Sate on his rock and gave groan for groan.
Rob Warren glow'red over this warld wi' dismay,
Till far frae the distance in gallant array,

A merchantman's bark shot along the blue sea,
Like a wean in the height of its innocent glee.
Oh! brawly she danced o'er the billows sae bright,
And flashed on the eye like a thing o' delight;
While the natives rushed doon frae their hills to
the shore,

To buy the rich freightage that brave vessel bore.
'Twas 'Warren's jet blacking the merchantmen
brought,

'Twas Warren's jet blacking they puffed (as they
ought);

Ilk Esquimaux rubbed it o'er sandal and shoon,
Whilk it polished as bright as the braw harvest

moon:

And roared, as he rubbed it, wi' barbarous glee,
'Hey, Sirs, a douce chiel this Rob Warren maun

be.'

Barry Cornwall is very good, but contains more fun than poetry; we cannot make an extract long enough to show the wit of this caricature, as it depends mainly on the story, but the poetry is visible enough in the two last stanzas.

"She died, and lovely in her sleep she lay,
As lies Apollo in his golden hour

Of rest; no slow disease, no dull decay,
With mildewy, withering finger, passed her o'er;
But swift and sudden as a summer flower
(Cut for some beautiful breast), or mountain rill,
Life's spirit ebbed-then lay for ever still.

Thus perished Israel's pride, but o'er her waves
Spring's first-born daisy; the lone bird is there,
The bird who loves to mourn at eve o'er graves
Where beauty sleeps, the gentle and the fair;
And whispering as it goes, the tremulous air,
With voice of girlish fondness, seems to cry,
BUY WARREN'S BLACKING!' to each passer

by.'"

"Your father, too, my own John, We'll not let him alone, John, But, with prophetic glee,

Declare how time will be

When nations shall proclaim

The triumphs of his fame,

And story pile on story
In honour of his glory.

So now good night, my Johnny;

Put your night-cap on ye;

He listed the tones of Saint Dunstan's clock,
Of the mastiff bitch, and the crowing cock;
But louder, far louder, he listed a roar,
Loud as the billow that booms on the shore;
Bang, bang, with a pause between,
Rung the weird sound at his door, I ween.
Up from his couch he leaped in affright,
Oped his grey lattice and looked on the night,
Then put on his coat, and with harlequin hop
Stood like a phantom in midst of the shop;
In midst of his shop he stood like a sprite.
Till, peering to left and peering to right,
Beside his counter, with tail in hand,
He saw a spirit of darkness stand :
I guess 'twas frightful there to see
A lady so scantily clad as she,
Ugly and old exceedingly."

*

*

*

And here mote I tell how they rode on the wind,

The witch before and the Warren behind;

How they passed in a twinkling the haunts of man,
And the proud pagodas of Kubla Khan;
How they peeped at the planets like Allan-a-room,
And supped on green cheese with the man in the

moon;

Or listed the dulcimer's tremulous notes,

phia Literaria; as, in his going abroad, his intense, and, for a time, exclusive study of German Metaphysics, his love of Greek and his thorough acquaintance with that tongue while a boy; moreover this book bears, in its most inimitable peculiarities a very exact resemblance to those, which are acknowledged by Mr Coleridge. Perhaps a stronger argument yet remains. There is a verisimilitude, an air of absolute reality about the work, that will not let us doubt, that he who wrote it, had used opium so very intemperately as to have suffered its most obvious consequences. But no man could have written as this book is written, who had not already written much; and no one could be possessed of this author's command of language and exquisite taste in the use of words,-of his power of writing in the most diverse styles, and of writing in them all so very well,without being an established lion, a very

Or the voice of the wind through the azure that" noticeable man" indeed. Thus the author floats,

Till pillar and palace and arching sky
Rung to the mingled melody.
The eye of night is veiled in cloud,
Like a nun apparelled in sable shroud;
But the twain have past her starry dome,
And are bound to the realms of eternal gloom;
They have past the regions of upper air,
Where zephyr is born amid music rare,
And the shadows of twilight featly fall
On starry temple and cloudy hall,
Whose floors by spirits are paced, and ring
With the harp's seraphic murmuring."

New Monthly's wit, Blackwood's stinging
Southey's hexameters, the best of the
buffoonery, and the quarrel in debate be-
tween Brougham and Canning, are all
pretty well done; but the rest of the vol-

is proved to be at once very notorious as a man of letters and of genius, and as an opium-eater; and as this character befits nobody that we know of, excepting Mr Coleridge, we are well nigh compelled to regard him as the true author of these confessions. At least we hold it to be certain, that, if he did not write them, whoever did, laboured hard to attach to him the presumption of autobiography. And now we leave the question of authorship, and go to with the argumentative part of my speech, the merits of the book; “ having," as Mr of New York said to a jury, "done come to the pathetic.'

It cannot be required that the confes

ume is rather common-place. We suppose, sions of an opium-eater should contain more and not from its inequalities alone, that of the eater's life than so much as may "Warreniana" is the work of several writ-have respect to his opium or be necessary

ers.

a

Confessions of an English Opium-eater.
Being an Extract from the Life of
Scholar. First published in the London
Magazine. 18mo. Philadelphia, 1823. pp.

183.

And mind, you little jewel, Mind you drink your gruel, Or else, despite your tears, John, Papa will box your ears, John." The imitation of Coleridge's Christabel is long and well sustained; in some parts almost rivalling the fine poetry and exquisite melody of its prototype, and in others ridiculing its absurdities with great success. We have hardly room for more extracts, but will quote some lines from the begin-alter, that Coleridge, by his own proper

ning.

"Warren the manufacturer rich Hath a spectral mastiff bitch;

To saint Dunstan's clock, tho' silent enow,
She barketh her chorus of bow, wow, wow :
Bow for the quarters, and wow for the hour;
Nought cares she for the sun or the shower;
But when, like a ghost all arrayed in its shroud,
The wheels of the thunder are muffled in cloud,
When the moon, sole chandelier of night,
Bathes the blessed earth in light,

As wizard to wizard, or witch to witch,
Howleth to heaven this mastiff bitch.

"Buried in thought O'Warren lay,
Like a village queen on the birth of May ;

DID Coleridge write this book? We hope
not; because it is pleasant to have among
the caterers for the luxuries and comforts
of "the reading public," not only S. T.
Coleridge, but such an "alter et idem" as
must have written this work if he did not.
To settle this question in the first place,
as well as we can, we state in favour of the
appellation, given at full length, is repeat-
edly brought forward and vehemently prais-
ed; and also, that Coleridge is mentioned,
p. 162, as conversing with the author about
certain matters. Here the argument on
this side of the question must rest; for the
idem it may be urged, that Mr Coleridge
is known to have used opium intemperately,
and the report goes, that he has lately
shaken off this thraldom and is about pur-
suing his literary labours with renewed
vigour. Next, the facts stated agree very
well with many of the circumstances of
Mr Coleridge's life, narrated in his Biogra-

to the full understanding of this part. Now as much as this we have; consequently there is no fault to be found with the book on the score of deficiency. The confessing subject begins his work with certain preliminary confessions, which are given, that it may be understood why and how he began to eat opium, and whence he afterwards derived the people of his dreams; and also that he might create something of a personal interest. His father died when he was young; he was put to school, and studied so hard and so well, that at thirteen he wrote Greek easily, and two years afterwards could converse in Greek so much to the purpose, that his master once said of him to a stranger-"That boy could harangue an Athenian mob better than you or I could address an English one." He went from this school to one he did not like, and therefore ran away from. The story of the elopement begins with a beautiful passage.

He wandered about the country, spent true: I cannot gainsay them: and truth ever was, until he took every day some ounces of

of the house himself? Reader, he was one of those upon the condition of mind, which it pro--and silvery expanses of water:-these haunted anomalous practitioners in the lower departments of the law, who-what shall I say?—who on prudential reasons, or from necessity, deny themselves all indulgence in the luxury of too delicate a conscience (a periphrasis which might be abridged considerably, but that I leave to the reader's taste); in many walks of life, a conscience is a more ex

"In short, to sum up all in one word, a man who is inebriated, or tending to inebriation, is, and feels that he is, in a condition which calls up into supremacy the merely human, too often the brutal, part of his nature: but the opium-eater (I speak of him who is not suffering from any disease, or other remote effects of opium) feels that the diviner part of his nature is paramount; that is, the moral affections are in a state of cloudless serenity; and over all is the great light of the majestic intellect." We can quote a strange passage to illus-began to appear: the sea appeared paved with trate this opium-calm.

literature.

its nature, and its possible issue. I, as is usual in | ceeding ages? In the present general dif- taste. Of his numerous works none fall dreams (where, of necessity, we make ourselves fusion of knowledge, almost every man is a below mediocrity, and a few rise above it. central to every movement), had the power, and yet had not the power, to decide it. I had the reader, and of course more or less a man of As a poet he was of the class, the inevitapower, if I could raise myself, to will it, and yet Next to autobiography, the ble doom of which was long ago pronounced again had not the power, for the weight of twenty best method of making the life of an author by Horace. Atlantics was upon me, or the oppression of inex- interesting to the admirers of his works, is "Mediocribus esse poetis, piable guilt. 'Deeper than ever plummet sound- that which has been adopted by Hayley in ed,' I lay inactive. Then, like a chorus, the pas- his life of Cowper; that is, publishing such sion deepened. Some greater interest was at stake; some mightier cause than ever yet the sword had a selection of his letters to his intimate pleaded, or trumpet had proclaimed. Then came friends as may in some sort compel him to sudden alarms: hurryings to and fro: trepidations be his own biographer. As Dr Aikin had of innumerable fugitives, I knew not whether from a very extensive circle of friends, we the good cause or the bad: darkness and light: hoped, nay, indeed expected, that his tempest and human faces; and at last, with the sense that all was lost, female forms, and the daughter would have adopted this method. features that were worth all the world to me, and On reading the memoir, however, we the but a moment allowed, and clasped hands, and less regret her determination, as from the heart-breaking partings, and then-everlasting extracts which she has given from her farewells!" father's letters, we have no very high After a while he finds he must die pretty notion of his talents for epistolary corsoon if he continues this habit, and being respondence. Miss Aikin says, in her preparticularly averse to such a consumma- face, that "nothing could be farther from tion, he goes to work resolutely, and at the her design than to intrude upon the attenclose of the book assures his readers that tion of the public by the introduction of he is almost cured. It is wonderful that anecdotes or observations not strictly conthe author has been able to preserve any nected with the subject of the memoir, and thing like a story amid the incoherence of by which its effect as a moral portraiture a work so confused and desultory. He would be rather weakened than enforced." writes in the first or third person, in the We do not see how its effect as a moral past or present tense, to or of himself, portraiture could have been weakened if just as the whim takes him; still he has she had illustrated the subject of the memade a very pleasant book;-of no great moir by anecdotes of other literary and use as to opium-eating, because it will scientific men, and thus given the public a entice as many as it will deter. The lan- bird's eye view of the society in which Dr guage is always exquisitely felicitous, often Aikin lived. Sure we are that had this most amusingly quaint, and sometimes pow-been done the work would not have been erful and magnificent in the extreme. The so dull.

Non dî, non homines, non concessere columnæ." His volume of poems was never reprinted and is now forgotten. His fine taste made him an excellent critic, and his style justly deserves the encomium of his daughter. It is what may be called a transparent style; the reader is never at loss about his meaning, nor ever tempted from his subject to admire a fine phrase or a beautiful figure. All his ornaments are appropriate, and never ambitious. A man so learned and so gifted might, we think, have attained a much higher station in the republic of letters, had he not frittered away his powers upon too many objects. He was never without some literary project, and we suspect often began to write before he had even arranged the plan of his work. We have been much pleased with his critical notices of different English poets appended to this book. We had never seen any of them before, though we had read their titles as productions of Dr Aikin. They are models for this class of writings, and will bear a comparison with the best essays of Dr Johnson on similar subjects; indeed we think that many of Dr Aikin's are to be preferred to some of those even of that giant of literature. Our review of Percy's Reliques was published before the "Memoir author must have wonderful variety and Dr Aikin was the only son of the Rev. of Dr Aikin" was put into our hands; which versatility of talent; a passage decorated John Aikin, D. D., a dissenting clergyman, we mention on account of the striking simwith the very elements of poetry, is often whose health incapacitated him for useful-ilarity both of sentiment and expression preceded by one armed with stinging sar-ness, as a preacher, and who taught first a between a paragraph in that review, and casm and followed by another of pure wit. private school, and was afterwards the the following passage of the "Essay on the On the whole, there are few books of this Poetry of Milton." size, which bear so deeply and distinctly the impress of genius; very few, which have so many faults redeemed by so much

excellence.

President of a sort of College established by the dissenters at Warrington in LanThis originality of imitation in Milton becashire. He made great proficiency in his comes peculiarly conspicuous on a critical examstudies at an early age, and acquired a ination of his similies. In most of these he may be strong fondness for polite literature, from detected taking a hint from Homer or some other which his subsequent scientific pursuits ancient; but he has made it so much his own, both never weaned him. He was apprenticed novelty in the application, that his merit of invenby added circumstances in the description, and by Memoir of John Aikin, M. D. By Lucy studied physic in Edinburgh and surgery in primarily of his own growth. In Milton's mind, all to a country apothecary, and afterwards tion is little less than if the whole idea had been Aikin. With a Selection of his Miscellaneous Pieces, biographical, moral, and London; sedulously cultivating literature images and impressions, whether received from critical. Philadelphia, 8vo. pp. 487. as his chief amusement during his studies. nature or art, from reading or observation, seem to He practised surgery awhile in the coun-converted into the proper aliment of the intellect, have been so blended and amalgamated, so much WE took up this work with some feeling of try, having, like a prudent man, married as that their transcripts in his writings take a kind of interest arising from the rank which the soon as he had a fair prospect of being able homogeneous form, and what might appear study in subject of it and his family hold among the to maintain a family, and not till then. Dis- another man, in him is spontaneous effusion." "ignes minores" of English literature. We satisfied with his emoluments as a surgeon, had expected too much, and have now to he went to Leyden and obtained a degree be cautious that in the account which we as a physician. His own account of his are about to give of it, we do not under- visit to the continent, his daughter has invalue the book, in consequence of our dis-serted in her narrative, and it is the most appointment.

entertaining part of the memoir. He That the life of a man devoted to liter- seems to have been not very successful in ature affords but a meagre subject for the his profession, and his weak state of health biographer, has long ago been remarked; at length compelled him to relinquish it and we have often thought that an author altogether. He began to write when very is the best qualified of any one to give an young, and continued to publish a volume interesting account of himself. None but or two, almost every year during his life. he can tell the origin and the progress of We think he would have better consulted his works; and where is the literary man his fame had he written less and on fewer who would not feel an interest in the his- topics. The most prominent traits in his tory of those productions of the human character as an author, appear to be plain mind which are to be the lights of the suc-common sense and an highly cultivated

It is curious to observe how far the taste of the age influenced even such a mind as that of Dr Aikin. In his "Observations on Pope's Essay on Man,' he quotes the following jumble of metaphors as a proof of Pope's "splendour of diction, which illuminates an intellectual truth by associating it with some kindred sensible object of the sublime or beautiful class." We quote the words as they are italicised by Dr Aikin.

"For him alone Hope leads from goal to goal, And opens still and opens on his soul; Till lengthened on to Faith, and unconfined, It pours the bliss that fills up all the mind." Let any man examine the sensible images conveyed by the words in italics, and what

are they? For our part we must say, that to us at least they are not "kindred images of the sublime or beautiful class;" Hope is personified as a guide in the first line, and so far, well; but in the next line she is described as opening, but what or whom puzzles our ingenuity; the metaphor in the third line, presented us with the image of our good grandmother amusing herself at what is called the great spinning-wheel, and dexterously joining a new roll of wool to the one which was nearly spun out; in the fourth line our same venerated relative is recalled to our recollection, engaged in the mystery of pouring out her evening libation of tea. Notwithstanding this and some few other errors of a similar kind, imputable to the same cause, we may confidently recommend these critical notices to the attention of our reader as examples, in the main, of sound, discriminating crit

icism.

Our readers may be amused with a sketch of this history of "The Daughter of a Genius."

of strange adventure, and of lucky and sion to dissent from her judgment respect-
luckless casualty, than the biographer finds ing the moral character of any action. It
in the lives of thousands. It is impossible, must, however, be allowed, that in the hurry
while thus ranging out of all bounds of reason and bustle of her descriptions, she some-
and probability, to make moral and religious times omits a proper distinction between
remarks with any effect. They are either the good and the evil.
regarded as dull and insipid, or they par-
take of the general inflation of the romance,
and lose all fitness and adaptation to the
sober duties of ordinary life. She never
entirely loses sight of the distinction be-
tween right and wrong, but she often ren-
ders it nearly nugatory by the wildness and
disorder, which she produces in the mind of
the reader.

The style of Mrs Hofland's descriptions is so striking, that every deviation from the simplicity of nature is rendered dangerous. But however much the reader may, for the time, relish his entertainment, yet, if he possess any love of simplicity and truth, his satisfaction will be greatly diminished We have said little of Dr Aikin's pri- by discovering that the principles which the vate life, considering that our business was story he has been reading was intended to to notice him as an author; but we ought illustrate, are accommodated to such scenes, not to omit that he was an amiable man as seldom or never exist but in hopes, and and exemplary in the performance of all fears, and dreams. We do not mean to the social duties. He was, in his political imply that the fault which we ascribe to sentiments, a republican, and suffered some some parts of these works, exists in them in petty persecution in consequence of incau- an uncommon degree. It is a proper subtiously expressing his opinions; but he was ject for censure wherever it is found; and neither attacked by a mob, like his friend its effects are exceedingly baneful in works Priestley, nor imprisoned by authority, like designed for children. There is less moral his brother-in-law, Gilbert Wakefield. He difference than we are apt to suppose belived to a good old age, and died quietly in tween a falsehood in relating matters of the bosom of his family. His aim in his fact, and an unnatural description in a ficlife and his writings seems to have been titious narrative. We have no sort of obusefulness to his fellow-creatures, and jection to novels, if they are morally true, doubtless his reward is inconceivably bet--that is, if they give a natural and faithful ter than that of many who have acquired a more brilliant reputation.

The Daughter of a Genius, pp. 192. 18mo.
Boston, 1824.

THOSE who are satisfied with a book be-
cause it is sufficiently interesting to secure
their attention till it is completely read, will
not hesitate to rank Mrs Hofland among the
best writers. Her talent for descriptive
moral composition is of a very high order.
Her style is occasionally somewhat inflated,
for it does not accommodate itself to the
various subjects that are introduced. It has,
however, great strength and animation;
and she rarely omits to introduce any word,
which can add to the spirit and force of

sentence.

a

Mr and Mrs Henville had five children, one of whom, named Maria, discovered at a very early age such marks of genius, as caused them serious alarm. Like all who are thus afflicted, she was too restless and impatient to perform ordinary actions well, but often accomplished wonders in a wonderful manner. At seventeen, having learned a good deal,but without much study, and withal having contracted the notion-very approvable even in women of genius-that it would be well to get married, it happened that one Mr Albany, a friend of her father, fell in love with her. He was a very respectable bachelor of about forty-five, a fit subject for the fascinations of a woman of beauty and genius. She now turned her attention to architecture, that she might assist Mr Albany in repairing his house; and being fascinated with the subject, continued to pursue her studies in it, and to order alterations in the house corresponding to every new notion, till it was hard to say in what style it was executed, but very easy to ascertain that it had cost too much. Having ascended a ladder one day, she was standing on the end of a weak plank on the upper story, and her footman carried her a note, relating that her father was sick and deranged. Her husband saw her look pale and agitatdisplay of such principles as we find in the ed, ran up to support her, stepped on the human mind, and have on the whole a ten-weak plank, broke it, and both fell to the dency towards improvement; but it is a ground, accompanied by a mason's hod, question of importance, whether even these which fell on Mr Albany's leg and broke are not better suited to riper age than to it. She was much bruised, but a surgeon early youth. When the mind is matured, arriving bled her; and she hastened away it matters little whether the external re- to her father, clasped him in her arms presentation be real or imaginary, provided while he was in the height of a delirium, it be such as displays the true operation of loosened the bandage from her arm, delugthe principles described. But is it not prop-ed his bed in blood, and frightened him aler, in forming the mind, to store it with most to death. She fainted, recovered, took facts; and is not this most consistent with his fever, hurried back to her husband, gave the method of analytical instruction? At him the fever, and he and her father both least there can be no question, that extra- died. vagant tales violate all natural relation between cause and effect; and encourage children to hope, and undertake to perform actions, from unnatural and incompetent motives. But we must hasten to say some better things of Mrs Hofland.

She had borne a daughter some time before, who had not attracted the attention of Mrs Albany sufficiently to divert it from amusement and architecture. Nor did she now; for her mother soon set about further improvements on her house, though reminded that her husband's estate was entailed, and she might be removed, and lose her labour. This soon became true; and she was left to fortune and her genius. After suffering much from these reverses, and fluttering about for a short time, she resolved to pay her debts, and support herself and her daughter by turning school-mistress. But it was first necessary, that she should cross the straits of Dover to learn French. She placed her daughter, Maria, with an aunt, a queer sort of a maiden lady of more than seventy years, who resided near

Her imagination is abundantly fruitful, A deep and lively sense of rectitude is but her judgment does not always dispose, generally manifested; and when her dein a suitable manner, of the immense variety scriptions are not too highly wrought, no of facts and circumstances, which her im- one can follow her without finding strong agination supplies. This defect often gives incentives to virtue. There is an uncomher narratives an air of extravagance; and mon depth in her moral sentiments, and she they are sometimes liable to this charge frequently expands and illustrates them in where so good an excuse cannot be conced- a manner beautiful and charming. You ed. We notice her extravagance more in meet with nothing here, that teaches the the Tales of the Manor, than in her smaller sufficiency of reason, and natural morality; works. In the first story, for example, she we are bidden to follow no light but that works up her imagination to its highest from heaven, and there is no other virtue pitch; it supplies her with wonder upon but love to our Father and charity towards wonder, and in one short life combines more our neighbour. We very seldom see occa-Southampton. A war breaking out, Mrs

The reader has doubtless remarked that in this abstract of the story, the mother, and not the daughter, appears the heroine. He would receive the same impression from the original. The plan of the story is decidedly injudicious. It is frequently very extravagant, but still most of it is highly interesting. We doubt whether the young reader will learn from it how to apply the principles, which it inculcates, or to shun the evils which it censures, in the ordinary occurrences of a common life.

seems to justify the withholding of all further admission; it is a sort of compromise, which is precisely what we do not want.

We believe that more than this is true, and further, that more than this is due to the nations who are entitled to all the instruction which the example of our endeavours and our success can teach. The only question is, what and how much more it is proper for us to reclaim; this question should be asked of our history, our condition and our character; and the answer which they must unite in giving, is the only answer which should be heard. What is the answer?

Albany was detained about ten years, dur-ed the mansion on which so much skill in mitted. It is that sort of concession which ing which time she studied minerology and architecture had been displayed, chose first conchology in addition to her French. Her to pay her what her mother had expended daughter was treated with little attention on the house, and afterwards to invite her and no tenderness by her great aunt, Miss to live in it. Margaret Albany; for nothing could be less pleasing to this lady than the character of her mother. However, the young Maria received by degrees more favor through the influence of the excellent sisters of her mother, and Mrs. Margaret permitted her to learn many things, which were not known in her day. Still, every precaution was used that she should contract nothing of her mother's genius. But she was a girl of fine talents, and uniformly appears just what her early education was not calculated to produce. When peace was at last proclaimed, she had knowledge enough to infer that her mother would be liberated. She danced about in extacy, and then fell on her knees and gave thanks to God. Mrs Margaret, struck with disappointment and astonishment, clasped her hands and exclaimed, "Dear heart! after all I have done, the girl has her mother's genius!"

Mrs Albany returned, established her school, received great patronage, managed badly, expected her scholars to learn in her odd way; and through a thousand difficulties which occurred in her school and her family, was sustained by the ever patient, discreet, and faithful Maria. At length Maria visits Mrs Margaret, and in the mean time, her mother meets with a worn out Italian music-master, and becomes Mrs Brandini. She early, but too late, repented of this; and finding that the patrons of her school were little disposed to overlook her misconduct, it was resolved that both she and her husband should go to Italy, and leave the school to Maria. It was hoped that Mr Brandini would gain health, and be restored to the favour of a long offended grandfather, and thereby obtain some money. After accomplishing a tedious journey, they found themselves most graciously received by his former friends; and it was plain that they were to have money enough even to pay old scores, when his grandfather should have done with it. Mr Brandini soon died, but his wife remained, to attend and comfort the object of her golden hopes. These, however, were soon and sadly blasted; for when the will was read, a little priestcraft was discovered. She could not have a single ducat without embracing the catholic faith. Like a true martyr she declined this condition, and thus was left friendless and moneyless in a strange land. She was sometime afterward found by one who had innocently promoted her second marriage; returned to England pretty well sobered, having lost her beauty, and become disgusted with the excentricities of genius; and spent the rest of her days like a lady of common sense.

MISCELLANY.

THOUGHTS UPON THE CHARACTER OF THE
AGE.

[Continued from the last number.]

WE approach our subject, almost with reluctance. We encounter difficulties and discouragements, we did not anticipate and almost shrink from; it is not that we find it a hard task, to vindicate our country's right to all that we have claimed; on the contrary we challenged an appeal to fact, and by it we are perfectly willing to abide. But we are about to oppose, as we fear, a fixed and habitual mode of thinking among our most intelligent classes, upon a subject of much interest. We feel that it demands a more discursive and ample exposition than the character of our work will permit us to give. It would be difficult to impress even upon the ignorant a just and adequate belief respecting the condition and destinies of our country; but we write for those who are more than ignorant;-who are prejudiced; and whose prejudices array themselves against us with a force which may not be subdued but by a full and powerful exposition of the truth. We are in no way disposed to doubt the certain prevalence of truth in the combat with error; but if error be rooted and entrenched, truth must come to the conflict, armed and ready for hard battle. We shall go on with our work, in the belief that a few obvious and important facts may be presented so distinctly, even with our modicum of ability and opportunity, as to awaken a new train of thought, a suspicion of past opinions; and a willingness to welcome juster views, which may in the end subdue established errors, and substitute for them, a correct apprehension of the state and prospects of our native land.

Our emancipation from the last links of that chain of dependence which bound us to Europe, is now so absolute and certain, that every one, at home and abroad, is willing to admit that we are one among the nations; and that we have our share of the After the departure of her mother, Maria peculiarities which attach to every nation retrieved the character of the school, en- as to every individual, and constitute the joyed great reputation and patronage as distinctive difference between it and others. long as she needed it, and until one Fred- This, however, is just nothing; we would erick Albany, her cousin, who had inherit-indeed prefer that nothing should be ad

Doubtless there can be no better theme for declamation, and no greater temptation to exaggerate and "magniloquize." But is this a good reason for giving up the inquiry? The facts we would examine, and on which we would rest as an ample support to our opinions, are simple and obvious. If it be true that they may be misused by idle declamation, or that ingenuity, active from the stimulus of vanity, may extort from them faise conclusions, it is no less true that they may be made by fair reasoning, to yield just and valuable inferences.

We may as well begin, by saying what it is, that we hope to make manifest; what it is, that we think and feel and would declare. We look back to the earliest struggles of our fathers; we follow their records down to the establishment of our country, and see them brought out from bondage, and led through the desolations of famine, pestilence and war, to this, the promised land. We look around and find the nation which they planted, multiplied with unprecedented rapidity, and now enjoying an accumulationwe had almost said an intensity, of blessing, which no other nation has known. We find ourselves trying a prodigious experiment with perfect success; and the thoughts of all nations beginning to be turned to us;— to us, who but a few generations ago were as little regarded as a sunset cloud in the western horizon. These are the general facts; the general inference we draw, is, that it is, not our right, but our first national duty, to feel that the ark of freedom and of truth, is, and is to be, committed to our hands, for ourselves and for our children; for the ages which are, and the ages which are to be; for our own land, and for the whole earth He, whose will is fate, hath appointed unto us to lead the nations; and there should be abroad in the land, a spirit speaking in the depths of each man's heart, and telling him, that we are before the whole earth, for their guidance and instruction; to lead them whither we have come and are going.

We are perfectly aware that our language and our opinions are far too decided to accord with the established mode of thinking and talking upon these topics; but we stand ready to state the facts and the reasons, which have fixed upon our minds the conviction we have above expressed. Gladly would we array these facts at length, and state with the utmost distinctness the arguments we ground upon them; gladly