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Oeuotcb to literature, Science, attb ~U't, tlje Sous of temperance, (Dbb AFeUotosljtp, Attasonrn, anb ©cncral Mntcllicicnce.
VOLUME I.
g n USTIi * QBVtT.
VERSJC LES.
(for fathers and mothers only) on an infant
daughter’s first walking.
BT JAMES GREGOR GRANT.
Ha! ambitious little elf!
Off by thy adventurous self?
Fairly off? *0 fair betide thee f
With no living thing beside thee ;
Not a leading string to guide thee;
Not a chair to creep or crawl by;
Not a cushioned stool to fall by;
Not a finger-tip to catch at;
Not a sleeve or skirt to snatch at;
Fairly off at length to sea,
Full twelve inches (can it be
Really, true?) from the lee
Os mamma’s protecting knee!
Fair and softly—soft and fairly—
Little bark, thou sail’st it rarelv,
In thy new-born power and pride,
O’er the carpet’s level tide,
Lurching, though, from side to side,
Ever and anon, and heeling
Like a tipsy cherub reeling,
(If e’en cherubs, saucy gipsy!
Smile like thee, or e’er get tipsy!)
Even as though yon dancing mote
In the sunny air afloat,
Or the merest breath that met thee,
Might suffice to overset thee !
Helm a weather ! steady, steady !
—Nay the danger's past already ;
Thou, with gentle course, untroubled,
Table-Cape full well hast doubled,
Sofa-Point hast shot a-head,
Safe by Footstool Island sped,
And art steering well and truly,
On for Closet-Harbor duly !
Anchor now, or turn in time,
Ere within the torrid clime
Which the torpid fender bounds,
And with brazen zone surrounds;
Turn thee, weary little vessel,
Nor with further perils wrestle;
Turn thee to refit awhile
In the sweetly sheltering smile
Os thine own Maternal Isle —
In the haven of dear rest
Proffered by the doating breast
And the ever ready knee
As the best of mothers be!
Na} r ! adventurous little ship!
If thine anchor’s still a-trip,
And instead of port, you choose
Suoh another toilsome cruise,
Whereso’er the whim may lead thee,
On ! my treasure! and God speed thee !
Hackneyed as, perchance, they be,
Solemn words are these to me,
Nor from an irreverent lip
Heedlessly or lightly slip :
Even He whose name I take
Thus, my dear one, for thy sake, .
In this seeming idle strain,
Knows I take it not “in vain,”
But, as in a parent’s prayer
Unto Him, to bless and spare!
m liisiiai f m
From the Literary World.
KENNEDY'S LIFE OF WIRT.
We make the following: extract from” Mr. Ken
nedy’s forthcoming biography of William \\ irt,
shortly lobe issued by Lea & Blanchard,-Phila
delphia. *A.s we understand that all ot Mr. Wirt’s
Papers have been submitted to Mr. Kennedy, we
are led to expect much new and interesting mat
ter, with many original letters in Mr. W irt’s lively 7
and agreeable style. The one which we present
to our readers describes vividly some of the pains
and ennui of authorship, experienced during the
“ Life of Patrick Henry.”
PERPLEXITIES of a biographer.
At this time the biography of Henry was re
sumed with a stout resolve to bring it to a conclu
sion. M e have abundant evidence that this had
alr f e^ d y grown to be a most irksome labor.
Ihe following letter to Carr playfully presents
1( Acuities of this undertaking, and shows bow
uetamiy \\ irt struggled with bis task. It con
ofT* ‘r°- an a^us^on t 0 Dabney Carr, the father
aenW end ’ an( l compatriot of Henry—a
iCman most favorably known in the short leg
fe 1 U G | ca / eer t 0 which we have heretofore adver
,an<( whose early death had blighted the promise
ot a fair renown. -“ * * -
, sfr : , James Webster, of Philadelphia, to whom
(r *° t{ HS has a reference, was already en
fc ‘ged as the publisher of the forthcoming vol
m0 ’ and had made some announcement of it to
le P u ‘dic, which, it •will be seen, had served to
au gment the author’s disrelish of his enterprise.
william wirt to judge carr.
Richmond, Atfgnst, 20. 1815.
‘ v D ear Friexd :
# * # # # ##*
Now for Patrick Henry. I have delved on to
a jf ,° ne hundredth and seventh page ; up-hill
, the way, and heavy work, I promise you ; and
e avy and unleavened lump I fear me it will be,
c ‘* it as I may. I can tell you, sir, that it is
much the most oppressive literary enterprise that
ever 1 embarked in, and I begin to apprehend that
I shall never debark from it without “ rattliue
ropes and rending sails.” 1 write in a storm,and
a worse tempest, I fear, will follow its publica
tion. Let me give you some idea of my difficul
ties. Imprimis, then —I always thought that
Bozzy ranted in complaining so heavily of the
infinite trouble which he had to encounter in fix
ing accurately the dates of trivial facts ; but I
now know by woful experience that Bozzy was
right. And, in addition to the dates, 1 have the
facts themselves to collect I thought I had them
all ready cut and dry, and sat down with all my
statements of correspondents spread out before
me ; a pile* of old journals on my right, and
another of old newspapers bn the left, thinking
that I had nothing else to do but, as Lingo says,
“to saddle Pegasus, and*ride up Parnassus.”—
Such short-sightedness is there in “ all the schemes
o’ mice and men ; ” for I found, at every turn of
Henry’s life, that I had to stop and let fly a volley
of letters over the State, in all directions, to col
lect dates and explanations, and try to reconcile
contradictions. Meantime, until they arrived,
“Ikept sowing on.”
In the next place, this same business of stating
facts with rigid precision, not one jot more or less
than the truth—what the deuce has a lawyer to do
with truth ? To tell you one truth, however, I
find that it is entirely anew business for me, and
I I am proportionally awkward at it ; for alter I
have gotten the facts accurately, they are then to
be narrated happily ; and the style of narrative
lettered a scrupulous regard to real facts, is to
me the most difficult in the world. It is like at
tempting to run, tied up in a bag. My pen wants
perpetually to career and frolic it away. But it
must not be. I must move like Sterne’s mule over
the plains of Languedoc, “as slow as foot can
fall,” and that, too, without one vintage frolic
with Nanette on the green, or even the relief of a
mulberry tree to stop and take a pinch of snuff’at.
I was very sensible, when I began, that I was not
in the narrative unit. I tried it over and over
again, almost as often as Gibbon did to hit the key
note, and without his success. I determined,
therefore, to move forward, in hopes that my pal
frey” would get broke by degrees, and learn by and
by to obey the slightest touch of the snaffle. But
I am now, as l said, in my hundredth and seventh
page, which, by an accurate computation, on the
principles of Crocket, taking twenty-four sheets
to the quire, and four pages to each sheet, you will
find to exceed a quire by eleven. And yet am I
as far to seek, as ever, for the lightsome, lucid,
simple graces of narrative. You may think this
affectation if you please, or you may think it jest;
but the dying confession of a felon under the gal
lows (no disparagement to him !) is not more true,
nor much more mortifying.
Tertvo: The incidents of Mr. Henry’s life are
extremely monotonous. It is all speaking, speak
ing, speaking. ’Tis true he could talk; “Gods!
how he could talk ! ” but there is*no acting “ the
while.” From the bar to the legislature, and from
the legislature to the bar, his peregrinations re
sembled, a good deal, those of someone, I forgot
whom —perhaps some ot our friend Tristram’s
characters, “from the kitchen to. the parlor, and
from the parlor to the kitchen.” And then, to
make the matter worse, from 17G3 to 1789, cover
ing all the bloom and pride of his life, not one ol
his speeches lives in print, writing, or memory. —
All that is told me is, that, on such and.such an
occasion he made a distinguished speech. Now
to keep saying this over, and over, and over
again, without being able to give any account ol
what the speech was —why, sir, what is it but a
vast, open, sunburnt field, without one spot of
shade or verdure ? Mv soul is weary ot it, and
the days have come in which I can say that I
have no pleasure in them. I have sometunes a
notion of trying the plan of Botta, who has written
an account of the American war, and made
speeches himself for his prominent characters,
imitating, in this, the historians of Greece and
Rome ; °but 1 think with Polybius, that this is ma
king too free with the sanctity of history. Be
sides Henry’s eloquence was all so completely
sui generis as to be inimitable by any othei ; and
to make my chance of imitating him still worse, I
never saw or heard him. Even the speeches pub
lished in the debates of the Virginia convention are
affirmed by all my correspondents not to oe his,
but to fall far short of his strength and beauty.—
Yet in spite of all this monotony and destitution
of materials, we have a fellow coming out in the
Analectic Magazine, or the Baltimore Commercial
Advertiser, 1 forgot which—for both have been
at it—exciting the public expectation on this very
ground, among others, of the copiousness and va
riety of the materials within my reach, -f hose
puffs mean me well, but I could wish them a little
more judgment. . .
Again : there are some ugly traits in 11 s char
acter, and some pretty nearly a6 ugly blanks.
SAVANNAH, GA., THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1849.
He was a blank military commander, a blank
governor, and a blank politician, in all those use
ful points, which depend on composition and de
tail. In short, it is verily, as hopeless a subject as
man could well desire. I have dug around it, and
applied all the plaster of Paris that I could com
mand ; but the fig tree is still barren, and every
bud upon it indicates death instead of life.. “ Then
surely you mean to give it up ? ” On the contrary ,
I assure you, sir, that I have stept in so deep, that
I am determined like Macbeth, to go on, though
Henry, like Duncan, should bawl out to me,
“Sleep no more !” Ido not mean that lam de
termined to publish. No, sir, unless I can mould
it into a grace, and breathe into it a spirit which
I have never yet been able to do, it shall never see
the light; Mr. Webster’s proposals to the contrary
notwithstanding. But what I have determined
upon is to go on as rapidly, as I can, to embody all
the facts; then, reviewing the whole, to lay it off
into sections, by epochs, on Middleton’s plan ;
and taking up the first section, to make a last and
dying effort upon it, j)cr sc. If I fail, I surrender
my sword ; if otherwise.! shall go forth, section
after section, conquering and to conquer. And if
the public forgive me this time, I will promise
never to make a similar experiment on their good
nature again.
IS THERE NO REMEDY FOR INTEMPERANCE?
Y"es; there is a remedy —a simple, easy, and
effectual remedy—a remedy so simple, that it can
be named in three words—so easy, that it will
require effort not to adopt it —so effectual, that if
adopted, it will not leave a vestige of intemper
ance in the land. The remedy is simple this:
Let the temperate continue temperate. Yes : let the
temperate continue temperate, and then, when
the intemperate die, (and they will all die soon,)
the curse will die with them.
And is it not easy for temperate men to contin
ue temperate ? By temperate men, let it be un
derstood, we mean such, and only such, as do
not taste or wish for ardent spirits in any quantity,
in any form, or on any occasion.* He who can
not come up to this standard must die before the
curse will surely die. We ask again—ls it not
easy, for temperate men —for men who never
desire ardent spirits —to continue temperate;
And is not every man naturally a temperate man V
Is he not born temperate ? Is not the appetite
lor ardent spirits in every instance an acquired
appetite ? Is it not necessary to disguise spiritu
ous liquor with sugar or syrups, as we disguise
pills, before we can induce children to touch it V
What difficulty, then, is there in applying the rem
edy? And will it not be an effectual remedy ?
Christian fathers I Christian mothers ! look at
the bill which has been presented to you, and
count the cost ot intemperance —consider the
pauperism, the crime, the waste ot money and ol
life—consider, especially, that ot all the adults
who die in this land—this land, where you and
your children must die—one out ot ever}’ three
goes to the bar ot God, to answer for a sin, ol
which an apostle has said, those who commit it
shall not inherit the kingdom of Heaven. Are
you willing that your offspring, through all gene
rations, should be exposed to such danger ot such
a doom? Oh! then, awake from your apathy !
Banish the. accursed thing from yaur dwelling.—
Forbid your children to taste, or touch it. Learn
them to shun it as they would shun the viper—to
shun it, as they would shun the worm that never
dies.
1. They do not give strength for labour. —Vv ho
was the strongest man ? Samson. And who
was Samson ? A Nazarite —bound by a vow not
to taste of wine and strong drink. What did he
drink to revive his spirits after the labour ot slay
ing a thousand Philistines with the jaw-bone ol
an ass? Water —simple water —and from that
day to this, simple drinks have always been found
best for hard-working men. —The trainers ol
Great Britain, whose business it is to prepare men
for pugilistic combats, and whose sole object‘is to
give them the greatest force and power of endu
rance of which their constitutions are capable,
allow them none but simple drinks. Spirit in
every form is rigidly prohibited. Long Expe
rience has taught these trainers that men cannot
be Samsons unless they are Nazarites.
2. They do not preserve from the effects of heat.
Physicians who have resided in the W est Indies,
say that those who drink nothing but water are
but little affected by the climate, and can undergo
fatigue without inconvenience: while rum used
habitually and moderately , as well as in excessive
quantities, always diminishes the strength, and
renders men more susceptible of disease.
3. They do not preserve from the effects of cold. —
A few years since a vessel was wrecked near
Newburyport, Mass, in an intensely cold night.
Some of the crew drank ardent spirits to keep
them warm, while others abstained. Os lhos£
who used"the spirits, some-lost their hands, some
their feet, and some'perishcd; while those who
used none Survived unhurt. Warm clothing and
a plentiful meal just before exposure, are the best
preservatives against cold. Ardent spirits aie
always positively injurious.
4. They do not'preserve from infectious disease. —Si >
far from it, that physicians say they render the svs
tem more susceptible to the influence of contagion ;
and they advise nurses and visiters to abstain en
tirely from the use of them.
5. They are not necessary as a medicine. —So saws
the New-Hamprshire Medical Society, gnd so sav
many other physicians. Some, however, contend
that there are cases of disease where ardent spirits
are necessary,Jbuf they generally admit that they
are very rare.
In many parts of our country, and particularly
in New-England, reflecting men have begun to
count the cost of intemperance, and to set them
selves seriously to work, to apply the remedy: and
the success which has attended their efforts has
been far beyond their most sanguine expectations-
In Boston and the vicinity “it is becoming un
fashionable,” says the Report of the Massachusetts
Intemperance Society, “to drink spirits in decent
Company; it is no longer considered as a neces
sary mark of hospitality to offer them ; nav, in
some’circles it would be almost considered a want
of good breeding fta offer, or to partake of them.
Thev no longer disgrace by their presence the
tables of refresh men fVhich are spread upon pub
lic and solemn occasions,” The number of houses
licensed to’retail* spirits in Boston, in 1822, was
675,and in 1827, only 562 ; although the popula
tion had meanwhile] increased Irotn 49,000 to
64,000. To preserve the proportion to the popu
lation, the number in 1527 should have been 877.
The effect of the efforts which have been made in
Boston* is, therefore, equivalent to the abatement
of more than three hundred, licensed houses in that
city.
In Lyme, N. H. there were 6000 gallons of ar
dent spirits consumed in IS2G ; in 1827, in con
sequence of the resolution ol a considerable num
ber of the inhabitants to abstain from the use of
them, the quantity “was reduced to less than 6000
gallons.
At Norwich Falls, Conn, the friends, of tempe
rance have been so successful in their efforts that
only one quarter as much spirit was sold in 1827
as in the year preceding.
The directors of the American Temperance
Society, in the Appendix to their Report, say that
effects similar to the above have been produced in
more titan fifty towns in New-England alone.
The members ol Park-street Church, in Boston,
have passed a resolution “ to abstain entirely from
the use of ardent spirits, except as an article of
medicine,” and their example has been followed
by other churches in that vicinity, and it is hoped
will be universally followed throughout the coun
try.
•J
A. Case'of Conscience. —In a certain “Ladies
Moral Reform Society,” existing not many miles
from the banks of the Kenebeck, the members
were obliged to sign a pledge not to “ set up,” ns
it is termed, or do any thing else that might he
supposed to have a tendency, however remote,
‘imtnorality. One evening, as the President was
calling over the names, to know whether each
member had kept the obligation, a beautiful ahd
highly respectable yonng lady burst into tears, and
being questioned as to the cause, said that she
feared she had broken the pledge. “ Oh, -sobbed
the young lady, “Hr.— kissed me the odiei
night, when he wafted on me home from meet
ing.” “Oh, well, that is nothing very bad,” said
the President; “ his kissing you clbes not make
out that you broke the pledge.” “ Oh, but that
isn’t the worst of it,” repled the conscientous
young lady, “ I kissed him back.”
How much pain have those us that
have never happened.
The Future. —In the hundredVears from 1&49
to 1945, both inclusive, there will be seventeen
years with fifty-three Sundays in the year.
A Ion” ladder leaning against a house, a negro
at the top, and a hog rubbing himself against the
foot of it—‘•Q’way, g’way dere —you’in makiu’
mischief!”
Effects of Sugar Diet.— ln seventeen experi
ments on dogs it is ascertained that in some cases
tends to fatten the animal, and in others it
turns to bile.
Transfer of Vitality. —Fourteen thousand British
seamen deserted the merchant service the last
year, eight thousand of whom left their vessels on
the American coast.
A female college is about to be established in
Cincinnati. A large and beautiful edifice has
been erected for the purpose on Pleasant Hill, a
most delightful and healthful position*
NUMBER i7