crystal, and flowed gently on, till it had surrounded the Knight's grave; it then pursued its course, and emptied itself into a tranquil lake, which was near the consecrated ground. Even in our times, the inhabitants of the village show the stream, and entertain an opinion that this is the poor, deserted Undine, who, in this manner still surrounds with her affectionate arms, her beloved husband."

We have given these passages, not because they are all of them among the best which could have been selected, but as affording upon the whole, a pretty fair view of the character and execution of the work. For ourselves, we repeat, that we have been highly delighted with it. The name of the translator is not given, and we know not to whom we are indebted for the pleasure it has afforded us. His task, we have no doubt, though we have no acquaintance with the original, has been executed with fidelity; we know at least, that the English dress in which he has presented this fanciful little tale, is neat, often beautiful, and always interesting.

tions are, with very few exceptions, applied ed or founded our more mature character.
to every thing of consequence in the text. Then, the labours of all, who now gather
They are so constructed, that no one can the fading recollections and traditions of
enable himself to understand and answer elder days, and give them a permanent
them, without making himself master of the form, will be duly appreciated. The exe-
whole subject which they regard.
cution of Mr Moore's work is as good as
the plan and purpose; it displays good sense,
good taste, and much industry.

The typography of the work, in every respect but that of literal correctness, is excellent; there are some errors of this sort, but all which could cause any mistake, are corrected with the pen. It may be well to add, that the addition of the questions does not increase the price of the work, this edition being sold at the same rate as the 12mo edition of Blair's Rhetoric in common use.

The "Annals of Concord" are brought down, quite to the present day, and some account is given of all the inhabitants of the town, who have been remarkable in' any respect. The notice of Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, who passed some years in Concord, is peculiarly interesting.

There is much in these Annals respecting the Indian warfare; much that it is now Annals of the Town of Concord, in the Coun- difficult to realize as having actually exty of Merrimack, and State of New-isted. What a contrast is there, between Hampshire, from its first Settlement, in the present peaceful and secure condition the Year 1726, to the Year 1823. With of our towns, and a situation which exposed several Biographical Sketches. To which them to circumstances like those narrated is added, a Memoir of the Penacook In- page 23. dians. By Jacob B. Moore. 8vo. pp. "On Monday morning, the 11th, seven of the inAn Abridgment of Lectures on Rhetoric. 112. Concord, 1824. habitants set out for Hopkinton, two on horses, and the others on foot, all armed. They marched on By Hugh Blair, D. D. Improved by the THIS simple and unpretending book, is both leisurely, and Obadiah Peters, having proceeded addition of Appropriate Marginal Ques-pleasing and useful, in a high degree. It some distance forward of the others into a hollow, tions, numbered to correspond with Refer- appears from the preface, that the author about one mile and a half from the street, set down ences in the body of the page. By Na- collected the facts and materials for his The Indians, thinking themselves discovered, rose his gun and waited the approach of his friends. thaniel Greene. 12mo. pp. 238. Boston. own use, but concluded to publish these An- from their hiding-places, fired and killed Peters on 1824. nals, in the belief that they would be gen- the spot. At this moment, Jonathan Bradley and THE questions printed in the margin of erally interesting. He did well to collect, the rest of his party had gained the summit of the each page, are perfectly simple and dis- and better to publish them; and we hope hill. Bradley was deceived in the number of the tinct, and well calculated to direct the at- his success will be such as to encourage sim- enemy, supposing the few whom he saw near Petention of the scholar to those statements in ilar undertakings. Works like this are men to fire, and they rushed down among them. ters to compose the whole party. He ordered his the text, which it is most important that he needed to illustrate our earliest history. It The whole body of Indians instantly arose, being should comprehend and remember. Every gives a plain relation of the first settlement about 100 in number. Bradley now urged his men instructer who is properly desirous that his of Concord, with a minute account of the to fly for safety; but it was too late-the work of pupil should profit by the book he reads, difficulties encountered and subdued, and shot through the body--stripped of his clothing, destruction had commenced. Samuel Bradley was must ask him many questions respecting it; of all the doings, public and private,-for and scalped. To Jonathan they offered good not only to assure himself that it has been they were then almost the same,-of the quarter,' having been acquainted with him; but studied with sufficient assiduity, but to lead infant colony. The interior townships he refused their protection, his heroic spirit thirstthe mind of his scholar to those subjects of New England were settled in a some-ing to avenge the death of his comrades. He which he should examine with most care. what similar manner, and yet the early until they struck him on his face repeatedly with fought with his gun against the cloud of enemies, But few masters, compelled as they must history of each has peculiarities that give their knives and tomahawks, and literally hewed be, to make little préparation in this re- to it a distinct interest. They agree, in him down. They then_pierced his body, took off spect, can devise at once questions so much that a wilderness was about them, thinly his scalp and clothes. Two others, John Bean and to the point, as those which are here peopled by a savage enemy, of equal ac- John Lufkin, attempting to fly, were killed by the attached to the text; of course, these tivity and malignity; that famine often same fire with Samuel Bradley. Alexander Robmust not only be of great assistance to the came amongst them, threatening if not de- death, but were made prisoners and taken to Canerts and William Stickney fortunately escaped teacher, but of importance to the schol-stroying; and that they generally, quite as ada. Immediately after the melancholy affair took ar, because they secure to him an exam- soon as they were established, contrived to place, an alarm was given from Walker's garrison ination, at once precise and full. An- get into quarrels with their neighbours, to the people on the interval, and elsewhere, at other advantage is, that when boys recite about boundaries, or privileges of some consulted on measures of safety. The soldiers stasome little distance. They soon assembled and in numerous classes, as must be the case in kind. But the details of the savage war tioned at the garrison, and several of the inhabiacademies, but a small proportion of them differ, sometimes according to casual cir- tants, then repaired to the scene of slaughter. As can be examined with much care; but any cumstances of location or condition, and they approached, the Indians were seen upon the one who uses this edition, while he studies sometimes from the differing habits of dif- retreat. The bodies were brought away in a cart, the text, will have his attention directed ferent tribes of Indians; the dangers and and were interred in the church-yard on the followwhere a skilful master would wish to lead difficulties surmounted, and the spirit and ing day. The number killed of the Indians was it; it is in fact, the same thing as if he resources which met them, are infinitely when the information was obtained from Roberts, unknown to the inhabitants until some time after, studied the work with constant reference various. These particulars are more than who had made his escape from captivity. He stato a digest, or compact abridgment of it. amusing; they are the materials for useful ted that four were killed, and several wounded, two The only objection which can be urged a history; they serve to illustrate vividly, mortally, who were conveyed away upon litters, gainst this method of printing school-books, both the character that our fathers brought hemlock tree in the Great Swamp, about half a mile and soon after died. Two they buried under a large is, that scholars, knowing beforehand what with them, and that which they found in south of the scene of slaughter. The other two questions are to be asked them, prepare the aborigines. In time to come, it will be, were buried at some distance from them, near Turthemselves accordingly, and neglect the re- perhaps, thought more interesting than it key river. Roberts found the two bodies under mainder of the book. This is a point which is now, to seek in the conduct and condi- the log after his return from captivity. The head deserves much attention; it is, however, tion of the infancy of our country, those of one was taken away, it was supposed, by wild but just to say, that in this work, the ques- traits, and those impressions, which indicat-paid by the government." beasts. For the skull of the other, a bounty was

54

On page 76 we have a copy of a letter written by an Indian Chief, to Cranfield, Lieut. Governor of New Hampshire. It is curious enough to be extracted.

your humble servant,

JOHN HOGKINS."

and its maker, but of all goodness, justice,
and happiness. If we may judge from his
writings, not from his prefaces and apolo-
gies, excuses and explanations, but his prin-
cipal works, those which have cost him care
and toil, and on which he relies for fame,

gar passion and all vile impulses are continually uttering, is, that the love of these things is spirited ambition, and the entrobling aspiration of great minds. There are few whom this powerful lie does not at some seasons and in some measure deceive, and there are many whom it deludes and ruins. How wholly unnecessary is it, to teach men to forget that man is good, that his hopes are secure and his happiness real, just in proportion as he loves peaceful usefulness better than stife and turmoil, and pursues the path of his duty, looking not above or beyond him, but at his work.

Honour gouernor my friend, You my friend I desire your worship and your-his prevalent and habitual sentiment is a power, because I hope you can do som great mat- thorough and bitter scorn for every thing ters this one. I am poor and naked, and I have but depravity, and an universal distrust of no man at my place because I afraid allwayes Mohogs he will kill me every day and night. If your every thing but falsehood. Virtue, honesty, worship when please pray help me you no let Mo- respect for right, and obedience to law, are hogs kill me at my place at Malamake river called with him, only cheating hypocrisy or cheatPanukkog and Nattukkog, I will submit your wor- ed folly; he deems it an abuse and an error ship and your power. And now I want pouder and to suppose that men do themselves good by such alminishon, shott and guns, because I have imposing upon themselves restraints, and Earth would be heaven, if men loved forth at my hom and I plant theare. This all Indian hand, but pray do you consider considers him wise, who overleaps the their duty better than its reward, and sought bounds which fasten in society, and dares no other recompense than the pleasure of to forget or defy in mad revelry all cus- doing good. This a condition which can tom, decency, and law. It is his settled hardly be imagined and never perhaps creed, that we know not and cannot know, be reached; still it should be perpetually apby what cause or to what end we are in be-proached. It should be a goal towards ing; religion is with him a time-rooted which all hope and effort should tend; and falsehood, to which weakness, suffering, and there is nothing good and pure in the affecfear have given power,-a strange folly, tions, nothing true in thought, and nothing making men barter away ease, liberty, and rational in belief or expectation, which pleasure for an equivalent to be repaid only does not look to it. Amid the barrenness of to him who has become nothing; he sees in earth, even as it is, there are green and hope a miserable delusion, and in death lovely spots; primeval happiness comes nothing but the chill and darkness and cor- again, with a reality beyond the dream of ruption of the grave. These opinions of poetry or the hope of enthusiasm, to a pure his oppose the universal and hereditary heart, dwelling in a humble and a peaceful opinion of the world, and believing himself home. The love of self has many forms right, he, of course, thinks that he is wiser and many names; it is lofty ambition, noble than the world, and that his views are more pride, just revenge, and many things akin vain of the distinction, and regards it with dwell, for where they are, there is no room Of course he is to these; but with them happiness cannot much complacency, and is willing that all and no welcome for her. The companions should see it, and he tells men earnestly and that she loves, are innocent and humble, but eloquently what fools, cowards, or hypo-glad and grateful thoughts, and pure and crites they are for believing, hoping, fear-kind affections; thoughts and affections ing, and professing like their fathers; that which come from heaven and almost bear they may feel his superiority, his bold sa- one thither, but which Byron, and they who gacity, who tells them so. are infected by his influence, hold in utter scorn.

alone;

Cain; a Mystery. By Lord Byron. Bos-
ton. 1822. 18mo. pp. 79.
The Deformed Transformed; a Drama.
By the Right Hon. Lord Byron. First
American from the second London edition.
Philadelphia. 1824. 12mo. pp. 84.
Few living authors exert so strong and
wide an influence as Lord Byron. His in-
tellect is remarkable, not for its power
with those qualities which are most
sure to awaken and arrest attention, he has,
in an uncommon measure, the faculties most
necessary to take advantage of opportunities
thus gained. He is not only a poet of a high
order, but an original, fearless, versatile,
and sometimes mysterious character; he is
therefore certain of patient and earnest
listeners; and upon all who listen to his
song, he can throw a spell which few are
strong enough to break, by his absolute
command over the melodies of language
and all that is powerful or beautiful in im-
agery, and by his skill in waking the
ful play of gay or tender thoughts, or paint-
ing the fiercest madness of passion, or con-
trasting all action and motion, whether
peaceful and joyous or fearful, with the
solemn calm of feelings, deep, silent, and
tranquil as a reposing ocean. A man thus
endowed, if he be,-as Lord Byron is,-
ambitious of influence and notoriety, for we
will not call it fame, cannot pass through
his course, without giving a permanent di-
rection to some minds and a bias to many,
and thus doing much to establish his own
fashion of regarding those topics which

form

grace

"His haunt, and the main region of his song." The extent and character of his influence is a subject well worthy of examination. We speak not of the effect of Byron's example upon the forms and appearances of poetry, nor of the changes he may have caused on the surface or in the depths of literature, if any such there be; but of the influence he has exerted upon the general habits of thinking and feeling in cultivated society.

Lord Byron is an infidel; a thorough and consistent infidel. Of course we say this only of Lord Byron as an author; as such, he is an unbeliever not merely of heaven

extended and accurate.

the strength or consolation of humanity.

This is a heavy accusation; let us examine if it be not just.

Some things he has written to revenge and he has written some things merely from an injury; his mind is versatile and active, Who are his heroes? Who are they, to caprice or in idleness; of late, some of the whom he gives beauty and courage and appendages to his poems indicate alarm, if power? Who is he, that, whether his name not penitence; but the mass of his power-be Harold or Manfred, Conrad, Lara, or ful and splendid poetry has a distinct and the Giaour, is a reflection of the character for satire, or humour, or pathos, or exquisite reckless ambition is utterly regardless of strongly marked character. His talents which Lord Byron loves? He is one, whose description of the beauty or sublimity of all that does not minister to its own indulfully exerted as when he is fighting against others as born only for his use, and whose nature, are never so strenuously and success- gence, whose miserable pride looks upon all the best affections and unfailing hopes ready vengeance is awakened against all and sanctifying truths, which are left for who chance to cross his wayward path. Such a being may exist; probably many such do exist; but when these qualities belong to men living in society, the absurdity of supposing them ennobling rather than degrading, is impossible. Such men are avoided; they feel no love and they seek none; if they are unable or unwilling to hide their pride and selfishness, all who approach them, recoil with disgust; and if these qualities are hidden, it is by a disguise of mean and temporary suavity, which Byron's poetry could not endure. be men who, in the ruling principles of thought and feeling, resemble Byron's favorites; and the falsehood of his poetry consists in giving to such characters unnat

It is mockery to ask whether such a man, writing thus, produces a good or evil effect; the only question is, what is the evil, which most naturally grows out of his works? The answer is obvious. He has confounded the distinction between all evil and all good, and made beautiful and alluring by specious falsehood, that which in truth and in reality is as repulsive as it is dangerous. It is the evil of man's nature, which alone, whatever be its features or disguise, loves discord, tumult, and revenge, and solitary grandeur, and uncontrolled power; these things harmonize with nothing that is good; and the great lie, which selfishness and vul

Such must

ural and impossible attractions; in making | but hatred, despairing yet untiring. Satan combat with Lucifer; they avoid him or them mild, amiable, and affectionate, lovely is invested with unimaginable sublimity; they stand before him fearful and feeble. and beloved, and happy in their ambition, but it is the sublimity of darkness illu- Now then, Byron, by the terms of his own their vengeance, or their sensuality. Thus mined with hell-fire: it is composed of seeking, is reduced within an obvious dilema character is created and strongly im- every element of awe and terror, and ma. He has given the victory to the advopressed upon the imagination, the direct is unqualified by any thing which can cate of infidelity; therefore he either would tendency of which is to produce, in the in- allure to sympathy or imitation. We feel not or could not defeat his sophistry; if he tellectual apprehension, an association be- that he holds his burning sceptre because would not, it was because it is pleasant to tween things which approach each other he is supreme in pain; he speaks to the him to blaspheme, and he loved the awful only in fiction, and a disunion between sun as something which had been beneath falsehoods of his hero too fondly to bring those which are seldom sundered in reality, his sphere, but curses the beam that brings them into light; if he could not, then the and never should be in the belief; between the memory of his past brightness; and we sad conclusion is inevitable, that he is inhumility and content, between usefulness are continually led to measure the height sensible to those truths and hopes and affecand happiness. It may be thought that all of his lost throne by the abyss into which tions which alone can elevate man from romantic works are liable to this charge in he has fallen. He meets the ministers of earth to happiness, and has not yet learned common with those of Lord Byron; but God in combat, in argument, and in pur- that none but the fool saith, There is no it applies to his productions with peculiar poses of evil, but he is exposed, defeated, God. aptness and force. In other works of this and punished, like a guilty and miserable class, the evil is commonly palliated, and, in thing; he is a rebel and a blasphemer some sort, remedied, by a degree of regard to against the Most High, but his rebellion is those domestic charities and those duties its own punishment, his blasphemy is a cry and relations of society, which Byron seems of agony and despair, and his every word neither to love, respect, nor understand. and action and purpose proclaims that his This regard is seldom very enlightened; sovereignty in wickedness and power and but, at the worst, it is a folly neutralizing torment is one. Is it thus with Byron's a falsehood, which in Byron's poetry is Lucifer? Far from it; the impression he is wholly unresisted. That Lord Byron's in- calculated to produce is precisely the oppofluence is checked and decaying, is certain; site to that which is caused by the characbut who can deny that it has been great, that, ter of Satan. with any knowledge of human nature, has any recollection of the admiration, which his poems excited, and of the forgetfulness of their moral character in the acknowledgement of their power and splen

dour.

We may appear to have pushed the charge of infidelity and impiety too far. Byron, as we have already remarked, has of late made many protestations and excuses, which, with some critics, appear to have a degree of weight. In the preface to Cain he seems to anticipate the horror which the foul blasphemies of Lucifer must excite, and endeavours to excuse or defend them, by saying that "it was difficult to make him talk like a clergyman." He elsewhere refers to a great precedent for his justification: he appeals to Milton; and by the example of Milton, as far as two spirits so discordant can be brought into comparison, let him judged.

The Satan of Paradise Lost, is the sublime of evil. It was a thought which marked the character of Milton's intellect, to regard a pure hatred of God, as the crowned and sovereign sin. Had the subordinate devils been the creations of a less mighty mind, they would have differed from their leader and from each other, only as they were tainted with more or less wickedness. But it is not so: each one represents some elemental vice, and, in all that he says or does shows, with exceeding truth, the impulse and tendency of the sin he personifies. Avarice, Ambition, and Sensuality are there in vivid but disgusting reality. They are there with their brethren, leading the armies of hell; but they bow with willing self-abasement to the preeminence in sin and in suffering of him, on whom they rest their hopes and from whom they derive their strength; of him, who is the life, the essential spirit of all ill, as he is nought

It is impossible to read "Cain," without feeling that Lucifer is a favoured and cherished character; it is impossible to compare Lucifer with the heroes of Lord Byron's other works, without perceiving that he is one with them. There is, we have already said, a distinct character, which every favorite of the Byron school bears, and this character, strongly exaggerated, and relieved from a few of the incongruous amiabilities which are commonly attached to it, becomes Lucifer.

Milton's arch-fiend is opposed to the Al- There is a use in most things; and Lord mighty as evil to good, as falsehood to truth, Byron may do some good, even as an author. as misery to peace and happiness; but Lu- The limits which are put to his success, the cifer is triumphant and exulting. There is decay of his fame, the obloquy which is nothing of wretchedness about him, and he gathering about him, prove that there is declares himself to be miserable only that among those for whom he writes, a sense of he may better illustrate his proud scorn his folly and wickedness, which will not be and successful defiance of that Almighty wholly blinded even by the splendour of his vengeance which cannot inflict so much as poetry. In his earlier works Byron appearhe can endure. The cause of truth and ed as a poet of extraordinary powers, who goodness is argued by Cain, feebly and foolishly affected much melancholy, and against his will; Adam and Eve are repre- who unhappily failed to discover that the sented as unresisting victims of God's in- time had gone by, when an author could justice, worshipping him rather in fear than advance his reputation for talent and origiin love. Abel, Adah, and Zillah are very nality by indulging his spleen in sneers at good and peaceful, but rather weak and every thing holy, virtuous, or honourable. quite unable to aid Cain in his wordy con- He wrote a series of delightful tales, unittest with Lucifer. The spirit of evil is ing to great novelty in point of character alike triumphant in argument and in temp- every species of poetic beauty. At this tation; and his weapons are the same in period his reputation was at its height; he both. He tempts to disobedience and sin, had indeed discovered the traits of character by promising knowledge; and overcomes which he has since shown more openly, but the habits of devotion in which Cain had he had not then obtruded them upon public been educated, by performing his promise, notice; he had not yet written Don Juan by compelling the reason of Cain to admit and Cain, as if to show that the finest poetthat man is miserable because God is essen-ry might be used to decorate vulgar licentially unjust and cruel! This tremendous blasphemy is repeated in many forms and with all possible distinctness, and adorned with all the poetry and enforced with all the eloquence which Lord Byron could command. It is no palliation, that Lucifer's arguments are altogether trite and futile, for they are all that infidelity has yet found. To the excuse which Byron offers in his own defence, that he was obliged to make his persons speak in character, we need not answer that he was nowise required to write that which could not be written without blasphemy,-for the excuse wholly fails of itself. If Lucifer must speak in character, why must not Adam and Abel and the Angel of the Lord,-for he too is a person of this Mystery? But they do not

tiousness or the sophistry and curses of blasphemy. But he has since gone so far as to alarm and shock every feeling of love for goodness or respect for sanctity. Public sentiment is decidedly against him; his last books do not sell; they remain on the booksellers' shelves instead of being demanded with an avidity which could hardly be supplied. The last cantos of Juan are almost unread here, and were it not for the newspapers, which extract their best passages, it would hardly be known that Byron continued to write. In this fact there is infinite encouragement for them who hope that men will one day learn to prefer good to evil, and who would add their mite of effort, to bring about this blessed consummation.

With sanctioned and with softened love, before
The altar, gazing on his Trojan bride,
With some remorse within for Hector slain
And Priam weeping, mingled with deep passion
For the sweet downcast virgin, whose young hand
Trembled in his who slew her brother. So
He stood i' the temple! Look upon him as
Greece looked her last upon her best, the instant
Ere Paris' arrow flow."

Prose, by a Poet.

“Book.--I have told you my author knows that you are; moreover, he foresaw that I should meet you at this time, in this place, and that we should have such conversation together; for which he prepared me with the answers already given to your very natural inquiries.

"Reader.-Humph! no small proof of sagacity!
-But how are you sure that I am the person whom
he had in his mind's eye!'

"Book.-Only because you can be no other;
and though you assume a thousand forms, and be
2 vols. 12mo. pp. 411. as many ladies and gentlemen as you please, at
Philadelphia, 1824.
once, or in succession,-indeed, the more the mer-
the very person, to whom he has sent a direct mes-
rier for him, yet are you invariably the person,
sage by me.

We believe that Montgomery is supposed
to be the author of these pleasant little
volumes; they are attributed to him in the
English journals, and are well worthy of
him. Whoever the author may be, he is a
man of fine sense and taste, and an excel-
lent writer. There is infinite variety in
the matter and manner of the pieces; some
are humorous, some pathetic, and some ar-
gumentative; there are tales, allegories,
journals, dialogues, and essays,—all of which
are pretty good, and some very excellent.
The author says that the different pieces
have been written at different times, and
principally on private occasions, within the
last ten years; and they are now printed,
because he had accumulated so many of
these miscellanies, that it seemed probable
a selection might be made which would be
acceptable to the public. The preface is
in the shape of an amusing dialogue be-
tween the book and the reader.

"Reader.-Prose !-so it is; at least the greater part of it; and that which looks like verse may be the most prosaic of all.

"Book.-True; but to make amends, you may expect that the prose of a poet will be poetical.

Reader.-If I thought so, I would fling you into the fire at once; for next to maudlin verse I hate 'drunken prose.' Your title, to be sure, is a little ominous ;--what does it mean?

“Book.—Every book must have a title, as every man must have a name. "Reader.-But the title ought to be significant of the contents.

"Book.-No more than a man's name need be indicative of his character, which, however fashionable among savages, could not be tolerated in civil society.

"Reader.-No, indeed; we should soon be all savages again, if it were so :--who would choose to be reminded of what he was-a tiger, a bear, or a buffalo, like a wild Indian who glories in the resemblance, every time his name was pronounced? But it is quite another thing with books, which have no feelings to be hurt.

Reader.-A message!-what is it?
"Book.-Why, when he turned me out alone into
the wide world, to seek my fortune,-after twenty
vain efforts to write a character for me, in the shape
of a preface, which should justify my title, apolo-
gize for my contents, anticipate criticism, and soft-
en the sternest reviewer into graciousness, he
dropt his pen on the floor in despair, and with a
look of forlornness that cast a shade of melancholy
over my lightest pages,-I wish you may not find
the blight of it there still, he took me up in his
arms, I was then in my manuscript or chrysalis
state, and a vast deal more bulky than in my pre-
sent butterfly form,--I say he took me up in his
arms, like an affectionate parent, which I assure
you he is, loving me for my very faults, because I
fear in his heart he loves them,-was there ever
such a zigzag sentence of digressions?--to make
all straight, my author took me up and thus ad-
dressed me:-

'My little Book,

with my incorrigible indolence and constitutional
'I have done all that I could for you, consistent
imbecility. I have given you a moderate education,
to me a very expensive one, and made you as
much like myself as such a child ought to be like
such a father. This, I fear, may be no great recom-
mendation; and yet it cannot be quite unavailing,
since that which is genuine, however humble in its
kind, will not be entirely unwelcome where it en-
counters human sympathy. I send you abroad, a
stranger among strangers; and your success hence-
forward must depend partly upon yourself, but
chiefly upon a certain personage whom you will
meet on your travels to the world's end (and to the
end of the world, if you can live so long), in as
many shapes, colours, and sizes, as there are clouds
in the firmament. This person, wherever found,
and under whatever disguise, you will always know
at first sight; for I need not teach you the signs of
freemasonry between a Book and a Reader: but
remember, that the latter must always be addressed
as 'gentle;' and the more crabbed in reality your
patron appears, the more courteous you must be,
both for my sake and your own. Wherefore,
when you come into the presence of this multitu-
dinous and ubiquitarian being, say thus from me:--
'Gentle Reader,

occasionally, but which, repulsive as they may be to some whom I would fain conciliate, I have not dared to exclude altogether from a work principally intended for intellectual dissipation in leisure hours.

'I have done my part to please you; and if you do half as much to be pleased, neither of us will have reason to complain. Readers in general are little aware how much of the entertainment of such works depends upon themselves. If you, my gentle friend, are one of these, make the experiment with my little book: do your best to be delighted with it; and if there be stars in heaven, or flowers on earth, you shall not lose your labour.'

"So saying, my author dismissed me. I have come from his hands to place myself in yours, where I lie at your mercy.

66

Reader.-I will do you justice."

There is a very pretty and playful "Life of a Flower," narrated in two letters from a violet to a lady; we will venture upon a long extract from this autobiography.

"My dear Madam,

"Do not ask me by what means a flower has con

trived to write its own history. How in the course of my short life,-one week, five days, nine hours and twenty-three minutes, at this moment,—I learned so much of men and things, as to qualify me to tell you my little tale in language intelligible to beings so exalted in the scale of creation as you are, you will hear in the sequel. I can assure yon, on the word of one among innumerable millions of a race by whom a lie was never told since Adam plucked the first flower in Paradise, and that, you know, was before he was married,—that every sylmyself ever lived. Who has lent me his pen, as lable of the following record is as true as that I amanuensis on this occasion, I shall not tell; for if you are not sufficiently well acquainted with the hand-writing at once to recognise it as that of a friend, he has deceived me, or you have deceived him. I have only to premise further, that if there be any thing in my narrative unworthy of a violet, or what a violet could not have known, spoken, or done, you will be pleased to attribute it to his ignorant or impertinent interpolation.

"I do not recollect being born, nor do I remember my parents; for we violets, being only springflowers, die nine months before our children come into the world. But this is idle prating; for, to tell the truth, there are no such things as fathers and mothers among us: we love ourselves, and our posterity are the offspring of self-love; consequently, there can be no fear of our own issue failing, while this ruling passion is the universal inheritance of all our tribe. The first event that I can call to mind was, the fall of an icicle from the old oak tree under which I grew, upon my head, when it was no bigger than a pin's. The pain of this uncouth accident was to me the earliest consciousness of existence; I was then, according to the best chronology, exactly eight and forty hours old, by 'Take this Book as a token of sincere esteem the church-clock of our parish, which struck six, from one whom you may never have known, but A. M. just as the icicle was shaken from a branch who, while invisible as your guardian angel, like above, by the sudden rising on the wing of a crow, him has long been employed in secret offices of that had roosted on it all night, and who, having kindness on your behalf. Believe me, all the time, overslept himself, was startled out of a pleasant labour, study, watching, and, if you will allow it, dream, by the report of a gun, which farmer Gripe's all the talent expended on its composition, were son fired at him over the adjacent hedge. As the fervently devoted to your service. Though you poor bird lost nothing but the remainder of his nap, may deem some of these pages too trifling, others and his tail, which was shot sheer away, he will too grave, a few too florid, and many too dull, yet in not be any worse, or wiser either, for the misadall moods and vagaries of mind, I have had the two- venture;-the feathers will grow again, no doubt; fold object in view,-to amuse if I could, and ben- and so far from profiting by the warning, I saw him efit if I might, the good-natured reader. When I sitting on the very same bough, the day before yeshave succeeded in one of these, I cannot have mis-terday, and cawing as if he were king of the recarried altogether in the other; for in the wildest gion. This happened on the third of April, 1814; humours, amidst reveries of egotism, sallies of fancy, I therefore conclude that I must have been born on and mazes of description, I have never lost sight of the first,-as good a day as can be found in the some moral aim, though I have not always placed whole calendar, for the coming forth of a flower. it ostentatiously before your eye:-at the same time, in my most portentous lucubrations, I have "Reader.-Who is your author? endeavoured to embellish, though I may have often "Book. That is a secret with which, you see, failed to illustrate those solemn and eternal verities, he has not entrusted me. * *** which I will not say I have ventured to introduce

"Book.-But we have characters to lose, and it would be infatuation to throw them away on the outset. Great authors, who ought to be the best judges what to call their offspring, have often given them titles which were masks rather than manifestations of their purpose. The Diversions of Purley,'-who could expect to be tasked with a game at hard words after such a holiday decoy? Take the other aspect of this double-faced sphinx"Eria Trigóira;'make' winged words' of these, and stui, so far as concerns the subject (happily hieroglyphic as they are), they will be Heathen Greek, not to the vulgar only, but to the learned themselves.

"Reader.-Yes; but when you have got into the spirit of the treatise, you will understand the propriety of the one title, and pardon the affectation of the other.

"Book.-My author asks no more for me and

mine.

From the instant that sense and reason were thus awakened in me, I became a quick and diligent observer of all that passed within me and around, so far as opportunities were afforded for gratifying my curiosity and improving my mind. The authentic