Tunis, Admiral Rosamel sailed for Tripoli, off which he appeared on the 9th of August.

Ever since the precipitate departure of Baron Rousseau, the French Consul, from Tripoli, in August 1829, the Pasha of that Regency had been vainly endeavoring through the intercession of the Spanish Consul, to avert the vengeance which he knew would fall upon him, for his share in that affair. The news of the fall of Algiers left him without hope; and therefore as soon as the French squadron had come to anchor, he sent Hadji Mohammed the Bet-el-Mel or Judge of inheritances, on board the Admiral's ship, with full powers to conclude an arrangement. A convention was accordingly signed on the 11th, containing besides the same general stipulations to which the Bey of Tunis had agreed on the 8th, some severe and humiliating engagements on the part of the Pasha. In the first article, he agreed to deliver to the Admiral a letter, addressed to the Emperor of France, in which he entreats his Majesty to accept his most humble excuses for the circumstances which had obliged the French Consul to quit his post; disavows all participation in the calumnious reports circulated with respect to that agent; and expresses his anxious desire for the restoration of friendly intercourse between the two countries, as well as for the return of Rousseau, to whom the excuses were to be repeated on his arrival. Yusuf moreover agreed to pay 800,000 francs, one half immediately, the remainder in December following, in exoneration of all demands of French subjects against him.

The 400,000 francs were with some difficulty procured and delivered in a few days after the signature of the Treaty; in December 200,000 more were paid and the revenues of the province of Bengazi were pledged for the remainder. Yusuf was however spared the mortification of being obliged to receive Rousseau again as French Consul in Tripoli; his place was supplied by M. Schwebels, who appears to be superior in capacity, acquirements and character to the generality of such agents.

The forced loans and other acts of violence by means of which these sums were raised, increased the unpopularity of the Pasha's government and contributed to excite disturbances in his dominions. In the spring of 1831, a formidable insurrection broke out in Fezzan, to quell which the Bey Ali was sent with a large force. Of the circumstances of the war we can obtain no accounts; its result was the discomfiture of the Tripolines and the return of the Bey to the capital. The rebels appear to have been headed by Abdi Zaleel, who has been already mentioned as the grandson of the celebrated Sheik Safanissa, and the Chief of the Arab tribe called the Waled Suleiman. The successful issue of this revolt encouraged many of the wandering tribes to throw off the authority of the Pasha, and his difficulties were soon after increased by another heavy demand on his treasury from abroad.

As soon as it was known that the French had obtained payment of nearly all the debts due to their subjects, the British Government of course insisted on a similar settlement in favor of its own merchants, which the Pasha, according to the immemorial custom of Princes and people in the East, evaded by every means in his power. Warrington at length declared that he would be put off no longer; accordingly on the 14th of July 1832, a British squadron of two frigates and a sloop of war appeared in the bay, and Yusuf was summoned immediately to pay a hundred and eighty thousand dollars to satisfy the demands of his English creditors. The Pasha in vain repeated the oft urged plea of poverty; in vain appealed to his sons, to his wives, to his ministers, and to the citizens of Tripoli; the sum could not be obtained, and although sixty per cent on the whole amount was tendered in part payment, the inexorable Consul refused to receive it. Yusuf in despair then determined to levy a contribution by force on the inhabitants of the Messeah, the rich and populous plain near the city; the attempt was resisted, the soldiers who were sent to collect the tax were repulsed, and the people of the Messeah raised the standard of rebellion.

A new actor now appeared on the scene.

It has been stated that on the death of the Pasha's eldest son Mohammed, the claims of Emhammed the son of the deceased Prince to the succession, had been set aside by Yusuf, in favor of Ali his second son, who had been raised to the dignity of Bey. Emhammed had now attained manhood, and though closely watched by his uncle and grandfather had succeeded in forming a small party among the people, who looked to him for deliverance from the tyranny and oppression under which they groaned. In this he had been assisted and encouraged by the British Consul, who hating Ali on account of his connection with the D'Ghies family, and his well known partiality to France, adopted this means to satisfy his vengeance. Warrington has indeed been supposed to have carried his views still farther, and to have fomented disturbances in Tripoli, in order to obtain possession of the country for Great Britain. The sequel will show how far such suppositions were warranted.

As soon as the insurrection in the Messeah broke out, the neighboring Arab tribes came in crowds to join the rebels, and Emhammed, having succeeded in making his escape from the city, was proclaimed by them Pasha of Tripoli. The Bey Ali immediately assembled his adherents, and on the 27th of July 1832, a battle was fought on the sea shore between them and the insurgents. Emhammed's party was successful; the Bey's troops were driven back into the city, and the insurgents, receiving daily accessions to their forces, were soon able to close effectually all the communications of the place on the land side; a battery was also established by them at the entrance of the harbor on its eastern shore, in order to prevent the entrance of vessels. In a few days the city was completely invested by the besiegers, who began to bombard it; and the supply of provisions from the country being thus cut off, the inhabitants were threatened with the horrors of famine. The Consuls were however informed by Emhammed, that they might be furnished with necessaries for their families, by means of boats sent under the flag of a Christian nation to his batteries.

In the meantime, the British Consul had struck his flag, and the besiegers were in hopes that an attack would be made on the place by the squadron. These expectations were however disappointed by the sudden departure of the ships, in consequence it was supposed of an order from Malta, to which island Colonel Warrington shortly after sailed with his family in an Austrian brig.

Things continued in this state of uncertainty until the 12th of August, when the Consuls were informed by Yusuf, at a public audience, in the presence of his Divan and the principal persons of the place, that he had abdicated the throne in favor of his son Ali, whom he requested them to consider as Pasha of Tripoli. Letters were at the same time delivered to the Consuls addressed to the heads of their respective Governments, formally communicating the same intelligence, and soliciting from each the speedy recognition of the new sovereign. The means by which the old man was thus induced to transfer his powers to his son are not known; there is reason to believe however that he was impelled to it by the threats of Ali, and the promises and representations of the French Consul, both of whom had cause to apprehend that an admission of Emhammed's claims to the succession might otherwise be extorted from him by Warrington on his return from Malta. Ali immediately assumed the authority and title of Pasha, appointing as Prime Minister his brother-in-law Mohammed d'Ghies, (the younger, the old minister of that name died in 1831) who has been already mentioned in connection with the affair of Major Laing's papers.

STANZAS.

BY W. GILMORE SIMMS.

Oh, lovely were once her eyes, but grief
Their light hath now o'erclouded—
And her lips were sweet, like the budding leaf,
Though now their bloom be shrouded—
For in her heart, a malady
Like the canker-worm in the rose,
Preys ever there, unceasingly,
And gives her no repose.
It is sad to think, in a few short hours,
We shall look on her no longer,
For the glance gives sign of the failing powers,
And the pang grows hourly stronger;
We shall lose the balm of her budding breath,
We shall hear her voice no more;
We shall see those sweet eyes sealed in death,
That we once could so adore.
Yet shall I not weep, though losing all
For many long days I so have loved;
The tear that from mine eyes would fall,
My thought has well reproved:
For hers has been a doomed life,
And those who love her well, should pray,
That she may quickly lose the strife,
That has eaten her heart away.

THE RIGHT OF INSTRUCTION.

BY JUDGE JOSEPH HOPKINSON.

Dear Sir—I am well aware that my letter on the Right of Instruction, published in your June number, will encounter, in Virginia and elsewhere, names of high and deserved authority, and talents of great power, if it shall be thought worthy of any attention. I must therefore beg you to allow me to explain my views of this interesting subject, a little more fully than was necessary or proper in a letter to a friend. The additions, however, will be briefly made. I am particularly desirous to sustain myself by the countenance of our distinguished patriots and jurists, especially those who, having assisted in framing the government, may be presumed to understand its mechanism at least as well as the politicians of a later date; who are, as I have suggested, the authors of the doctrine of instructions. It was unknown to those who made the constitution—as well as to those writers and speakers who afterwards attacked and defended it.

It is a matter of familiar history that from the commencement of this government, there has been a party, particularly in the South, powerful by its talents, its character and the public confidence, who have cherished and propagated, with unwearied efforts, a jealous fear of the power of the general government. They have taught and, I may not doubt, truly believed that this power would swallow the independence of the states, or so depress their influence and strip them of their rights, that they would finally become mere subordinate corporations, living and acting by the will of a master. I do not stop to examine the justice of this apprehension, nor to show that the federal government, constitutionally administered, (and no fair argument can be drawn from usurpation and violence,) has more to fear from the power of the states than the states from it. This is not my present purpose. I would show how the doctrine of instructions was introduced among us. It was one of the devices and means resorted to—and invented by the party I have alluded to, to cripple the federal power, and, in this way, to give the states a control over the action of the general government, which they could not exercise directly under any power or rights given or reserved to them in the constitution they had adopted. Thus by binding their representatives in Congress by the obligation of obedience to their instructions, and by limiting and fettering the powers of the federal body by their doctrines of constitutional construction, they would acquire an ascendancy over the federal operations which would reduce that body to a bloodless, fleshless skeleton.

In looking for a support for my opinions upon this subject, I was naturally led to open the volume of the “Secret Proceedings and Debates of the Convention,” published from the notes of Chief Justice Yates. In this volume we find also the information communicated, by Luther Martin, Esq. a delegate to the federal convention from the state of Maryland, to the legislature of Maryland, relative to the proceedings of the convention. This communication occupies about ninety pages of the book, and contains a string of resolutions, amounting to nineteen, reported to the convention by a committee of the whole house. The fourth of these resolutions proposed “That the members of the second branch of the legislature ought to be chosen by the individual legislatures, to be of the age of thirty years at least, to hold their offices for a term sufficient to insure their independence, namely, seven years,” &c. There is another provision in this resolution which shows an intention to make the senators equally independent of the several states and of the United States. It is that they are “to be ineligible to any office by a particular state—or under the authority of the United States—except those peculiarly belonging to the functions of the second branch, during the term of service, and under the national government for the space of one year after its expiration.”

Mr. Martin was a decided opponent to the adoption of the constitution; he was opposed to federal power—a friend of state power—and seeking every means by which he could restrain the first and strengthen and enlarge the latter. He especially feared the senate; but he never thought of this controlling right of instructions by which the states might direct the federal legislation at their will, and make their senators, in the language of Mr. Tyler, “mere automata to move only when they are bidden—and to sit in their places like statues, to record such edicts as may come to them.” Mr. Martin's objection to the construction of the second branch of the federal legislature is, that the senators are independent of the states appointing them. He objects that they are chosen for six years; that they are not paid by the respective states, but from the treasury of the United States; that they are not liable to be recalled during the period for which they are chosen. This very able and ingenious lawyer could not have made this objection if he had conceived the cunning device of making it the constitutional duty of a senator to resign his place at the will of the legislature of his state.—After stating these objections, Mr. Martin proceeds: “Thus, sir, for six years the senators are rendered totally and absolutely independent of their states, of whom they ought to be the representatives, without any bond or tie between them. During that time, they may join in measures ruinous and destructive to their states, even such as should totally annihilate the state governments; and their states cannot recall them, nor exercise any control over them.” Such was his understanding of the constitution, and of the rights of senators and state legislatures, under it. His objection was that they are not precisely what the advocates for instructions say they are. He saw nothing in the instrument that gives the state legislatures any right to instruct their senators, accompanied by a duty on the part of the senators to obey or resign. This is practically to give the legislatures a power to recall their senators, as instructions may always be given which must be disobeyed by an honest man.

On considering the question whether the second branch of the general legislature should or should not be appointed by the state legislatures, Mr. Wilson (the most democratic of all the members of the convention) said, “It is improper that the state legislatures should have the power contemplated to be given to them. A citizen of America may be considered in two points of view; as a citizen of the general government, and as a citizen of the particular state in which he may reside. We ought to consider in what character he acts, in forming a general government. I am both a citizen of Pennsylvania and of the United States; I must, therefore, lay aside my state connexions and act for the general good of the whole. We must forget our local habits and attachments. There ought to be a leading distinction between the one and the other; nor ought the general government to be comprised of an assemblage of different state governments.” Mr. Wilson was opposed to the election of the senators by the state legislatures.

Mr. Ellsworth was for the state legislatures. He thought the choice by them would be more judicious. “In the second branch we want wisdom and firmness, to check hasty and inconsiderate proceedings of the first branch.”

Gov. Randolph, speaking of the senate, says: “This body must act with firmness. The state governments will always attempt to counteract the general government.” His opinion, of course, was, that it was the duty of the senators to resist these attempts, to protect the general government against them, and not to yield to them as bound and bidden slaves, and abandon to their caprices and will the sacred trust reposed in them.

Mr. Madison says: “We are proceeding in the same manner that was done when the confederation was first formed. Its original draft was excellent, but in its progress and completion it became so insufficient as to give rise to the present convention. By the vote already taken, will not the temper of the state legislatures transfuse itself into the senate? Do we create a free government?” We see then that Mr. Madison was of opinion that the mere power of appointing the senators by the state legislatures, would give those legislatures so much influence in this branch of the federal legislature as to impair its necessary power and independence. He asks: “Do we create a free government?” What would he have said had he supposed that to this power of appointment, there was to be added as flowing from it, an imperative and constitutional right of instruction, under the penalty of a forfeiture of the place by disobedience?

At another period of the debate, on the constitution of the senate, Mr. Madison says: “That great powers are to be given, there is no doubt; and that these powers may be abused, is equally true. It is probable that members may lose their attachments to the states that sent them; yet the first branch will control them in many of these abuses. But we are forming a body on whose wisdom we mean to rely, and their permanency in office secures a proper field in which they may exert their firmness and knowledge. Democratic communities may be unsteady, and be led to action by the impulse of the moment.” After showing the dangers that may arise from popular bodies without some wholesome check and control of another body, he says: “The senate, therefore, ought to be this body; and to answer these purposes, they ought to have permanency and stability.”

On the debate on the question whether the senators should be paid from the national treasury or by the states, Mr. Wilson said: “The states may say, although I appoint you for six years, yet if you are against the state your table shall be unprovided. Is this the way you are to erect an independent government?” But the doctrine of instructions comes to the same end by a much shorter and more certain operation. Obey or resign. Men might be found who, to render a great service to their country, or from personal motives of inclination or ambition, would continue in their seats, although their compensation were withdrawn. But they have no such choice, when the action of the legislature comes upon them in the shape of instructions.

On the same question, Mr. Madison said: “I do assert that a national senate, elected and paid by the people, will have no more efficiency than congress; for the states will usurp the general government.”

In looking over this column of debates, I have made my selections as few and brief as possible. Not a syllable is found any where, or from any body, which hints at this right of instruction to senators, as a means by which the states may control or interfere with the constitutional action of the federal government, or add to their own power and influence. Every proceeding of the convention, every argument and word having any bearing upon the question, has a contrary tendency. The whole doctrine has been got up at a later date, to serve particular interests and purposes; and, unfortunately, is so palatable to state pride and state politicians, that it has found a reception too favorable for the safety of our government and the preservation of the Union.

I have not referred to the opinion of Mr. Burke, so often quoted, because I think the argument stands here on a different and a stronger ground. We have a number of sovereign states which have, by their own will, placed themselves under one government; and for this purpose, they have mutually agreed upon the extent and manner in which each shall have a participation in the government of the whole. No one has a right to control or interfere with the government of the whole to any further extent or in any other manner than those which have been thus agreed upon. They may elect their senators by their legislatures respectively; having done this, their power over that body is fulfilled. The senators of each become the senators of all, and the power of each over them is merged in the power of the whole for the period for which they are elected. The senators from Virginia are as independent of Virginia as those from Massachusetts. Any control over, or interference with them, except by their periodical election, would verify the prediction of Mr. Madison, that “states will usurp the general government,” and that “the greatest danger is from the encroachments of the states upon the general government.”

If you will now do me the favor to republish some observations I had printed in the “National Gazette,” on the perusal of Mr. Tyler's letter, by which he resigned his seat in the Senate of the United States, I shall have the satisfaction to see, in your valuable journal, all I have to say upon a question which, in my view, is of vital importance to the existence of our national government, and the continuance of this happy and prosperous Union.

[The following is the article alluded to.]

A man may pertinaciously assert an error in the face of truth and his own better judgment; but the moment he attempts to defend it, be assured that he will seldom fail to destroy the delusion by the very arguments he brings to support it. Like a brilliant bubble, the moment you would test it by the touch, it is gone. This truth is forcibly illustrated in the letter addressed by Mr. Tyler to the Legislature of Virginia, resigning his seat as a Senator of the United States. Let any one examine his reasons for refusing to obey the instructions of his legislature,—for refusing to do what they require of him, for he does refuse, and his reasons for it are absolutely unanswerable,—and then say whether the same reasons do not as decidedly prove that the legislature had no lawful right to give the instructions as that Mr. Tyler had the right to disobey them. There could not be a constitutional right to give an order, the obedience to which would be “to violate the Constitution.” This is a plain absurdity, and it is equally clear that if there was no right to give the order there could be no duty to obey it. Assuredly the pointed and pregnant question put by Mr. Tyler applies to the whole subject of instructions. He asks—“whether the representatives of a sovereign State are such mere automata, as to move only when they are bidden, and to sit in their places like statues to record such edicts as may come to them?” Mr. Tyler implies in his answer, that Senators are not such passive machines, and yet he consents to become one, in a modified way. On this particular case he says to the Legislature, “To obey your instructions would be to violate the Constitution of the United States.” One would suppose that this was a full and definite answer to the demand, and to the right to make it. Of course Mr. Tyler will not do the deed; he will not with his own hand strike the blow which is to wound the sacred body which his country had put under his protection. But does this fulfil his duty? does it discharge the obligations of his oath of office? That oath is not answered by merely abstaining from the wrong himself; it does not stop with this negative duty; he has sworn to support and defend it against violation and wrong from any quarter. Did he not desert this high and solemn duty when he abandoned his post in order that another might take it with the avowed design of violating the Constitution; for that such is the act to be done is the conscientious belief of Mr. Tyler himself. To resign, to surrender his power for such a purpose, is hardly an evasion of the high principles which Mr. Tyler assumes as his rule of duty; it is, in effect, to sacrifice them. Where is the difference between the sentinel who turns his own arms upon the citadel he was bound to defend, and one who gives up his trust to the enemy, that he may do the work of ruin which the conscience of the latter forbids. In my opinion, the very time and occasion where a Senator should not resign, are where his place is wanted for such a purpose. It is then peculiarly his duty to keep his post, because it is always his paramount duty, as a Senator of the United States, to protect the Constitution of the United States. May he put it at the mercy of a State Legislature, issuing, from year to year, or from month to month, its contradictory orders, as party or caprice may prevail? What is the Constitution, under such a dictation, but a fabric built upon the sand; a rag floating in the wind? It has neither permanency nor strength.

It is to be lamented that good and talented men, sometimes unadvisedly and without looking far enough to consequences, entangle themselves in theories, which afterwards embarrass and constrain them, in the sound and practical exercise of their understanding, and compel them to participate in acts condemned, at once, by their judgment and conscience. In such cases it is more honest, more safe and noble, to shake off the webs which their own ingenuity has wound around them, and give a free use and exercise to their better knowledge and true convictions. There is a sensible maxim in common life which is equally wise in public affairs—that “the shortest follies are the best.”

Mr. Tyler tells the Legislature that he would have complied with their wishes, if they had put them in another form; indeed it is only a change of form—he would have voted, at their bidding, to rescind or repeal the offensive resolution of the Senate. Why would he do so, unless he thought it ought to be rescinded or repealed? If he did not think so, he was as much bound by a conscientious performance of his duty to vote against the repeal as the expunging. If the latter be a stronger case, the principle is the same. But will he say, that in the one case he is called upon to violate the Constitution, in the other only to give up an opinion upon the conduct of the President? This is altogether an illusion; there is in truth no difference in the cases. In the one case he was of opinion that the President had transcended his constitutional powers; he is of the same opinion still, but his Legislature do not think so, and he yields his opinion to theirs, or rather he votes against his own opinion to give effect to theirs. In the other case he holds the opinion that to expunge a part of the records of the Senate is a violation of the Constitution, but his Legislature are of opinion that it is not so; it is a question of opinion between them, and nothing more. Why, then, should he not give up this opinion to their power or their judgment, as well as the other? Why must he not on this question surrender his judgment and conscience, and become the “mere automaton” of the majority of the members of the Virginia Assembly? He casts off and treads upon the robes of a Senator of the United States, to bind himself in a straight jacket, fashioned by heads and hands which would acknowledge no power but their own. There is no such thing as dividing or modifying this State claim to instruct the Senators of the United States. It is a full, perfect, and universal right, or it is no right. It binds every limb and muscle of the Senator, or none of them. If he may move a finger in opposition to it, his whole body is free. It is an absolute, despotic power in all cases, or it must be reduced to that voluntary respect and serious consideration which a wise representative will always give to the opinions and wishes of those from whom he derives his office. There will always be subserviency enough; the danger is from too much.

I do not see where Mr. Tyler gets his alternative to obey or resign. This is not his instruction, it is “not so nominated in the bond.” He is ordered to vote, to act—not to fly the field. If the command is lawful, he should obey the mandate of his “approved good masters,” as they have issued it. He might equally disappoint their object by leaving his seat, as by voting in opposition to their wishes. How impossible it is to be consistent in the pursuit of a false principle. When a man splits a hair to get a principle or rule of action, he must go on splitting hairs to modify or get rid of it.

I have said that I cannot see the distinction taken by Mr. Tyler between a vote to rescind the resolution and one to expunge it. It cannot be replied, that a Senator may properly give up his opinion concerning a matter comparatively insignificant, but should refuse such a compliance on a question of more importance. If the argument be good it cannot help the present case; there is no such difference between the question to rescind and expunge; both refer to constitutional rights and powers, and there is the same obligation on a Senator to give up or not to give his opinion in both cases. They are of equal dignity, but in importance, as to consequences, the advantage is infinitely on the side of the vote to rescind. What is to be rescinded? A resolution of the Senate on the subject of the power of the President over the treasury and revenue of the United States. Can any question under the Constitution arise of more vital importance to the liberties and rights of the people? The other vote relates only to the power of the Senate over its own records. Both are to be decided by the Constitution, and the decision, in the one way or the other, gives an authoritative construction to that instrument, and becomes, while admitted, a part of it. This resolution has declared,—whether right or wrong, is of no importance to our present question—that the Constitution does not vest in the President of the United States the power that he has assumed over the treasure of the United States. This solemn declaration Mr. Tyler is willing to rescind, to take back, to disaffirm, although he believes that the resolution does express the true sense of the Constitution. Had his legislature only required this sacrifice of him, he would have made it, thus indirectly affirming a most dangerous power in the executive, to which Mr. Tyler thinks he is not entitled. He would ratify an usurpation of this alarming magnitude. But this was not enough to satisfy his hard masters; he must not only do the deed of rescision, but he must do it in the manner and form prescribed to him; he must expunge the offensive resolution from the journal of the Senate. Here he takes his stand; he will not do it, and shows by an unanswerable argument that he cannot honestly do it, because it is a violation of the Constitution. Now, was not the act of the President upon the treasury also, in his opinion, a violation of the same Constitution, and yet this opinion he was willing to surrender to his constituents, and record a vote on the same journal, affirming so far as his vote could do it, this violation of the Constitution. I confess there is a perplexity in these political metaphysics which surpasses my understanding, and confounds my notions of right and wrong. Here, then, we have a gentleman of fine talents, a lawyer and a statesman of great experience and eminence, who has often received and well deserved the respect and confidence of his fellow-citizens, brought into a labyrinth of doubt and obscurity; entangled by errors and contradictions, merely by setting out on a false principle. How plain and satisfactory is the duty of a Senator who will steadily and fearlessly say, I am not “an automaton to move only when I am bidden; a statue to record the edicts that may come to me”—I am a Senator of the United States—I am bound by the most sacred obligations to my country and my God, to discharge this high trust with fidelity, firmness and truth, according to my best judgment, and the calm convictions of my conscience. I am bound to support, defend, protect the Constitution of the United States, whose officer I am, as I honestly and truly understand it—this is my first law. And it is my duty to pay a most considerate and respectful attention to the wishes and interests of my immediate constituents—this is my second law.

Contrast this plain, intelligible course, which requires no uncommon sagacity to discover it, no deep casuistry to explain it; which demands no prostration of personal character and independence, and is followed by no misgiving or remorse—with the incomprehensible, tortuous, humiliating doctrines of the school of instructions, as to which the most devoted professors do not agree, and which a novitiate, however docile, cannot comprehend. Let us try him. He would first inquire—am I bound to obey my orders strictly and implicitly to the letter, or is there some alternative left me? must I give the vote required, or may I in any way avoid it? He will be answered, in some cases—You must stand your ground and give your vote as directed; for instance, if you are called upon to rescind and repeal a recorded resolution of the Senate, in which you did or did not concur, you must record your vote for such repeal in the same journal which testifies your approval of it, but if you are instructed to come at this conclusion in another form, that is, by expunging it from the page on which it is written, then you are not bound to a strict obedience, but may make your bow, beg to be excused, raise a high question of honor and conscience about it, and go about your business. So far the scholar might understand that he must always either obey or resign, although it may puzzle him to know how to make the choice. He is, however, altogether mistaken in believing that he has got even this uncertain rule for a guide. He asks another learned Doctor in this science—Must I, in every case, either obey or resign? By no means, is the reply. There are cases in which you may do neither, such as an order to expunge the record of some act or opinion of the Senate; this is not a law, and you may do as you please with it. [See Mr. Leigh's Letter.] The anxious scholar proceeds to inquire, by what rule or sign can I distinguish and decide between these close cases; how may I know when I may act and think for myself, without infringing the sacred right of instruction? Truly there is no defined line or settled rule; it must depend upon the nature of the question and the circumstances of the case, which are very numerous and complicated, and sometimes require half a dozen columns of a newspaper to elucidate and apply them. [See the same letter.] The simple novitiate observes, this then is very like leaving the whole matter to myself after all. He is bewildered and lost in this maze of inexplicable rules and exceptions, principles and qualifying circumstances. Should he pass by these difficulties, he has others scarcely less formidable to encounter. He understands that he must obey the instructions of the Legislature of his State, because he is their agent or representative. What Legislature is he to obey? Not that only which de facto appointed him. But is this allegiance due to the Legislature of the last year or of this year? Certainly, he is told, the latter. But why so? They are equal and contrary weights; they act in opposition upon the same subject, with the same lights and by the same authority. Why not wait for another to decide between them? Why should he not, especially in Virginia, play for the rubber—take his chance for the third heat? There may be another change in the fortune of parties—another will of the State Legislature, to which he may run counter by a hasty submission. Again—must this State agent, miscalled a Senator of the United States, take the vote of the Legislature to be the will of the people, without regard to the state of the vote? may he inquire how the vote was constituted, how it was obtained—by what influence, misrepresentation or mistake? Suppose he should find that his orders came from a majority of the members present, but not a majority of the house, and he should know that the absent members would have turned the vote—may he refuse his obedience to what is, legally speaking, the act and will of the Legislature? If he should obey or resign, and then, in a full house, his instructions are revoked, what is his situation? He has perhaps inflicted a serious wound upon the Constitution of his country, which he cannot heal.

I will present one other difficulty which might distress the unlearned. A Senator may be presumed to know the members of his State Legislature—their general standing and character. He receives instructions passed by a majority of six or eight, on a vote of one or two hundred. He looks at the roll of yeas and nays. He finds in the majority a great proportion of men he knows to be of little knowledge, of strong passions and prejudices, with a servile adherence to party purposes; men, even if honest, on whose judgment he would not place the least reliance in the most common business—whose opinion he would not regard in any concern of his own of the value of a dollar. On the other side, he finds the names of men long distinguished for their learning and experience, of unsuspected integrity, dispassionate in judgment, and pure in their patriotism and purposes;—men to whom all the country has looked for years, with confidence and veneration. In a word, he sees the name of James Madison on the one hand, opposed by that of some violent, ignorant, interested demagogue on the other. Is he to shut his eyes and his understanding to such a state of things, and surrender his duty, his honor, and his conscience, to the dictation of ignorance, passion and prejudice, and turn a deaf ear to the voice of knowledge, virtue, and patriotism? Is he to decide a vital constitutional question by the will of such masters, who would not hold themselves bound by their vote? Mr. Tyler assures us that some of the voters for his last instructions were among those who but the year before gave him contrary orders on the same subject. Such an obedience is to make himself something worse than an automaton—it is to be an active, efficient, self-condemned agent in the consummation of designs he knows to be morally wrong, and deeply injurious to his country, to the whole people he has sworn to defend and protect, by the preservation, inviolate, of the great charter of their rights and liberties. This Mr. Tyler would not, could not do; it would be to contradict and disparage the whole course of an honorable and useful life. He has spurned such degradation. But I lament that he did not do more than this—that he could find an alternative in abandoning his post to the enemy.

I have alluded to Mr. Leigh's letter, but should be tedious were I now to make it a subject of particular comment, but cannot refrain from remarking that these gentlemen (Messrs. Tyler and Leigh) both professing to maintain the true and orthodox doctrines of “Instruction,” and exerting their powerful and cultivated intellects to explain them through many a labored column, at last bring themselves to opposite conclusions on the same case. Is it possible to give a more impressive illustration and evidence of the fallacy of the whole faith than that two such men, both indoctrinated in the same school, should, when brought to the practical application of their principles, so differ about their import and obligation?

This is a subject of vast and growing magnitude. In my judgment, it is of vital importance to the Constitution of the United States, which will be essentially if not fatally changed, if its powers and operations are to be in this way under the dictation and control of State Legislatures. It will no longer be a Government of the United States. The Senate and House of Representatives will be but the agents of the State Legislatures, “to move only when they are bidden, and to record such edicts as may come to them.”

In “Dodsley's Collection” is an old play called “Eastward Hoe!” It was written by Ben Jonson, and published in 1605 by George Chapman and John Marston. This probably suggested to our Paulding the title of his “Westward Ho!”

TO ——.

BY W. GILMORE SIMMS.

'Twas meant for thee, when all look'd dark,
And ev'ry friend my childhood knew,
Shrunk from the slight and vent'rous bark
As reckless, through the waves it flew—
Unshaken still, to keep thy faith,
And through each gloomy storm that came,
To shield me, in thy pray'rs, from scaith,
To keep me, in thy words, from blame.
When narrow fears beset the base,
And selfish hopes o'ercame the mean,
'Twas love alone whose gentle face
Look'd still unchanged through all the scene;
And with the darkness of the hour,
Thy truth but more conspicuous shone,
As some sweet star, when clouds have power,
Looks proudly out from Heaven, alone!
Shall I not love thee, evermore,
Thou more than planet guide to me,
Whose gentle light, on sea and shore,
Still spoke thy true heart's constancy!
Oh, be Time's changes what they will,
They cannot change that sleepless thought,
That tells,—that teaches of thee still,
By thee, for evermore, still taught.

A REMINISCENCE.

BY DR. FRANCIS LIEBER.

Charleston, S. C. June 28—the day of
Fort Moultrie—1836.

Dear Sir—Your favor of Richmond, June 18—the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo—reached me here, a few minutes ago. The vacations of South Carolina College have begun, and I am here waiting for a vessel to carry me to the Island of Porto Rico, whither I intend to proceed for the sake of recreation! A strange way of getting cool, you will say, to go from South Carolina to the West Indies, from degree 31 northern latitude to degree 18—it is a more formidable experiment than the process of annealing, by which glass is passed into an oven not quite so hot as the first in which it was melted. I allow, it may be strange; still I shall go. But here I am, not only without any materials or memoranda, but confined to the sofa by a faux-pas, which has made of me, ever since, a lame man. Now if you sum up all these items—vacations just begun, without books or papers, lame and windbound in a seaport, a voyage of considerable interest before me, for which one ought to prepare himself a little—you will own that they are as many difficulties in the way of granting your request, which otherwise it would have given me much pleasure to comply with.

A lame man feels poor—helpless, much more so than a man with an injured arm. How interesting does not a young officer look with his arm in a sling; but his comrade with a crutch attracts nothing but bare, sheer pity. Limping—the mere idea of limping, makes all the difference. Has not the Prussian government decided, after the wars against Napoleon, that the old law, which prohibits a cripple from officiating as priest or minister, is to be interpreted, that an individual who has lost a leg is a cripple, but if he has lost an arm only, he is not to be considered such. They thought, perhaps, of the noble Cervantes, who lost his right hand in the battle of Lepanto, and wrote his immortal Don Quixotte with the left.

I am without books. Well! did not Ercilla write his Auracana in the very face of the Tudian enemy, and the conquering Spaniard, probably, carried no bibliothéque volante with him. True, but had he a dislocated toe, did he wait for wind, had he to buy a hundred trifles, and to make the place before his sofa a real bazaar? Napoleon, you reply, dictated some of his most inspired and inspiring proclamations, in the saddle. True, but it is easier to address an army before or after a battle, than to address the public through a monthly periodical before or after a sea voyage. Again you say—did not Walter Scott compose his Lady of the Lake chiefly in his bed, where most afflicting pains confined him? True, but he had his books and papers around him, and he did not wait for wind. Did not Körner compose his Adieu when wounded on the field of battle? True, once more, and so would I write a touching poem on dislocated toes—how limping Vulcan would inspire me!—were I master of the English tongue; but an article for a review is another thing. And then the heat—the thermometer stands this moment at—Impatience Boils—and the musquitos, who play their scornful music long around your frightened ear, before, at length, they yield to their Timour-like disposition, as the malicious servants of the Holy Inquisition tormented their victims long before the actual infliction of the refined torture, by showing and trying the racking instruments—and the tickling, inexhaustibly persevering flies, which have entered into a most malignant conspiracy against the human nose—what can you possibly expect? Nothing but an anecdote. But, sir, anecdotes, however witty or trifling, are like the glorious pictures which a Raphael painted for the altars of his church—they lose much of their merit if out of their place. Still, I should like to give what is so kindly asked for, and ——

The wind has changed—to-morrow morning we sail—I have to get some ice packed (free intercourse distributes comfort like a blessing far and wide; how could we otherwise have northern ice!) and other things to attend to; my writing will be a hurried business, and I am afraid my communication turn out as so many administrations or notes do—the introductory or promissory part will be the best of it, however poor even this may be. Now, sir, pray let the following succeed immediately after the and above: if you think that the subsequent lines will do, they are quite at your service, though I consider it hard that I must give, whatever I may send, “with my name”—a condition you have underlined. If you think you had better “lay it on the table to be taken up this day six months,” I shall have no objection.

Prussia had been humbled, almost annihilated in the battle of Jena; one Prussian fortress after the other surrendered, except Colberg on the Baltic. She retained what is called in German military language, her maiden reputation. Nettelbeck, an old sea captain and Major Schill, contributed most by their patriotic exertions, to the holding out of this place against the French, who overflooded all the Prussian provinces. Schill had been seriously wounded in the battle at Auerstædt, near Jena; but this did not prevent him from collecting some scattered infantrists and cavalrists and forming them into a corps, motley from without, but unanimous within. He restored to them confidence, and from the rallying of this small band must be dated, perhaps, the regeneration of Prussia. Schill's perseverance and the brave obstinacy of Colberg altogether, had a good effect upon Königsberg, whither the king and queen had fled, and a powerful one upon the whole kingdom. The mere idea—there is one spot at least, where the sweeping eagles of Napoleon have not been able to perch—became a moral rallying point for the stunned hearts of the Prussians. Schill was made lieutenant colonel, and he had the honor of being the first Prussian soldier that returned to the capital.

The effect of the misfortune which had befallen the royal house, was not that of alienating the subjects from the afflicted king and his beautiful consort. During the seven years war, the Prussians had become proud of their name; the government under Frederick William II, had certainly done much to cool all attachment of the people; now, after the disaster of Frederick William III, who was universally known to love justice, every one felt again strongly attached to the government, the country, the name of Prussia. The French, at whose hands the people received such galling insult and grinding oppression, were hated—calmly, thoroughly hated. No wonder then that the inhabitants of Berlin prepared for this day in the spring of 1808 as for a great festival. My father considered it so with the rest.

His youthful years had fallen in that momentous time when Frederick the Great made the Prussians a nation. As the great Dante has raised the Italian idiom from a “vulgar dialect” to a language stamped with his gigantic mind, and erected at once the most noble and most enduring monument with it, so has Frederick of Prussia elevated his people to a nation, stamped it with his mind, and at once led it into the temple of glory. There was no greater man in all the pages of history, for those who lived under Frederick, than himself. How often have I heard my grandfather describe the pillage of Berlin by the Russians after the unfortunate battle at Cunersdorf, how they stripped him of every thing, wounded him, and took him away as prisoner, ill-treating him in all possible ways. Still he would always end his story by—“But that was nothing; my greatest grief was about Frederick.” Nor can I forget the intensity of veneration with which my father would explain to us children some engravings on the walls of our sitting-room, representing some memorable actions of “his great king.” His greyhounds were forgotten on few of them.

My father went early with us to see the entrance of Schill. Coaches were out of question; they could not have proceeded in the throng. We soon lost my brothers in the dense crowd; but they were old enough to look out for themselves; I only remained with my father, and he grasped my hand firmly, to pull me through the almost impenetrable masses of loyal people. I suffered considerably, for I was very little, and frequently did I look from my lower regions at the patches of blue sky which now and then appeared above the heads of my taller equals, with a longing desire for some pure air and free breathing. After much tossing and pulling we found a place, where, as my father believed, I might see the whole procession from the top of a garden gate; he placed himself beneath me. It seems to me that we waited fully two hours, when, at length, the rumbling sound “he comes, he comes,” rolled toward us from a great distance. The sound was swelling, the trumpets could be discerned in the roaring noise of the crowds, and the yelling “vivat Schill” of the boys. I stretched my neck, I saw the four hussars, who opened the procession, cutting with great labor, their way through all the patriotism and loyalty; they approached, they were close by us, but with them had also come an irresistible, compact mass. Where is Schill? There he comes; do'nt you see?—and in this moment the wedge-like crowd broke down the fences, and I tumbled from the place where I had been envied by thousands of passers by. I fell upon another crowd, which had conglomerated behind the fence, and was carried along like an Imperator of old,—like a Franconian king after his election. But I did not remain long in this elevated situation, for the searching eyes of my father had discovered me. “This is my boy”—he exclaimed, “this is my boy!” while he was striving to press through the crowd; but when has a crowd listened to any thing? On it went, and I floated on a sea of heads and hats. At last my father, impelled by a parent's anxiety, almost driven by despair, succeeded in severing this piece of human mosaic. He grasped my foot, and down I went. My situation was in no way bettered, for the current of men continued to roll on; as Socrates threw himself over his beloved Alcibiades or Epaminondas over Pelopidas (I compare the great to the small) so resolved my father to form a shield over his urchin. This necessarily soon created a mountain of tumbling and scrambling individuals over me, and I should surely have been suffocated, had not most happily the layer over my father consisted of a huge grenadier, who, torn or driven from his line, had met with this living stumbling block. “There is a boy below,” he shouted, with a stentorian voice; “by G— he sha'nt be killed.” I considered this a very sensible speech, quite to the purpose; and felt happy indeed, when my Trim—if he was no sergeant, I would have given him the cheveron on the spot, had I possessed the power—succeeded in excavating me. Oh, with what feeling I drew breath! but Schill was gone; I heard the music at a distance long past by, while my father hugged me, his eyes beaming with joyful gratitude for my delivery.

We now mingled with the soldiers, and my father picked out three or four, to take quarters with us. So great was the ardor of the citizens of Berlin, to have some of the followers quartered with them, and in such a degree was all military order broken into, that it was impossible for the commanding officer to give any orders before his followers were dismissed, and he was obliged, the next morning, to publish the order, where and when the rendezvous should take place, through the police of the city. My father had caught an officer and several privates; we made them tell us of Colberg the whole livelong day, and pestered them with a thousand questions.

I had not seen Schill, the object of our wishes, but, soon after his arrival at Berlin, I began to make a heraldic collection, and it struck me, that it would be a fine beginning, could I place at the head the seal of Schill. So I went one day to his quarters and told the sergeant in waiting that I wished to see Schill. I peremptorily refused to tell him my business, and after some conversation, was admitted. I found Col. Schill in the garden, shooting with the pistol at a target. He asked me what I wanted. Your seal, sir, said I. And why my seal? was the reply. Because, said I, I love you, and wish to begin my collection with your coat of arms. Does your father love me too? he asked. Yes, replied I, all the Berlin people do. He seemed much moved, turned toward the other officers, while he treated me in the kindest manner, and said something which I now forget, but the import of which may be easily surmised. He then asked me to take luncheon with them, and I remember that he helped me to a glass of wine, saying—“Boy, be ever true to your country; here, let's touch our glasses on its welfare.” I remember nothing of his appearance, except the kind expression of his large blue eyes. I was a great man among my school-fellows the next day, and refused to exchange one of the seals which Col. Schill had given me, for the arms of the Emperor of Austria. When the signet of the King of Saxony was added, I parted with one of Schill's, but still I thought the advantage of the bargain on the other side.

Schill, you know, marched in 1809, when the Tyrolese had risen under Andrew Hofer, against the French, to second an insurrection, which had broken out in Westphalia, under Count Dörnberg. Schill marched, without order of his government, had several fights with the French, but could do nothing, as the insurrection in Westphalia was soon put down, after the brilliant success of Napoleon's army in the campaign of 1809 against the Austrians. Schill took Stralsund, and fortified it in haste; but on May 31 it was taken by Dutch troops, and Schill fell after a valiant resistance. His head was sent in spirits of wine to Holland; the King of Westphalia had offered ten thousand francs for it, when yet on his shoulders.

Twelve officers of the corps of Schill were taken prisoners, and sent to Wesel; a French court-martial sentenced them to be shot; for they were treated as common robbers. A maid of honor, at the court of Jerome, King of Westphalia, obtained, through the latter, a pardon from Napoleon for one of the officers under sentence of death. It arrived before the execution, but he firmly refused it, if it could not be extended to all. He was shot with the rest. Twelve trees designate to this day the spots where this brotherhood in death sank into the grave.

I have heard a calm and prudent kind of a reasoner, maintain that the officer had no right to refuse his pardon; that his action approached very closely to suicide. To me, it approaches rather to that offering of our life for our friends, which the Scripture designates as so holy a deed. Yet however that may be, a boy of stern and noble metal surely he must have been, and he is worthy to be mentioned together with the brave Van Spyke, who blew up himself and his crew rather than see the flag of his country insulted.

When we hear the word Dutch, we generally connect the idea of wide breeches, a long clay pipe and a placidly puffing mouth with it—things not very poetical in their association. And yet, these Dutch people have erected the most poetic monument to their youthful hero. A penny collection has been made throughout the country, for the amount of which they have erected a light-house far out in the sea, off the estuary of the Scheldt; and on the light-house stands written with colossal letters of iron, VAN SPYKE—nothing more. There, to direct the lonely mariner on the dangerous coast by night, burns the guiding light, and reminds him of a great deed; and when he passes in the day, the white pile, reared out of the tossing waves, he reads that name, which he, to whom it once belonged has added—a noble bequest—to the rich inheritance which his brave people—foremost in liberty, foremost in enterprize, foremost in readiness to die for religion—possess in the many pages of their proud annals.

Let us not laugh at the Knickerbockers and Rip Van Winkles, but rather imitate their nation and inscribe, with the single names of the bravest sailors, our naval history on the many light-houses which garnish our shores. Thus they would form instructive annals, intelligible to every hand before the mast—each light-house a chapter, telling a great story, inciting the commander as well as the aspiring youth, when they pass it to carry into distant seas our stripes and stars, and with them respect to our name, or greeting them with the best welcome a sailor desires, when they return from long and ardent cruizes. Long ere the wife or brother could welcome them, would thus their country have cheered their hearts by these simple but speaking monuments of acknowledged faithfulness to home and country. Let Congress decree, as the best reward for the noblest actions at sea, that the commander's name shall stand in huge letters of bronze on these warning or guiding beacons—the pyramids of modern industry and modern civilization—to indicate that as the sea shall never wash away these names, so shall no tide of time wash them out of the grateful hearts of their countrymen. And now Sir, I must take leave; the captain wants me on board. I am, &c. &c.

FRANCIS LIEBER.

To Edgar A. Poe, Esq.

THE OLD MAN'S CAROUSAL.

BY JAMES K. PAULDING.

Drink, drink, whom shall we drink?
A friend or a mistress? Come let me think.
To those who are absent, or those who are here?
To the dead that we lov'd, or the living still dear?
Alas! when I look, I find none of the last,
The present is barren, let's drink to the past.
Come! here's to the girl with the voice sweet and low,
The eye all of fire and the bosom of snow,
Who erewhile in the days of my youth that are fled,
Once slept in my bosom, and pillow'd my head!
Would you know where to find such a delicate prize?
Go seek in yon church-yard, for there she lies.
And here's to the friend, the one friend of my youth,
With a head full of genius, a heart full of truth,
Who travell'd with me in the sunshine of life,
And stuck to my side in its sorrow and strife!
Would you know where to find a blessing so rare?
Go drag the lone sea, you may find him there.
And here's to a brace of twin cherubs of mine,
With hearts like their mother's, as pure as this wine,
Who came but to see the first act of the play,
Grew tir'd of the scene, and so both went away.
Would you know where this brace of bright cherubs have hied?
Go seek them in Heaven, for there they abide.
A bumper, my boys! to a gray-headed pair,
Who watch'd o'er my childhood with tenderest care,
God bless them, and keep them, and may they look down
On the head of their son, without tear, sigh or frown!
Would you know whom I drink to—go seek midst the dead,
You will find both their names on the stone at their head.
And here's—but alas! the good wine is no more,
The bottle is emptied of all its bright store;
Like those we have toasted, its spirit is fled,
And nothing is left of the light that it shed.
Then, a bumper of tears, boys! the banquet here ends,
With a health to our dead, since we've no living friends.

PISCATORY REMINISCENCES.

“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them,” and so it is with angling. Some are born fishermen, some acquire the art, and it is thrust upon some by necessity. I read myself into it. My first penchant for angling was created by that prince of good fellows and good fishermen, Izaak Walton. I well remember one sunny spring morning, while reclining indolently in my little piazza with the “complete angler” open before me, I was suddenly smitten with a love for the “cool shaded stream” and the exercise of the angling rod. What a happy time of it hath the fisherman, thought I. How quietly his life passeth away; his spirits are always unruffled, and his bosom unknown to the cares that harass the rest of mankind. Here am I, always excited or depressed, and eternally ruminating upon dollars and cents, without ever allowing myself time to breathe the pure air of heaven in peace. I will turn fisherman, quoth I to myself, and immediately proceeded to purchase a rod and tackle just such as is recommended in the “complete angler,” mentally repeating all the while, one of honest old Izaak's wishes.

“I in these flowery meads would be,
These chrystal streams should solace me,
To whose harmonious babbling noise,
I with my angle would rejoice.”

Duly accoutred according to the directions of master Izaak, I wended my way with a light heart and impatient step, to the slippery banks of old Neuse, chasing and catching grasshoppers for bait, as I passed through a meadow that lay in my way. When arrived at the river I ensconced myself “secretly behind a tree,” fastened a grasshopper on my hook, and let it down to the water “as softly as a snail moves,” nothing doubting that I should soon draw forth a chub of the first water. There I sat with all the patience recommended by the “complete angler,” for two good long hours, expecting every moment to see the writhing grasshopper taken down by some monster of a chub. But nothing disturbed the poor fellow's kicking, except an impudent dragon fly that alighted on him, and sat there, floating lazily on the water and basking his bright wings in the warm sun, very prejudicially, as I thought, to Mr. Walton's manner of fishing. About this time I began to have some doubts as to the practice of master Izaak's rules for chub fishing in our uncivilized streams, and was pretty well cured of my fishing mania. I must say, though in justice to my preceptor, that I lacked one essential qualification for a fisherman—devotion, though I swore not an oath, sorely tempted as I was. This was doubtless the reason of my bad luck. After seeing the poor grasshopper make his last effort to get loose, without the least interruption from a chub, I despaired of ever being an angler, and “drew up stakes” to make for home, consoling myself with the reflection that “angling is like poetry—men are born to it.” As I trudged leisurely along I could not help thinking that I had been vastly more taken with the oddities and eccentricities of the devout old fisherman, than with the practice of his art in these unromantic regions, and inwardly assented to Swift's definition of angling—“a stick and a string, with a fool at one end and a worm at the other.” Ever since that day, I have been pointed at as the man that fished by the book, much to the gratification of my rustic neighbors, and mortification of myself.

ISRAFEL.¹

BY E. A. POE.

¹ And the angel Israfel who has the sweetest voice of all God's creatures.—Koran.

In Heaven a spirit doth dwell
Whose heart-strings are a lute:
None sing so wild—so well
As the angel Israfel—
And the giddy stars are mute.
Tottering above
In her highest noon,
The enamored moon
Blushes with love—
While, to listen, the red levin
Pauses in Heaven.
And they say (the starry choir
And all the listening things)
That Israfeli's fire
Is owing to that lyre
With those unusual strings.
But the Heavens that angel trod
Where deep thoughts are a duty—
Where Love is a grown god—
Where Houri glances are
Imbued with all the beauty
Which we worship in a star.
Thou art not, therefore, wrong
Israfeli, who despisest
An unimpassion'd song:
To thee the laurels belong
Best bard—because the wisest.
The extacies above
With thy burning measures suit—
Thy grief—if any—thy love
With the fervor of thy lute—
Well may the stars be mute!
Yes, Heaven is thine: but this
Is a world of sweets and sours:
Our flowers are merely—flowers,
And the shadow of thy bliss
Is the sunshine of ours.
If I did dwell where Israfel
Hath dwelt, and he where I,
He would not sing one half as well—
One half as passionately—
And a loftier note than this would swell
From my lyre within the sky.

JUDGMENT OF RHADAMANTHUS.

BY JAMES K. PAULDING.

One day, Rhadamanthus, the stern and wise judge of the dead, sat in the shades, passing sentence on the crimes, follies, and virtues of the human race, that flocked in myriads to his awful tribunal. On his right hand extended a delicious region, fragrant with flowers of unnumbered tints and odors, musical with the song of myriads of happy birds, and glowing in glories brighter than sunbeams, for they were reflected from the smiling face of an approving deity. On his left lay the kingdom of darkness and despair, where though nothing could be seen, the wretchedness of its tenants was sadly indicated by groans and howlings of suffering and despair, which might aptly represent the universal chorus of human misery. To the former, Rhadamanthus beckoned the good with a benignant and approving smile—to the latter, he condemned the wicked with a withering frown.

Few—alas! few and far between, were they who were beckoned to the land of delight, while crowds of wicked beings expiated in the region of howling darkness, the crimes of a guilty life. At length there approached a proud stately woman, clad carelessly in attire not the most cleanly, her cap on one side, her hands begrimed with ink, and a hole in either stocking. Pride and conceit sat on her brow, and she was passing to the right of the judge, towards the region of the blest, before receiving judgment, when Rhadamanthus stopped her, and demanded an account of her doings in the other world.

She seemed mightily indignant at this, and after muttering something about “an old ignoramus,” proceeded as follows:

“Your worship surely cannot be ignorant of the services I have rendered the present age, as well as posterity, in writing six folio volumes on political economy, the duties of kings, princes and governors, the character of different nations, and the true principles of government. That I might the more exclusively devote myself to these great objects, I resolved never to marry, lest the care of my household and children might interfere with the desire I had to be useful.”

“Humph,” quoth Rhadamanthus—and the woman of six folios mistaking this for an approving fiat, was about to pass into the happy region, when he sternly bade her remain where she was. Whereupon she tossed her head, cocked her chin, and took a pinch of snuff, half of which she flourished in the face of the judge.

At this moment there approached a respectable matronly female, of an open, contented, and happy countenance, which seemed the index of a virtuous mind. She was dressed in plain attire of exquisite neatness, and as she came before the judgment seat, made a low obeisance, reverent, yet devoid of fear. The judge returned the salutation with a bow, and asked in a voice of kind encouragement what she had been doing in her past life.

With timid modesty, she told her tale of usefulness. She had married a worthy man, whose house she tried to make a happy home, and whose moderate means she exerted all the becoming arts of domestic economy to render sufficient for the supply of all the rational wants of life. She had borne him six children, four sons and two daughters; of the former of whom, one was now fighting in defence of his country at the head of its armies; another was a judge administering the laws to the people with justice and mingled mercy; a third was cultivating his father's land, and watching over his declining age; and a fourth imitating the faith of his forefathers both by precept and example. The daughters were all happily married, and living a life of virtue, in the midst of their children.

The lady of the six folios listened to this detail of modest usefulness with unutterable scorn, but far different were the feelings of Rhadamanthus, who nodded and smiled approbation at every sentence.

“Approach,” cried he to the mother of six children, and the writer of six folios. “Thou,” addressing himself to the former—“Thou that hast made thy husband happy by thy cares and thy economy, and thy children useful to their country by thy precepts and example, pass into the region of the blest, and enjoy thy reward in an eternity of happiness. But thou”—and he frowned majestically—“thou that has preferred the quill to the spindle; to instruct mankind rather than teach thy children the ways of virtue; and to be the mother of six musty books, rather than of as many sons and daughters, to honor their parents, serve their country, and worship their God, thou shalt return again to the earth, where thy punishment shall be to give advice which none will follow, and write books that nobody will read.”

The happy mother passed into the region of bliss, and the instructer of nations returned to the earth, with a resolution to write another folio, contesting the decision of Rhadamanthus, and pointing out the abuses of his system of jurisprudence.

SCENES IN CAMPILLO.¹

BY LIEUT. A. SLIDELL.

¹ These hitherto unpublished Scenes in Campillo are from a new edition (now in press) of the “Year in Spain.” We are indebted for them to the kindness of the author and of the Messrs. Harpers.

The Andalusian village of Campillo is built on a plain, with regular and well-paved streets, houses in good repair and neatly whitewashed, each with its stone seat at the door, and grated cage projecting from the window and garnished with shrubs and flowers, the scene of many a tender parley and midnight interview. Everything in Campillo, to the village church and village posada, bespeaks a pervading spirit of order and cleanliness, and the little room into which I was installed, partook largely of these qualities. It looked upon the principal square of the village, having in front the church, with its Gothic tower surmounted by the simple emblem of our faith, and embellished with the unwonted decoration of a clock, under whose promptings a hoarse old bell muttered forth the passing hours. On another side of the square was the hotel of the Ayuntamiénto, which contained the offices of the municipal authorities and police; while opposite was a guard-room, in which were a few ill-fed soldiers, shabbily accoutred in dirty belts and rusty muskets. In the middle of the square was a plain granite fountain, surrounded by a kerb, which formed a reservoir for watering cattle.

For want of better occupation, I passed a great part of the day in gazing from my window upon the moving scene below. Sometimes a stable boy would bring a train of jaded mules to the fountain, give them water, and wash their backs where they had been galled by the pack-saddles. Next would come a party of mules, heavily laden; each muleteer having his carbine slung securely beside him. These would pause a moment, refresh their cattle at the fountain, and then pass on and leave the arena again solitary, until some modern Sancho came ambling across the square, sitting upon the end of a mouse-colored ass, which he would guide at pleasure by means of a staff, touching the animal first on one side of the neck, then on the other. He too would pause at the fountain, renew his journey, and then have a contest with the animal about stopping at the open door of the posada, disappearing at length in a rage, and at a full gallop.

While the middle of the square seemed given up to passing travellers, the sides were more exclusively occupied by the native worthies of Campillo. In the guard-house, the soldiers were all sleeping away the heat of the day upon wooden benches in the interior; while the one on post sat under the shade of the portico, with his musket leaning against the wall beside him, occupied in cutting up tobacco on a board to make paper cigars. Immediately under my window was a group of the village notables, seated upon the stone bench that ran along the whole front of the building, or gathered round the more important personages of the assemblage. I amused myself in assigning to each a character, and in guessing at the import of his discourse.

That well-fed royalist, with silver shoe and knee buckles, and the red cockade in his hat, is doubtless the Alcalde of Campillo. He is declaiming upon the late successes of the insurgent royalists in Portugal; and of those two who listen to him, and seem to catch the words that fall from his lips, the one is our own innkeeper paying his court to the powers that be, and the other, with the thin legs and long nose, who is followed by a half-starved dog, equally miserable with his master, is certainly the village doctor, the Sangrado of Campillo. He is evidently looked on contemptuously by the rest of the assembly, who are aware of his ignorance, and know that he owes his situation, and the right to kill or cure the good people of Campillo, rather to two ounces of gold opportunely bestowed on the Alcalde, than to any acquaintance with the healing art. The thick-set man in the oil-cloth cocked hat, with scowling look and bushy whiskers, who is fingering the hilt of his sabre, is the commandant of the royalist volunteers. He has become terrible to the “negros,” who will tell you that he is no better than he should be, that he began the world after the manner of Robin Hood, and passed in due season to the command of a royalist guerrilla. But who is that tall sharp featured individual, walking across the Plaza, with the village curate on one side and a capuchin on the other? That is doubtless the intendant of police, who has just received intelligence of some pretended revolutionary plot, and who will soon go with a force in search of persons and papers.

THE PINE WOOD.

A SONG—WRITTEN IN GEORGIA.

BY DR. ROBERT M. BIRD.

'Tis brave and good through the broad pine-wood,
As through a sea, to steer,
Cheering the heart and warming the blood,
In chase of the gallant deer;
Up o'er the hill, and down the hollow,
Still through a wood to go,
With some antique pine in the distance ever
Echoing your loud hillo.
Hillo! hillo!
In opening May, what a grand array
Of flowers is spread around!
Solemn, aloft, are the tree-tops gray,
But a garden on the ground;
With the pleasant wild-pink, goatsbeard, and brier,
And the wild-rose here and there,
Smelling so sweet in the desert woods,
And making them so fair.
Hillo! hillo!
Your dogs they rest on the ridgy crest,
When evening darkens o'er,
The trumpeter¹ creeps to her high perched nest,
The hawk he screams no more.
Down with a pine—how the light-wood catches!
And soon 'tis in a glow:
A merry fine time in the pines one passes,
When we camp—Now, my dogs, hillo!
Hillo! hillo!
Just at your ear, all night you hear
The wailing whippoorwill;
The turkey tramps through the hollow near,
The owl hoots from the hill;
The katydid, too, if the summer wake her,
Pipes out from the flame-bush nigh:
Sure, the song of the midnight woods is sweeter
Than mortal minstrelsy!
Hillo! hillo!
And hark! the sound that swells around!
How mournfully it gush'd!
A groan of air in the tree-trops drown'd,
A voice, half-heard, then hush'd;
The ghostly whisper, the sob, and sigh,
The dirge of the piny breeze,
As spirits were clustering over-head,
Like birds, upon the trees.
Hillo! hillo!
Then Memory wakes from her silent cell,—
Perhaps a tear is shed
For the few we love, or loved, so well,
The distant, or the dead.
But a truce to sorrow—the night is waxing,
The fire is burning low:
We sleep as well in the dry pine-wood
As ever in sheets of snow.
Hillo! hillo!

¹ The greater wood-pecker.

THE BATTLE OF LODI.

BY MAJOR HENRY LEE.¹

¹ We are pleased at an opportunity afforded us of presenting our readers in anticipation with an extract of great beauty from the second volume of Major Lee's Life of Napoleon. This volume will not be published for some time—many laborious investigations operating to delay the work much longer than was anticipated by its author. We are indebted to Major Lee himself for the MS,—who sends it to us from Paris.

Bonaparte, having despatched the affairs which on the evening of the action of Fombio called him back to Placentia; having adjusted the amount of contribution imposed on that town, provided for the immediate passage of his rear division across the Po, and signed an armistice with the commissioners of the Duke of Parma, hastened to rejoin his advance, and to resume the personal direction of its movements. He arrived at Casal Pusterlengo at 3 o'clock on the morning of the 10th, and marched without delay in pursuit of Beaulieu. Early in the forenoon, and at some distance in front of Lodi, with the grenadiers under Lannes, he reached the Austrian rear guard, composed of the grenadiers of Nadasti, and two squadrons of hussars, with two field pieces; which detachment, Beaulieu, that he might gain time to withdraw his main body, encumbered with a heavy train of artillery, across the Adda, had directed to defend to the last the approach to Lodi. The ground they occupied was found to be so strong that it was necessary to execute several manœuvres before they could be advantageously attacked. The onset of the French was made with that ardor which the presence of their general, and the confidence of victory inspired. The defence, which was as obstinate as the post was important, was persisted in until the French battalions pouring along in succession, the Austrians were nearly surrounded. They at last gave way, leaving their killed and wounded, with one field piece, on the field; and were pursued so closely into Lodi, that they could neither shut the gates nor cross the river before the French van-guard was in possession of the town.

Beaulieu's main body, upon which the fugitives retreated, consisting of 12,000 infantry, 4,000 horse, and 30 pieces of artillery, was drawn up behind field-works on the left bank of the Adda, and immediately opposite to Lodi; the artillery, in front, looking on the bridge, and the cavalry, a little withdrawn, on the flanks. From this position, in which he felt at last safe and unassailable, the Austrian general directed a violent cannonade on the town of Lodi, as soon as he perceived it was occupied by the French; and expecting rather to dislodge his adversary than to be himself disturbed, he declined destroying the bridge over the Adda, and thus interrupting his direct communication with Milan. To avoid and to mitigate the effect of this cannonade, Bonaparte sheltered his infantry and horse, as fast as they came up, behind the rampart of the town, which ran along the bank of the river; and planting advantageously his own artillery, opened a fire, which though supported by fewer guns, was more effectual than the enemy's, inasmuch as the Austrians were uncovered. Notwithstanding the strength of Beaulieu's ground, Bonaparte perceived, that with men like his, it was not impregnable; and persevering in his design of intercepting Wukassowich and Colli in their retreat to Mantua, he resolved, even under the Austrian guns, to force the passage of the Adda. The attempt was hazardous; but the soul of the enterprise consisted in its danger, and the main chance of success, in its apparent impossibility, which, so long as the bridge remained entire, was only apparent. To prevent its destruction, he proceeded in person, in full exposure to the Austrian artillery, to place two guns in such positions that their cross fires, which assisted by Berthier he himself tried, covered the farther end of the bridge, and rendered all approach to it impracticable. The freedom with which he exposed himself while making his skill as an artillery officer, instrumental to his success as their general, delighted the troops extremely, and was the occasion of their conferring on him that rank, which rendered him famous in the annals of the bivouac, as “the Little Corporal.” Then, comparatively at leisure, he made his preparations for forcing the passage, ordering the artillery officers to maintain their fire with unabated spirit, and directing Massena to give the rest of the troops, who were drawn up behind the rampart, and had been in constant exertion from 3 o'clock in the morning, a hasty breakfast and a short repose.

The force which he had in hand at Lodi was more formidable in character than numbers, consisting of three brigades of Massena's division, the grenadier corps lately commanded by Laharpe, and a reserve of light cavalry under general Beaumont, in all about 13,000 men; Gen. Kilmaine with the principal part of the horse, and Gen. Mesnard with a brigade of infantry, had been detached in the morning from Casal; the first to the left for the double purpose of keeping free that wing of the army, and of hanging upon the flank of the Austrian divisions in their retreat from Milan to Cassano; the second to the right, for security on that side, and with instructions to observe and act against the garrison of Pizzighitone. Serrurier's division being the last in crossing the Po, and having been directed to occupy Pavia, was at some distance in the rear; while Augereau's, which had encamped the previous night at Borghetto, was following by the way of Casal the progress of the advance. To this General, therefore, as additional force might be required at Lodi, orders were sent to expedite his march, and close up with the front as soon as possible.

Although the chief reliance for success in this undertaking, was to be on the courage and alacrity of the troops engaged in it, two circumstances enabled Bonaparte to bring its issue, in some degree, within the range of calculation. One of these was the information of the inhabitants, that at the present stage of the water, the Adda was fordable for cavalry, at a point half a league above the town; and the other, his own observation, that the Austrian commander, in order to shelter his troops from the French artillery as the French were sheltered from his own, had withdrawn his mass of infantry and his corps of horse behind a swell in the surface of the ground, to a position so much in the rear, that it placed them farther from the Austrian guns, than the French grenadiers would be when prepared to rush across the bridge. In the first he perceived an opportunity of annoying the right flank of the enemy, and distracting his attention at a critical moment; in the second, and more important one, the practicability, by a sudden and impetuous charge, of reaching his guns before his infantry could interpose; and in both the probability that his own column of attack, would be exposed but for an instant, to the enemy's artillery. Upon the edge of this sharp inference, which few minds would have had the acuteness to shape or the firmness to act upon, the fate of the day was to turn.

At 5 o'clock in the afternoon, when the men were refreshed, and when Augereau's immediate junction might be counted on, he directed Gen. Beaumont with the cavalry and four pieces of light artillery, to pass the Adda at the ford above, and having gained a footing on the opposite bank, to cannonade the right flank of the Austrians, and if practicable, to charge them. A column of attack 4,000 strong, composed of grenadiers, and having the second battalion of carabiniers or light infantry grenadiers, in front,² was formed under the orders of Massena behind the rampart of the town, with the leading sections so close to the gate, that by merely facing to the left, they would be ready to spring upon the bridge. The rest of Massena's troops had orders to follow in the charge instantly. The time required for the detour of the cavalry, Bonaparte employed in passing through the ranks of the grenadiers, by a few energetic expressions encouraging their zeal and rousing their intrepidity. Shouts of “long live the republic!” repeated by a thousand voices, welcomed his appearance, and proclaimed, that troops who had turned the Alps and traversed the Po, were not to be stopped by the Adda.³ The cannonade was continued with fury on both sides; when the guns of Beaumont being heard on the left, and the Austrian fire seeming to slacken at the sound, Bonaparte himself gave the word to advance. The drums beat the charge; and the assailants issuing from behind the wall, like a band of giants sprung from the earth, suddenly changed the face of the conflict and quickly brought it to a closer decision. Wheeling to the left, the leading sections rushed upon the bridge against a storm of fire, which at the first onset, was so fatal, that the head of the column reeled under its destruction. Bonaparte, aware that his attempt must prove instantly successful or dreadfully abortive, perceived the disorder in a moment, and in a moment repaired it. He hastened to the front, and seconded by Berthier, Massena, Cervoni, d'Allemagne, Lannes, Dupat, and the Commissary Salicetti, gave a fresh impulse to the charge; and the column closing its ranks and quickly redressing its disordered front, sprang forward with more determined valor and more ardent steps. The bridge, two hundred yards long, was instantly cleared. Dupat was the first officer across; Bonaparte himself was next after Lannes. The soldiers, impatient to get across, and crowding on their leaders, were seen as they approached the shore, some sliding down the timbers of the bridge, others leaping off into the water, and then speeding up the bank to close with the enemy. Displaying as rapidly as they passed, they threw in a close and a deadly fire, and falling upon the Austrian artillery before it could be supported, dispersed the men or killed them at their pieces. Then with fury they rushed upon the infantry, which, neither in time for rescue, nor in spirit for revenge, was advancing. A struggle too fierce to be lasting, ensued. The Austrians, discouraged by frequent defeats and constant misfortunes, were unnerved by this unexpected attack, which like a blast of death had swept across the river; and their line was already pierced and mangled, when Augereau coming up with his light brigade under Gen. Rusca, led it keenly into action and completed this double victory, which at one blow, severed a strong line of defence, and routed a formidable army. Part of Beaulieu's force fled, with their general, into the Venetian territory to Crema, part to Pizzighitone, some even to Cremona. His hussars endeavoring to cover the retreat, made several charges, which, owing to the firmness of the French infantry, were not successful.

² When Alexander's officers dissuaded him against attempting the passage of the Granicus, and particularly at a late hour in the day, he said—“The Hellespont would blush, if after having crossed it, I should be afraid of the Granicus.”—Plutarch's Life of Alexander.

³ Napoleon in his despatch reporting to the government the battle of Lodi (Moniteur, 20th May, 1796) says, his column of attack was formed of grenadiers, with the “second battalion of carabiniers in front.” In the French army there are both foot and horse carabiniers, the former of which were employed at Lodi, and are the grenadiers of the light infantry.

But the marches and fighting of the day had so much exhausted the victorious troops, that though still eager for glory they were panting for breath, and the pursuit was not carried far beyond the field of battle. The Austrians left on the ground 1,200 men killed and wounded, and in possession of the French 1,000 prisoners, 600 horses, 20 guns, and several stand of colors. Bonaparte's loss scarcely exceeded 200 in killed and wounded; such was the rapidity and effect of a movement which, with the nicest calculations of judgment, seemed to combine the wild boldness of inspiration.⁴

⁴ Formally announcing to his readers a minute description of the battle of Lodi, (vol. iii. p. 128) the author of Waverley prefaces it by assuring them that the Adda falls into the Po at Pizzighitone, a town at least twenty-five miles above its mouth; which is like saying that the Tiber falls into the sea at Rome. Another error into which he falls, requires more serious notice, because he founds on it a general prospective imputation of untruth against Napoleon, in reference to his military despatches, and his posthumous works. At page 134, this free and fanciful historian says—“Bonaparte states that they only lost 200 men during the storm of the passage. We cannot but suppose that this is a very mitigated account of the actual loss of the French army. So slight a loss is not to be reconciled with the horrors of the battle, as he himself detailed them in his despatches; nor with the conclusion, in which he mentions, that of the sharp contests which the army of Italy had to sustain during the campaign, none was to be compared with that ‘terrible passage of the bridge of Lodi.’”

Now the truth is, Napoleon never “details” nor even mentions, “the horrors of the battle” of Lodi, in any of his despatches. In that of the 22d Floreal, 11th of May, he says—“Although since the commencement of the campaign we have had some severe affairs, and it has frequently been necessary to expose the troops to fire in the freest manner, none of our struggles has come up to the terrible passage of the bridge of Lodi.” Here is certainly no “detail of the horrors of a battle,” implying a conflict and slaughter of some duration. On the contrary, in the body of the same despatch, he had previously described the severity of the affair, as existing only for a moment. “The grenadiers presented themselves on the bridge, which is 200 yards in length; the fire of the enemy was terrible; the head of the column seemed even to hesitate; a moment's hesitation and all would have been lost. The generals sensible of this, threw themselves in front, and decided the struggle while it was yet balanced. This formidable column overthrew every thing opposed to it; the enemy's artillery was instantly taken. In the twinkling of an eye his army was completely dispersed.” Salicetti's despatch is conceived in similar terms. The charge was made “with the rapidity of lightning”—the column hesitated “for an instant”—and renewing the charge, carried the Austrian artillery “in a moment.” In his account dictated to Montholon, (vol. iii. p. 214) Napoleon, who could hardly have anticipated a calumny of this kind, says—“the column traversed the bridge at a running pace, in a few seconds,” and “was not exposed to the fire of the enemy, except at the very moment when it wheeled to the left upon the bridge.” All this shows that the “storm of the passage” instead of consisting of a “detail of horrors,” was a momentary hurricane of shot, which swept off in an instant from the head of the column 200 men. Now the head of the column, could only have been a certain portion of the whole column. As the second battalion of carabiniers was in front, let us suppose this battalion constituted the head, and had got upon the bridge. We learn from a previous statement of Napoleon's, which is not disputed, (Montholon, t. 3, p. 205) that the ten battalions of grenadiers collected at Tortona, composed a force of 3,500 men. They had been marching and fighting ever since; but let us estimate the second carabiniers at 300; supposing them all on the bridge when the Austrians fired, and we have two thirds of them killed and wounded in a single instant! If this was not a sharp affair, a hot fire, a terrible passage, it is doubtful whether the annals of war furnish any thing that is. Cæsar lost but 200 men at the battle of Pharsalia, although the struggle had been at one moment so warm, that the brave Crastinus and thirty centurions fell.—Bello civili. L. 3, C. 99.

The head of the column being thus shattered, had the Austrian artillery quickly repeated and vigorously sustained their fire, the attempt of Napoleon must have failed. But it is evident that they were daunted and confused by the sudden rush of the French upon the bridge, by the opening of Beaumont's guns upon their flank, and by the want of support from their own infantry; and after delivering one fire, served their guns unsteadily and made little effectual resistance; for of all the distinguished persons who sprang to the front of the column, eight in number, not one was even wounded. This agrees perfectly with another passage of Napoleon's report, which is of itself a refutation of Sir Walter's calumny. “If we have lost but few men, it is owing to the promptitude with which the charge was executed, and to the sudden effect produced on the enemy, by the imposing mass and dreadful fire, of our intrepid column.”

But the author of Waverley, finding that no authentic narrative of this action furnished the desired “horrors of the battle,” resolved, it seems, in order to color his charge of wilful and habitual misstatement against Napoleon, to prepare a set of horrors of his own, expressly for the occasion. At page 133, therefore, he asserts, in opposition to the report of Napoleon, that of Salicetti, the memoires of Napoleon, the histories of Jomini and Desjardins, all of which were in existence when he wrote, that “from the windows of the houses on the left side of the river, the soldiers who occupied them, poured volley upon volley of musketry on the thick column as it endeavored to force its way over the long bridge.” This detail seems with little variation to be transposed from his own spirited account of the battle of Bothwell bridge. “But the bridge was long and narrow, which rendered the manœuvres slow as well as dangerous, and those who first passed had still to force the houses, from which the covenanters continued to fire.”—Old Mortality, chapter xxxii. After this it would be needless to remark upon the next passage in Sir Walter's commentary, which runs thus: “In fact, as we may take occasion to prove hereafter, the memoranda of the great general, dictated to his officers at St. Helena, have a little too much the character of his original bulletins; and while they show a considerable disposition to exaggerate the difficulties to be overcome, the fury of the conflict, and the exertions of courage by which the victory was attained, show a natural inconsistency, from the obvious wish to diminish the loss which was its unavoidable price.”

The French cavalry, with the exception of a small party headed by Marmont, and composed mostly of Bonaparte's escort, took no part in the action, and received none of the General's praise. It was alleged that the ford was found less practicable and the circuit more extensive, than had been counted upon. But the conduct, or rather the nullity of this corps, at Lodi could hardly have lessened the dissatisfaction which Bonaparte expressed the day before in a letter to Carnot. “I will confess to you, that since the death of Stengel, I have not a single fighting man among the superior officers of cavalry. I wish you would send me two or three Adjutants General, who have risen in the dragoons, possess a spark of military fire, and are firmly resolved never to make skilful retreats.” It was not until the French had reached the borders of the Mincio, and by capture or contribution had furnished their troopers with heavy horses; and when Murat, being returned with promotion from Paris, had an opportunity of displaying that unbounded courage which gave a romantic splendor to the technical force of his charges, that the cavalry of the army of Italy began to prove worthy of their General's skill in war, and to rival the infantry in prowess.⁵ The conduct of the grenadiers, and particularly of the battalion of carabiniers, was above praise or description. When Bonaparte asked for the names of the men who formed the leading section of the column, for the purpose of mentioning them honorably in his report, the names of the whole battalion were handed him. Léon, a sergeant of the thirty-second, whose courage had been noticed at Monteligino and Montinotte, and Laforge, a grenadier of the twenty-first, remarkable for activity and strength, appear however to have been most conspicuous. The sergeant, after passing the bridge in the front section, led the assault upon the Austrian batteries. The grenadier, throwing himself into the enemy's intrenchments, slew five men with his own hand. Among the generals in like manner, the gallantry of Berthier was judged pre-eminent. To these circumstances Bonaparte made allusion in his report. “Were I to mention all who distinguished themselves, I should be obliged to name all the carabiniers and grenadiers of the light division, and almost all the officers of the staff. But I must not forget the intrepid Berthier, who himself acted as gunner, horseman, and grenadier, on this memorable day.”⁶ Yet however excellent the spirit of the troops and the conduct of the officers, few victories were ever, in so great a degree, the result of the General's sagacity and courage, as that of Lodi.⁷ His modesty in making no reference to himself in his report, was as heroic as his conduct in the battle.

⁵ This account of the French cavalry at Lodi is confirmed by the words of Napoleon's report—“the ford being found very bad, the cavalry was greatly retarded, and could not charge.” It corresponds with the observation respecting them in his memoires (Montholon, t. 1, p. 4.) Yet Lockhart insists, that at the battle of Lodi and during the charge of the French grenadiers, “Beaumont pressed gallantly with his horse upon the Austrian flank.” The same critical historian, who appears to have written for the sole purpose of repeating or inventing misrepresentations, copies devoutly Sir Walter's errors; one importing that the vanguard of grenadiers who first passed the Po, was commanded by Andreossi, and the other that the Adda falls into the Po at Pizzighitone.

⁶ In the report, neither of Napoleon nor of Salicetti, is it stated that they were personally engaged in this charge. But at St. Helena, “some one having read an account of the battle of Lodi, in which it was said that Bonaparte displayed great courage in crossing the bridge; and that Lannes passed it after him—‘Before me,’ said Bonaparte, with much warmth; ‘Lannes passed first and I only followed him. It is necessary to correct that on the spot’—and the correction was accordingly made in the margin of the book.” (Haylitt, vol. i. p. 449. See also Lockhart, t. 1, p. 47.) Here first must mean before me; for in his despatch to the Directory of the 22d July, (Moniteur of the 1st of August,) in reporting a successful assault on the outworks of Mantua, and extolling the conduct of the officers engaged in it, Napoleon says—“The chief of battalion Dupat, who commands the brave fifth battalion of grenadiers, is the same officer who passed the first the bridge of Lodi.” In his despatch, Bonaparte tells the Directors that Salicetti was constantly at his side, a fact which shows the latter was in the charge, and which otherwise would probably not have been mentioned. He also says—“the army is under real obligations to him,” referring no doubt by the word real, to the false pretensions set up, by Salicetti and his colleagues, or for them, in regard to the storming of Little Gibraltar at Toulon, which are noticed in the first volume (p. 365) of this work.

⁷ After this anecdote, the author of Waverley lugs into his narrative, the following compliment to the national vanity of his countrymen. (Vol. iii, p. 137.) “This somewhat resembles the charge which foreign tacticians have brought against the English, that they gained victories by continuing, with their insular ignorance and obstinacy, to fight on, long after the period when if they had known the rules of war, they ought to have considered themselves as completely defeated.” Such impertinence and bad taste deter imitation, or it might be said, this charge against Sir Walter's compatriots has never been urged by officers of the army or navy of the United States—neither on the lakes nor on the ocean; at Saratoga, nor at New Orleans, where the “flower of the peninsular veterans,” as Sir Walter himself admits, (vol. viii. p. 474,) led by the disciple and brother-in-law of Wellington—sought a combat with an inferior force of western militia, and were perfectly sensible of a total defeat.

“Testis Metaurum flumen et Asdrubal
Devictus, et pulcher fugatis
Ille dies Latio tenebris.”

Although the possession of Milan and the submission of Lombardy were consequences of the battle of Lodi, Bonaparte was disappointed in one of the principal objects which he hoped to gain by it. Wukassowich and Colli, feebly annoyed by Kilmaine, had crossed the Adda at Cassano, in the forenoon of the day; he forced a passage at Lodi, and taking the upper route, by the way of Brescia, to Mantua, were beyond the reach of interception. Relinquishing, therefore, further efforts against these Generals, he determined to attack Pizzighitone before it could be put in a state of defence, and marched for that purpose on the morning of the 11th, down the left bank of the Adda. The flight of a few shells seconded by the cannonade of Mesnard from the right bank of the river, compelled the garrison of three hundred men, which Liptay had left behind him, to surrender. Cremona, a more important fortress, opened its gates the same day to General Beaumont, who after charging a body of the fugitives from Lodi, appeared before it with an advance guard of cavalry.

From this point, which was the present limit of his career, Bonaparte determined to lead back his forces in order to secure the country they had overrun; and turning his views toward Milan, resolved to impress on that capital and other cities of Lombardy, the stamp of French authority, in the room of that which his victories had expelled. This operation, which first called into exercise his abilities for government, appears to have awakened the germs of that high ambition, which, nurtured by the possession of great civil qualities, placed him so far above all the other Generals of his age, and conducted him to a sphere of elevated greatness which a mind supported by military talents alone, and ambitious only of success in war, can never reach. In recurring to the events of his early life, he afterwards said—“Neither my success on the thirteenth of Vendemiaire, nor in the campaign of Montenotte, made me believe myself a superior man. It was not until after the battle of Lodi, that I began to think I might become a decisive actor on our political theatre. Then it was, that the first spark of high ambition was kindled in my soul.”

Suspending for the moment his further advance towards the Adige, he thus disposed of his troops: The light division lately commanded by Laharpe, was distributed along the Adda from Como to Cassano; and that of Serrurier, which had been under orders to occupy Pavia, was recalled and posted at Lodi, Pizzighitone and Cremona, so as to complete the possession of the line of the Adda. From this last place, he was to observe the discomfited forces of Beaulieu, who were reassembling behind the Oglio and the Mincio. Augereau was directed to take possession of Pavia, and to exhibit in that celebrated city, which was next to Milan itself in importance, one of the finest divisions of the invading army; while to Masséna was assigned the still more honorable duty, of receiving the keys of the noble capital of Lombardy. At the head of his division, this distinguished General marched from Lodi, on the 13th of May.

The hostile forces being now separated, the imperialists collecting their shattered battalions within the Venetian frontier, and the republicans spreading their victorious divisions over the plains of Lombardy, the reader's attention will be inclined to turn from the constant success of the one, and the uniform defeat of the other party, to the conduct of their respective commanders. He will observe that while a lamp of foresight guided the French General, the Austrian was bewildered in a cloud of uncertainty. Though active, courageous, and experienced, Beaulieu was throughout the struggle, as distracted in his efforts as a sightless pugilist, who knows neither where to aim nor to expect a blow; and although operating in the open field and in a populous quarter of his own country, was invariably subjected to the effect of surprise. The passage of the Po, the combat of Fombio, the victory of Lodi, operations which constituted the leading acts of this brilliant section of the campaign, were, each of them, the result of an attempt, which had it been foreseen, might have been frustrated. But while Beaulieu was guarding the Po at Valenza, Bonaparte had passed it at Placentia; while he was preparing to support Liptay at Fombio, that General was already defeated; and while he felt unassailable and meditated offensive operations at Lodi, he was himself overthrown by a blow of such quick and incalculable energy, that it was impossible to fear, withstand, or recover from it.

The confusion and dismay which these circumstances spread through the ranks of the imperial army, are aptly exemplified by the anecdote which Bonaparte records of an old Hungarian captain, with whom among other captives he fell in, while making the rounds of his camp, the night after the surrender of Pizzighitone. The prisoner, who did not know to whom he spoke, being asked by the General what he thought of the state of the war, replied—“nothing could be worse, and that it was altogether incomprehensible.” “We have to do,” he added, “with a young General who is at one moment in our front, at another in our rear, and the next on our flanks. One knows not how to take him. This manner of making war, against all rules, is insupportable.”

Bonaparte on the other hand, seizing the initiative by his boldness and maintaining it by his activity, divined the intentions of his adversary on all occasions, and confounded them, as with the overruling force of destiny. Accordingly, though operating with little more than his vanguard, he predominated irresistibly in the campaign, defeating the corps which came in his way, terrifying those which kept out of it, and in defiance of obstructions that seemed to others insurmountable, by an electric shock of genius and audacity, hurling to the ground the military strength and political power of his once gigantic antagonist.

MARCUS CURTIUS.

BY OMEGA.

A Roman matron thus addressed her son:
“Why, at this time, wilt thou put armor on;
No foreign foes menace thy native land,
No hostile galleys seek her guarded strand—
At peace with all but Gods, thou dost not hope
In martial pride with Heavenly power to cope?
Oh say thou goest not, as much I fear,
To view yon gulph of terror and despair:
It open'd at the word of angry Jove,
And 'till our prayers win mercy from above,
A million, brave as thou, might spend in vain
Their strength or lives to close its depths again.
No answer, Marcus? Ah, my heart sinks down
With sad presentiment of ills unknown.
Why shade those ringlets, trimm'd with scrup'lous care,
A brow whose gloom thy mother cannot cheer?
And deck'd more gaily than a bridegroom—why
Turn'st thou on me a grave and mournful eye?
Remain with me, my son, but this one day—
To-morrow take my blessing with thee;—say,
Shall she who gave thee birth implore in vain?
Unblest by me, what canst thou hope to gain?”
To this alone he calmly made reply— |
His gaze on her, his right hand raised on high— }
“Safety for Rome——renown that ne'er shall die!” |
No kind farewell, tho' shower'd her grief like rain—
He knew himself, nor dar'd to look again;
But shook his plume, suppress'd the gathering tear,
Turn'd his proud horse, and urg'd his fleet career.
His parent gazed in that convulsive grief
Which burns the heart, nor finds in tears relief—
No Spartan she to bid him wear his shield,
Or be borne on it from the battle field.
“Oh Death,” she cried, “a desolate mother see!
In mercy strike, and set my spirit free!
I'll seek my son on thy unfriendly shore,
My heart assures me he returns no more.”
* * * * *
Though Rome's ten thousands throng'd the Forum: there—
All stood aloof in more than mortal fear,
Save now and then, a veteran or a priest
Approach'd the gulph, more hardy than the rest,
And gaz'd on what the boldest might confound—
So vast its depth, so black, and so profound.
Sulphurous, stifling exhalations rose,
With hollow sounds, perchance the laboring throes
Of a new Ætna, whose volcanic ire
Might burst ere long, and deluge Rome with fire:
But when the priestly train, in pomp and state,
Proclaimed aloud the stern decree of Fate,
That never more should close that dread abyss,
Or Rome know safety, 'till the appointed price
Of peace with Heav'n were paid, by burying there
All that she held most precious—then despair
Gave way to patriotic hope, and soon
Money and costliest goods were tossing down
With eager haste, 'till Curtius rode along
The precipice, and thus bespoke the throng.
“Romans, withhold your gifts—the Gods behold
Unmoved this reckless waste of gems and gold!
Think ye the wealth of conquer'd realms can save
Th' imperill'd city from this yawning grave—
That Rome, whose banner to the skies unfurl'd,
Proclaims the future mistress of the world,
Can bring, when to her last resources driven,
No purer, costlier boon to proffer Heaven
Than sordid ore, which every miser craves,
The bane of freedom, and the life of slaves?
Be sure it needs in this abyss to throw
What gold ne'er bought, and Gods alone bestow.
Our guardian deities do most approve
Of military courage, and the love
Of native land; and if within my heart
These virtues may be found, I now depart
Alone to fathom the impervious gloom,
And be this gulph my altar and my tomb!
Oh may propitious Jove with favor see
This sacrifice, and Rome remember me!”
Rider and horse have reached the brink—one bound,
And, like a dream, he disappeared!——no sound,
No shout of triumph, or of dread, to tell
His fate, who dar'd so nobly and so well.
Strange horror, admiration, and regret,
Spell-bound that multitude—thereon was set
Silence unearthly—even as with a seal
Unbroken—'till a muttering thunder-peal,
Low, sad and solemn, through the empyrean rung,
As tho' the Gods his funeral requiem sung—
While slowly to its music closed the tomb
That held the saviour and the pride of Rome.
The act—its motives—its results, imprest
A sacred awe on every Roman breast.
In silence to their rescued homes they turn'd,
And inly blest the hero while they mourn'd;
They rais'd no arch, in vain triumphal pride,
Recording how or wherefore Curtius died—
No column trophy-crown'd: no sculptured stone;
These but emblazon what were else unknown:
A death whose influence might ne'er depart,
Had shrin'd his heroism in every heart.
Immortal Curtius, Heaven hath deigned to hear
Thy aspirations and thy dying prayer
For Rome and for thy memory: it shall be
A watchword to the patriot and the free
'Till Rome shall perish. Since thy deed sublime,
Two thousand years have join'd the flight of Time;
Earth's mightiest empires, one by one o'erthrown,
Have seen thy country matchless and alone;
Supreme in arts and arms. Her godlike race
Of statesmen, poets, orators, who grace
Th' eternal city's annals, have arisen,
And shone, and set like stars—and o'er the scene
Of her departing greatness, trod the throng
Of unredeeming tyranny and wrong;
The Goth, the Vandal, and the Hun have given
Her pride and grandeur to the winds of heaven.
New times, new creeds, new worlds have sprung to birth,
And countless changes overswept the earth,
But kindles still the generous emotion
Of youth, at thy heroic self-devotion;
Nor may the votaries of a purer faith,
And loftier hopes, think slightly of thy death—
For had thy lot in after days been thrown,
Thou might'st have been a Christian, and have known
The ardent zeal which, shrinking not t' engage
The fangs of beasts, or man's more brutal rage,
Had given thy spirit from the flames to rise,
And seek a martyr's crown beyond the skies;
By thy example fired in many a land
Shall future Washingtons and Hampdens stand,
Unbought by gold, unaw'd by despot power,
Between their country and her perilous hour—
And in the historic page their names shall shine
In stainless lustre, unimpaired, like thine.

Richmond, July 25.

BRITISH PARLIAMENT IN 1835.

NO. II.

THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

The chamber of the House of Lords is close to that of the Commons. The constant communication between these two bodies, renders it necessary that they should sit within the same palace. The recent destruction of the old Parliament House, by fire, has not separated them. Their temporary chambers are connected by temporary passages, leading from one to the other. Along them Members of the House of Commons, personally, carry their bills to the bar of the Peers; while the Peers despatch their messengers to lay their own before the representatives of the people.

The Ministers do not fail to avail themselves of this proximity. Being entitled to a seat only in that chamber to which they belong as Members of Parliament, when any struggle between themselves and the opposition is going on at the same time in both houses, they are at least enabled to exchange messages, from minute to minute, and to regulate their movements accordingly.

Thanks to this proximity, the noise and uproar of the popular branch, has alone, more than once, made the members of the more aristocratic body tremble on their seats. While the fanatical coalition of the Lords, temporal and spiritual, assailed the intrepidly defended, but badly fortified ministry of Lord Melbourne, more than once, the thundering voice of the Commons has relaxed the fury of the assailants, and encouraged the resistance of the besieged. The victorious cry of the reformers, led by Lord John Russell, often threw into confusion the conquered conservatres of Sir Robert Peel.

But it is necessary to describe this second arena of political warfare.

The chamber of the Lords is of the same form as that of the Commons—a lengthened square. The benches are generally placed in the same way; but the decorations are of a more striking appearance. Looking from the only gallery, common to the public and the reporters, you behold the throne immediately in front. This throne is not, as in France, a piece of furniture placed in the chamber every year, on the first day of the session. Here it is immovable.

Below is the celebrated woolsack, the seat of the real President of the assembly. Custom has determined that this must be a sort of sack—a bench without a back.

The apartment for the clerks is separated from the woolsack by two benches, on which two places are reserved for the Masters in Chancery, the official messengers of the chamber.

The covering and drapery of the throne, the hangings of the walls, the carpet, the screens, the benches, cushions and backs, every thing is red in this hall. Red is the aristocratic color. When the Peers, on the occasion of a visit from the King, are seated in state, with their red mantles, the whole appearance of the chamber is more dazzling than imposing. The appearance of the Commons at the bar, in their simple every day dress, presents a striking contrast. One smiles in spite of himself on reflecting that those are not the masters, who are thus sumptuously dressed in garments of purple.

This hall, in which the Lords are temporarily convened, was formerly the bed-chamber of Edward the Confessor. One can well imagine that if the four hundred and thirty nobles should take it into their heads to meet at the same time, that this room would with great difficulty contain them; but this fancy rarely ever seizes them. It is a great occasion which draws together even two hundred. The Peers enjoy a singular privilege which renders personal attendance almost unnecessary. They can vote by proxy. So that, when any one of them desires to travel on the continent, he leaves, if he choose, a power with some Peer of his own party, who exercises this delegated right of voting as often as he pleases, when he pleases, and how he pleases, except in divisions of a committee. Formerly the royal authority alone could render these powers available. Now even this is not required. At the present time, the Duke of Wellington, for instance, has his pocket full of tory votes.

The Peers who are in the habit of attending Parliament, find the present hall very small and uncomfortable. The government, which is building a new Parliament House, has consulted them on its dimensions; and it has been decided that it shall be neither very large nor very small. No one ever thought of building it on the supposition that the whole of the Peers would assemble at one time within its walls. This hypothesis has never even been suggested. The number of Peers present at the same time, has never been greater than on the question of the passage of the principal amendment attempted against parliamentary reform, the 7th of May, 1832. On that occasion there were two hundred and sixty-seven members in the house. That number was taken as the maximum: each member will be allowed three feet square. It is evident that the noble Lords are divided between the desire to be seated comfortably, and the fear of having too large an apartment, in which on some day or other a crowd of intruders may lodge themselves.

One word on the constitution of this chamber. Nothing can be more various than the elements of which it is composed. It has, first, its Peerages hereditary under the law of primogeniture—these are the English Peerages, and are beyond all comparison the most numerous; next, the Scotch and Irish Peerages, which are elective, but on different principles. The Scotch Peers are nominated only for a single Parliament; the Irish are for life. There are besides Ecclesiastical Peers, Archbishops and Bishops, English or Irish, who sit, the former on their own right, and for life, the latter by turns, every year, four by four.

In England the Peerage forms the only nobility possessed of any real title. One who is not a Peer has no legal title. The sons of Peers are not authorized to assume, in their public acts, any title of nobility. Even the eldest sons are only Lords by general consent and courtesy. The official list of the Peerage is the only official list of the nobility. The peerages are of different ranks; and among those of the same class, the most ancient has precedence. Thus there are in the first place, Dukes, then Marquises, Earls, Viscounts, and Barons. The Bishops and Archbishops, known as Lords Spiritual, are ranked according to their respective dignity. The Archbishops of England have the rank of Dukes, and even precede them. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the primate and head of the church, is a sort of English Pope, and follows immediately after the Princes of the blood. He is the first Peer of the House of Lords. The Lord Chancellor (when there is one) is, in virtue of his office, the second; and the Archbishop of York is the third. The Bishops are ranked as Barons, and have precedence of them.

The Barons of Kingsale, like the Grandees of Spain, enjoy the exclusive and hereditary privilege of remaining uncovered in the presence of the King. The Peers have no other privileges, (excepting the peculiar style in which they are addressed, as “his grace,” or the “right honorable,”) which are not common to them all. Their chief privileges are those which prevent the seizure of their goods, their being arrested for debt, or judged by default in any civil action. They cannot be held to answer any criminal process but before their Peers. The reason of the inviolability of their persons in these and many other cases, is to be found in the fiction by which the Peers are all considered as counsellors of the King, and therefore secured in this perfect personal freedom, that they may be always ready to serve the necessities of the crown.

The House of Lords can only exclude a member and deprive him of the privileges of his rank, by convicting him of some capital or infamous crime. However, Blackstone mentions that, during the reign of Edward IV, George Neville, Duke of Bedford, was degraded by act of Parliament, on account of his poverty, which prevented his keeping up a style suited to his rank as a Peer. This fact is the more curious, as it is the only one of the kind, in the whole history of Parliament. Subsequently, a practice the very reverse has prevailed. So that, recently, the Earl of Huntingdon, though reduced to extreme indigence, has succeeded in establishing a contested claim to the Peerage, and the King has endowed him to enable him to sustain his rank as becomes a nobleman.

In England the aristocracy is firmly established. Each Peerage rests, at least fictitiously, on a real title, based on landed property. France and Spain, with a much larger and more ancient and illustrious nobility, have, however, never had a powerful and deeply-rooted aristocracy. If the French noblesse of the States-General had formed a political body strongly seated, properly supported, and distinctively marked, the revolution could not have overthrown them with as much ease as it did. Louis XVIII undertook, in 1814, to construct an upper house; he was too late—the materials were wanting—he built with sand on a foundation of sand.

It is now two years since M. Martinez de la Rosa also endeavored to form one in Spain. Well! in the country where every body is a hidalgo, he was unable to find grandees and tilulos for his frail edifice. He went to work like the French political masons in 1831; he took political economists, philosophers, judges, lawyers, poets, merchants, and mixed them all up with the little of true nobility that remained. With this mortar he built his proceres, destined to last about as long as the new Peers of France.

It is certain that the British Peerage has no longer the solid strength it once possessed; but, though weakened and shaken, it maintains itself by the vigor of its original organization; it does not absolutely arrest the popular torrent, but it resists, even in letting it pass along. However, this flood will not always dash without injury, around the House which forms an obstacle to its course; it is fast undermining its foundations; and will soon or late overthrow the whole mass. It will have been long submerged while Westminster Abbey still mirrors itself in the Thames. Such is the lot of the works of the middle ages. Its buildings outlive its strongest institutions.

The British Peerage is not only a legislative body; it is at the same time a court of justice—not an extraordinary court for the trial of its own members or persons accused of high treason, but a permanent and regular court—a supreme court of appeals in civil matters. These two attributes are, however, as distinct as the unavoidable consequences of this double capacity will permit; good sense has corrected in practice, the theoretical absurdity of the law. Although every Peer is born a competent judge in every cause, as he is a born legislator, the House of Lords only sits as a common tribunal when it is represented by the lawyers belonging to its own body. For example, Lord Brougham or Lord Lyndhurst, both Ex-Chancellors, usually sit in the morning, and give a final judgment on civil suits brought to that court.

No divorce can be pronounced but by act of Parliament. The Peers decide on all process for separation. As in these cases the only question is about facts which no legal knowledge is required to comprehend, they are decided indifferently by the Law-Peers, or any others present at the commencement of the political session. So the House of Lords is at the same time a court and a legislative chamber; a barbarous amalgam.

If the strict rules of ceremony were preserved, the Peers should sit according to their ranks; that is to say, Dukes on the first benches, Marquisses on the second, and the Barons on the third. This order is, however, not observed. They range themselves like the Commons, according to the political party to which they belong, Barons, Earls, Dukes or Marquisses indiscriminately. During the session just closed, the ministry of the whigs and their friends, occupied the seats to the right of the woolsack; the opposition of the tories, those on the left.

We use the terms “whigs” and “tories,” for these words are most suitable to the House of Lords. The whole aristocracy being centered in that House, the Peers only represent themselves; they do not express the will of such or such a party, but their own will. Lord Durham and Lord Brougham, both radicals, are anomalies and differ entirely from their fellows.

The political classification of the House of Lords, is more simple and easy than that of the Commons. There is at present, as during the last century, in the Upper House, two different shades of aristocracy, which fiercely contend for power and the emoluments of office; the tories, consistent at least with their anti-liberal principles, the triumph of which, if such triumph could be accomplished peacefully and without a revolution, would be the only safety for the Peerage; the whigs, very much embarrassed by their pretended popular opinions, of the sincerity of which proofs by acts and not by words, are begun to be required.

Numerically these two divisions are far from being equal. Counting consciences, you would have ten tories for one whig. However, in 1832 the whig minority forced the tories to capitulate; and, since that time assisted by the pressure from without, it has more than once dictated the law to its adversaries. But the period is rapidly approaching when the true majority will attempt to break the yoke, perceiving that concessions can no longer avail to secure its safety. It would be at least as becoming to seize the sword, and fall in defending its ramparts, as to wait seated on its curule chairs, the political death which threatens it.

The rules and customs of the two chambers in some respects resemble, and in others differ from each other.

In the House of Lords the members remain covered as in the Commons; and in the former chamber more etiquette is preserved. It is more rare to see their Lordships convert their benches into beds, or imitate with their legs the signs of a telegraph. The murmurs of the House are more subdued and civilized, the disapprobations expressed with more courtesy; the arena of discussion generally presents less animating and striking scenes; there is more concession, and more unity. You witness none of that strife of common-places which exasperate to so great a degree the patience and the politeness of the Lower House. There, for one eloquent harangue, you will have to submit to ten stupid ones, which serve no other end than to lengthen and injure the discussion. In the Lords able speakers are not so common, and do not abuse to so great a degree their right of speaking. It is true that the Peerage is but a groupe, but a little intrenched garrison; and you should not expect either reserve, or discretion, or discipline, in such a multitude as the Commons; an impatient army bivouacing whole nights on the benches, and where each soldier wishes to be a conqueror.

TO A TORTOISE-SHELL COMB.

BY MRS. E. F. ELLET.

Being an humble imitation of the style of some modern poets, by the prism of whose fancy the most common objects are invested with the hues of poesy, even as the sunbeam turneth to diamonds the dews which heedless night hath flung over the earth.

There is more in thy history than meets
The eye of cold observance. Had'st thou words
To speak imprisoned secrets, how would all
Thy silent, chiselled labyrinths resound
With thought transcending eloquence! Deep things—
The passionate breathings of a hidden voice,
And young and fond imaginings that swell
The fountains of a yet untroubled soul,
Ere to the world its flowings have gone forth—
Thou hast been witness to. Thou hast reposed,
Pressed by a pearly hand, upon a brow
Stainless and lofty; and thou hast been worn
When the full tide of youth and loveliness
Coursed wildly through her heart, o'erlooking all
Her regal swanlike grace; moved when she moved,
In blest obedience—perchance hast stooped
To watch the speakings of her mantling cheek,
And felt the haughtiest tossings of a head
Whose classic beauty might a Phidias shame.
And when the hour of twilight musings came
And thy fair mistress in the leafy bower,
Or by the curtained casement, lay entranced
In all the dreamy luxury of thought,
When the soft odors of the sleeping flowers
Stole forth on dewy wing to visit her,
And bathe her brow in sweetness—when she looked
To the far, quiet stars, that glanced abroad
In silent, glorious beauty—thou hast strayed
Carelessly through the long fair locks that lay
Like a sun-kindled cloud across her neck:
Lifting each half unconscious tress in pride,
Fondly and lingeringly entwining it,
As loth to quit thy lovely resting place.
And thou art—aye, sweet shell—more favored far
To owe thy polish to her gentle touch,
Than the most honored worshipper who kneels
Before her shrine: than he who holds thee now
Betwixt a reverential thumb and finger,
Absorbed in admiration of thy worth.

New York, 1836.

INFLUENCE OF NAMES.

“What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.”—Shakspeare.

Shakspeare was mistaken. There is a great deal—there is almost every thing in names. Their influence is felt at all times, and under all circumstances. In war and peace—in morals, literature and religion—in the world of fashion—and above all, in politics, the despotism of names is all powerful, universal and irresistible. Nay, Shakspeare himself is authority against Shakspeare. Does he not make the gentle Juliet say to her lover, “'Tis but thy name that is my enemy”—that fatal name which separated two devoted hearts—which planted thick sorrows in their path, and finally shrouded them in one common sepulchre! Does he not put into the mouth of one of Antony's captains, “I'll humbly signify what in his name, that magical word of war, we have effected.” And again, speaking of the great Pompey, “his name strikes more than could his war resisted.” Names indeed govern the world; and it is not among the least ingenious of all human contrivances that the world should be so governed. I do not wish to speak of the moral guilt and future accountability of those who combine to delude the ignorant—who chain mens' minds to some false idol, or enlist them in some scheme of abomination, whose iniquities are artfully veiled under the names of virtue, patriotism, and the like. If the denunciations of the eloquent Hebrew prophet against those who call evil good, and good evil—who put darkness for light, and light for darkness—who call bitter sweet, and sweet bitter—are not sufficient to alarm such delinquents, it would avail nothing for uninspired tongues and pens to attempt their conviction and reform.

In literature, how remarkable and how injurious is the influence of names, apart from any actual or intrinsic merit. How common is it to estimate an opinion or sentiment, not by the wisdom of the one or the purity of the other, but by the authority of him who pronounces it. A false, immoral, or stupid passage in a book, which bears on its title-page the name of a popular writer, is often received with favor, when precisely the same offence in an unknown author would be almost certain to bring down upon him the lash of criticism. Take for example one of England's most renowned bards—one, not more known even in his own country than on this side of the Atlantic—whose “Melodies” are lisped by our amorous youths and sentimental maidens, and whose name has become a “household word”—a passport to every festival where music, love and wine are the sources of enjoyment. Among his “National Airs” so called, Mr. Moore has written the following lines, which have no doubt been admired by every pretty miss in the country, as the very perfection of poetry, sentiment, and even good sense.

Flow on, thou shining river,
But, ere thou reach the sea,
Seek Ella's bower, and give her
The wreaths I fling o'er thee.
And tell her thus, if she'll be mine,
The current of our lives shall be,
With joys along their course to shine,
Like those sweet flowers on thee.
But if, in wandering thither,
Thou find'st she mocks my prayer,
Then leave those wreaths to wither
Upon the cold bank there.
And tell her thus, when youth is o'er,
Her lone and loveless charms shall be
Thrown by upon life's weedy shore,
Like those sweet flowers from thee.

Now the plain English prose of all this, when divested of the magic of Mr. Moore's numbers, is something like the following. “Take, gentle river, these pretty flowers which I fling upon thy surface, and before thou reachest the great ocean, be pleased to flow into the bower of my fair Ella; and if it be not miracle enough, good river, for thee to rush into a lady's bower, without either drowning her or wetting her garments, be pleased to perform another wonderful feat and speak to her—tell her if she will only marry me, our joys whilst we are floating down life's current, shall resemble these wreaths which are borne upon thy bosom. But mark me, river!—if this insensible girl is resolved that she will not accept a good offer, why then roar like another cataract, toss these worthless wreaths on the shore to wither and rot, and tell this cruel Ella that she will live and die an ugly, neglected old maid.”

Now, whilst it is fully conceded that the figure of personification is perfectly legitimate, especially in poetry; yet there are certain degrees of it which should never be attempted, unless connected with subjects of great dignity, or which inspire powerful emotion—and it must not be forgotten that the excellence of poetry does not consist so much in the form or arrangement of its words as in the value and beauty of the thoughts and sentiments which it expresses. A gentle zephyr stealing into a lady's bower and lulling her into repose, or whispering in her ear the sighs of an absent lover, is natural and agreeable enough; but a river, or even rivulet, turning from its course and performing the same office, is a conception which would be very ridiculous in any other than a popular poet. It would be tedious to point out other examples of similar extravagance in Moore, and one only shall suffice—a song which has occasioned abundant fluttering in female hearts, and which for impious hyperbole was never excelled:

Why does azure deck the sky,
But to be like thine eyes of blue?
Why is red the rose's dye?
Because it is thy blush's hue, &c. &c.

In which said song the poet very calmly shows that all that is bright, and fair, and sweet in creation, was made purposely to resemble some young lady of his acquaintance. And yet all these trifles and absurdities, to say nothing of the frequent obscene allusions of the same author, have acquired an extensive popularity under the influence of a popular name.

It would be no difficult task to extend these remarks so as to embrace a long list of distinguished writers, both in prose and verse, who have perpetrated various offences against sound morals as well as good sense, but with whom the lustre of reputation, like the mantle of charity, has not only shielded them from censure, but imparted a kind of dignity and splendor to their failings. Enough perhaps has been said to illustrate the influence of names in the empire of literature.

How is it in the empire of the church? But here I tread upon sacred ground, and must use both brevity and caution. That truth exists in religious doctrine as well as in other things, will not be denied, except by unthinking scepticism or perverted reason. The difficulty has always been in finding her out—in distinguishing her sacred vestments and celestial carriage from the skilful imitations of imposture. The diamond may be known, by the tests of experiment, from the gems which mimic its lustre; but there is no moral chemistry which can separate truth from error, and resolve each into its proper elements. In fact, it seems to be one of the fallacies which have obtained currency among mankind, that truth and error are natural antagonists. So far from it, they are scarcely ever to be found in a state of disunion or repulsion. Error winds itself around the stately column of truth, as the creeper folds in its poisonous embrace the sturdy oak of the forest. Not that they are not in themselves essentially different—but so are the gasses which are found in combination in the water we drink, or in the atmosphere we breathe. What tremendous influence has been wielded by the simple word church, from the very first ages of christianity down to the present time! That name alone has covered a multitude of sins, and sanctified innumerable crimes. What torrents of blood have been shed under the crimson banner of orthodoxy, and how many meek and conscientious heretics have fled from the tender embraces of that holy and infallible mother, who has assumed the supreme government of the soul in this world, as well as the direction of its immortal destiny hereafter. But I only dwell upon this subject in order to show how much we are deceived by empty, unmeaning names. That there is such a treasure as “pure and undefiled religion,” none but the hardened infidel or remorseless libertine will deny. That it is always necessarily found under the priestly robe, or connected with the “sober brow,” neither candor nor charity itself will contend for—and yet, some how or other, the world has identified the sacred gift with a certain sanctimonious exterior, and with certain peculiar ceremonials, and there are few, perhaps, who reflect that it may be more frequently traced in the abodes of humility and wretchedness, in the sighs of a contrite heart, and in the tears of penitential guilt.

But how is it in the world of fashion? What is fashion? Many attempts have been made to define what in truth is undefinable. It is an empty name—a mere shadow, and yet is of substance sufficient to be felt and seen and understood almost every where. A popular English novelist, writing of his own country, says—“The middle classes interest themselves in grave matters: the aggregate of their sentiments is called OPINION. The great interest themselves in frivolities, and the aggregate of their sentiments is termed FASHION. The first is the moral representative of the popular mind—the last of the aristocratic.” But this definition is unsatisfactory. Fashion executes its decrees with as much energy and effect upon those who are excluded from its mystic circle, as upon them who reside within its pale; upon the popular mind as well as the aristocratic. Its frivolities bewilder and dazzle the multitude who abjure them, as well as the chosen few with whom they originate. Imagine this mysterious agent, or whatever it may be called, personified, and endowed with the majesty and power of a queen,—and what are her attributes? A fickle, inconstant, inscrutable and unscrupulous being—selecting her subjects from every rank and condition, and with every diversity in morals and intellect—yet investing them with an uniform and exclusive badge of distinction; exacting from her followers the most unbounded homage, and repaying them often with the sacrifice of peace, health, fortune, self-respect and virtue; instilling into those who throng around her throne the poison of impure and corrupting pleasures, and in those who are banished to the outer courts, awakening the worst passions of envy, discontent and hatred, added to a debasing sense of inferiority. Fortune is not more capricious in dispensing her favors than this empress of smiles and frowns. By her command, dullness is transformed into wit, and deformity into grace. The withered maiden of forty is arrayed in the matchless charms of blooming seventeen, and the notorious libertine becomes transmuted into the fascinating and agreeable companion. If a despot of bodily shape and form, were to cause his power and caprice to be felt in all the minute concerns and occupations of society; if he were to ordain laws regulating the dress—furniture—social intercourse and amusements of his subjects, and in so doing should levy an oppressive tax upon their fortunes, time and comforts—the spirit of freedom would circulate like the electric fluid from one end of the community to the other; the tyrant would be resisted with fearless and determined perseverance. And yet doth fashion issue her imperial decrees equally as despotic and calamitous in their effects, without other aid than the influence and magic of her name—whilst her subjects, so far from opposing resistance, render an implicit and delighted obedience to her mandates. And what is this inexorable arbitress at last but a name? What is this capricious and mysterious intermeddler in human affairs but a vain shadow? a creature of imagination only, and yet as powerful as Cæsar and Napoleon in all their glory! Shakspeare was wrong; there is much—there is every thing in names.

In that great concern of human society—the structure and action of the political machine, how does the matter stand? Are the governed portion of mankind—I mean a majority of them—influenced by things or names? The recorded experience of past ages, and our own particular observation, will answer the question. The master spirits who have ruled mankind with success, have studied the genius of the people with whom they lived. National glory was at one time, if it be not now, the passion of the French, and Napoleon well knew how to avail himself of a moral lever of such tremendous force. Administering to that all devouring and never satiated appetite, he found it an easy task to wade through tears and blood to the goal of his ambition. Preceding the period of his meteor-like and almost miraculous career, the French nation had been intoxicated by seraphic dreams of liberty and equality. Awakening from a long and gloomy night of slavery, they became suddenly bewitched by the doctrines of a new philosophy, (to them at least new,) which proclaimed the sovereignty of the people—and it was long before the horrors of Revolution could dispel the enchantment. The leaders in that dark and bloody episode of human history, retained their ascendancy so long as the names of liberty and equality could be skilfully employed for their purposes. An appeal to the people, or a compliment to their sovereign power, wisdom and virtue, was the daily prologue to those scenes of human butchery, which posterity will regard as incredible fictions. “Oh liberty!” said the beautiful Madame Roland, as she bowed her neck to the guillotine—“what crimes are committed in thy name!”

Are we free in our day from these disastrous influences? Have names no fatal magic with us—sufficiently fatal to unloose the bands of society—to subvert institutions, long cherished and venerated, and finally to dissolve the fairest fabric which ever realized the visions of hope, or the speculations of philosophy? Alas! have we not studied human nature enough to know, that all men are not honest and patriotic, and that some are sufficiently selfish, cunning, cruel and ambitious to work out their own designs, and accomplish their own evil desires, although calamity should overspread society, and millions go supperless to bed? Are there not hundreds of demagogues who are willing to flatter and wheedle and delude the people into final enslavement, if in the whirlwinds of their own creation they can ride into power and office? With what calm and shameless effrontery do such men constantly exert before our eyes a controlling power over the yet doubtful destinies of this infant republic! To fulfil the purposes of ambition, the vilest appeals are made to the lowest and basest passions of the multitude. The pride of democracy is a never failing chord to be skilfully touched, when some wicked design or atrocious mischief is meditated. The popular good—the welfare of the dear people—is the favorite string played upon by worn out political hacks and corrupt aspirants to office. Does a well tried and virtuous patriot stand in the way, and refuse his sanction to the bold assaults, or disguised and no less dangerous encroachments of power? He is instantly denounced as an odious and insidious aristocrat, and is forthwith delivered over to the tender mercies of the faithful—the great democratic republican family—the self-styled conservators of the only true and genuine principles of liberty—whose peculiar province it is to keep the republic pure, by a patriotic monopoly of all its offices and honors. It would indeed be perfectly amusing, if it were not at the same time a subject of sad contemplation, to hear the terms aristocratic and democratic, in the party contests of the day—familiarly applied to things and persons having no one quality—to justify such idle distinctions. The man for example who is “clothed in purple and fine linen, and fares sumptuously every day”—who drives his splendid equipage with liveried servants, who “lies down in luxury and rises in sloth”—that man is a member, or if you choose, the leader of the plain republican party—whilst the humble homespun pedestrian, who walks by the wheels of the other's chariot—whose bread is earned by the sweat of his brow, but who is sufficiently independent to think for himself—is denounced as an aristocrat, or what is worse, a Federalist of the genuine stamp—and is thought unworthy of all communion with the faithful, or at least of all participation in equal political benefits. Epithets are the powerful weapons with which bad and ambitions men have in all countries finally succeeded in overturning all that was valuable and good—all that was wise and beneficent; and unless the people of these States shall in time become sufficiently enlightened, to distinguish the qualities of things from their names, we shall assuredly ere long add another to that gloomy procession of republics, WHICH HAVE VANISHED FOREVER FROM THE EARTH.

THE CITY OF SIN.

BY E. A. POE.

Lo! Death hath rear'd himself a throne
In a strange city, all alone,
Far down within the dim west—
Where the good, and the bad, and the worst, and the best,
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines, and palaces, and towers
Are—not like any thing of ours—
Oh no!—O no!—ours never loom
To heaven with that ungodly gloom!
Time-eaten towers that tremble not!
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
No holy rays from heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town,
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently—
Up thrones—up long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptur'd ivy and stone flowers—
Up domes—up spires—up kingly halls—
Up fanes—up Babylon-like walls—
Up many a melancholy shrine
Whose entablatures intertwine
The mask—the viol—and the vine.
There open temples—open graves
Are on a level with the waves—
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol's diamond eye,
Not the gaily-jewell'd dead
Tempt the waters from their bed:
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass—
No swellings hint that winds may be
Upon a far-off happier sea:
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from the high towers of the town
Death looks gigantically down.
But lo! a stir is in the air!
The wave—there is a ripple there!
As if the towers had thrown aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide—
As if the turret-tops had given
A vacuum in the filmy heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow—
The very hours are breathing low—
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down, that town shall settle hence,
All Hades, from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence,
And Death to some more happy clime
Shall give his undivided time.

The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. II., No. 9, August, 1836

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER:

EVERY DEPARTMENT OF

LITERATURE AND THE FINE ARTS.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME II, NUMBER 9

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.

THE RULER'S FAITH.

SKETCHES OF THE HISTORY

AND PRESENT CONDITION OF TRIPOLI, WITH SOME ACCOUNTS OF THE OTHER BARBARY STATES.

STANZAS.

THE RIGHT OF INSTRUCTION.

TO ——.

A REMINISCENCE.

THE OLD MAN'S CAROUSAL.

PISCATORY REMINISCENCES.

ISRAFEL.1

JUDGMENT OF RHADAMANTHUS.

SCENES IN CAMPILLO.1

THE PINE WOOD.

A SONG—WRITTEN IN GEORGIA.

THE BATTLE OF LODI.

MARCUS CURTIUS.

BRITISH PARLIAMENT IN 1835.

NO. II.

TO A TORTOISE-SHELL COMB.

INFLUENCE OF NAMES.

THE CITY OF SIN.

ISRAFEL.¹

SCENES IN CAMPILLO.¹