VIRGINIA DARE.

“Horror-stricken, moving and acting like a man in a trance, I silently obeyed him. The doctor was still in the dressing-room: despair made me catch eagerly at any chance of saving my father; I told his medical attendant what I had just heard, and entreated advice and assistance without delay.

“‘He is a little delirious,’ said the doctor—‘don’t be alarmed: we can cheat him out of his dangerous idea, and so perhaps save his life. Where is the watch?’ (I produced it)—‘See: it is ten minutes to nine. I will put back the hands one hour; that will give good time for a composing draught to operate. There! take him the watch, and let him see the false time with his own eyes. He will be comfortably asleep before the hour-hand gets round again to nine.’

“I went back with the watch to my father’s bedside. ‘Too slow,’ he murmured, as he looked at the dial—‘too slow by an hour—the church clock—I counted eight.’

“‘Father! dear father! you are mistaken,’ I cried. ‘Icounted also; it was only seven.’

“‘Only seven!’ he echoed faintly, ‘another hour, then—another hour to live!’ He evidently believed what I had said to him. In spite of the fatal experiences of the past, I now ventured to hope the best from our stratagem, as I resumed my place by his side.

“The doctor came in; but my father never noticed him. He kept his eyes fixed on the watch, which lay between us, on the coverlet. When the minute hand was within a few seconds of indicating the false hour of eight, he looked round at me, murmured very feebly and doubtingly, ‘another hour to live!’ and then gently closed his eyes. I looked at the watch, and saw that it was just eight o’clock, according to our alteration of the right time. At the same moment, I heard the doctor, whose hand had been on my father’s pulse, exclaim, ‘My God! it’s stopped! He has died at nine o’clock!’

“The fatality, which no human stratagem or human science could turn aside, was accomplished! I was alone in the world!

“In the solitude of our little cottage, on the day of my father’s burial, I opened the sealed letter, which he had told me to take from the pillow of his death-bed. In preparing to read it, I knew that I was preparing for the knowledge of my own doom; but I neither trembled nor wept. I was beyond all grief: despair, such as mine was then, is calm and self-possessed to the last.

“The letter ran thus;—‘After your father and your brother have fallen under the fatality that pursues our house, it is right, my dear son, that you should be warned how you are included in the last of the predictions which still remains unaccomplished. Know, then, that the final lines read by our dear Alfred on the scroll, prophesied that you should die, as we have died, at the fatal hour of nine; but by a bloody and violent death, the day of which was not foretold. My beloved boy! you know not, you never will know, what I suffered in the possession of this terrible secret, as the truth of the former prophecies forced itself more and more plainly on my mind! Even now, as I write, I hope against all hope; believe vainly and desperately against all experience, that this last, worst doom may beavoided. Be cautious; be patient; look well before you at each step of your career. The fatality by which you are threatened is terrible; but there is a Power above fatality; and before that Power my spirit and my child’s spirit now pray for you. Remember this when your heart is heavy, and your path through life grows dark. Remember that the better world is still before you, the world where we shall all meet! Farewell!’

“When I first read those lines, I read them with the gloomy, immovable resignation of the Eastern fatalists; and that resignation never left me afterward. Here, in this prison, I feel it, calm as ever. I bowed patiently to my doom, when it was only predicted: I bow to it as patiently now, when it is on the eve of accomplishment. You have often wondered, my friend, at the tranquil, equable sadness of my manner: after what I have just told you, can you wonder any longer?

“But let me return for a moment to the past. Though I had no hope of escaping the fatality which had overtaken my father and my brother, my life, after my double bereavement, was the existence of all others which might seem most likely to evade the accomplishment of my predicted doom. Yourself and one other friend excepted, I saw no society; my walks were limited to the cottage garden and the neighboring fields, and my every-day, unvarying occupation was confined to that hard and resolute course of study, by which alone I could hope to prevent my mind from dwelling on what I had suffered in the past, or on what I might still be condemned to suffer in the future. Never was there a life more quiet and more uneventful than mine!

“You know how I awoke to an ambition, which irresistibly impelled me to change this mode of existence. News from Paris penetrated even to my obscure retreat, and disturbed my self-imposed tranquillity. I heard of the last errors and weaknesses of Louis the Sixteenth; I heard of the assembling of the States-General; and I knew that the French Revolution had begun. The tremendous emergencies of that epoch drew men of all characters from private to public pursuits, and made politics the necessity rather than the choice of every Frenchman’s life. The great change preparing for the country acted universally on individuals, even to the humblest, and it acted on me.

“I was elected a deputy, more for the sake of the name I bore, than on account of any little influence which my acquirements and my character might have exercised in the neighborhood of my country abode. I removed to Paris, and took my seat in the Chamber, little thinking at that time, of the crime and the bloodshed to which our revolution, so moderate in its beginning, would lead; little thinking that I had taken the first, irretrievable step toward the bloody and the violent death which was lying in store for me.

“Need I go on? You know how warmly I joined the Girondin party; you know how we have been sacrificed; you know what the death is which I and my brethren are to suffer to-morrow. On now ending, I repeat what I said at the beginning:—Judge not of my narrative till you have seen with your own eyes what really takes place in the morning. I have carefully abstained from all comment, I have simply related events as they happened, forbearing to add my own views of their significance, my own ideas on the explanation of which they admit. You may believe us to have been a family of nervous visionaries, witnesses of certain remarkable contingencies; victims of curious, but not impossible chances, which we have fancifully and falsely interpreted into supernatural events. I leave you undisturbed in this conviction (if you really feel it;) to-morrow you will think differently; to-morrow you will be an altered man. In the meantime, remember what I now say, as you would remember my dying words:—Last night I saw the supernatural radiance which warned my father and my brother; and which warns me, that, whatever the time when the execution begins, whatever the order in which the twenty-one Girondins are chosen for death, I shall be the man who kneels under the guillotine, as the clock strikes nine!”

It was morning. Of the ghastly festivities of the night no sign remained. The prison-hall wore an altered look, as the twenty-one condemned men (followed by those who were ordered to witness their execution) were marched out to the carts appointed to take them from the dungeon to the scaffold.

The sky was cloudless, the sun warm and brilliant, as the Girondin leaders and their companions were drawn slowly through the streets to the place of execution. Duprat and Marigny were placed in separate vehicles: the contrast in their demeanor at that awful moment was strongly marked. The features of the doomed man still preserved their noble and melancholy repose; his glance was steady; his color never changed. The face of Marigny, on the contrary, displayed the strongest agitation; he was pale even to his lips. The terrible narrative he had heard, the anticipation of the final and appalling proof by which its truth was now to be tested, had robbed him, for the first time in his life, of all his self-possession. Duprat had predicted truly; the morrow had come, and he was an altered man already.

The carts drew up at the foot of the scaffold which was soon to be stained with the blood of twenty-one human beings. The condemned deputies mounted it; and ranged themselves at the end opposite the guillotine. The prisoners who were to behold the execution remained in their cart. Before Duprat ascended the steps, he took his friend’s hand for the last time: “Farewell!” he said, calmly. “Farewell! I go to my father and my brother! Remember my words of last night.”

With straining eyes, and bloodless cheeks, Marigny saw Duprat take his position in the middle row of his companions, who stood in three ranks of seven each. Then the awful spectacle of the execution began. After the first seven deputies had sufferedthere was a pause; the horrible traces of the judicial massacre were being removed. When the execution proceeded, Duprat was the third taken from the middle rank of the condemned. As he came forward, and stood for an instant erect under the guillotine, he looked with a smile on his friend, and repeated in a clear voice the word, “Remember!”—then bowed himself on the block. The blood stood still at Marigny’s heart, as he looked and listened, during the moment of silence that followed. That moment past, the church clock of Paris struck. He dropped down on the cart, and covered his face with his hands; for through the heavy beat of the hour he heard the fall of the fatal steel.

“Pray, sir, was it nine or ten that struck just now?” said one of Marigny’s fellow prisoners to an officer of the guard, who stood near the cart.

The person addressed referred to his watch, and answered—“Nine o’clock!”

———

BY MRS. L. H. SIGOURNEY.

———

[The first-born child of English parents in the Western World was the granddaughter of Governor White, who planted a short-lived colony at Roanoke, Virginia, in the year 1587.]

’Twas lovely in the deep greenwoodOf old Virginia’s glade,Ere the sharp axe amid its boughsA fearful chasm had made;Long spikes of rich catalpa flowersHung pendent from the tree,And the maqudia’s ample cupO’erflowed with fragrance free;And through the shades the antlered deerLike fairy visions flew,And mighty vines from tree to treeTheir wealth of clusters threw,While wingéd odors from the hillsReviving welcome bore,To greet the stranger bands that comeFrom Albion’s distant shore.Up rose their roofs in copse and dell,Outpealed the laborer’s horn,And graceful through the broken mouldPeered forth their tasseled corn:While from one rose-encircled bower,Hid in the nested grove,Came, blending with the robin’s lay,The lullaby of love.There sang a mother to her babe—A mother young and fair—“No flower like thee adorns the vale,O sweet Virginia Dare!Thou art the lily of our love,The forest’s sylph-like queen,The first-born bud from Saxon stemThat this New World hath seen;“Thy father’s axe in thicket rings,To fell the kingly tree;Thy grandsire sails o’er ocean-brine—A gallant man is he!And when once more, from England’s realm,He comes with bounty rare,A thousand gifts to thee he’ll bring,Mine own Virginia Dare!”As sweet that mother’s loving tonesTheir warbled music shed,As though in proud baronial hall,O’er silken cradle-bed;No more the pomps and gauds of lifeMaintained their strong control,For holy love’s new gift had shedFresh greenness o’er her soul.And when the husband from his toilReturned at closing day,How dear to him the lowly homeWhere all his treasures lay.“O, Ellinor! ’tis naught to me,The hardship or the storm,While thus thy blessed smile I see,And clasp our infant’s form.”No secret sigh o’er pleasures lostConvulsed their tranquil breast,For where the pure affections dwellThe heart hath perfect rest.So fled the Summer’s balmy prime,The Autumn’s golden wing,And Winter laid his hoary headUpon the lap of Spring.Yet oft, with wily, wary step,The red-browed Indian creptClose round his pale-faced neighbor’s home,And listened while they slept;But fierce Wingina, lofty chief,Aloof, their movements eyed,Nor courteous bowed his pluméd head,Nor checked his haughty stride.John White leaped from his vessel’s prow,He had braved the boisterous sea,And boldly rode the mountain-wave—A stalwart man was he.John White leaped from his vessel’s prow,And joy was in his eye;For his daughter’s smile had lured him onAmid the stormiest sky.Where were the roofs that flecked the green!The smoke-wreaths curling high?He calls—he shouts—the cherished names,But Echo makes reply.“Where art thou, Ellinor! my child!And sweet Virginia Dare!O, silver cloud, that cleaves the blueLike angel’s wing—say where!“Where is the glorious Saxon vineWe set so strong and fair?”The stern gray rocks in mockery smiled,And coldly answered “where!”“Ho! flitting savage! stay thy step,And tell—” but light as airHe vanished, and the falling streamResponsive murmured—“where!”So, o’er the ruined palisade,The blackened threshold-stone,The funeral of colonial hope,That old man wept—alone!And mournful rose his wild lament,In accents of despair,For the lost daughter of his love,And young Virginia Dare.

’Twas lovely in the deep greenwood

Of old Virginia’s glade,

Ere the sharp axe amid its boughs

A fearful chasm had made;

Long spikes of rich catalpa flowers

Hung pendent from the tree,

And the maqudia’s ample cup

O’erflowed with fragrance free;

And through the shades the antlered deer

Like fairy visions flew,

And mighty vines from tree to tree

Their wealth of clusters threw,

While wingéd odors from the hills

Reviving welcome bore,

To greet the stranger bands that come

From Albion’s distant shore.

Up rose their roofs in copse and dell,

Outpealed the laborer’s horn,

And graceful through the broken mould

Peered forth their tasseled corn:

While from one rose-encircled bower,

Hid in the nested grove,

Came, blending with the robin’s lay,

The lullaby of love.

There sang a mother to her babe—

A mother young and fair—

“No flower like thee adorns the vale,

O sweet Virginia Dare!

Thou art the lily of our love,

The forest’s sylph-like queen,

The first-born bud from Saxon stem

That this New World hath seen;

“Thy father’s axe in thicket rings,

To fell the kingly tree;

Thy grandsire sails o’er ocean-brine—

A gallant man is he!

And when once more, from England’s realm,

He comes with bounty rare,

A thousand gifts to thee he’ll bring,

Mine own Virginia Dare!”

As sweet that mother’s loving tones

Their warbled music shed,

As though in proud baronial hall,

O’er silken cradle-bed;

No more the pomps and gauds of life

Maintained their strong control,

For holy love’s new gift had shed

Fresh greenness o’er her soul.

And when the husband from his toil

Returned at closing day,

How dear to him the lowly home

Where all his treasures lay.

“O, Ellinor! ’tis naught to me,

The hardship or the storm,

While thus thy blessed smile I see,

And clasp our infant’s form.”

No secret sigh o’er pleasures lost

Convulsed their tranquil breast,

For where the pure affections dwell

The heart hath perfect rest.

So fled the Summer’s balmy prime,

The Autumn’s golden wing,

And Winter laid his hoary head

Upon the lap of Spring.

Yet oft, with wily, wary step,

The red-browed Indian crept

Close round his pale-faced neighbor’s home,

And listened while they slept;

But fierce Wingina, lofty chief,

Aloof, their movements eyed,

Nor courteous bowed his pluméd head,

Nor checked his haughty stride.

John White leaped from his vessel’s prow,

He had braved the boisterous sea,

And boldly rode the mountain-wave—

A stalwart man was he.

John White leaped from his vessel’s prow,

And joy was in his eye;

For his daughter’s smile had lured him on

Amid the stormiest sky.

Where were the roofs that flecked the green!

The smoke-wreaths curling high?

He calls—he shouts—the cherished names,

But Echo makes reply.

“Where art thou, Ellinor! my child!

And sweet Virginia Dare!

O, silver cloud, that cleaves the blue

Like angel’s wing—say where!

“Where is the glorious Saxon vine

We set so strong and fair?”

The stern gray rocks in mockery smiled,

And coldly answered “where!”

“Ho! flitting savage! stay thy step,

And tell—” but light as air

He vanished, and the falling stream

Responsive murmured—“where!”

So, o’er the ruined palisade,

The blackened threshold-stone,

The funeral of colonial hope,

That old man wept—alone!

And mournful rose his wild lament,

In accents of despair,

For the lost daughter of his love,

And young Virginia Dare.

The Poetical Works of Fitz Greene Halleck. New Edition. Redfield: Clinton Hall, New York.

This is a new and very beautiful edition, the most beautiful that has ever been published, of one of the sweetest, most elaborately finished, most expressive and original poets of America. No one can read Halleck, without being at once impressed with the sense that he is a writer entirelysui generisand most peculiar; not merely imitating no one, but resembling no one, and—

“Si liceat magnis componere parva”—

Like the notorious Andrew Jackson Allen, himself alone.

Mr. Bryant we have never heard accused of imitation; yet it is notorious that his style, elaborate, didactic, stately, sometimes magniloquent, sometimes magnificent, always as brightly polished and always as cold as a Toledo rapier’s blade, always arousing admiration, and at times awe, but rarely awakening sympathy, but never calling forth a tear, closely resembles that of many English poets, none of them his inferior, the most remarkable of whom are Thompson of the Seasons, and Young of the Night Thoughts; and Wordsworth; and although I acquit him wholly of any premeditated design to follow in any of their footsteps, I still hold it as an undoubted truth, that unless those three great didacticians had written before him, Bryant would not have written, at least as he has written. Not that I design or desire to underrate his talent, or detract from his well-earned laurels; for I admire him as a grand, calm, pure, and at times almost sublime, English writer; but that no passage ever caused me a thrill in the veins, a tear in the eye, or a flush on the cheek; and that his want ofhonest human sympathies renders the report of his fame greater than the reality of his popularity.

Longfellow, again, principally I believe from mere base malignity on the part of his would-be critics, and vile envy of his superiority, has been falsely accused of plagiarism, and most unjustly charged with copying Keats, Shelley, and Tennyson, with the former two of whom he has nothing whatever in common, while he resembles the latter only in the perfect flow of his inimitablerhythm, and the really artificial, but most seemingly inartificial, structure of his smooth versification; in all of which he as far excels his supposed model, as he does in expression, simplicity and force, not of diction only but of thought, and in the fire of his quick and vivid fancy.

Of Halleck, on the contrary, though he alone has successfully followed Byron in the half-lyric, half-comic vein of Don Juan and Fanny; even as Byron alone followed that of Whistlecraft—though in the fineness of his fancy, in the neat finish and epigrammatic turn of his antithetical verses, in his playful wit, and felicitous turns of natural pathos, he rivals if not equals Moore—it has never been said, never could be said, that he resembles, much less copies, either Moore or Byron, or any other poet of ancient times or modern.

The most observable characteristics of Halleck are the exquisite grace with which he glides from the purest and sweetest sentiments into the most delicate, yet most pungent wit; in the playfulness of his fancy; the truth of his humanity; and the epigrammatic terseness of his smaller compositions. Such as—

Green be the turf above theeFriend of my better days!None knew thee but to love thee,None named thee but to praise—

Green be the turf above thee

Friend of my better days!

None knew thee but to love thee,

None named thee but to praise—

An elegy of which it can be truly said, as of how few persons through all time, that there is not one idea wanting, or one superfluous; not one word that could be altered without injuring the beauty and force of the ensemble.

The most frequently quoted of Mr. Halleck’s poems, are “The Death of Bozzaris,” and “Alnwick Castle,” the latter perhaps the most generally popular of all his writings. But, in my judgment, the best, beyond all doubt, is “The Field of the Grounded Arms;” which, because it is entirely beyond the low sphere of New York poetical criticism, as being writ in unrhymed lyric lines, has been little praised or noticed, in proportion to its real merits, which are of the highest.

The same exquisite power and felicity in the fitness of wording, noticed above, of the lines “On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake,” and the terseness of phraseology, in which Mr. Halleck clearly surpasses every contemporaneous poet, native or foreign, is here most conspicuous; as is the perfect harmony, which causes unrhymed metric lines, which some wiseacres would doubtless call rhythmic prose, to read melodious and sonorous as the most perfect rhymed lyrics. My limits will not allow me to quote this beautiful poem, breathing the true fire of honest and impartial patriotism and love of country; and, as it is already long before the public, and known to all judicious readers, I prefer to pass on to a long extract from an unpublished poem on “Connecticut,” the poet’s birth-place and heart’s home, a portion of which is now for the first time suffered to see the light.

“Connecticut” is in our poet’s favorite measure, the decasyllabic stanza of eight lines, and in his favorite vein, the serio-humorous style of “Fanny.” I confess, for my own part, that I prefer the simple-serious to the semi-comic semi-sentimental strain; for a sweet fall of pathos melting into a dying close, and then abruptly terminated by a sarcasm or a sneer, rather strikes me with a jarring violence, like that arising from a musical discord, than charms me by the contrast it affords. Admiration, at the dexterity of the versifier, mingles too largely with vexation at the violence done to the harmony of beauty.

But of Mr. Halleck’s genial and various genius no component part is more clearly marked than his hearty pantagruelism, which finds something humorous in the deepest of sentiments, which must have its shot at every folly as it flies, and which must vent its sarcasm at the weak point, even in what it most admires; and never, it must be said, was wit of the most pointed less ill-natured, humor more fairy-like and fanciful, or sarcasm more softly veiled in dewy flowers of immortal verse.

His biting satires on the grim old Puritans, quaint and cruel, godly and greedy, forgiving any thing to no men except their own pet sins to themselves, most clamorousfor tolerance to their own creed, most intolerant to that of all others, are most refreshing in this age of cant and fulsome section-adulation.

The following stanzas, in a bolder vein, following up his expedition of Mather’s mendacity, are as sublime as they are bold and independent—

XVII.No: a born Poet at his cradle fireThe Muses nursed him as their bud unblown,And gave him, as his mind grew high and higher,Their ducal strawberry leaf’s unwreathed renown.Alas! that mightiest masters of the lyre,Whose pens above an eagle’s heart have grown,In all the proud nobility of wing,Should stoop to dip their points in passion’s poison spring.

XVII.

No: a born Poet at his cradle fire

The Muses nursed him as their bud unblown,

And gave him, as his mind grew high and higher,

Their ducal strawberry leaf’s unwreathed renown.

Alas! that mightiest masters of the lyre,

Whose pens above an eagle’s heart have grown,

In all the proud nobility of wing,

Should stoop to dip their points in passion’s poison spring.

XVIII.For Milton, weary of his youth’s young wife,To her, to king, to church, to law untrue,Warred for divorce and discord to the knife,And proudest wore his plume of darkest hue:And Dante, when his Florence, in her strife,Robbed him of office and his temper, threw’Mongst friends and foes a bomb-shell of fierce rhymes,Shivering their names and fames to all succeeding times.

XVIII.

For Milton, weary of his youth’s young wife,

To her, to king, to church, to law untrue,

Warred for divorce and discord to the knife,

And proudest wore his plume of darkest hue:

And Dante, when his Florence, in her strife,

Robbed him of office and his temper, threw

’Mongst friends and foes a bomb-shell of fierce rhymes,

Shivering their names and fames to all succeeding times.

The two closing stanzas of this fragment are so perfectly, chastely and inimitably beautiful, that they induce a strong hope that Mr. Halleck’s fastidious judgment—for it is neither indolence of habit, nor difficulty of composition, which keeps our poet for periods so long and tedious behind the curtain, but the severe taste and chariness of his muse, which causes him to reject as unworthy of his pen what most writers would rejoice to put forward as the cope-stone of their renown—will suffer him ere long to give us his “Connecticut” entire.

XXIV.Beneath thy star, as one of theTHIRTEEN,Land of my lay! through many a battle’s night,Thy gallant men stepped, steady and serene,To that war-music’s stern and strong delight.Where bayonets clenched above the trampled green,Where sabres grappled in the ocean fight;In siege, in storm, on deck or rampart, thereThey hunted the wolf Danger to his lair,And sought and won sweet peace, and wreaths for Honor’s hair.

XXIV.

Beneath thy star, as one of theTHIRTEEN,

Land of my lay! through many a battle’s night,

Thy gallant men stepped, steady and serene,

To that war-music’s stern and strong delight.

Where bayonets clenched above the trampled green,

Where sabres grappled in the ocean fight;

In siege, in storm, on deck or rampart, there

They hunted the wolf Danger to his lair,

And sought and won sweet peace, and wreaths for Honor’s hair.

XXV.And with thy smiles, sweet Peace, came woman’s, bringingThe Eden sunshine of her welcome kiss,And lover’s flutes, and children’s voices singingThe maiden’s promised, matron’s perfect bliss,And heart and home-bells blending with their ringingThank-offerings borne to holier words than this,And the proud Queen of Glory’s laurel leaves,And gold, the gift to Peace, of Plenty’s summer sheaves.

XXV.

And with thy smiles, sweet Peace, came woman’s, bringing

The Eden sunshine of her welcome kiss,

And lover’s flutes, and children’s voices singing

The maiden’s promised, matron’s perfect bliss,

And heart and home-bells blending with their ringing

Thank-offerings borne to holier words than this,

And the proud Queen of Glory’s laurel leaves,

And gold, the gift to Peace, of Plenty’s summer sheaves.

Honor and health to Halleck, and may he speak to us in the high-hearted, honest music of his soul oftener than heretofore; and let him rest assured he cannot speak to us too often or too long.Valeto.

Mysteries; or Glimpses of the Supernatural. By Charles Wyllys Elliott. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 12mo.

The publication of this volume is timely. It goes over the whole field appropriated to oracles, astrology, dreams, demons, ghosts, spectres, and the like, with long chapters on the Salem Witchcraft, the Cock-lane Ghost, the Rochester Knockings and the Stratford Mysteries. The rules of evidence in relation to such marvels are also clearly stated. Mr. Elliott’s style is somewhat affected, but his information gives evidence of research, and the circulation of his book may produce good. Every thing which will tend in the slightest degree to scare away the late importations of vulgar vagabonds from the “spiritual world,” ironically so called, is worthy of patronage. We are not, of course, so audaciously incredulous as to doubt the reality of “the spirits,” but we sincerely hope that the Maine Liquor Law, in its most stringent provisions, may be applied to them; for such a set of unfleshed drivelers and disembodied nuisances never before attempted to convey to mortal ears the gossip of ghost-land.

A curious story is related in Mr. Elliott’s book, on the authority of Southey. We cannot forbear quoting it as an illustration of the way that John Bull experiences supernatural fear. “In 1702 Whiston predicted that the comet would appear on Wednesday, 14th October, at five minutes after five in the morning, and that the world would be destroyed by fire on the Friday following. His reputation was high, and the comet appeared. A number of persons got into boats and barges on the Thames, thinking the water the safest place. South Sea and India stock fell. A captain of a Dutch ship threw all his powder into the river, that the ship might not be endangered. At noon, after the comet had appeared, it is said that more than one hundred clergymen were ferried over to Lambeth, to request that proper prayers might be prepared, there being none in the church service. People believed that the day of judgment was at hand, and some acted on this belief, as if some temporary evil was to be expected. On Thursday more than 7,000 kept mistresses were publicly married. There was a prodigious run kept on the bank; Sir Gilbert Heathcote, at that time head director, issued orders to all the fire offices in London, requiring them to keep a good look-out, and have a particular eye on the Bank of England.” The run on the bank, and the orders of Sir Gilbert, in view of the world’s being destroyed by fire, are touches of practical humor, which the most daring humorist would hardly have ventured to imagine.

The Works of Shakspeare: the Text Carefully Restored according to the First Editions; with Introductions, Notes Original and Selected, and a Life of the Poet. By the Rev. H. N. Hudson, A. M. Boston: James Monroe & Co. Vol. 5, 12mo.

The present volume of Mr. Hudson’s beautiful edition of Shakspeare contains King Richard II., the first and second parts of Henry IV., and Henry V. The introductions, especially those to Henry IV., are probably the ablest of the editor’s many able disquisitions. The analysis of Prince Henry, Hotspur, Glendower, and, above all, Falstaffe, are in Mr. Hudson’s most matured style, both of thought and expression. They are positive additions to critical literature. No editor of Shakspeare, no critic of character, has ever approached the masterly dissection of Falstaffe given in this volume. The fat knight’s great intellect has perfect justice done to it, while his humor is richly set forth. Mr. Hudson says very finely of him, that he has “all the intellectual qualities that enter into the composition of practical wisdom, without one of the moral.” Of his sensuality, it is remarked: “The animal susceptibilities of our nature are in him carried up to their highest pitch, and his several appetites hug their respective objects with exquisite gust. Moreover, his speech borrows additional flavor and effect from the thick foldings of flesh which it oozes through; therefore he glories in his much flesh, and cherishes it as being the procreant cradle of jests; if he be fat, it enables his tongue to drop fatness; and in the chambers of his brain all the pleasurable agitations that pervade the structure below are curiously wrought into mental delectation. With how keen and inexhaustible a relish does he pour down sack, as if he tasted it all over and through his body to the ends of his fingers and toes! Yet who does not see that he has far more pleasure in discoursing about it than in drinking it? And so it is through all the particulars of his enormous sensuality. And he makes the same use ofhis vices and infirmities; nay, he often exaggerates and caricatures those he has, and sometimes affects those he has not, that he may suck the same profit from them.”

The Book of Snobs. By William M. Thackeray. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 18mo.

These biting and brilliant squibs were originally published in Punch. In their collected form they will take their place among the most characteristic of Thackeray’s works. This volume, in short, contains the philosophy of Snobbism, as Vanity Fair and Pendennis contain its illustrations in life. But while these sketches are philosophical, the philosophy teaches by example. We have city snobs—military, clerical and literary snobs—party-giving, dinner-giving, dining-out snobs—whig snobs, tory snobs, radical snobs—snobs in the country and snobs on the continent—university snobs, club snobs, and regal snobs. The result is that the author, in snobbing the race, at last becomes almost a snob himself—as it was said of Mr. Brownson, that he was so much of a protestant that he protested himself out of protestantism. Thackeray’s definition of a snob is “he who meanly admires mean things.”

The “Snob Royal” is one of the best essays in the volume. “In a country,” says Thackeray, “where snobs are in the majority, a prime one, surely, cannot be unfit to govern. With us they have succeeded to admiration. For instance, James I. was a snob, and a Scotch snob; than which the world contains no more offensive creature. He appears not to have had one of the good qualities of a man—neither courage, nor generosity, nor honesty, nor brains; but read what the great divines and doctors of England said about him! Charles II., his grandson, was a rogue, but not a snob; while Louis XIV., his old square-toes of a contemporary—the great worshiper of big-wiggery—has always struck me as a most undoubted and royal snob.” In George the Fourth he also finds a regal snob. “With the same humility with which the footmen at the King’s Arms gave way before the Plush Royal, the aristocracy of the English nation bent down and truckled before Georgius, and proclaimed him the first gentleman in Europe. And it’s a wonder to think what is the gentlefolks opinion of a gentleman when they gave Georgius such a title.”

Outlines of English Literature. By Thomas B. Shaw, B. A. A new American edition, with a Sketch of American Literature. By Henry T. Tuckerman. Philadelphia: Blanchard & Lea. 1 vol. 12mo.

This compact duodecimo volume is an admirable guide to English and American literature. Mr. Shaw’s work has been extensively circulated in England and America, and well deserves its reputation. It is well-written, evinces a well-trained study of the great English writers, and abounds in information and judicious criticism. It clearly conveys to the reader, uninformed in literary history, accurate ideas of the sliding-scale of English reputations. Mr. Tuckerman’s sketch of American literature occupies fifty closely-printed pages, and is a model of compactness of style and distinctness of judgment. From a few of his critical estimates we should feel inclined to dissent, and it would be strange, indeed, if any two persons could agree in opinion on the merits of the scores of authors coming within the scope of the editor’s plan; but, as a whole, the judgments evince a genial and catholic taste, unbiassed by prejudice, and combining both the disposition and the power to decide justly. The critic’s discrimination is exhibited equally in his criticisms on works of the understanding and works of the imagination. The style is remarkably condensed; every word tells; yet the sweet and fluent ease of Mr. Tuckerman’s diction gives no evidence of purchasing brevity at any sacrifice of grace. The book deserves an extensive circulation as the best and most available introduction to English and American literature.

Pierre; or The Ambiguities. By Herman Melville. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 12mo.

This work is generally considered a failure. The cause of its ill-success is certainly not to be sought in its lack of power. None of Melville’s novels equals the present in force and subtlety of thinking and unity of purpose. Many of the scenes are wrought out with great splendor and vigor, and a capacity is evinced of holding with a firm grasp, and describing with a masterly distinctness, some of the most evanescent phenomena of morbid emotions. But the spirit pervading the whole book is intolerably unhealthy, and the most friendly reader is obliged at the end to protest against such a provoking perversion of talent and waste of power. The author has attempted seemingly to combine in it the peculiarities of Poe and Hawthorne, and has succeeded in producing nothing but a powerfully unpleasant caricature of morbid thought and passion. Pierre, we take it, is crazy, and the merit of the book is in clearly presenting the psychology of his madness; but the details of such a mental malady as that which afflicts Pierre are almost as disgusting as those of physical disease itself.

The Men of the Time, or Sketches of Living Notables. New York: Redfield. 1 vol. 12mo.

This is a thick duodecimo volume of some six hundred closely printed pages, devoted to clear and concise biographies of men whose names are now before the world. The number of notables is nearly nine hundred, and it contains almost every name of reputation in Europe or America. The labor of its compilation must have been great, as the editor has diligently explored the recondite as well as obvious sources of information. In most of the American biographies the information has been obtained at first hand. The collection comprises living authors, architects, artists, composers, demagogues, divines, dramatists, engineers, journalists, merchants, novelists, philanthropists, poets, politicians,savants, statesmen, travelers, voyagers and warriors. The biographies vary in length according to the importance of the subject, some of them being admirably and critically written, giving estimation of character as well as narratives of events. It is a book which should be in every house. The newspaper itself cannot be thoroughly understood without a reference to this volume.

Dombey and Son. By Charles Dickens. New York: Harper & Brothers. 2 vols. 12mo.

This is a cheap, elegant, and finely illustrated edition of Dickens’ celebrated novel, which we trust will be followed by an edition of his other works in the same form. “Dombey and Son,” though defective in plot, and with some blunders in characterization, is still brimful of the author’s genius, and contains many scenes and characters which cannot fade from the reader’s memory. Dombey, Carker, Major Bagstock and Edith, are apt to be bores when they are not caricatures, but Florence, little Paul, Captain “Ed’ard Cuttle,” Toots and Susan Nipper, are acquaintances which, once made, are a possession forever. As there is no complete American edition of Dickens’ works in a convenient readable form, we trust that the Harper’s will give us one modeled on the present volumes.

Master Tom surprises the family by stating that he intends takinghisladies out on a fishing excursion.

“Please, Sir, did you want any body tokeep orderon these here Hustings on Polling Day?”

PITY THE SORROWS OF THE POOR POLICE.“Lor, Soosan! How’s a Feller to eat Meat such Weather as this. Now, a bit o’ Pickled Salmon and Cowcumber, or a Lobster Saladmightdo.”

Illustration.—A charming morning dress is thus formed: a dress ofbarège, of silk pattern, with threevolantstrimmed with a small quillingà la vieille, and open in front, displaying a lace trimmed neckerchief, (Mechlin lace,) while two smallvolantsfinish the sleeves; the last surmounted by a quilling similar to that of the body of the dress.

The morning pardessus is also worn with a dress of percale, likewise embroidered;volantand sleeves in English embroidery; the front is trimmed in the same manner; the body is ornamented with a double plait in the stuff, and above thevolant, and which replaces the braiding, generally placed on pardessus of tissue. Lastly, are models of sleeves trimmed with lace, one with two openvolants; the other closed at the wrist, and trimmed with amanchetteof lace.

The edge of front is from 3 inches at the top to 34 at the bottom; the shoulder seam is from 9 to 13¼; the bottom of front is sloped from 34 to 10¼; the curved line from 10¼-5¾-5⅛-5 is then cut; the edges of the piece in which the armhole is cut are then vandyked—the straight lines forming the vandykes are 1¼ long; this piece is then brought over the other part of the front as far as the dotted line, which indicates the place where it should be sewn; the edges of the vandykes are finished by a narrow trimming, and there is a small button in each point; the bottom of front is trimmed with a double row of lace from 34 to 10¼, being the only part of the front which is trimmed with lace.

Transcriber’s Notes:

Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Punctuation has been corrected without note. Other errors have been corrected as noted below. For illustrations, some caption text may be missing or incomplete due to condition of the originals used for preparation of the ebook.

Page 343, gaseous envelop environs ==> gaseousenvelopeenvironsPage 345, parallel of 25° degrees ==> parallel of25°isPage 345, winds are are not found ==> windsarenot foundPage 345, by permament north ==> bypermanentnorthPage 346, constant eastterly winds ==> constanteasterlywindsPage 346, though maritine adventure ==> thoughmaritimeadventurePage 346, found themselve borne ==> foundthemselvesbornePage 347, where it orignated ==> where itoriginatedPage 347, along the Gaudalquivir ==> along theGuadalquivirPage 352, Cape Lopez in 1° degree south ==> Cape Lopez in1°southPage 360, BY BON GUALTIER ==> BY BONGAULTIERPage 362, Chronogloical science ==>ChronologicalsciencePage 363, debilitated body politc ==> debilitated bodypoliticPage 363, razors where unheard of ==> razorswereunheard ofPage 364, Affghans and other races ==>Afghansand other racesPage 370, performs a rapid piroutte ==> performs a rapidpirouettePage 383, is usless to attempt ==> isuselessto attemptPage 402, fish is almost ominipresent ==> fish is almostomnipresentPage 402, and peal it down ==> andpeelit downPage 408, growth and strenghtened ==> growth andstrengthenedPage 408, for a mo- moment ==> for amomentPage 412, how had Mable pined ==> how hadMabelpinedPage 412, and Mable determined ==> andMabeldeterminedPage 413, Oh Mable, my love ==> OhMabel, my lovepage 415, where Mable Dacre sat ==> whereMabelDacre satPage 420, Richard eat with a feeling ==> Richardatewith a feelingPage 421, and carry it it home ==> and carryithomePage 425, Henry the Black, in 1036 ==> Henry the Black, in1056Page 425, token of his investure ==> token of hisinvestiturePage 425, battle ofWolskieurmay not be correct namePage 428, cost you to dear ==> cost youtoodearPage 431, guid wife Jenie Burns ==> guid wifeJeanieBurnsPage 434, heart’s corroding fire’s ==> heart’s corrodingfiresPage 436, speak there uninteruptedly ==> speak thereuninterruptedlyPage 439, which has accidently ==> which hasaccidentallyPage 443, of home human sympathies ==> ofhonesthuman sympathiesPage 443, inimitable rythm, and ==> inimitablerhythm, andPage 445, poets, politicians, savans ==> poets, politicians,savants

Page 343, gaseous envelop environs ==> gaseousenvelopeenvirons

Page 345, parallel of 25° degrees ==> parallel of25°is

Page 345, winds are are not found ==> windsarenot found

Page 345, by permament north ==> bypermanentnorth

Page 346, constant eastterly winds ==> constanteasterlywinds

Page 346, though maritine adventure ==> thoughmaritimeadventure

Page 346, found themselve borne ==> foundthemselvesborne

Page 347, where it orignated ==> where itoriginated

Page 347, along the Gaudalquivir ==> along theGuadalquivir

Page 352, Cape Lopez in 1° degree south ==> Cape Lopez in1°south

Page 360, BY BON GUALTIER ==> BY BONGAULTIER

Page 362, Chronogloical science ==>Chronologicalscience

Page 363, debilitated body politc ==> debilitated bodypolitic

Page 363, razors where unheard of ==> razorswereunheard of

Page 364, Affghans and other races ==>Afghansand other races

Page 370, performs a rapid piroutte ==> performs a rapidpirouette

Page 383, is usless to attempt ==> isuselessto attempt

Page 402, fish is almost ominipresent ==> fish is almostomnipresent

Page 402, and peal it down ==> andpeelit down

Page 408, growth and strenghtened ==> growth andstrengthened

Page 408, for a mo- moment ==> for amoment

Page 412, how had Mable pined ==> how hadMabelpined

Page 412, and Mable determined ==> andMabeldetermined

Page 413, Oh Mable, my love ==> OhMabel, my love

page 415, where Mable Dacre sat ==> whereMabelDacre sat

Page 420, Richard eat with a feeling ==> Richardatewith a feeling

Page 421, and carry it it home ==> and carryithome

Page 425, Henry the Black, in 1036 ==> Henry the Black, in1056

Page 425, token of his investure ==> token of hisinvestiture

Page 425, battle ofWolskieurmay not be correct name

Page 428, cost you to dear ==> cost youtoodear

Page 431, guid wife Jenie Burns ==> guid wifeJeanieBurns

Page 434, heart’s corroding fire’s ==> heart’s corrodingfires

Page 436, speak there uninteruptedly ==> speak thereuninterruptedly

Page 439, which has accidently ==> which hasaccidentally

Page 443, of home human sympathies ==> ofhonesthuman sympathies

Page 443, inimitable rythm, and ==> inimitablerhythm, and

Page 445, poets, politicians, savans ==> poets, politicians,savants

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