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introduction to him at Lamb’s chambers,
j'Vis made still more proud and happy by
L appearance at my own on such an errand
which, my poverty, not my will, rendered
bortive. After some pleasant chat on indif
ferent matters, he carelessly observed that he
had a little bill for £l5O falling due on the
morrow, which he had forgotten till thatmorn
■ v all (i desired the loan of the necessary a
mount for a few weeks. At first, in eager
hope of being able thus to oblige one whom
J regarded with admiration akin to awe, I be
n°to consider whether it was possible for
me to raise such a sum; but, alas! a mo
ment’s reflection sufficed to convince me that
the hope was in vain, and I was obliged, with
much confusion, to assure my distinguished
visitor how glad 1 should have been to serve
him, but that I was only just starting as a
epecial pleader, was obliged to write for mag
azines to help me on, and had not such a sum
in the world. “Oh dear,” said the philoso
pher, “ I thought you were a young gentle
man of fortune—don’t mention it; I shall do
very well elsewhere,” —and then, in the most
gracious manner, reverted to our former top
ics* and sat in my small room for half an
hour, as if to convince me that my want of
fortune made no difference in his esteem. A
slender tribute to the literature he had loved
and served so well, was accorded to him in
the old age to which he attained, by the gift
of a sinecure in the exchequer of about £2OO
a year, connected with the custody of the re
cords ; and the last time 1 saw him he was
heaving an immense key to unlock the mus
ty treasure of which he was guardian —how
unlike those he had unlocked, with finer tal
isman, for the astonishment and alarm of one
generation, and the delight of all others.
Talfourd's Final Memorials of Charles Lamb.
©aural (Pdcctic.
NEW YORK IN SHOES.
Under the above somewhat quaint title, Mr.
Foster, of that city, is contributing to the Tri
bune a series of very clever sketches, in one
of which he affords us a pleasant glance at
the “ Literary Soirees' ’ so frequently alluded
to by our own “Flit.” We annex a few
fragments, which will interest our readers. —
Here is a good-humored, and, we opine, a
very truthful portraiture of that great compi
ler and editor of books —
RUFUS WII.MOT GRISWOLD.
Stalking about with an immense quarto
volume under his arm, (it is an early copy of
his forthcoming ‘Female Poets of America,’)
is a thin, nervous man —his grey eyes look
ing shyly about like a girl’s, and his mouth
twitching every now and then, with the con
ception of anew biography. He carries his
head ponderingly upon his shoulder, as if
there were a good deal in it—and so there is;
for his room in the University is crammed
full of books, and he has managed somehow
to absorb the contents of most of them into
his own brain. In literary topography he is
a peripatetic gazetteer. He knows when ev
ery book or other intellectual bantling in
America was born, who was its father, (or
mother.) how old it was when it died, how
many teeth it had, and of what money or
other effects it died possessed, lie is as fa
miliar with the pedigree of every tyro and
blue-stocking, from the Fredoniad down, as a
Virginia turfman with that of his stable. His
memory is a miscellaneous storehouse of ce
lebrities of whom nobody has ever heard, and
of great poetesses who didn’t know how to
make dumplings. lie is the most unselfish
of mortals, and has dwelt so much mid the
excellences and perfections of others that he
scarcely retains cognizance of his own iden
tity. Yet is he, by nature, the equal and the
superior of many whom his protection has
warmed inlo vitality. He is a poet of no
mean powers, a critic of fine taste and appre
ciation, although a great deal too good-na
tured, and a logician of very respectable cali
bre. Beside these, he is something of an or
ator and a good deal of a rhetorician ; and
we have heard of people being profitably ex
ercised under the influence of his ‘stated
preaching.’ He began life without a friend
or a dollar—having quarreled with his wealthy
family, who wished to bring him up in the
counting-house. Escaping from a thraldom
which his soul abhorred, he took refuge in a
printing-office, where he obtained bis educa
tion, a knowledge of the world, and a good
many hard knocks, all for a hundred dollars
a year and found. From this point he work
ed away and ipade himself, by the force of
his talents and an indomitable industry, a pa
tron and protector of American Literature. —
if his books are neither perfect nor strictly
§ © onr h&ie ei &afn la m ® a suit if
impartial, yet they are incomparably the best
of the kind that have been produced : and it
is entirely through them that a host of Amer
ican writers are known in Europe, who would
otherwise have been unheard of. Whatever
may be thought of the critical justice of Dr.
Griswold, we cannot deny that his labors
have been of incalculable benefit to the Lite
rature and Literary Men of his country, and
that they form the only accessible or reliable
authority respecting a good deal of our na
tional intellectual development.
Here we have a picture that ‘ stirs the
blood’ and makes us long for cominunings
with beings so bright and beautiful as it rep
resents. We will not even he so ungallant
as to imagine, much less to hint, that the
sketcher has flattered his portraits, hut take
them with that perfect confidence which is
the very main-spring of admiration.
The ladies are scattered all about, as thick
as stars; yet we do not know how to approach
them. There is the stately Mrs. Seba Smith,
bending aristocratically over the centre-table,
and talking in a bright, cold, steady stream,
like an antique fountain; and yonder, nestled
under a light shawl of heraldic red and blue,
like a bird escaped from its cage and already
longing to get back again, is the spiritual and
dainty Fanny Osgood, ciapping her hands and
crowing like a baby. Next her sits, as quiet
as a pet lamb, the petite and piquante Mrs.
Ellet, her sparkling black eyes humid with
the glitter of some wicked repartee she has
been forging. If she were not in Home, you
might see on the opposite side of the table,
Miss Fuller, her large grey eyes lamping in
spiration, and her thin quivering lip prophe
cy ing like a pythoness. Yonder by the fire
place, sits the dark-eyed and poetic-faced
Grace Greenwood, talking earnestly and cast
ing bright glances of lambent defiance around
her, as if she loved yet contemned everybody.
Behind her, in a low arm-chair, which sways
gently to a half-murmured tune, sits the heart
and soul of tenderness and poetry, in the
plump and temporal person of Louisa Maria
Child. She never leaves her own retreat,
and sings ever loudest and sweetest from her
nest. It is strange that we should have en
countered her here amid this gay parade of
beauty and distinction. Though well de
serving place any where, by virtue of the
depth and purity of her genius, her fervid
and o'ermastering worship of the beautiful,
and the sincerity and classic sympathy of
her soul, yet she all too seldom strays from
home, and seems even now to be uneasy and
restless, as if she fancied the room about to
compress and flatten everybody —and she de
tests flat people.
Southern (Exlecttc.
THE RAINY HAY
BY MARY E. LEE.
“ I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem’iiL”
I love to look on a day like this,
Os never tiring rain,
When the blue sky wears it.s sack-cloth robe?,
And the streets are a watery plain ;
When the big drops fall on the sounding roofs,
With a cool and a startling splash,
And the flute-like breeze pours its music-notes
’Gainst the close shut window-sash.
I remember yet, though ’twas long ago,
The beat of my childish heart,
When with hall'-conn’d lesson I watched somo morn,
For fear that the clouds might part ;
And oh ! what bliss when the skies’ wide hall
Feemed paved as with sheets of lead,
Till the warning rain at the dark school hour,
Forbade my out-of-door tread.
And in youth’s gay season, when wiser grown,
1 own, though 1 blush to tell,
That each rainy day brought that untasked time,
Which my spirit loved too well:
When the book of knowledge was thrown aside.
For some light and romantic lore,
And of antique ballads and honied rhymes,
My memory won full store.
Though youth has gone, I’ve a passion still
For the cool rain’s pleasant tunes,
Whether they steal on the midnight hours,
Or peel on the sultry noons;
Whether they come with the fitful spring
Or the equinoctial spell,
From the fierce black north, or the sweet south-wost,
In all changes I love them well.
’Tis folly to talk of my spirit’s freaks,
But its loftiest flights of thought,
And its friendliest feelings to human kind,
From a clouded sky are caught;
And my mirth b.eaks out in its merriest peal,
And I feel most t he gift of life,
When the wind and rain o’er a silent world,
Hold elemental strife.
’Tis pleasant to watch how the green trees quench
Their thirst with a long full draught;
While the bright flowers hoard up an after store,
In the cup but so lately quaffed;
And ’tis pleasant to see how those other flowers,
The children of every home,
Are stirr’d with jov when their parted lips
Catch the drops as they slowly come.
Oh ! better far than a written page,
Is the sermon it reads to me,
This pdenteous flood of delicious scent,
That falls in a torrent free ;
It brings me nearer to Him who gave
The early and latter rain,
And my heart swells ever as now it does,
In a fresh and an answering strain.
TRUE HEROISM.
BY HENRY R. JACKSON, ESQ.*
T’ e true nature of Courage, as a trait of
human character, is not always properly un
derstood. A distinction is commonly drawn
between moral and physical courage; yet,
this is not enough ! A broad stretch of dis
puted territory lies between them.—Courage,
in its true signification, is the quality which
enables the creature to face danger, and to en
dure suffering, whether mental, moral or phys
ical. To test the existence or power of the
quality, it is necessary that the danger should
he fully realized, and the suffering fully felt.
The brute cannot be said to exhibit courage,
which does not comprehend the danger it fa
ces. There is reality in the lion’s fury—
none whatever in the idea of the lion’s cour
age : and the homage we pay to the chival
ry of the warrior bird, our national eagle—
“majestic monarch of the cloud!”—is a relic
of the idle though beautiful creations of pa
gan imagination. Courage, as it is frequent
ly understood among mankind, may be the
result of a want of perception approaching
to stupidity, or a want of sensibility approach
ing to callousness. The imagination does not
picture the danger which approaches; no ap
peal is made to the moral nature to resist it;
and, consequently, the quality of Courage is
never called into exercise. The deaf man,
who sleeps through the battle, unconscious
of the roar of the cannon and the flash of the
bayonet, is as much entitled to the reputation
of Courage, as he who enters the conflict
with an imagination dead to the future, and
a heart callous to danger. The effect, in both
cases, is the result of a similar cause. Pro
duced by a defect in the natural organization
of the creature, it is a mere negative condi
tion. If this be Courage, it has no positive
existence of its own. Its possession presup
poses the want of other and far more estima
ble faculties. It deserves neither admiration
nor respect as an attribute of character, and
is possessed in a correspondingly greater a
mount by the descending orders of the natu
ral world—by the brute to a greater extent
than the man —by the vegetable to a greater
extent than the brute—by the mineral to a
greater extent than the vegetable—since the
helianthus has sufficient sensibility to turn in
mute adoration to its God, and the mimosa
perception enough to close its leaf at a touch.
To speak of an individual as a man with
out fear, is to picture a being lower, not high
er, than human; for fear is an emotion as
natural to man, as love, pride, sympathy or
sorrow; and the angels and archangels, the
cherubim and seraphim, who wander through
the golden courts of Heaven, look up with
emotions of awe, as well as admiration, of
fear as well as of love, to “ Him who sits up
on the throne,” —the Omnipotent, the Om
niscient, the Immutable, the Eternal. There
is as little to admire in the character of a man
without fear, as there was in the character of
Rob lioy McGregor—the man without a tear.
To conquer fear, r.ot to be devoid of it, con
stitutes heroism. A thorough analysis of the
whole subject will shew that Courage, after
all, is the power to conquer one’s self—to
“ force one’s soul to his own conceit;” and,
in proportion as the task is more difficult, the
physical nerve weaker, or the imagination
more vivid and creative, the fire that burns
the body more excruciating, or the sense of
danger that racks the mind more overwhelm
ing ; so is the achievement the greater, and
the final triumph the more brilliant and com
plete. He is the true hero who, with a ner
vous organization keenly susceptible to pain,
lies upon the rack or stands among the flames,
confessing the agony by his convulsions, but
subduing it by his will. He is the true con
queror, whose imagination imparts to the ap
proaching danger more than its real horrors
—who feels hope but flickering in his bosom
—who beholds the black features of despair
scowling hideously upon him—who groans
beneath the tortures of a sensibility that sick
ens at a touch—who starts, trembling from
his midnight dream, at the image of terrors
depicted by a mind with too piercing an eye
sight, and of tortures conceived by a heart
with too keen a sensation; but who main
♦ From an Address delivered before the Literary
Societies of Franklin College, Geo Au-3d, 1848.
tains himself, undaunted, among them all —
who walks, like the Pilgrim through the val
ley of the shadow of Death, with a determin
ed step —who is the Man throughout, hold
ing his head up, in the beautiful idea of his
Grecian name, and made in the image of the
Christian’s God.
He has but faintly realized the agonies or
the heroism of the Saviour of mankind, who
has merely beheld him hanging upon the
Cross, enduring the tortures ot physical cru
cifixion ; the thieves on his right hand and
his left suffered the same. But their’s were
the pangs of an hour—his had been the en
durance of years. Hope had left them but
lately ; Hope had been with him—never ?
Their’s was a short-lived crucifixion of the
body ; his, from his childhood up, had been
an eternal crucifixion of the soul. The veil
which had never been lifted to mortal eyes
was lifted to his, and God’s benevolence did
not conceal the future from his gaze. As he
laid him down to slumber, it was there ; as
he started from his midnight dream, it was
before him; as he opened his eyes to the
light of the blessed morning, he awoke to a
renewed consciousness of his terrible destiny.
In vain was health buoyant in his physical
frame, and his mind exalted by the sublime
consciousness of divinity; in vain were the
skies bright, and the earth green; in vain did
the Spring come with its bloom, the Summer
with its bounty, and Nature exert her revivi
fying power in the delightful transition of the
seasons. Still was the same terrible destiny*
unchanging, unchangeable, glooming upon
him like an endless winter of the soul. With
all the susceptibilities of the man t 6 the tor
ture, he possessed the foresight of the God
to the future. From the earliest dawn of rea
son—sitting among the Doctors in Jerusalem
in his boyhood ; tempted by the devil on the
high mountain; selecting his disciples and
delivering to them Ins commandments; work
ing his miracles and embodying the wisdom
of heaven in his parables; adored or perse
cuted ; strong in the hearts of the multitude,
or weak in the attachment of a few disciples
-—they but human and wavering—he still
saw, with unclouded vision, the grim specta
cle of the Cross; the holes in his hands and
his feet; the blood streaming from his side ;
the crown of thorns upon his head; the gall
and vinegar at his lips. Yet did he walk
calmly on to the terrible consummation—not
in excitement—not in the expectation of hon
or, or of glory, or of profit—but, forgetful of
self, conquering temptation, fear and afflic
tion ; weeping over the sorrows of others,
but patiently enduring his own ; described
by a heathen writer as “ a man of great vir
tue ;” “in speaking, very temperate, modest
and wise j” “in conversation, pleasant, mix
ed with gravity;” “it cannot be remembered
that any have seen him laugh, but many have
seen him weep.”
And what human conception can adequate
ly picture the agony which must have been
at work upon his vitals, when, towards his
last moments, as the breath of the horror was
hot upon his soul, and indicated its immedi
ate presence, he exclaimed, “Oh! my father,
if it be possible, let this cup pass from me !”
And what human soul could have approxi
mated to Ihe heroism of the words that im
mediately followed this first, last, and only
confession of weakness from the Saviour of
the world ? “ Nevertheless, not as I will, but
as thou wilt!”
Pagan philosophy said to her disciple,
“ Know thyself !” Christian philosophy
would add, “ Conquer thyself !” To con
quer self, is the noblest of all heroic achieve
ments. The career of the Saviour was a per
petual martyrdom of self. Courage shone
conspicuously in his eventful life and horri
ble death : not the Courage which simply
braves physical danger, but the Courage whicli
sustains in the solemn discharge ot terrible
duty : not the Courage which triumphs in
the damage and afflictions of others, but the
Courage \vhose power is tested, and whose
trinmpn is won, in the conquest and sacrifice
of self-—the Courage which fights its chief
est battles within the soul, subjects its pow
ers and emotions to the control of the will,
conquers it from the dominion of circum
stance, nerves it to the discharge of the most
fearful duties in contempt of physical resis
tance, and enables it firmly to face a frown
ing world, if sustained by a smiling God.—
So lar as human heroism assimilates to this,
it is no longer the attribute of the murderer,
the gladiator, the detion—but a characteris
tic of the philosopher, the philanthropist, the
God. He who has waged a successful cam
paign through the variegated realms of his
own character—who has marshalled his rea
son against the bristling phalanx of passio.:
—who has made affliction, both mental and
physical, bow to the yoke of endurance—
who has conquered and purified the miasmat
ic regions of morbid sensibility—whe has
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