The Southern field and fireside. (Augusta, Ga.) 1859-1864, October 01, 1859, Page 147, Image 3

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[For the Southern Field and Fireside.] TWILIGHT HOUR. BT B. D. LUCAS. I love the pensive twilight hour, When clustering memories 'round me steal; Memories of youthful hope and love. That follow me and charm me still. Tls when the sunset's golden light Hath faded from the western sky. My soul holds converse sweet with Heaven, And feels a spirit presence nigh. Then seated ’neath the old oak tree, ’Round which in childhood I have played. My mother breathes her evening prayer, For one, who far from her hath strayed. - O may that prayer as incense rise, To the Good Father's throne above; And I, at last, find there my rest— Within the ark, the weary dove I Mr. J. B. Cumming’s Address. “ THE DUTIES OF THE YOUNG CITIZEN.” [concluded.] But, gentlemen, though I labor and think and apeak, I feel I throw but empty words upon the air, and utter no charm to summon from the re cesses of my mind the image of dignity which slumbers there. And when instead of the true image I seek some visible prototype to place be fore you, how little I find it among those whom I see wrangling and wrestling, heated and soiled in the political arena. Oh that this image would rise from the depths of thought as Virgil’s Nep tune from the caves of Ocean! An image it would be not unlike the Cerulian god, command in his look, authority in his presence, dignity on his brow. If I might thus place before you some embodiment of those qualities which spring from contemplation rather than action, I might better persuade you, that it is more useful to your country to curb this eager impetuosity, and seek those qualities, where alone they are to be found, in study and retirement. But if this relinquishing the thought of early entering upon public life, instead of being a tem porary withholding from such a career, marks a final abandonment of it—what then ? Is such a course in those, who, like you, have had unu sual advantages of doing good as active citizens, to deprive you of the epithet of useful? I think not. I conceive that the country demands something more of even her enlightened citizens than the purely active virtues; something more than to fight her battles and to make her laws. I conceive that she is served by the obedience of such a citizen to laws more than by his agen cy in making them —not merely that negative obedience to laws found only on the statute book, nor to those more extended principles of right and justice, embodied in the rules of the common law; but obedience to all those laws which are made for the highest of God’s earthly creatures —the laws which honor imposes upon his acts, the laws which truth makes for his words, the laws which temperance enacts against excess, the laws which the dignity of human nature decrees for his pursuits. “He that ta keth a city” does well for his country; but he does better “that ruleth his spirit,” who subjects it to these laws of honor, of truth, of temperance and of dignity. Such a citizen goes not, ’tis true, to make the laws, but to supercede their necessity. He goes not to preach an un certain truth, with suspected motive, to uncan did hearers; but he quietly rears a memorial to its excellence, which all must admire. His every act may show that in all things there is good as well as evil, and though men must ever and in all things guard themselves from doing wrong, still all may do right. His every act may reflect a light upon the silver thread of truth, which runs through every pursuit, beauti fying it and connecting it with the Source of all truth. Who will say that such a citizen, though his footsteps never ascend the slopes which lead to the Capitol, but pursue his retired, unobtru sive career; though his voice never sounds in the Senate house, but is lifted only among friends and neighbors, in the enunciation of familiar truths —who will say that he is not directly and transcendently a useful citizen ? But self-sacriflcing also is this “ virtue of re pose.” You, who, during your college course, have been in constant contemplation of the re corded deeds of public men; you, who have ad mired the illustrious men of ancient and of mod ern times; you, who are familiar with the glory of those who have served their country in bril liant careers; you, who in fancy have listened to the eloquence inspired by the love of country, which has swayed and directed tumultuous as semblies ; you, who, every day of several years, have been pointed to the virtuous deeds of men, whose whole lives were given up to public ca reers, until all purely personal aims, all material good seem beneath your ambition—when you have been taught the accomplishments which shine in the sight of your fellow-citizens, but which would be obscured in retirement; when you have been trainen for public; when you have had at periodical seasons in your view the distinguished men of your country, as incentives to your ambition to run a public course—certain ly I need not tell you, that it is a groat sacrifice to give up your cherished aspirations after such a career. To do so, would be for you the sacri fice of the voluntary exile. You have been taught, and feel, that the paths of public life are your domain. You feel that in them would lie for you all tho amenities of life; for you they would be “ways of pleasantness.” They are the natural country of yaur soul. Out of them is the uncongenial foreign land; and you turn from them with the sorrow of an exile. Surely here is no mean sacrifice: equal it is to his who leaped iuto to the gulf. Yours is the opposite of his; you sacrifice a feeling which he gratified. He desired to sereve his country and did it. You long to serve your country, and apparently you must retreat from the enterprise. He yield ed to an impulse which urged him on: you must subdue a feeling do less impelling. His achiev ment was easier than yours, as to improue a brilliant occasion in the present is easier than to await the chances of the uncertain future. His was easier than yours, as to charge desperately upon the foe, with heated blood and enthusiasm, with martial music and with cheers, is easier than to rest quietly upon your arms, silent and prepared, awaiting the contingencies of bat tle. Useful, dignified, self-sacrificing, what a char acter is this; what than this worthier the cul tivation of the sincere patriot 1 But how little has it thriven in these modem times among those, who should cherish it. In this country especially, where no position is so protected that any may not float into it on the current of popular favor; where all the high places of the laud seem accessible to aspiring, aye, presump tuous youth, many young men yield to the temp tation to participate iu the excitement of public life, many more are ready to follow their foot Tmm mwrmmMM xxx&ij jm® spx&xsxxx. steps, until, at last, they form a power apart, em bodying the qualities of youth and excluding those of age—“progress” for their motto, and their motto verrified in their acts, if “progress” were reckless advance or vigorous commo tion. But “Young America” is but one of a host of kindred associations. It is in the same brother hood with “Young Ireland,” “ Young France,” “Young Italy,” and a similar fraternity where ever the spirit of revolution is abroad. I have more tolerance for these associations in foreign lands than in America; but even there it is tol erance and nothing more. I confess to no sym pathy with those young citizens, who would sweep away everything, root and branch, be cause it flourished in the times of their fathers. It is a tendency of our nature, when we are about to begin any momentous enterprise, to look back upen the long line of march which the human race have held, to see if there be not some memorial, commemorating the success of those who have preceded us in similar undertak ings. And we do well so to look back. Vitali ty is denied to Error, but Truth is eternal—and it is Truth alone which has withstood the abra sion of passing ages. The errors which flour ishod for a while were like pavillions, where the marcqing generation rested for a night, a season of darkness; but the morning came, the light came, and the temporary habitation, deserted, was torn and beaten and swept away by suc ceeding tempests. But the monuments, the firm, everlasting monuments, which stand along the march, they are the altars of Truth, around which not one passing generation, but genera tion upon generation has worshipped. These we see as we look back—there they stand, land marks, like Truth itself, eternal. But little is this the thought of those young associations who would arrogate to themselves the mission of ruling, or rather of revolutionizing, their country. “Before us the Deluge,” is the cry with them—a deluge which lias left nothing of good, no guide posts, no landmarks, no mon uments to Truth. Everything is to be created anew, new metes and bounds are to be prescrib ed —turn and overturn, tear down and build up again, call everything rubbish and sweep it away—this their theory, this their attempt. But there is for this spirit in the countries of Europe an excuse, which we have not. There error has grown so vigorous, has flourished so long, and has ramified so extensively, that Truth has been overshadowed and become visible. If there be any wheat with the tares, they grow so close, one with the other, that both must be tom up together. But our political edifice is yet too new to nour ish the noxious growths which cling about a ruin. When the framers of this edifice removed their hands from the work, they left it perfect and complete. It rarely needs a casual repair: in novation upon would be mutilation; to de stroy it would be to tear down one of the no blest works of man. To preserve it in all its symmetry, to protect it wlierever exposed to vi olence of storms, above all to guard it watch fully from ruthless hands, to protect it as sacred ly as priests do guard their temple—this is what we Americans have to do. We would not blame an heir, who had inherited an ancient house, when its foundations trembled, when its roof was shattered, when its rotting floors were nests for vermin, when its mouldy walls exhaled dis ease ; if he tore it down, though the architect’s skill were visible on its airy battlements, and the sculptor’s art on its carved ceilings. But foul shame to him who would destroy the habi tation of his father, strong and undecayed, to furnish means for his own extravagance. In this country, then, more than in any other, is conservatism a useful element in the charac ter of the citizen. With us, to “hold to the tra ditions of the elders ”is the safest course; “ old fogyism” is wisdom, and “Young America ” is danger; deliberation is better than enthusiasm, wisdom better than inspiration, veneration of the past, than experiments of the future—the public man who has gathered these qualities as the fruitsof experience, better than the young, not yet advanced to the harvest season. It is not my intention, gentlemen, to weary you with platitudes, to the effect that the quali ties of age are those most appropriate in delibe rative assemblies. I will not remind you that those, who ruled in the great republic of ancient times, had the name of “fathers” applied to them, nor need I prove to you that this was a descriptive appellation, by recalling the occasion when the Gauls insulted these conscript fathers by pulling their hoary beards. Nor would I sug gest a new thought to you, by showing that the poets, chosen oracle of truth, represent the ideal judge as a man tried by the experience and cooled by the breath of many passing yeafs— some Rhadaraanthus, snatched away to sit in the solemn tribunal of the shadows below, when, in the ordinary course of human life, his judgments on the earth were well nigh ended. You re member, too, that the man whose words fell sweetest in the council, were received with most respect’and obeyed with greatest confidence, was Nestor, who was familiar with the camps and councils of three generations of mortal men. But do not understand that lam making a grey-beard the criterion of the public man, or that my theory is to close the lips of the citizen, until such an appendage will be agitated at their opening. There may be times, when, like Elihu, the son of Barachel, of the kindred of Ram, you will listen long and anxiously for the truth to fall from the lips of those older than you, who have set themselves up as oracles of wisdom; and when, instead of proceeding from them, the truth glows within you, then give it utterance, though it come not through the mys tic shades of a flowing beard. But the precept which I would wish to incul cate, is to avoid that cacoethes, which seizes so many young men who have had a college educa tion, impelling them to rush into public life, “ leaving all meaner things,” and deeming all other pursuits beneath their ambition. The two aspects, under which such a course presents itself, are those of personal ambition and of pa triotism. So closely do good and evil walk to gether, that here, as in many cases, two agencies go hand in hand and may be, N either, the motive for the same career—the one most worthy and generous, the other most productive of bad cit izens and dangerous demagogues. If it is the latter feeling which is impelling you, then there is little to be said about it here. This is an in quiry into the virtues of the citizen, and personal ambition is not one of them. All that they have to do with it, Is sternly to offer it up as a sacri fice to patriotism. But if you have not mistaken the cravings of ambition for emotions of patriotism; if you are animated by a sincere love for your country; if you have somewhat of that antique spirit which deemed that the citizen belonged to the State to serve it, not the State to him, to be wrought to his own personal advantage; then glide quietly from your pursuits here to the duties and amen ities of private life. But it is then, and not by this first step, that you are to fix the status of your citizenship. If you are listening only to the calls of private interest; if you are going into oblivion of your country ; if you'are sink- ing into a selfishness which thrives as well un der one government as another, which loves as much one country as another, think not that the record is closed, and the title of good citizen will be put to your name as soon as you have declared your intention of yielding the pursuit of honors to worthier men. But if you go, to bide your time—no, not yours, but your country's time, and your coun try’s requirement—to bide that time, not in in dolence or carelessness, but in the contempla tion of truth, and in the cultivation of the dig nity of human nature; if you go, to become exemplars of obedience to laws, to cherish a love of order; to prepare, by all culture, no less of moral virtues than of intellectual powers, for occasions when the great citizen is needed; if you go, to extend your influence quietly, unob trusively, as the slender taper in the peasant’s lodge sends out its light without a glare, but steady, deep into the night, fer over the waste, to the sure guidance- of many a doubting way farer ; if you retire to that altitude of beautiful repoke—repose as to the affairs of public life— a repose such as I have attempted to describe it, in all, except that it need not be “ eternal then dignified, self-denyiflg citizens, every one who wishes well to the republic in years to come, will bid you a hearty God speed as you go hence; and when they shall be despondent, see ing the country suffering by the ignorance or imperilled by the dishonesty ot those in high places, they will contemplate your retirement, and renew their hopes for the future; will con tend vigorously in the battle, as do they who know that, as they Jrield to fatigue and with draw, a reserve, steady and disciplined, will step into their places. But though I do n«t wish to recall the epithet “ self-sacrificing,” as applied to such a course, (for the immolation of eager aspirations after excitement and hon< rs is no easy sacrifice) still it should not be wit i hopeless feeling that you relinquish the inviti ig occasions of the present for the sake of disti nt contingencies. While in the retirement, into which your appreciation of what is due to you: country, to yourselves, and to your ideal of the good- citizen, has impelled you—yet early in tl e history of that retirement, while the fires of yc 11th still burn too fiercely for you to be the co )1, serene, untempted judge or legislator—it mat- happen that one of those occasions will pres snt itself—-and ’“ when has there passed a gene ation since the great flood” when such has not been the case ? when, in the most peaceful ages, uias there lived and died a generation of men without witnessing the hor rors of war ?—one <f those occasions, when the country demands courage and enthusiasm,as well as wisdom and deliberation. Then you may forsake your attitude of repise: then it may be your privi lege to offer up, no) the feeble remnant of your life, not a mutilated and blemished sacrifice, but an offering of the first year—aye, of many, many years—a sacrifice of a complete life, before it has become scarred or mutilated, or worn in a meaner service—a sacrifice which only the young citizen can make, *nd one most worthy of his country’s acceptance. Nor let it be thought of any of you, that if there be no occasion for the exercise of these qualities of youthfiil spirits; if there come no wars nor pestileaees when young men may claim the dangers as their own, and go forth to meet them, that then these years of apparent inactivity are so much time abstracted from the service of your country. Let not your patriot ism be grieved by such a thought. Thero is nothing in the prospect to wound a spirit how ever much devoted to the love and service of tho country. There would be much, if a certain idea were as true as it is prevalent. .If it were true that there is on the one side the generous service of pure public life, and on the other, nothing intervening, the absorbing pursuit of merely personal interests, then should no one hesitate which to desire and which to despise.— But this is not true. Between this morass of selfishness and those heights of political distinc tion, thero stretches out a broad and lovely plain, where not alone is heard “the linnet song of peace,” which never floats up to the heights, but there also flourish, like beautiful flowers, which grow not in the marsh, the lovely though less ostentatious virtues of manhood and citi zenship-obedience, honor, love of truth, tem perance, dignity—those products which nourish and strengthen a nation. If you retire to this middle ground to cultivate these—call it a life of inaction if you please, but it is the inaction, not of the selfish sloth, but of those of whom Milton says : “They al»o serve who only stand and wait." But, as I have undertaken to speak of the younger citizen ; as I have assumed that there is a line of demarcation between the younger and the older members of a State; when, it may be asked, will this line be passed.? when will the young citizen, so denominated in this inquiry, cease to be such, and pass on to the ad vanced ranks of citizenship ? Certainly this is not meant to be asked of him who has turned his back definitely upon public life, and has as sumed as his part, the private duties of the cit izen. He advances from one stage of citizen ship to another, as youth advances to manhood, as manhood to age. He need take no tliought when he shall become the old citizen: the all moving years will bear him on to that estate. — But the question would be asked of those whom I have represented not only as useful, but as self-sacrificing citizens, inasmuch as they have controlled their generous impulses, and sought, away from the wished-for career, a higher char acter of citizenship. Os them, it might be anx iously asked, when will they pass into a different state, from a life of contemplation to one of ac tion ? I meant, gentlemen, to speak only of the young citizen, of his character, his virtues, and his duties. But this question carries me further, into the inquiry, what manner of man one should be—after how much prepa ration, at what epoch of his existence, a man should assume the honorable burden of public duties. Even now I shrink from the task of giving an abstract picture of the man. I prefer to refer back, as I have already done in this in quiry—as we will ever do, so long as the re cords of the past are preserved to us—to that mother of good citizens of every age, of every character, and for every sphere ; and as Curtius is the exemplar of one class of the virtues of the citizen, so let Camillus and Cineinnatus il lustrate another. Camillus, who came to his country’s aid when her urgent danger made him necessary; Cineinnatus, whom the entreaties of his countrymen led from the half-sown field. But “ Rome, mother of dead empires,” though we rejoice that thou “ being dead, yet speakest,” and teacliest lessons of virtue to our citizens; though we thank thee for these men; though we thank thee that thou hast reared models for all generations ; yet Cineinnatus and Camillus might have been exposed, like the founders of their nation, to the swellings of Tiber ; and, un like them, unfavored by beasts and the elements, might have perished in their wailing infancy ; and we, favored people of a distant age, would not be without an exemplar of the virtues which they illustrated 1 Camillus, Cineinnatus, Washington I How often these walls have echoed to those familiar names ; how every schoolboy’s pen has been busy with the well known theme ; how many orators, good and bad, have dwelt upon their deeds! Yet no man wearies of the theme. Many do yet take these names upon their lips even as I do now; many will yet do it, in ages to come, when they wish to teach a lesson of that sort of duty which the good citizen owes to his country. The time when a man should assume the du ties coupled with the honors of public citizen ship—so say the examples of these illustrious men, and dignity and pride and self-respect echo the teaching—is when his country seeks him in. his retirement, when his virtues shall surely point him out. Then will he ascend to the high places, not along a patli marked by broken pro mises ; nor will he be shackled with the tram mels which scheming coadjutors have put upon him; nor bending under the burden with which tricks and chicanery have loaded his self re spect ; nor with obtuseness to true principles produced by repeated changes, made without conviction, but for self-advantage. No brand of dishonesty will be upon him : no breath of sus picion will float around him. No records of times, when, through ignorance or ambition, he endangered the republic, will be quoted against him. In the crowds who receive him there will be no enemies to meet him with sneers and reproaches, treasured up against the hour of his triumph from those days, when he forgot his pride and his dignity in the determined pursuit of honors. There will be none to dig into the past for memorials of those times when he lis tened to youthful ambition and forgot his coun try. But he will come, fearless and serene.— Fearless of the past, for he has left no enemies - of any sort behind him. Fearless of the future, for his honest heart knows but one strait road before him. Serene m the present, for he rises not above a storm by his own most desperate struggles, but easily uplifted by the respect of his countrymen, and by his own sustained. Life is yet young with us, gentlemen, and when so much of it seems to stretch out be fore us, it appears a trifling matter to lose one little hour from all of those which youth and hope are promising. But yet, believe me, it is almost'with a feeling of pain that I reflect upon this one, which I have abstracted from your store, and have here consumed to so little ad vantage. Perhaps it is not altogether an un selfish feeling I experience, and perhaps I care less for your loss of a little space of time, ex panded though the hours and minutes be to you, by the great interests which, 8t this time, are crowded into them, than I grieve for the littie success of my own labor, which has run through days and weeks. I feel regret that after my thoughts have been busy with my subject; after I have dwelt upon it with the earnestness of con viction of its truth; after I have written, and here, this day, have spoken—l regret how far short I have fallen in expressing to you all I have desired, all it was in my thought to say. And now like those artists, who find pencil and brush, light and shade, form and. color, inadequate to convey their inner thought to the outer world, and must eke out their artistic presentation by a verbal synopsis of their imaginings, I add a few words more to my yet incomplete and im perfectly expressed performance. I answer one who seems to ask : “ Wherefore all these words ? Tell us more clearly what is their meaning and bearing : what is the thought they would ex press ?” The thought is, that, no more of citizenship than of life is it true, that all its duties are to be performed in public. As the true, the useful vir tues of life appear not exclusively in scenes of trial and emotion, so there are many in citizen ship to be practiced elsewhere titan in the midst of turmoil and excitement. It is not true that high and exalted citizenship is that alone of pub lic careers, any more than that noble and useful periods in men’s lives may not pass unruffled by ambition, undisturbed by contention. Such a view of the man or of the citizen, would be as false as to suppose that our Chattahoochee is subserving the purposes, for which God created it, only when it is roaring down some cataract, turning a noisy mill-wheel in its course; and to forget what meadows it clothes with verdure, as it silently meanders through the sweet vale of Naucoochee ; what rich savannas it waters, as it rolls along, hidden from the Bight of men by umbrageous forests, as it nears the Floridas.— The thought is farther, that as the course of re tiring to private life would leave you many vir tues to cultivate and to practice, so they are in their character by no means insignificant. That such a course appeals strongly to your patriot ism, to your sense of dignity, to your heroism, to an exalted ideal of citizenship. That if you are ambitious of making an offering to your country, you are invited, at the first step, to sa crifice cherished aspirations. That if you en tertain an appreciation higher than a vulgar one, of the true character of the citizen, reason urges you to such a course. That if these things be so, if patriotism, if dignity, if truth persuade to such a step; then you are not to hesitate, not to be deterred by the thought that the future is uncertain, that the country may forget you in your retirement, may ignore your merits, and bestow honors, which are your due, upon the unworthy. That you are to be satisfied with do ing the good things which your hands find to do in.your retirement, feeling that they, too, are worthy of the good citizen. That you are not to be thrust forward before you are wanted, nor kept in the field after the occasion is passed, by the calls of personal ambition; but that you are to wait till your honors come to you, knowing that then they will be transcendent. And if any one should ask, why I have par ticularly selected such a subject upon which to address you, I would answer, that I know in a time not so distant that I need argue a change, a spirit reigned at our aima mater whose teach ings were, that public life was the sphere into which all her children were to enter. I know, too, that this spirit prevails in other colleges, and that young men who have had a liberal educa tion are apt to think that public life is alone the region in which their accomplishments would have their proper lustre; that elsewhere they would not pay her dues to their country, not she theirs to them; and that hence the bar and all other rehdy avenues to public life are beset and crowded. Therefore it is, gentlemen, that I have chosen to improve the occasion you have granted me, to suggest some reasons why private citizenship invited you to its duties by appealing to some most generous qualities, which, I know, are impelling you elsewhere. Gentlemen of the Demosthenian Society: Let me trespass a little longer on your atten tion, to express a purely personal feeling. It is to you that I am indebted, not only for your kind attendance this day, but for this honor, which you have bestowed upon me; and I would be most happy to find some expression, some figure of speech, which might convey to you a just idea of my appreciation. When, some months ago, your Secretary informed me of the action of the Society, I was sojourning in a distant part of our country. For you, the air was soft and balmy, while in that bleak corner of New England, it was yet filled with the snows of Winter. For you, the breeze was laden with the fragrance of flowers and the songs of rejoicing birds; while around me those harbingers of Spring yet slum bered in the bosom of Earth, or were silent in the depths of the forest Can you imagine, gen tlemen, how grateful would have been a breeze from the Southward ? Can you imagine how under its genial influence, Earth would have aroused her sleeping beauties; how the choris ters of the forest would have greeted its com ing; how all Nature would have yielded to the soft seduction? Believe me, gentlemen, not less grateful was your invitation, coming up from this region of sunny memories, and reaching me in that land, to me less genial perhaps because less known. I had looked forward with pleasant anticipations to being present on this occasion, silent and unobserv ed j to come among you with honor was a temp tation which 1 would have vainly resisted.— I have come. I have performed the task, however imperfectly, which you have assigned me; in a few moments, we shall march back to our Society halls: a few moments more, we shall issue thence, and the wide world will re ceive us. Os old, as mariners returned, tempest tossed, sore and weary, from a perilous voyage, they left their bark upon the beach, ascended to some temple of Neptune, which looked out up on the sea, hung up their votive offerings there, and, turning their backs forever on the ocean, ended their days in rest and quietness. The temple to which we are about to ascend, to hang up our offerings—these banners, these badges, these insignia—likewise stands upon the beach. But we approach it now, not at the end, but the beginning of the voyage, which lies before us.— The temple rose to the view of the voyager of old as he returned; it will recede from us as we depart. The hour approaches when we shall forsake its portals; but if you will believe me, gentlemen, if you will receive an opinion, found ed upon the experience of but half a decade, you will never recede so far from the scene of our reunion, call it temple or what you will, that your thoughts will not often and easily return to it— and that, too, whether I have raised a voice of successful persuasion this day, and you seek the peaceful islands, retreats of philosophy and con templation, or yielding to a stronger influence, you go to struggle, I hope successfully, in storm and commotion. But whatever else may be in your careers, I hope that at least many of you will, in due time, stand in this place—if it were for no better reason, I would wish it, that you might then, if not now, appreciate the sincere gratitude with which I thank you for this honor. — is i Death or Leigh Hunt. —The steamer Anglo- Saxon brings us intelligence of the death of James Henry Leigh Hunt, who died at London on the 20th of August He was bom in Mid dlesex, in October, 1784, and was partly Amer ican in descent, Stephen Shewell, of Philadel phia, being his maternal grandfather. His mo ther's aunt was the wife of Benjamin 'West, the celebrated American painter; his father was a West Indian, and the son passed his early youth in the West Indies, and atone time, we believe, resided in Philadelphia. Young Hunt commenced his literary career at a very early age, being only eighteen, when, in connection with his brother John, he issued the first number of the Examiner, which soon ac quired great popularity. It was in this news paper that he applied to the Prince Regent the witty epithet of the “Adonis of fifty,” for which offence the two brothers paid a fine of some $4,000, and were imprisoned for two years. His experiences in Horsemonger jail are related with much humor and pathos in his autobiogra phy, published in 1850, and on the occasion of his imprisonment he certainly allowed a great deal of pluck, as the Government offered to re mit the penalties if he would promise to make no similar attacks in future. He founded and edited at various times the “Reflector,” the “Tattler,” and the “London Journal,” and also contributed to the Edinburg and Westminster Reviews. The “Story of Rimini," his Autobiog raphy, “Men, Women and Books,” “Stories from the Italian Poets,” and his shorter poems, including his famous Abou Ben Adhem, are the best known of his works in this country; but he was a very voluminous writer, and his con tributions to the press during the past fifty years would fill a good-sized library. Hunt was a contemporary of the great mod ern litterateurs of Great Britain, and formed one of the surviving links which connect us with the literary world of Scott, Byron, Wordsworth, Shelley, Rogers, Coleridge, Keats and Southey; for, although in genius he equalled none of these, yet he belonged to their epoch, and was to a certain extent associated with them. With De Quincey, now almost the sole survivor, he formed one of that illustrious galaxy of bright names which made the early part of this cen tury so illustrious in literature. He was at one time an intimate friend of Byron, Shelley, and Hazlitt, with whom, as coadjutors, he establish ed the “Liberal” in 1822, a short-lived periodi cal, of which only a few numbers were publish ed. During the same year he visited Italy With Lord Byron, and occupied the same house with him; but the friendship soon cooled from incom patibility of temper, and Hunt took revenge of his noble friend in a malicious book called “By ron and hisTDontemporaries,” but which is now almdSt entirely out of print. Leigh Hunt, although he cannot be classed in the very highest rank of modem literature, leaves behir* a name which will always be dear to the hearts of lovers of “books which are books.” This expression of Charles Lamb re minds us of a kind of inexpressible resemblance between the prose writings of the two men; both possessed a lively fancy, an easy, almost collo quial style, and a wonderful power of word paintiug. Their Essays are among the most genial and graceful contributions to modem lit erature ; although Hunt's coldness of tempera ment and occasional exhibitions of selfishness are in strong contrast with Lamb’s tenderness of heart and infinite sympathies with humanity. The boat poems of Hunt, like Rimini, are grace ful and highly finished, remindihg one of Keats in their general style and rythmical flow, but he lacked the genuineness of feeling and the poetic inspiration which made his younger contempo rary so dear to the popular heart. Mr. Hunt has been described as a delightful companion, retaining to old age all the vigor and vivacity of youth; no one could listen to his conversation without delight. His religious be lief was somewhat peculiar, and he might safely be classed among the leaders of the “ Broad Church.” For many years he has enjoyed a pension from the Government, and his son is now the editor of one ot the leading literary pe riodicals in London.— K Y. Journal of Commerce. —■»»♦ - ■m “ Alabama ” signifies, in the Indian language, “ Here we rest.” A story is told of a tribe of Indians who fled from a relentless foe in the tracaless forest in the South-West. Weary and travel-worn they reached a noble river which flowed through a beautiful country. The chief of the band struck his tent-pole in the ground, and exclaimed: “ Alabama! Alabama I” (.“Here we shall rest! ") 147