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dSliinjism of jdcrn ‘Banks.
“SYDNEY SMITH IAN A.
From “ Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy,” by
Rev. Sydney Smith, M. A., published by Harper &
Brothers. SOCRATES.
The morality of Socrates was reared
upon the basis of rejig on. The prin
ciples of virtuous conduct which are
common to all mankind, are, according
to this wise and good man, laws of
God ; and the argument by which he
supports this opinion is, that no man
departs from these principles with im
punity. “It is frequently possible,”
says he, “ for men to screen themselves
from the penalty of human laws, but
no man can be unjust or ungrateful
without suffering for his crime—hence
1 conclude that these laws must have
proceeded from a more excellent legis
lator than man.” Socrates taught that
true felicity is not to be derived from
external possessions, but from wisdom;
which consists in the knowledge and
practice of virtue; —that the cultiva
tion of virtuous manners is necessarily
attended with pleasure as well as profit;
—that the honest man alone, is happy;
—and that it is absurd to attempt to
separate things which are in their na
ture so united as virtue and interest.
Socrates was, in truth, not very fond
of subtile and refined speculations; and
upon the intellectual part of our nature,
little or nothing of his opinions is re
corded. If we may infer any thing
from the clearness and simplicity of his
opinions on moral subjects, and from
the bent which his genius had received
for the useful and the practical, he
would certainly have laid a strong foun
dation for rational metaphysics. The
slight sketch J have given of his moral
doctrines contains nothing very new or
very brilliant, but comprehends those
moral doctrines which every person of
education has been accustomed to hear
from his childhood ; —but two thou
sand years ago they were great dis
coveries, —two thousand years since,
common sense was not invented. If
Orpheus, or Linus, or any of those me
lodious moralists, sung, in bad verses,
such advice as a grand-mamina would
now give to a child of six years old, he
was thought to be inspired by the gods,
and statues and altars were erected to
his memory. In Hesiod there is a
very grave exhortation to mankind to
wash their faces : and I have discover
ed a very strong analogy between the
precepts of Pythagoras and Mrs. Trim
mer; —both think that a son ought to
obey his father, and both are clear that
a good man is better than a bad one.
Therefore, to measure aright this extra
ordinary man, we must remember the
period at which he lived ; that he was
the first who called the attention of
mankind from the pernicious subtilties
which engaged and perplexed their wan
dering understandings to the practical
rules of life ; —he was the great father
and inventor of common sense, as Ceres
was of the plow, and Bacchus of intox
ication. First he taught his cotempo
raries that they did not know what they
pretended to know; then he showed
them that they knewtothing ; then he
told them what they ought to know.—
Lastly, to sum up the praise of Socra
tes, remember that two thousand years
•1 m \ \r L! 1 a mnv •/* ~ -rl* J—
sects which crawled beneath their feet;
—two thousand years *go, with the
bowl of poison in his hand, Socrates
said, “1 am persuaded that my death,
which is now ju t coming, will conduct
me into the presence of the gods, who
•are the most righteous governors, and
into the society of just and good men;
and 1 derive confidence from the hope
that something of man remains after
death, and that the condition of good
men will then be much better than that
ot ‘he bad.” Soon after this he cover
ed himself up with his cloak and ex
pired.
PLATO.
Ot all the disciples of Socrates, Pla
to, though he calls himself the least,
was certainly the most celebrated. As
long as philosophy continued to be
studied among the Greeks and Romans,
his doctrines were taught, and his name
revered. Even to the present dav his
wi itings give a tinge to the language
and speculations of philosophy and
theology. Os the Majestic beauty of
Plato s style, it is almost impossible
to convey an adequate idea. lie keeps
the understanding up to a high pitch of
enthusiasm longer than any existing
writer ; and, in reading Plato, zeal and
animation seem rather to be the regu
lai feelings than the casual efferves
cence of the mind, fie appears almost
disdaining the mutability and imper
fection of the earth on which he treads,
to be drawing fire from heaven, and to
be seeking among the gods above, for
the permanent, the beautiful, and the
grand ! In contrasting the vigor and
the magnitude of his conceptions with
the extravagance of his philosophical
tenets, it is almost impossible to avoid
wishing that he had confined himself to
the practice of eloquence ; and, in this
way giving range and expansion to the
mind which was struggling within him,
had become one of those famous orators
who
“ Wielded at will that fierce democratie,
Shook th’ arsenal, and fulmiri’d over Greece
To Macedon and Aitaxerxes’ throne.”
After having said so much of his
language, 1 am afraid I must proceed
to his. philosophy ; observing always,
that, in stating it, I do not always pre
tend to understand it, and do not even
en o a 8 e 1° defend it. In comparing the
very marks of sobriety and discretion
with the splendour of his genius, 1 have
often exe!aimed as Prince Henry did
about 1 alstaff’s bill, —“Oh, monstrous!
but one halfpennyworth of bread to
this intolerable deal of sack !”
His notion was, that the principles
out of which the world was composed
were three in number, —the subject
matter ol things, their specific essences,
and the sensible objects themselves.—
Ihese last, he conceived to have no
probable or durable existence, but to
be always in a state of fluctuation :
■ )ut then there were certain everlasting
patterns and copies, from which every
t eng had been made, and which he de
nominated their specific essences. For
instance, the individual rose which I
n. 1 .? n> * ns t a nt, or a particular
U u JP un ‘ v 'bich I cast my eye, are ob
existon sense i w htch have no durable
of them^hT* 1 indiv V iua l idea I have
lv the s i * mo ' aea t is not numerical
moment Jf aS ,h ? “Wfh I had the
I Zsl. “ 1 J ", s, os the , ivo '’ hi, h
l pass now is not the same river which
1 passed half an before, because the in
dividual water in which I trod has
•rfided away : therefore these appear
ances of the rose, and the pony, are of
very little importance; but there is
somewhere or other an eternal pony,
and an eternal rose, after the pattern
of which one and the other have been
created. The same with actions as
with things. If Plalo had seen one. per
son make a bow to another, he would
have said that the particular bow was
a mere visible species; but there was
an unchanging bow which had existed
from all eternity, and which was the
model and archetype and specific es
sence of all other bows. But, says
Plato, all things in this world are indi
viduals. We see this man, and that
man, and the other man; but a man
—the general notion of a man —we do
not, and can not gain from our senses :
therefore we have existed in some pre
vious state, where we have gained these
notions of universal natures. In child
hood, where human creatures are go
verned by the feelings of the body,
these general ideas are forgotten : but
in proportion as reason assumes the
reins of empire, we call to mind these
eternal exemplars , of which our under
standing had before taken notice in a
previous state of existence.
ARISTOTLE.
Whoever is fond of the biographical
art, as a repositoiy of the actions and
the fortunes of great men, may enjoy
an agreeable specimen of its certainty
in the life of Aristotle. Some w riters
say he was a Jew; others, that he got
all his information from a Jew, that he
kept an apothecary’s shop, and was an
atheist; others say, on the contrary,
that he did not keep an apothecary’s
shop, and that he was a Trinitarian.—
Some say he respected the religion of
his country; others that he offered
sacrifices to his wife, and made hymns
in favour of his father-in-law. Some
are of opinion he was poisoned by the
priests ; others are clear that he died
of vexation, because he could not dis
cover the causes of the ebb and flow in
the Euripus. We now care or know
so little about Aristotle, that Mr. Field
ing, in one of his novels, saysj “ Aris
totle is not such a fool as many people
believe, who never read a syllable of
his works.’
******
Aristotle held, that all sensible ob
jects are made up of two principles,
both of which he calls equally sub
stances, —the matter, and the specific
essence. He was not obliged to hold,
like Plato, that those principles existed
prior in order of time to the objects
which they afterward composed. They
w’ere prior, he said, in nature, but not
in time (according to a distinction which
was of use to him upon many other
occasions). He distinguished also be
tween actual and potential existence :
by the first, understanding what is com
monly meant by existence, or reality ;
by the second, the bare possibility of
existence. Neither the material es
sence of body could, according to him,
exist actually without being determined
by some specific essence to some par
ticular class of being, nor any specific
essence without being embodied in
some portion of matter. Each of these
two prineinlp® however, could exist
matter existed potentially which, being
endow'ed with a particular form, could
be brought into actual existence ; and
that form existed potentially which, by
being embodied in a particular portion
of matter, could in the same manner
be called forth into the class of com
plete realities. What difference there
is between the potential existence of
Aristotle, and the separate essences of
Plato, and what foundation there is in
reality either for the one or the other,
1 confess myself wholly at a loss to
comprehend.
Virtue, according to this philosopher,
consists in the habit of mediocrity ac
cording to right reason. Every par
ticular virtue, according to him, lies in
a medium between two opposite vices;
of which the one offends from being too
much, the other from being too little
affected by a particular species of ob
jects.
ZENO.
Zeno was born at Cyprus, and was
the son of a merchant, who, having fre
quent occasion in his mercantile capaci
ty to visit Athens, bought for his son
several of the writings of the most em
inent Soeratic philosophers. These he
read with great avidity, and from their
perusal laid the foundation of his philo
sophical fame. In the course of his
mercantile pursuits he freighted a ship
for Athens, with a very valuable cargo
of Phoenician purple, which he com
pletely lost by shipwreck on the coast,
near the Piraeus. Avery acute man,
who found himself in a state of sudden
and complete poverty at Athens, would
naturally enough think of turning philo
sopher, both as by its doctrines it in
spired him with some consolation for
the loss of his Phoenician purple, and
by its profits afforded him some chance
of subsistence without it. After at
tending various masters of the Cynic
school, which was then in high reputa
tion. he put forth his own system of
opinions upon which was formed the
Stoic school, one of the most consider
able in ancient Greece.
The opinions of the Stoics upon the
intellectual part of our nature, were
either the same as, or very nearly al
lied to, those of Plato and Aristotle ;
though they were often disguised in very
different language.
EPICURUS.
Epicurus was the son of a school
master and a woman who gained her
livelihood by curing diseases by magic,
driving away ghosts, and performing
other services equally marvelous.—
The circumstance which first turned his
attention to philosophy is said to have
been, that, on reading the works of
Hesiod, he consulted his master upon
the meaning of the word chaos. The
pedagogue, unable to solve the point,
instead of scourging him for asking too
difficult a question, as is common! the
custom, referred him to the philosophers
for an explanation. To the philosopers,
as soon as an opportunity offered, he
had recourse for more information than
he could gain from schoolmasters, and
acquired all he could glean from Pam
philus a Platonist, Nausiphanes a Py
thagorean, and Pyrrho the Skeptic.—
He was at Athens also a student, while
Xenocrates, taught in the Academy,
and Theophrastus in the Lyceum.—
When Cicero therefore calls him a self
taught philosopher, we are not to un
derstand by that expression that he w as
SOUTHERN LITERARY GAZETTE.
never instructed in the tenets of other
masters, but that his system of philo
sophy was the result of his own reflec
tions, after comparing the doctrines of
other sects. In the thirty-second year
of his age, he opened a school at Myti
lene. Not satisfied, however, with the
narrow sphere of philosophical fame
which this obscure situation afforded
him, he repaired to Athens, purchased
a pleasant garden w’here he took up his
residence and taught his philosophy; —
and hence his disciples w-ere called the
philosophers of the garden.
This philosopher considered the
pleasures and pains of the body to be
the sole objects of desire and aversion.
(Original
For the Southern Literary Gazette.
THE WIFE *
BY GEORGE W. S. NICHOLSON.
There are heroes in the nation,
Fearless men and heroines,
Deeds of bravery round them circling,
Such as glory’s chiftain wins,
Who have never heard their praises
From the trumpet sound of fame—
Who have lived, and died forgotten,
Save in song—poetic flame.
Shake the folds of dark oblivion,
Shake the mantle, clear each brow;
Let them live in mem’ry’s volume,
Share the page of heroes now.
Tho’ they never wore the scabbard,
Never bathed the sword in light.
Yet the laurels shall be planted
In the temples with delight.
’Twas a gloomy day in Charleston,
Anxious faces gathered round ;
And from some the tears were dropping
From their eyelids to the ground ;
Beating hearts and swelling bosoms,
Such as warriors only know,
Who have left their homes deserted.
To exterminate the foe.
All the day the guns were booming,
Thundering o’er the dark blue stream ;
And the cannons open’d on us,
With their deadly, flashing gleam.
Still the horrid hail of battle
Thickly rattled o’er the wave; •
And the waters lash’d in fury
For the martyr’d, for the brave
Still the soldiers lit their matches
With a deep, despairing glow ;
And they wheeled their burning cannons
To the ramparts of the foe ;
And they hurl’d the fiery missiles,
Claiming vengeance for each life—
Many a warrior brush’d his forehead
As he thought of home and wife.
All the day these sounds were carried
To a warrior’s humble cot;
And the matron heard the rattling
And the whistling of the shot.
Oh! the anguish of those moments.
As she hearken’d to the strife ;
For she heard not from her husband.
Whether still she was a wife!
She could bear the doubts no longer;
Better death than thus to live,
While her thoughts were all embittered
For the comfort she could give.
With her child, this sorrowing mother
Loosed her slender, open bark ;
Down tVu> rivor rlror>!H.iibue-JiyiJVlv.
Down that lonely, gloomy river,
Down with muffled oar3 they float;
And the random shots strike nearer.
Sprinkling spray above the boat;
And she strains her eyes with gazing
Through the misty veil of night,
While the flying bombs burst round her,
Ghastly visions meet her sight.
Nearer, nearer sounds the cannon,
All the horrors of the war
Seem to rush upon her bosom
With a never-healing scar.
She in fancy sees her husband #
Borne along ’midst glory’s train ;
And the death-shot bares his bosom,
And his life-blood dyes the plain.
Darkly as the vale of shadows,
Or the stygian river, Death,
With its horrid, tomb-like clamor,
With its heavy, poisonous breath,
Is the passage of the pilgrims
Through the vale of deadly strife,
Where the groanings, where the moanings
Tell the ebbing sea of life.
Hark! a voice is close behind her:
’Tis the foemen on the wave;
In an instant all is silent,
Silent as the midnight grave;
They have passed her, and in safety
She has freed her muffled oar;
And has found her patriot husband.
There to rest for evermore.
‘Suggested by an episode in a review of *• Ellet’s Wo
men ot the Revolution,” in the Southern Quarterly He
view tor July.
€lip Brniruirr.
For the Southern Literary Gazette.
IN MEMORIAM.*
The simple but touching title of the
volume before us reveals the character
of its contents not less certainly and far
more eloquently than multiplied w r ords
could have done. In Memoriam!—
Never laid Genius a more beautiful of
fering upon the shrine of Friendship,
than that which Tennyson has herein
consecrated to the memory of his
bosom friend, Arthur llallam, who
died in Vienna in the year 1833.
Besides the prelude, there are one
hundred and twenty-nine poems, or
sections of one great poem, most of
them very brief, all heavy with the
perfume of the mould, and yet so lu
minous with the fire of a true poetic
inspiration, that, like the diamond in
the dark, they flash and sparkle with a
radiance only the purer for the gloom
in which they w ere begotten !
Were Tennyson anything less than
a true poet, the sad theme would have
inevitably betrayed him into mono
tony, and we should have felt the
weight of the pall, of which we are
now insensible, by reason of the exqui
site harmonies with which the long
march to the grave is relieved. We
linger with a strange delight in the
shadows of the cypress, because they
are so subtly interfused with the rays
of affection, that they glow like the
violet clouds of the sunset. We could
willingly give our readers whole pages
of his exquisite verses, each of which
seems to us like a tear-drop,crystalized
by the cunning alchemy of Genius into
a pearl of song, but we are compelled to
content ourselves with quoting a very
few, gathered almost at random from
the casket. The poet thus excuses the
utterance of his sorrow ;
“ I sometimes hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like nature, half reveal
And half conceal, the soul within.
But for the unquiet heart and brain
A use in measured language lies :
The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.
In words, like weeds, I’ll wrap me o’er,
Like coarsest clothes against the cold ;
But that large griefs which these infold
Is given in outline and no more.”
lie replies to the vain condolence of
a friend in the following gentle and
touching rebuke:
“ One writes that ‘ Other friends remain,’
That ‘ Loss is common to the race;’
And common is the common-place
And vacant chaff will meant for grain.
That loss is common would not make
My own life better, rather more ;
Too common ! Never morning wore
To evening, but some heart did break.”
The poet finds a drop of consolation
in the fact that the body of bis lost
friend found an English grave :
“ ’Tis well, ’tis something, we may stand
Where he in English earth is laid,
And from his ashes may be made
The violets of his native land.
’Tis little ; but it looks in truth
As if the quiet bones were blest
Among familiar names to rest,
And in the places of his youth.”
He thus beautifully intimates the
excellencies of his friend :
“ I leave thy virtues unexpressed
In verse that brings myself relief,
And by the measure of my grief
I leave thy greatness to be guessed.
What practice howsoe’er expert
In fitting aptest words to things—
Or voice, the richest-toned that sings,
Hath power to give thee as thou weit!
I care not in these fading days
To raise a cry that lasts not long,
And round thee with the breeze ot song
To stir a little dust of praise.”
The bereaved poet thus states his
i quarrel with Death, not that he had
i wrought changes on the form and lace
of his companion, since these are but
parts of the “Eternal process” of the
spirit, nor because he bore virtue from
! earth to bloom “ to profit other where.”
“ For this alone on Death 1 wreak
The wrath that garners in my heart;
He put our lives so far apart
We cannot hear each other speak.”
The poet’s friend was betrothed to
the poet’s sister, and from many beau
tiful allusions to this relationship, we
select the following:
“ O, somewhere, meek, unconscious dove,
That sittest ranging golden hair ;
Poor child, that waitest for thy love .’
For now her father’s chimney glows
In expectation of a guest,
And thinking “ this will please him best,”
She takes a ribbon or a rose;
i For he will see them on to-night
And with the thought her colour burns ;
And, having left the glass, she turns
Once more to set a ringlet right;
And even when she turned, the curse
Had fallen and her future lord,
Was drowned in passing through the ford
Or killed in falling from his horse.
O, what to her shall be the end ?
And what to me remains of good ?
To her, perpetual maidenhood,
And unto me, no second friend.”
We cannot help adding to the already
free quotations we have made, the fol
lowing little poem, in its completeness:
“ Could I have said whiie he was here,
* My love shall now no further range,
There cannot come a mellower change,
For now is love mature in ear.’
Love, then had hope of richer store ;
What end is here to my complaint ?
His haunting whisper makes me faint,
‘ More years had made me love thee more.’
But Death returns an answer sweet:
‘ My sudden frost was sudden gain,
And gave all ripeness to the grain,
It might have drawn from after heat.’”
We have draw n almost entirely from
the poems which are most personal in
their complexion, and deem it proper
to remark that many of them have a
wider scope and a larger comprehen
siveness, though always fairly deduci
ble from the one great theme. Some
times the poet suffers his perturbed
spirit to wander in the regions of per
plexity and doubt, and he thus excuses
his plaints:
“ If these brief lays, of Sorrow born,
Were to be taken such as closed
Grave doubts and answers here proposed
Then these were such as men might scorn.
Her care is not to part and prove,
She takes, when harsher moods remit,
What slender shade of doubt may flit,
And makes it vassal unto love.”
Sometimes he yields to the sweet
influences of Nature, and breathes a
song in accordance with her moods,
when, as he tells us,
“ in my breast
Spring wakens too ; and my regret
Becomes an April violet,
And buds and blossoms like the rest.”
Again he indulges in sweet memo
ries of the haunts where he and his
friend w ere wont to ramble, and of the
converse they were wont to hold. He
commemorates the Christmas gather
ing thus:
“ Then echo-like our voices rang;
We sung, though every eye was dim,
A merry song we sang with him
Last year; impetuously we sang.”
But we have far outstripped the lim
its proposed to ourselves for this no
tice. We have approached the book
with feelings too reverent and tender
to allow a thought of criticism to ob
trude itself. To others we gladly re
sign the task, if any there be who will
assume it, to regard the poetry of this
book by the rigid laws of verse. To
us it is poetry —the unmistakable lan
guage of the heart—fraught moreover
with the soul-life of Genius, and as
such we accord it our unstinted measure
of admiration.
•Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 1850.
(Original fesaqs.
For the Southern Literary Gazette.
EG EHI A:
Or, Voices from the Woods and Wayside.
NEW SERIES.
CXVII.
Government Tinkers. The world is
full of tinkers in government, as if the
manufacture of laws *nd institutions
were a less difficult matter, requiring
less genius and thought than the inven
tion of machinery. Philosophers—so
called —in their closets ; and politicians
along the highways, are continually
concocting; and yet there is no success
—no stability! But here lies the grand
point of difficulty. The statesman who
expects stability in his forms of go
vernment, while the people themselves
are daily advancing to new conquests
in mind, morals, and machinery, might
as well be an antedeluvian. He cer
tainly is no statesman for his day.—
Hence the absurdity, which we daily
witness, of self-complacent politicians,
who are continually insisting upon their
superior pretensions to govern the
present, because of their superior fa
miliarity with the past. The true go
vernor for the present is one who has
gone beyond it in its ow n tendencies.
The essential properties of a govern
ment are those which accord with the
habits, the necessities and the condi
tions of the people —which refer not to
the stock from which they sprung, nor
to the labours which they have already
achieved, but to those, which, under
the stimulating presence of their pecu
liar genius, they are still capable of
achieving. It is because of the sta
tionary character of their governments
that nations decline and finally perish.
It is a law of nature that we should re
trograde the moment we cease to go
forward. We should always beware
| of that fatal delusion which makes us
fancy we are perfect. There is no pro
gress, no improvement after that!—
There is, or should be, a daily revolu
tion coiii<r on in all human affairs, or
the wheels of a nation become choked,
and the body-politic stagnates; at the
same time, caution must be taken that,
itt avoiding one, we do not fall into the
other extreme. There is such a thing
as firing one’s vehicle by the too rapid
motion of its wheels.
cvviri
Imputation of Motives. He who in
any affair assumes an unworthy motive
for the action of his neighbour, would
probably, under like conditions, have
felt the same motive as the only im
pelling cause for his own performance.
It is only when called upon to accord
credit to our neighbours that we are
apt to deny them the benefit of our own
standards.
CXIX.
Blank Verse. It is worthy of re
mark, that very few of the poets most
distinguished by their smoothness, have
ever written in blank verse. Pope,
Goldsmith, Moore, are striking exam
ples. Campbell is another, with a
slight exception. lie has written two
small poems without rhyme,—the
‘Lines on the View from St. Leon
ard’s,’ and the apostrophe to ‘The Dead
Eagle at Oran” —but these are very
inferior, and prove his difficult execu
tion in the unwonted department.—
Blank verse, more than any other spe
cies of poetry, as it discards wholly
the adventitious aid of the rhyme, re
quires the nicest perfection of ear.—
Every line must be perfect in itself, or
a painful discord runs through the
whole sentence, and frequently affects
the virtue of an entire paragraph. It
is accordingly easier to write in any
measure than in blank verse. Rhyme,
itself, is rather a help than an obstacle,
since the regularly recurring termina
tion operates as a sort of rudder, which
guides the ear to the euphonious con
clusion. The master of blank verse
can manage any sort of verse.
cxx.
Prayer. We say many things to
ourselves that we do not ourselves be
lieve. Who, for example, praying daily
that his life may be still farther spared,
ever seriously apprehends that he may
die before the dawn? The very fre
quency with which a regular form of
prayer is repeated, tends measurably
to diminish the just impression upon
our minds. We pray, unfortunately,
rather from habit than from will or
thought, w hile the very idea of prayer
presupposes a present and earnest in
terest in the act which we perform.—
We obey a law and custom rather than
declare a wish or a fear. No doubt
this is evil, yet it is not altogether evil.
Better we should pray habitually than
curse habitually. There is a farther
advantage in the practice. The habitual
utterance of a sentiment, in our own
ears only, makes it a law unto our
selves. What the memory adopts, is
apt to become a principle. This we
habitually recognize whenever the exi
gency comes home to us. Sometimes,
even, it may occur to us w hile we pray,
that we have invited God himself to
an audience.
CXXI.
Home. The native place is not
where the man is born, but where he
takes root and flourishes. Thousands
in every land are compelled by the
foreign influences of home to go abroad
seeking a native place among strangers.
CXXII.
Sympathy. The sympathy which
professes to love the master, will never
forget to feed his dog.
exxiii.
Presumption. We may forgive ig
norance, but not presumption. He who
has nothing to say should say nothing.
CXXIV.
Help Hurtful. Many sink because
! of the number who strive to save them.
CXXV.
Deliberation. Deliberation is a vir
ture, but not after the battle is begun.
dMtr i'rttcrs.
Correspondence of the Southern Literary Gazette.
NEW YORK, Aug. 31, 1850.
The last scene in the drama of hor
rors, which will long be remembered as
the Boston tragedy, has called forth as
intense and breathless an excitement
among all classes of our population, as
if it had taken place in our own city.
For several days, it has been the uni
versal ..theme of conversation. Many
have been unwilling to believe that the
doomed man would meet his fate on
the scaffold, supposing that he would
anticipate the penalty of the law by
suicide. But now all is over, every
one is eager to obtain the slighest frag
ment of information with regard to the
last hours of the wretched criminal.
I do not find that he made any farther
disclosures, although it is said that he
wrote several letters, within a short
time of his suffering, which it is thought
may contain additional revelations. It
seems to be the general opinion, both
here and in Boston, that the murder
nas premeditated. The confession of
Prof. Webster to that effect would
hardly strengthen the convictions of
many, that he was impelled to the
deed by a deliberate purpose. Especi
ally is this the case with those who
knew the peculiarities of Dr. Parkman.
It is greatly to be wished that Webster
had possessed the stamina which would
have enabled him to make a psycholo
gical explanation of the mysterious
transaction. It’ he could have left an
honest record of his whole relation
with the murdered victi n—describing
the gradual formation of the iron net
work of pecuniary dependence on his
i unrelenting creditor —the emotions of
I shame, desperation and agony which
: were thus produced —the first coneep
! tion of the fell design to relieve him
! self of an intolerable burden by vio
lence —the ripening of the thought into
the deed—and the mental reaction
wmcn followed the accomplishment of
his delirious plan —it would have been
a chapter on the dark side of the history
of human nature, not surpassed in in
terest by the most thrilling creations
of the master painters of passion.—
But Webster was not the man to do
this. Though he will he signalized as
the author of one of the most extraor
dinary crimes which have ever stained
the annals of civilization, it had none
of the elements of the sublime which
are sometimes involved in such ap
palling deeds. His character was es
sentially frivolous and common-place.
With great susceptibility to external
impressions, he had no depth of pas
sion. You could not see him without
feeling that he was one of the most
superficial of persons. There was an
air of boyish excitement in his man
ners, proceeding, not from geniality of
temperament, but from the meagerness
and poverty of his nature. It seemed
impossible that any thing should take
a strong hold of his shallow and mer
curiel intellect. This was explified by
his whole career since the reception of
his sentence. He has maintained an
unnatural coolness, which, with a less
frivolous nature, would have been im
possible. During all his imprisonment
he has taken his usual meals with a
good appetite. His sleep has scarcely
been disturbed, even on the night be
fore his death. He has lost no flesh
through his long confinement, and on
the morning of his execution his face
was as full, and for the most part, as
bright as it ever had been in life. 1
perceive that he went through all the
forms of religion prescribed by his ju
dicious spiritual advisers, with exem
plary decency, but there was no sign of
the agony of penitence or the bliss of
forgiveness. Surely such little emo
tion, under such circumstances, betrays
a temperament which is rarely exhibit
ed among all the strange varities of
life.
But 1 will not dwell on this revolt
ing subject, of w hich you w ill have the
full details in the daily papers, before
you receive my letter. I should not
now have touched on it so much at
length, but that for the moment it al
most drives out all other thoughts.—
Besides, the week has been one unusu
ally barren of interest of all topics
properly included in the sphere of your
journal.
The arrival of Jenny Lind does not |
become any less an object of talk and
speculation, now that she may be ex
pected within twenty-four hours. The
Atlantic is confidently looked for to
morrow, bearing the chan ting-angel to
our shores. Barnum has made • his
preparations for her reception on an
extensive scale. The papers speak in
the most enthusiastic terms of her
parting concert at Liverpool. Among
her auditors w r as the celebrated Indian
Chief, Copway, (Kah-ge-ga-geh-bowh,)
dressed in the complete costume of his
tribe, and of course exciting no small
attention as a genuine lion, alive and
fresh from the forest. He was melted
into transcendental raptures by the
sweet song of Jenny, and describes his
experience in language of the most un
sophisticated quaintness and naivite.
I am told by one of the members of
the long-suffering Committee on the
prize-songs for Jenny’s welcome, that
they are pouring in at the rate of fifty
or sixty a day, from our native bards,
in all directions. Barnum certainly has
a marvellous gift in scaring up all sorts
of curiosities, from the Ethiopean who
is now changing his skin at the Ame
rican Museum, to the conceited poet
taster who expects to make his rhymes
jingle in tune with the two hundred
dollars, the hope of which, in this case,
has proved such an efficacious guano to
so many fermenting brains.
I understand that some of our wits
have already a volume of pseudo “Re
jected Addresses” in the process of in
cubation. The chance of a good joke
is too tempting to be resisted, and 1
dare say, a clever duodecimo may be
the result.
I also learn that a couple of eminent
dentists in this city are attempting to
get possession of the actual “ Rejected
Addresses,” and to publish them, with
or without the names of the authors,
as they shall succeed in gaining their
consent to the plan. Their success in
drawing teeth may be a pledge that
they will be able to draw the reluctant
assent of the aspirants for poetical
fame, to have their ill-fated offspring in
this way embalmed for immortality.
Charlotte Cushman has returned, and
performed her favourite character of
Meg Merrilies last night at Nibio’s.
| She was greeted with an enthusiastic
welcome by a crowded house. The
stony impassiveness of Meg, broken
only by resistless bursts of passion, is
well suited to Miss Cushman s peculiar
talents, but I must own I prefer her in
some of her more human representa
tions. She appears in the. “Stranger,”
as Mrs. Haller, to-niglu.
A dramatic version of George Sand’s
Consuelo has been brought out at Bur
ton’s, and proved a dead failure. It
was altogether too sentimental an affair
for Burton’s laughter-loving audience.
Mr. G. P. R. James is now in town,
having recovered from a serious attack
of illness, induced by change of climate,
lie now looks bluff and hearty, and in
fine spirits. lie tells me he means to
deliver a course of lectures in our
principal cities, on the History of Civil
ization, including a view of the pro
gress of literature. You will see him
• ireftiic me close or me
winter. T.
Ink that Resists the Action of
Acids and Alkalies. —Shell Lac, 2oz;
borax 1 oz., distilled or rain water 18
oz.: boil the whole in a closely cover
i ed tin vessel, stirring it occasionally
with a glass rod or a small stick, until
the mixture has become homogeneous;
filter, when cold, through a single sheet
of blotting paper ; mix the filtered so
lution, which will be about nineteen
fluid ounces, with one ounce of muci
lage of gum arabie, prepared by dis
solving 1 oz. of water, and add pul
verized indigo and lamp-black, ad libi
tum. Boil the whole again in a cover
ed vessel, and stir the fluid well to ef
fect the complete solution and admix
ture of the gum arabie ; stir it occa
sionally while it is cooling ; and after
it has remained undisturbed for two or
three hours, that the excess of indigo
and lamp-black may subside, bottle it
for use. Ihe above ink, for documen
tary purposes, is invaluable, being, un
der all ordinary circumstances, inoes
tructible: it is also particularly well
adapted for the use of the laboratory.
Five drops of kreosote added to a pint
of ordinary ink will effectually prevent
its becoming mouldy.
Is the Earth full of Seeds ?
The fact that earth or soils brought up
from different depths of the earth have,
when exposed to the sun or air, become
covered with vegetation, has led many
to suppose that the whole earth, from
centre to circumference, is full of seeds.
This cannot be the case ; but there
are, nevertheless remarkable instances
of the fact above named. We once
threw up a lot of coarse gravel, late in
the fall, from a depth of nearly ten
feet, and early the next spring it was
covered with pig weeds, which grew
very luxuriantly. The greatest depth
we ever heard of seeds being buried,
we find in a recent exchange paper.—
In boring for water lately at Kingston
upon the Thames, some earth was
brought up from the depth of three
hundred and sixty feet. This earth
was carefully covered w ith a handglass,
to prevent the possibility of any other
seeds being deposited upon it; yet, in
a short time, plants vegetated from it.
[English Paper.
Mode of Calculating River Ye
locity.— The mean velocity of water
in a cross-section is equal to 96.3 times
the sqaare root of the area of the cross
section, multiplied by the fall and divid
ed by the perimenter multiplied by the
length.
For example: If the breadth of the
river Mississippi be 2000 feet, the
mean depth 80 feet, or the area of the
cross-section 1(50,000 square, the peri
menter 21(50 feet, and the fall 12 feet
in the length of 600,000 feet, the mean
velocity will be 3,707 feet per second,
and the quantity of water discharged
533,120 cubic feet per second. Again :
If the breadth be only 1600 feet the
mean depth 100 feet, which will give
the same area of cross-section, 160,000
square feet, the perimenter 1800 feet,
and the fall 12 feet in the length of
600,000 feet, the mean velocity will
be 4,060 feet per second. —De Bow's
Review.
A woman, charged with being drunk
and disorderly, denied the latter of
fence, urging that “she was too drunk
to be disorderly.”
€j)t lomlt Slltor.
THE PRAYER~OF _ THE = BET^f H i
A lady in the St. Louts Union. 0T ‘
signature of Inez, portrays her thought’
following most beautiful verses, oiuh ■
her marriuge:
Father, I come before Thy throne
With low and bended knee, ’
To thank Thee, with a grateful ton*
For all Thy love tome. ‘
Forgive me, if my heart this hour
I give not all to Thee,
For deep affection’s mighty power
Divides it now with Thee.
Thou kno west, Father, every thought
That wakes within my breast,
And how this heart has vainly sought
To keep its love suppress’d.
Yet when the idol, worshipped one.
Sits fondly by my side,
And breathes the vows 1 cannot shun
To me. his destined bride
Forgive me, if the loving kiss,
He leaves upon my throbbing brow
Is thought of in an hour like this,
And thrills me even now.
He’s chosen me to be his love
And comforter through life ;
Enable me, oh God, to prove
A loving, faithful wife.
He knows not, Father, all the deep
Affections I control—
The thousand loving thoughts that sw
Resistless o’er my soul.
He knows not each deep fount of low
That gushes warm and free ;
Nor can he ever, ever prove
My warm idolatry.
Then, guard him, Father—round hisw j
The choicest blessings cast,
And render each successive day
Still happier than the last.
And, Father, grant us so to live,
That when this life is o’er,
Within the happy home you give
We’ll meet to part no more.
Lesson for Sunday, September 8.
THE CHRISTIAN A SOJOURNEi
“ Pass the time of your sojourning here in fear.”-)
In the verse from which these wn
are selected, the Almighty is repress
ed under a two-fold character, viz t.
of a Father and a Judge; and the
lationship in which we thus stand
him is urged as an argument for.
passing the time of our sojourning ht
:in fear. Notice
The nature of the Christian’s us
“ The time of your sojourning hen
What a dreadful infatuation has mm
man, that he should look upon jj
world as his home and his portion! 1
is as if the child on his way to his £
ther’s house should sit down, and, for
going the pleasure of the domesticroa
please and divert himself with t!
fiowers that grow by the wayside, t
the night set in, and he lost all tia
of the road. It is as if a rich heir, j
ing to take possession of his e>vj
; were to stop and spend his time in and
ing little children in playing with til
and trifles. Three things suggest the!
; selves to the mind with regard t J
I believer, sojourning here.
View him in his past conditio ,
Whence has the pilgrim come? Frf
the city of Destruction. Bun van. i: j
inimitable allegory speak-; l.eautii j
on this subject.
Contemplate him in his present m
; What is he 1 A sojourner. How i
there are who regard this world
proper light! It is only a link in
great chain of our existence, —an
| vista which opens to the wide exp
| of otornity ; and an immoderate atfl
ment to it deplumes the pinion
which alone the soul can soar, and bin
it to that which is sfcnsua! and gi
ling. The time of our sojourning in
i is one of trial, danger, and diffii
Travellers must put up with mail
conveniences, and the heavenly pilfi
must lay hisaccount with manva-i
Regard him in his future destim
Whither is he going? He is be.
for home. How week and imptri
are our highest conceptions of the si*
ries of the heavenly world! The
•ruination of the Christian’s cours-du
be associated with all that is magni
cent and sublime. Let me net
be satisfied till 1 can say, lookingup
my heavenly Father, “I am a strain
and a sojourner with thee.’’
Christianity not of Human Ohio!
To me, when I look to this origj
taking its point of departure from!
earliest period in the history of i
race; when I see it comprising all ti
natural religiou teaches, and intr
ing anew system in entire liarmd
with it, but which could not have M
deduced from it; when I see it oJ
mending itself to the conscience j
man, containing a perfect code of A
ral wants, and embosoming the ol
true principles of economical and [<|
tical science; when I see in it the
possible system of excitement and!
straint for all the faculties; when ll
how simple it is in its principles, |
yet in how many thousand way*
mingles in with human affairs. I
modifies them for good, so that it I
adapted to become universal; wb I
see it giving an account of the tt I
nation of all things, worthy °f <T I
and consistent with reason; to ■
when I look at all these things, it l !
more seems possible that the sy I
of Christianity should have been o'l
nated and sustained by man than fl
does that the ocean should have ‘1
made by him.— Pres. Hopkins.
Loving the Creature and xt> T
Creator. —Strange and sad are tb
natural, irrational exercises of hi 1
love. Men love to excess the thin- -
earth, even when they are vet urH j
and only hoped for; and yet love
thamselves, their souls, or their 11
They love things w ithout them
things that perish in the using; anC’
love not w hat is within them, an
| who is over all, and blessed t'” - ’ \
Men value human friendship “'ben
| directed to their persons, and not j
purses, to their characters, a® l :
to their condition; and yet the} p
to love God, while they take u
only in his gifts, and are unmim ,u
the glorious Giver.
Illustrious Exemplars.—’h 11 ' 1 ’
in humble and laborious occupy
has been honoured and exaltci
world’s greatest benefactors: I
“Inearly life David kept ,'bj
ther's sheep: his life was a 1,1 ,1
dustry; and though foolish 1111,1 1
it degrading to perform 1
bour, yet, in the eyes ot “ ls .
dustry is truly honourable,
useful are the happiest. A
bour is a man’s natural
most favourable to health any
vigour. Bishop Hall says: o {^l
the destiny of all trades, whet h I
brow T or of the mind. God my J
lowed a man to do nothing
the ranks of industry have the “ l J
great men been taken. L oDI