A REQUIEM BY THE SEA.

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BY HELEN IRVING.

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I hear the sea-waves dashingAnd roaring on the shoreBut a voice is in their chorusThat I never heard before;A voice whose sound hath power to fillMy listening soul with dread—A voice that moans unceasingly,A wail above my dead.Moans of a summer midnightBeneath a foreign sky,When in the hush of murmuring winds,Was heard a last, low sigh—And a noble soul—a soul I loved,Took flight for the starlit heaven,And a noble form—a form I loved,To the starlit deep was given.Cold is the sea, but colder yetIs the brow that its waters lave,And the tide is still in the breast that heavesTo the rock of the restless wave:The bloom is gone from his glowing cheekAnd the love from his pleasant eye,And none there heed on his pallid lipsThe smile that could never die.Oh, I pine, beloved, to hear once moreThy cheerful loving tone,And I pine to feel thy living heartThrob once against mine own!I pine for all thy brother-love,The noble, fond and true—And my soul is weary for the restThat in thy heart it knew.Ah! “nevermore and nevermore”I hear the sea-waves moan,And evermore, oh, evermore,My heart repeats the tone—And sorrow’s surges rise and fall,And ebb to flow again,And each returning billow soundsAnew the wild refrain.Oh, Thou, who wept at Bethany,And in that anguished hour,Drew near to heal the broken heartWith thy celestial power;Above the moaning waves of woLet me not list in vain,To hear Thy voice of love divine,Say “He shall rise again!”

I hear the sea-waves dashing

And roaring on the shore

But a voice is in their chorus

That I never heard before;

A voice whose sound hath power to fill

My listening soul with dread—

A voice that moans unceasingly,

A wail above my dead.

Moans of a summer midnight

Beneath a foreign sky,

When in the hush of murmuring winds,

Was heard a last, low sigh—

And a noble soul—a soul I loved,

Took flight for the starlit heaven,

And a noble form—a form I loved,

To the starlit deep was given.

Cold is the sea, but colder yet

Is the brow that its waters lave,

And the tide is still in the breast that heaves

To the rock of the restless wave:

The bloom is gone from his glowing cheek

And the love from his pleasant eye,

And none there heed on his pallid lips

The smile that could never die.

Oh, I pine, beloved, to hear once more

Thy cheerful loving tone,

And I pine to feel thy living heart

Throb once against mine own!

I pine for all thy brother-love,

The noble, fond and true—

And my soul is weary for the rest

That in thy heart it knew.

Ah! “nevermore and nevermore”

I hear the sea-waves moan,

And evermore, oh, evermore,

My heart repeats the tone—

And sorrow’s surges rise and fall,

And ebb to flow again,

And each returning billow sounds

Anew the wild refrain.

Oh, Thou, who wept at Bethany,

And in that anguished hour,

Drew near to heal the broken heart

With thy celestial power;

Above the moaning waves of wo

Let me not list in vain,

To hear Thy voice of love divine,

Say “He shall rise again!”

WOODCOCK AND WOODCOCK SHOOTING.

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BY FRANK FORESTER.

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The American Woodcock,Scolopax minor, or, as it has been subdistinguished by some naturalists, from the peculiar form of its short, rounded wing, the fourth and fifth quills of which are the longest,Microptera Americana, is, as the latter title indicates, exclusively confined to this hemisphere and continent. It is much smaller than its European namesake, being very rarely killed exceeding eight or nine ounces in weight, and sixteen inches in extent from tip to tip of the expanded wings; whereas the European cock averages full twelve ounces, being often found up to fifteen, and measures twenty-five or twenty-six inches.

In general appearance and color they bear a considerable affinity each to the other; the upper plumage of both being beautifully variegated, like the finest tortoise-shell, with wavy black lines on a rich brown ground, mottled in places with bright fawn color and ash-gray; but the breast and belly of the American bird are of a deep fulvous yellow, darkest on upper part and fading to a yellowish white at the vent, while its European congener has all the lower parts of a dull cream color, barred with faint dusky waved lines, like the breast feathers of some of the falcons.

It has generally been believed that the large cock of the Eastern continent isneverfound in America; and all analogy would go to strengthen that belief, for neither of the birds range on their respective continents very far to the northward, whereas it is those species only which extend into the Arctic regions, and by no means all of them, that are common to the two hemispheres. Some circumstances have, however, come recently to my knowledge which lead me to doubt whether the large woodcock of the Eastern hemisphere does not occasionally find its way to this continent, although it is difficult to conceive how it should do so, since it must necessarily wing its way across the whole width of the Atlantic, from the shores of Ireland or the Azores, which are, so far as is ascertained, its extreme western limit.

A very good English sportsman resident in Philadelphia, who is perfectly familiar with both the species and their distinctions, assures me that during the past winter a friend brought for his inspection an undoubted English woodcock, which he had purchased in the market; it weighed twelve ounces, measured twenty-five inches from wing to wing, and had the cream-colored barred breast which I have described. The keeper of the stall at which this bird was purchased did not know where it had been killed, but averred that several birds had previously been in his possession, precisely similar to this in every respect. It is not a little remarkable that the same gentleman who saw this bird, and unhesitatingly pronounced it an European cock, was informed by a sporting friend that he had seen in Susquehanna county a cock, which he was satisfied must have measured twenty-five inches in extent, but which he unfortunately missed. There is likewise, at this time, in the city a skull and bill of a woodcock of very unusual dimensions, of which I am promised a sight, and which, from the description, I am well nigh convinced is of the European species.

It is possible that these birds may have been brought over and kept in confinement, and subsequently escaped, and so become naturalized in America; and yet it is difficultto conceive that persons should have taken the trouble of preserving so stupid and uninteresting a bird as the woodcock in a cage, unless for the purpose of transporting them from one country to another in order to the introduction of new species.

This might be done very easily with regard to some species, and with undoubted success; and it has greatly surprised me that it has never been attempted with regard to our American woodcock, which might unquestionably be naturalized in England with the greatest facility; where it would, I have no doubt, multiply extraordinarily, and become one of the most numerous and valuable species of game, as the mildness of the winters in ordinary seasons would permit the bird to remain perennially in the island, without resorting to migration in order to obtain food.

The woodcock and snipe can both be very readily domesticated, and can be easily induced to feed on bread and milk reduced to the consistency of pulp, of which they ultimately become extremely fond. This is done at first by throwing a few small red worms into the bread and milk, for which the birds bore and bill, as if it were in their natural muddy soil.

In all countries in which any species of the woodcock is found, it is a bird essentially of moderate climates, abhorring and shunning all extremes of temperature, whether of heat or of cold.

With us, it winters in the Southern States from Virginia, in parts of which, I believe, it is found at all seasons of the year, through the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida to Louisiana and Mississippi, in the almost impenetrable cane-brakes and deep morasses of which it finds a secure retreat and abundance of its favorite food, during the inclement season, which binds up every stream and boggy swamp of the Middle and New England States in icy fetters.

So soon, however, as the first indications of spring commence, in those regions of almost tropical heat, the woodcock wings its way with the unerring certainty of instinct which guides him back, as surely as the magnet points to the pole, to the very wood and the very brake of the wood in which he was hatched, and commences the duties of nidification.

I am inclined to believe that the woodcock are already paired when they come on to the northward; if not, they do so without the slightest delay, for they unquestionably begin to lay within a week or two after their arrival, sometimes even before the snow has melted from the upland. Sometimes they have been known to lay so early as February, but March and the beginning of April are their more general season. Their nest is very inartificially made of dry leaves and stalks of grass. The female lays from four to five eggs, about an inch and a half long, by an inch in diameter, of a dull clay color, marked with a few blotches of dark brown interspersed with splashes of faint purple. It is a little doubtful whether the woodcock does or does not rear a second brood of young, unless the first hatching is destroyed, as is very frequently the case, by spring floods, which are very fatal to them. In this case, they do unquestionably breed a second time, for I have myself found the young birds, skulking about like young mice in the long grass, unable to fly, and covered with short blackish down, the most uncouth and comical-looking little wretches imaginable, during early July shooting; but it is on the whole my opinion that, at least on early seasons, they generally raise two broods; and this, among others, is one cause of my very strong desire to see summer woodcock shooting entirely abolished.

Unless this is done, I am convinced beyond doubt, that before twenty years have elapsed the woodcock will be as rare an animal as a wolf between the great lakes and the Atlantic sea-board, so ruthlessly are they persecuted and hunted down by pot-hunters and poachers, for the benefit of restaurateurs and of the lazy, greedy cockneys who support them. There is, however, I fear little hope of any legislative enactment toward this highly desirable end; for too many even of those who call themselves, and who ought to be, true sportsmen, are selfish and obstinate on this point, and the name of the pot-hunters is veritably legion. Moreover, it is to be doubted whether, even if such a statute were added to our game-laws, it could be enforced; so vehemently opposed do all the rural classes, who ought to be the best friends of the game, show themselves on all occasions to any attempt toward preserving them, partly from a mistaken idea that game-laws are of feudal origin and of aristocratic tendency; and so averse are they to enforce the penalties of the law on offenders, from a servile apprehension of giving offense to their neighbors.

At present, in almost all the States of which the woodcock is a summer visitant, either by law or by prescription July is the month appropriated to the commencement of their slaughter; in New York the first is the day, in New Jersey the fifth, and in all the Middle States, with the single exception of Delaware, where it is deferred until August, some day of the same month is fixed as the termination of close time. Even in Delaware the exception is rendered nugatory, by a provision permitting every person to shoot on his own grounds, whether in or out of season, in consequence of which the birds are all killed off early in June.

It may now be set down almost as a rule, that in all the Atlantic seaboard counties, and, indeed, every where in the vicinity of the large cities and great thoroughfares, the whole of the summer hatching is killed off before the end of July, with the exception of a few scattered stragglers, which have escaped pursuit in some impenetrable brake or oozy quagmire which defies the foot of the sportsman; that few survive to moult, and that the diminished numbers, which we now find on our autumn shooting-grounds, are supplied exclusively by the northern and Canadian broods, which keep successively flying before the advancing cold of winter, and sojourning among us for a longer or a shorter period, ere they wing their way to the rice-fields of the Savannah, or the cane-brakes of the Mississippi.

If my method could be generally adopted, of letting the fifteenth day of September, after the moulting season is passed, and when the birds are beginning again to congregate on their favorite feeding-grounds, be the commencement of every sort of upland shooting, without any exception, the sport would be enormous; the birds at that season are in full vigor, in complete plumage, in the perfection of condition for the table, and are so strong on the wing, so active and so swift, that no one could for a moment imagine them to be the same with the miserable, puny, half-fledged younglings, which any bungling boy can butcher as he pleases, with the most miserable apparatus, and without almost as well as with a dog, during the dog-days of July.

The weather is, moreover, cool and pleasant, and in every way well-suited to the sport at this season; dogs have a chance to do their work handsomely and well, and the sportsman can do his work, too, as he ought to do it, like a man, walking at his proper rate, unmolested by mosquitoes, and without feeling thesaltperspiration streaming into his eyes, until he can hardly brook the pain.

But no such hope existing as that state legislatures, dependent, not on rational but on brute opinion, should condescend to hear or listen to common sense, on matters such as game laws, are we, or are we not, to abandon our plan,to sacrifice our knowledge and enlightened views on this subject to obstinate ignorance; or shall we not take the better part, and decide, according to Minerva’s lesson in Tennyson’s magnificent Ænone,

. . . For that right is right to follow rightWhere wisdom is the scorn of consequence.

. . . For that right is right to follow right

Where wisdom is the scorn of consequence.

We shall resist and persist; at least I shall—I, Frank Forester, who never in my life have killed a bird out of season intentionally, and who never will—who am compelled by sham sportsmen, cockney and pot-gunners to shoot woodcock in July; who have been invited, times out and over again, to shoot cockon men’s own ground, and therefore within the letter of the law, in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland, before the season; who have ever refused to take the advantages, which every one takes over me; and who still intend to persist, though not to hope, that there may be sense enough, if not integrity, among the legislatures of the free states, to prevent the destruction of all game within their several jurisdictions.

As the thing stands—and by the thing I mean the law—woodcock are to be shot on or about the first day of July; and if, dear reader, you try to shoot any where within fifty miles of New York, or twenty-five of Philadelphia, much later than the tenth of June, I am inclined to think that you will find wonderfully little sport; before the season, do not fire a shot, if you will take my advice, if poachers will violate the law, and the law will not enforce itself against poachers, abstain from becoming a poacher yourself, and do not shoot before the season fairly commences.

At this period of the year woodcock are almost invariably found in the lowlands; sometimes, as, for instance, at Salem, in New Jersey, and many other similar localities along the low and level shores of the Delaware, in the wide, open meadows, where there is not a bush or brake to be seen for miles; but more generally in low, swampy woods, particularly in maple woods, which have an undergrowth of alder; along the margin of oozy streamlets, creeping through moist meadows, among willow thickets; and in wet pastures trampled by cattle, and set here and there with little brakes, which afford them shade and shelter during the heat of the day.

Of the latter description is the ground, once so famous for its summer cock-shooting, known as “the drowned lands,” in Orange County, New York, extending for miles and miles along the margins of the Wallkill and its tributaries, the Black Creek, the Quaker Creek, and the beautiful Wawayanda. Many a day of glorious sport have I had on those sweet level meadows, enjoyed with friends long since dispersed and scattered, some dead, untimely, some in far distant lands, some false, and some forgetful, and thou, true-hearted, honest, merry, brave, Tom Draw; thou whilom king of hosts and emperor of sportsmen, thou, saddest fate of all, smitten, or ere thy prime was passed away, by the most fearful visitation that awaits mankind—the awful doom of blindness! never again shall I draw trigger on those once loved levels—the rail-road now thunders and whistles close beside them, and every man and boy and fool, now sports his fowling-piece; and not a woodcock on the meadows but, after running the gauntlet of a hundred shots, a hundred volleys, is consigned to the care of some conductor, by him to be delivered to Delmonico or Florence, for the benefit of fat, greasy merchant-princes; and if it were not so, if birds, swarmed as of yore in every reedy slank, by every alder-brake, in every willow tuft, the ground is haunted by too many recollections, rife with too many thick-succeeding memories to render it a fitting place, to me at least, for pleasurable or gay pursuits.

But, as I have said before, summer cock-shooting on the Drowned Lands of Orange County, is among the things that have been—one of the stars that has set, never to be relumed, in the nineteenth century; and the glory of “the Warwick Woodlands” has departed.

In Connecticut, in some parts, there is very good summer cock-shooting yet; and also in many places in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, in the rich alluvial levels around the Delaware, the Schuylkill, and their tributary rivers; but the sportsman, who really thirsts for fine shooting—shooting such as it does the heart good to hear of—must mount the iron-horse, whose breath is the hissing steam, and away, fleeter even than the wings of the morning, for Michigan and Illinois and Indiana, for the willow-brakes of Alganac, and the rice-marshes of Lake St. Clair; and there he may shoot cock till his gun-barrels are red-hot, and his heart is satiate of bird-slaughter.

It is usual at this season to shoot cock over pointers or setters, according to individual preference of this or that race of dogs; for myself, of the two, I prefer the setter, as in cock-shooting there is always abundance of water to be had, and this rough-coated, high-strung dog can face brakes and penetrate coverts, which play the mischief with the smooth satiny skin of the high-blooded pointer.

In truth, however, neither of these, but the short-legged, bony, red and white cocking-spaniel, is the true dog over which to shoot summer woodcock; and no one, I will answer for it, who has ever hunted a good cry of these, will ever again resort either to setter or pointer for this, to them, inappropriate service.

The true place for these dogs is the open plain, the golden stubble, the wide-stretching prairie, the highland moor, where they can find full scope for their heady courage, their wonderful fleetness, their unwearied industry, and display their miracles of staunchness, steadiness, and nose.

In order to hunt these dogs on cock, you must unteach them some of their noblest faculties, you must tame down their spirits, shackle their fiery speed, reduce them, in fact, to the functions of the spaniel, which is much what it would be to train a battle-charger to bear a pack-saddle, or manage an Eclipse into a lady’s ambling palfrey.

The cocking-spaniel, on the contrary, is here in his very vocation. Ever industrious, ever busy, never ranging above twenty paces from his master, bustling round every stump, prying into every fern-bush, worming his long, stout body, propped on its short, bony legs, into the densest and most matted cover, no cock can escape him.

See! one of them has struck a trail; how he flourishes his stump of a tail. Now he snuffs the tainted ground; what a rapture fills his dark, expressive eye. Now he is certain; he pauses for a moment, looks back to see if his master is at hand; “Yaff! yaff!” the brakes ring with his merry clamor, his comrade rushes to his aid like lightning, yet pauses ever, obedient to the whistle, nor presses the game too rashly, so that it rise out of distance. Up steps the master, with his thumb upon the dexter hammer, and his fore-finger on the trigger-guard. Now they are close upon the quarry; “yaff! yaff! yaff! yaff!” Flip flap! up springs the cock, with a shrill whistle, on a soaring wing. Flip flap! again—there are a couple. Deliberately prompt, up goes the fatal tube—even as the butt presses the shoulder, trigger is drawn after trigger. Bang! bang! the eye of faith and the finger of instinct have done their work, duly, truly. The thud of one bird, as he strikes the moist soil, tells that he has fallen; the long stream of feathers floating in the still air through yonder open glade, announces the fate of the second; and, before the butt of the gun, dropped to load, has touched the ground, withouta word or question, down charged at the report, the busy little babblers are couched silent in the soft, succulent young grass. Loaded once more, “Hie! fetch!” and what a race of emulation—mouthing their birds gently, yet rapturously, to inhale best the delicate aroma, not biting them, each cocker has brought in his bird, and they and you, gentle reader, if you be the happy sportsman who possesses such a brace of beauties, are rewarded adequately and enough.

For the rest, a short, wide-bored, double-barrel, an ounce of No. 8 shot, and an equal measure of Brough’s diamond-grain, will do the business of friendmicroptera, as effectually, at this season, as a huge, long, old fashioned nine-pounder, with its two ounce charge; and it will give you this advantage, that it shall weigh less by three pounds, and enable you to dispense with a superfluous weight of shot, which, on a hot July day, especially if you be at all inclined to what our friend Willis callspinguitude, will of a necessity produce much exudation, and some lassitude.

By the time these lucubrations shall be in thy hands, kind and gentle sportsman, the dog-days will be, and July cock-shooting; and that, where thou shootest soever, thou mayest find the woodcock lying as thick and as lazy as in the cut above, is the worst wish in thy behalf, of thy friend and servant at command,

Frank Forester.

THE SHARK.

A NEW PAGE OF NATURAL HISTORY.

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BY L. A. WILMER.

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Of all marine animals (except midshipmen and second-lieutenants in the navy) the shark is, perhaps, one of the most unpopular. In general, it is difficult to give reason for the unpopularity or popularity of any thing, but with reference to the shark, there is much reason to suppose that he has, by cruel misrepresentation, been exposed to unmerited dislike. Had he been altogether bad, it is most likely that he would have found a zealous advocate long ago; whereas, we are the first, we believe, who ever undertook to say a word in his defense. As a shark is thought to have many counterparts among the human species, we must be extremely careful how we launch our invectives at him, lest by direct implication we should abuse some of our most respectable fellow-citizens. But, without affectation, we have always felt a high degree of respect for this inhabitant of the deep, to whom we may justly ascribe some very estimable and admirable qualities. In the first place, he is the great controversialist of the watery world. “If he cannot always convince,” as some one said of a renowned American orator, “he never failed to silence his opponent;” and this, in the tactics of disputation, is almost as grand an achievement as convincing itself. We read that Tycho Brahe had his nose bitten off in a controversy with another distinguished mathematician. But, although the shark—provided as he is with a jaw as effective as a broad-axe—is well qualified to “chop logic,” we doubt if he would be satisfied with such a paltry exploit as that which has been accredited to Tycho’s snappish adversary; and, indeed, we see no use in mincing the matter when it becomes necessary to “use up” an opponent. The best advice we can give in such a case is to “go the whole hog” at once. But it is not with thecontroversial abilities of the shark that we have to deal at present. It was the chief design of this sketch to speak chiefly of his business habits—on which we intend to found a certain comparison that we have in our eye—and so (as Bottom, the weaver, says) “to grow to a conclusion.”

The shark is a great speculator in his way. He follows in the wake of the ship for days and weeks together, looking out for “a good chance.” His industry and perseverance are rewarded at last, if a poor Jack Tar happen to fall overboard; but if disappointed in his expectations of such an auspicious event, he is obliged to console himself with Jacob Faithful’s excellent maxim, “better luck next time.” If, in pursuit of his object, instead of catching a jolly fat sailor, he should be hooked or harpooned himself, he philosophically considers it as a fair business transaction; for, in every speculation, somebody must suffer—the great object of all speculating skill being to decidewhois to be victimized. Speculation, therefore, is pretty much the same thing in substance, whether it be terrene or aquatic.

Shakspeare, with his customary acuteness of observation, declares that there are “both land-rats and water-rats.” Some other immortal genius has made the startling discovery that there are both water-sharks and land-sharks; and we find that in each of these generic divisions there is more specific arrangement than we have leisure or inclination to discuss. The engraver has supplied us with a specimen of one variety of the land-shark, which may be distinguished at a glance by the globular symbols at the end of the tail—the use or meaning of which has never been clearly explained, though the world has been favored with many ingenious hypotheses in relation to the subject. The common opinion is that the three balls are significative of the fact, that should the animal get possession of any of your property, it istwo to onethat you will never recover it. Others say that as balls have a remarkable facility in going down hill, they significantly point out the route you are likely to take should you venture to have any dealings with this formidable creature.

The least observation of the picture will convince you that there is speculation in the eye of this land-shark. Mark the eager expression! so much like that you may have observed in the glance of his maritime brother, as he ogled you from his billowy alcove. See the open mouth, and teeth displayed, as if prepared for a “bite.” Judging from the “valence” (as Hamlet calls it,) at the bottom of the visage, we opine that this animal does not shavehimself—though he is said to shave his victims rather closely. The beard, by the way, is regarded as a hereditary characteristic of this devouring race—the origin of which is traced to Lombardy. The ancient inhabitants of that country were calledLongobardi, which name some etymologists derive from Latin words, signifying long-beards. Among these unshaven gentry, it appears, pawn-broking, the most remorseless kind of shaving, was first established. From this seminary of shavers, the whole world was supplied with professors—fellows remarkable for great latitude of conscience as well as longitude of beard; benevolent fellows, too, always ready toaccommodate the needy with a loan, “on the most agreeable terms”—as some of them promise to do,peradvertisement, at the present day; the phrase, “most agreeable terms,” being understood to signify one hundred and fifty per cent. per annum! This moderate rate of interest is continued down to our own times, showing that the pawn-broker is piously attached to the usages of his ancestors, while others, in the race for improvement, are constantly trampling, with profane feet, on the ashes of the venerable dead.

“My Uncle,” as the pawn-broker is affectionately called by his customers, honors the assumed relationship by loaning out his dollars to every applicant who can comply with his stipulations. In this particular, some gay, frolicksome nephew would propose him as a model for uncles in general; especially because he never requires an exact account of how the cash loaned is to be expended, nor does he seem to take it for granted that you are on the direct road to ruin because you happen to stand in need of pecuniary assistance. On the contrary, he speaks of money-borrowing as one of the finest strokes of policy, and professes his willingness to lend any imaginable sum—if you are prepared to deposit some “collateral” worth about four times the amount. This being done, your generous creditor never harasses you for repayment, you may abscond, if you choose, and proceed to California, or any other remote region celebrated for gold, or brimstone—assuring yourself that your kind “uncle” will not interfere with your departure or inquire after you when you are gone.

With all this liberality and generous forbearance, the pawn-broker is regarded as one of the most voracious of predatory animals; but be it understood that there are land-sharks compared with which he is a mere minnow, inasmuch as his operations are all on a small scale, and the figure he makes among the speculating leviathans of the day is comparatively insignificant.

REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.

The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey. Edited by his Son, Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey, M. A. To be completed in Six Parts. New York. Harper & Brothers.

The Harpers are printing this entertaining work as fast as the volumes are received from England. The English price is about three dollars and a half a volume; the American twenty-five cents. As a record of Southey’s life, character, and opinions, and as conducting us into the workshop of the greatest of book-makers, the work has great value, apart from its attractive qualities of literary and personal gossip. The impression it leaves of Southey is, on the whole, a favorable one. It makes him appear as an honest, just, active, persistent, independent man,—one who can “toil terribly,”—a staunch friend, a direct and open opponent,—with a good deal of bigotry but no deviltry,—and altogether a person with few of the vices which most commonly beset writers by profession. His letters are admirable, both in themselves and as true specimens of epistolary composition. They show Southey just as he was, quick in forming opinions, confident in expressing them, thoroughly convinced that he had no intellectual superior in England, freed from envy by self-esteem, and ready to settle every question that is started, by a few dogmatic sentences, which sparkle “like salt in fire.” The singular perfection of his character, considered in respect to its capacity for active intellectual labor, came from his almost miraculous confidence in his faculties and content with himself. He has so high an opinion of Robert Southey as to be unconcerned about any thing which lies beyond the grasp of his powers, and, accordingly,however much we may find reason to doubt or deny many of his statements, they ever have a joyous raciness which tingles pleasantly on our perceptions.

The present work commences with a delightful autobiography, which Southey carried down to the age of fifteen. His son then takes up the narrative. This, however, is little more than arranging the correspondence, and explaining allusions in it. The great charm of Southey’s style is its stimulating simplicity; and this is felt throughout the present “Life.” We have marked, in reading the work, a number of passages, which seem to us especially characteristic, and cannot refrain from quoting a few of them. He tells us, in his autobiography, that his elder brother was very beautiful; “so much so, that, when I made my appearance on the 12th of August, 1774, I was sadly disparaged by comparison with him. My mother, asking if it was a boy, was answered by her nurse, in a tone as little favorable to me as it was flattering, ‘Ay, a great ugly boy!’ and she added, when she told me this, ‘God forgive me! when I saw what a great red creature it was, covered with rolls of fat, I thought I should never be able to love him.’” This is the most perfectly dramatic statement of the most important event which can happen to a person, ever given in a biography; and it conciliates the reader at once.

The record of his early life is given with much amusing details. His parents were rather illiterate, and he depended on chance to gratify his thirst for books, with nobody to select what were proper to his age. He read Beaumont and Fletcher through before he was eight years old,—a most curious book for a child, when we consider the obscenity, licentiousness, and slang which mingle with the romantic beauty of those dramatists. He says they did him no harm, for the reason that he was so young. In Mrs. Rowe’s Letters he read her version of the stories of Olendo and Sophronia, and the Enchanted Forest, from Tasso, and despaired at the time of ever reading more of the poem until he was man, “from a whimsical notion that, as the subject related to Jerusalem, the original must be in Hebrew;” and there was not learning enough in his father’s house to set him right on the point.

Perhaps the most interesting peculiarity of books like the present, is their expression of the private opinions which their subjects entertained of contemporary men and events. This certainly is the raciest element in the Correspondence of Southey, and his letters are next in attractiveness to a cosy chat with himself. Of Bentham, he remarks—“It has pleased the metaphysico-critico-politico-patriotico-phoolo-philosopher Jeremy Bentham, to designate me, in one of his opaque works, by the appellation of St. Southey, for which I humbly thank his Jeremy Benthamship, and have in part requited him.” His hatred of Jeffrey, and contempt of Reviews, provoke many a sardonic remark, replete with his peculiar humor. “Turner,” he writes to Rickman, “complained heavily of Scotch criticism, which he seems to feel too much. Such things only provoke me to interject Fool! and Booby!seasoned with the participle damnatory; but as for being vexed at a review—I should as soon be fevered by a flea-bite! . . . I look upon the invention of reviews to be the worst injury which literature has received since its revival.” Of Coleridge he says—“His mind is in a perfect St. Vitus’s dance—eternal activity without action.” Jeffrey, according to Southey, is a bad politician, a worse moralist, and a critic, in matters of taste, equally incompetent and unjust. It is unfortunate that his criticism on himself and on others, in these letters, is not of a kind to entitle him to condemn the editor of the Edinburgh Review. “Cowper,” he asserts, “owed his popularity to his piety, not to his poetry, and that piety was craziness.” His opinion was altered, of course, when he afterward edited an edition of Cowper’s works. Of Walter Savage Lander’s poem of Gebir, he says—“I look upon Gebir, as I do upon Dante’s long poem in the Italian, not as a good poem,but as containing the finest poetry in the language.” His power of appreciating Wordsworth may be estimated by his remark, in a letter to Scott, on the “Ode on the Intimations of Immortality from the Recollections of Childhood.” “The Ode on Pre-existence,” he says, “is a dark subject darkly handled. Coleridge is the only man who could make such a subject luminous. The Leech Gatherer is one of my favorites.” We might quote many other critical judgments, “equally incompetent and unjust,” but if the last does not satisfy the reader, it is impossible to quote any thing that will.

The following passage, from a letter written in 1812, gives so vivid an impression of Shelley in his enthusiastic youth, that we cannot refrain from extracting it. The style is very characteristic of Southey’s manner throughout the letters.

“Here is a man in Keswick, who acts upon me as my own ghost would do. He is just what I was in 1794. His name is Shelley, son to the member for Shoreham, with £6000 a year entailed upon him, and as much more in his father’s power to cut off. Beginning with romances of ghosts and murder, and with poetry at Eton, he passed, at Oxford, into metaphysics; printed half-a-dozen pages, which he entitled “The Necessity of Atheism;” sent one anonymously to Coplestone, in expectation, I suppose, of converting him; was expelled in consequence; married a girl of seventeen, after being turned out of doors by his father; and here they both are, in lodgings, living upon £200 a year, which her father allows them. He is come to the fittest physician in the world. At present he has got to the Pantheistic stage of philosophy, and, in the course of a week, I expect he will be a Berkleyan, for I have put him upon a course of Berkley. It has surprised him a good deal to meet, for the first time in his life, a man who perfectly understands him, and does him full justice. I tell him that all the difference between us is that he is nineteen and I am thirty-seven; and I dare say it will not be very long before I shall succeed in convincing him that he may be a true philosopher, and do a great deal of good with £6000 a year; the thought of which troubles him a great deal more at present than ever the want of sixpence (for I have known such a want) did me. God help us! the world wants mending, though he did not set about it exactly in the right way.”

This Life of Southey promises to be an important addition to the biographical treasures of English literature, and we look with great expectation for the remaining volumes, which will record his quarrels with Byron, his coldness to Coleridge, and the publication of his most important works.

Historic View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic Nations: with a Sketch of their Popular Poetry. By Taloi. With a Preface by Edward Robinson, D. D., LL.D. 1 vol. 12mo.

This work is a real addition to English literature, containing a succinct view of a subject which has heretofore been treated by those English scholars, who have treated of it at all, in a fragmentary and unsatisfactory manner. The Slavic nations contain a population of seventy millions, and it is strange that a work like the present has not been produced before, the subject being rich in matter both to interest and instruct the better class of readers.

“Taloi,” as we presume is well known, is the name assumed by Mrs. Robinson, the learned wife of the learnedgentleman who prefaces the present history. Few living women can be said to excel her in the rare combination of erudition with heartiness. This volume owes much of its attractiveness to the feminine qualities which sometimes guide and sometimes relieve her erudite researches. Her selection of anecdotes, illustrative of national character, is very happy. In speaking of the submission with which the Slavic Nations received Christianity, the people readily following their superiors, she remarks, that “Vladimir the Great, to whom the Gospel and the Koran were offered at the same time, was long undecided which to choose; and was at last induced to embrace the former, because ‘his Russians could not live without the pleasure of drinking.’”

There are many poetical translations in the volume of much excellence, some of them having such a marked peculiarity that, without knowing the originals, a critic might pronounce them to be true versions. Two or three poems, relating to the desolate condition of motherless orphans, are introduced by a reference to a Danish ballad, which we trust that Longfellow will search after and translate. “The Danes,” says Taloi, “have a beautiful ballad, in which the ghost of a mother is roused by the wailings and sufferings of her deserted offspring, to break with supernatural power the gravestone, and to re-enter, in the stillness of the night, the neglected nursery, in order to cheer, to nurse, to comb and wash the dear little ones whom God once entrusted to her care.” The following translation of a ballad, written in the Upper Lusatian language, we extract:

THE ORPHAN’S LAMENT.Far more unhappy in the world am I,Than on the meadow the bird that doth fly.

THE ORPHAN’S LAMENT.

Far more unhappy in the world am I,

Than on the meadow the bird that doth fly.

Little bird merrily flits to and fro,Sings its sweet carol upon the green bough.

Little bird merrily flits to and fro,

Sings its sweet carol upon the green bough.

I, alas, wander wherever I will,Everywhere I am desolate still!

I, alas, wander wherever I will,

Everywhere I am desolate still!

No one befriends me wherever I go,But my own heart full of sorrow and wo!

No one befriends me wherever I go,

But my own heart full of sorrow and wo!

Cease thy grief, oh my heart, full of grief,Soon will a time come that giveth thee relief.

Cease thy grief, oh my heart, full of grief,

Soon will a time come that giveth thee relief.

Never misfortune has struck me so hard,But I, ere long, again better have fared.

Never misfortune has struck me so hard,

But I, ere long, again better have fared.

God of all else in the world has enough;Why not then widows and orphans enough?

God of all else in the world has enough;

Why not then widows and orphans enough?

Thenaïvetéof this is similar to a little quotation which the author gives from a Servian elegy. A poor girl sings: “Our Lord has of every thing his fill; but of poor people he seems to have greater plenty than of anything else!”

The following description, from a Servian lyric, we commend to contributors to Albums. It will keep them in comparisons for a life-time:

Never since the world had a beginning,Never did a lovelier flow’ret blossom,Than theflow’ret in our own days blooming;Haikuna, the lovely maiden flower.She was lovely, nothing e’er was lovelier!She was tall and slender as the pine-tree;White her cheeks, but tinged with rosy blushes,As if morning’s beam had shone upon them,Till that beam had reached its high meridian.And her eyes, they were two precious jewels,And her eyebrows,leeches from the ocean,And her eyelids, they were wings of swallows;And her flaxen braids were silken tassels;And her sweet mouth was a sugar casket,And her teeth were pearls arrayed in order;White her bosom, like two snowy dovelets,And her voice was like the dovelet’s cooing;And her smiles were like the glowing sunshine;And her fame, the story of her beauty,Spread through Bosnia, and through Herz’govina.

Never since the world had a beginning,

Never did a lovelier flow’ret blossom,

Than theflow’ret in our own days blooming;

Haikuna, the lovely maiden flower.

She was lovely, nothing e’er was lovelier!

She was tall and slender as the pine-tree;

White her cheeks, but tinged with rosy blushes,

As if morning’s beam had shone upon them,

Till that beam had reached its high meridian.

And her eyes, they were two precious jewels,

And her eyebrows,leeches from the ocean,

And her eyelids, they were wings of swallows;

And her flaxen braids were silken tassels;

And her sweet mouth was a sugar casket,

And her teeth were pearls arrayed in order;

White her bosom, like two snowy dovelets,

And her voice was like the dovelet’s cooing;

And her smiles were like the glowing sunshine;

And her fame, the story of her beauty,

Spread through Bosnia, and through Herz’govina.

The simplicity of the ballads which Mrs. Robinson has so copiously translated, will win many readers who take but little interest in intellectual history. But it is as a history of literature that the book is deserving of most attention, and as a historian the author displays great learning, gracefully managed. The criticism is conducted on enlarged principles of taste, and the diction is uniformly clear, condensed, and elegant. The publisher has done his part towards making the volume attractive, by printing it in large type on good paper.

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