Or so appear or so appear!

"O lady sweet, how camest thou here?

66 Strange are thine eyelids! strange thy dress!
"And strange thy glorious length of tress!
"Sure, thou art come o'er far off seas
"A wonder to our desert trees!
"Some gentle wind hath thought it right
"To open thy window to the night,
"And wanton airs from the tree-top
"Laughingly through the lattice drop,
"And wave this crimson canopy,
"So fitfully, so fearfully,
"As a banner o'er thy dreaming eye
"That o'er the floor, and down the wall,
"Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall--
"Then, for thine own all radiant sake,
"Lady, awake! awake! awake!

The lady sleeps!-oh, may her sleep
As it is lasting, so be deep,

No icy worms about her creep!

I pray to God that she may lie
Forever with as calm an eye-
That chamber changed for one more holy,
That bed for one more melancholy!
Far in the forest dim and old,

For her may some tall vault unfold,
Against whose sounding door she hath thrown
In childhood many an idle stone-
Some tomb which oft hath flung its black
And vampire-wing-like pannels back,
Fluttering triumphant o'er the palls
Of her old family funerals.

VERBAL CRITICISMS.

E. A. P.

"Take and tell." "If you do so I will take and tell father," such is the constant language of children. What will they take? Is the expression a contraction of some obsolete phrase? Who can tell me if it is to be met with in print?

Had have. I have for some time noticed this corruption in conversation. It has lately crept into print. Here are instances of it, "Had I have gone, I should not have met her," "If I had have been at the sale I would not have bought it at that price." I have a suspicion that a rapid pronunciation of "would have," "should have,” and "could have," has given rise to this. "I'd have gone," "I'd have come," and similar phrases have probably introduced it, the contraction answering as well for had as would, could, and should. It is very awkward and incorrect.

Fully equal. This is a tautologous expression in constant use. "This work is fully equal to its predecessor." The writer means to say that the last work is equal to the first; but what is the use of the fully, unless there can be an equality which is not full and perfect?

Eventuate. The editor of Coleridge's Table Talk, very justly denounces this Americanism. He says it is to be met with in Washington Irving's Tour to the Prairies. If so, so much the worse for the book. It is a barbarism, "I pray you avoid it." We do not need the word, so that it cannot be sneaked in, under the plea of necessity. The English verb, to result, means all, I presume, that the fathers of eventuate design that it shall mean. If we may coin eventuate from event, why not processiate from process, contempliate from contempt, excessiate from excess, and a hundred more, all as useful and elegant as eventuate?

Directly, Many of the English writers of the present day, use this word in a manner inelegant and unsane. tioned, I am convinced, by any standard author. They

phrase "as soon as." For instance: "The troops were dismissed directly the general had reviewed them." "The House of Lords adjourned directly this important bill had passed." I am happy to find that the writers in this country have not fallen into it.

Guessing and Reckoning. Right merry have the peo-appear to think that it has the same meaning as the ple of England made themselves at the expense of us their younger brethren of this side of the Atlantic, for the manner in which we are wont to use the verbs, to guess and to reckon. But they have unjustly chided us therefor, since it would not be difficult to find in many of the British Classics of more than a century's standing, instances of the use of these words precisely in the American manner. In the perusal of Locke's Essay on Education a short time since, I noticed the word guess made use of three times in our way. In section 28 he says, "Once in four and twenty hours is enough, and no body, I guess, will think it too much;" again, in section 167, “But yet, I guess, this is not to be done with children whilst very young, nor at their entrance upon any sort of knowledge ;" and again, in section 174, "And he whose design it is to excel in English poetry, would not, I guess, think the way to it was to make his first essay in Latin verses.”

Was John Locke a Yankee? Or have the people of the United States preserved one of the meanings of the verb to guess which has become obsolete in England? In several passages of the English version of the New Testament the word reckon is used as the people in many parts of the United States are in the habit of using it. In the Epistle to the Romans, chapter 8, verse 18, is an instance, "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us."

Mutual. When persons speak of an individual's being a mutual friend of two others, who perhaps may not know each other, they attach a meaning to the word mutual which does not belong to it. A and B may be mutual friends, but how C can be the mutual friend of A and B it is difficult to comprehend. Where is the mutuality in this case? We should say, C is the common friend of A and B. Several of the associations for interment which have lately been instituted, have seized upon the word mutual and used it very absurdly. They style themselves "Mutual Burial Societies." How can two individuals bury each other? and yet this is implied by the term “mutual.”

Is not the familiar phrase, “now-a-days," a corrup tion of "in our days?"

"If I am not mistaken." This is evidently wrong. If what I say to another is misunderstood, I am mistaken, but if I misunderstand what is said to me, I am mistaking, and so we should speak and write.

Degrees of perfection. "The army," says president Monroe, in one of his messages, "has arrived at a high degree of perfection." There can be no degrees of perfection. Any thing which is perfect cannot become more

perfect, and any thing which falls short of perfection is | by suborning witnesses who do swear them clear-we, in a degree of imperfection.

the subscribers, being determined to put a stop to the iniquitous practices of those unlawful and abandoned wretches, do enter into the following association, to wit: that next to our consciences, soul and body, we hold our rights and property, sacred and inviolable. We solemnly protest before God and the world, that (for the future) upon hearing or having sufficient reason to believe, that any villainy or species of villainy hav

"Is being built." This form of expression has met with many and zealous advocates. It is an error almost exclusively confined to print. In conversation we would say, "the house is getting built," and no one would be in doubt as to our meaning. Being built is the past or perfect participle, which according to Lindley Murray, signifies action perfected or finished. How then can prefixing the word is or are, words in the pre-ing been committed within our neighborhood, we will sent tense, before it, convert this meaning into another signifying the continuation of the building at this moment? We say, "the house being built the family moved in," and imply absolute completion by the phrase being buill, as people are not in the habit of moving into unfinished houses. To say that the house is being built, is no more than saying that the house is built, and by this we understand that the building is completely finished, not that the work is still going on.

I do not know that any of Shakspeare's hundred and one commentators has noticed the pun in Hamlet's address to his father's ghost, "Thou comest to me in such a questionable shape, that I will speak to thee." Perhaps the great bard meant to exhibit the coolness of his hero by placing a jest in his mouth. Hamlet immediately after proceeds to question the spirit.

Editorial.

LYNCH'S LAW.

Frequent inquiry has been made within the last year as to the origin of Lynch's law. This subject now possesses historical interest. It will be perceived from the annexed paper, that the law, so called, originated in 1780, in Pittsylvania, Virginia. Colonel William Lynch, of that county, was its author; and we are informed by a resident, who was a member of a body formed for the purpose of carrying it into effect, that the efforts of the association were wholly successful. A trained band of villains, whose operations extended from North to South, whose well concerted schemes had bidden defiance to the ordinary laws of the land, and whose success encouraged them to persevere in depredations upon an unoffending community, was dispersed and laid prostrate under the infliction of Lynch's law. Of how many terrible, and deeply to be lamented consequences-of how great an amount of permanent evil has the partial and temporary good been productive!

forthwith embody ourselves, and repair immediately to the person or persons suspected, or those under suspicious characters, harboring, aiding, or assisting those villains, and if they will not desist from their evil practices, we will inflict such corporeal punishment on him or them, as to us shall seem adequate to the crime committed or the damage sustained; that we will protect and defend each and every one of us, the subscribers, as well jointly as severally, from the insults and assaults offered by any other person in their behalf: and further, we do bind ourselves jointly and severally, our joint and several heirs &c. to pay or cause to be paid, all damages that shall or may accrue in consequence of this our laudable undertaking, and will pay an equal proportion according to our several abilities; and we, after having a sufficient number of subscribers to this association, will convene ourselves to some convenient place, and will make choice of our body five of the best and most discreet men belonging to our body, to direct and govern the whole, and we will strictly adhere to their determinations in all cases whatsoever relative to the above undertaking; and if any of our body summoned to attend the execution of this our plan, and fail so to do without a reasonable excuse, they shall forfeit and pay the sum of one hundred pounds current money of Virginia, to be appropriated towards defraying the contingent expenses of this our undertaking. In witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands, this 22d day September 1780."

CRITICAL NOTICES.

SPAIN REVISITED.

Spain Revisited. By the author of "A Year in Spain." New York: Harper and Brothers.

Some three months since we had occasion to express our high admiration of Lieutenant Slidell's American in England. The work now before us presents to the eye of the critical reader many if not all of those peculiarities which distinguished its predecessor. We find the same force and freedom. We recognize the same artist-like way of depicting persons, scenery, or manners, by a succession of minute and well-managed details. We perceive also the same terseness and originality of expression. Still we must be pardoned for saying that many of the same niaiseries are also apparent, and most especially an abundance of very bad grammar and a superabundance of gross errors in syntatical arrangement.

Whereas, many of the inhabitants of the county of Pittsylvania, as well as elsewhere, have sustained great and intolerable losses by a set of lawless men who have banded themselves together to deprive honest men of their just rights and property, by stealing their horses, counterfeiting, and passing paper currency, and committing many other species of villainy, too tedious to mention, and that those vile miscreants do still persist in their diabolical practices, and have hitherto escaped the civil power with impunity, it being almost useless and With the Dedicatory Letter prefixed to Spain Revisitunnecessary to have recourse to our laws to suppressed, we have no patience whatever. It does great credit and punish those freebooters, they having it in their to the kind and gentlemanly feelings of Lieutenant power to extricate themselves when brought to justice | Slidell, but it forms no inconsiderable drawback upon VOL. II-50

as a public compliment to a personal friend, we feel, at
once, a degree of righteous indignation at the profana-
tion to so hollow a purpose, of the most sacred epithets
and phrases of friendship-a degree, too, of serious
doubt whether the gentleman panegyrized will receive
as a compliment, or rather resent as an insult, the being
taxed to his teeth, and in the face of the whole commu-
nity, with nothing less than all the possible accomplish-
ments and graces, together with the entire stock of car-
| dinal and other virtues.

Spain Revisited, although we cannot think it at all equal to the American in England for picturesque and vigorous description (which we suppose to be the

our previously entertained opinions of his good taste. We can at no time, and under no circumstances, see either meaning or delicacy in parading the sacred relations of personal friendship before the unscrupulous eyes of the public. And even when these things are well done and briefly done, we do believe them to be in the estimation of all persons of nice feeling a nuisance and an abomination. But it very rarely happens that the closest scrutiny can discover in the least offensive of these dedications any thing better than extravagance, affectation or incongruity. We are not sure that it would be impossible, in the present instance, to designate gross examples of all three. What connection has the name of Lieutenant Upshur with the present Spanish Ad-forte of Lieutenant Slidell) yet greatly surpasses in ventures of Lieutenant Slidell? None. Then why insist upon a connection which the world cannot perceive? The Dedicatory letter, in the present instance, is either a bona fide epistle actually addressed before publication to Lieutenant Upshur, intended strictly as a memorial of friendship, and published because no good reasons could be found for the non-publication-or its plentiful professions are all hollowness and falsity, and it was never meant to be any thing more than a very customary public compliment.

Our first supposition is negatived by the stiff and highly constrained character of the style, totally distinct from the usual, and we will suppose the less carefully | arranged composition of the author. What man in his senses ever wrote as follows, from the simple impulses of gratitude or friendship?

In times past, a dedication, paid for by a great literary patron, furnished the author at once with the means of parading his own servility, and ascribing to his idol virtues which had no real existence. Though this custom be condemned by the better taste of the age in which we live, friendship may yet claim the privilege of eulogizing virtues which really exist; if so, I might here draw the portrait of a rare combination of them; I might describe a courage, a benevolence, a love of justice coupled with an honest indignation at whatever outrages it, a devotion to others and forgetfulness of self, such as are not often found blended in one character, were I not deterred by the consideration that when I should have completed my task, the eulogy, which would seem feeble to those who knew the original, might be condemned as extravagant by those who do not.

Can there be any thing more palpably artificial than all this? The writer commences by informing his bosom friend that whereas in times past men were given up to fulsome flattery in their dedications, not scrupling to endow their patrons with virtues they never possessed, he, the Lieutenant, intends to be especially delicate and original in his own peculiar method of applying the panegyrical plaster, and to confine himself to qualities which have a real existence. Now this is the very sentiment, if sentiment it may be called, with which all the toad-eaters since the flood have introduced their dedicatory letters. What immediately follows is in the same vein, and is worthy of the ingenious Don Puffando himself. All the good qualities in the world are first enumerated-Lieutenant Upshur is then informed, by the most approved rules of circumbendibus, that he possesses them, one and each, in the highest degree, but that his friend the author of " Spain Revisited" is too much of a man of tact to tell him any thing about it. If on the other hand it is admitted that the whole epistle is a mere matter of form, and intended simply

this respect most of the books of modern travels with
which we now usually meet. A moderate interest is
sustained throughout-aided no doubt by our feelings
of indignation at the tyranny which would debar so ac-
complished a traveller as our countryman from visiting
at his leisure and in full security a region so well worth
visiting as Spain. It appears that Ferdinand on the
20th August, 1832, taking it into his head that the Lieu-
tenant's former work " A Year in Spain" (esta indigesta
produccion) esta llena de falsedades y de groceras calum-
nias contra el Rey N. S. y su augusta familia, thought
proper to issue a royal order in which the book called
un ano en Espana was doomed to seizure wherever it
might be found, and the clever author himself, under the
appellation of the Signor Ridell, to a dismissal from the
nearest frontier in the event of his anticipated return
to the country. Notwithstanding this order, the Lieu-
tenant, as he himself informs us, did not hesitate to un-
dertake the journey, knowing that, subsequently to the
edict in question, the whole machinery of the govern
ment had undergone a change, having passed into liberal
hands. But although the danger of actual arrest on the
above-mentioned grounds was thus rendered compara
tively trivial, there were many other serious difficulties
to be apprehended. In the Basque Provinces and in
Navarre the civil war was at its height. The diligences,
as a necessary consequence, had ceased to run; and the
insurgents rendered the means of progressing through
the country exceedingly precarious, by their endeavors
to cut off all communications through which the govern-
ment could be informed of their manœuvres.
post-horses had been seized by the Carlist cavalry to
supply their deficiencies, "and only a few mules re-
mained at some of the post-houses between Bayonne
and Vitoria."

The

The following sketch of an ass-market at Tordesillas seems to embody in a small compass specimens of nearly all the excellences as well as nearly all the faults of the author.

By far the most curious part of the fair, however, was the assmarket, held by a gay fraternity of gipsies. There were about a dozen of these, for the most part of middle stature, beautifully formed, with very regular features of an Asiatic cast, and having a copper tinge; their hands were very small, as of a race long unaccustomed to severe toil, with quantities of silver rings strung on the fingers. They had very white and regular teeth, and their black eyes were uncommonly large, round-orbed, project. ing, and expressive; habitually languid and melancholy in moments of listlessness, they kindled into wonderful brightness when engaged in commending their asses, or in bartering with back, and they were nearly all dressed in velvet, as Andalusian a purchaser. Their jet-black hair hung in long curls down their majos, with quantities of buttons made from pesetas and half

pesetas covering their jackets and breeches, as many as three or four hanging frequently from the same eyelet-hole. Some of them wore the Andalusian leggin and shoe of brown leather, others the footless stocking and sandal of Valencia; in general their dress, which had nothing in common with the country they were then in, seemed calculated to unite ease of movement and freedom from embarrassment to jauntiness of effect. All of them had a profusion of trinkets and amulets, intended to testify their devotion to that religion which, according to the popular belief, they were suspected of doubting, and one of them displayed his excessive zeal in wearing conspicuously from his neck a silver case, twice the size of a dollar, containing a picture of the Virgin Mary holding the infant Saviour in her arms.

Four or five females accompanied this party, and came and went from the square and back, with baskets and other trifles, as if engaged at their separate branch of trade. They had beautiful oval faces, with fine eyes and teeth, and rich olive complexions. Their costume was different from any other I had seen in Spain, its greatest peculiarity consisting in a coarse outer petticoat, which was drawn over the head at pleasure instead of the mantilla, and which reminded me of the manta of Peru, concealing, as it did, the whole of the face, except only a single eye.

I asked a dozen people where these strange beings were from, not liking to speer the question at themselves; but not one could tell me, and all seemed to treat the question as no less difficult of solution than one which might concern the origin of the wind. One person, indeed, barely hinted the possibility of their being from Zamora, where one of the faubourgs has a colony of these vermin, for so they are esteemed. He added, moreover, that a late law required that every gipsy in Spain should have a fixed domicil, but that they still managed, in the face of it, to gratify their hereditary taste for an unsettled and wandering life. He spoke of them as a pack of gay rogues and petty robbers, yet did not seem to hold them in any particular horror. The asses which they were selling they had probably collected in the pueblos with a view to this fair, trading from place to place as they journeyed, and not a few they had perhaps kidnapped and coaxed away, taking care, by shaving and other embellishments, to modify and render them unknown.

I was greatly amused in observing the ingenious mode in which they kept their beasts together in the midst of such a crowd and so much confusion, or separated them for the purpose of making a sale. They were strung at the side of the parapet wall, overlooking the river, with their heads towards it and pressing against it, as if anxious to push it over, but in reality out of sedulousness to avoid the frequent showers of blows which were distributed from time to time, without motive or warning, on their unoffending hinder parts, and withdraw them as far as possible from the direction whence they were inflicted. As they were very much crowded together, there was quite scuffling work for an ass to get in when brought back from an unsuccessful effort to trade, or when newly bought, for these fellows, in the true spirit of barter, were equally ready to buy or sell. The gipsy's staff, distributing blows on the rumps of two adjoining beasts, would throw open a slight aperture, into which the nose of the intruding ass would be made to enter, when a plentiful encouragement of blows would force him in, like a wedge into a riven tree. The mode of extracting an ass was equally ingenious, and, if any thing, more singular; con. tinually pressing their heads against the wall with all their energy, it would have required immense strength, with the chance of pulling off the tail if it were not a strong one, to drag them forcibly out; a gipsy, taking the tail of the required animal in one hand, would stretch his staff forward so as to tap him on the nose, and, thus encouraged, gently draw him out.

|

his paces," said the gipsy, his whole figure and attitude partaking of his earnestness, and his eye dilating and glowing with excitement. He had brought the unwary and bewildered countryman, like a charmed bird, to the same point as the eloquent shopkeeper does his doubting customer when he craves permis. sion to take down his wares, and does not wait to be denied. Vaulting to the back of the animal, he flourished his staff about its head, and rode it up and down furiously, to the terror of the by-standers' toes, pricking it on the spine with his iron-pointed staff to make it frisky, and pronouncing the while, in the midst of frantic gesticulations an eloquent eulogium on its performances and character, giving it credit, among other things, for sobriety, moderation, long suffering, and the most un-asslike qualification of chastity. To add to the picturesque oddity of the scene, an old monk stood hard by, an interested spectator of some chaffering between a young woman and a seller of charms and trinkets stationed beneath an awning, and no accessory was wanting to render the quaint little picture complete.

In our notice of the American in England, we found much fault with the style-that is to say, with the mere English of Lieutenant Slidell. We are not sure whe ther the volumes now before us were written previously or subsequently to that very excellent work-but certain it is that they are much less abundant than it, in simple errors of grammar and ambiguities of construction. We must be pardoned, however, for thinking that even now the English of our traveller is more obviously defective than is becoming in any well educated American-more especially in any well educated American who is an aspirant for the honors of authorship. To quote individual sentences in support of an assertion of this nature, might bear with it an air of injustice-since there are few of the best writers of any language in whose works single faulty passages may not readily be discovered. We will therefore take the liberty of commenting in detail upon the English of an entire page of Spain Revisited.—See page 188, vol. i.

humbler asses came pouring, by various roads, into the Carts and wagons, caravans of mules, and files of great vomitory by which we were entering, laden with necessaries of life, brought from foreign countries or the various commodities, the luxuries as well as the from remote provinces, to sustain the unnatural existence of a capital which is so remote from all its resources, and which produces scarce any thing that it consumes.

This sentence, although it would not be too long, if properly managed, is too long as it stands. The ear repeatedly seeks, and expects the conclusion, and is repeatedly disappointed. It expects the close at the word "entering"-at the word "life"-at the word "provinces❞—and at the word "resources." Each additional portion of the sentence after each of the words just designated by inverted commas, has the air of an after-thought engrafted upon the original idea. The use of the word "vomitory" in the present instance is injudicious. Strictly speaking, a road which serves as also as a means of ingress. A good writer, however, a vomitory, or means of egress, for a population, serves The ingenuity of these gipsies in getting up a bargain, trusting will consider not only whether, in all strictness, his to be able to turn it to their own account, was marvellous. Min- words will admit of the meaning he attaches to them, gling among the farmers, and engaging them in conversation on but whether in their implied, their original, or other indifferent subjects, they would at length bring them back to the collateral meanings, they may not be at variance with favorite theme of asses, and eventually persuade them to take a look at theirs. "Here is one," measuring the height of an some portion of his sentence. When we hear of "a individual with his staff, "which will just suit you;-what will vomitory by which we were entering," not all the rigor you give for him? Come, you shall have him for half his worth, of the most exact construction will reconcile us to the for one hundred reals-only five dollars for an ass like this," phrase-since we are accustomed to connect with the looking at him with the admiration of a connoisseur in the pre-word vomitory, notions precisely the reverse of those alsence of the Apollo; "truly, an animal of much merit and the greatest promise-de mucho merito y encarecimiento-he has the lied to the subsequent word "entering." Between the shoulders and breast of an ox; let me show you the richness of participle "laden" and the nouns to which it refers (carts,